My computer has been up and running perfect for 1 year, all of a sudden it hangs at the motherboard (Asus P5LD2) logo screen. I took it in and the repair shop told me the motherboard was bad, so I replaced it with a new Abit AB9 board. The new board won't let me go into the setup and the bios settings. Their tech support told me it was a bad board and to RMA it. It comes back with a message about something like the contoller is not setup for AHCI mode and bios not installed. So, I tried a gigabyte GA-81915P Duo board that I had laying around. This board will finish post and identify all the drives, but will hang at trying to install anything (such as a new harddrive), or if I let the computer try to startup normal, I get to the screen asking if you want safe mode, etc (which by the way safe mode won't load), or if you say start windows normally it comes back with a blue error screen, but it flies by so fast and restarts that I cannot read it to see what it is trying to tell me. So far, I have tried a new harddrive, a new power supply, a new motherboard, and I tried a different memory stick that I know is good with no luck. All connections seem tight, will not work even if the motherboard is out of the case. I am completely at a loss as what to try next. Does anyone have any suggestions on something else I could try? I have just about eliminated everything that I could think of. Thank you so much. Asus P5LD2 3.4 Intel Processor Corsair 1 gb ram 512 MB Graphics 250 GB Western digital sata drive 550 Power supply PVR 500 Hauppauge TV Tuner XP media center 2005

You don't seem to be using an IDE (also called PATA)drive as the C boot drive.This would help simplify troubleshooting.I personally prefer to use this type of drive to boot the computer and keep the SATA for data,programs etc. When you are in doubt about a boot drive, partition the hard drive with size kept around 60 GB or less.Use a dos Windows 98 SE boot disk and sys the C boot drive. Transferring the system files to the C boot drive gives you the chance to check the hardware setup by booting to a basic dos prompt.

Thank you Petit Jean for your reply. This morning I tried an IDE hard drive. I only have 1 IDE slot on the motherboard, so I set the CD rom to master and the HD to slave. On the first post screen, it doesn't recognize either of the drives, but one the second screen, where I think it reads like raid drives, etc, it shows both of my drives. However, when I run the Win 98 disk, it says I dont have a CD rom drive, but will finish and let me get to A:prompt. I also went into fdisk and set up a primary dos partition, as the computer wont let my HD disk execute properly. The system will still not let me get into the cmos setup just comes back with the same errors and then leads me to a flashing cursor. The first post screen says cmos checksum error, defaults loaded. The system won't let me into setup to change it to the correct values. I cleared the cmos and took the battery out for awhile with no avail. Any other ideas? I appreciate any help as I am completely stumped.

I forgot to mention that I also switched out motherboards, and was trying to do all this on the Abit AB9 Pro board.

The C primary partition has to be on a hard drive set as Master on the first IDE port(in this case the only port available).You should disconnect the SATA drive at least temporarily for the time required to test the motherboard.Checksum error may be a bad cmos battery.You don't need the cdrom drive either to test the motherboard.You got to A dos prompt.You need to change the drive to C and use: sys C: (press Enter) Reboot the computer without a diskette to get the C dos prompt.If you get this far,the motherboard(the one you choose) should be in working condition to reinstall hardware.You should not use a Windows XP setup preloaded on a hard drive from another computer to boot:you will get errors.Windows XP is hardware dependant.