• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

GIGABYTE GA-EP45 Continually powering on and off....HELP!

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Element-Xero

Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2001
Location
Nothingness is Everything.
Recently put together a build with a GIGABYTE GA-EP45 / Q6600. After it booted successfully I started idely playing with the BIOS. I was out of blank DVDs so I couldn't burn my Windows 7 iso until later but still felt the need to screw around a little.

Anyways long story short, I set the vcore to 1.356 and bumped up the FSB to 300, giving me 2.7GHz, or a 300MHz overclock. It wasn't a legitimate OC, and I know that's a huge bump to give it without incrementally testing stability, adding more volts, etc, but I figured I'll just clear the CMOS if it won't POST.

So I saved the settings in the BIOS, and it powers down...then turns back on for 3 seconds...then powers down...then turns back on for 3 seconds...forever.

Cleared the CMOS, same behavior. I can't POSSIBLY imagine that the mobo was somehow fried by a measly 300MHz overclock. I could see if I got a weak chip that might not be able to boot on a 300MHz OC, and certainly not at stock voltage, but never that it would DESTROY my motherboard somehow!

Anyone have any idea what might be going on here?
 
Last edited:
Welcome to owning a gigabyte p45 MB, they are pigs.

Try swapping the ram between channels and switching the PSU off right after it attempts to boot, eventually it will boot up. These things have major booting problems and can take a while to fire up. I try to leave mine on as long as possible to avoid it deciding to not boot.

In any case, after a good bit of tinkering you -should- be able to get it up and running again. It's not really due to the OC (although OCing it hard can make it act up as well), just the MB being a pig. I run mine between 3.0 and 3.2 daily and 4ghz+ during benching, and it works fine other than the boot issues. I have a EP45-UD3R and a Q6600.

Hope you get it fixed.

EDIT: what graphics card are you using by chance?
 
Have you tried pulling the battery for a few minutes? There may be some nvram
locations that aren't under control of the clear cmos jumper on boards with an
"AC back after power failure" option. (ie latchable general purpose outputs
that in combination with the momentary power switch, and some simple logic
on the motherboard, enable these kinds of features.)

I have seen failed overclocks corrupt CMOS, and under extreme circumstances,
even corrupt the BIOS, not to mention hard disk partitions. GIGO. If it's a failed BIOS,
you might be able to get it back using the boot block recovery method.

My initial gut reaction though, as I have seen this before, is that the PSU has issues.
Have a spare to test with?
 
Have you tried pulling the battery for a few minutes?

Yep :/


If it's a failed BIOS,
you might be able to get it back using the boot block recovery method.

Cliffs or link to this? I'm not familiar with that term.

My initial gut reaction though, as I have seen this before, is that the PSU has issues.
Have a spare to test with?

Unfortunately no, but I work at a software company full of nerds so maybe I can find someone who has one laying around.
 
There is a setting it doesnt like somehow...this is the ONLY problem with this near perfect board.

Try switching the memory around (slots) and see if that will prompt it to boot.

I HIGHLY doubt its a PSU issue.
 
There is a setting it doesnt like somehow...this is the ONLY problem with this near perfect board.

Try switching the memory around (slots) and see if that will prompt it to boot.

I HIGHLY doubt its a PSU issue.

So this is something that happens to people a lot with this board? Again...somewhat comforting. I can't wait to swap the memory and screw with the PSU when I get home...I was fairly certain I was going to have to deal with the hassle of an RMA.
 
I also highly doubt it's an issue with the power supply, as like I said, this issue started the second I saved settings to CMOS. I'll still try messing with it since it was said that shutting it off as the system comes up can resolve the issue sometimes...
 
Okay, so I tried ****ing around with the memory channels, powering it off via the PSU switch during the boot attempt, and that's about it. I know people keep saying to "tinker with it" but all of these new mobos are jumperless and basically 100% BIOS-config driven. If there's a setting that's "stuck" somehow, I can't change it unless it boots, which is an annoying catch-22.

Any other suggestions? I really don't see a lot of options here in terms of troubleshooting....
 
Some more info: I know I am successfully clearing the cmos because if I close the connection it won't turn on, but the second I remove the jumper it powers back on...then right back down again.

Also if I unplug the PCIE power connector from my graphics card it DOES sound the alarm, but only for the tiny period when it's on.


I have to say I am really irritated that everyone insists on saying its a nearly perfect board, despite the tiny little known fact that it will randomly decide to STOP WORKING ENTIRELY. >_<
 
Take out the battery for a day and leave the clear cmos jumper on.

I also find that yelling at it helps a bit. Might be that I was doing other things while I was yelling but yelling helps IMO.

EDIT: if you have a PCI graphics card anywhere, pop that in and use it.
 
Take out the battery for a day and leave the clear cmos jumper on.

I also find that yelling at it helps a bit. Might be that I was doing other things while I was yelling but yelling helps IMO.

EDIT: if you have a PCI graphics card anywhere, pop that in and use it.


Couldn't hurt I suppose, I have nothing else I can possibly throw at this until I can get an RMA.
 
If by chance you can get a refund for it I'd go for that. I'm not quite fond of my UD3R but I got no cash to do anything about it. :(

Might be able to pick up a deal on a not junk motherboard (See: Not a gigabyte) in the FS section.
 
Weirdly, with the battery out and the CMOS jumper closed, it powers on (crazy already, I've only ever seen a closed CMOS reset jumper PREVENT powering on) and STAYS ON (!). If I remove the CMOS jumper, boom instantly (without touching the pwr switch) on off on off on off x11ty.

I dunno I guess I'll try this kooky **** with the jumper closed and the battery out and the power cable pulled out.
 
Last edited:
My last Gigabyte board had no jumper unless you wanted to clear cmos refer to your manual
 
My last Gigabyte board had no jumper unless you wanted to clear cmos refer to your manual


Yeah that's what I'm saying is annoying.

I miss my old Epox board with 20 effing DIP switches to control voltage, multis, and fsb :attn:

My GPU waterblock sprung a leak on that thing and it never missed a beat after the initial short. Crazy terrible manual translating Koreans made some god damn tanks.
 
I have to say I am really irritated that everyone insists on saying its a nearly perfect board, despite the tiny little known fact that it will randomly decide to STOP WORKING ENTIRELY. >_<

Usually the easiest way to troubleshoot a faulty component is with spare parts, swapping parts in and out until the problem component has been isolated. Without that, it's just guessing, although those of us with years of experience doing this can usually make an educated guess based on our past experiences.

I think that's why some people get upset when there's a CPU socket change, video card slot change, RAM standard change, etc, because we know we might need spares to troubleshoot new builds. :)

It doesn't happen often, but I have seen situations where a particular motherboard and power supply combination just won't work reliably for whatever reason and changing one or the other results in perfectly normal operation. It's just one of those things. Problems can range from not powering up, powering up but failing to POST, powering off unexpectedly, and of course, the problem you describe, intermittent operation.

Have you tried removing the motherboard from the case, installing the minimum needed to operate the PC (CPU RAM VIDEO KB) to see if the problem goes away? This removes the possibility of a case short, and reduces the load to minimum.
 
Back