[lug] insane Gigabyte issue

[Steven A Hart]

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.

After a bunch of research, multiple people reported this problem but 
said a BIOS update solved the issue for them.  I've updated to the 
latest BIOS and still no luck for me.  I've also confirmed that the 
power supply is good, the video card is good, and have been attempting 
to test the memory but since memtest won't boot, I'm only guessing that 
the memory is good.  I've also tried manually setting the memory 
timing.  When the motherboard is set to auto for memory timing it does 
not match the memory specs given by G.Skill ( 9-9-9-24-2N).  Manually 
setting the timings to match the G.Skill specs has no effect on the problem.

Another thing to note is that I have the motherboard set to */Optimized 
defaults/* so there are no weird tweaks to the BIOS that can be the 
issue.  It's almost like it's hanging on the trade off from BIOS to the 
boot aspect of whatever I'm using (CD-ROM, USB, Hard drive).

If anyone has seen this type of issue before, I would greatly appreciate 
some advice because I've been banging my head against the wall for over 
a week on this.

Thanks

Steve
-- 
Steve Hart
Systems Administrator
Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research
University of Colorado Boulder
Steven.Hart at colorado.edu
(303)492-8109
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