GA-EX58-UD5 wont boot, post code 88

[spoiLars]

Hey guys,

so I built this rig some 3-4 months ago, and things were all fine and dandy. After about a month or so, I had my first encounter with this problem. When trying to boot the system, it refuses to post, and the LED code on the MB reads 88 (or B8), and never goes beyond that. The screen remains black, there's no boot beep sound, only things coming to life are the cabinet and cpu fans, as well as the row of LED's underneath the onboard power indicator. Contrary to what I've read a bunch of other people have experienced, my system does not go into power cycling, but simply stays in this state until the power is turned off manually.

For the past couple of months I've been able to circumvent this problem by simply turning the power off and on a couple of times, and it would eventually boot correctly. But today, I've tried probably 30 times without any luck. I've tried clearing the CMOS, as well as playing musical chairs with the RAM and double checking all the MB connections, but nothing seems to work.

Here are my specs:

600W PSU
Intel i7 930
XFX Radeon HD 5870
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600 MHz CL 9-9-9-24 (3 x 2Gb) placed in the white slots as instructed
Cooler Master V8 cpu cooler
Windows 7 64bit
Somewhat unsure about the BIOS version, but when I ran the automatic update thing last night it stated that I had the latest version

Any help would be greatly appreciated. My PS3 also went the way of the dodo today, so I'm about ready to take a shotgun to all of my electronics and go live in some cave somewhere :p

[xandris]

You said you tried musical chairs with the RAM, but did you use the same RAM, or did you try NEW, known good memory?  Also, try with a different video card?  Also, try without the hard drive.  That could be keeping the system from booting as well. 

[Dark Mantis]

I think you need to take a more logical approach. Disconnect everything from the motherboard except the memory and CPU(plus cooler etc). Now try to boot  and see what beep messages you get , also what numbers it gets to on the digital display. Then post back.

[spoiLars]

thanks for the quick replies, guys.

So, today I did as you doctors prescribed. I started by removing one item from the MB at a time, while trying to boot between each item. After removing everything (literately everything) from the mobo except just the cpu with and the cpu fan, I started trying to add things back to see if I would get any other error message than 88. I did get it to proceed to C1 and 7F one time each during this process, but these were just the few random times it actually does boot correctly like it has been doing lately, as when I tried to boot a second time with the same configuration, I was back to the good old 88 message.

According to the manual, step 88 is "1. Invoke all ISA adapter ROMs, 2. Invoke all PCI ROMs (except VGA)"

So, here is the weird thing I discovered. During this process, as the computer was stuck at the 88 message as usual, I happened to ever so lightly brush against the I/O power switch on the back of the PSU. This cut the power for a fraction of a second, until the button snapped back to its position (On). And lo and behold, this ultra quick power hiccup jolted the boot process back into gear and the pc booted up without any problems. And it turns out this trick works every single time. It does however leave me more confused than ever, as this could probably mean just about anything. Probably should still find out what the deal is, as this power hiccup business cant be all that healthy for the components in the long run.

[Dark Mantis]

Maybe it is the Power supply itself which has a fault on it. You say it is a 600w psu but not what make/model? If it is just a cheapo one it would be worth investing in a decent make one like Corsair or Seasonic etc.

[spoiLars]

yeah that might be, though I used this one in the last rig I built as well and never had any trouble with it.

It's a Silver Power unit, so it's a little cheaper than the corsair ones, but not really by that much. I haven't seen any bad rep for the SP psu's, but that might just be because I haven't been looking for it. I'll try swapping it out, as I was planning to switch it for an 850w one down the road anyways, and I'll definitely check out the corsair one.

[Dark Mantis]

If you are looking at the Corsair PSU range I can recommend the HX850 as that is what I have and it is excellent. It also comes with a 7 year warranty so that shows how well it is built.