Advice on "borked" Gigabyte GA-X58A-OC motherboard.

[PolRoger]

Something happened to my board two days ago.

My setup had a BSOD and when I rebooted into BIOS... My saved overclock setting were gone and instead of showing BIOS optimal defaults I noticed a few strange settings in BIOS??

I shut the system down until I had time to further investigate the issue yesterday. Unfortunately the board now fails to save settings into BIOS??

I can load up either "optimal" or "fail-safe" defaults but when you try to save and exit... The board always fails to successfully post.

It will try and post/cycle ~2/3 times and then it posts to BIOS but always with a failed overclock/voltage warning. The board is actually running at base stock defaults.

I swapped out the cpu from a 980X to a 920, swapped out different memory kits and even power supplies. I also re-flashed the BIOS. I left the board with the CMOS battery out and the power supply disconnected overnight but nothing seems to solve this issue?

The board always has these weird overclock settings saved/stuck in BIOS after the failed post/cycle attempts... Trying to manually change specific settings in BIOS doesn't seem to work either?

BIOS now shows... CPU clock ratio: 20x, Uncore multi: 16x, Base clock control enabled, bclk: 200, XMP enabled: Profile 1, Memory multi: 8x, LLC Control: Level 2. It also defaults certain stock voltage settings to higher non-stock values??


What are my options for trying to get this board running normally again?

I'm pretty sure the board is out of warranty... Do you think that it could still be repaired by Gigabyte at my expense?

 

[Johan45]

Have you tried a new battery? Sounds to me like the main bios is messed up. Those chips are soldered aren't they?

 

[EarthDog]

Agreed.. sounds like a borked bios.. I would try a new battery as well.

I have never reached otu to giga with a board post warranty so no idea if they will fix anything even if its paid. Email them and see.

 

[mimart7]

Swap the battery, and see if you can reflash the bios, before you reach out to the manufacturer.

 

[PolRoger]

I was also thinking about a messed up BIOS being the source as well.

It had BIOS F5E installed when the issue first began. Yesterday I downloaded BIOS F5D from the Gigabyte website and flashed the BIOS from a USB stick but it didn't seem to fix the problem.

I just swapped out with a brand new CMOS battery and re-flashed with BIOS F5D again... Still no luck.

The board has Dual BIOS but you can only flash to the main BIOS chip and (yes Johan)... Both chips are soldered in place.

 

[Johan45]

Bummer, those pop in ones are handy, you could be up and running with a weeks wait and new chip from Ebay. You could always try a forced flash from DOS. Check the commands for your bios version(AMI/Award) and clear / write everything

 

[PolRoger]

Well I took the new CMOS battery out again and cleared CMOS letting it sit for about 10 min. I went to the Gigabyte website and downloaded another BIOS: F5B.

Re-Installed the battery, booted into BIOS and immediately flashed to the new BIOS after which I then tried to load and save optimal defaults...

This time the board actually posted but the weird overclock settings are still there.

 

[Johan45]

That's some progress any way but it still seems iffy

 

[PolRoger]

That's some progress any way but it still seems iffy

Yes...very much so.

I still can't change those "stuck" settings... Its like part of the BIOS auto rules for a certain/particular overclock setting has somehow gotten frozen in place?

I went and swapped the motherboard out on this set up over to an EVGA Classified. The X58A-OC is now sitting on the shelf with the CMOS battery out. I'll try it again in a day or so.