Post time on GB 785 board

[SystemPat]

I have the GA-ma785GPM-US2H. It works very nicely with the Phenom II 550 BE. I have one small issue that I wanted to ask about.
The time for the BIOS to POST seems quite extended. Like longer than any other MB that I've used. From hitting the power button until the beep and the POST screen seems like forever but is probably more like 10 secs. Are there any options or issues that cause this and it there anything that might speed it up?? I've seen some other comments that people thought there was something wrong because of the slow time to post.

 

[rand_79]

If it works it works.. dont worry about it.

 

[SystemPat]

Well dont turn it off, put it in sleep mode, then when you hit the power button, you'll be up and running in about 5 seconds.

Experiences with earlier systems have led me to avoid the sleep and suspend modes - they would lock up - but I might give it a try. We are talking XP on this system.

 

[Mongox]

SystemPat, you know we have the same config. Only thing that makes mine take a long time is when it's struggling after some odd change I made to the BIOS. Sometimes that's followed by an error asking me what to do - like load the Last Known Good. Others, it resets some things automatically, like changing my RAM from Manual to Auto.

It might be struggling with a setting like that. What you might try is to save your current BIOS config to CMOS or Drive, then load the Optimized Defaults. If it POSTs fast then you'd got something to work with.

Sleepy External USB drives can do this too. And ones that have some error - I had this come up and drive me nuts when a USB thumb drive I'd been using to save BIOS info on got confused, made my POST take forever and my Windows Boot take and endless amt of time. Right before I decided to re-install Windows, I thought to disconnect the thumb and all was well again.

 

[bilbat]

Do you happen to have a good sized Seagate drive? There are a lot floating around that have the dreaded 'Seagate Stutter' - one major symptom is long pauses during BIOS 'discovery' phase - need a firmware fix:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931
Follow instructions re diagnosis and repair carefully - flashing firmware to certain drives not requiring it can render them inoperable ('bricked')!

 

[Mongox]

Luckily, my Seagate 200GB 7200.7 IDE drive doesn't stutter - but it does take long showers and likes to sing Danny Boy

Oh, why did I reply here. I did look at the link and got the tiny Seagate DriveDetect program - seems to work on all drives and is so simple.

 

[SystemPat]

Only drive on the system is a WD cav blue. Seems to work just fine. Only problem that I've seen in the drive department is that I've tried to boot it up once or twice with a USB drive plugged into the front panel. It won't boot at all. Take out the USB and retry - everything is fine.

 

[bilbat]

What else in the way of USB devices do you have? I ask as GBs are notorious for USB 'peculiarities' - they just 'don't like' some devices:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/260350-30-gigabyte-ep45-problemo
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261902-30-gigabyte-tale

 

[SystemPat]

What else in the way of USB devices do you have? I ask as GBs are notorious for USB 'peculiarities' - they just 'don't like' some devices:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/260350-30-gigabyte-ep45-problemo
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261902-30-gigabyte-tale

Bilbat, interesting links but not quite what I am seeing. So GB has a little problem with USB devices? Sounds like time for a few BIOS updates.
When I got the no-boot it was a Kingston 4gb data traveler plugged into a front port. Otherwise the list of USB devices attached is keyboard, mouse and a Canon inkjet printer of recent vintage.
BUT yesterday I had the machine freeze up twice in a row. Not sure why. I decided it was time to back down from the OC settings I was using and loaded the Optimized Defaults. Does not freeze today. And the time to boot seems to be back to 3-4 seconds. So Mr. Mongo may get a Best Answer on this one.

 

[Mongox]

Woo Woo!

SystemPat,
The OC settings that work for me without fail are simple - I set the multiplier (CPU Clock Ratio) to 17.5. I get CPU speed in the low 3500s and never an error.

With my new RAM, I can also edge the Bus speed (Host Clock Control)to 205 without problems. Above 205, even lowering the 17.5, I have problems w/Prime95. But before putting in the G.Skill 1066/5 that I run as 800/4, I could never change this value. (So my Memory Clock is set manually to 4.00 and DRAM Config manually to 4-4-4-10 14)

My voltages I leave on Auto. According to some programs, this sends 1.42V and 1.95V to my CPU & DRAM respectively - other say they're getting the defaults of 1.35V and 1.8V.
---------------------

I never got the re-boot loop but instead got a terminally slow boot - taking normal time to POST, then stopping for 5 minutes at the end of the list you get in Safe Mode, finally going past it to the 2 Windows loading screens and showing the Desktop. Altogether, over 10 minutes to load Windows. Oddly, once it was loaded, everything seemed to run fine and at normal speed. So I took the time to actually load it and switched users to my "Data Backup" user and took care of that task! Wheee!!

Prior to the problems I had plugged in an old SanDisk Cruser Mini 256MB to hold several BIOS versions and had used it to update the BIOS, then change it back again. So my thoughts were on bricking the BIOS somehow by helping others here. I felt incredibly stupid about this - after warning others to be so careful. And I had just moved all of my "old" hard drives to my new home (I've been moving slowly for a couple of months, down to the corner of my office with the computer, a bed and kitchen now) so I didn't have a spare boot drive. Since the problem was not in the POST but only once Windows started, I figured it wasn't the BIOS, but that the drive partition had somehow become damaged when I forgot to set it as the primary boot drive a couple times with BIOS changes. I was getting ready to reformat.

Finally, I noticed the light was on at the end of the Cruzer drive - continually. Hmmm... disconnected the device and all is well.

So my problem is a bit different from the Gigabyte boot-loop, but clearly related to it. And... if I'd swallowed my pride and asked here about the problem, would have saved myself 36hrs of agony too!

I commonly leave a couple of RAM/thumb drives connected to a USB extension unit and never have a problem. The difference perhaps, is that I had drawn the BIOS's attention to the Cruzer drive by using it within the BIOS, to save the CMOS and load the BIOS updates. This may be the fatal element, as it seems to come up in some of the previous cases.