GA-G33m-S2H won't boot in any way at all

[dskeeles]

Hi folks,

I'm having some dire problems with a new GA-G33M-S2H off ebay, and just wanted to check if anyone thought it was definitely a foobared board.

Basically, I bought the board, and installed it with 1Gb Crucial RAM and an E6750. However, when I tried to boot from my old IDE installation (previously on an AOpen board), although I didn't expect it to work probably, it actually bluescreened with a STOP 0x07 a few drivers into the boot sequence (after AGP440.SYS). OK - that can happen, if drivers are incompatible.

I then tried booting from a WinXP DVD... but again, it got a few files in, and then hung.
Then Ubuntu 7.04... again - it just booted the kernel, got a few files in, and hung
Finally, Damn Small Linux....... but this time, it booted successfully!
And the same for BootitNG - it booted off DVD!

So, I assumed there was some kind of problem with the IDE channel (it failed to boot from both IDE HDD and DVD), it could still boot off very small OSes like "DSL".

BUT - this is the really strange thing - using BootitNG I was able to copy the entire 20Gb partition to a SATA drive, with no read errors!?!

On top of that, I've also tried putting the HDD and DVD into an external USB drive enclosure to sidestep IDE, with no joy. I've tried a friend's old external CD drive to discount my drive as a problem, which got as a far as 'Starting Windows' in the installer before bluescreening.

And I've also tried booting from USB stick as HDD (which seemed to work, but then tried to install WinXP on the stick!), and playing with Master/Slave/CS settings on the IDE devices (no change).

So my question is - does this sound like the motherboard is dead? Or is there perhaps some jumper or something specific to Gigabytes that I've missed?


Damian

 

[dskeeles]

And I forgot to mention: I've also got AHCI disabled, I've tried both Optimal and 'Get You Running' BIOS settings, I've flashed the BIOS to the latest (R3?), and I've tried disconnecting every other peripheral and non-essential connection inside the case!

And the board looked so shiny and reliable(!).....

 

[viafax999]

I've had the same issue. It's something to do with memory incompatability and the bios flashes.
My mobo will work OK with 4gb of 800 ocg gold at f1 and f2, will not boot at all under f3 or f4. Need to take 3mem sticks out and remove the battery. Then replace bettery, restart and flash back to one of the old flashes.
Would be nice to know which memory is OK for the board as it really has everything that is needed for a media pc.

Peter

 

[bilbat]

First choice (but pricey): mushkin - GB boards 'like' it, & will usually install w/no intervention in the BIOS; second choice: G.Skill, also works great, but sometimes need a wee bit of 'tweak'; Kingston and Crucial comprise, between them, ninety percent of so of RAM problems I see; Crucial has the dubious crown, as it also appears to, occasionally, 'degrade' over time, causing a once-working setup to simply quit booting...

 

[o1die]

Reset the bios with the system off by removing the board battery for a few seconds, and leave achi enabled. reboot, and set the boot order to cd (or dvd), hardrive ( or ide 0), and the sata controller setting to ide. Save and exit.