GA-MA790GPT-UD3H problems: boot IDE halt; EasyTune6 fan sense; HDMI TV video

[Peregrine]

I just built this system (all specs in my sig) about 2 weeks ago and have several issues:

1) When cold-booting, the POST gets stuck while sensing IDE devices and after about a minute it continues but it only senses the master IDE HDD but it doesn't recognize the slave DVD drive. As soon as the PC is reset or whenever it's restarted, it recognizes them both swiftly. So this happens only from a cold-boot. The DVD player is older, but it worked perfectly fine in my older MSI machine, and it works fine here too, if not cold-booting.

2) For the first few days I was using the IGP HD3300 for display to 2 monitors, and I had some problem with it not allowing to run Aero on Win7, but somehow I got it fixed. Then I installed the external Asus video board and had 2 displays connected there and all works fine, but as soon as I connect my TV via the HDMI port to the HD3300, Aero stops working, and there is a problem with video (movie) files on the TV display. Sound works great, and videos play fine on the displays connected to the Asus board, but as soon as I try to play a movie on the TV, it starts off extremely slow and then freezes. As if 3D was not running on that port for some reason.

3) Using EasyTune6 the fan monitoring has a problem. Sys fans 1 & 2 intermittently go down to speed of 0 (which sets of the alarm). The fans themselves are working fine, and I try to monitor the speed via BIOS and I don't see the same problem there, but it's intermittent, so I'm not sure. In EasyTune it happens pretty often, like at least once a minute.

All my drivers and software is the latest, downloaded directly from Gigabyte site (not using the update utilities, because they don't show any latest stuff), the Asus site and the ATI.

Anyone can share some help?
I submitted a question to Gigabyte support too, but no response yet...
Thank you.

[absic]

Hi,

A lot of issues to deal with here so it could prove a bit of a challenge! But let's see what we can do......

I'll start with Easy Tune 6. To be honest, this is a common issue with this piece of software and to tell the truth I wouldn't use it full-time. I have found that it is useful for finding out the best settings for overclocking (AMD Overdrive is actually better IMO). Once The optimum settings are found I transfer these into BIOS so they are functioning from boot and not dependant on any software, (A good place to start if you are new to overclocking) and then I remove  the Easy Tune or AMD Overdrive software.

Not sure why you are having the issue with the IDE at POST especially as it seems to only occur with a cold boot. I have found Gigabyte boards do take a longer time to post than some other mobo's and it is even more noticeable when using IDE. You might have to play around with your configuration before you are able to sort this one out. You could try changing the DVD to master and the HDD to slave. Try removing the HDD and boot with only the DVD on the IDE Channel. See if there is a BIOS update for the DVD drive. I know this is a pain but, to be honest, it is the only way to discover what is causing the problem.

Could you clarify the situation with your Graphics set-up? If I understand your post you have your TV connected to your on-board HDMI graphics port and your 2 monitors to the PCIe Asus card. Is this correct? Are you using the ATI CCC software to run these?

Cheers

[Peregrine]

Thank you. Before I reply to this, though, let me just make a note of the response I just got from Gigabyte support, which I think is mediocre at best, if not just retarded...

Dear customer,
1) Please swap out IDE drive cable test again could be bad IDE cable.
2) MA790GPT-UD3H has build in graphic, onboard graphic and add on PCIE graphic not be able using at the same time, they are using the same PCIe bus.
3) Sys fan has no speed control feature, EZT6 will not show System fan RPM, please disable Sys fan stop alarm in bios under PC health status.

I already tried different IDE cables. I didn't mention that because I assumed that's a given for any troubleshooting, but since I didn't mention it, I'll give him that one as a genuine effort. However, his explanation of problem #2 makes no sense, not to mention it makes no sense grammatically, too. And his answer to #3 is simply incorrect. I don't know whether he can't read or he just doesn't give a damn, but the whole thing is just a quick dismissal to all problems. I'm really disappointed with Gigabyte support at this point. Maybe I should've stayed with MSI...

Anyway, back to reply to absic115. Again, thanks for taking your time on this. As for ET6, I've figured there's not much we can probably do. As for problem with IDE boot, if I disconnect the primary HDD on that channel and just leave the slave optical drive, it cold-boots without a problem. I'll try to swap them around as you suggested. We'll see what happens.

As for the graphics card issue, yes, you are correct to all. Using the latest ATI CCC suite 10.2... although I just checked and they just listed a 10.3 now, so I'll try that one now, but I'm not sure if that will change much. So once again, running 2 monitors at resolution 1280x1024 from the Asus HD3870 I have no problems whatsoever. When I now enable HDMI connection on a Samsung LCD, I can pick any resolution there too (I tried a lot of different ones) and visually all works fine, and sounds is perfect going to the TV via HDMI, but as soon as I enable that HDMI port, Aero gets disabled on all the monitors. And then even though I can still play movies fine on the 2 normal monitors, when I try to play a movie on the TV, it starts off extremely slow and after few secs just freezes. As if 3D was totally turned off from the IGP ports...
Anyway, let me upgrade to CCC 10.3 and report back.

[Peregrine]

  Problem #2 is fixed! (I'm soooo happy )
I upgraded to CCC suite 10.3 from 10.2, and this time, while installing all the components I enabled the HDMI disaplay as well. Before, when I was installing 10.2 I installed it with only 2 displays enabled and then connected HDMI only after the install was complete. So maybe something in the install process needs to sense HDMI display to install it correctly... not sure... either way, it's fine now

I'll revisit the IDE boot problem later on tonight or tomorrow and will update this thread.

[Peregrine]

Regarding problem #1. Here's the summary of the troubleshooting and results:

1) Tried different IDE cables - no difference
2) Tried switching cable connectors (master-slave) although the initial connections were as they should be - the middle one is always the slave. Interestingly, that worked just as well.
3) Tried switching device order. Initially, HDD was master, and optical was slave. I changed jumper configurations so the optical was master and HDD was slave, and it acted exactly the same, meaning, from the cold boot, only the master device is recognized, so while initially the HDD would be recognized, after the switch, the optical was recognized. It takes about 20 sec. for the IDE sense from the cold boot where only the master is finally recognized. On a reset, though, it takes less than a sec. to sense IDE hardware and they're both always properly recognized.

So at this point I've very sure it's not hardware related. It must be either BIOS or problem with the mobo. The response I got from Gigabyte was to either contact the vendor where I got the board to replace it (very problematic, since at this point I can't have this system down for a week to ship the board back to the Internet seller I got it from), or update BIOS to their new Beta version. The last option seems more accessible, and I have no problem dealing with BIOS upgrades, but considering I have an unlocked CPU by ACC and this being their Beta version, I don't know if I want to risk spending time just to find out there's some other hardware problem I then have to deal with. So maybe I'll just wait until they release a normal BIOS version before an upgrade, although having to reset this PC on every boot is really getting on my nerves...
...another option would be to get a SATA optical drive, but I need to find a good deal for a blue-ray (might as well, if upgrading).
any one have any other ideas?

Is anyone using 2 PATA IDE devices running on this mobo without a problem?

[Peregrine]

So I finally decided to update my BIOS to ver. 4Fd. I cleared DMI data pool and set default settings after flash...
...a big waste of time. No matter what I do, the problem persists. Otherwise, the board is perfect. But it's really disappointing and very inconvenient having to reset the PC every time because PATA IDE slave is not recognized at cold boot...

Again, has anyone tried running 2 PATA devices from this board? Am I the only one here with a lot of older hardware still in good shape... lol