First of all greetings!
I am currently running on Ubuntu which had no issues installing, made my own partitions and la di da it works, everything - perfect!
The issue I'm having with this Motherboard is time-wasting and annoying to such quality and quantity that I'd rather leap from a bridge than have to think again and again, how to get by this problems.
My specifications: Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H (rev. 1.4) - the unfortunate Motherboard with a Phenom II X4 B60 Deneb on 4GHz (+/-) (an O.C.-ed, black edition is actually X2 II 520 I believe, guessing since I returned it to from Hybrid to Normal just 'cuz I thought it will make the problem solved) 16 Gb RAM, 3 SATA hard-drives and one 40 Gb PATA.
Now, from the beginning, when I didn't yet have any SATA drives, the 64-bit install of Windows 7 went perfectly on an older PATA drive. No BSODs, drivers running perfectly - but it seems I have a bad (streak is it or stake?) of cards dealt when HW is involved.
Before this computer I had also a Gigabyte Motherboard for a Pentium 478 Socket, ran Pentium 4. No problems, great motherboard and drivers. At that time, pimped it up as it could be, then a damn storm hit the clouds so byebye to that PC. I unplugged everything 'when-storm-was-a-coming, but just the other morning, wanting to start it - NOTHING. I remember some components were saved and still have them or sold them, besides the point.
Then I buy an HP laptop - with 1 lousy year warranty - guess what - another storm as the year passed - Notebook gone byebye. No warranty, all I could severe was the battery, disk and RAM. Oh and I got a nice notebook purse now without the notebook. Woohoo.
The main issue is I believe, that in this time of 2013, you have to have a damn FLOPPY DISK, to put your drivers on is complete b.s. The motherboard, being the 1.4 edition only has the F8 BIOS, and with a couple of clicks the guys and gals at Gigabyte could help a great deal and MAKE THE USAGE OF SATA DRIVES, HARD DISKS OR OPTICAL if not MANDATORY but please make it an option. Guessing SSD Drives don't work either.
I have tried installing Windows 7 the whole day, then tried Windows 8 I had from when it was a free download and when it worked.
Tried:
1. - the obvious: changing from AHCI SATA to NATIVE IDE which just made things run more slowly and again asked me for the driver. So I put in the Gigabyte CD, it installs it supposedly fine but then again it hits me with a note that I cannot install on either of the harddrives partitions.
And I am not going to install it on a PATA drive again: it's as slow as a slug chasing a good wind to glide...
2. - as I said before - the PC was OC-ed and I've put it to defaults in BIOS, always checking that SATA is put to NATIVE IDE. Also slowed things down, of course.
3. - in BIOS tried almost everything (and please, pretty please respond if someone has a clue what to do I haven't tried) played with Virtualization, with USB interfaces on and off, taking out RAMS: 4x4 Gb Unabridged and trying with just 1 slot, every slot, trying with just on drive... nothing.
The funny stuff that actually happened during an install of Win 8 on AHCI mode and I mean everything was OC-ed back - even the DVD was on AHCI. I've set the proper booting, the boot started - again with the pop-out for a driver install.
Downloaded the new drivers for Windows 8 64-bit off of the official site, in Ubuntu using Wine - extracted to a WD USB HDD, tried to browse and it seemed like the install will go, it waited of a second or 2, but stopped and the same old popout: BROWSE for DRIVER, DRIVER MISSING.
I usually dual-boot since Linux doesn't have or dare I to say merely cannot start some of the Windows programs I use for work, and the ones that, let's say Ubuntu Studio have - are not enough for what I need in the end. There's gaming also but, Windows is to me more of a NEED then a WANT.
I'm clueless. Especially since the brand I loved so much end's up with a lousy product (I still do no get why are there no BIOS updates for the 1.4) I end up buying it and having said already too much, now am going to jump off a bridge with my PC case I'll also fill up with rocks, tie it to myself and down-to-the-get-go.
Thanks and bye, friends. Any advice would be helpful.
Adios!