Gigabyte GA-H55-UD2H - Won't post

[Tharnax]

Hi all,

I'm new to the Gigabyte forums as I've never had any problems with my Gigabyte boards, hence, no reason to come on here looking for support.  Unfortunately, that luck just ran out.  I've been running an GA-H55-UD2H mainboard with 3x 2GB ram chips, Antec Case with 500w Bronze PSU, i5 650 intel processor and a basic fanless AMD 5450 Vid card with a OCZ Vertex 2 SSD 60GB & an internal LG Blu-ray reader.  Attached to the vid cards are two monitors 24" Dell & 22" Samsung (Dell has 2 USB ports which connects from the monitor to the motherboard directly.  I have a USB G15 keyboard and wireless USB mouse, an external USB 2.5" drive which is both powered by a USB port and uses another for connectivity.  This setup has been working flawless for 6+ months until this Sunday evening.  Arrived home, went to power on the computer as it was sleeping and it would not come on.  The lights on the G15 were flickering after a few moments before I could react to anything the machine shut off.  I tried to boot it up from off state and it wouldn't turn on.  I removed all USB devices thinking that it was a power issue and tried to power up.  It booted up and went to some recover BIOS window and tried to load an old BIOS.  Machine got to approx 8000+ bytes and powered off with a blue flashing power light on the front of the case.  Figured it was doing something so I left it along for about 60 minutes.  After 60 minutes of no change, I booted up again only for it to do the same thing.  Unfortunately, this time when it shut down at 8000+ bytes it didn't have a flashing blue power light and it wouldn't boot at all.  Read the internet and found that sometimes the default BIOS has a lower voltage setting, so figured that's why it might not boot up.  I removed all non-essential devices (disconnect SSD, Blu-ray, one monitor) and removed all but 1 stick of ram.  Which was left in one of the two white slots on the motherboard.  Unfortunately, nothing changed, I still could not get it to boot up.  Took the next step of removing the 1 stick of ram to see if I would get any beeps.  Well, on power up the board beeped at me quite consistently and after about 10 or so beeps I shut it off.  I put 1 stick of ram back in and tried power up with no success.  I did the standard BIOS reset by unplugging the power and removing the CMOS battery and pressing the power button to remove all residual power.  Plugged the CMOS battery in and tried to boot up...... Nothing!  

I'm at a loss for options, so today I did some searching and found this forum and was hoping someone could give me some guidance.  At this point, I'm thinking I'll have to replace the motherboard but it's not as easy to find an H55 anymore.  Thoughts!  Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

The first thing that bsprings to mind is the memory. You had the right idea by removing all but one module and trying again but maybe one or more modules is faulty. Try cycling through them all in the fiorst white slot DDR3_1.

If it is not that I would try and swap out the PSU for another one preferably slightly larger and good quality.

[Tharnax]

Thanks, I should have thought to try that, I'll give it a shot later today.

I do have an extra 550w PSU sitting around but I'll have to buy a larger one if I need to test further.  With the price of PSUs above 600w, they are pretty much 75% - 120% of the cost of a new H55 motherboard anyway. 

Here's hoping it's a 1 single RAM stick issue as ram is cheap and I can live with 4GB for a while.

[Dark Mantis]

Try your spare one for now. Even though it might be large enough when new what happens is that they degrade with age and use and then just fail to work sufficiently. As with the memory it is just a case of testing to see what the problem is. Once discovered you can make the necessary arrangements to fix it.

[Tharnax]

Well, after a few hours and too tired to post last night.  I very confident that either the motherboard or the CPU has had it.  I tried the individual ram sticks in either white slots, doing the complete power down, unplug, etc.  No joy!  I then thought, why am I wasting my time and opened up another computer that supports the same ram, popped in the ram and that computer booted up with the same 3x 2GB ram sticks that were previously on the Gigabyte board.  RAM not the problem.... check!

So keeping this theme going, I removed the PSU from the case and plugged it into the other computer and took that PSU and plugged it into the Gigabyte board.  Well, the other computer booted fine.  No joy from the Gigabyte board, same power on, no post randomly turn off after 30 seconds and attempt to boot again.  PSU not the problem.... check!

Next I moved the AMD 5450 vid card from the Gigabyte motherboard and installed it in the other computer.  Other computer still booted fine.  Vid card not the problem..... check!

So basically, by the end of the evening I had all the stuff from the gigabyte board (minus CPU) plugged into another board and all the stuff (minus the CPU) from that computer plugged into the Gigabyte board.  Long story short..... too late!, all the parts are running like a champ in the other board and no post from the Gigabyte board.

Unfortunately, I cannot do the CPU swap because the other computer is a LGA 1155 board, not an LGA 1156 board, stupid Intel for not making them interchangeable fortunately everything else was.  Based on the fact that the CPU has never been overclocked, I'm going to go with the assumption that the boards fried and get another LGA 1156 board.  I thought about dumping both and getting a LGA 1155 board with another i5 2nd Gen processor but it takes the cost from a $100(ish) to $300(ish) and I'd prefer to keep the costs down.

[Dark Mantis]

AS yuou say it would seem to be either the motherboard or CPU. It really could be either. So I would suggest as it is easier and cheaper RMA the CPU as it is covered for 3 years warranty. If it comes back as ok then you know it's the board and can RMA that one.