ASUS board problem

Last night my ASUS P4S533 became lazy and I don't know why. I'm running a dual boot machine with Gentoo 1.4 and Windows 2000. Previous to last night the boot through the board self diagnostics took 30 seconds or less. Last night boots started taking a very long time (2-3minutes) at the initial bootup screen looks like this:

ASUS P4S533-X ACI BIOS Revision 1004

Press Del to enter Setup: Pres Alt + F2 to enter Flash utility

01/24/2003 SiS645DX/SIS962/IT8705F-P4S544-X

After the delay, everything works normally in both OSs.

I'm worried that my mobo may be dying. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.

If the problem is during POST, you may have a problem doc. I would check to see if there is a newer firmware version for your mother. If not, check your bios for settings that might be causing the problem.

I"m not familiar with the terms "firmware" and "POST". Is firmware the same as the BIOS? I'm getting ready to reload the BIOS that I downloaded from ASUS.com. I did note at the last boot there was another message I hadn't seen before: "NTLDR not found, press ENTER to boot". Does that have anything to do with the problem?

Thanks for the reply.

Another thing. I have been using the same setup for over a year without any changes to the BIOS. Could the BIOS have become corrupted some way?

rharvey@cox

This link may help


Link


Pete

Nope, I don't think that link helps. My problems occur before the bootloader (GRUB) shows up. It does, eventually, and I can select between Gentoo and Windows. They both load normally.

The problem is with the wait for the GRUB menu to come up. Two, three, five minutes. I'm thinking my mobo is sick. I downloaded and reinstalled the latest BIOS from Asus and the same problem persists.

Sorry, POST is the system messages you see when the machine first boots up, starting with the specs of the board, what processor, memory check. The BIOS can reset settings if the battery on the mother wears out. It can be corrupted by static shock or a line surge. I suspect your mother may be bad, because of where the delay occurs. How are your temperatures? Most newer mothers have temperature sensors for the board and the processor.

I appreciate your help. I think it's the motherboard as well. I replaced the BIOS, same problem. The system clock is correct, so I don't think it's a problem with the battery.

I ordered another motherboard last night.

Thanks again.