Gigabyte ud3 P55 won't post

[sdm004]

I get rapid, non-stop short beeps when I try to post. I've run through the usual and advanced gamut of TS steps, and have positively confirmed that the only possible hardware damage could be on the MB. What makes me think otherwise is that this seems to be a common issue to this board or platform. Here's another forum link w/exactly the same problem. they seem to be having a similar or same issue.

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/77909774/m/462005141041

Normally I'd bunk this as a bad board, but now I'm not so sure....
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[dextermat]

1) what model is motherboard ?
2) how many beeps ?

 

[Twoboxer]

With all due respect, your post is totally self-contradictory. And its not possible to give any useful advice without you taking the time to tell us what "TS" steps you have taken.

OTOH, if you "have positively confirmed the only possible hardware damage could be on the mobo" . . . what question are you asking?

 

[sdm004]

ok, I provided the other forum link as a concise means of showing you my problem, with examples. The TS steps I have taken would include the usuals such as swapping/reseating hardware, and pulling a stick of ram. But to be short, virtually everything that was suggested in Arstechnica I've tried myself before I even started asking around.

As for the beeps; exactly as I posted above: non-stop rapid, short beeps (like a machine gun) until I shut it off. I've never had a diagnostic post beep like this before.

The board model was posted in the title. It's a gigabyte P55 ud3r board. I'm running an i5-750, and I get the problem with all other hardware removed, regardless of whether the ram is installed or not. I've also rebuilt the cpu/MB/PSU outside the case to see if it was a grounding issue. It doesn't appear to be.

I've built dozens of systems. to me it sounds like a bad board, but again, I'm curious to see if anyone else has heard or had this problem, and if so knows of a cause/fix.

The reason I think it may be something with the new board(s), and not just a bad board possibly is the large number of other people I've found whom are getting the same issue.

 

[Twoboxer]

Thanks for clarifying.

Have you tried booting up with nothing but the cpu? And if you're using a UPS, bypass it for now. You should get the "no memory" beeps. If not, you're down to psu or mobo or cpu/mobo, no?

 

[sdm004]

Yeah, that was the first thing I tried. The post beeps didn't change to the normal "no memory" beeps w/o the ram. Thats what got me thinking it was the board. But the thing is that so much is integrated into lynnfield now, and so many people are having this exact same issue, that I wonder if there isn't some setting or another that can be adjusted, or possibly some alternative to RMA'ing the thing. I guess I'm grasping at straws, but I'd rather not be w/o a MB for 2weeks+

I need to dig out my OCZ psu and test that for hoots.

 

[sdm004]

Forgot to add that I'm hesitant to suspect the psu as it's a brand new corsair 750w. Like w/PC P&C, I've simply never had a bad PSU from them. Not saying it's impossible. Just unlikely.

 

[Twoboxer]

Yup, we like the Corsairs around here too. I agree with your hesitancy, but since you have another psu around . . .

 

[sdm004]

Well, I caved and went to the local fry's to get another motherboard.....same problem. And this is after they tested the first on and told me they couldn't get it to boot w/their hardware. So unless there is a major incompatibility problem right now, it has to either be the i5 or the Corsair....I'll know tomorrow when I have time to gut my system and steal it's PSU for a test.

 

[redgarl]

RMA ASAP... Gigabyte boards are a real nightmare when you fall on a bad designed model.

My Gigabyte 965P-DS3 died on me 3 times... in less than 16 months... at stock clocks. So, in short, I've built my computer 4 times. AFter 3 times I switched for a cheap Asus mobo and never got any other problems.

 

[RetiredChief]

If you get it to work - please report back as to culprit.

(1) look on newegg review, 15 w/no DOA's (UD3R), one with a pci-e problem.
(2) 2 in-a-row doa's. Please test your PSU. While the Corsairs are very good, it is possible one slipped thru and is killing your MB. This is ONLY a possibility, but would explain 2 DOA's in a row. If Plugging in a 2nd PSU does not "fix" it (Good possibility) I would not try a 3rd with the Corsair PSU unless you KNOW it is good.

 

[redgarl]

If the guys at Fry told you they weren't able to boot with their own stuff, you got your answer.

A power supply usually never generate bip code problems and unability to boot even with a bad one. It's mostly an electronic matter.

So, it leaves the cpu... which I really doubt to be a problem. I have never fall on a DOA cpu before and I think Intel test every single one.

 

[redgarl]

If you get it to work - please report back as to culprit.

(1) look on newegg review, 15 w/no DOA's (UD3R), one with a pci-e problem.
(2) 2 in-a-row doa's. Please test your PSU. While the Corsairs are very good, it is possible one slipped thru and is killing your MB. This is ONLY a possibility, but would explain 2 DOA's in a row. If Plugging in a 2nd PSU does not "fix" it (Good possibility) I would not try a 3rd with the Corsair PSU unless you KNOW it is good.

You are describing a power electrical bomb. If a power supply die, it usually protect the whole system. When you think about the ones of Corsair, their protections are really some of the best.

By the way, don't trust reviews like that. My 965P-DS3 was supposed to be a hell of a board... great reviews and anything else... it was honestly the biggest piece of garbage I have ever purchased. 3 different revision died on the same computer at stock speed with great quality components. My Asus P5QL Pro board lasted for more time than the 3 gigabytes together and it is still running fine with the same hardware.

 

[RetiredChief]

regarl
ANY brand is a night mare when you have a design flaw, or the MB manuf gets BAD parts from its supplier (ie that phase when many diff companies got defective electrolitics.

There are thoes that swear by Asus, and thoes that swear by Gigabyte. - They both make good MB as far as I'm concerned, although my personal preference is gigabyte.

Looking at newegg - Gigabye seems more popular. This is becuse of the low end UD2 (29 reviewed/1 DOA) which got a outstanding review over at anatech. Looking at the mid range UD4, 4P, and 3R (26 comments/ 2 DOA's - Ausu P55D, D pro, D LE ( 27 comments, 4 DOAs). You must remember to take neg comments with a healthy grain of salt. Some have absolutly no idea and blame the MB, then you have the few that damage the MB and Blame the MB for their own stupidity.

MB DOA's from ANY company fall into several catagories.
(1) design flaw and or pisspoor QA
(2) Rushed product (ie poor BIOS support or down right bad BIOS )
(3) Damage in shipment ( both to (long path fom Asia to USA) and (poor packing and them UPS guys did it again) from vender )
(4) User caused (ie ESD, forgot standoffs, external defect component, Plugged connectors in wrong)
YOU CHOICE AS THE MOST COMMON

This last one reminds me of a BIll Engersall joke. This 18-wheller gets stuck under and overpass. They State trooper stops and asked did you get stuck. The driver "No I was just taking a break while transporting this overpass." "Here's your Stupid sign."

How many bite the bullit and admit it's their fault compared to RMA route. I've had 3 relatively new HDD failures - No RMA, I just excepted my "here's your stupid sign".

Added: just read your last comment;
I don't take newegg comments as gosple - But when you throw out the garbage ones, you can get a feel for trends.
I have used gigabyte boards for the past 8 years, all still alive and well, - never a defective one. My current 965-DQ6 REV 1 is Great (almost 3 yrs now) running an E6400 @ 3.2 GHz. Have only had two MB fail - one Keyboard killed the input circuit, the other ME, tried to convert the CMOS battery to a rechargable one (Excepted my stupid sign - many uears ago)

I think Asus make good boards, are they better than gigabyte - sometimes, sometimes not.

On PSUs The differences between a great company, 1 defect in 100,000, and a poor company 9,999 defects. - BUT someone is going to get that 1 from the great company. I do know Powersupplies very well, and the various failure modes.

 

[sdm004]

Well, here's the run-down.

I went back to fry's, and had them swap out a lot of hardware. At first nothing worked, and they even had the same issue on another brand new board and i7. At some point, we got a random CMOS checksum error, and it started to boot after that with 1 stick of fry's cheap DDR3 RAM @ 1.5v in the 2nd slot (white, closest to CPU). From that point afterwards, we were able to add sticks to the 4th slot, and then the other two (blue) last. Now it will post with all the slot populated. Now I know full well how touchy some boards can be about how the DIMMs are populated; but before this it wouldn't POST with 1 stick in ANY slot....just those rapid beeps.

Not sure what happened here, as the first board definitely wouldn't post or even spin up, so I know that for sure was a bad board.

As of now, the system is booting with 2x1gb G.skill DDR3 1600s (1.65v). I'm at the end of my tether tonight, so I'll be putting windows 7 on it tomorrow night. We'll see if it's still working properly by then.

I have a sneaking suspicion that until they tried posting the board with one stick of RAM that runs @ stock 1.5v, it messed with the BIOS maybe, trying to boot w/those G.Skills @ 1.65v first? I'm grasping at straws, but unless the board came with a jacked BIOS, then I can't think of anything else it could be.

It doesn't explain the rapid-fire beeping, esp. since I still get that w/no ram...what happened to the old school memory-issue post beeps? Like the one they say to look for in the new manual even, the ones we should be getting?

Eitherway, thanks for the help and input from everyone here on trying to solve this wacked problem. I'll keep this thread updated and let you know how the system checks out as I complete this build.

Specs:

Core i5 750
GB P55-UD3R
2x1Gb G. Skill DDR3 1600 (prefer OCZ, but they were out of stock, or way overpriced)
XFX 4890 1Gb
Corsair 750w
CM Storm Scout (fantastic case BTW)
The usual junk for the peripherals and drives. Nothing special there.
Win7, if I can get this copy to install right this time!

 

[Twoboxer]

I'll keep this thread updated and let you know how the system checks out as I complete this build.

Please do

 

[RetiredChief]

Thanks for the update, I'm glad it wasn't the PS
Have you checked if you have the latest BIOS Fireware.

 

[sdm004]

I haven't had a chance to check the firmware, but I plan to update it as soon as I get home tonight. I'm hoping that fixes whatever bugs there are.

 

[ASherbuck]

For what it's worth I was having the same problem - machine gun fire system beeps. No POST.

I basically had the Utility build from TechReport, so same mobo, cpu, ram, etc as op.

1. I took both sticks out - still machine gunning
2. Put 1 stick in the far left slot - still machine gunning
3. Moved the stick to the 2nd from the left slot - Gives a CMOS Error, boots.
4. Powered down and slid the 2nd stick in the far right slot - Boots fine Windows 7 installing now.


So all I ended up doing was moving the ram form the blue slots to the white slots. Maybe DIMM1 is jacked up for me and maybe GB is having a bad track record with the DIMM Slots on these boards but this is how I got mine working. I can confirm that I didn't play with any parts other than ram to solve this problem so it's not CPU/GPU/PSU etc.

HTH

 

[RetiredChief]

Take a look at:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-p55-motherboard,2436-6.html
Quote
We installed the latest public BIOS available by September 12 on each motherboard, including Gigabyte’s P55-UD3R version F3e. After testing was complete, we confirmed that two bugs that negatively affected installation and hardware detection were later solved in version F3h. End Quote

Not good - if you have the older BIOS version, It's a Pain in the ____ to be able to download and install new bios.

 

[atimb]

For what it's worth I was having the same problem - machine gun fire system beeps. No POST.

I basically had the Utility build from TechReport, so same mobo, cpu, ram, etc as op.

1. I took both sticks out - still machine gunning
2. Put 1 stick in the far left slot - still machine gunning
3. Moved the stick to the 2nd from the left slot - Gives a CMOS Error, boots.
4. Powered down and slid the 2nd stick in the far right slot - Boots fine Windows 7 installing now.


So all I ended up doing was moving the ram form the blue slots to the white slots. Maybe DIMM1 is jacked up for me and maybe GB is having a bad track record with the DIMM Slots on these boards but this is how I got mine working. I can confirm that I didn't play with any parts other than ram to solve this problem so it's not CPU/GPU/PSU etc.

HTH

Thank you very much! I had the exact same problem and solution!

Attila

 

[Guest]

Hi there,

I had a customer with the same issue today and after trying a new PSU and video card I did the following to correct it:

His setup was a Gigabyte P55 -UD3 with a high spec XFX video card ( model I don't recall sorry) , 850Watt Corsair PSU and two sticks of Crucial 2GB DDR3 memory.

The hard drives and DVD drive were not connected at first however I did test a fully plugged in setup as well.

The board was also removed and start-up tested on an anti-static pad to check for case shorts.

The mother phase lights were 1 and 2 green , 3 orange, 4 red (Would be nice to have a chart in the manual to tell us what they mean)

With two Crucial 2GB double sided DIMMS installed would be get the following:

1. Both DIMM installed , no beeps , no post , restarts
2. One DIMM installed no beeps , no post , restarts
3. Removed both DIMM , rapid beeps

So I...

I used an A-DATA 1gb DDR3 DIMM (Single sided 1GX8 1333) , placed it in the closest slot to the CPU and got.

1. Rapid beeps and of course no post.

Next , I jumpered the BIOS for a few seconds. (Power off - Hard drive jumper on the bios reset pins for 10 seconds or more)

Placed the A-DATA DIMM back in the closest slot and got a post with a CMOS error appearing which then corrected it'self.

I restarted..

I then placed the A-DATA DIMM into the slot furthest from the CPU and the machine booted and posted without problems.

I updated the bios to version F5 , selected Optimal Setting within the bios...and then shut down.

I then placed one of the original Crucial 2GB DIMM into the slot closest to the CPU and got..

1. No beeps , No post , however it did not restart.

I then jumpered the BIOS once again (Don't jumper it and power on! of course)

Kept the single Crucial memory in the slot closest to the CPU and following the BIOS clearing got...

1. One Beep, Post as normal

The motherboard lights are still 1 and 2 green , 3 orange and 4 red. I can only assume this is normal.

Finally , I installed both original DIMMS into the recommended positions based on the manual and the machine runs well.

I hope this helps someone and I'm happy to help via email should anyone require it.

Regards,

Mark Duff
OhNo! Mobile Computer Repairs
www.ohno.co.nz
New Zealand.

 

[POAREN]

Solved the same problem but with different ram

I had the same issue with the m/b (gb P55a ud3r) beeping continuisly on a new rig. I have two 2gb corsair 1333 c9 @ 1.5v ram sticks and i am using the psu that came with the termaltake M9 case (430W) and i7 860 chip. After reading sdm004 post i tryed and put only one of the sticks in to the 2-nd slot(white) closest to the cpu and it worked. It posted fine. i add the secound stick to the next white slot and it worked again with no issues.The bios states 4 gb of ram. Hope this will help

 

[anx1968]

Thank you sdm004 and everyone else here, Thanks to you guys I was able to solve the same issue I was having with my new gigabyte P55-UD3R, intel core I5 750. The only thing I didnt try swapping was the 2G DDR3 's into the white bay, which did the trick.

Once again thank you and cheers.