Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Motherboard

Replacement Motherboard for one that crapped out.

saxamo — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:47:33 -0800

What motherboard can I find that will replace an MSI K9VGM-V? Hi all. A bit of backstory: My PC had always had an issue where it randomly shut off (akin to overheating). I had replaced the Power supply and the RAM and issue was still present. I had used it like this for several more months until it totally died on me and wouldn't turn on. I understand the PC troubleshooting theory of swapping out components until you find the weak link in the system, which by now could be the motherboard or the processor. So, I'd like to find a new motherboard.

Problem is that the current one I have is discontinued and i don't quite know what to replace it with, or where to look. I'm looking for something similar in

Size: I have a small case and I don't want to run into issues with the motherboard not fitting, so i'm looking for something around the same physical dimensions.

Price: I'm definitely not looking for something top of the line here. I just want a replacement. However I will most likely do some gaming on this. Ideally a $40-$80 price range, but I'm willing to go higher if the shoe really fits.

Compatability: I'd like it to be compatable with the ram and processor that I already have in there.

Again, this is an MSI K9VGM-V Thanks!

What caused my drive to die?

comradestu — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:22:07 -0800

What happened that suddenly caused my harddrive to not be recognized by BIOS? I fired up my computer this evening to discover that none of the SATA devices were being recognized during POST/in BIOS. This included 1 LG DVD writer, 1 Seagate 1TB drive, and 1 Seagate 500gb drive.

[After panicing] I took out all 3 devices and tried them individually in two different computers. It appears that both the 1TB drive and the DVD writer are detected by BIOS on their own, and the 500gb drive is not. When the 500gb drive is coupled with either component, nothing is detected.

No strange noises are being made by this harddrive. It does sound like it's spinning up, but I can't be 100% sure. The drive was functioning fine when I was using it last night, and nothing out of the ordinary happened during the shut down procedure.

I'm running Windows 7 Pro x64, on ~2 month old hardware. Motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P. This 500gb drive (model ST3500320AS) however, is older. I'm currently looking for the receipt to determine exactly how old it is.

Do I have any hope of prying data off this drive? I don't own a SATA enclosure for 3.5" drives, but I can probably borrow one from a co-worker tomorrow (or buy one). Since having this drive plugged in seems to cause every other SATA device to stop working, I can't use a live cd to run testdisk or similar software.

More importantly, did this drive die on it's own, or could there be something else going on? How can I test for such a possibility?

(I'll mention that I do have backups of important files, so this shouldn't be a big issue.. But who wants to download 20gb of games off Steam again?)

Replace Thinkpad motherboard or just buy a new one?

Kronoss — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:48:49 -0800

Spilled a drink on my Lenovo Thinkpad. Now it won't boot. Looks like I've damaged the motherboard. I've never done any computer repairs before. Will I be able to replace the motherboard myself? And if so, should I? It's a Lenovo r400 Thinkpad that's just under a year old.

Like I said, I've never done any PC repair jobs before, but I'm totally willing to do it if it means I won't have to buy a new laptop. So I guess I'm asking if it's possible for a layperson to replace a laptop motherboard relatively hassle free. Money's tight and the holidays are coming.

I found some replacement motherboards on eBay for around $300. Refurbished Thinkpads similar to the one I have now are around $600--before shipping and taxes--at the Lenovo website.

So what's my best bet? Will it be worth it install a new motherboard myself? Or am I better off just getting a new or refurbished Thinkpad?

I know I can get other refurbished laptops cheaper, but I've grown attached to Thinkpads. I'd like to consider all my Thinkpad options before thinking about another replacement laptop.

The mother of all boards

Crotalus — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:50:33 -0800

Help me pick out a motherboard for a Core i7 Processor! I'm a computer novice, and I need advice on buying a motherboard. I'm looking to upgrade my main rig to a Core i7 920. I am not interested in playing games, nor will I be overclocking. I don't need fancy RAID stuff. The primary task for this machine is running a 64-bit data analysis package that I use for work. My wife and son play with the camcorder a lot, and do lots of video editing and video conversion, so they'll appreciate the faster machine as well. I'm interested in something stable and standard that will play well with Windows 7 out of the box. No need for SLI or Crossfire stuff. I'd like to have 12GB RAM, so six triple channel RAM sockets would be nice. I'd also like a board that supports DDR3 1600 without overclocking. Finally, I buy from Newegg whenever possible, because they've earned my business. What are you using? What would you buy?

Maybe I should have bought a Dell....

unexpected — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:27:28 -0800

You guys helped me figure out what computer parts to buy. Now I've got the parts, tried putting it together, and it's been a disaster. Please help me figure this out... Okay, so things were going smoothly in my build, until I had "an incident", that was mainly the result of me being dumb. This is what happened:

I was connecting the power button switch to the jumpers on the motherboard. Little did I know, I had connected them incorrectly (ugh). When I went to power up, this wire started smoking. When I saw my computer in literal flames, i turned everything off. Sadly, it was too late- the power button has completely melted, so it's always "stuck"

That annoyance aside, I decided to go ahead and wire the reset switch to the motherboard in the power slot (correctly this time). Yes, this means that hitting reset would control the power, but I rationalized it and thought it'd give my computer a little more "character."

So, I finished off the build and powered up, and...nothing. The motherboard powers up, the cpu fans turn on, the lights on the motherboard flash, but nothing on the screen.

Weird Thing that it does: ("the weird thing") When I power it up, it tries to turn on comes on for 3 seconds, then shuts off, then comes on again normally. As I can't see anything on the screen, I don't know if this means anything.

I went into error debugging mode. I disconnected everything except the RAM, processor, and Graphics Card (my mobo doesn't have onboard graphics). Turned it on. Still nothing on the screen.

I disconnected the Graphics card and the RAM, thinking I would get some beep codes, but nothing beeps. I then disconnected the processor, and left the motherboard basically bare, and even then nothing still beeps-but it doesn't do "the weird thing", and it just starts up normally.

I replaced the memory that we had lying around the office. Still nothing. That leaves me with the motherboard, power supply, and processor.

The power supply looks fine on all accounts -it's a beefy 750 watts, and everything is turning on, lights are whizzing, etc.

So that leaves me with the Motherboard or Processor.

Why it could be the motherboard: I mean, nothing is appearing on the screen. Also, I had that "incident". Also, nothing beeps! I should have some beep codes, right?

Why it might not be the motherboard: The lights are coming on. It seems to be functional by all accounts.

Why it could be the processor: Why did it stop doing "the weird thing" once I took the processor out.
Why it might not be the processor: I mean this processor was really easy to put in (Socket 775 Core 2 quad core). Processors generally have a really tiny failure rate.

So what now? I don't have a spare motherboard or processor to test it on. Any ideas? Is it something totally different?

For reference, my board is an Asus PQ5-E. my chip is an Intel Core2Quad 2.4 Ghz. My Graphics card is an Nvidea 9800 GTX+

More difficult than buying a Wii.

arcolz — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:59:39 -0800

I'm in the middle of grabbing all the parts to build a new PC for myself. I have pretty much all the components, but I can't figure out which kind of memory I need to go with an Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16GHz) and ASUS P5Q-E. I've looked at both Intel's and Asus's websites, and of course the Google to no avail. Details on what I'm looking for inside. I'm going to be using this computer for gaming, but I'm building on a budget and I'd rather not spend more than $80 on the memory.

I'd think like to get a 2x2gb kit, because it looks like those give the most bang for my buck. However, I'm clueless when it comes to what speed, cas latency, timing, or voltage I should be looking for. General tips or specific product recommendations would both be great. Links to compatibility lists would also be awesome.

I'm also curious about whether or not it is necessary to flash the bios of the motherboard. I've read that it often improve memory compatibility and fixes bugs and such. Is it really worth the trouble and risk?

Will this dual-xeon motherboard boot with a single CPU?

Skorgu — Mon, 18 May 2009 05:31:26 -0800

Will a dual-1366 (Nehalem, Xeon 5xxx) motherboard work with a single CPU? Specifically, a SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DAL-i-O Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5500 motherboard and a single Intel Xeon E5504 CPU.

The second CPU/ram will be loaded in a few months but I need to replace a box pretty soon so I'm bootlegging it.

I know I'll have to populate only the loaded CPU's ram slots, but it ought to work anyway, right?

How to get my motherboard to recognize all 6GB of RAM

PetiePal — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:25:54 -0800

New Asus P6T motherboard only showing 4GB of RAM in BIOS when I have 6 installed. :( Hey everyone! Just built a new PC last weekend specs are as follows:

-Antec 900 case
-Asus P6T Mobo
-Intel Core i7 920 CPU
-3x2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM
-Vista 64-bit
-ATI Radeon 4870 1GB

I have the memory slotted in DIMMs A1/B1/C1 as listed in the manual for the P6T. When I boot into BIOS (and Vista 64) it only shows 4GB of RAM total. I've tried looking everywhere for possible disabling of memory reallocation etc but I haven't been able to find any way to switch this on and off. I don't think any of the modules are faulty but I will admit I'm not that experienced with RAM optimization.

Is it possible I may have to set voltages etc manually. I've heard/read that DDR3 takes more voltage than standard DDR2 RAM. Mobo BIOS was flashed to most recent (which was released March 6, I built it all the 7th lol) Any help would be most appreciated as I'm really super eager to get all 6GB working :(

ohshitohshitohshitohshit

spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:40:32 -0800

Why won't my computer post? About a year ago I built this computer. It died a month ago, and I thought it was the video card. The card was replaced under warranty. I popped the new card in the system this morning and was disappointed to find that it's still not posting.

When I press the power button, the fans spin, and everything seems normal for about the first 3-4 seconds, then it just shuts off before a video signal is ever sent to the display. About 4 seconds later, it starts again, fans spin for 3-4 seconds, and then it dies. This repeats indefinitely until I kill the power by flipping the master switch on the back of the power supply.

My next guess is that it's the motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard ) or processor, but I'm not sure how to troubleshoot that problem. It looks like all the cables are connected.

Any thoughts?

Video causes my HP dv6000 (dv6810us) to restart after watching fro 30-45 minutes, motherboard or video card dying?

unclezeb — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:26:19 -0800

HP laptop video card issues filter: Video problem with my HP dv6000 (dv6810us) - artifacts appear then increase while watching Hulu, after 30-45 minutes the computer freezes then restarts. Pausing the video then letting the computer sleep for a couple minutes resolves the issue for another 20 minutes of video watching, then it repeats ... bad integrated video? Bad VRAM? Evil monkey? I got my HP dv6810us on ebay about 5 weeks ago, no problems, in great condition ... until yesterday. While watching a video on Hulu (using Firefox with IE tab extension, but same problem with using Internet explorer independently) the video slowly beings to show artifacts, eventually becoming fuzzy and with bizarre patterns on the screen. If I keep the video playing the computer freezes then restarts and reports a hardware error in the error log.

I have tried using k-lite mega codec, Vista Codec Package.

I have tried using IE rather than Firefox with the IE Tab extension.

I have tried replacing the video drivers with old HP versions, generic nvidia 7150 drivers, the laptop2go.com drivers (current), and rolling back to those originally installed.

I have tried watching while observing the GPU temperature ... it gets quite hot (55 degrees C).

Is it possible to expose the thermal compound / gell / grease /paste to replace it with a more efficient type/brand (i.e., Artic Silver, etc)?

If so, would I need a grease/compound or paste?

Any other suggestions beyond "replace the motherboard because the integrated video card is dying"?

Finally, any ideas on where to call or look on-line to determine if my computer is still covered by the warranty? (~5 months old, I have the original receipt though I'm not the original purchaser)

Laptop running Windows Vista with all updates, 3gb ram, not overclocked. Google desktop running in background, AVG anti-virus (cleansed of Norton), essentially all OEM specs and parts.

Thanks again mefites!

Need new motherboard for an emachine

socrateaser — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:13:15 -0800

Should we replace the motherboard and processor or buy a new computer? My husband's emachine (T6520) died and it needs a new motherboard and processor. Calls to the company have been useless and we can't find a supplier to replace these parts.

Should we replace them or just go with a new computer? Any ideas on where we can get new parts?

Don't you die on me!

mammary16 — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:32:02 -0800

My beloved Thinkpad T60 has died in my arms. This tale of idiocy in fact occurred a week ago.

I received what I was expecting to be a critical work email when I was just getting out of the shower. I ran to the computer without thoroughly toweling off, and some water from my elbow landed on the palm-rest section of the laptop, near the Trackpointer buttons.

A few minutes later I noticed that the keyboard was fried. I'd hit the "x" key, for example, and I'd get a series of characters. The "h" key would effectively be the "F5", and so on.

Instead of opening the laptop and trying to get it to dry off, I just wiped off the exterior of the laptop and turned it off. (regrets, regrets). When I returned home a few hours ago I tried to turn on the laptop and nothing happened. I hit the power button and the computer doesn't even make a sound.

After that happened, I'm opened the computer up to let it air out, but that did not help.

When I plug the AC adapter in, I do get the two lights under the screen (the "battery" and "plugged-in" light). Otherwise the whole computer is completely inert.

I've tried the technique of removing the hard drive, the ultrabay, the ram sticks, and the battery, hitting the power button ten times (ten seconds each) and plugging it back in and trying to power it up again. To no avail.

I took the computer into Micro Center, where they said the most likely problem is that the motherboard has to be replaced. That said, the warranty's expired, and I would probably consider buying a new computer than paying for an expensive motherboard replacement surgery.

What are some other things I could try? This thread suggests unplugging the CMOS battery and trying the power trick again, but I'm a little leery of doing that.

Does anybody have an idea of what else I could try?

It occurred to me that if I fried the keyboard then it's possible that the motherboard is fine and the connection is bad (the power button is on the keyboard). In that case, is there any way I can turn the computer on without using the power key on the keyboard?

Thanks in advance!

Can I upgrade my ram to 2GB?

twelve — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:33:08 -0800

Can I upgrade my ram to 2GB? I have a Fujitsu Siemens D1675 motherboard. It currently has two 512mb sticks of ram and the third slot is free. Can I add a 1GB stick to the third slot or do the sticks all have to be the same size? I came across this page but I am still a little confused.

Can you get my (once decent) PC working again....

RufusW — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:49:13 -0800

Can you help me get my PC back in working order? Hello Hivemind!

My 3 year old XP PC died about a year ago - I believe from a power surge that broke the motherboard. Getting the board repaired will cost £60 minimum. I think it's probably worth upgrading instead and buying a new motherboard (and processor and memory).

[Question 1]
Any suggestions for what to upgrade to? I'm looking at spending around £150 for the three (mobo, CPU, memory) and obviously want quality and decent performance. (A dual core 2.8Gig AMD set up has been suggested to me)

[Question 2]
I've lost my XP disk! I have no idea about how to get all the data from my 2 harddrives onto the new set up - 'cos my original XP's doomed, right? Is it possible with a different copy of XP? Would an Ubuntu install recognise XP harddrives the my data? Any ideas?

Any help much appreciated.....

Thanks! ;)

These are the important parts of my PC.

Asus P5ND2 SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi PCI-Express Motherboard (broken)
Intel Pentium 4 630 "LGA775 Prescott" 3.0GHz (800FSB)
Corsair 1GB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 Kit (2x512MB)
Corsair 2GB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 Kit (2x1GB)
XFX Geforce 6600GT PCI-E 128mb DDR3 TV
2 * Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache – OEM

Beep beeeeep bang!

Solomon — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 08:59:21 -0800

Please help me put a friends PC together. Right now I'm getting error codes. I have the following hardware:
a] ASUS P5N-E motherboard.
b] ASUS EAH 4870 graphics card.
c] Arctic Power 700w PSU.

The problem I have right now is that I'm getting a "1 long 3 short" beep code, which after Googling turns out to be a problem with the video. I figure that I need to connect the 6 pin jack from the PSU to one of the adapters on the graphics card itself. But, I'm not 100% sure that this is correct (only 99%), and I'm not sure which one it has to be. The PSU only comes with one 6 pin jack, whereas the graphics card itself has two adapters. The manual that came with the card was useless - it only showed how to insert the card into the relevant slot.

I'm a bit nervous about potentially frying something, as it's not my kit, and it's going to be very expensive to replace. Can you confirm that a] I'm doing the right thing in connecting a 6-pin jack from the PSU to the graphics card, and b] which adapter it should go into (and whether or not it matters)?

Help me break into my own computer's BIOS

flabdablet — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:47:43 -0800

How do I reset the BIOS administrator password on an ex-IBM NetVista motherboard? My toy server, a Linux box whose only bought-new parts are the hard disk drives, died from motherboard capacitor plague. I've been given a used IBM 06p2525 mobo that seems to be in good nick, and I'd like to make it work.

I've found the reference manual and a BIOS update. When I start the Flash/BIOS recovery procedure described on page 50, I'm being blocked by this:

 177 System Security - Asset control has been violated
 163 Date and Time Incorrect
System-security - Administrator password required.
Type your password, then press Enter.

Page 47 says that if Enhanced Security is on (which I'm guessing it is, because resetting the BIOS apparently hasn't removed the admin password) and the administrator password is lost, the system board has to be replaced. I obviously don't want to do that.

It's common wisdom that physical access grants full control. I have physical access and soldering-fu but no EPROM burner/reader. Can anybody help me get around this thing? Email is in profile if non-disclosure agreements are involved.

What's this here motherboard slot?

DandyRandy — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:02:04 -0800

It's been a while since I've needed to know anything about the innards of a PC, but I just got a new one (new to me, anyway) at work and my dual-head AGP video card won't work with this machine. Good news is that I get to buy a new video card, the bad news is that I have no idea what to shop for in terms of interface. So, without further ado, can you tell me anything about the long black slot with the blue retaining clip pictured here, as well as the small slot below it? Many thanks, MeFis!

Which of these computer components is faulty?

Who_Am_I — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:37:41 -0800

I bought a new motherboard and a new video card, and now my computer beeps and won't boot to Windows. Which one is to blame? I've just combined this motherboard and this video card to build myself a new computer. When I power on I get one long beep and then three short beeps, which is code for "No video card or bad video RAM" according to BiosCentral (no beep codes in the mobo manual, thanks Asus). Ok so bad video card right? Except that after about 30 seconds the monitor does come on and it attempts to boot: POST screens come up, I can get into the BIOS, etc. If I let it continue to boot I get the "Safe Mode, Boot Normally, ..." screen, and then it bluescreens no matter which I choose. Also I was able to fully boot into an Ultimate Boot CD which contained a Windows environment. If the video card were actually bad, I wouldn't be able to do any of this right?

All this makes me think faulty motherboard. I flashed the BIOS to the newest version, and changed the setting for "default video device" from PCI to PCIe, neither of which made any difference. I don't have any spare compatible components to test anything separately, and the board has no onboard video. I'm pretty handy with computers, but this is my first time working with stuff like PCIe. Is there something obvious I'm missing? I bought through Newegg so I assume I'll be able to RMA anything I need to.

Pimp my HTPC?

gergtreble — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:43:02 -0800

Mobo Filter: Help me find the perfect motherboard (and possibly PSU) for my HTPC. Now Uni is done for the year I have decided that my sumer project will be to build a low power and low noise HTPC. I've already bought this case, swish eh! But I'm stuck now. I need reccomendations for a motherboard as there are so many out there and I cant find the perfect one. Here are my requirements:

HDMI? - My HDTV will take a VGA connection or a HDMI connection. Do I really
need HDMI? Onboard graphics will be cool, and probably prefered as I wont
be using this for gaming. HD resolutions are a must though.

Digital audio output - This will go straight into my AV amp. So coax or
optical are fine.

IDE/ATA - I have an old DVD-RW drive and a 320GB hard drive I want to put
in it so IDE would be nice. Of course SATA would be nice to for any future
upgrades.

The case can fit ATX and micro-ATX but I would prefer to have ATX so I can
expand in the future.

Also what wattage PSU should I go for? I'll probably have 2 hard drives
and two optical drives in it (IF I get a blueray drive). Would 350W be too
little?

So! Reccomendations? Anything else you would suggest? Any ancecdotes about your own HTPC project? Any Ideas about coooling or noise elimination?

Thanks a lot Hive-Mind.

Com ports. Endangered Species?

barc0001 — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:40:06 -0800

Looking for a *new* motherboard with more than one serial port onboard. A project I'm involved with is dealing with a number of computers that need to hook to measuring equipment via serial ports, and the newer machines they've bought to replace the old boxes only have one serial port, and there are two devices that need to be hooked up simultaneously. But wait, there's more! It needs a USB cell modem hooked up for communication as well, and it's running a custom O/S that's really old, but well geared for the diagnostic software (Custom Linux, not Windows) that needs to run. A USB-to-serial converter is being used to run the second bit of equipment, but if that is in place, then the USB cell modem doesn't work, so the equipment can't report back to base. If the USB-to-serial converter's removed, the USB modem works fine, but there's no diagnostic data to report.

Ultimately, this problem would go away if I can only find a motherboard that doesn't cost a fortune (and even if it did, if it wasn't too LARGE a fortune we'd probably entertain it) that has 2 onboard serial ports. Does anybody know of one, and if so, who still makes 'em?

HP Laptop died 2 months out of warranty

criticalbill — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:59:47 -0800

A few lights blink, but no-one's a home. No bios, no whirring, no help from the retailer (PC World UK, and no I didn't go there, this question is for a friend)... PC World say that the motherboard is finished and that it will cost more than the £700 original cost to fix it.

Now this thread offers some good sounding advice for someone in a very similar position but with two vital differences: it was still in warranty and they are in the US, so the tip for getting to a Level 2 rep probably won't work so well.

My main question is am I right in thinking that the warranty is not the be-all and end-all of the situation? 14 months is very much like 12 months, if you ask me, especially for a underused and never dropped, no spills, no damage etc. laptop. (This thread seems to say that EU regs say a warranty must be minimum of 2 years, does anyone know if this has any force in the UK?) Secondly, has anyone got any good tips for handling HP UK?

Need for speed

grrarrgh00 — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:02:23 -0800

I want my computer to work exactly the same, but faster. I can't add any more RAM. Motherboard/CPU upgrade? Four years ago, my coworker built me a wonderful PC that has brought me little but happiness and joy in the time since. (I can now never again imagine purchasing one of those factory-built monstrosities, with their pre-installed applications and mysterious innards.)

I've maxed out the RAM on the 4-y/o motherboard (1.5 GB), but it's grown too slow and jerky for my tastes. The prospect of reinstalling all my applications and recreating all my settings causes me palpable distress, which is why I don't want to replace the computer altogether.

Previous threads seem to indicate that a motherboard/CPU upgrade is not that complicated. And RAM is cheap enough that I don't care about having to purchase all-new RAM, if that's the case. But I'm uncertain whether I'll have to consider changing any other parts. (E.g. Power supply?) And I'm assuming a mobo/CPU upgrade will get me the performance jolt I'm seeking, but is that assumption correct? Are my visions of making this upgrade and then continuing life with my exact current setup intact Pollyannaish?

Need MB, CPU, RAM.

|n$eCur3 — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:27:33 -0800

Best bang for $300 total: Motherboard, CPU and Memory. I don't care if it is AMD, INTEL... whatever. C2D looks like a stretch... so what is the next best option that stays within my budget?

BIOS won't flash :(

ijoyner — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:47:35 -0800

I am not able to flash my BIOS on my gigabyte K8NF-9 motherboard using current @BIOS utility. Why do I keep getting write errors? I need to upgrade to at least version F7 in order for it to support my new dual core chip I installed today(see). It currently has F2 on it. I "saved current" and whenever a write fails (with Error message: ERROR! write failed) I'm able to restore the F2 backup without fail. Why won't any downloaded BIOS images (f7, f3, f11, f10) write to the BIOS?
Could it be bad RAM?
Could it be a bad Motherboard? (it would suck to have to get a new motherboard for an old style chip, right)
I haven't tried flashing with a floppy disk cause I don't have a drive.

My stuff works in my CMOS, but not in Windows. WTF?

Verdandi — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:55:50 -0800

I just installed a new motherboard (and various other things). Yay! The problem is, my keyboard worked fine when I was mucking around in my CMOS, but nothing plugged into any of my USB or ps/2 ports works in Windows. Argh! It's an ASUS socket AM2 motherboard, and replaces my 4-year-old one. Like I said, it worked fine to play around with my CMOS settings, but once I get to Windows, nothing I plug into my USB or ps/2 ports works. I tried a corded mouse (both USB and PS/2--my keyboard and mouse are wireless), I even tried my graphics tablet, so I could use it like a mouse to see if reinstalling my keyboard/mouse drivers worked. No dice.

I haven't touched my BIOS or changed any drivers.

I haven't tried formatting/reinstalling Windows, 'cause I'm afraid that once everything's all said and done with a new Windows install, it won't work then, either. Besides, there's got to be a solution that doesn't involve a format. Right? ...Right?

I seem to remember this happening a long time ago to another computer I had, and I seem to remember a simple fix for it, but I can't remember what it was for the life of me.

Everything I've Googled is about motherboards whose ports don't work at all, even in the CMOS, which doesn't help me.

Please help me, hive mind. I've been trying to get this thing working for days. TIA.