GA-990FXA-UD3 No linux usb key boot.

[lemme]

Hello everyone,   

I have searched around but have not seen this issue posted so here it goes.  I am running the UD3 all stock and am trying to boot a debian live image on usb key.  Unfortunately there is no love from my board and I get a boot error message regardless of usb port or boot method.  I have tried others like ubuntu and a different debian package and those work fine using the same usb key. 

The only thing I can tell is that the non booting debian has several linux ext3/4 partitions whereas the others only have one partition, usually fat32. 
Has anyone come across anything similar where the gigabyte boards do not boot from usb keys with multiple partitions?  I have tried all listed Bioses on the support page but no luck.  Any help would be appreciated. 

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

Normally the problem is that the motherboard and the drive conflict but as it seem to work ok with other OSes that wouldn't seem to be the case this time. To boot from the pendrive you normally have to have a FAT version on the drive which you say the others are. Could that be your problem? I am not a expert with Linux so can't really help here. Sorry.

[lemme]

Hi Mantis,

I'm not really a big linux guy myself so no prob.  I have tried out the problematic image on my X58A-UD5 and there were no issues either.  It is really weird as they are both Gigabyte boards with Award Bioses.  Has me stumped.  I should throw an email to tech support to see what they think.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes it certainly wouldn't hurt and as they normally take a few days to answer you might already have found the information by the time they get back to you.


http://uk.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/support-downloads.aspx

Please expect several days for a reply.

[lemme]

Well I have tried talking to technical support but unfortunately aside from their poor english they have no ideas about why this live usb image will not boot.  Its a shame but I may have to return this board for something else as if it can't do the job it becomes useless. 

If anyone has any input or advice on issues like this or had something similar please don't hesitate to join in.
The image in question is called BAMT for bitcoin mining,  easy to find out there.  Thanks again.

[Mobo-for-Linux]

 

I have just bought a Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD2H and I have also been pulling my hair over this.

It turns out this is an old and well documented problem for most Gigabyte Boards, which make them practically useless for Linux (or installing OS'es without an internal cd/dvd-drive in general). Just do a search for "Gigabyte can't boot from usb". You'll get plenty of hits, some with hacks and workarounds that has not worked for me at all.

I have an ASRock equivalent that boots and installs flawlessly from USB. I just wish I had seen the 'not for Linux' community warning before I placed my order.

Regards!

[alex80386]

This is quite an old discussion, but in case it helps someone...

With my GA-Z77-D3H motherboard, I tried a bootable USB in the front USB port(s) and couldn't boot from USB (tried memtest86+ and then debian installer) and then later on, I found that I could boot from the rear USB connectors. It seems that there is an internal USB hub and not all USB ports are created equal.

More recently I was able to boot from the front ports, but I had updated the BIOS a couple of times since the first time.
So if you get the same problem, update the BIOS and try booting from the rear USB ports too.

If you have a recent motherboard you need a Linux image with the latest (or at least recent) kernel/drivers.

In my case, I installed Debian 6.0 (aka "squeeze") using the backported installer image squeeze-custom-amd64-0315.iso from:
http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/

[s56vpe]

Funny thing with my GA-990XA-UD3. If I transfer the ISO to the USB  stick with the ubuntu startup disk creator the stick is not detected at boot time. If I transfer the ISO with dd (dd if=ubuntu.iso of=/dev/sdX) everthing is fine. Weird 

[mmino]

I just add link to this issue on Ubuntu site:

GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3 motherboard not working with 64 bit kernel since February 1st, 2013.
Same issue is also on GIGABITY GA-990FAX-UD3 REV3.0. It seams that GIGABYTE doesn't care about LINUX. On GIGABYTE company doesn't know that LINUX operation system exists. Let try to employee at least one person for LINUX open source that just only checks GIGABYTE hardware for LINUX compatibility and then your customer could decide if he buy it or he will spend several month in development lab.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2111223

.... before I have to face an angry customer.
... I updated the BIOS to the latest firmware, and both problems still exist with the 64-bit kernel.
... The chipset for northbridge is not supported under a linux 64 bit kernel and neither is the Southbridge according to AMD's own website.
... This may have been one of those 'made for windows' boards so it may take some time before manufacturers decide to get around to the rest of us.

 

[Vezina]

Used with a 970A-UD3 v1.0 latest BIOS an Ubuntu x64 installation on a HDD just fine.
Maybe you are doing something wrong.
Not to say that some other distroes are much better ,try OpenSUSE 12.2 or Kubuntu or Linux Mint.
Much better experience overall and more detailed customization of the OS.

[ric]

sorry, but I tested my AMD970A V3 with Fedora 18 and 19 64bits, Mageia 3 64 bits, Suse 12.3 64 bits and ubuntu 13.04 64...
.... and all usb2 ports does not work, the network card does not work... I think that  it is a only windows mainboard. but the company could have written that in the box... then i could have purchased other mainboard.

[zeroarmy27]

I have a 990FXA-UD3 v1.1  that I used a GParted Live USB boot drive on multiple times. GParted Live is based on Debian Live...

Here's their troubleshooting and a link:

**If your USB flash drive or USB hard drive is not able to boot, check the following:
**
**Ensure that your USB flash drive contains at least one FAT partition.
**Ensure that the partition is marked as "bootable" in the partition table.
**Ensure that the partition starts on a cylinder boundary.
** ;DFor the first partition this is usually sector 63.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php

Try this method out. I hope this helps.

[tven]

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem with a GA-970A-UD3 Rev3 board running 64Bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release which I posted here http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,12830.0.html where neither my USB or my Network ports were working

The response by mmino pointing to this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2111223 is the exact one that I used and found that the fix mentioned in there worked for me.

The problem seems to be ONLY 64bit linux, and is present in all releases since 12.04. And some how seems to be linked to only Rev 3 boards.

I suggest either using a 32 bit OS which some users in that thread said worked for them, or, loading the bios once you start the computer and I quote

"I was able to get my system working by setting IOMMU to ENABLED in the bios"

This setting is what I changed and after I did that both the USB and Network ports worked perfectly.

I hope this works as well for you as it worked for me, good luck.

[ok67]

I had the same problem with a GA-970A board. After searching the internet for a solution i found this:

"In the BIOS, set IOMMU to "Enabled". That fixed both USB and networking for me. "

here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2143433

That solved my problems 

[leong2]

hi all
Imagine its July 31 2014 and still this bother.  Just purchased this mb and had terrible time with this issue until I found out about iommu.  However not only  had I to enable it in bios but also had add iommu=pt at linux boot because even with iommu enabled the usb 3 would not work until I did this.  Network card and usb 3 seem to work fine now.  I am not sure about external esata since I don't have any.  I wonder is there a problem there and any other linux problems or linux optimisations.

I also seen on the web iommu=soft could be put in boot menu.  I wonder what is the difference between this and iommu=pt.  Also anyone know best memory optimisation I have it on profile 1 and I have  set the multiplier from 9.33x to 10.66x and have a Configured Clock Speed: 1066 MHz

Gigabyte should have this issue sorted by now  and more support for linux.  What a shame.