970A-UD3 and overheating problems

[morrima]

This may or may not be a motherboard issue, but I'd love to know anyone's thoughts on the matter...

I've just built my new system  but I'm having strange heat issues. I can go into the bios to pc health section and about every three seconds the CPU heat monitor goes up a degree and after around 5 minutes it exceeds the maximum safe temp and the system shuts down. I'm using the stock CPU fan but I've removed it, cleaned the stock thermal paste and replaced it with some arctic silver I had laying around but that doesn't seem to help. I've got great air flow through the tower and only a video card (which is well below the CPU) 2 hard drives and a DVD/RW but I can't figure out what is causing this heat issue.

GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 (F4 BIOS)
AMD FX-8120 Zambezi 3.1GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8120FRGUBOX
KingstonKHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 x2
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS 320GB x2 (RAID 0)
ATI Radeon HD 5770
LiteOn iHAS424 - DVD±RW
Thermaltake Toughpower 750W

[absic]

Hi there,

I have to say that I've not come across this particular kind of thing before and from what you have said you have done all the basic things to try and resolve the problem.

I would recommend that you contact Gigabyte Technical Support as it can take them a few days to respond.

In the meantime you could try reflashing the BIOS using the QFlash Utility just to see if that helps and remember to disable the "Keep DMI Data" option on the QFlash homescreen before you actually run the update.

If it is not a BIOS issue then my next guess would be that you have a faulty motherboard or possibly CPU. Do you have an older AM3 processor that you can test with to see if the motherboard works OK?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

Have you tried using an adapter on the CPU fan so that you can run it directly off the PSU so that you are sure that you are getting full speed from the fan ?

[morrima]

Thanks for the tips.. I do not have another processor to try out but I will start the contact process for Gigabyte, and I'll try to reflash the BIOS to see if that helps.

I actually only had one adapter for a fan and I used that on the rear one, but I'll try running the CPU fan off of it for now to see if there is a change.

[Dark Mantis]

You can get hold of GGTS here if you want to try:

Just enter your email address and click on the language of choice.
GGTS   http://ggts.gigabyte.com/

Please expect several days for a reply.

[morrima]

I've submitted a question to Gigabyte but I did get my hands on another processor and it did not experience these same heat fluxuations that my first one did, so I assumed I had a faulty processor and exchanged mine for a new one. My new one also didn't start spiking directly from the bios but when I installed windows, all my drivers and then started installing a game (around 30 minutes of computer run time) the system shut off again due to heat. At this point I removed the side of the case and put a box fan on high directly on the motherboard and cpu... this bought me about 20 more minutes before the system shut down again due to heat. I refreshed the bios like you suggeted and made sure cool & quiet was running (as someone else suggested) but I'm still getting overheating shutdowns even with the box fan blowing on the case (and the room is cool). I've searched online and found others running this CPU and motherboard experiencing heat problems but they are all overclocking their systems... and I'm just trying to run windows at stock settings.

Should I just assume this motherboard is bad and go ahead and return it? I have read that these boards run hot and I know the CPU runs hot so I'm also thinking about switching to another motherboard.

[absic]

Hi again,

well as you have replaced the CPU and the problem is still there, even if not as bad as before, I would probably RMA the motherboard as something is wrong somewhere. Trying to pin down these kind of issues can be really frustrating, especially when you don't have access to the right equipment for testing.

Did Gigabyte Technical Support get back to you?

[morrima]

I've still not heard back from Gigabyte but I may just break down and return the board. I'm getting really tired of spending every single night trying to solve this problem.

[absic]

I understand your frustration and I'm sorry that I can't offer any practical help in resolving this problem. Only you can decide if it is worth the effort to RMA the board or if it is a better idea to wait until you hear from Tech Support as it might only be a BIOS issue that can easily be resolved.

[morrima]

Can you roll back the BIOS to previous versions? I'm thinking this isn't possible, but to be honest I have never tried it before.

And thanks again for the help, you have definitely given me more options than I would have had on my own! 

[absic]

Yes, you can reflash with an earlier BIOS in your case F3 might be worth a try. You can't use an earlier version than F3 as your CPU isn't supported. 

If you do this, I would recommend that you use the QFlash Utility and that you disable the "Keep DMI Data" Option on the QFlash Homescreen BEFORE you run the update.

[dreamkatana]

I have the same problem, but with Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3.

I have the latest bios F9 and I try to use the new fx-8120, the system started but then it turned off in 10 sec.
In my second boot I was fast enough to enter the bios settings and I saw the cpu temperature raising from 60 Celsius to 93 Celsius in 1 second and then the system stop.

I put the old X6 1055T cpu in the motherboard and everything was fine.


Is this a defective cpu problem or a 970A/990XA chipset problem?

Can anyone test this issue please?

[morrima]

Well after painfully trying to use Gigabyte tech support I gave up and replaced the board with a MSI one and haven't had any heat issues at all.

[æøå]

Interesting problem.
I have solved this before by turning the cpu cooler around. It was not an orginal cooler but it had s invisible angle or something. 180degre flip and it was fine. This may not be the case here but if you like to try somthing before you rma this can maybe be one thing.

[madcap43]

Hello, I have the ga-990xa-ud3 motherboard  fx 6100 16gb hyperx 1666 memory 1tb hard drive 560ti 2gb gainward phantom..I tried to upgrade my processor too the fx 8150 8 core used Artic cooler 13 then used stock cooler wich came with fx 8150 and temps were going as high as 90c my computer kept shutting down, thats fine fail safe kicked in but could not figure why, Then I put back my fx 6100 and have no problems i'm even using the supposeldy better stock cooler from the fx 8150 the highest temp i'm getting is 62c on battlefield3 in a chaotic game with 64 players ....why is the fx 8150 overheating COULD it be the processor