GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

[mattwilliams85]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

Well I can vouch he's definitely not trying to rob me. I was sitting with him yesterday while he was working on the computer. He put in a fresh hard-drive, and after a few hours it the system became unstable and started freezing again. He ran a diagnostic and there were several corrupted sections on the new hard-drive.

He thinks that my old hard-drive (that was secondary) somehow corrupted the new one he put in there. Whether this is related to my original problem, i have no idea. Maybe a virus?
I can probably get the guy to post on here because he can explain the issue a lot better than me.

[zeb]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

He thinks that my old hard-drive (that was secondary) somehow corrupted the new one he put in there. Whether this is related to my original problem, i have no idea. Maybe a virus?
I can probably get the guy to post on here because he can explain the issue a lot better than me.

I am sorry but this sounds completely nonsensical. Except maybe some extreme and disastrous electrical problems with your machine, there is no way that an old HD could "corrupt" a new one. Probably the new one had bad sectors from the start. There is always the hypothesis of a virus, but this seems usually the easiest and wrong answer (did you use an antivirus ? did you scan your drives ?)

Moreover, it also seems you are mixing several issues. You need to take the problems one by one.

Firstly, if you have a CD/DVD drive on your PC, I would remove all the HARD drives (yes!) and run a Linux live CD (such as OpenSuse or Mandriva One) from the DVD drive, to know if the system on the drive is source of unstability, or if you have a misconfigured BIOS, or if you have bad components.

1) I would start with a fail-safe BIOS settings (the only change would be to use the DVD/CD drive as the boot device), and then would do a Memtest (most Live CDs provide it, such as OpenSuse or Mandriva One) to stress the RAM and check if it is not failing.

2) Then I would start the Live CD and would use the Linux system to see if your machine is stable.

If 1) and 2) show errors or crashes, then it means that your HD are not responsible, and that you have either failing components or inappropriate BIOS settings.

If not, then reconnect each drive, one by one, starting with your old drive. Is it stable with your old drive only ? If yes, connect the new drive, as slave. Is it stable ? If yes, you may swap the drives, format the new one and reinstall your OS.

Hope this helps.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

+1 ^^ except I advise against testing using fail safe, this can cause issues in itself.

Your drive as a secondary could not affect anything, even with a virus on it it would have no way to execute to mess up the main drive, unless someone manually started a exe virus file. Seriously, sounds like he is trying to take advantage of you I think.

Because he found the new drive of his to corrupt after a few hours could be several things, settings incorrect in the BIOS per your setup, a faulty drive to begin with (Did you see him test it when he initially installed it, or only later on), incorrect drivers or programs, failed/incorrect overclock settings (Or stock), or any number of other things I could rattle off. It is not caused by your drive being secondary at all. Now your drive could be faulty sure, but the way he is explaining things to you makes me think he has other intentions and may just be trying to get you to buy a drive.

Test the drive yourself, with the manufacturer diagnostic tools, then you will know. Let me know if you need a link to the proper tools for your drive, if you do need them please let me know what drive it is (Model or link)

[mattwilliams85]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

well i got my pc back from the repair guy and its still unstable. heres what i know at this point

1) with my nvidia card, my screen will lock up after about 5 min of use. even faster if i just rebooted after a crash. my ati card (the original) wont even produce an image or get as far as the windows login sound before it shuts down.

2) both cards get very hot very fast.

3) fail-safe settings get me the blue screen. optimized is what im using right now.

the big problem i have is that i dont have another pc to get diagnostic tools off of. i just post on here with my phone.

[zeb]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

the big problem i have is that i dont have another pc to get diagnostic tools off of. i just post on here with my phone.

Well, without diagnostic tools, it will be very difficult to... diagnose ;) Can you not find some friend with a laptop or another PC, who could write a Linux CD ? That would be really necessary, because at this stage it is impossible to know if your problem is hardware or if it is your OS which is corrupted.

[mattwilliams85]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

ha very true, i might be able to get a laptop from my brother.
But good news! I'm writing this post from my PC. I got it stable enough to get on here. What I did was set the BIOS to 'optimal settings' then I set 'Performance Mode' from TURBO to STANDARD.
Then I set it to use just 1 of the 4 cores.

The weird thing is that I went to the Nvidia site to get the drivers. I removed the old ones in safemode and installed the new ones, but they're not registering. If i go to device manager it says they installed incorrectly. The card doesnt even show up in DXdiag..

Well at least im making progress!

[warren300]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

what chip do you have?? (cpu)

[mattwilliams85]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

Here's a quick rundown:

------------------
System Information
------------------
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100226-1909)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: P55M-UD2
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz, ~2.7GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4092MB RAM
Page File: 1061MB used, 7119MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7600.16385 32bit Unicode

[warren300]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

some folks have been having crashes similar to you but with a i7 860 chip and disabling c1e and c3/c6/c7 states in advanced cpu features in bios stopped the crashes so you might wanna try it,re-enable all cores again and try it perhaps the bios you flashed too is causing the crashes its best to flash back to the bios you had on there before the crashes started if you can

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

Now that you have it running I suggest you test your memory with Memtest86+ and then, or first, your hard drive with the manufacturers tools.

Let me know if you need a link to HDD diagnostic tools, if so tell me the brand/model of the drive.

Is your case very hot inside, like no air flow?

[mattwilliams85]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

Actually another update:

I reinstalled windows 32-bit (i had 64 before this whole time) on the good drive and everything seems to be running pretty smooth with the settings im on and the nvidia drivers installed correctly. I can even access my old drive just fine.

The only remaining problems are
1) I can't turn on all 4 processers in the BIOS or i get a screen lockup when running windows. I'm using 2 right now and it runs fine.
2) ATI card still wont work without crashing (presumably from over heating)

I have to go to bed now but i'll run Memtest86+ in the morning.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

CPU may be faulty then? I never heard of anyone having to disable cores unless they damaged their CPU's via super overclock or CPU was faulty on delivery.

[mattwilliams85]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

I have no idea.. is there any way to check if the problem lies with the CPU?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

Actually for this, I would call Intel and see what they have to say. They will run you through the BIOS setup/troubleshooting hassles and likely see that there is a Problem and RMA for you.

[mattwilliams85]

Re: GA-P55M-UD2 - Ran bios updater from the CD, now my computer has become unusable!

Yah its weird, even on 3 cores im running ok. Just the 'ALL' option in the BIOS that causes my system to freeze. Any idea how long it usually takes to RMA from intel?