[lug] insane Gigabyte issue

[Zan Lynx]

On Thu, 2012-06-07 at 10:58 -0600, Steven A Hart wrote:
> I'm having an issue with a Gigabyte motherboard and I'm hoping someone
> else may have seen this issue as well and maybe has a solution.
> 
> Here's the setup:
> 
> GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3
> G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3
> 12800) 
> AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+
> ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
> COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS700-PCAAE3-US 700W ATX 12V
> Seagate 500GB SATA2 Hard drive
>  
> Here's the problem:
> 
> regardless of what I'm trying to install (RHEL6, Memtest bootable CD,
> windows, etc), The BIOS posts, then says Loading Operating system,
> then sits there like a dumb shit.  This is the 2nd Gigabyte
> motherboard I've seen this on so I do not think it's a bad MB.  I
> first tried it with a GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3 AM3+ motherboard and could
> not get it to work so I RMA'd it and got the one listed above under
> the setup.

If this is the second motherboard did you consider your other hardware?
You should unplug all USB devices, hard drives and DVDs. See if it gives
you a boot error. Then try booting from a USB stick. Then try your hard
drive, or try a different hard drive.

I have seen weird boot errors like this with bad drive cables or bad
drives. If the motherboard does not get a command response from the
drive it should time out. But perhaps it gets a garbled response or half
of one or something and goes off into the wild blue.

Also make sure that you *reload* the optimized defaults, not just look
at it and see it is set. This is especially necessary after a BIOS
update because sometimes the locations of stuff in the CMOS memory
change.

My Gigabyte board has an actual physical button I can push to restore
BIOS defaults. I can't remember at the moment if I have to push it
before after or during power-on, but it's in the manual.

Also, if this system has never worked, double-check the stand-offs and
screw posts behind the motherboard. A friend of mine had very odd issues
once because he had a metal screw post in the wrong place and it was
grounding something on the board. You could have also done something
weird like leaving a screw rattling around back there.

-- 
Knowledge Is Power
Power Corrupts
Study Hard
Be Evil
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