Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H hangs @ Verifying DMI Pool data

[bozrdang]

I am trying to put together a HTPC, but my mobo is giving me fits. When I put everything together and boot, it just hangs at "Verifying DMI Pool data".

I am using onboard video and sound. I have two sticks of A-Data DDR2 800 1GB ram installed, and am connecting a WD 80GB IDE hard drive and a Lite-on SATA DVD-ROM. That's all. I've removed the DVD-Rom, and tried each stick of RAM by itself and in different slots to no avail. The only thing that works is removing the IDE hard drive. When I do that , the system gets by the DMI stage and reports "NO BOOT DISK" likeit should.

I have tried 3 different, known working, hardrives and mutliple different IDE cables all with the same result. I initially concluded that the mobo was faulty and RMA'd it. I just received the replacement and it does the same thing.

Any suggestions?

 

[bozrdang]

Now I'm really stumped. I pulled out the IDE drive and put in a SATA drive that I had running in a NAS in the basement and I still get the same thing. No matter whether it's the SATA or IDE hard drive, as soon as I disconnect it's power or data cable, the system reports BOOT DISK FAILURE like I would expect. That rules out a bad IDE channel. That got me thinking that maybe it's a bad power supply. So I hooked up the 500W that's been powering my desktop for a couple years and the same thing still happens. I then took the 2GB of RAM out of that same desktop and put it into this HTPC system I'm building hoping that maybe the RAM was borked, but the problem persists. I have now swapped out every conceivable part except for the CPU. Could it be that?

I'm really lost and not sure where to go from here. Any advice would be great.