Can I save this mobo?

I have an A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo. The problem began with my boot drive and the Click Of Death and eventually boot failure. I backed up and bought a new HD, installed it and began the installation process. I get the usual short beep of a good POST, the BIOS autodetects the processor, memory and all installed drives. It runs through set up, reboots into Windows and begins the installation process from the HD and freezes at 34 minutes to finish twice in a row. A third time I got as far as "Boot from CD" and it froze up, so I waited for 1/2 hr with no change. I reset and it autodetects the drives and freezes at that point. I went through the process a second time (with minor variations) after coming back from work (min. 8 hrs.). I cleaned it out, reseated all connectors, tried different drives, anfd I recently replaced the ribbon cables with round cables for better air flow. I couldn't even get a live MEPIS CD to boot. My conclusion is hardware failure and and the only option I see is the valiant sacrifice of a few dead presidents for a replacement. Perhaps someone reading this sees an option I'm blind to? Thank you for taking time to consider my plight.

 

Have you tried running through your install process with none of your cards in place? Or maybe different RAM or just one stick? I have using the same family of mobo for a while now and haven't have any problems at all... Not to say that they are immune, of course, but the first thing that I thought was that you might have a problem with one of the other pieces of hardware that have been common to all of your installation attempts.

Just a thought. Sounds like you've exhausted quite a few of the common failure points, tho, good work.

 

It hard locks when detecting drives ???? Did ya try running only one drive at a time to see if one of the drives is to blame ??

 

Yes. Unfortunately, it did not help. Both drives work flawlessy in other computers. I will try a different CD drive later. Thank everyone for your input.