Is My Mobo Dead?

Last night my computer was behaving a bit strange. While I was playing STALKER, I got BSODs twice (never had them before). Anyway, I rebooted both times and everything was fine. I did not think to much of it as many people have been having issues with game so I just assumed that the game was having some kind of problem.

I leave my computer on idle as I do everynight.

I wake up, turn on my monitor, and see a message saying (not exactly, but something similar to what is below).


And then it turns off, turns back on, and just loops this over and over.

So I'm a bit worried, and do not know what is going on. I've never ran into this before. I try restarting, only to have to this message keep coming up. There is no post. I reset the CMOS and get the computer post. Same bios - F7, just my settings were reset (I noticed the e6600 was 266x9 instead of 370x9). All RAM is checks out, the hard drive is detected, as are both optical drives. Windows tries to load, but I get a message saying the system is corrupt, and needs to be repaired. I restarted, and crap, the "boot block" message is back. I reset the CMOS again, and this time, go into the bios, to check some things out, and though everything was reset, it looked normal. I this time q-flashed from a floppy to the same version F7 I had maybe thinking that would fix it. I restarted, and decided to boot from the DVD-Drive thinking that a simple re-install of Windows would do, so I could transfer some things over to my external drive, and then I would format the hard drive completely and start from a clean slate. Well - Windows wouldn't even install. I go a BSOD while Windows was trying to install! At this point I am thinking I am really f'ed. I thought maybe my hard drive had died. I restart, and again, the damn "Boot Block" message is back. I reset CMOS, and attempt a Windows installation one more time. At some point early on, the installation has frozen when attempting to load the Kernal Debugger. I restart, and the "Boot Block" is back - starting to get extremely annoyed. I try to reset the CMOS, except I cannot anymore. No matter how many times I attempt to reset the CMOS, the "Boot Block" message is the only thing that appears - no post anymore.

I disconnect my optical drives, and attempt to boot with each RAM stick separatly. "Boot Block" message still. The video card seems fine or else I wouldn't be getting any display at all.

I am going to bring my hard drive home and hook it up to my brother's computer in hopes of recovering any important data on it I may still need.

Did my motherboard die on me?

What else could it be?

I would like to add

-My CPU never passed 60C when overclocked.
-My GPU never passed 70C when overclocked.
-My RAM was 10+ hours MemTest86+ and 10+ hours Orthos stable.
-My CPU was 10+ hours Orthos stable and OCCT stable.
-The FSB on the DS3 never went above 400.
-The HDD light does blink when I turn the CPU on, but that doesn't mean it's fully functioning now.
-The only things that were over-volted was the CPU and RAM, and what is in my sig is the highest either ever went. All other voltages were auto, the only other thing I changed was PCI-e feq to 101Mhz from 100Mhz default.
-There were no symptons of anything being wrong. After 7 months of rock solid stability I had a few BSODs in STALKER last night and then all hell followed.
-Everything looks fine physically.

Sounds to me like you may have a bad bios chip..Boot block is part of the bios chip programming . If you still have warranty you may have to rma the board.

Looks to me the second bios boot block is still working. I do believe this is recoverable.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/NewTech/2006_motherboard_newtech/article_04_bios_explained.htm

Thanks for the link.

I'm pretty much at

Primary bios: Corrupt
Backup bios: Corrupt
bios image on hdd: maybe

The reason I say maybe is because it says it is recovering it, and this takes a few seconds, and then the computer re-boots, and it does this again, and again, getting no where. Maybe it was because I disconnected my optical drives (I do not have a cd-rom of a bios, but I do have f7 on a floppy disk - I'll try that again and see if it works)...

Just wondering as to why it worked sometimes.. (though not anymore)

So I guess a virus caused this (I'm actually hoping so because then this is fixable - complete hardware failure is not).

If I get this fixed I'm just completely formatting my hard drive. I don't know how I got the virus if I got a virus.

if F7 is giving it to you, try another bios. It might run a little better. If it's not it, it's worth a try.

You don't get it - I don't have any bios to get into.

I can't flash to anything. F7 worked fine for months before this happened.

My computer cycles on and off with the similar to the following:

Boot Block 1.0 Award Winning Recovery Tool
Searching for bios image on hard drive...
Automatically recovering bios on hard drive......................


And it cycles on and off doing the same every time. If i disconnect the hard drive it stalls at the second line - it does not seem to search the cd-rom or floppy at all, it just stalls - so I don't know if a boot disk will even work.

It never posts anymore, just says the above - looking like a RMA might be the only option

At this point I'd be wondering whether you've managed to damage the BIOS by resetting during the Kernal Debugger.

http://www.biosrecovery.com/index.cfm?brcid=faq

No idea if they're any good but it might be quicker than waiting for an RMA.


Alternatively I don't know if this will be of any use to you, but it does seem to describe how to recover the BIOS type that should be on your PC

http://www.bioschip.com/biosrecovery.html

both of those links the above guy gave you are great. but many manufacturers (i know for sure dfi and asus) will quickly send you a bios chip for 5 or 10 bucks, you may want to try this before rma. your hard drive is fine, your other hardware is fine. i would have thought maybe one of you memory stix was bad, but you have run memtest and they seem ok,

Well, I sent gigabyte an email yesterday, and its still being processed (SLOW).

I'm going to end up taking apart the computer soon.

Has anyone has any experience taking out the bios chip on the DS3...

I may just end RMAing over a new ios chip - if it takes like 2 weeks, no big deal, my school grades will probably go up in that time period

It should be in a standard PLCC chip carrier.

The best way would be to have a special tool.

However 2 paperclips will work just fine..

http://www.biosflash.com/e/bios-chip-removal.htm

So the DS3 does have a remove-able bios chip? Even if it be with the special tool or two paper clips?.

I cannot check right now because I brought the computer home from college, and was planning take it apart this weekend, and if I could order a bios chip in advance that'd be great.

The 2.2Ghz Celly w/ 512Mb RAM I'm using right now really chugs - even just browsing the internet.