EX58-UD5 - i can no longer boot up

[Jamesfle]

The pc had been giving some intermitent problems when playing games, it would sometimes black screen, but still be running. No option but to press the off button, and leave it a while, otherwise no reboot. I recently cleaned it out of all dust because i feared it was an overheating issue.

It worked fine for a couple of days, actually no black screens. Then one night it switched off, no warning... just off. No reboot till the following day. All was fine it seemed, as it worked again, then off it went a while later. I managed to get it re-started, only for it to switch off one last time, and thats it now... it will not reboot.

Im no expert on the hardware side, but i took off all connections on the back, still no reboot, i took out the ram and no reboot, only thing i didnt try was the graphics card... however, when i press the on button all it does it spin the fans as if its going to boot, then lights appear by the bottom right side of the ram, 1 yellow and 1 green. Looking in the manual it means its slight over and medium over voltage of what ever the lights are pointing to.

I cant make up my mind if its power or motherboard now... anyone have ideas plz? (The pc is about 4 years old now)

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Well it could be a faulty PSU or some problem with the board or CPU.

Have you got a buzzer/speaker installed so you can hear the POST beeps ?

Can you list the makes and models of your hardware please ?

[Jamesfle]

Intel I7 940  2.93Ghz
XFX Nvidia Geforce 295 gtx
Tagan TG900 - U33  (900W)
2 x OCZ vertex 120 GB  SSD
3 x corsair 2Gb DDR3 1600Mhz
Windows 7

The power supply has had a refit, within the first month something went... so i sent it back for an RMA. It could have gone again in some way, but because there are lights on the motherboard i dont think its that.
Ok i got a boot today... partial success, but something is on its way out. How do i find out what?

To further explain when it wasnt booting, i got no beeps, the fans turned like 1 revolution, then stop. Green and orange light appear by bottom right of the sticks of ram. Lights arent there now its running and booted. Gonna try put the computer on some stress in games, see what happens...

[Jamesfle]

after playing a game, i rebooted to play another and check the temperature in bios. However, im getting NO BIOS screen what so ever. I got into windows and rebooted again, and it black screens all the way into windows. The monitor light flashes, No signal, until the windows logo appears and on comes the monitor!

Now again that says to me motherboard problems? My amateur opinion lol.

 Expert opinion?

[Dark Mantis]

I would say the most likely scenario would be a problem with the BIOS. Maybe it is partially corrupt or the battery is going. Even though when the battery goes you normally just lose the settings sometimes it can have funny consequences. Get a new CR2032 battery and replace the old one.

Next do a complete CMOS clear by following these instructions:

Remove the power cable from the mains supply and then press the power switch on the case for a few seconds just to drain any residual energy in the PSU capacitors.

Once done remove the motherboard battery for at least one hour before replacing it.
 
Next plug back into the mains supply and boot.
 
You will now need to enter the BIOS by pressing DEL and load Opimised BIOS Defaults.

Make any other changes to the BIOS settings to suit your self like disabling the floppy drive, disabling the full screen logo and making the HDD the primary boot device and then press F10 to save and exit.

Post back when you have done that.

[Jamesfle]

I did what u said, and left it power plug out and off with the battery out for 1 hour... put in a brand new one, plugged it in and then turned it on.
I still get the same thing, for some reason it will boot up, but no sign of bios at all, or anything, till the windows logo then the screen turns on.
If i try to press "del" before, to get into bios, it seems to enter bios but it isnt showing me? Because it never loads into windows, and hard drive activity doesnt start, and i have to press reset to try again to load it.

[Dark Mantis]

I would suggest then to try once in Windows to use @BIOS to update your BIOS. First turn off all programs that are not 100% necessary and make  sure that you use the Clear DMI Data option when starting the utility.

[Jamesfle]

I tried what u said and updated the bios that way, still nothing on loadup... no beeps, no bios shown, no screen of u have this much gb ram, processor speed, etc... just a blank screen (that flashes no signal) till i get to windows logo... and its there, im in Windows 7.

would u believe after 4hrs of solid gameplay on battlefield : bc2 it normally crashes in 1 hr? It played on and on... its weird! 

[Dark Mantis]

Well it would sound to me like the part of the BIOS that paints the graphics and text has got corrupted and stopped working but I would have expected it to be ok after a BIOS update.

You say you have no beeps but have you even got a buzzer/speaker installed ?

[Jamesfle]

its stopped beeping on start up, i just rebooted to make sure... it always used to beep. It was beeping 2 days ago still, now nothing! 
Personally, im used to a motherboard just dying and that it, i have to buy a new one, but this one isnt giving up... yet! lol

[Dark Mantis]

I think in all honesty that the best course of action now is to RMA it through your retailer and let Gigabyte have a look at it.

[Jamesfle]

  thank you for all your help though!

[Dark Mantis]

You are very welcome and if you have any trouble with your RMA just post back here and we will see what can be done. Good luck.

[Lsdmeasap]

I have noticed the EXACT same issues recently on P67 boards and X58 boards (on X58 since the 2MB BIOS introductions).

So I think this is a BIOS issue for sure!!

The only way I have found to correct it so you can see the BIOS and boot screens again is to either let it boot to windows and then on reboot it normally works for me.   Or sometimes you need to boot from a PCI graphics card once, then reboot and shut down and put back in the PCIE card.

It is VERY odd as it looks like a graphical failure, but posts all the way to windows and then the screen kicks in.   I see it with brand new hardware, several boards and several graphics cards, doesn't matter which card or board is in use when it happens either and a clear CMOS does not correct it.   I am not sure what causes it either, but it is easily corrected via the above mentioned methods.

[Dark Mantis]

Thanks Lsdmeasap. It is a weird one though. First time I have come across this on the forum. Have you tried using an older BIOS to see if it still happens?