GA-880GM usb3: constant restart/bsod

[savawa]

It seems the floppy was the problem after all. So that issue is fixed.   It booted fine this morning but crashed with a classpnp.sys error.  Various forums say it's a hard drive issue with the type being selected in the BIOS.  I checked and it's set at IDE.  On restart it booted fine.  I'm not sure what that error came up but I hope it doesn't come up in the future.

[savawa]

I've been getting constant bsod's again.  The latest wouldn't even let me get to the login screen.  I tried to do a start up repair but that crashed with a fatal error.


 I did a clean reinstall and this morning it was giving me Bad Pool Header errors.  I ran memtest on one stick before I left and came back to see 17 passes and no  errors.  I'll run the other before I leave but I just remembered that the board has an onboard Radeon video card I forgot about.  I only installed the 5770 driverfor the seperate card.

What I'm wondering is would the missing onboard video driver have caused these errors?

[Dark Mantis]

The classpnp.sys errors you were getting is normally from having "write behind cacheing" enabled on a disk that doesn't like it. Your Bad Pool errors could well be from not installing the drivers for the card or installing the wrong drivers will also give it.

[savawa]

I installed the onboard video driver and it was fine at first.  After starting it up  the next morning it wouldn't take my password and restarted.
There was an IRQL not or less equal error and it loaded into safe mode.  That crashed with Bad Pool Header.  Load up again and crashed with PFN list corrupt.  Load up again, get into safe mode and Startup repair crashed with a Bad Driver error.

I took a stick of ram out and started it up fine.  I downloaded the chipset drivers from the gigabyte site.  I must have missed them earlier.  It installs a NorthBridge filter driver and a USB filter driver.  I put the second stick in.  It takes longer to load but it does.  It runs fine all day until this morning  when I started it up after shutting down overnight.

It restarts before the logo.  Going into startup repair it said it was an AutoFailover with No Root Cause.  I chose not to do a system repair and shut down.  When I turned it on again it constantly goes into startup repair saying it's an AutoFailover.  It doesn't let me have any options other than Startup Repair now.  The number in Signature 06 has been incrementally going up.  It was at 5 before I did a startup from disc.  Startup repair from there didin't work and neither did a system restore.  It fails because of something in the registry.  So now I'm about to do a clean reinstall for the umpteenth time.  I want to get this working because I've already started school.  I have to back up my work on usb because I can't rely on this.


the last time it had an autofailover it posted some files

windows/system32/logfile/srt/srttrail.txt
windows/temp/startuprepair.etl
windows/system32/logfile/srt/disklayout.txt
windows/system32/logfile/srt/bcdinfo.txt
windows/system32/logfile/srt/bootstat.txt
windows/system32/logfile/srt/bootfailure.txt

[Dark Mantis]

Well I would advise you to run Memtest86+ on each module one at a time for several loops and if you get any errors at all then the RAM is faulty. It will at least prove your memory.

http://www.memtest.org/

[absic]

That has already been tried earlier DM. But I have to say that everything seems to point to a problem with either the RAM, CPU or possibly the Graphics Card. 

[absic]

Hi there Savawa,

I have to admit to being a bit puzzled by your problem and it must be very frustrating for you. I know that you have run Memtest and that your memory modules seem to have passed but the kind of constant BSOD's that you are having would point to them being the problem. I am also a little concerned when you say that installing the 2nd RAM module makes things slower, it should speed them up and again points to a problem with the RAM. You say that the RAM is running at 1.5V and at 1066 at default settings but what are the full specs for your RAM? If the RAM is running under powered, this could by why your system keeps crashing. It could also be just a timing issue with the RAM.

A couple of other things to check:
Have you disabled the On-Board Graphics? Although there shouldn't be an issue between the On-Board graphics and the ATI 5770 there could be and disabling the On-Board graphics chip might help.
Do you have another add-on cards installed? If yes what are they?
What USB Devices do you have plugged in?
Are your Mouse and Keyboard new? (You would be surprised how often a dodgy Mouse or Keyboard can cause these kind of problems.)
Can you test your RAM in another PC or, better still, borrow a couple of sticks of RAM from a friend and see if they work in your system?

[Dark Mantis]

Fair enough absic. This advice is for you because I am not sure on this platform how it is enabled so I will leave it up to you.

I have just been going over the thread and picked up on this

I read somewhere that it had something to do with how programs stored on the hard drive are processed on startup.  Like, the instructions were too slow getting there and were not there when the startup procedure expects them to be.

It might help if this is to do with the problem to put a delay for the hard drive to start up when booting. I know how it's done on an Intel platform but not here.

[absic]

I am aware of this DM but, unlike Intel, there doesn't seem to be an option in BIOS to Delay HDD start-up in the AMD BIOS.

It is possible to make changes to the Windows Registry which impact on the programmes that are processed at start-up but, making such changes can cause more problems than they solve, especially if the system is unstable from the beginning.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes I agree absic it would have to be implimented on booting to be of any value. Never mind all good ideas but they don't all work
I can't understand why they don't incorporate it as an option into the AMD platform's BIOS. It is after all only a delay loop.

[savawa]

Hi there Savawa,

I have to admit to being a bit puzzled by your problem and it must be very frustrating for you. I know that you have run Memtest and that your memory modules seem to have passed but the kind of constant BSOD's that you are having would point to them being the problem. I am also a little concerned when you say that installing the 2nd RAM module makes things slower, it should speed them up and again points to a problem with the RAM. You say that the RAM is running at 1.5V and at 1066 at default settings but what are the full specs for your RAM? If the RAM is running under powered, this could by why your system keeps crashing. It could also be just a timing issue with the RAM.

A couple of other things to check:
Have you disabled the On-Board Graphics? Although there shouldn't be an issue between the On-Board graphics and the ATI 5770 there could be and disabling the On-Board graphics chip might help.
Do you have another add-on cards installed? If yes what are they?
What USB Devices do you have plugged in?
Are your Mouse and Keyboard new? (You would be surprised how often a dodgy Mouse or Keyboard can cause these kind of problems.)
Can you test your RAM in another PC or, better still, borrow a couple of sticks of RAM from a friend and see if they work in your system?

I don't remember seeing an on-board video control in the bios.  I'll check.

The RAM defaults to 1333 and 1.5V.  On the NCIX forums someone mentioned that g.skill may be a bit unstable at higher speeds.   That's why I lowered the speed.

I have a USB mouse and  a USB  Microsoft Natural 4000 keyboard.   They're both running on generic drivers.  The last time I installed the driver for the keyboard the zero button stopped working for some reason.

I can't use RAM from another system because none of them use DDR3.  Same with friends. 

[savawa]

There's no option in the bios to disable onboard graphics.  There were other onboard settings like audio and LAN.


I ran the CD that came with the motherboard.  It scanned my computer and only recommended I install the USB, LAN and audio drivers.  I guess I don't need chipset drivers?

[absic]

Hi, does the GSkill RAM you're using need slightly more voltage?
For example the Corsair Dominator I use likes 1.65V and if I bring the voltage down to 1.5V it can become a little unstable but still passes Memtest. What is the FULL Specification for your RAM or can you post a link to the ones you have?

The On-Board Graphics Chip can be disabled under the IGX settings, that's why you may have missed it. Installing the ATI Drivers for your 5770 would probably have also enabled the On-Board Graphics.

[savawa]

Yes, the BIOS shows it running at 1.6, or something similar.  However, the bios doesn't let me set it to 1.6.  the next level goes to
1.75 1.65
The ram I have is these:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=30384&vpn=F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ&manufacture=G.Skill

Edit: I found the IGX settings.  For the Internal Graphics Mode it's set at UMA.  Should I set it to disable?

[absic]

Yes, if you disable the On-Board Graphics you will probably find that you get better results from your 5770. Make sure your monitor is attached to the 5770 not the On-Board ports first. You will probably find that you have not been getting the full performance from your 5770 as it would have been throttled back to match the On-Board chip.

Let's try that first and see what happens then we will look at the RAM settings.

EDIT: Ooops! I forgot to mention, when you disable the On-Board Graphics don't forget to set the INIT Display to PEG2 (sorry)