Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3 - Windows 7 64 bit freezing/Locking UP

[paincakes]

I have a similar system to DemoniK with a P67A-UD5 though. I am using 16GB of Corsair Vengeance 9-9-9-24 1600mhz, Windows 7 x64 Pro, and an i7 2600k. If I do not use the XMS1 profile in BIOS my system will hard lockup when idle. Also I've noticed when my memory is set to XMS1 1600mhz I lose full Turbo Boost capability. It will only boost to 3.5ghz at any time. If I turn off XMS1 it will allow me to boost to 3.6 and 3.7ghz as it is supposed to but I start getting freezes when system is idle. You can download the Intel Turbo Boost monitor at http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3052&DwnldID=19105&lang=eng

[Dark Mantis]

I would recommend making a note of the XMP settings  and then turning it off and inputting them manually and increasing the memory voltage  a touch to compensate for the extra loading on the memory controller for having all the slots filled.

[thewebsiteisdown]

Hello every one.

I have a good one to run by you.

I have the following setup;

GA-P67A-UD3P: BIOS f7b.
2600K
DDR3 Corsair 2000MHz 2 X 4GB
Asus 6970 2GB
Corsair HX850W
3 x WD RE3 320GB 16MB Cache Drives in Raid 0
1 x 500GB WD Drive
Creative Extremegamer
Intel CT NIC PCIE X1

I've been having issues that I've seen people get close to talking about on here but not exactly the same word for word. I get lock ups when trying to access the BIOS screen to where I will press delete and it's noticied by the motherboard and it will stop right at the ACH1 screen of the Intel Raid Controller screen and it will just sit there all night long if I let it.

I'll reboot and try again and it will lock up agaion but this time before it gets to the controller screen, the screen will stay black and it never does anything after that. I'll reboot again and it will lock up again except this time it will give me funky characters on the screen or the screen will turn all green then boom it will reboot fail start over again until finally it lets me right in like nothing happened.

I also get this symptom when trying to press Alt+F12 to flash my backup BIOS.

I think that my boot block is bad on one of the chips or both but I mgiht be wrong.....

I'm currently running at 5GHz and the PC doesn't lock up on me during gaming or idling or anything funky like that..

Question that I'm sure will get asked answered right away. Yes I have flashed to every single BIOS all the way up through the ranks until I reached this one and every single one except f5 has done this behavior.. Now if I would have stayed on that BIOS longer, maybe it would have produced the same issue but it seemed to be the most stable one so far to me but again maybe I'm wrong there....


Is there  a way to flash the BIOS and deffinatelly wipe over the old boot block so I can see if that stops this issue? Thanks.

Also I'll note that the manual set voltage option in the BIOS seems really quarky compared to the get vid option.

Thanks again.       

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

As you have now updated the BIOS from the original buggy one I would suggest using QFlash or even FlashSPI to flash it again and then syncronise the two versions.

The first thing to do is go to the Gigabyte wesite and find the "Support and Downloads" section

(http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/support-downloads.aspx).

Select your motherboard and revision number which can be found printed on the bottom left corner of the motherboard.

Click on the "BIOS" tab. This will take you to the BIOS versions download page.The newest BIOS versions are at the top of the page.

Click on your region under the "Download Here" section heading. A dialogue box will then pop up asking what you want to do with this file.

Click on "save" and note where you are saving it to.

Take a USB pendrive and make sure it is formatted with a FAT32 file system. If the file ends with .exe run it, or if it is a zip file Unzip it, and save the files (usually contains 3 files) that you just expanded to the Boot sector or a folder of your choice on this drive and insert the pendrive into a USB port.

Re-boot.

Press the"End" key as the computer is POSTing and you will be taken into the BIOS flashing utility "Q-Flash".

At the QFlash homescreen disable the Keep DMI Data option before proceeding.

From there just follow the prompts to find your file and DO NOT TURN OFF THE POWER under any circumstances. It will look for the pendrive with the file on it and use that to update the BIOS.

One thing to note is that the pendrive may show up as a floppy or hard disk instead of a USB drive. Once it has completed you can reboot.

We have since found out that the problem with getting some motherboards to "see" the USB drive is a case of using as small a drive as possible, well at least under 2Gb, and even then some will be seen and some won't. Just a matter of luck.

Next sync the two BIOSes.

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.

[thewebsiteisdown]

Lol, you really went in to a trance there with that write up  . I figured ok, so he wants me to re-flash both BIOS again but this time I'll use Q Flash right? I go to flash it and it says the following.

" Checksum = EE00

   Are you sure to Flash still? "


Which is great English grammar by the way lol.

Should I continue with the flash or will it brick it?

I've been googling the code and haven't turned up anything on it.. I don't want to brick the board if it's warning me of a potential serious issue.



Update:

I went ahead and updated it after seeing some one post that their Checksum was just telling them that it was a different checksum and they were fine. It still exhibits the same behavior as before yes, I updated the backup BIOS.

The problem is though that when I go to flash the backup BIOS with the defaults loaded I never actually get in to the backup BIOS flash part because it keeps asking me what is my boot drive. It won't let me around this. I even chose a drive for it to just shut up and it fails to load the operating system of course, and it reboots after i hit enter and does it all over again.

I go in to the BIOS setup and enable Raid and it's fine but I'm starting to wonder if that is the part messing me up TBH.

There's no way around it if it is...

Any way,tell me what you think at this point and thank you.

[Dark Mantis]

Well it should enable you to flash the Backup BIOS with the Main BIOS before booting from the boot drive anyway.

Boot 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. 

I wouldn't have thought that the RAID would have had any effect on it to be fair.

[thewebsiteisdown]

Nope it will ignore me every ingle last time until I change it to be raid. It won't let me do it without doing that first. I even tried pressing tab to get the post screen to come up then did Alt+ F12 and that didn't work either. Clearing the CMOS does nothing..It's running but I don't think it's running correctly based opn hows it's acting. Funny thing is that even after doing all that it still gave me funky characters and wouldn't let me in to the BIOS setup screen at first.... Both BIOS are currently reflashed but the issue is still there and the issue with the Raid is just silly.

Tell me what you think and thank you for your help so far.

[Dark Mantis]

I take it that your keyboard is working on boot as some especially USB ones don't always ?

[thewebsiteisdown]

I have a G15 which is USB but yes it works without a hitch as far as I can tell.

[Dark Mantis]

It might be worth trying a PS2 one if you can lay your hands on one. They are always preferable for this type of thing.

[thewebsiteisdown]

I'll give that a go later when I get home and see if it makes a difference or not and I'll post back what happens. I appreciate your help. Funny thing is that the motherboard is still chugging away at 5GHz without a hitch lol. If it still exhibits the behavior perhaps I should open a ticket with Gigabyte and see if they have any sugegstions, maybe they can send me a BIOS to resolve the issue a bet that is..

Thanks again.

[Dark Mantis]

Well it certainly wouldn't hurt and it normally takes a few days to get an answer so the sooner the better.

Just enter your email address and click on the language of choice.
GGTS   http://ggts.gigabyte.com/

[thewebsiteisdown]

I used the ps2 keyboard earlier and it was able to finally get in to the backup flash on BIOS defaults. I went ahead and flashed both BIOS but I noticed that I still I got the Checksum = EE00 error warning message asking me if  I was sure I wanted to flash when starting the main BIOS flash through Q-Flash.

I wish the     I could find an explanation of the codes QFlash throws some where. I looked and looked and looked again still, I turned up nothing. I'm pretty good at Googling things to so.

[Dark Mantis]

Does it actually say "error" or are you just assuming it's an error as it comes up as a display ?

[thewebsiteisdown]

No it's an actual error that pops up and says the before mentioned.