New ECS A780GM Problems

[rkoenn]

I just received a new ECS A780GM motherboard from Newegg. Over the weekend I attempted to install XP per the normal routine from the XP CD. The install proceeds through the hard drive formatting and then at the reboot it returns to the CD install routine again. I tried this with two new drives with the same results. I also disconnected the CD to force a hard drive boot and the machine does not find a bootable partition. I also attempted to flash a newer BIOS but after booting to a DOS prompt, when I try to read the floppy with the flash program and the BIOS code I always get a read error on the floppy and I have tried three different floppy drives and floppy disks as well as even trying to the flash program and code from a CD. I have become fairly well convinced I have a faulty motherboard. I have even tried different video cards and all the parts work fine in other systems. If anyone has any ideas to try before going the RMA route let me know.

 

[tcsenter]

There is no "A780GM" by ECS. There are:

A780GM-A (V1.0)
A780GM-A (V1.1)
A780GM-A Ultra (V1.0)
A780GM-M (V1.0)
A780GM-M3 (V1.0)

Pick one.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: rkoenn
I just received a new ECS A780GM motherboard from Newegg. Over the weekend I attempted to install XP per the normal routine from the XP CD. The install proceeds through the hard drive formatting and then at the reboot it returns to the CD install routine again.

I hate it when that happens. At reboot I now always enter the BIOS and reset the boot sequence with the hard drive first (and I just remove the CD/DVD and floppy from the boot sequence completely), save and exit to boot. Not that it matters but I try to avoid the setup CD format and use the hard drive OEM utilities (like DiscWizard or LifeGuard Tools) that I download from their web sites.

I tried this with two new drives with the same results. I also disconnected the CD to force a hard drive boot and the machine does not find a bootable partition. I also attempted to flash a newer BIOS but after booting to a DOS prompt, when I try to read the floppy with the flash program and the BIOS code I always get a read error on the floppy and I have tried three different floppy drives and floppy disks as well as even trying to the flash program and code from a CD.

It's odd you can boot from the floppy then cannot read from it - I hope your BIOS didn't get corrupted. Maybe your flash program file is corrupt. When you disconnected the CD I will guess that because you have an incomplete installation and the setup program can't find the CD to complete the process you get (or don't get) the boot to finalize setup. Can't help you much here ...

I have become fairly well convinced I have a faulty motherboard. I have even tried different video cards and all the parts work fine in other systems. If anyone has any ideas to try before going the RMA route let me know.

I don't think the video card has anything to do with it. Reformat, and reset the boot sequence and see if you can complete the OS installation.