Official GIGABYTE Forum
Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with Intel processors => Topic started by: happyhammer7 on January 30, 2011, 05:09:44 pm
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Right, where to start.
I purchased the above board from Scan a couple of months ago.
The system has been running OK to this point (with the exception of RMAing my corsair RAM back to scan as one stick had died).
Anyway, I have encountered an extremely irritating and performance relating issue.
I currently have x3 hard drives in my system, x2 Samsung F3 Spinpoint and a Western Digital (all 1TB).
I decided to implement a raid 0 configuration using the Samsung HDD, using the Intel Onboard controller.
I went into the Bios to change the config to XHD & Raid. Both drives are plugged into the first x2 ports on the Intel controller.
I then proceeded to build the Raid 0 array and went to install the OS. I downloaded the pre-install raid drivers from the Intel website (latest) and installed these before installation of the OS.
I then booted into the OS and proceeded to install the latest Gigabyte Drivers.
I was greeted with constant "not responding" messages on opened windows and the free space on C: was jumping all over the place (should of ben 1.7TB but dropped to 10GB and gradually increased back up to the correct capacity, when I refreshed the My Computer page. This happened when writing to the drive (installing drivers/software but there was not always a constant pattern.).
The system was completely unstable so I carried out further tests. I ran Samsung's estool utility on both drives (full tests) and both were fine as well as different Sata cables.. I then proceed to move both drives off the Intel ICH10R controller over to the Gigabyte SATA 2 controller and low and behold, same issue. So this rules out any issue with the drivers.
I decided to revert back to a single drive and I have now noticed that this capacity issue is happening on a single drive. Also, I am getting "not responding" issues but not nearly as many as I did on raid 0. I then installed the OS onto the other spinpoint drive and it still does exactly the same thing.
I also ran memtest86, which is also fine.
I am running the latest FE bios for the board, so everything is up to date. This board is making my system completely unstable and I have ran out of ideas.
Can anyone help me with this as it is really hacking me off?
Thanks
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Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.
Interesting problem. I think I would suggest trying running the Western Digital as boot drive as long as it's not one of the "Green" versions and see if that still has the same problems.
Your RAID cannot be switched from one controller to another without rebuilding it totally.
The GSATA ports are the slowest ports on the motherboard.
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Nope still doing the same thing. I have now tried everything possible. The not responding errors appear straight after a fresh install, and the free space on the c: is jumping everywhere. I cannot use this system as it is so unstable. But I just don't know where to start. The system is only a couple of months old so everything is in warranty but where the hell do I start? :-[
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Right if you want to get to the bottom of it I suggest that you remove the motherboard/CPU/heatsink/fan/ buzzer/one module of memory in the DDR3_1 slot and PSU from the case and lay it on a cardboard box or similar.
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.
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I don't have a buzzer unfortunately. I have posted this issue on different forums and it has confused many people ;D
In your opinion, if you was to guess, from your experience, what do you think it might be? I know you maybe reluctant too but I need some more ideas. Thanks for your help.
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Well while we are wildly guessing....maybe a short to the chassis, I would also want to do a sustained test of the memory module by module. I would also check the CPU socket for any bent pins.
Get a buzzer. For the sake of a few pence it can save you wasted hours.
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I did gut the computer completely and rebuilt it. I removed the processor and there are no bent pins on the motherboard. When you say short to the chasis, do you mean metal to metal contact? If so, would that cause permanent damage to the board?
Sorry not overly technical as this is my first build.
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Yes often a short is when a motherboard mounting post has been put in the wrong place or extra ones added. It can of course be caused by other things too. It doesn't always cause a permant fault or damage to the board.
The thing is you have been playing around with this system for a while and got nowhere so you need to take it back to the very basics and go from there.
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Yes often a short is when a motherboard mounting post has been put in the wrong place or extra ones added. It can of course be caused by other things too. It doesn't always cause a permant fault or damage to the board.
The thing is you have been playing around with this system for a while and got nowhere so you need to take it back to the very basics and go from there.
You will be happy to hear that I just brought a buzzer ;D
Anyway, would that indicate if there is a fault on start up? I need nothing pop up during the post that was out of the ordinary.
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Firstly you have to make sure that it is installed the correct way as these are polarity concious and will only work one way round.
If everything was perfect it would emit one beep on finishing POST. Obviously if there is an error then it will give more than one beep, some long some short.
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Does the post beeps always pick up errors then?
It is strange because when I am installing software with the my computer window open, the drive capacity disappears then reappears again showing a drastic reduction in capacity. Everytime I press the refresh arrow, it gradually goes back up to full capacity.
When the software/driver has been installed, the drive returns back to normal. I did think there may have been an issue with the sata controller but I tried both the GIGABYTE SATA 2 controller as well as the ICH10R. Could this still be a possibility that the sata interface is faulty?
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It is not a problem that I have come across before exactly so it is hard to be sure what could be causing it. It could be a motherboard fault.
As I said before all this guessing isn't getting you anywhere. You need to start doing some meticulous faultfinding.
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True. Well I will do what you suggest and let you know how I get on.
Thanks for your help, much appreciated.
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Well I am always on the forum here so if you need more help or guidance just post again. ;)
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Just tested an I get 1 long beep followed by 2 quick short beeps
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Well normally that indicates a graphics card error. Check that it is seated properly in the slot and that the power cables are securely connected to it.
Also what PSU do you have running all your system?
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Got a single beep with card attached.
Got a single beep when everything is put back in the case.
Tried rotating memory modules but no dice either
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So POST is saying that everything checks out ok. I would say the chances are that the motherboard is faulty then. I should arrange an RMA with your retailer or Gigabyte Centre.
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Thanks for all your help. Spoke to Scan (retailer), who thought it could be a fault somewhere with the Sata controllers. So what they are going to is test it and swap it over.
Thanks again
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Sounds like you have had a good result then. ;D
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Hi again,
Just wanted to provide you with an update. Scan have tested and confirmed the board to be faulty, stating a possible Sata fault. Would not have been able to have diagnosed this without your assistance. Good to know that there is excellent support here on these forums.
Learned a lot in terms if troubleshooting, which will be of great benefit for the future.
Thanks again
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Well I am glad that it has all worked out well for you and that I was able to help. As you say it is all good experience and maybe there will be something that you can help someone else with when they have a problem. ;)
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Got the new board and I am STILL having the same issues. I really don't know what to do now.
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OK. Well that's not so bad as it seems. At least now we have a good starting point and know the motherboard is good. We shall have to decide where to go from here for the next step.
Is the board insatalled in the case now or is it outside still?
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Well, when I sent back the motherboard, I took the opportunity to get a HAF X case. So currently, the system is running in that case.
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Nice choice of case. I have the HAF 932 and am well happy with it (even though I butchered it a bit at first as it didn't quite suit what I wanted).
OK so you have it installed in the HAF X. What else is in there too?
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750 watt corsair psu
I7
6gb corsair triple channel
Ati 6870
x2 samsung f3
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I do have a h50 corsair cooler as well
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And presumably an optical drive. Are you sure there is absolutely nothing else ?
How many fans do you have running ?
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Yeah, I have an sata optical drive. Nothing else connected aside from that.
However,
I seem to have eradicated the issue, playing around with the Bios. I just want to go through with you on what I did. Firstly, I set the CPU fan control to disabled, which corsair recommend. The temperate was around 47c before I did this, so can't imagine this rectified it.
I then changed the following -
eSata ctrl mode - AHCI
Gsata ctrl mode - AHCI
I was already running Raid 0 with XHD enabled When I changed all these settings, it automatically installed a load of drivers and now I cannot replicate the original issue.
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I may have changed some other settings but I cannot remember what I changed. I am now very much sure that there was some bios settings in place causing a conflict. What settings would you recommend when configuring the bios for my type of hardware?
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To be honest I don't see what difference any of those BIOS settings would have really made but if they helped then why question it?
If it was me setting it up I would have the RAID on the Intel ICH10R southbridge controller and set to RAID mode and then the optical drive on one of the other controllers probably the GSATA and set to IDE mode.
I would set the memory to XMP profile1 as long as it was happy with that, if not manually configure it.
Disable the floppy drive, the full screen logo and make the RAID the primary boot device.
Apart from that just bits and pieces.
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Well, it seems that the Corsair H50 pump plugs into the cpu socket on the motherboard. However, by doing this you must disable fan control. It seems that this was the cause of the problem. I restored optimised defaults in the Bios but still disabled the controller. After testing the past couple of hours, I have not had the C: drive issue whilst installing and nor have I had one "windows not responding"
Strange that this seems to have solved the problem. But looking back, I vaguely setting this correctly, but went back to optimised default after a failed overclock.
I also ran HD Tune the other week and it was all over the place. Just ran it again and it seems extremely constant. I know this may not seem related but I am sure these issues were with this setting, and somehow must of affected the CPU.
Fingers crossed it stays like this ;D
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As a matter of interest what is the current draw of that pump ?
The maximum allowable on any single fan header is 1 amp and personally I wouldn't want to put that to the test. I always think that all pumps and big fans should be either direct to the PSU/molex connector or via a seperate fan controller module.
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As a matter of interest what is the current draw of that pump ?
The maximum allowable on any single fan header is 1 amp and personally I wouldn't want to put that to the test. I always think that all pumps and big fans should be either direct to the PSU/molex connector or via a seperate fan controller module.
Sorry got that wrong. The fan, attached to the radiator, is connected to the cpu fan header. The pump itself is connected to the 12v northbridge header on the motherboard
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Either way any of the headers are limited to a max of 1 amp.
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Interesting. To be honest mate, I don't know. I done it the way Corsair advised :-\
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If it is the advised way to do it then it should be within the safety zone for the power usage. So I wouldn't think there is any cause for concern there. ;)
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Interesting. To be honest mate, I don't know. I done it the way Corsair advised :-\
My 2 cents:
I've always worked from the premise that the least amount of electrical load I run thru the motherboard the better.
Now I know a lot of people don't want their fans at 100% all the time so if thats the case I suggest a fan controller.
Yes, you have to adjust manually but to me if it keeps the fans off of the board connectors it's worth the added expense.
If it was me I'd have both the fan and the pump on a molex connector and off of the board itself..
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Totally in agreement there MoviemanXS!
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Me again ;D
Thought I would provide you with another update. Original issue returned again, when I was backing up/creating system image with the windows 7 utility. The issue then seemed to be constantly present whenever I wrote large amounts of data to either of my 3 internal discs.
I cast my mind back to how the issue disappeared last time, which was when I altered the bios setting, changing the CPU fan speed to full. The corsair h50 has 2 power sources. One for the pump and one for the fan.
I had a Titan fenrir laying around and thought I would give that a go. I installed the cooler and ran various tests to try and replicate the issue. It now seems to have gone again. I can now write to the HDD at a constant 100mb per second, with no windows not responding or complete system slow down.
Can I faulty CPU cooler cause this kind of behaviour? Everything else seems to work fine now I swapped the cooler. By changing the bios setting for the corsair h50 previously, the issue went temporarily. Now using a different cooler it has eradicated it again. Never experienced this kind of system behaviour before so it has been difficult to diagnose.
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To be honest I wouldn't have expected even a faulty cooler to have displayed this type of problem. If you are now running the fan and pump directly from the PSU and have turned off all the BIOS reporting and alarm settings then it should work fine in my opinion.
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Thing is, I was running the fan and pump from the fan connectors on the motherboard.
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Yes I understood that as I suggested that this wasn't such a good idea before if I am not mistaken. It is obviously yopur call but I would advise running them both from the PSU molex connectors and as I mentioned disable all the fan and alarm features to do with the CPU in the BIOS.
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Either way any of the headers are limited to a max of 1 amp.
Motherboard fan headers?
See here, they can run 3amps at 12v (Just FYI ;D)
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/34197-can-cpu_fan-header-ex58-handle-3-fans.html#post318451
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Thanks for the link Lsdmeasap however this conflicts with the information I obtained from Gigabyte regarding the maximum loading on these headers. :-\
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Very odd?
That was from Gigabyte as well, and they have said that exact same answer to several members over the past year or two, so I dunno? ???
I've never directly asked myself because it is such a small thing to ask about, but I've seen images of, and direct copied info from GGTS like what's shown in that link all saying the same thing.
I rarely use them myself, so I wouldn't know. Maybe Runn3r could get a direct answer for us? It's too little of an issue for me to bug the guys about ;D
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Yes couldn't agree more. Actually it was runn3R who got me the information in the first place so I don't think there is much point in asking him again either. :-\
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Ahh, well then... Hahaha? ;D :D ???
Maybe he was just trying to be on the safe side? I know the people I've seen ask were always asking about "Maximum"
Maybe he will see this, and then check with the engineers to verify, then let us know again - without you having to ask him to check again.