Another p35 reboot cycle problem

[THX987]

I have recently run into the reboot cycle problem which has been plauging a few of the people here, so I am adding my information in the hopes we find a real fix rather than workarounds.

ga-p35-ds3r v2.1 F9 (odd that the gigabyte site says first version is F10)
intel q9450
2x1gb corsair dominator pc-8500
nvidia 8800gt
creative x-fi gamer
samsung dvd drive
thermaltake 750W psu
bunch of sata hard drives, pair in raid 1 for C: using the gigabyte chipset
water cooling on cpu

So after waiting and waiting for the new penryn quad cores I finally got my hands on one and built this monster. It worked fine, I overclocked it from 2.66 to 3.2ghz and it ran perfectly. The ram i have (which isnt crucial because Id read about compatability problems) needs 2.1V which I initially set, and when I OC I set voltages to auto and changed the cpu:ram speed ratio so it was under 1066mhz (wouldnt boot if it was much over). No overheating problems.

And so it was for almost a month. I stressed it every way I knew and played a few new games through including crysis on high with no hitches.

I left it on overnight like normal and when I woke up and tried to login, it was totally unresponsive. No monitor picture, no hdd noises from pressing ctrlaltdel or anything else. Press the power button for 4 seconds and it didnt turn off, so I unplugged it at the back. Tried turning it on and it reboot cycles.

Tried clearing cmos and removing battery. Tried removing everything except cpu and one stick of ram and moving that stick to ram3 etc. Tried leaving it alone for a few hours. Unplugging the 12v for the cpu stops it rebooting but otherwise nothing happens.

Suggestions? If someone knows how to reset my mobo to how it was when I got it (ie working) that would be ace.

 

[boonality]

Your problem is the memory, PC2 6400 is generally the fastest stable memory in a P35 board.

 

[Onus]

^agree. DDR2-1066 will not work reliably on a -DS3L (have seen this personally). Get some DDR2-800 RAM.

 

[evongugg]

If you installed Windows XP SP3 see here:

http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/windows-xp-sp3-bsod-endless-reboot-loop-with-stop-c0000139-on-gdi32dll-error/

 

[THX987]

What, I was just lucky that my system was rock solid for a month? Does this mean all the components are really fine, they just dont like each other?

 

[THX987]

K so I tried some slower kingston 1gb pc2-5300u ram from another pc and the rebooting kept happening. Ill try and get my hands on some pc2-6400 but this ddr2 667 not working isnt instilling a lot of confidence.

 

[jdunn]

Well, I have a cycling boot problem with the GA-EP35C-DS3R with a Q6600 quad core retail box with fan. I put Cosair twin2X4096-6400C5DHX ram into DDR2 slots 1 and 3. This is 800 MHZ ram (PC 6400) running at 5-5-5-18 (factory spec says 1.8 V). I thought this would be pretty conservative as I don't over clock.

When power turns on it beeps 3 times and the load leds all light up. I can hear it try the HD, but nothing on the video. It shuts down and then 10 seconds later does it again, and again... I removed everything but CPU, RAM , HD, Video card. The first Video Card was PCI-E and so I tried an old PCI video card. No joy!

Next I will try a different HD. The one I have tried is PATA and came from a working machine with Win XP Pro SP2 already on it. That could be trouble because the other MoBo is an MSI and their drivers are still on it. However, shouldn't it POST first with sign on before the MoBo driver set is loaded?

BTW power supply is Antec green that comes with Sonata III case.

 

[THX987]

Update: I RMAd the board and they tested it and found it faulty, replacement on its way. Looks like it was more than a RAM problem.