rhymeswithbear

I built my computer about 1 year ago. It had been functioning well until recently. The original setup was an Elitegroup motherboard with an AMD Penom X4 2.2 GHz processor, 2X2GB RAM, 2x500 GB Seagate HD, a Sony DVDRW, Samsung DVDRW, BFG Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT graphics card, 650 watt Antec power supply.

My first issue was that my motherboard failed to detect my Hard Drives. At this point, the front LED light remained on even when the machine was powered off. Assuming it was unlikely that both hard drives would fail simultaneously, I replaced the motherboard with a new one (Gigabyte). At this time I also purchased a new graphics card. However, it still was unable to detect both hard drives. I took the hard drives to a computer repair dude who verified they were both non-functioning. I purchased a brand new 1TB Seagate drive and installed it. I was able to install Vista, and the gigabyte motherboard drivers, graphics card drivers, as well as World of Warcraft.

This setup never functioned properly; it was slow and froze frequently. Suspecting there was an issue with the power supply, I tested it and it checked out. Also, the 1TB hard drive made these clicking sounds and within days the motherboard had several disk read errors and during POST reported “bad disk, backup and replace”. So, I returned the new motherboard, video card and hard drive, and purchased a new 500 GB Seagate hard drive to use with my old motherboard and video card.

When I powered up the machine with his setup, I couldn’t even get to the BIOS (an entirely new symptom). Also, the front LED light remained on when the machine was powered off. Another new motherboard later, with the same issue, it cannot get to the BIOS; however the new motherboard (Asus) does not have the perplexing front LED issue. I tried booting with nothing but the power supply and motherboard and still couldn’t get the BIOS. Then tried a known working power supply, with the same issue (can’t get to BIOS). Also attempted with only 1 RAM stick, but the computer will still not go to BIOS. I called the Asus motherboard tech support and he said it was likely either the power supply or the motherboard. However, I tried switching out both, with no success. My understanding is that any problem with the CPU or RAM would be detected in POST, so I cannot determine what is causing my issue.

Any ideas?