Think my onboard sata controller is toast

[Dorkenstein]

I have had trouble with a disappearing dvd drive before but this is worse. Today, just as a video encoding job hit 100% everything froze, but I could move the mouse. I rebooted and one of my hard drives wouldn't show up in windows. Rebooted again and the post screen was really slow to go away. Got into BIOS and neither of my sata drives were there, and the controller was set to OFF. Fast forward about an hour and I got it to boot again. I think something is really wrong but I can't afford a new motherboard now. Am I just delaying the inevitable catastrophy? Thanks for any help.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Look slike you need a new motherboard. But if you must push things back you can always try and SATA controler card.

 

[Dorkenstein]

I think you're right. However, I have a small-ish ATX mid tower. And maybe I am paranoid, but if I damaged the mobo myself when I put it in due to the smaller case, should I also get a full tower case?

Secondly, can anyone recommend a rock solid P45 replacement with some bells/whistles and some overclock potential? Thanks very much again.

 

[daveybrat]

Dorkentstein, give us your full system specs including power supply brand/model.

 

[bobross419]

What kind of mobo do you have? I just dealt with a similar issue (DVD SATA showing in BIOS, but not Windows) on an Asrock 775 Dual-VSTA using a Via chipset. It ended up being a driver issue for me.

 

[techmanc]

Where your having slow post problems and hard drive crashes I suspect you having controller issues may sure all drives have good connection of power and connector cables> Also if you use master/slave on the system make sure there setup properly. Lastly check you SATA/IDE drivers are up to date.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Okay here's the whole ball of wax.

PSU: Silverstone Strider 750
Mobo: biostar Tpower 145
CPU: Intel E8600
Ram: 4x2 gb G-Skill DDR2-800
DVD-r: Pioneer 115-D (E-IDE)
Video Card: Radeon HD-4870 512
Sound: On-board realtek 888

I have the latest drivers for the board, I don't use master/slave settings. I didn't have this problem when I first built this, it hit me all of a sudden which leads me to believe its board failure.

 

[techmanc]

Try to reseat all you drive/motherboard connections one might be loose or making a poor connection

 

[bobross419]

Might also try resetting the CMOS (I think that is the right term). There should be instructions for doing this in the manual... usually involves a jumper on 2 pins on the mobo.