GA790XTA-UD4 Booting problem

[BrianG]

GA790XTA-UD4 Motherboard, F3 BIOS (initially) then F4A
AMD Phenom X4 945 Processor
4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 1333 Memory
ATI Radeon 4550 PCIe graphics card
WD 250GB & 1TB SATA Drives
Optiarc SATA CD drive
Corsair 650W PSU.
All BIOS parameters are set to their default or "auto" values.

This is a recently self-built system and the problem is that it will not boot up from cold.
When I start from cold, I can press the power button and the system appears to start, fans run, but there is no disk access, the monitor stays on standby and the the POST screen never appears. If I then hold the power button IN so that the system shuts down, and then immediately press the power button again, the system boots normally, the OS loads and everything appears to run correctly.

My first thought was PSU, so I tried a 1050Watt Enermax Power Supply and it was exactly the same, and the same with another Corsair power supply, so I'm pretty certain I can rule that out.

I've tried the Memory in different sockets, (1&2 and 3&4) and also each stick of memory singly, with no change.
I've disconnected all the internal drives (2 x SATA HD and CD drive) and booted, again with no difference.
If I shut the system down and leave it for an hour, and then try to start by pressing and releasing the power button. The system then appears to try and start normally, but after seeing the POST screen, instead of saying "Loading Operating System" it says "Begin to update backup BIOS to latest version. Writing BIOS image..........." and it then shuts down and goes through POST again, this just continues over and over until I shut the power off and then immediately on again, when it then boots OK.

I contacted Gigabyte Tech support and they said try a new BIOS, and they sent me F4A (which wasn't available to download at the time). I flashed the BIOS using the Q-Flash method, but it appears to have done nothing. Their only other suggestions are change the CPU (I don't have another one) change the memory (ditto) and change the video card, none of which are practical. I've tested the memory under Windows and no problems are reported.

My supplier has offered me an RMA on the board, but if they test it and find nothing wrong, I get charged money for it, so I want to make quite sure I've covered all the possibilities before I return the Motherboard.
Can anyone offer any further suggestions?

[absic]

Hi there and welcome to the forum,

I am using the same motherboard and have been running the F4A BIOS for quite awhile without any issues.

My first thoughts are what type of keyboard and mouse are you using?
After that I would be looking at what settings you have in BIOS for your Hard drives. Are you running in AHCI or Native IDE? I have had a lot of problems with AHCI on this board, mainly with the Marvel SATA3 so do you have any of your drives attached to these ports?

Have you disabled the Floppy Drive in BIOS? I have found that this can help and as I'm not using a floppy I automatically disable this parameter.

Have you checked the switches on your PC case are functioning properly and properly connected to the motherboard header? If you have the power switch and reset switch plugged into the wrong pins, this kind of problem can ensue.

[Dark Mantis]

Well there are two things that I would recommend the first is to check your BIOS versions and make sure they match. To check, go into the BIOS and on the MAIN page press F9 for system info.   You should see both BIOS versions listed, if they do not match please update the backup BIOS to match the current.

Secondly I would test the memory properly with Memtest86. Download and run it for at least ten loops on each stick seperately.

Memtest86+   http://www.memtest.org/

[BrianG]

Hello again.
Thanks for the suggestions.

Answers to absic:
Logitech Keyboard and Microsoft Comfort 3000 Optical mouse, both of which were being used with my previous system.
Hard disks are set to native IDE and are not on the Marvel connectors. (I use one drive [250GB] for Windows & programs and the 1TB drive for all my data. I tried booting with no drives connected and it still "fell over" in the same way.)
Floppy is disabled in BIOS. The only boot drive options I have set are first device HDD, second device CDROM, but because it never reaches the POST screen it's not actually at the stage of looking for drives.
As I said, all other BIOS settings are either default or "Auto", no overclock or boosting of any kind.
One suggestion Gigabyte tech support made was to disconnect the case power switch and try starting by directly shorting the power pins on the M/B. I have tried this and it still does not boot first time. I think the switches are connected correctly since both Power and Reset do what they are supposed to.
One other small detail is that my case (Silverstone) does not have a system speaker, so I don't get any error beeps. Is it worth getting a sounder to connect to the board and see if I'm getting error beeps? and would this be any help.

Dark Mantis:
I will check the BIOS Settings as you suggest. Is how to backup the BIOS update covered in the user manual?
I was surprised that Gigabyte immediately sugggested the new BIOS, as if this was a known problem with F3 BIOS. At that time F4a was not on their site as a download, but I see that it now is. Maybe I should download the website version and install that, in case it has been revised?

I have only tested the memory using  the Microsoft utility via Windows.
I'll download Memtest86+ and give that a workout.

Thanks for the suggestions,
Regards,
Brian.

[absic]

Hi Brian,

Yes, if you could get a small motherboard speaker it would really help as the error codes can help in finding problems. You can get a small PC test kit which includes a Speaker and power switches from Maplin for under £5.00. Check here: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=98842
I got one of these a long time ago and it has proved invaluable when it comes to troubleshooting.

[Dark Mantis]

Dark Mantis:
I will check the BIOS Settings as you suggest. Is how to backup the BIOS update covered in the user manual?
I was surprised that Gigabyte immediately sugggested the new BIOS, as if this was a known problem with F3 BIOS. At that time F4a was not on their site as a download, but I see that it now is. Maybe I should download the website version and install that, in case it has been revised?

Hi Brian,  check your BIOS versions and if there is a discrepancy I will post about how to update the Backup BIOS to match the Main one. Did GGTS send you the F4A update and did you install it? If so there is not much point in doing it again unless you didn't clear the DMI when you did the update.

[BrianG]

Hi Again,
Gigabyte sent me the F4a BIOS update as an email attachment (before it was posted on their support site), but "just in case" I've now downloaded and reinstalled the F4a BIOS from their support site, Unfortunately it does not appear to have made any difference. I'm uncertain as how to update the backup BIOS to match the installed BIOS, is that one of the options I see at the bottom of the POST screen?

Turning to memory, I downloaded MEMTEST 86+ and have run several tests, with strange results.
I have two 2GB sticks of memory, let's call them A and B.
I have four memory sockets.
1) I put memory stick A in socket 1, run several passes of MEMTEST, no errors.
2) I put memory stick B in socket 1, run several passes of MEMTEST, no errors.
3) I put stick A in socket 1, stick B  in socket 2, run MEMTEST, loads of errors.
4) Take out stick A, leave stick B in socket 2, run MEMTEST, no errors.
5) Put stick A back into socket 1, stick B still in socket 2, run MEMTEST, no errors.
Very strange and puzzling!
Possibly for test(3) I didn't seat the memory stick properly?

I still have to power up twice to get the thing to run. When I boot from cold, if I press the power switch once, it's a fifty - fifty chance whether I get the "loading backup BIOS" message or the system just "hangs" in an indeterminate state, with the Hard Disk access light flashing quickly four times at short intervals.
If it's worthwhile, I'll get a beeper from Maplin and fit that, so I can hear error beeps, but where do I get the information as to how to interpret them?

Thanks again,
Regards,
Brian.

[Dark Mantis]

I'm uncertain as how to update the backup BIOS to match the installed BIOS, is that one of the options I see at the bottom of the POST screen?

I still have to power up twice to get the thing to run. When I boot from cold, if I press the power switch once, it's a fifty - fifty chance whether I get the "loading backup BIOS" message or the system just "hangs" in an indeterminate state, with the Hard Disk access light flashing quickly four times at short intervals.
If it's worthwhile, I'll get a beeper from Maplin and fit that, so I can hear error beeps, but where do I get the information as to how to interpret them?

Hi again Brian.

To check, go into the BIOS and on the MAIN page press F9 for system info.   You should see both BIOS versions listed, if they do not match please update the backup BIOS to match the current.

To do that, reboot and where you would normally press DEL to enter the BIOS, instead press Alt + F12, this will flash the Backup BIOS with the MAIN BIOS contents.   Do not worry when you see a recovery comment, that is normal and means it is flashing the backup BIOS.

The beep codes for the BIOS are listed in the back of your manual but you can always come  on here and ask too.

[BrianG]

To check, go into the BIOS and on the MAIN page press F9 for system info.   You should see both BIOS versions listed, if they do not match please update the backup BIOS to match the current.

To do that, reboot and where you would normally press DEL to enter the BIOS, instead press Alt + F12, this will flash the Backup BIOS with the MAIN BIOS contents.   Do not worry when you see a recovery comment, that is normal and means it is flashing the backup BIOS.

The beep codes for the BIOS are listed in the back of your manual but you can always come  on here and ask too.

Hi again.
I've been a bit busy with other things and I've only just got back to this problem.

In System Info, F4a is listed as both main and backup BIOS.

However, I'm finding a strangeness with the memory.
Despite having exhaustively tested the memory with MemTest86, and contrary to what I thought previously, the system will boot OK with only one bank of memory installed.
As soon as I install both banks of memory, the boot problem happens again. The memory was purchased as a matched set and came in a double (4GB) package, so I don't suspect there 's anything wrong with it, and as I said, each stick checks out OK with MemTest, so I'm a bit puzzled as to what to do with it. It's still under warranty, so I guess I can contact my supplier and see if I can get an RMA for it, swap it out and see what happens.
The exact items I have are Corsair XMS3 DDR3 Part Number TW3X4G1333C9A G ver2.2
I've tried the memory in sockets 1 & 2 and also in sockets 3 & 4 with the same results in either position.
In BIOS I see the following voltages:
Vcore = 1.248V
DDR3 1.5V = 1.488V
+3.3V + 3.376V
+12V = 12.239V

Any comments gratefully received.

Brian.

[absic]

Hi Brian,

as the memory controller is actually built into the CPU the problem could lie there. I would suggest you try putting your RAM into slots 1&3 or 2&4 and see what happens then. Doing this will use just a single channel on the CPU and is a qicker way to see if there is a problem on the CPU than RMA'ing components at this stage.

Even though the RAM is new there could be problems with those but the fact that they pass Memtest individually would seem to say that they are OK. So assuming this is true then I would suspect that the problem would be either the CPU or the Motherboard and it is now a process of elimination until you can find the fault.  

[BrianG]

Hello again,
Because this problem only occurs when the system starts from "cold" it's a little difficult to know whether I'm testing the right thing each time.
If the system has been powered I have to wait for 3 - 4 hours before simulating a cold start, otherwise it boots OK every time.

However, I now have a situation where I am certain that it will boot with one stick of RAM and not the other.

If I put one stick into socket 1 then it will boot normally.
If I put the other stick into socket 1, it hangs on boot, and I have to do the power off/power on rigmarole, after which it will start normally and load the OS etc.

As an experiment, would it be worthwhile increasing the memory voltage slightly. The nominal  operating voltage for this RAM is 1.5V and I'm seeing  something a bit lower than that (1.488v). I've checked the DDR3 voltage with both sticks of RAM and it sets to the same voltage with both the OK and the "suspect" sticks. The setup parameters are all on "Auto". Could I go to manual settings and tweak the DDR3 voltage a little, and if so, what voltage would you suggest as being safe?
I'm now wondering if this is a voltage or timing thing when I combine the two banks of RAM, since they both check out OK, both individually, and as a pair, with MemTest86.
My only other option is to return the RAM to my supplier for exchange, and see if it is OK with another set.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Brian.

[absic]

Hi Brian,

Yes, manually increasing the RAM voltage may help but as each system is slightly different there are no hard and fast rules as to how much of an increase to apply. In BIOS it will have predetermined increments and I would suggest increasing 1 step at a time and I wouldn't take it any higher than 1.6V in total.

However, as the RAM was bought as a matched pair you really shouldn't have to be tweaking them at all to get them to work properly and returning them might be a better option in the long run.

[BrianG]

OK, Thanks for that.

I'll give it one try at increasing the voltage.
I was thinking something like 1.55V but I don't know what the manual adjustment option steps are.
If that has no effect then I'll raise an RMA with my supplier for an exchange.
As far as I can tell, that RAM should be fine for my system (which is why I selected it in the first place).

Regards,

Brian.

[BrianG]

I've tried manually setting the DDR3 RAM voltage (to 1.53) and I've still get the same boot up problem, so it looks like I'm going to have to get a replacment set. I'm guessing there must be some kind of timing mismatch between the two sticks of RAM, since both test OK using MemTest86.

Rather disappointing, since I thought Corsair were amongst the better manufaturers.

Brian.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes normally Corsair are one of the top tier but anyone can have bad modules. Have you tried running Memtest on them both together?