I have gone ahead and ordered another mobo. I am pretty confident that this is indeed the problem.
$35.00 total for another board (refurbished Asrock) that is likely better than my Gigabyte board.
Difference is this time this board will always be on an UPS protector.
I think I will go ahead and install the drivers for the new motherboard onto the hard drive ahead of installing the motherboard.
Hopefully then all the things on the new motherboard get detected right away and we have no issues then.
the best,
micro....
P.S. Got to get this GTX 460 back up and running again.