Blue Screen & Now IDE Troubles

[loveisfun]

Hello Everyone,

I built a computer this summer (not for the first time) and now I am having a major problem with it and I'm not sure exactly where the fault is. I am hoping someone might be able to suggest exactly where the problem is.

I put it together and it started up fine on the first run. Then a week later it would randomly start giving my blue screens while playing halflife 2. Some were right away while playing, some were not, but they would happen days/weeks apart. I paid them no mind since they were so infrequent. However yesterday it did it again and this time when I restarted the bios couldn't find any IDE device. I restarted an hour later and it found them, made it to windows, and then blue screened, restarted and it lost the IDE devices again. It has been like this without change.

Here are my specs: (nothing is overclocked)

Gigabyte GA-K8U Socket 754
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
Lite-on DVD ROM
Samsung CDRW 32/32
Seagate Barracuda HD
Corsair 1GB RAM
Rosewill 450W power supply
XFX GeForce 6800 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP)
SoundBlaster Live
Firewire PCI Card
Modem

 

[Nitestick]

well i think there are three likely candidates.
1. failing hdd which seems to make sense given the hdd stopped detecting
2. overheating cpu
3. overheating chipset

in the case of the latter two i have seen instances where it can cause hardware detection issues and they can most certainly cause blue screens and crashes

 

[loveisfun]

I don't think it is the hard drive failing since it can not detect any of the IDE devices including the CDRW and the DVDROM.

If it is one of the later two I am not sure how to handle it. Is it malfunctioning equipment or do I need to get better cooling?

I already have 3 fans in this beast and can't believe the dang thing is overcooked.

 

[bmxfreakrider]

hmm....reset cmos(jumpers, its a sticky) or bad ide ribbons, bad ps, or a fried mobo(power surge, either behind the ps, like from the wall, or in the pc)

 

[bigbaddog]

I would have to say...motherboard.

 

[Nitestick]

trust me, a failing IDE device can cause others to stop functioning as well. i have observed this quite a few times. it could be the motherboard. i say that if the motherboard is new you could try RMA'ing it. could you try re-installing windows?