ga-x58a-ud3r died

last night my gigabyte motherboard stopped posting after only 5 weeks of use. no beeps, it just powers up, the leds for the memory light up and it just sits there and wont post. i reset the cmos, didnt work. i am fairly certain it is the mobo, just to be certain, how should i go about diagnosing this problem?

alot of the comments on newegg talk about other people having similar problems with this mobo. its just outside neweggs return policy period so i guess i'll have to rma it with the manufacturer. such a pain in my ***.

i was looking at replacing it with a evga mobo. i am considering these two, but they appear to be identical except for the price. does anyone know what the differences between these two boards are?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188039

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188046


edit* just researched it the more expensive one has a limited lifetime warranty. otherwise identical.

I think I would try reseating all the power connectors before sending it for RMA, and even try using just one stick of mem. I hate waiting for rma equipment to return, and would like to know I tried everything before going that route

wow thats a shame. I have a ud3r right now and I love it. hope that doesnt happen to me! I would reseat power connectors, try with one stick of ram, remove cmos battery (bat) then put it back in, try all different parts too if you can. the geek squad at best buy has a mobo test to see if its the problem. you could ask them to run that on ur comp for u. it basically runs a diag to see if ur mobo is posting normally. it let me know that my old msi x58m died. go ask them

the cpu fan stopped working. it starts to spin when i press the power button but then stops. does that mean something? could it be the cpu?

I would guess that it isnt the chip, although I had 2 baords that wont boot with 1 proc but will with another, funny thing is both chips work in another board. had that happen 2 different times with totally different chips. dont think that is your issue as it was working before with the same chip.

it would also sometimes take a few attempts to post before it posted successfully, even at stock settings. alarms should have gone off with that and i should have returned it to newegg when i had the chance.

oh well live and learn, looks like i'll have to rma it with gigabyte for a replacement. im getting the evga mobo so i'll either build another pc with the replacement or sell it for dirt cheap to recoup some of my loss.

Do you have a way to check your PSU that could be the fault also.

Remove the Motherboard from the case

Reseat the cpu, ram, psu and video card. Leave everything else disconnected. Does it post?

i did reseat everything except the cpu. the psu is the xfx 850watt black ed and it is new so it is unlikely to be that.

i was stressing gtx 470sli with kombustor to check the temperature. i decided to replace the tim to see if the temps could drop a few degrees. so when i was finished with kombustor i manualy set the fan speed to 100% for about 3-4 minutes to cool down the cards quicker. i replaced the tim and then reinserted the cards and no post. i swapped out the gpus with my 5770 and still no post. every few powerups would cause my 5770's fan to run at max. as well the cpu fan fails to run, though this could be because i reset the cmos and it is set to smart fan.

could this stressing of the the gtx470sli have caused damage to something?

my system was oced to 200x19 cpu at 1.250 vcore. ram at 1.65v, qpi 1.295v

maybe quick cooling the heat from the cards damaged the pci ports. but the gpu pcb's dont get hot.

fundip said:

i did reseat everything except the cpu. the psu is the xfx 850watt black ed and it is new so it is unlikely to be that.

i was stressing gtx 470sli with kombustor to check the temperature. i decided to replace the tim to see if the temps could drop a few degrees. so when i was finished with kombustor i manualy set the fan speed to 100% for about 3-4 minutes to cool down the cards quicker. i replaced the tim and then reinserted the cards and no post. i swapped out the gpus with my 5770 and still no post. every few powerups would cause my 5770's fan to run at max. as well the cpu fan fails to run, though this could be because i reset the cmos and it is set to smart fan.

could this stressing of the the gtx470sli have caused damage to something?

my system was oced to 200x19 cpu at 1.250 vcore. ram at 1.65v, qpi 1.295v

maybe quick cooling the heat from the cards damaged the pci ports. but the gpu pcb's dont get hot.

Click to expand...

Firstly let me say I have never had any problems what-so-ever with this Gigabyte board, But........I did have exactly the same problem with one of my ATI 4850's after changing the HS&F on it, all that would happen is the fan would spin at full speed on the GFX card, no post, turns out I killed the GFX card.

your only option is to test these items seperatly on a different machine, especially your PSU and GFX card.

Another thing you could try is either pick up a cheap and nasty 450w PSU, and plug it into your motherboard, remove the GFX card and remove your current PSU, see if things spin up, obviously you wont get any post without the GFX card place, but it shold all still spin up, hard drives fans, LED's etc.

i installed the evga mobo and everything works. i think i just got a defective product, it happens.

the gigabyte board was stuttering at post from the start and whatever part was the cause went after five weeks of use.

if you had no problems with the ud3r then this maybe an unfortunate fluke. it seems like a really good board for the price especially with the future proofed i/o. but it crapped out on me.

i am rmaing it with gigabyte so i'll be getting a replacement, hopefully new, in a few weeks. if i cant get a good price for it i'll just hang onto it until i get enough scratch to build with it, since i already have a 5770 i cant get rid of. it would make a really good htpc.

test your new parts and send them back to the supplier if they have any hiccups.

update

from gygabite

"Dear Valued Customer,

We appreciate you being patient with us.

We have finished testing your GIGABYTE product(s) and it is (they are) being returned back to you. "

from this email it seems like they "tested" it and found it to be normal/my fault. i guess their products are designed to fail after a few weeks of normal use. either that or this is the standard computer generated email. i'll find out when the package arrives if they have returned this defective mobo to me or replaced it.

That is the same response I received when my bios flash failed and my pc would not post. When I received my board the bios was replaced with a version that was not posted on the Gigabyte site, so they did fix my board. I think it's just a standard response from Gigabyte. Tell me how it goes with you?

wingman99 said:

That is the same response I received when my bios flash failed and my pc would not post. When I received my board the bios was replaced with a version that was not posted on the Gigabyte site, so they did fix my board. I think it's just a standard response from Gigabyte. Tell me how it goes with you?

Click to expand...

just got it back today. there is sticker on the side of the box that says "repair". and the packing slip has F.O.C. on it which i assume means fully operational compliant. there is no explaination of what was wrong with it or how it was fixed. i just sent them an email asking about it, but given their customer service track record, i doubt i will get an apt reply.

it seems that someone at least looked at it because it was repacked rather thoughtlessly with all the cables placed underneath the board and the original interior cardboard support was replaced with one that was not designed for this box. the antistatic bag is also different.

its a shame i have no way to test it being that i already replaced it with an evga mobo. right now i am debating on whether to keep it for a future build or just sell it fast to recoup some cash. any ideas on how i can get this tested without buying more hardware?

their reply,

"Dear customer,



The motherboard tested without any issue. Our engineers were able to install Windows 7 and ran different diagnostics for more the 24 hours with no trouble found.



Thank you"

does anybody see any hardware in my sig that would be incompatible with a gigabyte motherboard and cause a post failure? i used to run an ati5770, that is the only difference. it worked fine on this setup for 5 weeks with only minor issues.

*edit
i have read on another forum about the ga-x58-ud3r post malfunction. someone wrote that it may be related to pc3 12800 ram. has anyone here experienced this or swapped in a different class of ram that solve this post failure problem?

here is the link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/256094-30-ex58-ud3r-failure-debugging

there are a lot of angry gigabyte customers on this thread that this link leads to.

I was just over at tweak town the official Gigabyte form and a person was complaining about his squealing on his GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard. The senior member told him 600w power supply is not enough and he has the incorect brand of PSU, just pass the buck pleas for the design flaw or defective parts.


I don't think there is a way to test your board without CPU, memory, PSU, video card. The cheapest and easiest thing to do is just sell it. Like they say it's been tested, so you should be safe.

a psu is causing squealing from the mother board? wow thats out there. how can a psu be incompatible? as long as its atx it should work if its not defective. 600w is quite enough to post. am i wrong?

could you link that thread for me?

gigabyte customer service has been aweful. i got an email telling me to call the indian tech support who will most likely tell me that there is nothing wrong with the board(its supposed to not post from time to time) or to do another rma and pay $15 for shipping again.

that was the last time i buy anything with a gigabyte brand and i will be sure to tell others to avoid this company.

this problem with post failure and boot loop seems to be a prevelant issue with these motherboards from what i can tell from forums and even on the newegg reviews(newegg gave this board an award even though it has so many bad reviews). its astonishing that in the couple years this chipset has been produced the problem wasnt fixed.

i am really tempted to organize a lawsuit against gigabyte over this. but maybe its too early for that. first i need to figure out exactly what is wrong with this board and find out if it is as prevelent as i think it is.

$225 down the drain. thanks gigabyte.

Here is the link:http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/design-flaw-ga-x58a-ud3r-39697/