i7 980x motherboard woes...omg

It started a few weeks ago, My q9650 trucking along on a 4ghz overclock, everything seemed fine...then the California summer heat kicked in, and my home office, which is poorly air conditioned, became hot as hell.

Slowly and surely the CPU took a major dump and before you knew it, I was getting errors on all four cores. Even going back to default BIOS settings couldnt save the CPU.

So I went out and decided to get a new system, but first, a really good portable AC. I bought a 12,000 BTU ac and now the room is a nice 65 F all day long.

I decided to go with the i7 980x, figured I don't want to have to buy another computer upgrade for another 6 months-12months. I already have two ATI 5870's, so nothing changed there. I picked up 12gb of Patriot 1600mhz memory, and a EVGA x58 classified mobo.

Once it was all setup, the EVGA mobo didnt want to post. I tried this and that but all I received was a nice "68" code on the LCD and i sent it back.

Next round I bought an Gigabyte x58AUD3R, set it all back up and this time, it POST's! ok I thought I was getting somewhere. I immediately go into BIOS and go into the M.I.T. or whatever, to tweak voltage settings, cpu speed, etc. and the BIOS freezes...yah I know right...Ive never had a BIOS freeze in over 20 years. I reboot, clear CMOS, remove the battery, test different memory (even though this memory is brand new). So I reboot, which puts me in this weird looping reboot sequence where my keyboards LED's flicker over and over until it reboots again and again. I had to clear CMOS, remove the memory, boot, then shut down, put the memory in and reboot to POST. I enter BIOS again, and I can change EVERYTHING, I just cant select the M.I.T.s screen otherwise it freezes.

I go into windows, and everything seems fine. I check temps on CPU, they seem fine. I check temps on GPU and I notice the GPU is running much hotter than normal. A quick glance into my case and I can understand why, the GPU's sit practically on top of each other, unlike my old mobo the Gigabyte ud3p where there was like a inch between them.

I have random errors, tiny apps freezing, windows "not responding" to "end process", I can't play BF2 I get this punkbuster "heartbeat stopped error" , and my memory reports that its only running at 1066 not 1600, attempting to turn it up via the included Gigabyte overclocking tool makes the computer go into the crazy looping reboot sequence again.

I contacted Gigabyte, who told me "it be memory controller problem, easy fix to, go BIOS, select M.I.T. and change memory voltage and set to 1.7 not 1.5, if not work, take older CPU and put in, then flash BIOS, then put your 980x CPU back in and everything work fine"

Well aside from the horrible english, he must not have read in the email when I wrote, " I can access everything in BIOS just fine EXCEPT M.I.T. page"....

The secondary solution was to simply grab a CPU that I don't have and use *that* one to do a BIOS update, then put mine back in.....riiiiight.

Anyways I have two questions,

One , what is the hands down best, least headache, gauranteed to support my i7 980x CPU (with overclocking ability on the board as well) ?

and TWO:

if you see the pic below, I can't imagine that everyone is running the GPU's sandwhiched so close to each other like I am, is there an extension Crossfire cable so I can run the second card in the slot on the bottom of the board?

btw, I have a Level 10 case, some large motherboards may not fit.

please o please help a brother out!

I suppose the obvious thing is to run with one gfx card. If that don't work then maybe a power supply issue or mbd/gfx/hdd connection prob (cable trouble, intermittent connection?). I've used the UD7 mbd with no issues on my 980x including the M.I.T.

Not much............but maybe......

I notice that in your mbd pic the mbd main cable is bent over a bit hard or is that a trick of the picture?

I have a asus rampage iii and I know at least the way the crossfire is set up it goes top pcie and 3rd pcie so there would be a space in between

@ THE_SOURCE41 , yes after reading that the choice for me is very limited, I bought a ASUS rampage extreme III off of Newegg, it was that, or another EVGA classified, the gigabyte UD9 ($700!), and for a brief second I even considered the Intel "smackover" mobo, it looks decent, price is right, but the four memory dimms killed it for me, I will end up with 24gb of memory within the next month or so, I couldnt live with *only* 16gb lol. The UD7 looked like a good choice until I read in two different places that if you happen to get one that was manufactered before 04/15/2010 then it had a BIOS that did not yet support the 980x, and hence, would put me in the same spot I'm currently in.

Also the bent mobo cable is because I have the level 10 case, the wires are fed from behind the motherboard, it has really nice cable management system integrated into the design

Exempt said:

@ THE_SOURCE41 , The UD7 looked like a good choice until I read in two different places that if you happen to get one that was manufactered before 04/15/2010 then it had a BIOS that did not yet support the 980x, and hence, would put me in the same spot I'm currently in.

Also the bent mobo cable is because I have the level 10 case, the wires are fed from behind the motherboard, it has really nice cable management system integrated into the design

Click to expand...

I was more concerned that you had a cable problem (hdd/gfx/mbd) and/or bad connection to the mbd or a PSU problem (stability?). The overheating of the gfx might cause random failures also, and running with one gfx card might cure the problems and give you food for thought about repositioning said gfx cards.

Regards the UD7, i wasn't trying to persuade you to buy one only that it supports the 980x since F4 or F6 bios (currently going through F7r).

newhit said:

I was more concerned that you had a cable problem (hdd/gfx/mbd) and/or bad connection to the mbd or a PSU problem (stability?). The overheating of the gfx might cause random failures also, and running with one gfx card might cure the problems and give you food for thought about repositioning said gfx cards.

Regards the UD7, i wasn't trying to persuade you to buy one only that it supports the 980x since F4 or F6 bios (currently going through F7r).

Click to expand...

Im on the same page, I did notice yesterday that the northbridge got very hot due to the GPU running hot, which may have increased chances of having random errors. And I knew you were not trying to pursuade me , I was just saying that I did in fact consider it as a completely viable option, it does say on the Gigabyte website that it supports it, and quiet a few people have it with the 980x, I was just saying that with my luck, I'd get an older BIOS one lol.