Problem with New Build

P

paul8047

n00b
Joined
Jul 9, 2009
Messages
10
Hey everyone,

I just finished building my new computer last night and I have run into an annoying problem. I first noticed it whenever I was installing Windows 7. During the stages where the Windows installer restarts the machine, it would appear to restart and then the monitor would begin to showh the "No signal" message. Not really thinking too much about it I would just hit the case's power button, wait a few seconds, and then turn the machine back on. Well this allowed me to install Windows 7 successfully and so far I haven't run into any major issues while actually in the OS itself. All of the games and software I have installed run perfectly fine with no crashes, glitches, etc. However, any time the machine needs to be restarted to finish installing a piece of software or update it will shut down and then promptly start displaying the "No signal" message once again. I tend to think it's either a bad motherboard or videocard that is causing the problem, but I am not really sure.


AMD Phenom 2 X3 720 Black Edition
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P
Corsair TX-650 watt PSU
6 gigs of G.skill DDR3-1333
XFX GTX 260 - using the 182.50 drivers
Western Digital 640gb Caviar Black
Coolermaster 590 case
Windows 7 RC 1

Any help is appreciated! Thanks.
 
What version BIOS do you have? You might want to try updating the BIOS.
Do you have a UPS?
Borrow a vidcard from a friend and see if that solves your problem.
 
I do not have a UPS. The board is running the F1 bios. I saw that there is an F2 bios available but it looks to me like it only adds support for some newer processors.

I tried an old Radeon X600 I had laying around and it had the same problem, leading me to believe it's something with the motherboard. I may just flash the bios and see if it helps :S
 
Yes, flash to the new one. They don't always list everything, and sometimes they don't even know that the new BIOS fixes some things. :p
 
Ok, here's a little update on my situation.

This morning I flashed the board to the most recent bios. After doing this I was able to restart the machine with no problems, and for a while I thought this had fixed it.

However, this afternoon I installed some new updates that required the machine to reboot and during this time the motherboard began to emit continuous long beeps. According to my motherboard manual this means the graphics card is not seated correctly. I re-seated and turned the machine back on. It booted into Windows just fine, but in order to test it I decided to do another restart. Once more, long continuous beeps.

I replaced my GTX 260 with the Radeon X600 in order to test it again. Booted into Windows just fine, but once again the motherboard started to give long beeps after being told to restart. I'm probably going to have to RMA the motherboard unless anyone else has any ideas.
 
I agree, RMA the board. Its Friday, so wait until Monday. Maybe someone will have a good idea between now and then. ;)
 
Sorry I never responded with an update, I went on vacation after sending my motherboard back.

I just got the new one installed today, and I am sad to say it is the same problem so it must not have been the motherboard. Upon more closely listening to the beep code it makes, it seems to not be exactly continuous long beeps as I had originally thought. It is actually 3 long beeps, 1 short beep.

I am unable to find this beep code documented anywhere. Gigabyte's tech support believes that it could be the ram. They had me try testing each stick of ram, one at a time, in the different memory slots. After booting the machine up and letting it sit for about 15 to 20 minutes I let it restart, and got the same beep code each time; no matter the memory configuration.

This same beep code is also emitted if I remove the ram entirely from the system and try to boot it.

Any ideas?
 
Alright, I've got a friend that's going to let me borrow a couple of his sticks on Monday. I'll post back with whatever I find out.
 
A little update.

I was playing around with my ram today. I was trying different memory configurations on the motherboard and I found something interesting. If I use only a single stick of ram my computer has zero problems with restarts. However, as soon as I add the second or third stick the problem returns.
 
bump the MCH and vDIMM voltages up a notch and try it with two sticks.
 
Alright, I bumped up the voltages a bit, still no luck unfortunately. Guess I'll be waiting until Monday to do anymore tests.
 
The ram I have is G.Skill DDR3-1333 (F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ)

It's one of the tri-channel kits that G.skill sells, but I didn't really figure it would have any problems with my motherboard as the specifications look like they should work just fine.

The BIOS defaults it to 1.62v and I tried both 1.64v and 1.66v.
 
I went into the bios last night and set all of my ram timings manually, so far it seems to have fixed the problem :S
 
what'd you set them to? Maybe they had corrupt SPD tables? or the board hard trouble with the SPD values... or trying to read the EPP profiles (if the sticks have any).
 
I just set them to what they were supposed to default to.

9-9-9-24

The auto setting was putting them at 9-8-8-22.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top