IF everybody else with reboot problems on a X99 check if they have bent pins in the socket we may get a more clear view of this ... is it firmware or is it a problem with this socket?
Since so many users - and even a reviewer on PC magazine experienced this ... it is worth documenting. May be the blame can be put on the socket design. I do not know if other board makers received the same complaints. However, my new board - all though not Gigabyte works ... i.e. no bent pins (this time?)
"So now you know. If you buy a Gigabyte X99 you have a risk of getting bent CPU pins - and worse, Gigabyte will not claim responsibility for it. Or is it a problem with all vendors of X99 boards. You could try go with MSI or may be Asrock instead. May be even ASUS. I did and can recommend the MSI XPower X99 - which comes at a good price as well"
Gigabyte even started advertising it on the frontpage of their RMA web sites ... no warranty for bent pins. So how big is this problem? I do not care about any return money for RMA (I was loosing money on the time spend on the problem at hand then) - I switched my board to MSI 6 months before I used the right to RMA the Gigabyte X99 board (before trashing it in the can ... what was actually wrong with it?).
So I can now add that the reboot problems is may be about a weakly designed cpu socket? In many cases (i.e. users having "reboot" firmware problems) putting in the cpu will likely damage the pins. There were many reports about this when the UD boards came out. This leads to the behavior descriped as firmware or bios problems - I can now confirm that. Eventually the system may not boot at all.
In autumn being very eager about the release of Haswell-E and hoping to do a workstation build - after having completed my Haswell Hyper-V server for Win2012R2 using an Asrock board (good boards) ... I decided to go with Gigabyte again after having experienced a similar problem some years ago with components actually dropping off or getting loose on that board - Gigabyte used to have a good reputation.
After being an early adopter and unfortunately going with Gigabyte again for Haswell-E (LGA 2011-v3 / X99) ... putting in the CPU, even taking pictures as the constrcution work of that workstation went by expecting to may be blog this piece of art for my flight simulator ...
Now, I as many others started to deal with the socalled bios or firmware problems. It went on for 3 months. It was almost costing me money in terms of taking my focus away from working ... I kept on a bit getting taken up with it ... those firmware problems ... at the end the board would have to rest a bit to reboot. Finally, it would not boot at all.
So that was it. I had already threatened to give up on Gigabyte in this forum. So I did a quick research and went for an MSI X99 XPower board. The CPU was moved out of the Gigabyte board for the first time and put into the XPower board - and the Gigabyte card was discarded. No problems at all with the MSI as expected - and normally for me. Great production quality. And unfortunately the experience with the Gigabyte card went as expected - I should have followed my six sense warning about that experience with a Gigabyte nforce card I had used a few years back to build a media kiosk. That was around January 2015.
Now should I RMA the Gigabyte board. I actually ordered the RMA but never executed it. However, in July 2015 I recalled on that RMA - when I went over my stuff before I throw this X99 Gigabyte board out. It has been sitting in its box for 6 months.
It came back - with a warranty void? Bent pins. However, I just put the CPU in ... and locked it in place. So what about Gigabytes claims of build quality and gold plating? I do not know.
But at least now I know that the Gigabyte boards come with a CPU socket problem with respect to production quality - and that problem circles around as so called reboots problems. They are not reboots problems ...
But people should know.
... the gold plating reinforcement apparently did no good ...
Hardware vendors rarely admit such stuff. The worst I experienced was Seagate putting out an external hard disk on sale without a ventilation solution. Meaning, running at over 40 C that disk was bound to die in a few months - I researched that discovering it was reported by users to do so. So I removed the disk from its crippled housing. The revisioned version 2 of the same disk has ribbons for cooling.
So now you know. If you buy Gigabyte X99 you have a risk of getting bent CPU pins - and worse, Gigabyte will not claim responsibility for it. Even though the socket is supposed to be gold plated. I did not drop it in there. I did not at any time change the CPU. It remained there sitting in the socket until the Gigabyte mobo was replaced (eventually would not boot at all - at that time I just gave up ... from time to time it would boot again. Never knew ... saw ... it was the CPU socket. The image of the socket from Gigabyte RMA was enhanced). Go with MSI or may be Asrock instead. May be even ASUS. I can recommend the MSI XPower X99 - which comes at a good price as well.
Or may be ... it is just a risk with these high density CPU sockets although I never experienced it before - and if everybody else with reboot problems on a X99 check if they have bent pins in the socket we may get a more clear view of this ... is it firmware or is it a problem with the socket?
