Memory Trouble with Gigabyte 990FXa-UD5

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J

Jojoba Plant

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Hey guys,

I have an issue and I hope you guys can help me with this...

I bought the Gigabyte 990FXa-UD5 at the end of July this year, but from the start I am having probs with the memory: only memory slot 2 and 4 work. If I put a memory stick into slot 1 or 3, I get cycles of 3 long beeps, pause, 3 long beeps, etc, and the mc will not boot. If I push the sticks really hard into slot 3 it will work for a few minutes with all the four sticks, but then the mc crashes and the beeps are there. I tested this with all 4 sticks that I have (2 sets bought a few months in between) and the results for slot 3 (and 1) are with every stick the same.

Very sometimes slot 1 and 3 will work, but the system is very unstable and crashes a lot of times and only when there are no sticks in 2 and 4. Contradictionally it sometimes has worked rather stable, followed by a period of excruciating instability: crashes while browsing or during idle...

I performed all the tests that I could find on forums, but the problem remains. I noticed though that when I try to boot without any sticks of ram, it gives me the same beep sequence, which is funny, because it gives me this sequence cycle as well if I push a stick in slot three with slot 2+4 populated. Seems to me that slot 3 is the main culprit blocking sth, but I am kinda at the end of my tethers.

So, in short: memory slot 1 and 3 are not working and in the rare cases they do work, the system is extremely unstable. Only 2+4 are stable w/o any issues.
Can you pls tell me what it is? I have three suspects: CPU, MoBo or PSU, although 750 Watt should be enough for what I have. This is not the first time I have memory-trouble with more expensive boards from Gigabyte, so if you could help me solve the problem, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thank you for your time and in advance for helping me solve this issue! :bounce:

Sorry for the long story, btw :ange:

Kind Regards,

JJBP :hello:

My system: Gigabyte 990FXa-ud5; AMD Phenom II x2 550; (in theory 16 GB -4x4GB- Geil Dragon Ram 1600, running @ 1333MHz - only can use 2 of them sticks tho atm); Sapphire HD Radeon 4650 x2 in Xfire (not particularily a gamer); SB XFi Xtreme Music; ThermalTake Toughpower 750 Watt; 2x Samsung 500GB; 1xSeatgate 500GB;1x OCZ Agility3 60GB SSD; 2 optical drives (DVDRW and DVDROM); CoolerMaster Haf932; resident 230 mm casefans; 1x140 mm casefan, 1x 120 mm casefan.
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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Dec 5, 2012
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Thanks for your quick reply!

Yes I did check - results were the same. Single sticks and any combination of two sticks - I have tried them all in 3 Herzes: 1066, 1333 and 1600.
 
satyamdubey

satyamdubey

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from what I could gather on the internet, phenom II IMC's are quiet robust so I doubt its your cpu that's causing the problem. Go through the mobo manual once again to see how to work with four DIMMS in dual channel mode.

The fact that a little force on the third slot makes it work for a while does seem to point toward a motherboard issue. Three long beeps cycle means the RAM has failed (failed to refresh i think)
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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I have already filed a query with the Gigabyte tech support - prolly have to rma it :fou: This is like the third time I have to RMA a Gigabyte high end board. Will take again 4 to 5 weeks and since this is my only comp, I will have to buy me another mobo to cover the time as I need my comp for my work as well.
Is there anyway to check if it's indeed the mobo? Thanks!

I may not be able to reply very quickly as I am at work - sorry about that in advance...

KR,

JJBP
 
abekl

abekl

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Sounds like you did all the correct troubleshooting except for playing with the voltages a bit. Sometimes upping the ram voltage a small amount can get a finicky ram slot to work. say by .05 volts increase.
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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Indeed, have not tried that - this is because the voltages as they show in the BIOS were set to 1,5 volt; exactly as per requirements stated on the sticks themselves. Will try that tonight and report back. Thanks! :)
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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Ok, I tried the suggestion of notching up the DRAM voltage in steps of 0.005 and I notched it up onto 1,525 volt. Alas no success :fou:
How far can I actually go with this when the voltage displayed on the sticker of the RAM says 1,5 volt? I didn't go up because I didn't dare to go higher for fear of damaging things any further than they already are... :sweat:
Does anybody have any additional suggestion? The Gigabyte techs did not answer my query yet, unfortunately :(

As always, thank all of you for your tips and suggetions!

KR,

JJBP :hello:
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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There you go...

scrnsht1.png


scrnsht2.png


scrnsht3.png


scrnsht4.png


scrnsht5.png


scrnsht6.png


If there is anything else you need pls let me know, I will be providing it tonight, when I am home agains. Thanks! :)
 
satyamdubey

satyamdubey

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Screenshots look okay....I honestly do not know what is going wrong...have you tried upping the NB freq? try this:
http://slappablog.com/2010/10/14/phenom-ii-imc-ram-overclocking-guide/
I know its about OC'ing but just try out the NB frequency part and see if that makes things work.
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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Thank you again for the tip! I did try this but again no results :(.

The Tech guys at Gigabyte are now asking whether this ram came as a kit of 2 pcs and whether I changed the ramsettings in the BIOS manually. No - this behavior is straight out of the box...

I am now getting to the point that I will accept the fact that I will have to RMA the board and buy me a replacementboard as I cannot afford to be without mc for 5+ weeks....Anybody a suggestion for a cheap mobo with about the same functionality as this one (has to have 8 SATA-3 ports tho)?

Another line I am thinking along is to buy an Asus Sabretooth (I was actually going back and forth between the Sabretooth and this one before my loyalty to Gigabyte won), rebuild my mc again, close the case and sell the Gigabyte once it gets back/has been replaced. What'd you guys say? Good plan or should I just buy a cheap temp board and built the Gigabyte back in once it gets returned/replaced?

Also: can anybody tell me what the attitude of Gigabyte is towards RMA? Will they try to fix it or do they replace it with a new one - after all, it's still within the warranty?

And finally: thank you all very much once again for trying to help solving my issue - really appreciated! :hello:

Greetings from the Emerald Isle :)

KR,

JJBP
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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That's actually an idea - will think about it...Thanks :)
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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Thank you very much for this - had a look at it and it seems tempting; however, Newegg does not deliver outside the US or Canada and I live in Ireland...So they won't deliver to me :fou: Should be about time that American companies start to deliver to Europe as well - bit tired of seeing all these cheap prices and not being able to buy bc they do not deliver where I live... :fou:

Thanks for your efforts though!

KR,

JJBP
 
abekl

abekl

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Amazon.uk delivers to Ireland and carries most of Gigabyte's line of motherboards.
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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Hey guys, just an update on what I am doing now. I have decided to RMA the board to the reseller Komplett.ie and purchase the other choice I had: the ASUS Sabertooth, build the rig together and leave it at that. Once the Gigabyte comes back either repaired or replaced, I will sell that one. Third highend mobo from Gigabyte, third time memory problems in a row. I am done for now with Gigabyte, although I have always loved them. This is also inspired by their lousy tech support - have not heard from them since last Friday and they only thing they do is ask questions about the memory itself - trying to put the blame on the ram. They even asked me what happened if I put in all 4 sticks together!

Anyway, your help is greatly appreciated and if you would like to, I will keep you posted how this story continues! Thanks guys! :hello:
 
satyamdubey

satyamdubey

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It is sad how things have turned out for you man. I hope that Saber works for you. It will be great if you keep us posted on this story as that will help really help in troubleshooting similar issues in future.

good luck
-satyam
 
J

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Don't know if it's allowed, but I thought I'd give you guys an update on how things are going. What I did was, I bought a small MSI Mobo (970A-G46) and installed this temporarily as I RMA'ed my Gigabyte to Komplett. No issues whatsoever - all worked like a charm and all the 16 Gigs were recognized and working as they were supposed to. This weekend I built the replacement back into my case and added a new AMD FX 6200 onto it as well. Well....No beeps this time, so that's one step ahead, but now it shows two sticks at only 2 Gigs while the other two are shown as 4 Gigs. All of them are identical. Bios only recognizes 8 Gigs whereas Windows says that I have 12 Gig of which just under 8 are useable. Already updated the Bios and reseating the sticks. Reseating the cpu and checking for bent pins is also widely suggested, but I would prefer to to do as last option as I have to take the entire mobo out of the case and with a Cooler Master V8 this is quite a lengthy process. Any other Suggestions?

So what we have here is a new Gigabyte GA990FXA-UD5 that has just come back from RMA as the first one was faulty, which is giving me trouble AGAIN in the same area. Why I didn't keep the MSI in? That one did not have enough SATA connections. Hope you can help me again, guys. Thanks! :hello:
 
satyamdubey

satyamdubey

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welcome back JP :) and its great to see your post. What's strange is we never looked at the particular 16 gig kit Geil kit you are using to check whether it's on the QVL.

I cant access any of the links as I am at work but with all this happening consistently, it seems more like a major compatibility issue between this particular board and this particular ram.

can you check the QVL and post back? another thing (asking too much may be) but can you check with another 16 gig kit?

I feel its a geil/gigabyte compatibility issue only.
 
J

Jojoba Plant

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Thank you, my friend :) Buying another set of memorysticks would be a good option - however that will take a few days as deliveries are not that superquick in this neck of the woods. I know for sure this particular memory is not on Gigabyte's list - but they stated with the huge amount of memory available on the market nowadays, they could not test every stick out there. So (according to them) if a brand/type is not on the list, this by no means meant that it would not be compatible. I also checked the Geil website and there is a list available for the Dragon Ram Dual Channel kit that I have, but when I download it, I get some sort of xml file which I cannot read at all. Here is the download link for the .bin file that contains the list:

http://www.geil.com.tw/uploads/download_files/85973a2eab3c6a62f995d64fda6471e3.bin

Or the main page:

http://www.geil.com.tw/support/download (look for Dragon Ram Dual Channel Kit)

If anybody can give me a link to a prog that makes xml files readable, greatly appreciated. Thanks again! :hello:

KR,

JJBP
 
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