GA-880GMA-USB3 : unstable

[sadpanda]

Assembled the following machine last week:

GA-880GMA-USB3
AMD Athlon II X3 455 Rana 3.3GHz
G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
XFX HD-677X-ZNLC Radeon HD 6770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16
CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 V2 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
Sentey Optimus GS-6000 Extreme Division Tower Case

On first start up motherboard gives 'graphics card not inserted properly' error repeatedly. I inspect the graphics card and positioning looks and feels good, perhaps the angle is not quite perfect. I loosened the screws holding the motherboard and retightened after positioning the motherboard in the most ideal position for the graphics card angle (needed to be pushed towards the back panel).

Start up computer, get same error. Plug in another vid card (working), get same error. Switch it back, restart it a few times, get it to POST. Change boot order in BIOS, restart. Attempt to boot to Acronis Disk Director 11 Home from CD. Never reaches menu to choose whether to start Disk Director or continue with OS boot but doesn't freeze, just sits there says 'Starting Acronis Loader' and goes '.' '..' '...' etc. Try a couple other Acronis boot disks, both Linux and WinPE, no luck.

Attempt to install Win7. After a couple freezes on 'Loading Windows Files', reach Windows Setup. Freeze there a couple times too. Eventually am able to install Windows. Install all drivers, start windows updates. 18 hours later check on it, screen works but system is frozen on some 'Windows Update for x64 based system'. after 5 minutes mouse starts working, try to open windows explorer and navigate to a folder. On reaching folder computer crashes.

Computer doesn't POST, same error of  'graphics card not inserted properly'. Try removing, repositioning card, cycling power supply, removing and reattaching various peripherals. Eventually problem stops and computer POSTS. Windows will not boot. Startup recover working extremely slow, unable to fix problem. Attempt at system restore causes a crash.

Boot into Memtest, no errors for 30 min on test #5 Block Move.

Able to boot into Acronis Disk Director, attempt to wipe hard drive. When starting operation Acronis complains that it can't start the reboot agent and operations are canceled. Boot into Win setup. On attempting to delete and create partitions or 'expanding windows files' computer freezes repeatedly. I give up and go home for the day.

At home test hard drive with multiple utilities. Perfect condition.

Come back,  'graphics card not inserted properly' error rears its ugly beeping head repeatedly. Nothing seems to fix it except restarting the computer for about 5 minutes. Manage to install Windows, install all drivers and 80 updates, attempt to install acronis true image. Hard drive starts making repeated crunching noises, after several minutes computer crashes.

Should be familiar now...  'graphics card not inserted properly' errors, after that Win7 not bootable. I take the hard drive plug it into a working computer, won't boot, startup repair finds no problems, attempts to fix them, fails. System restore works, am able to restore to an earlier point. Still not bootable in working computer. Files can be explored from working windows install.

Bring computer from hell to new location. Plug in hard drive, turn on. POSTs and boots immediately with no problems. Everything is a touch more responsive, the way it is on working computer. Install a bunch of programs over several hours, make a backup, restart a few times, no problems. Suddenly, crash on simple file transfer.

 'graphics card not inserted properly' !!!!!! I diddle the restart button for a few. POSTs, Win7 boots, but not perfectly responsive, a touch slow, every once in awhile mouse freezes for a moment. After a while BSOD PFN_LIST_CORRUPT on start of google chrome (was on at time of Acronis True Image install crash). Restart Win7, attempt a bunch of different actions. Starts restarting suddenly on its own. Screen image suddenly gets noisy, then restart. Restarts sooner and sooner each successive time. On one restart executes BIOS recovery successfully. When working, works slowly, sometimes sound or LAN won't load. Sometimes keyboard doesn't work even in POST.

Let computer sit off for 20min. Boot into Win7, able to run hwmonitor. Temperatures are within reason, around 40C on MB, 50C top on processor. Voltages too, except -12 goes wild starting from -12 and settles on -8 and the -5 voltage just sits at -8.5. Use voltmeter to check voltages on -12 and -5 wires. -12 is stable at -12. There is no -5 wire from the PSU.

Some other BSODs I got:

UDFS_FILE_SYSTEM during Windows Setup
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL at various times

And yes I checked and checked again to make sure everything was plugged in properly.



At this point I'm pretty convinced this motherboard possesses a mischievous will of its own and is just laughing at my earnest labor. But I suppose it could be the power supply. Any thoughts?

[absic]

Hi there,

Your PSU is a little on the light side and that is something I would try swapping to a larger unit to see if it is just a power issue.

But, I have encountered a similar problem on the GA-990FXA-UD5 (also a socket AM3+ Board) when using a Sapphire 4840x2 Graphics Card. However, when I do finally get the system to BOOT it the PC works well and you may want to raise a support ticket with GGTS here: http://ggts.gigabyte.com/tech.asp?ClassID=2&Country=U.S.A.&SourceWeb=B2C just in case a larger PSU doesn't help.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

Seems you have a bit of a trial there. The first thing I would chec k after the power supply that absic suggested is that there isn't a short to  earth from the motherboard to the chassis. By the way it isn't advisable to use the reset switch if you need to force a reboot. Use the power button instead. Stops the CMOS getting corrupted.

Follow these instructions please :

The next thing is to remove the motherboard form the case and test it on the workbench.

Make sure that you observe anti-static precautions.

Lay some cardboard or use the motherboard box that is non-conductive on the worktop and remove the motherboard/CPU/heatsink/fan/buzzer/one stick of memory and PSU from the case and put it on the cardboard. Add the keyboard and now I know you haven't got any graphics but try and boot. The system should try and then fail emitting a series of beeps. Please post what sounds it makes.

[sadpanda]

Thank you for the responses. I will try what you suggested as soon as I get home. A short with the case is definitely a possibility. The mobo didn't have the little burgundy insulation washers that go under the screws holding it down, but i have some spares. Also the areas immediately surrounding the screw holes that are in contact with the screws have exposed solder. It looks intentional, but i guess it might be part of the problem.

So far I have identified several states of the machine that are associated with different triggers.

Intense hard drive activity -> freeze or bsod -> 'graphics card not inserted properly' -> corrupt windows installation

Powered on for large % of a number of hours -> sluggish responsiveness, long load time, missing graphics -> static noise on screen and sudden restart unrelated to load -> more sluggish, sooner restart but no 'graphics card not inserted properly'

[sadpanda]

After sitting off for at least half a day but plugged in:

freeze during windows boot
freeze during bios splash
once more
power cycled psu
keyboard inoperable during windows boot  menu
booted win7 in normal amount of time, a little slow but everything loaded

cpu vcore is all over the place from 1.04 to 1.41. all the others stable but slightly above instead of slightly below as they were during the repeated crashing last night. going to stress test the comp

[sadpanda]

explorer, resource monitor & hwmonitor taking excessive cpu time, programs switching takes time. file transfer local and network working perfectly. prime95 is unable to max out even one core, everything comes to a stop. abort test but process keeps going. end process. static on screen, bsod without error code, restart, doesn't POST.

[Dark Mantis]

A short with the case is definitely a possibility. The mobo didn't have the little burgundy insulation washers that go under the screws holding it down, but i have some spares. Also the areas immediately surrounding the screw holes that are in contact with the screws have exposed solder. It looks intentional, but i guess it might be part of the problem.

The screws are not the problem as you have noticed they are supposed to make a good contact so no worries there. What you need to look for is an extra motherboard post or something like that.

Are you suire that you have all the power cables inserted properly, the 24 pin and 8 pin on the motherboard and the 8 pin or whatever the graphics card requires.

[sadpanda]

So I took everything out of the case. Disconnected everything except a stick of ram and the cpu, powered on with a screwdriver. Took static precautions. POSTs quickly, no problem. attached the rest of components gradually except front panel, disk drive and vid card. Everything works, been on for a bit, not crashing like it was just 20 min ago. Still sluggish. All 3 cores are cranking away at 75% on some svchost.exe and system and windows update service. How can perfomance monitor take 8% of 3.3 ghz x 3. CPU-Z says processor is working at max multiplier. going to stress test.

[sadpanda]

Restarted to add second RAM stick before stress testing. Shut down took awfully long, log off too with black screen and just a mouse. On restart Catalyst forgot my scaling settings. On launching chrome, told me it can't load last session because there is no preferences list. Everything loaded, but slowly. CPU being eaten up by svschost, system and wuauserv (windows update). On last start windows update was trying to download SP1, but was stuck at 0. Still using 20% of cpu. Going to stress test now.

[sadpanda]

Additionally, hard drive wouldn't stop, even thought resource monitor reports only a little bit of use. As soon as stress test started with aida64 (cpu, fpu, cache, memory, not hdd) it quieted down. System moderately responsive, even through stress test, voltages & temperatures stable.

[sadpanda]

Can't find anywhere the case could be touching the motherboard. No extra posts, nothing. Going to abort stress test and try it with video card inserted.

[sadpanda]

Realized the cpu time was being used by driver verifier which i've had on for awhile. Doh...

[sadpanda]

Everything except front panel plugged in. Stress testing all aspects of computer simultaneously. No issues.

[Dark Mantis]

Well it sounds like we are getting there then. It is now a case of giving it time to test thoroughly and then when you are certain that it is working alright rebuilding bit by bit into the case again. Do not try and rebuild everything at once in the chassis and that way if there is a fault at least you will have more chance of being aware of what caused it.

[absic]

Just to add something.
When you rebuild the PC take care how you position the motherboard against the back panel plate as this can sometimes cause a short if the motherboard is to tight or to loose against it.