Gigabyte G1 sniper a88x with 860k proccesor woes

[drkcyde]

I just bought a Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X (rev 3.0) and tried to put an AMD Athlon X4 860K processor in it. This processor is listed as an operational processor for the rev 3.0 of this mobo which is the one I have. Everything powers on fine, power/reset button work, all fans work, graphics card works, all board led's work but it will not load bios.

I have checked CPU pins to make sure none are bent or broken
I have reseated both the 8-pin 12v connector and 24-pin main motherboard connector twice, as well as the graphics card 4-pin power supply
I have tried each stick of ram individually
I have removed the battery and cleared the cmos via cmos clear connector

I strongly feel this board is not booting because of an outdated bios version but I would like feedback from the community as to what the problem may possibly be. Also, will I have to buy and older cheaper processor just to update the Bios!? (tell me there is a way around this) -Thx!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Do you know what BIOS that board shipped with?

 

[drkcyde]

The manufacturer claims bios version F8, but I have no way of knowing for sure as the bios screen will not load. I can tell you that rev 3.0 is printed on the side of the board which according to my motherboard manual says it is compatible with AMD ATHLON X4 860K, which is exactly what I'm trying to run on it.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Well that board could have shipped with F1, F5, or F8 being Rev 3.0. If you don't know the manufacture date then we can't tell you exactly.

It is compatible, with BIOS F8.

Does that board have replaceable BIOS chips?

 

[drkcyde]

The only replacable chip I see is labeled as the operational amplifier. I don't think it has replacable bios chips

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Do you have a different GPU you could try?
Just an idea before going and buying a different CPU.

 

[Johan45]

It doesn't look like you have any option to update BIOS without being able to enter it. You might be able to get a PC shop to flash it for you, hard to say. One thing that struck me as odd was you mention the graphics card 4 pin connector. Any that I know of either take a 6 or 8 pin connection.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

One thing that struck me as odd was you mention the graphics card 4 pin connector. Any that I know of either take a 6 or 8 pin connection.

Good catch there, I missed that in my "lacking proper amounts of coffee" time of the morning

 

[RGone]

Nothing is ever etched in concrete, but we have been seeing "most" of these later APU mobos that do boot with just about any of the later cpus and boot far enough to flash the bios. According to the Giga site, the F8 bios is needed for full support. OP says manufacturer says the board has F8 bios on it. This begins to seem like it is not a bios issue at all.

For booting the ram and cpu must be good. Cpu first then ram. Cpu must unpack the bios to ram to boot. THEN I have had this catch me a few times and that is the Usb keyboard is plugged into a Usb port that is not yet initialized during boot up. My CHV has a "primary" Usb port for the keyboard. Says so in my manual. Perhaps there is a most likely primary Usb port for the Sniper FM2+ mobo?

Additionally if there were a bootable Usb stick in a NON-Usb 3.0 port then if the board is 'good' or mostly working in its' current condition, I would believe the board would locate the bootable Usb stick without user intervention and boot to that Usb stick. You could even flash the bios like that if done according to Giga bios flash information.

Barring any real progress, I would be making sure I purchased ram that is on Giga's supported list or some GSkill and if my ram passed such scrutiny...would likely be RMAing the board and cpu and maybe even the ram. Get out of the rut and on to a working system.
RGone...ster.

 

[drkcyde]

Well, I ended up caving and buying a processor (only $40) that is listed to work on their F1 bios version. Gigabyte has the rev 3.0 model of this board listed as either F5, F7, or F8 depending on when the board was manufactured which I can't be sure of so I figured buying an older processor was worth the try. It should be here tomorrow or Thursday and I will post letting every know if the outdated Bios is indeed the problem (which I still highly suspect). I checked the manual and there is no indication of a primary usb slot so I don't think that was an issue either. I have no other GPU, the one I'm running is an R7 265, it has a green indication led on it which illuminates and the fans spin which leads me to believe it also is working but it is definatly possible its bad. Lastly my ram is g skill sniper ddr3 1333 and is listed as accepted ram. Fingers crossed for the new cpu to work.

 

[RGone]

Hope the cpu fixes it. Heck putting the cpu/APU in and it booting and you getting into bios to see which bios version is in place, might show the APU you got with the board is bad. Either way you should see some sort of progress.
RGone...ster.

 

[drkcyde]

FIXED, I put in the older cpu and everything booted right up. It was on bios version F7 I updated it to bios F8 and put in the cpu I originaly ordered and it all works great. Thans everyone for the help.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

That's great news! Thanks for the update!

 

[RGone]

FIXED, I put in the older cpu and everything booted right up. It was on bios version F7 I updated it to bios F8 and put in the cpu I originaly ordered and it all works great. Thans everyone for the help.

Great man. Odd some boards go right to working and another makes a pig of itself wanting another cpu and bios update to work. Crazy arse puters.
RGone...ster.