Allow me to pick your brains - New Build Problems

[gsrouse]

Hello fellow builders,

I am writing because I am having some problems with my new build.
My problem is hard drive detection by the motherboard.


Here are my specs:

Motherboard: P4P800-E Deluxe (BIOS 1004.001)
CPU: Intel 3.0E Ghz 800Mhz FSB
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 1GB (2x 512MB)
HDD: 2x Maxtor S-ATA Diamond Max 10 (250GB 16mb Buffer)
PS: Antec TruePower 380Watt ATX12V (came with Sonata Case)
VGA: SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600
OS: WinXP Pro


Basically the motherboard detects my SATA drives everytime on the Promise controllers, but when I try using them on the ICH5R controller it rarely detects them, and never consistently. Most often when I do have them plugged into the ICH5R ports, it causes the computer to hang before it ever POST's. If it does not hang though, it will then POST telling me no hard drive is detected.


I have already contacted ASUS tech support, and after telling them what I had already tried to fix the problem, they told me the ICH5R SATA ports must be bad, and to return the motherboard for replacement. So I did, and got the new motherboard back from Newegg and installed it.


Now on this second motherboard, I am having the same problems.
Once I got everything rebuilt, I booted it up with just one HDD plugged into the ICH5R port. It found the hard drive 3 times in a row. So I plug in the second hard drive, the keyboard and mouse, and boot up, and the problems started all over again. And now when I go back to having everything unplugged and just one hard drive plugged in to the ICH5R port, it does not detect it.



Other Steps taken so far (while properly grounded w/ wrist strap):

:Taking out the battery and resetting the board via jumpers
:Flashed the BIOS
:Made sure Enhanced Mode and SATA are selected in the BIOS
(I dont wish to run a RAID array)
:Tried booting with different combinations
(1 SATA drive plugged in, 1 IDE Cd-Rom plugged in, etc...)



As we all understand, problems like these can get quite frustrating, especially when you research the heck out of the build upfront, so thank you for any help anybody can offer!

Scott Rouse

[Gizmo]

Sounds like the Southbridge may have gone out. Have a look at your motherboard and locate your Southbridge and see if there are any burn marks on it. It seems there have been problems with ASUS regarding the ICH5R Southbridge chip. There have been a few posts about the Southbridge just burning up and causing problems such as you've described to happen. I think ASUS is going through a little bit of a rough patch at the moment.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by DBG It seems there have been problems with ASUS regarding the ICH5R Southbridge chip. There have been a few posts about the Southbridge just burning up and causing problems such as you've described to happen. I think ASUS is going through a little bit of a rough patch at the moment.

It's not only happening to ASUS motherboards, other manufacturers are having the same kind of problems too.

Cricket

[gsrouse]

Thank you all for your input! I will contact Asus again about the issue and hopefully get another board from them.

Scott