New problems & Bad things to say about Gigabyte

[nekulturny]

Well, I'm starting to wonder if I'm destined for bad luck the more I progress into the IT field and my education. (I'm a first year IST Major)

Working with a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5
Full system specs available on member configuration page.
Last week I had a RAM module die in my new build, Corsair is sending me a replacement under warranty. Great, no complaints with them, very friendly on the phone.

Friday morning, boot up my computer, during my morning smoke, and my usual "I just woke up, dont bother me" mood, I am greeted by this:

arning: MAIN BIOS CHECKSUM ERROR!
Retrieving recovery source from HPA..HPA BIOS not available!!
Retreiving recovery source from Back BIOS.... Done!
Writing BIOS Image.....K OK

The computer cycles and this repeated endlessly. No, I have not recently flashed the BIOS, in fact, the computer worked fine when I shut it off the night before. Frustrated, I immediately call up Gigabyte (mind you I'm one of those people who don't fully wake up for a good hour in the morning), so I was slightly curt with the man I spoke with, although, he wasn't any more friendly than I was....

I told him about my RAM that died last week, and I informed him that I suspect based on this current issue that the motherboard not only killed itself, but was responsible for killing my RAM module last week. (whether thats true or not, I'm not certain) He informed me that I should try new RAM modules. Which I did, I have a set of Kingston Hyper 4GBs.. I pull the battery to clear CMOS, and huzza! NEW SYMPTOM.

Try to boot it up again with the backup RAM, not only does it not work, but now theres NO VIDEO. DISPLAY What do you think guys? Dead MOBO? Odd for it to happen after scarcely a month of operation? I know I'm getting a replacement, but its one of those things I want to pick at and solve. Sounds crazy, I'm not actually upset the computer died (its good educational experience for me after all), so much as I'm annoyed by the lackluster product support from the manufacturer.

I have tested my Power supply, the power supply is good as far as I can tell. The Gigabyte guy advised me to call TigerDirect and get a return, considering my dealings with their "tech rep", I told TigerDirect not to send me another Gigabyte product. I ordered an Asus Sabertooth 990FX. TigerDirect was great, they will refund the cost of the Gigabyte board as soon as they receive it. They gave me free 2nd day air UPS for the new MOBO and the return shipping of the Gigabyte board is on them.

Any thoughts, comments, concerns, flamings in my stupidity, or how I lack a future in PC Repair are welcome. Seriously, whats going on with this board that I haven't thought of? Why does it just decide to die one night?

 

[nekulturny]

Just bad luck man. Unfortunately, it happens sometimes. I would also verify ram compatibility. Yes, I know its 2012, but sometimes you can be surprised...

Checked the RAM compatibility, the Corsair 8GB modules aren't on there, but it says "due to massive modules on the market we can only verify some of them". The Kingston 4GB modules are on the list, and so are Corsair models, I'm not particularly surprised that the 8GB Corsair model isn't on there, theres no other 8GB modules on the list either from other brands. But the board does support 4x 8GB nevertheless.

The Kingston modules are 1.65 volt and the Corsair Vengences are 1.5, they are both 1600mhz speed. Considering the Kingston runs at a higher voltage, I'm assuming its probably overclocked 1333 or something silly. Its good RAM though, I have it for diagnostics.

 

[ashdeman]

Sounds like its just one of those things that happens, unfortunately. I have always had good experiences with Gigabyte boards though. Mind you, I have never rang the customer support before.

I was annoyed with Corsair when I returned my 4GB Dominator DDR2 memory. They said the product was no longer in production but they would send me an equivalent product. I ended up receiving 4GB of XMS2 which runs at 800Mhz, i'm not sure how that could be equivalent to my 1066Mhz Dominator modules!

 

[nekulturny]

Sounds like its just one of those things that happens, unfortunately. I have always had good experiences with Gigabyte boards though. Mind you, I have never rang the customer support before.

I was annoyed with Corsair when I returned my 4GB Dominator DDR2 memory. They said the product was no longer in production but they would send me an equivalent product. I ended up receiving 4GB of XMS2 which runs at 800Mhz, i'm not sure how that could be equivalent to my 1066Mhz Dominator modules!

LOL, yea, that wouldn't make me happy either, you should have called them back and tried to work with em on that. Maybe I just caught a new guy who hadn't yet learned the "proper policy" (screw the customer as best as you can get away with).

 

[ashdeman]

LOL, yea, that wouldn't make me happy either, you should have called them back and tried to work with em on that. Maybe I just caught a new guy who hadn't yet learned the "proper policy" (screw the customer as best as you can get away with).

Yeah I should have got back in touch with them, I just couldn't be bothered with all of the hassle of sending things off and playing the waiting game again lol. I understand what you mean about the new guy thing, one guy in a bad mood can shatter the whole image of the company.

 

[nekulturny]

Update: The Asus Sabertooth is in, for sure now the Gigabyte MOBO was the problem. My computer is up and running. I do have a couple questions though:

Its a Sabertooth 990FX

1. When booting up the computer, I'll get a message saying "Detecting Drives.... none detected".. This will cycle twice, and then boot up windows normally as it should... Kinda odd.. Whys it doing that?

2. I don't know if its just problems with my internet service.. but I'm having to load pages a couple times to get them to work. They keep giving me the usual "cannot find page" blah blah type messages. I updated the LAN driver from the Asus website, the board did not have functional LAN out of the box.

 

[nekulturny]

Open the command prompt and "ping google.com -t". If your connection drops and you are still getting pongs back, you have a DNS issue. Next do the same thing with your router's IP address (ex "ping 192.168.1.1 -t"). If you are still getting pongs when it drops, you may have an issue with your service.

Looks like its neither of those. But everything is running okay today. Maybe it was a fluke, thanks.

As far as the other thing, the cycling twice, far as I can tell its looking for the 2 3GB/s sats (theres nothing plugged into those). Gotta figure out how to shut them off, this EUFI BIOS is new to me.

 

[nekulturny]

Well, maybe not a fluke.. Looks like the internet is still kinda hinky. I did the pings like you said, and as far as I can tell the results are normal.

Couple examples -Running yahoo messenger download/installer. It failed a couple times.

- Using the forums here I get a 500 server error message (I know thats the catch-all).

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Any ideas? Doesn't seem to be happening on my laptop.

Also, I reinstalled windows after a format last night. When I set up it my network, it didn't ask for my router's password (which is always has), I thought that was strange. I'm a complete noob when it comes to networking.

 

[nekulturny]

Make sure you aren't connected to your neighbor's open network or something.

That would be something wouldn't it? Its a wired LAN, as far as I know this mobo has no wireless capabilities. Aliens?