[Galiswyn]

About a year ago maybe 18 months i built a system ground up with your guidance and it has been great save for ONE issue.. and I am 99% certain now that it is the motherboard.

I have a duo core E8400 @3.00GHz with an 8800gt vid card. and I am using a Biostar TP43 HP mobo. the Problem is that periodically my system will FREEZE up.. and by freeze i mean whatever it was doing it is now doing until i fix it. So if it was in mid sound.. i get that sound stuck and blasted at me.. if nothing is going on .. nothing is going on etc ( no mouse no keyboard etc).. UNTIL i open the case and < yes this will sound odd> wiggle my sata cables.

I have come to the conclusion that it is the Sata connections on the mobo that are bad..

If you all can advise me on a motherboard i can use to replace this one in current build that would be appreciated. If you all have a more likely answer to this issue that would also be amazing but i have tried many things < new hard drive.. reformat etc>

I thank you all in advance for your aid, and for now i would prefer to simply replace the mobo as i am not yet ready to build a new system.

my thanks.. Galiswyn
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[Fozzik]

Did you try a new SATA cable? I'm guessing you probably did. Also, have you tried all the different SATA slots to see if it's only some that are loose?

Are the cable pulled or routed tightly so they are putting tension on the connectors?

Bad motherboards actually aren't very uncommon. With the motherboard housing so much of the electronics of a modern computer, it's almost a statistical certainty that if something goes wrong, it's probably going to be with the motherboard.

Remember that if you do replace the motherboard, make sure you get the heatsink on the processor carefully and with enough thermal goop to ensure good heat transfer. Also make sure to reformat the hard drive and install the new mobo drivers (changing motherboard without reformatting will cause windows to go wonky).

What's the rest of your PC like? Do you need to graphics slots? What other connections / compatibility do you need in a mobo?

[rabb1t]

I know it will turn out to be a lot more expensive, but since this is a socket 775 board I'd say just sell off the CPU / Ram and upgrade to something current. Yeah, skimming NewEgg a new board is as expensive as current tech.

If you are going single card and want something for teh cheap I'd recommend something like...

AMD Athlon II X3 440 $75
OCZ 4 gig DDR3-1600 $90 post rebate
Asus M4A77TD $85 - single GPU board

Total = 250

[Galiswyn]

Originally Posted by Fozzik

Did you try a new SATA cable? I'm guessing you probably did. Also, have you tried all the different SATA slots to see if it's only some that are loose?

Are the cable pulled or routed tightly so they are putting tension on the connectors?

Bad motherboards actually aren't very uncommon. With the motherboard housing so much of the electronics of a modern computer, it's almost a statistical certainty that if something goes wrong, it's probably going to be with the motherboard.

Remember that if you do replace the motherboard, make sure you get the heatsink on the processor carefully and with enough thermal goop to ensure good heat transfer. Also make sure to reformat the hard drive and install the new mobo drivers (changing motherboard without reformatting will cause windows to go wonky).

What's the rest of your PC like? Do you need to graphics slots? What other connections / compatibility do you need in a mobo?

I have replaced the cables and swapped the slots, and it seemed to help for a while but then same issue. As for replacing the mobo.. if i was able to get the same model would that still require all the reformatting etc.. OR is it likely the mobo by design may have this flaw?

lastly I don't think there is a whole lot of pulling nor pressure on the cables in there.

Rabbit.. thank you also but I don't think i'm up for building a new system yet..maybe after the summer but in the mean time i was hoping to find a cheap fix that won't continue to get me killed in games After the summer I may build a new system but would want something killer when i upgrade again.

thing is.. save for this locking up the system runs all my games flawlessly... it is making me insane.

[rabb1t]

A new motherboard that uses the same north/south bridge chipsets should not require a reformat. However, change either of those and you likely would. (Which, in addition to said new board being $50-120, is why I recommended just going with new tech. )

[Fozzik]

I wouldn't think all the motherboards of the same model would have the same problem, but it's not out of the realm of possibility if it's caused by a design flaw. Most likely you just got a lemon, and another motherboard of the same kind would work just fine.

[mmorpeegee]

Yea lemons happen.

In fact when I bought my current PC, it kept giving a blue screen of death in gaming, and it took me a long time to figure out what was causing it. It turns out it was my graphics card, so I took it back and I got a replacement. The exact same problem happened again.... and I started to panic that I had misdiagnosed it. But everything pointed towards the graphics card still, so I took it back again and got another replacement. This time it worked and it's worked perfectly ever since, for 3+ years. So I had two bad cards in a row and there was probably 5 months between replacements because I took my time diagnosing it.