Greetings,
I thought I would post this as my experience with my 2 week old GA-Z87X-UD3H system. I upgraded from my perfectly running GA-X48-DQ6 mobo system to the GA-Z87X-UD3H with the following:
BX80646I74770 - Intel Core i7 4770 (3.40Ghz / 8MB / LGA1150 / Quad Core) - Non K, I'm not interested in OC but want this mobo for features
CML16GX3M2A1600C9 - Corsair 16GB (2x8GB), PC3-12800 (1600MHz) DDR3, Vengeance LP, 9-9-9-24, 1.5V, Dual Channel Kit
OCZ - VTR1-25SAT3-256G - OCZ 256GB SSD, Vector, SATA III
To use with my existing case, HD's, Video card (GTX570) and PSU (Cooler Master RS-850-ESBA Real Power M850) and Keyboard (Logitec G15) and Mouse (Logitec Mx518).
Now, I've been building systems for 20+ years since I was a teenager, I'm pretty confident it's been assembled well and there's no obvious hardware issues but I'm concerned about compatibility and stability of this motherboard due to the quirks it seems to have. I asked my supplier about the ram compatibility before purchase and was told it was well suited to the board.
I am running Windows 8 pro (I know I know, but we are using 2012 server at work and clients have Windows 8 and I need to be very familiar with it so I'm forcing myself to use it and to be honest, its been great (didn't think I'd say that))
What I've found and am experiencing so far:
a) Power on Issue, for some reason on a Cold power on the system fails to POST and just sits there, but after a reset or 6 (random, could be 1 or many) it fires up (if the onboard post check on this mobo shows b4 code, it wont boot for sure). This seems quite random and is very annoying. I am not overclocking in any way.
b) Keyboard/mouse USB connectivity drops out randomly whilst system is running, keyboard/mouse can simply dissapear and will either come back on their own or need to be unplugged and re plugged back in. From reading several forums I have found that there's an issue with the G15 plugged into USB3, I have since started using the USB2 ports for Keyboard/mouse/headphones and it has not locked/reset them since. I have also read on the Logitec forums that Setting Legacy USB support ON and EHCI handoff ON may fix this issue as well and have both these set. For now I'm OK with using USB2 ports and they are old USB devices now.
c) Wake On Lan does not work no matter what settings I have tried in Bios and settings within Windows for Sleep mode etc. I use WoL a lot with my systems remotely and am familiar with setup, it just doesn't work on this motherboard.
d) Ram purchased to suit mother board is defaulted to 1333, not 1600 which whilst a small concern I'm not into overclocking and is annoying. Setting it manually in the Easytune to 1600 seems to work absolutely fine but I'm not sure if I should leave it this way.
Now, I've updated all the Gigabyte software, installed USB3 patches, I've updated to F7 bios as per reading here and still the above issues exist.
I wondered if it could be a PSU issue, but I'm doubtful. Its not fully ATX 2.3 per it's age but could that be an issue concern as it's plenty grunty enough for my machine?
In a nutshell I can't reliably power on my machine remotely (at all), or pushing the reset button/power cycling and it will be random if it boots past b4. Once the system is up and running it's rock solid, can't fault it but are the above issues something you would RMA/replace the motherboard for? The turning on issue is really annoying to be honest.
Regards,
TJ
