This is the motherboard in question
GA-MA78GM-S2H revision 1.0
Sorry for the long post. I’m after feedback from anyone who owned this motherboard and suffered similar problems. As I think it came with a 3 year manufacturer warranty that expires soon, so it would be easier to get it exchanged for a newer revision that continue to problem shoot it.
Computer specification:
Case: Silverstone Tenjim TJ08 with included two case fans connected to PSU - Sensor cable now disconnect from motherboard.
PSU: Corsair VX450WCPU: Athlon X2 4050eRAM: Corsair XMS2 PC6400 TwinX 2GB (2x1GB) - In the two slots nearest CPU.
HDD: Western Digital WD3200AAKS on S-ATA port 0 - This was during the annoying crossover period when WD kept same model name for single platter model. This is the multiple platter version.
Other drives: two IDE optical drives (1x CD-RW, 1x DVD-ROM), one floppy disk drive 1.44MB
Now this might be a pre-emptive post, as I did a major overhaul and reinstall of the system recently. But as with previous visits the issue has always returned eventually. So I’m not hopeful the overhaul will have made any difference. And I'm not at the same location if have further questions that require me to inspect system.
Historical:
On previous visits I have updated the BIOS to newest non-beta version at time of visit, and done a restore to optimised defaults then made alterations such as boot order and use onboard graphics.
The first issue that appeared some months after usage (can’t remember time frame) included cold starts and a constant buzzer/beep sound that lasted a few seconds. I have put this down to system fan failure sensor option in BIOS, so have disconnected the single yellow wire from motherboard fan headers (case fans connected directly to PSU Molex cables, but had a motherboard connector with single wire for RPM monitoring?). Have also disabled in BIOS the system fan failure alarm.
Second issue was Windows XP suffering corruption, e.g. needing repair at black screen before Windows desktop, and registry recovery messages when boot to Windows desktop. And a recent dual install of Windows 7 suffered corruption after picking W7 from boot menu (W7 was on D: partition)
When I’ve inspected system previously there have been no issues in Event Viewer indicating problems with HDD or cable. And a physical check of cable connections had none loose. I used to think it could be low temperature related so computer has been moved to a different room recently since major overhaul.
After assembly the RAM was tested using Memtest 86+, and I have asked user to perform repeat run since major overhaul visit to check still all fine (awaiting photo of screen).
The hard drive scanned fine using WDC Data Lifeguard v5.19 (Dec 2010), but I didn’t perform a full surface scan due to time requirements.
Most recent fix:
The major overhaul I did that might have eliminated future corruption issue, but only time will tell:
- Updated BIOS to F11.
- Removed case fans sensor cables from motherboard and disabled fan alarm for case fans (this was still going off after F11 BIOS).
- Changed S-ATA controller from IDE mode to ACHI.
- Deleted all partitions and installed Windows 7 32-bit, so now has the 100MB W7 created partition before user created partitions.
- Installed Windows 7 32-bit (Home Premium). Updated to SP1 using pre-downloaded SP1. And all subsequent updates installed via Windows Update.
- Used AMD chipset driver from Gigabyte website v8.641 (14/08/2009)
- Replaced USB modem with a router connected by network cable for internet access.
System is free from dust because case filter, so no internal cleaning has ever been needed or done.
