GA-A75N-USB3 won't resume from suspend

[larry79]

I have a GA-A75N-USB3 motherboard that I'm trying to build into an HTPC.  It does everything that I want except that it won't resume from 'Suspend To RAM'.  Is there a problem with this m/board and STR?  I have updated to the latest F3c BIOS.

The CPU is an A4-3400 APU with 8G of DDR3.  I'm using Linux Ubuntu 11.04 (server) with a custom 3.5 Linux kernel and AMD Catalyst 12.8 graphics drivers.  The same kernel and software work OK on an ASUS F1A75-I so I'm fairly sure that the problem is not software related.

The system powers down OK but when I restart it there's just a blank screen, no disk access. I've stripped everything out of the system except the CPU & DRAM and even switched the DRAM but it steadfastly refuses to resume.

I've tried AHCI and IDE disk modes and tried just about all BIOS settings but no change.  Does anyone have a suggestion?  Thanks.

[MarkJohnson]

F3c is a beta bios.  Try F2  and see if that works.

Luck
-=Mark=-

[larry79]

Thanks for the suggestion.  The board shipped with BIOS rev F2 but wouldn't resume from suspend so I installed the latest rev F3c to see if that fixed it, but it didn't.

Thinking of returning it in exchange for an Asus F1A75-I.  Should have known that saving a few bucks would lead to problems.

[MarkJohnson]

Do you have different ram to try?  99.9% of the time it is usually incompatible ram or defective ram.  Usually with incompatible ram you can manually configure and they'll work.

[larry79]

Yeah, I already tried switching the DRAM from a system that suspends OK - no difference ;-(

[MarkJohnson]

Have you tried to  install another OS to test with?  You can download trial win8 enterprise for a quick test.

I assume you already tried clearing the CMOS and loading system default in BIOS?  It is such a rare option to fail that it seems like it has to be memory or software.

[larry79]

I haven't tried another OS, but I am using the exact same Ubuntu system and linux kernel in an Asus F1A75-I motherboard and a Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H and they work OK.  The Asus system has the same CPU, DRAM, hdd, case and PSU as well.

I tried clearing the CMOS with the jumper and loading defaults with no effect.  The F3c beta BIOS gave me a bit of a scare.  After installing it I couldn't use the BIOS Q-Flash utility to go back to BIOS F2 - It just didn't see any files on the key disk.  I had to create a dos bootable USB key disk and use the flashspi.exe utility to restore it.

Re. the win8 evaluation - can it be installed to an 8 or 32G key disk?  If so, where do I get a download from?

[MarkJohnson]

You can download Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation at MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/jj554510.aspx

You can install Win8 using a flash drive no problem using a 4GB or larger drive.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/installing-win7-using-a-usb-stick.aspx

oh wait,after rereading maybe you want install win8 directly to flash drive?  I read others doing it, but haven't tried it myself.  Google should find plenty to methods for this.

-=Mark=-

[larry79]

Thanks for the link, downloading now.  Looks like a lot of pain to install to a key disk so maybe I'll try an external usb drive.

Incidentally, I tried an Ubuntu 12.04 LiveCD and a Linux Mint LiveCD and the system still doesn't resume so it's probably not a software problem.  I'll try win8 later.

So it looks like the m/board.  To eliminate an extremely improbable problem with the PSU 5V standby then I'm going to temporarily wire in an external PSU.  I'm betting that there's no difference.  Wonder if it's a one off or a design fault?  Maybe a BIOS problem.

[MarkJohnson]

Thanks for the link, downloading now.  Looks like a lot of pain to install to a key disk so maybe I'll try an external usb drive.

I neverr figurred out why  it would be any diffferent installing to a USB HDD or Flaash drive?  Seems itt would worrk exactly the same way.

Incidentally, I tried an Ubuntu 12.04 LiveCD and a Linux Mint LiveCD and the system still doesn't resume so it's probably not a software problem.  I'll try win8 later.

So it looks like the m/board.  To eliminate an extremely improbable problem with the PSU 5V standby then I'm going to temporarily wire in an external PSU.  I'm betting that there's no difference.  Wonder if it's a one off or a design fault?  Maybe a BIOS problem.

It's possible the BIOS, but it seems if it sleeps, but not wakes, it usually memory.  BIOS could cause a misconfiguration I suppose..

On my ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 I would get BSOD on wake from sleep from Hackintosh, but no problems in win8.  I tried 5 different sets of memory and was told it was memory.  I went and pulled some generic (low-density, single rank, non-heatsink) chips out of my Dell workstation and  voila!  Sleeps worked fine.  If you can rob some generic  ram I would give this a try.

I just remembered while spell checking my post that I had a Gigabyte  board with wake issues and it turned out it  needed a PS/2 device to wake it.  I didn't have one and disabled/enabled usb legacy support and it worked.

Sometimes all this debugging is more painful than just doing an RMA.  lol

-=Mark=-

[larry79]

I installed the win8 evaluation (to an eSATA disk) and it also has the same resume from suspend problem.  I'm not going to comment on the new UI (not called metro) - enough said.

I also tried an external PSU and also swapped the G-Skill DRAM from my GA-880GM-UD2H (which does resume OK) but it made no difference.  I also tried reducing the DRAM clock to 1066 and disabling interleave.  So it looks like a hardware or BIOS problem on the motherboard.

The next big decision is whether to exchange, with potentially the same problem, or get a refund and try a different make/model.  Problem is I'm stuck with an AMD A4 cpu so my choice of ITX motherboards is limited.  The Asus F1A75-I that I've used successfully before has rocketed in price, as has the (lower performance) Zotac A75ITX-A-E.  The only other choice, the ASRock A75M-ITX, has had a few bad reviews, at least on Amazon.  So I'm stuck thinking if I should ditch the A4 cpu too and go with an Intel H61 m/board.

This is the first intractable problem that I've had with a Gigabyte board.  I've contacted tech support so I'm hoping that they will come up with a BIOS patch.

Many thanks for your suggestions and the win8 link.  The DVD is now hanging on an apple tree scaring off the birds :-)

[larry79]

Received a replacement motherboard from Amazon today - excellent service.

Unfortunately the replacement has the same problem so it appears to be hardware or firmware.  So my advice is DON'T BUY a GA-A75N-USB if you want suspend to RAM to work.

I did notice some slightly different behaviour though.  With the default BIOS (version F2) settings the system will suspend and resume correctly just once.  The board will suspend a second time but hangs with a blank screen during resume.  The board must then be powered off to successfully complete another suspend/resume.  If the system is reset after the resume failure but power is maintained then the system will hang again with a blank screen during the next resume.

The problem is totally reproducible, indicating that the BIOS is not initialising an important hardware register.

[Vezina]

Report the problem to Gigabyte they should be able to fix the problem with a new BIOS.

[larry79]

I have reported it to Gigabyte tech support,  They just said to return it.  Nothing about a new BIOS.

[Vezina]

I have reported it to Gigabyte tech support,  They just said to return it.  Nothing about a new BIOS.

Insist then , i see no other mean to get your problem fixed ,unless the reseller can send you a similar product that works as supposed ,maybe from another manufacturer.