Hello everybody
I have been waiting for a couple days to hear back from Gigabyte regarding my issues, but apparently they haven't even read my message yet. This is frustrating. I have built a few boxes in my time, but I'm no expert and I have never had the headaches I am having with this mobo. I'm not trying to OC or go nuts, I just want a stable box.
The story so far: I bought a new collection of parts from NewEgg, and put together the box. I installed XP, went to the Windows update site and updated everything to SP3. So far so good.
I thought everything was OK, but then I downloaded one of the ATI demos to check out my new graphics card. Everything started fine, the demo ran fine, then poof- reboot. I got it back up and running and checked BIOS settings- I had everything set to default, and I noticed the memory voltage was lower than the specs on my RAM, and raised it to 2V. So far so good.
I started migrating all the crap (pictures, music, etc) from a portable USB HD. So far so good. But when I started to look at the picture folder (with thumbnail view enabled with a LOT of pictures) poof- reboot. Then I started to get frustrated.
I limped along like this for a couple days, hoping I could figure out what I did wrong, and I found that if I left the machine running, I would find it with the monitors black. I would still get system sounds, though. This required a few ugly power cycles. I checked to make sure the video drivers were up to date. At this stage I suspected energy save settings so I disabled sleep for everything. Then things started to get really bad.
I heard the POST beep from the next room, and thought "OK, that's it." So I shut the machine off, expecting to go back to it the next day. Only when the next day came, I couldn't boot up- it would start to load Windows then reboot. At this stage, I thought I had a power supply issue- that's the only thing I've ever seen cause issues like that, and that was the only thing I had skimped on (it was 500w, but it was the freebie that came with the case.) So I went out and bought a 700w monster, put it in, and had the same problems. It seemed to get worse over time- until it just rebooted without even finishing the POST.
So I thought that maybe Windows had corrupted- it had been rebooting a bit. So I reinstalled Windows SP2, but this time I left it default- no updates. And everything seemed fine. So far so good. I set all the BIOS pages to the F6 "failsafe" settings and started setting everything up again. This time, everything went to hell quickly. And the last time I tried to get it running, I couldn't even access the BIOS- the screen would give me the "Backup BIOS checksum error" message and it would just try to go through its paces, but it just did this in a loop.
So here I sit, with a jumper on the clear CMOS pins, looking for answers. I have a FAT usb flash drive with the F8 version of the BIOS ready to go for the QFlash. And I have read here that I should boot with just 1 ram stick in, then change the BIOS RAM settings. But I have to say I'm starting to get really frustrated and wonder if I got a bum mobo, or if I'm just not doing something right.
HELP ME PLEASE! Should I QFlash or not? And what BIOS settings should I use for a safe and stable box?
EP45 DS3L mobo
E7200 cpu with Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro fan
GSkill DDR2 1066 PC2-8500 1GBx2 (in slots 1 and 3)
ATI (Visiontek) HD 4850
Rocketfish 700w power supply
WD 640 GB HD 7200 RPM SATA
I have been waiting for a couple days to hear back from Gigabyte regarding my issues, but apparently they haven't even read my message yet. This is frustrating. I have built a few boxes in my time, but I'm no expert and I have never had the headaches I am having with this mobo. I'm not trying to OC or go nuts, I just want a stable box.
The story so far: I bought a new collection of parts from NewEgg, and put together the box. I installed XP, went to the Windows update site and updated everything to SP3. So far so good.
I thought everything was OK, but then I downloaded one of the ATI demos to check out my new graphics card. Everything started fine, the demo ran fine, then poof- reboot. I got it back up and running and checked BIOS settings- I had everything set to default, and I noticed the memory voltage was lower than the specs on my RAM, and raised it to 2V. So far so good.
I started migrating all the crap (pictures, music, etc) from a portable USB HD. So far so good. But when I started to look at the picture folder (with thumbnail view enabled with a LOT of pictures) poof- reboot. Then I started to get frustrated.
I limped along like this for a couple days, hoping I could figure out what I did wrong, and I found that if I left the machine running, I would find it with the monitors black. I would still get system sounds, though. This required a few ugly power cycles. I checked to make sure the video drivers were up to date. At this stage I suspected energy save settings so I disabled sleep for everything. Then things started to get really bad.
I heard the POST beep from the next room, and thought "OK, that's it." So I shut the machine off, expecting to go back to it the next day. Only when the next day came, I couldn't boot up- it would start to load Windows then reboot. At this stage, I thought I had a power supply issue- that's the only thing I've ever seen cause issues like that, and that was the only thing I had skimped on (it was 500w, but it was the freebie that came with the case.) So I went out and bought a 700w monster, put it in, and had the same problems. It seemed to get worse over time- until it just rebooted without even finishing the POST.
So I thought that maybe Windows had corrupted- it had been rebooting a bit. So I reinstalled Windows SP2, but this time I left it default- no updates. And everything seemed fine. So far so good. I set all the BIOS pages to the F6 "failsafe" settings and started setting everything up again. This time, everything went to hell quickly. And the last time I tried to get it running, I couldn't even access the BIOS- the screen would give me the "Backup BIOS checksum error" message and it would just try to go through its paces, but it just did this in a loop.
So here I sit, with a jumper on the clear CMOS pins, looking for answers. I have a FAT usb flash drive with the F8 version of the BIOS ready to go for the QFlash. And I have read here that I should boot with just 1 ram stick in, then change the BIOS RAM settings. But I have to say I'm starting to get really frustrated and wonder if I got a bum mobo, or if I'm just not doing something right.
HELP ME PLEASE! Should I QFlash or not? And what BIOS settings should I use for a safe and stable box?
EP45 DS3L mobo
E7200 cpu with Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro fan
GSkill DDR2 1066 PC2-8500 1GBx2 (in slots 1 and 3)
ATI (Visiontek) HD 4850
Rocketfish 700w power supply
WD 640 GB HD 7200 RPM SATA
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