GIGABYTE-GA-EP45-UD3L; post but cant enter bios

[vtakk]

hello folks. first time here so don't judge hard about possibly wrong place to post this...

I got subj along with:

E6300 - 2.8Ghz - FSB1066
2x2gb kingston ddr2 8500 CL5
his ati radeon 4670 iceq
500w raidmax PS

forgot to get cd/dvd so it took me a while to boot up and install xp from usb-flash drive.. ohh well
so it worked just fine for about 2h; then restarted two times randomly.
and now it POST but shows SPLASH screen and does not seem to detect kbd (usb ms natural) no matter what usb port I use. but it should not matter and continue boot up routine. it does not;
it just sits and displays bios splash screen forever.

I cleared cmos - no diff whatsoever. tried diff mem location one by one - no luck;
tried diff vc - same result;

it does beep/detect absence of mem and vc; and again it beeps to indicate POST completed.
do not have sata conn in but it should not matter.

not sure what to do next. any ideas? thanks in advance

 

[bilbat]

It's likely the flash drive; pull it out, hold the power button in 'till it 'dies'; shut off the PSU switch, or unplug it; hold the power button in a good fifteen seconds with the power down; jumper/unjumper CMOS_RST pins momentarily; power back up with one stick of RAM in slot closest to CPU; do BIOS' "Load Optimized Defaults"; power down, add memory, back in business...

 

[vtakk]

It's likely the flash drive; pull it out, hold the power button in 'till it 'dies'; shut off the PSU switch, or unplug it; hold the power button in a good fifteen seconds with the power down; jumper/unjumper CMOS_RST pins momentarily; power back up with one stick of RAM in slot closest to CPU; do BIOS' "Load Optimized Defaults"; power down, add memory, back in business...

thx for reply. I was starting it up without usb dev in.
it was without power for long time too.. cleared cmos few times.. using jumper and batt as well..

I see what you are saying by holding power button while psu is off - to drain down capacitors etc
I would try but shipped it back to NewEgg.. I would be very disappointed if I knew your advice would help.

so are you saying you believe cmos was not reset?

 

[bilbat]

Nah - the reset pins work pretty much instantaneously - the business about keeping 'em jumpered for (put in any varying amount) seconds is another 'web old wive's tale'; however, a USB device that a GB is 'unhappy with' screws up something outside the purview of the CMOS tables; they will 'reboot loop' even after CMOS is successfully cleared. The "hold the button down 'till she stops, power down, hold the button down again, clear, load opt" thing seems to be the only way to break the cycle. I have been meaning to write up a little tutorial for formatting and preparing a USB thumb drive to flash BIOS, store CMOS tables, load 'F6' drivers, etc., but have been stymied by the fact that the two USB sticks I've bought (so far) for the experiment have both caused the 'USB reboot loop' phenomenon - I've been thinking to take some devices apart, on the vague theory that maybe it's someone's particular USB transceiver chipset that GBs don't 'like'; another thing that recently fascinated me was that I put together a GB G41 (ES2H) based system recently, and it seems 'immune' - a USB stick that will definitely cause the looping on my X48 if left in during a boot, will go through a boot cycle fine on the 41!

 

[vtakk]

Nah - the reset pins work pretty much instantaneously - the business about keeping 'em jumpered for (put in any varying amount) seconds is another 'web old wive's tale'; however, a USB device that a GB is 'unhappy with' screws up something outside the purview of the CMOS tables; they will 'reboot loop' even after CMOS is successfully cleared. The "hold the button down 'till she stops, power down, hold the button down again, clear, load opt" thing seems to be the only way to break the cycle. I have been meaning to write up a little tutorial for formatting and preparing a USB thumb drive to flash BIOS, store CMOS tables, load 'F6' drivers, etc., but have been stymied by the fact that the two USB sticks I've bought (so far) for the experiment have both caused the 'USB reboot loop' phenomenon - I've been thinking to take some devices apart, on the vague theory that maybe it's someone's particular USB transceiver chipset that GBs don't 'like'; another thing that recently fascinated me was that I put together a GB G41 (ES2H) based system recently, and it seems 'immune' - a USB stick that will definitely cause the looping on my X48 if left in during a boot, will go through a boot cycle fine on the 41!

this is very interesting find. Did you see it working only when symptoms are like rebooting in a loop? or others like mine too? (boot up, post, shows splash screen and stay there forever)
Now after reading your post about USB dev messing smth up with cmos etc I have a strong feeling this is exactly my case and I'm pretty sure the fix you have suggested would work. Too bad I sent it back after fighting for few days.. thanks for advice though - I think you must put this in FAQ or smth so others would know

 

[vtakk]

ok so I bought EP45-UD3P and was hoping all the issues are behind.
not that fast. this time it powers up, click noise from speaker, cpu fan spins out and it shuts down;
then powers up again and go over the same flow. and again and again...
I searched and found that this restart loop is common BUT

NONE of the suggestion on how to get to BIOS do not work for me. tried:
- shutting power down
- drain PSU (take it off/plug it in)-
- diff mem slots (with one and with 2 mem sticks)
- clearing CMOS (jumper and with battery removal)

nothing seems to help to boot up. other ppl were able to get to BIOS and fix mem voltage/timing settings etc but I just cant get to it.

this is second board over last two weeks. it is getting more and more frustrating.

thoughts?

ps: this seems to be the last gigabyte board I bought in my life.
can smbd suggest motherboard with P45 which can boot up and work stable with
- kingston hyperX DD2 - KHX8500D2K2/4G
- 2.8 ghz E6300
- HIS Radeon 4670

it has been three years since I put together pc and I would not ever think this would take me almost a month and endless shipping of faulty/non compatible parts. so frustrating...
also my new monitor Samsung 2333SW started to make high pitching noise after week of use - sent it back to samsung for service -seem like another faulty power supply... it was nothing but disappointment for me recently

 

[vtakk]

QUICK UPDATE:
I managed to clear CMOS by removing battery for like 5 mins. No other ways seems to work.

Anyways now it does POST but same splash screen as on UD3L
when I plug in keyboard (no matter if usb or via usb2ps/2 connector) it does not work. Light comes up on the keyboard when plugging it into usb port and then turns off. Keyboard is dead - NO WAY to enter BIOS.

Please advice. I'm open to any suggestions here.. hands down

 

[mike360000]

Well I have this problem also.
But I have a Gigabyte GA-MA790GPT-UD3H board.
Just got it running today. Ran for a couple hours and BAM, no start screen, just a beep and if I do nothing Win7 comes up in about 4 minutes. However if I press the DEL key to enter BIOS then my computer just freezes. I was getting the flash screen before, but not now.

To make matters worse, after reading this thread I did clear my CMOS by removing battery and shorting jumpers. (PS unhooked also) Now after doing this, well I was using the AMD RAID, so poof, now I can't even get back into Win7 because I now need to reset up my RAID in BIOS.

I really had gotten tired of Gigabytes incomplete boards and wanted an Asus, but this one was so much cheaper it gave me a week or more head start on building the puter. This is about the 4th Gigabyte board I have had problems with, in a row. (AMD as well as Intel) Will I ever learn?

Any more ideas out there?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[icegypsy]

a USB device that a GB is 'unhappy with' screws up something outside the purview of the CMOS tables; they will 'reboot loop' even after CMOS is successfully cleared.

I know this is an old thread, but this is an issue we have had a few times, and judging by the results in google, it sounds like it's still an issue for a lot of people. We shut down overnight because of a wicked thunder storm, and once again, when we tried to start it up this morning, it kept hanging on the gigabyte screen.

Norm after resetting CMOS, and a few reboots, we would get in. After reading your post, we decided to take the time and test the USB devices one by one, we discovered it was the external media card reader causing it to get stuck in the boot loop.

You would would think after all this time Gigabyte would have put out a BIOS flash that would fix the issue by now.


Thanks again Bilbat