Stuck on Gigabyte logo screen with GA-EP35-DS3R

[wjousts]

I've been happily running my computer using the GA-EP35-DS3R motherboard for almost a year. I recently (about a week ago) replaced an old drive with a bigger one, but that was the last time I messed with it. Everything was working fine. Then today, I sat down to use it and was looking at the internet, then I got up for a second and when I came back my mouse pointer had disappeared and Vista was totally locked up.
I held the power button to turn it off, wait a few seconds and then tried to restart but now the fans start up, I hear one beep from the motherboard the logo screen appears and then nothing happens. Does anybody have any idea what the problem might be?
I have already had all the drives disconnected (no difference), unplugged the keyboard and mouse (strangely the logo screen didn't come up that time and I didn't get keyboard error beeps), cleared the CMOS with a jumper. But nothing seems to have made any difference.
Any help please?

[randers4]

Re: Stuck on Gigabyte logo screen with GA-EP35-DS3R

I guess I would try reseating the cpu, memory, video card and power connections (including the ATX 12V one); then moving memory to different slots if that didn't work.

[wjousts]

Re: Stuck on Gigabyte logo screen with GA-EP35-DS3R

Okay, some updates - I tried clearing the CMOS again and when I restarted a menu appeared before the logo screen asking me to select a setting. I tried last successful and got stuck again. Turned it off, cleared CMOS again, tried again. This time I selected default - started booting got to a Windows menu telling me that Windows was not shut down properly (well duh). I selected start normally and it ended up back at the BIOS logo screen again. Cleared CMOS again! Didn't see the bios menu this time, held down delete and got into the BIOS settings, set the DVD as the first boot device, put the Vista DVD in the drive and saved settings. The computer restarted, started to boot the DVD and then I got a blue screen with BAD POOL HEADER.
Tried again, got as far as Windows is loading files... while booting from the DVD and now it's stopped again.
Any ideas?

[wjousts]

Re: Stuck on Gigabyte logo screen with GA-EP35-DS3R

Another update. I appear to be back up and running ....at least for now.

I did a couple of things, I unplugged the new drive (it was a secondary drive, not the boot drive anyway), In the BIOS I did Load Optimized Defaults (which I guess I should have done after clearing the CMOS) and I removed one of my sticks of memory and rebooted. And it worked, I booted into windows safe mode with command prompt.
So next I shut down and plugged the secondary drive back in, booted back up...okay. Shut down again and re-installed the stick of memory, rebooted...okay. Finally shut down again, put the cover back on (I know that's really pushing it) and rebooted again and here I am. Back on my regular computer.
Not sure what fixed it (if indeed I've fixed anything) and not sure if it'll happen again, but fingers crossed!

Thanks!

[randers4]

Re: Stuck on Gigabyte logo screen with GA-EP35-DS3R

Just don't put the screws back in the cover. :)