Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

[light2au]

Hello Tweaksters,
I'm new to this for and looking for some assistance in matching a Gigabyte X58A-UD3R with a
Xeon E5620 CPU.
I'm aware that its officially not supported but can find numerous links that show the CPU and Mobo in a working configuration including a previous thread posted here.
I recently purchased a new mobo as a friend provided me with the XEON CPU and some memory.
I spent the weekend assembling the the mobo into a new case/psu and using a new Gigabyte GTX550 Ti.
I can't even get the mobo to post, its a Rev 2, but I can't tell what Firmware its been shipped with from factory as I don't have a spare i7 to temporarily install and confirm its operation or existing firmware.
Any ideas how to get this rig working?

Cheers Alex

[Acebmxer]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

Do you have a system speaker attached to the motherboard? Do you hear any beeps from it? What does the L.E.D diag display, what code?

Here are a couple of things you can try.

Have you tried booting it with only 1 stick of ram and just the video card and cpu. What beep codes do you here or L.E.D diag display?

If you did not check the cpu socket before installing the cpu you might want to remove the cpu and inspect the socket for any bent pins. If you are not sure on any please take a picture and upload and post link here and others can look and see if there are any bend. Make sure you use a well lit room and use macro mode if you camera supports it.

[light2au]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

Do you have a system speaker attached to the motherboard? Do you hear any beeps from it? What does the L.E.D diag display, what code?

Here are a couple of things you can try.

Have you tried booting it with only 1 stick of ram and just the video card and cpu. What beep codes do you here or L.E.D diag display?

If you did not check the cpu socket before installing the cpu you might want to remove the cpu and inspect the socket for any bent pins. If you are not sure on any please take a picture and upload and post link here and others can look and see if there are any bend. Make sure you use a well lit room and use macro mode if you camera supports it.

Thanks Ace for your quick responce.
I have tried all of the options above, I removed all memory modules and only installed 1 in either DDR3_1 or DDR3_3 as per manual.
I checked the CPU Socket prior to installing Xeon E5620 and all pins are OK, it was a new mobo and still had the protective cover over the socket.
The LED's are an interesting one, there is a bank of LED's infront of the ATX Connector and from the manual it looks to me as the North Bridge LED Bank and I have L2 Moderate (Both Green and Orange).
The only other LED's that are on which is a concern is the Phase LED Bank, where I have all Six LED's Green, Orange and Red ON.
There are no POST beeps, I don't have external speakers, but I do have the Piezo Speaker plugged directly into the mobo.
Hope this helps the Memory I was supplied with the Xeon is Samsung M392B5673FH0-CH9.
From what I searched online these are a 2GB DDR3 PC3-10600 ECC Registered DIMM's.

[Chike]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

Could be the MB does not support ECC/Registered DIMMs, do you have others to test with?

[light2au]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

Could be the MB does not support ECC/Registered DIMMs, do you have others to test with?

Hello Chike, again thanks you guys are fantastic and so quick with your responses.
That was my next option to borrow a friends DDR3 Memory, I will hopefully get sometime tomorrow to get memory, at least 1 stick to try and will post my finding's.

Thanks again

[Acebmxer]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

The LED's are an interesting one, there is a bank of LED's infront of the ATX Connector and from the manual it looks to me as the North Bridge LED Bank and I have L2 Moderate (Both Green and Orange).
The only other LED's that are on which is a concern is the Phase LED Bank, where I have all Six LED's Green, Orange and Red ON.
There are no POST beeps, I don't have external speakers, but I do have the Piezo Speaker plugged directly into the mobo.

My mistake I thought the UD3 came with a POST led like the ud5 where it will display a code like c1 or ff that could help us to see where its hanging at.

The speaker i am talking about is the one connected to the front panel connecters on the motherboard. where you would connect the case power button and reset button wires too.

If you dont have a speaker connected there you will never here and beep codes. the speaker should only coast $1 usd.


Next question is this a know working video card? Can you try the video card in another system or try another video card in this system?

[wazza300]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

If its eec memory you have,then chike is right it wont work,you need non eec memory,I would borrow 920/930 chip and update to latest BIOS too if you still have problems as older bios's might not support the xeon

[light2au]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

If its eec memory you have,then chike is right it wont work,you need non eec memory,I would borrow 920/930 chip and update to latest BIOS too if you still have problems as older bios's might not support the xeon

Latest Update I went ahead and purchased Corsair XMS3 Kit (2 x 2GB DDR-3) Memory Modules and still the same, NO POST.
I removed the Cooler and Xeon E5620 again and inspected the Pins on the Socket, they look OK to me, but I might need a Magnifying Glass to make sure 100% that there are no bent pins.
I will see if there is a way to borrow a friends i7 CPU and see if that works.
If it does then its either Firmware below FF or a Bad Xeon CPU, but the CPU and Original ECC Memory came out of a working Server....

[wazza300]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

You havnt wasted your money on the ram as I remember another user with eec modules and those mb's won't support it,only non eec,your CPU should work fine,so it only leaves BIOS update or poss faulty cpu like you said

[light2au]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

You havnt wasted your money on the ram as I remember another user with eec modules and those mb's won't support it,only non eec,your CPU should work fine,so it only leaves BIOS update or poss faulty cpu like you said

Thanks Wazza this Build is really doing my head in, I've read every post I can find and gone over my steps, I'm finding from other posts that the Phase LED's been on seems to be normal until POST starts and the Bios detects the CPU, so I'm not getting to that stage which could interpret why I have all SIX Phase LED's as Solid.

I've check ATX Power and ATX 12v x 2 and all seated correctly, I've even removed Sys FAN cables temporarily, but no difference.
When all cables are plugged in I do hear a short click not a beep from the Piezo and Both Sys Fan's PSU Fan and CPU Fan are spinning at Low RPM's thats about it, no Video at all.

System Consists of.
Coolmaster Silensio 550 Case
Coolmaster Silent Pro 600W
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
Corsair 2 x XMS2 Memory
Noctua NH-U9B SE2 Cooler
Gigabyte GTX 550 Ti GPU

No HDD's as yet, I wanted to boot the system first before I decided which way to go for OS HDD and Data HDD, but I seem to be a long way away from this point.

Cheers and thanks again for all the help from all of you at Tweaktown..

[Chike]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

If you have a digi cam with macro take a picture of the socket, you can post it here to have more eyes inspecting it.
Might be the BIOS or motherboard itself.

[wazza300]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

yes its normal for the mb lights to stay lit,until os boot up,then they should all go out apart from one green light for ram,cpu,nb and some blue lights for your cpu oc,the higher the oc the more blue lights light up,if and when you do get it running you can try your eec ram in there but im 99% sure it wont boot up,good luck on sourcing a 920/930,pity you didnt update to latest bios before you got rid

[light2au]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

If you have a digi cam with macro take a picture of the socket, you can post it here to have more eyes inspecting it.
Might be the BIOS or motherboard itself.

Hi Chike, I did try this earlier in anticipation of your request.
No luck the Canon A620 I have doesn't sharpen up enough to see anything clearly, even in Macro Mode.
I tried with and without flash and a few other modes, but none of the pics do it justice its not focused enough to send through, I'm giving up for the night its way past my bed time, tomorrow is another day......

Thanks again for your help.

[light2au]

[wazza300]

Re: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and Xeon E5620

well im suprised your eec ram worked,maybe they fixed it in bios? as it didnt used to

for the large bios files you have to use the latest @bios,once flashed updated you can go back to using q-flash,its just a one off flash with @bios

and for mechanical hdd's samsung f3 or f4 1tb/2tb drives are the best imo,but are hugely expensive right now due to flooding,as for ssd its up to you corsair gt 120gb or ocz vertex 3?