[ccb056]

ok, I've got a Shuttle AN35 1.1 motherboard, I booted it up a few weeks ago, got to the Loading windows XP screen, and then it locked up, the screen went black, but the computer was still on.

So I sent the motherboard back to shuttle for a RMA, they could not post, so they replaced the BIOS chip, and were able to post.

I received the motherboard yesterday, plugged everything in, and posted, I began to load windows when the screen went black. The BIOS has gotten corrupted again.

Now, when Shuttle had the board, they ran win98 on it fine, is it safe to assume that there is a virus on the hdd and when windows tries to boot, the BIOS gets corrupted?

thanks.

[Dc5e]

A virus is the only thing i can think of...

[Sharkman]

I agree with Dc. When you get the board back again (hopefully they will let you send it to them again) grab a Win98 boot floppy, format the hdd, reinstall windows then see if it still does it. Even better would be to get a prog from the hdd manufacturer that will allow you to do a low lvl format. You never know where a virus could be hiding

[ccb056]

ive got a few spare computers that I wouldnt mind formatting their hard drives, if I set up thew drive in question as a secondary, non boot drive, and run nav2k4 with the latest defs, do you think it would pick it up?

[Diggrr]

Maybe, maybe not.
Being that they write new definitions as they find new virus's, by nature they'd be behind the curve on the newest ones.

Get the bootable floppy downloaded from the harddrive maker's site and run it first. Low level format, fdisk /mbr, fdisk (partition) and format. Then install windows. That drive will be so clean, it's own mother wouldn't recognize it....


You might try this before RMAing the board, as a virus might just be messing up the shadowed version on the harddrive to begin with, then attacking the chip later. It's free to try it anyway.

Hope you get it figured out bud.

[ccb056]

well the board is fubared as it is, it wont even post with the hdd unplugged, im scanning it as I type, and when im done, regardless of the results, ill do a low lvl format, I dont think ill be able to fdisk it, because its a 40gb drive, and since fdisk is dos, wont it have problems partitioning a 40 gigger?

[Aktunka]

Honestly I don't think that your load has anything to do with this. You are sure that the BIOS is actually getting corrupted and not just losing its settings? If that is the case I would be more suspect of the board itself causing this problem. I mean you said yourself that the first time it was returned they did not replace the board but only the BIOS chip. My first inclination based on that info would be to think that you likely have a board that is malfunctioning in some way to cause the BIOS to get corrupted. Flash chips are usually pretty solid and I wouldn't think it likely that the load on the HDD was causing this. Every time I have seen an actually corruped flash rom it has been due to one of two things. Some sort of major power fluctuation or a bad board, and since this is the second time this has happened with the same board I would think that the likelihood of the power fluctuation thing would be lower. Before I went wasting a bunch of time reformatting and everything else I would return the board again and make note to them that this is the second time this has happened to the same board and that they replaced the BIOS chip the last time....so that they don't just do the same thing again hehe. Good luck.

[ccb056]

I called up tech support and they said that the generic memory was casuing the problems, could that be true, or is it a bad mobo?

[Aktunka]

Anything is possible. The question becomes what is probable. Based on my experience, it seems unlikely that the brand of ram you are using is going to cause a corrupted bios rom. It just doesn't seem probable to me. I still would say you would be better off RMA'ing the board again, and make absolutely sure that you tell them this is the second time the BIOS has gotten corrupted on the same board and second time you have RMA'dit for that problem. Chances are they will replace the board knowing that information. What brand of memory or video card or sound card or whatever really shouldn't be of any concern to them because it is not that likely that is what is causing your particular problem....atleast if what you say about the bios actually being corrupted is correct.

[ccb056]

when I rma'd it the first time, and got it back, on the diag sheet they said corrupted bios

when I called them up, they said that since the generic memory was used on an nforce 2 chipset and in dual ddr mode, it would not boot

how much of that is truth and how much of that is the tech just bs'ing

keep in mind I was talking to the tech, not the clerk lady

[Aktunka]

Ok. Here is how it works. You RMA'd the board the first time. They got it and saw it would not post. They noticed that the BIOS was corrupted. They replaced the BIOS chip and it worked ok. They think the problem was solved, which is not out of the question because it is kind of a cause and effect thing. They do something and problem goes away. Seems fixed. So they send it back to you.

The problem is that sometimes problems are intermittent and although they may have replaced the bios and it was then working (since it was not corrupted) that doesn't mean that it wouldn't corrupt the bios again later if there was a problem with the board. The way that many places typically handle problems is to point the finger at everyone else until those issues are eliminated then they will finally deal with it after all other avenues are explored. Not everyone does that, but some do.

Again, IF the actual problem is that the BIOS is getting corrupted then I think it is most likely due to the mainboard. From your original post, it seems like the machine USED to work. Is that correct? It used to work just fine with all of the hardware you have now (memory and everything was the same I mean)? If it used to work fine with all of this same hardware then that kind of eliminates the ram as being the likely culprit in this issue. RAM would not typically have any effect on a BIOS rom just if the ram was funky.

[DaWiper]

If the bios-battery is down, then these strange things can happen. Depends on how yor mobo's defaultsettings are... But then again it's a new mobo, and most batteries work for years. I got an old 486-mobo. And the battery still works...

Send the mobo back and demand a NEW one...

[ccb056]

the system work ed fine in the past with the same hardware, i sent in another rma form, and i said the same thing you guys said, and asked for a new motherboard

thanks

[Aktunka]

Yeah, what Dewiper says is true if all that is happening is you are losing your settings, but if the bios is actually corrupted then that is not likely just a battery failure.