GA-970A-D3 rev 3.0 : No POST/Boot (Blank screen)

[DocKate]

I had just gotten a replacement motherboard last week, it didn't boot at all, I had it shipped back to Amazon for a replacement board, and funnily enough I have the exact same problem. Tried both RAM channels, RAM from another desktop, graphics card either of 6790 or 7770, PCI-E slot for graphics card, I've used an Athlon II 240 and Phenom II 925, so I can verify the issue exists only with the motherboard. The question is, what is the problem with Gigabyte that I have received two motherboards with the exact same problem?

[Vezina]

What is the power supply used ?!

[DocKate]

Bgears 650W / Antec 650W. Both of them have been load checked, so I know they aren't a cause.

[S3mt3X]

Hi there, I had a similar problem when using a HDMI cable through my HD7770 (stupped me for a whole day, as I couldn't even access the bios) the fix that worked for me was to use an old VGA cable (DVI to VGA adapter) to access bios. I have a GA-990XA-UD3 (rev. 3.0) and every time I want to change bios settings I have to use a VGA cable (I think its something to do with the bios's native resolution) it would of been nice for Gigabyte to explain this somewhere, as I was thinking there was something wrong with my bios. I hope this helps you.

[DocKate]

Hi there, I had a similar problem when using a HDMI cable through my HD7770 (stupped me for a whole day, as I couldn't even access the bios) the fix that worked for me was to use an old VGA cable (DVI to VGA adapter) to access bios. I have a GA-990XA-UD3 (rev. 3.0) and every time I want to change bios settings I have to use a VGA cable (I think its something to do with the bios's native resolution) it would of been nice for Gigabyte to explain this somewhere, as I was thinking there was something wrong with my bios. I hope this helps you.

There is something wrong with the BIOS if you can't use a digital cable and have to use a stripping converter to receive an image from the board. Glad that you found a workaround, unfortunately I can't say the same worked for me. I used a Dell 17" CRT, eMachines 17" LCD, and a Dell 24" LCD, all with their VGA cabling. GPU in the image is an HIS 6790.



It should also be noted that Gigabyte's northbridge packaging gets fairly hot (close to boiling) which to me suggests bad electrics on top of a bad design which makes it seemingly common for other people. I haven't had a northbridge get that hot since I had an Nvidia motherboard...

[Vezina]

It should also be noted that Gigabyte's northbridge packaging gets fairly hot (close to boiling) which to me suggests bad electrics on top of a bad design which makes it seemingly common for other people. I haven't had a northbridge get that hot since I had an Nvidia motherboard...

The chipset is as hot as it s predecessors from the AMD7xx or AMD 8xx chipset families.
The heat-sink and thermal used could of been better no doubt.
But this should not be a problem for stability.
You can undervolt the chipset from BIOS , you may be able to drop it to around 1,0V with some drop in temperatures.
No,you won t get the temps of the VIA KT333 chipsets ,neither the ones of the new AMD A55/A75/A85 chipsets which are practically cold as ice.