Help, GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 USB Issues

[Iliaspap]

Hello,

I have just purchased a GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 and the story goes like this:

Fisrt boot:
-Freezes for a few seconds more than normal after award bios logo...
-Detecting drives
-ACHI Info ech. and then goes for windows load
-There, It freezes for 60+ sec  in Windows logo and then loading windows normaly.

After some investigation, by disabling everything from bios including usb controllers, It worked. no freezes, windows loading in lighting speed with my vertex3.
After that I re-enabled everything from bios and unpluged all my usb devices. Worked again, everything fine.
At last: Found that the device is causing freezes is my external WD usb2.0 HDD. every time I plug it, I have this problem.
Is my HDD's fault? No, in all other PCs i tested it, works fine.

I tried to plug another portable mini hdd, when I pluged it, it worked, after some time, my keyboard became unstable and the button lights (razer lycosa) flashing. Never had this issue again. My usb devices tested in both usb 2.0 and 3.0 ports and with legacy support enabled. Same resaults.

Conclusion
Something doesnt work well in the usb controllers. otherwise, my system is rock solid. I like this mobo but please help or report for a future bios update.
Hope it isnt hardware problem that needs to replace my mobo.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

I think that the problem could well lie with the USB drivers or BIOS but if your WD hard drive is one of the "Green" variety it could be compounding the problems. They are very slow to spin up and keep winding down when given a chance.

[Iliaspap]

Thanks for your answer mate,

I think I resolved the issue after some research, by disabling USB Storage Function (enabled by default). Hironic, isnt it?

My WD isnt the 5400rp, "green", but this spin up every time windows startring is killing me. anyways, its seems I dont have the freeze issue until now.

But its hironc that a USB Storage Function is the cause of the problem. It may cause same issues to other people, so its good to be fixed in a future bios.

[dug_less]

Hello,

I have just purchased a GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 and the story goes like this:

Fisrt boot:
-Freezes for a few seconds more than normal after award bios logo...
-Detecting drives
-ACHI Info ech. and then goes for windows load
-There, It freezes for 60+ sec  in Windows logo and then loading windows normaly.

After some investigation, by disabling everything from bios including usb controllers, It worked. no freezes, windows loading in lighting speed with my vertex3.
After that I re-enabled everything from bios and unpluged all my usb devices. Worked again, everything fine.
At last: Found that the device is causing freezes is my external WD usb2.0 HDD. every time I plug it, I have this problem.
Is my HDD's fault? No, in all other PCs i tested it, works fine.

I tried to plug another portable mini hdd, when I pluged it, it worked, after some time, my keyboard became unstable and the button lights (razer lycosa) flashing. Never had this issue again. My usb devices tested in both usb 2.0 and 3.0 ports and with legacy support enabled. Same resaults.

Conclusion
Something doesnt work well in the usb controllers. otherwise, my system is rock solid. I like this mobo but please help or report for a future bios update.
Hope it isnt hardware problem that needs to replace my mobo.

Iliaspap, I was having random usb problems/disconnects with my GA-Z68X-UD5-B3. I was also having a problem entering the bios at startup. Resolved all of my issues by replacing my Razer Lycosa keyboard. Seems my motherboard wasn't too happy with it. Might be worth trying a keyboard change for a few days and see what happens.

[Iliaspap]

Thanks for your answer,

By the time I disabled USB Storage Function, I don have issues so far.

But, when your keyboard doesnt work ok, when my usb hdd has cause freezes, I can safely say that gigabyte's usb compatibility needs to be improved.

Maybe a future bios will fix it.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes I am siure that you are right and with the boards being so new the BIOSes are being worked on all the time to improve them.

[Beau]

I'm have a problem getting my Linux USB flash stick to boot. I "think" I've had it boot sometimes switching  between USB-HDD and USB-FDD (I'm assuming floppy which I don't have). I've worked on thus for several days with numerous tries. BIOS ver. 5. I've searched the forum.  Boot order is USB, CDROM, and then hard drive. Hitting F-12 and selecting USB doesn't fix, it boots into WIn7.

[Dark Mantis]

Obviously make sure that it is formatted in FAT32. Sometimes  motherboards seem to be a bit choosy in which USB drives they pick up at boot. I can only suggest trying a different small USB pendrive and see if that works better. As for the Linux side of things I am afraid I can't help you but I expect someone else on here can.

[Beau]

Obviously make sure that it is formatted in FAT32. Sometimes  motherboards seem to be a bit choosy in which USB drives they pick up at boot. I can only suggest trying a different small USB pendrive and see if that works better. As for the Linux side of things I am afraid I can't help you but I expect someone else on here can.

Yes, always formatted to Fat32. Other pendrives that I know work refuse to boot. I've also had boot failures with Linux boot DVDs and CDs. Hope I can get some help on this. If I ever need to boot from CD/DVD in an emergency I'm in trouble. I also like to play around with Linux on pendrives.

Penmdrive letters show up in Win7 and I can access them. Thanks.

[josh1413]

Thanks for your answer mate,

I think I resolved the issue after some research, by disabling USB Storage Function (enabled by default). Hironic, isnt it?

My WD isnt the 5400rp, "green", but this spin up every time windows startring is killing me. anyways, its seems I dont have the freeze issue until now.

But its hironc that a USB Storage Function is the cause of the problem. It may cause same issues to other people, so its good to be fixed in a future bios.

I have a Gigabyte Z68x-UD4-B3 and i was having the exact same problem. I disabled the USB Storage Function and it hasn't given me any issues yet either. Can we have a BIOS update to fix this please?

[Beau]

I cleared my CMOS as described in this forum but it didn't fix for my USB boot failure problem. I am able to boot my pendrive every once in awhile but it can't be duplicated on the next few attempts. Seems it will when it wants to, which is rarely.

As suggest I disabled in BIOS "USB Storage Function" which is "Legacy support of USB USB mass storage". Well, I do use a WD USB external backup drive but I plug it in manually and don't boot with it. Disabling doesn't fix for me.

I've also had this boot problem with CD/DVD boot disks such as Linux. I haven't tried it since first posting to this thread but if it persists then this is very serious.

I see some people are having this problem with these GA-Z68x boards, but others may not. Does anybody know the reason? I have an expensive USB 3.0 pendrive on order for booting and now I won't be able to use it.   :-(

[Dark Mantis]

As suggest I disabled in BIOS "USB Storage Function" which is "Legacy support of USB USB mass storage". Well, I do use a WD USB external backup drive but I plug it in manually and don't boot with it. Disabling doesn't fix for me.

What you have said there is the exact opposite of what you would need to do to boot from a USB device. The Legacy support of USB USB mass storage is what gives you drivers for the USB pendrive before the OS loads it's own drivers.

You may well find that your new USB 3.0 drive will work. As I mentioned before it is purely a lottery if a certain drive works or not. Even if they are known to be good.

[Beau]

Thank you once again. It is odd that  Iliaspap here disabled  Legacy support of USB USB mass storage and it seemed to fix his problem. I have 3 pendrives that I've booted on other machines but none of them work consistently with this motherboard. I will see shortly if my new USB 3.0 pendrive will work when it arrives.

[Dark Mantis]

I have had the problem myself with certain USB pendrives. Usually it tends to be the larger size drives are more problematic. I keep a couple of smaller drives now just for boot procedures.

[Beau]

I have had the problem myself with certain USB pendrives. Usually it tends to be the larger size drives are more problematic. I keep a couple of smaller drives now just for boot procedures.

I've tried 3 different pendrives in sizes 1, 4, and 8 gb with various Linux live small distros. All have worked in other machines.

In this instance I am sure it is either the BIOS or the motherboard itself. If it is the motherboard I want to get it replaced as soon as possible. I can't wait for an updated BIOS. My previous board, a MSI, was DOA so I'm not having much luck.  

All USB functions enabled in BIOS.