New motherboard, now boot to blue screen

Hanok

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Jan 12, 2013
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Just got a new motherboard. Its a Gigabyte GA-970A-D3, Rev 3.0. Installed in on my PC.

When I turned it on for the first time, it did NOT go to the Gigabyte POST screen as expected. Instead it beeped once and just booted the operating system. In the OS, I saw that the OS recognized the attached hard disks, but did not recognize USB devices.

Rebooted it and got a similar result. It never displayed the POST screen, just booted.

Tried again, this time pressing the DEL key to try to go to the BIOS screen. Instead of the BIOS screen, it went to a blank blue screen. The system froze here, and could not be rebooted or powered off until the power supply was powered down.

Detached everything from the motherboard and tried with a minimal configuration - memory, video card, and keyboard. Got same results.

Tried reseeding the memory. Same result. Tried with only one memory module instead of two. Same result.

I decided to try to clear the CMOS. Turned off power, unplugged the PC, and connected the CLR_CMOS jumpers as instructed in the motherboard manual.

Since then, when I now power on, the PC beeps once and immediately goes to that blank blue screen. No POST, no booting, no nothing.

At this point, I'm not sure what to do. It seems likely to me that I got a bad board. But I'm not 100% sure. I guess it COULD be the PSU or possibly the CPU or memory.

I should say at this point -- the PSU was working fine with my old motherboard. And the CPU and memory were working fine on the previous motherboard.

I don't have another PSU to try. Just ordered one just to make sure that's not the problem. I wasn't sure what else to do.

Has anyone else experience something like this? Any ideas of what it might be and what I might try to fix it? Am I missing something here?

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3, Rev 3.0.
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Video: ASUS EN210 SILENT/DI/1GD3/V2(LP) GeForce 210 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
 

Hanok

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Jan 12, 2013
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I was getting a lot of sata-related errors with my old system. I thought it might be the motherboard (an ASUS M2N), though now I think it was actually a bad hard disk (its confirmed the disk was bad). Anyhow, I thought I'd upgrade a few things to be safe. Ordered a new motherboard, CPU, memory, and a couple new hard disks.

The new Gigabyte motherboard and the other stuff ran well for about a week, then I started getting more & more odd hardware exceptions & errors in the logs. The first of the new hard drives was dying, the second eventually died completely. I RMAd the two disks and the motherboard.

While waiting for the new stuff, I re-installed my old motherboard to use. It worked fine.

I guess this is why I'm a little confused. Why would so much equipment have failed with the Gigabyte? Perhaps the Power Supply? But then why does it work fine withe the ASUS motherboard?

And now the new, RMAd motherboard has immediately failed. It just seems very odd. Any thoughts?
 

Hanok

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Jan 12, 2013
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maybe bios too old with your cpu?

This motherboard and CPU are supposed to be compatible with each other, neither is particularly cutting edge--is it likely that the CPU would be incompatible with the bios? Why would the bios be old in a brand new motherboard? Is the blue screen the sort of effect one might expect if the CPU were incompatible with the bios?

Remember that it did boot initially, and only started going directly to the blue screen after I cleared the CMOS.

Also note that the previous copy of the motherboard before I exchanged it for the same model, booted fine and didn't seem to have any problem with the same CPU.


PSU is a suspect. Can you run HWmonitor or something like it to verify voltages?

Right now, as I mentioned, the system won't start at all so I can't run anything on it. The PSU was working OK just prior to installing the motherboard with my older model motherboard. Not to say it might not be suspect; the new CPU and motherboard have higher energy requirements than the old; but I was running the old system with the same PSU with 4 hard disks, the new system won't boot even with no disks attached.

I could remove the new motherboard and install the old motherboard again and try to see what the voltages are there (I don't have microsoft windows so I couldn't run HWmonitor which is a windows-only program I believe, but I think I could use lm-sensors on linux. However, I already ordered a new PSU which should arrive in a couple of days, I was thinking I might wait for that and try it with the new, non-starting motherboard. Does that make sense?

Has anyone had similar symptoms in their PC, getting this weird blue screen after clearing the CMOS? (note its not like the microsoft windows blue screen; this one is happening before any OS boots.)

I keep thinking maybe I did something wrong to cause this to happen. Is that possible? Like maybe I didn't put enough thermal grease on when I added the CPU? (I followed the instructions super closely, but is it possible I made a tiny mistake that caused this?) Or could I have hooked up the PSU wrong somehow? (don't see how). Or am I missing something?
 

Hanok

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Jan 12, 2013
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Well, I just got the new PSU. Installed it and...exact same result. System powers up and immediately displays a blank blue screen.

Anyone have any ideas?
 

Hanok

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Jan 12, 2013
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Please note the blue screen I am getting is not the classic microsoft windows "blue screen of death".... this happens before POST, so no operating system is involved.

Took out the CPU to inspect, no visible problems with it or with the CPU socket in the motherboard.

Tried booting with only one memory stick; got same result. Tried again using just the other memory stick; same result.

To reiterate, what happens is:

-Turn on PC with power button.
-Power supply fan goes on.
-CPU fan goes on (after a few seconds as cpu heats up).
-On screen, see black screen with a single blinking cursor for one second.
-There is a single, normal beep.
-Screen goes blue and that's it. I can power off using the power button.

Also note--if I try to boot with NO memory sticks, I get continuous beeping and nothing on the screen.

I have eliminated the PSU as a suspect, It seems likely its either the CPU or Motherboard. I don't have another compatible CPU or motherboard to test them individually though.
 

Hanok

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Jan 12, 2013
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Well, the new motherboard arrived today--I installed it with the cpu, memory, and power supply...and I still get the same result (starts, 1 beep, blinking cursor for a few moments, then a blank blue screen and nothing more).

Since I've tried it with two PSUs and two motherboards, and with each memory stick independently, right now it looks like the cpu is the culprit.
 

Hanok

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Jan 12, 2013
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To update this thread in case it helps someone else: I finally found out what was going on.

The problem was that Rev. 3.0 of this board ( the Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 ) has a new graphical bios. It turns out that the new bios has a problem with my video card -- it will not output anything if a monitor is attached to the HDMI port. If a monitor is attached to the VGA port AND ONLY the VGA port, it will work and display the POST screen and the bios menu.

Since I had no way of knowing this problem, when I reset my CMOS, the system would try to go to the bios menu... but since it could not display anything it just stopped there, while all I saw was a blank blue screen.

Now that I know the problem I can work around it by turning off my HDMI monitor and only having the VGA one on at boot if I need the bios menu.

I do not know if this issue affects more video card models besides my own (nvidia geforce 210 chipset).

Needless to say, I was not pleased with Gigabyte when I figured this out. I have reported the problem to them and they say they are looking into it. I sincerely hope they do fix this soon to spare someone else the tribulations I went though.