GA-Z77M-D3H - continuous short beeps

[mrtorture]

Hello fellows,
I recently ordered 12 (exact, 12) units of this motherboard rev. 1.0, plus 12 intel i5-2320 3.0 Ghz for a project on my company.

Tried to turn on one of these machines, using a Corsair CX430 PSU, and got this issue of continuous short beeps, followed by a power cycle, and all the beeps again...
RAM used is 1.5V, used 2 working Kingston sticks on the correct slots, tried different combinations, even without them, and the short beeps were there...
Tried to swap the CPU with one of the remaining 11, and got the same short beeps.
Swapped the PSU, same short beeps.
Swapped the motherboard with one of the other 11, AND the same short beeps were there...
Again, tried another PSU, same short beeps.

What everybody around says about these continuous short beeps is that they're related to a power failure, but even mixing 2 of the same motherboards with 2 of the same CPUs, plus 3 different PSUs, I got the same annoying thing.

It is possible a CPU incompability ? I haven't any other i5 LGA1155 available to test it.
I couldn't find what is the BIOS version that came with this rev. 1.0 version to check with the list, but it says that is available since the F5 version.

If anyone is able to assist me, please let me know.
I don't want to RMA or exchange all these 12 motherboards

[absic]

Hi there,

first thing to note is that Gigabyte actually recommend a PSU of at least 500 Watts or greater for this motherboard.

Silly question but are you plugging in the 24 pin main power connector to the motherboard and also the 4 pin ATX 12V near the CPU socket?
Make sure that you are using the correct 4 pin connector especially if the PSU has an 8 pin ATX connector that splits in two.
Make sure the plugs are seated securely in the socket. (Easy to miss this, I have done it myself before, convinced myself it was the GPU, brought a new card only to still have the problem and been stumped until I realised the ATX plug near the CPU had come loose!)

Try just one stick of RAM in the DDR3_1 slot, the one furthest away from the CPU. Are you still getting the short beeps?

[ysw]

do you have a graphics card to check?
if it works, it should be PSU problem, and you can go to bios setting to disable power saving such as C1E, EIST, C3/C6 state to check.

[mrtorture]

Hello fellas,

Yep, both power connectors were plugged. I've used 3 different PSUs, will try a 4th one today. It doesn't power up if the 4 pin cable isn't plugged.
I didn't tried to use an external VGA, will do today and post the results.
I will try a single stick on DDR3_1. As I said before, even without the RAM sticks it gets the short beeps.
Well, i never reached the bios screen yet

Thanks for all your suggestions, i will run another sequence of tests today to find out what's going on.

[mrtorture]

OK,
here is my results after a lot of different attempts.

- RAM issue is not the question, because even without it, the machine still with continuous short beeps.
- Swapped the CPUs between the two motherboards that I'm trying, and got the same thing on both machines.
- Added a VGA card, nothing changed.
- Swapped to a 4th PSU, nothing changed.

Tested one of the CPUs on a Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H , worked 100%.
Also, I have tested the CPU from this machine, which is a i5 2400, and it stills with the continuous short beeps.

I think the problem is isolated on the motherboard. I may try a 3rd motherboard, but I think it's better to give this whole lot back to the store and get another model... I won't open more boxes.

It's also possible that the CPU is not compatible, I couldn't figure out which BIOS version came with it, just that is a rev 1.0.

[mrtorture]

OK...
So I opened a 3rd motherboard box. And guess what? Still with the continuous short beeps.
All cables plugged, 1 stick of ram, i5 2400 CPU on this, didn't tried the i5 2320 yet.

Hope someone assist me on this quest   

[mrtorture]

OK, NOW I GOT IT!

Finally found what is my problem... These tricky beeps trolled me hard...

All the issue was on RAM.

I was using 2 Kingston ECC sticks, which probably aren't compatible with this board.
Also, the memory sticks that I ordered for these computers are 1.35V, and they sometimes worked on random slots (like ddr3_3, or ddr3_1), and just one. If I add pairs, they won't work.
So I got 2 sticks from other machine, both 1.5V non-registered, and they worked like a charm, in any combination on the slots.
Even after upgrade the bios to F13, all troubles were there.

Solution is that I need to return these memories to the vendor and get proper ones.

Conclusion is: this motherboard is very tricky. As anyone can see, there's lot of posts on this forum related to this Z77 board and similars. As this motherboard are going to be used on a important project, they're not reliable as I expected, but I hope they'll do their job with the proper components. It's the first time that I get a so-long issue with Gigabyte motherboards, that always are my choice due the reliability.

Thanks for who assisted on this, and hope that all my findings can help other people