Delaying at "Loading Operating System..." (P67A-UD3 with Windows 7 64bit)

[helloworld]

Just got a brand new computer, pre-build, with the new P67A-UD3 and intel i5 2500K, already clocked at 4.3GHz.

I installed windows 7 64 bit onto the hd and it seems to work fine, the only problem is that when i turn on or restart my computer, it hangs at the "Loading operating system..." screen for about 20-30 seconds. The boot priority was set to CD-ROM, HARD DRIVE, USB. I changed it to the first as HARD DRIVE, and when I turned my comptuer back on, it now says "Loading Operating System..." for like half a second and then goes back to the boot screen... stuck in a loop. If i set back to CD-ROM, it does the hanging for 20-30 seconds again, and then starts to load windows 7. I have reinstalled windows 7 twice, and i have settings such as:

"Delay for HDD - 0"
"Quick boot - Enabled"

I have installed all of the drivers and my bios version says: F6c

Has anyone got any suggestions to any settings which could be causing this, or is it a hardware problem and will I need to send it back to where ibought from to get fixed?

Thanks.

[faizoff]

It's not a HW problem at all. LOL don't worry there's nothing wrong with the board. I asked the same question in the other thread. Just disable your Boot from CD ROM and let the OS boot from the HDD you'll be fine. I too had the same annoying problem and it's not there anymore.

[helloworld]

But I have disabled the CD-ROM, i put the boot priority to HARD DRIVE, DISABLED, DISABLED.. then it says Loading Operating System... for about half a second and then goes back to the boot screen. It gets stuck in a loop.. Also if i go to boot menu and choose my hard drive, it does the same..

Also, may i have a link to your other thread please? thanks

[faizoff]

I apologize I didn't read the 2nd part of your post about the continuous loop. What Hard drive do you have? In the BIOS there's a selection in Integrated Peripherals section for PCH SATA Control Mode. I set mine to AHCI since I have a SSD drive booting. Change those around from IDE to others and see if that changes anything.

[faizoff]

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,4128.30.html

This is the thread I was talking about.

[helloworld]

Its currently set to AHCI, i have just noticed that, (i have no clue what that means i'm not good with hardware) i foolishly changed to IDE, and got bluescreen during funky windows logo... although! the Loading Operating System... stayed on for about half a second and then started to load windows 7. its now back to AHCI.

My hard drive is a 1TB SAMSUNG HD103SJ, SATA II.

Do you think if i formated my hd, then switched to IDE and installed windows 7 again, would that solve it?

[PeterT]

I'm using AHCI on a SATA drive with no boot  issues at all!

[faizoff]

Its currently set to AHCI, i have just noticed that, (i have no clue what that means i'm not good with hardware) i foolishly changed to IDE, and got bluescreen during funky windows logo... although! the Loading Operating System... stayed on for about half a second and then started to load windows 7. its now back to AHCI.

My hard drive is a 1TB SAMSUNG HD103SJ, SATA II.

Do you think if i formated my hd, then switched to IDE and installed windows 7 again, would that solve it?

Does keeping it to SATA change anything? I'm not sure what  could be causing the reboot loop.

[helloworld]

I don't quite understand what you mean. but..

If i change from AHCI to IDE, the delay and contuious loop are fixed, but i get a blue screen while windows 7 is loading up.

[faizoff]

Don't you have the option of IDE, SATA & AHCI when selecting the peripheral mode? I have those 3 and was referring to that.

[helloworld]

Nope, my options are: IDE, RAID(XHD), AHCI

I wrote down the bios settings for that page:

eXharddrive - disabled
peripheral mode - AHCI
sata port native mode - enabled
usb controler - enabled
usb legacy function - enabled
usb storeage function - enabled
azalia codex - auto
onboard LAN - enabled
SMART LAN - press enter..
onboard LAN boot ROM - disabled
onboard usb 3.0 controller - enabled
usb turbo - enabled
onboard serial port 1 - 3F8/IRQ4

[helloworld]

Um, i'm just gonna try format my hard drive, change it to IDE and then install my windows 7. I'll reply on how that works out..

[faizoff]

Nope, my options are: IDE, RAID(XHD), AHCI

Nevermind I should've checked. You're right those are the options. I'm of no help.

[helloworld]

Back! I set to IDE and then booted from my win7 disc, formated my drive and partitions.. then installed windows 7. Seems the delaying and contuous loop are gone now! Hopefully i havn't spoke too soon :O

[Slider]

Unfortunately ACHI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) mode is really the mode you want the SATA controller to be operating in.  IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) mode is a legacy mode where the SATA controller mimics an old, simple IDE controller and this mode is there to enable older operating systems that do not support modern SATA controllers to function with your modern motherboard.  Numerous advanced features are disabled when using IDE mode.  System performance may be degraded and some of the more advanced interactive modern hard drive features will not function (potentially features such as support for external SATA drives (eSATA), hot swappability (being able to plug in and unplug SATA drives without powering off and/or rebooting the system), NCQ (native command queuing which allows the drive to optimize a queue of read/write operations by sequencing them in a different order to minimize head movement which can substantially improve performance in certain situations), TRIM (a feature that tells modern SSD hard drives to clean up after file deletion to ensure performance doesn't slow down over time), etc.).

The computer definitely should not be getting stuck in a loop when you have the Intel SATA controller set to ACHI mode.  This is the correct and ideal mode for the Intel SATA controller (unless you want to use a RAID to allow multiple hard drives to work together for enhanced performance and then RAID should be selected instead).

This sounds like some sort of BIOS bug that is showing up due to the particular combination of hardware you have installed.

I would recommend opening a tech support ticket with Gigabyte.  You can do that here: http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/technical-support.aspx.

More than likely the problem will be fixed either by slightly altering your hardware configuration (likely some, theoretically non-required, minor change such as switching the particular SATA port that the hard drive is connected to or some other equally bizarre unexpected change) or by Gigabyte figuring out the bug in the BIOS and releasing a new BIOS that fixes the issue.

One change I would actually try is to move the hard drive to a different SATA port.  Since it is a SATA II drive, you can plug i into any of the 6 Intel SATA ports (0 and 1 support higher SATA III speeds (6 Gb/s), while ports 2 through 5 support SATA II (3 Gb/s) speeds; all SATA III ports also do support SATA II and SATA I)