GA-X58A-UD3R ver2: cpu heats up in bios, 6gb ram 4 usable

[Lsdmeasap]

If you do not have any bent CPU socket pins then this is probably incorrect QPI/Vtt voltage.  Are you 100% sure no pins are bent?

Are you setting your own QPI/Vtt and ram voltages, if so what voltages are you using?  I see you mentioned 1066 memory speed, so you are probably leaving these voltages on auto as well right?  That could be the issue, you should set everything yourself manually before going further.  Set your ram voltage to spec, normally 1.66V for Triple channel, and then QPI/Vtt will need to be 1.25-1.35+ depending on your CPU and what memory speed and timings you set.  Then set your Memory multiplier to whatever gives you stock spec ram speed, then set uncore multiplier manually to 2 x the ram multiplier.

It could also be the memory, have you tested each stick one by one with Memtest86+ for 5-10 full passes?

You should use this version, updated for X58A
http://www.memtest.org/download/beta/415b2/mt415.rar

[briligg]

Thanks for the memtest tip. I note that it´s a beta - do you find it stable?

The mobo went back to the store, so at the moment i am just waiting for a replacement. I had similar problems with undetected ram on my Rampage, though, so i have a couple of thoughts:
- at first the Rampage would randomly bsod, and it turned out it had to do with the memory settings, but not what you might think. I had to adjust back to back cas delay from auto to 8, and then the bsods stopped. i had my 6gb of ram running nicely then, but only for a few months, then it dropped to 4gb and nothing i could do changed that.
- but the 4gb i had worked fine. So i think that if you have poor settings on your memory, maybe that would cause instability, but i don´t see how it would cause the system to not see one of the installed sticks. How could 2 sticks be working fine and one not, if they all have the same settings?
- i have to admit i´m suspicious of this whole bent-pin thing. Our tech guy can´t believe that crossed pins would cause such a specific and rather minor problem as undetected ram. And if it did, why can´t anybody tell us the specific pin involved? Surely you can´t just cross any 2 pins and the result would always be undetected ram. It would have to be one very specific pin that causes that - if the idea makes any sense at all.

Of course, i can´t explain the various posts i´ve seen where people swear that straightening a pin fixed their memory problem.
But i do want to make an earnest plea, if someone finds a bent pin like that, please make a note of WHICH PIN IT WAS.

[Lsdmeasap]

There is TONS of pins that affect memory, since the memory controller is now all in the CPU.   Vtt, DDR3, and other ground pins, ect all are in the CPU Socket now.   So if any one or more of them is bent you can loose channels of memory.

These are all noted in a diagram in the Intel PDF's, if you would like me to link you to those and tell you what pages you need to look at I can, let me know.

But to give you a short answer on that, yes it's possible and happens ALL THE TIME.   I help in the Gigabyte USA Forum at Tweaktown, here, and several other overclock forums and I see this all the time.

This is not always the cause though, there can be many other causes, but this one does happen a lot more than you would think since the memory controller is now in the CPU bent pins are far worse now compared to things that happened in the older sockets.   Here is a list of other possible causes by Eva2000
http://i4memory.com/ramdetect/

The main thing other than bent pins is incorrect QPI/Vtt and dram voltage, I can cause missing channels anytime on the fly with incorrect voltages.

Adjusting B2B CAS Delay slows the memory down, higher the value the slower the memory bandwidth is.   So that could be why it worked for a bit for you, if you didn't have bent pins then maybe you had some voltages off and slowing down the memory some helped it work better with the incorrect voltages you were using.

[briligg]

Ah, fascinating info. I have asked before, and never gotten a response regarding the objections of our tech guy (who had me convinced). I was aware that the memory bus is on the cpu in i7, but i didn´t realize that translates into many of the pins being part of that. I guess for someone more tech-y that´s a ´duh´kind of thing, but to me ´bus´is just a word. I never thought it through.
In my quest to fix the Rampage, i did look for bent pins - posted macro photos and everything. I couldn´t see anything bent myself, and i didn´t get a response in the forum where i posted them, which i figured meant probably none were bent. And then i lost my faith in the idea anyhow, after talking to that tech guy.
The Rampage set my memory automatically to 1066mHz and undervolted it to 1.5v, and at first i tried to correct the bsods by changing the memory settings to the ram´s specs, both with the Rampage´s automatic utilities, and by hand. But it didn´t help. Then i tried slowing down the timings, but that didn´t help either. Finally i read somewhere that the Rampage II Gene´s auto setting for back to back cas delay causes problems in some cases, and changing it fixed the bsod problem completely. All the other ram timings were set to spec. When i started having problems again, it was a problem of undetected ram, but before that the system always detected the full 6gb.
I do believe i saw that Eva2000 article during my efforts to fix the Rampage, and going through it´s recommendations didn´t restore the 6gb in my case. I´m not an overclocker - i ended up with ram outside intel´s recommended spec because i bought a package deal. So perhaps i didn´t do enough tweaking, as i was really learning as i went. But i was conservative, i never risked damage to the hardware. I got a better cpu heatsink, even, just in case the fiddling with the ram stuff might raise temps there. The north bridge always ran hot and required its own fan too. The tech guy couldn´t fix it either.
If i continue to have problems, i may take you up on your offer to point me to the relevant pages of intel´s docs. Narrowing down the pin area to search has to help, right? I managed to determine that the A1 slot was the one offline on the Rampage, so if i had had that data available, i could have focused on a much smaller area of the pins when searching for the problem.
Thanks for the info.

[Dark Mantis]

To be honest if you can post a couple of GOOD quality close up photos of the socket we can check them for you anyway.

[briligg]

thanks for that. Hopefully, the board i get back will just hum like a porsche, right out of the box, like i always dreamed when i bought myself an i7 system.   

[briligg]

I´m thinking about the lightening strike now...

There was a crack and a flash like nothing i´ve ever experienced before. It freaked out the dog. A while later i went to turn on the computer, which had been turned off on account of the storm, as had it´s Belkin powerbar. Lights on the board showed it was receiving power, but nothing happened. When i took it to the shop, tech guy figured it was probably the psu, but it turned out it wasn´t. He replaced two fried electrical components on the board, but it still didn´t work. So i told him to forget it. Based on his testimony, i assumed the other parts of my system were ok. Now i wonder.

My husband´s computer, which was plugged into the same powerbar, was unaffected, as were all the other electrical appliances in the office, and the rest of the house. However the lamp-posts on our street didn´t work for over a week.

The wiring in this apartment isn´t grounded, and that isn´t unusual here. We are now thinking of installing a grounded outlet especially for the office. The powerbar still has its green LED lighted, saying it is protected, and also its red LED, saying it isn´t grounded. Over my years here, there have been several close lightening strikes and our computers were never affected before. It felt like that lightening bolt struck our very house, but i guess it didn´t.

Could there be some damage to other parts of my system? I didn´t get far enough with this last Gigabyte board to get into memtesting, but i know it needs doing. What about the PSU and the CPU?  Are we right to specially install a grounded outlet?

[Dark Mantis]

The thing is with a lightning bolt or any other massive discharge of energy a EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse)  is emitted the same as when a nuclear explosion happens. Whether you have an earth or not wont help you in those circumstances and anything electronic will be fried. Well it would seem as if only your computer really caught it along with the streetlights. Often in these circumstances the pulse travels down the phone lines or whatever connection you have for the internet. Was there anything different about your computer as opposed to the rest of the electronics nearby? It does help(only help) if they are encased in metal.

The special ground wire is a good idea in other ways though anyway. It will need to go at least 1 metre into the ground though depending on the conductivity of the soil. If it is dry and sandy it would need to be much deeper. You will need local advice on the specs.

[briligg]

An EMP? gee, that´s sort of cool...
My computer was the closest thing to the router connected to the cable lines. My husband´s computer was also connected to the router, but mine was less than a foot away, while his was across the office. The tower case had one side off, because the heat sink was a little too large to close it. The router was on the other side, though.

The soil here is mostly clay and quite dense. In the dry season it does get very dry.

We have an antenna on the roof that is about 6 m tall, for a close-circuit radio. i wondered if it had been struck. It is the tallest thing in the immediate vicinity, but there is a taller antenna about 80m away. The radio hasn´t been used in some time, wasn´t plugged in, and hasn´t been checked since because the office has been reconfigured and its plug doesn´t reach any outlet. But at any right, i suppose if it had really been struck, there would be clear evidence.

[Dark Mantis]

Chances are if it had been struck directly you would be able to see the stars through your roof now   If it was earthed and was sufficiently strong it would act like a lightning conductor and protected the house and a nearby area as it has a sort of umbrella effect. It's possible that the other higher antenna actually had this effect and saved your house. It is quite a complicated subject but interesting nonetheless.
Your computer probably took the worst of it because it was open and so not in a "Faraday Cage".

[Wonderwrench]

Surge protectors work by clamping the voltage spike to ground. So if the outlet does not have a ground the surge protector does nothing at all. It seems strange to me that yours shows a ground fault but still shows as protected. If possible get a grounded outlet. Surge protectors will not protect against EMP. A close lightning strike can create EMP so strong it can destroy electronics that are not even plugged in. A friend of mine just lost 3 PC's plus related equipment over the summer from EMP do to a close lightning strike. Lightning hit a tree in his front yard about 20 feet away from his house. All his equipment was protected by APC brand UPS. APC cut him a check for $2700.00 USD.

BTW in general an UPS gives much better protection against line spikes than a surge protector. This is because besides the spike being clamped to ground the UPS switches over to battery power. On a quality UPS this all happens in less than 10 ms. Nothing can protect electronics against EMP but EMP damage is rare while spike damage is much more common.

Bill

[Dark Mantis]

Surge protectors work by clamping the voltage spike to ground. So if the outlet does not have a ground the surge protector does nothing at all.

Good point Bill, I missed that one being so used to having an earthed situation.

[briligg]

I thought that if the powerbar is turned off, the circuit is broken and surges can´t reach our electronics.

[Dark Mantis]

It would keep your equiptment safe from normal mains surges and spikes but unless it was totally isolated (unplugged) it wouldn't stop a lighning strike or even a near miss as it would just bridge the gap between the contacts. If it is EMP it doesn't matter anyway as it doesn't need to be connected it instigates a charge in the device by induction.

[briligg]

Well, the store received the board on the 11th. After a couple of days i sent them an email asking how it was going. After a couple days more i sent another. They didn´t respond, so finally yesterday i called them. They said they sent the board to Gigabyte. I said fine, but your guarantee says that i am entitled to a replacement, because i returned the board in less than 7 working days. Then they said that there was a small bang on one corner of the board, so they would have to wait and see what Gigabyte said. Call Thursday.

That board was in perfect condition when i sent it off, there is no way there was a bang. I treated it with kid gloves, it was my baby. Well, my 2nd baby, after the Rampage died. It was well-packed, and they signed off on the delivery. I find it very suspicious that the man i spoke to seemed to know nothing about that board until i mentioned the guarantee, and then suddenly he knew it had a bang on it.

I went back to the tech support ticket i have, and asked if the board could be tracked through its serial number. The guy on my ticket gave me a couple of email addresses where i could make that request. I´m waiting on if there is anything they can tell me. I let them know my concern about the store. I imagine there is nothing they can do about that, but if they give me what i need to establish that there was no physical damage to the board, perhaps i can still get my replacement board. My tech support ticket is through the Mexico portal, so there might be some extra steps to the process, maybe.

So, now that i´ve vented, do you know if there is any way i can use my guarantee directly with Gigabyte? The rma department should have the board, and i can prove my ownership. If the store continues to avoid their guarantee, i´d like to have the option of pursuing that.