XFX 780i issue.

[Javelin3o4]

Im having an issue with my 780i board from XFX, I'm just going to post my support ticket logs to save time, but basically I paid 30 bucks to overnight my board to them and got a new one and have the same problem. This issue is this,

[ 1/29/2009 5:55:22 AM] I`m having an issue where my computer will sometimes not pass the POST screen with my DVDR drive attatched. I have to some times disconnect the SATA cable in order for it to boot. I have tried different cables, different SATA connection on the motherboard, and have also bought a new drive and it does the same thing. It just hangs after it detects all of my systems Hard Drives / CDROM Drives.

[ERIK_A 1/31/2009 9:36:48 PM] That is a odd error. Try going into your BIOS and then to the boot priorities and make sure that CD rom isnt on the first, second, or third boot device. Also disable boot other device and see if the problem persists. Thanks, Erik

[ 2/1/2009 1:50:42 AM] it doesnt even make it past the POST screen to attempt to boot. It detects the drives and just stops. But I have disabled like you said and it did not help. Someone suggests that its an issue between SATA optical drives and nVidia chipsets and that I really need to buy a SATA PCI controller card.

[ 2/1/2009 6:57:09 AM] I purchased a PCI-E SATA controller card and used it to run just my optical drive with my 4 hard drives connected to the motherboards onboard SATA controllers. So far its reboot several times without issue. So if this is an issue with the nvidia chipset and SATA optical drives I think XFX should replace this board with something else, or cover the cost of the controller card since i shouldnt have do this.

[MARK_C 2/6/2009 5:36:29 PM] We have thousand of customers with SATA optical drives on this board. Make sure that you have the latest BIOS for this board which I will email you now with instructions. If you still have the same issue than look for a firmware update from the optical drive manufacturer. I know that it is not as simple as an SATA optical drive issue as I have a 780i with two SATA burners in it sitting next to me. Thank you. Mark

[ 2/7/2009 2:21:54 AM] So it took me a few tries to finally get the computer to boot with the SATA drive connected to the mainboard so I could flash the BIOS, but it finally boot and I was able to flash the BIOS to the version you emailed me. After the flash was complete the system boot, but tried to boot to one of my other hard drives so I had to reboot the computer and adjust the BIOS hard drive boot priority. I then saved the settings and exited and the system got hung up again at the POST screen. It display`s all the drives detected adn the controllers they are attatched to then it doest go any further. I reboot several times and could not go past the POST screen. I then connected the cable from my PCI-E SATA controller to the DVD drive and it boot the first time. Also I dont really think its a firmware issue because it was doing the exact same thing with my other DVD drive, I bought my current one thinking that my old one was bad. Here is a list of the drives I currently have installed. Sata 2 (A1) ST31500341AS CC1H Sata 5 (B1) ST3300620AS 3.AAC Sata 6 (C0) ST3300631AS 3.04 Sata 4 (C1) Maxtor 6B250S0 BANCIB70 My 2 DVD Drives I had were, Pioneer DVR- 216D 1.08 Samsung The Samsung I had tried upgrading the firmware on but it made no change to my issue, that is why I thought it was bad and replaced it with the Pioneer.

[ 2/12/2009 7:36:27 AM] Its been almost a week with no response?

[ERIK_A 2/13/2009 7:58:35 PM] Sorry about the delay, during any of your testing were you able to try any optical drive other than that model Pioneer drive? I am wondering if its something with the board and that particular drive. Thanks, Erik

[ 2/13/2009 10:30:50 PM] Umm.yeah the first drive i had connected to it was a Samsung, Then the drive started acting up, So i flashed the motherboard BIOS at the time and upgraded the firmware on the drive. It work work off/on and sometimes during POST when it would display the model of the drive it was garbled letters and little symbols. So i thought the drive was really defective. I then bought a Pionner DVD drive and it booted up, however when I toook a trip to the store, came back and the Computer was sitting at the BIOS screen. It did nto want to start with the DVD drive connected. I then bought a PCI-E Internal SATA controller card. Installed it and then connected my original samsung drive and it has been working without issue since the installation of the controller card, so it seems like its some weird motherboard issue.

[ 2/13/2009 11:40:13 PM] Here is a image of what the POST screen does sometimes with a optical drive attatched to the onboard controller. http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4998/imag0002kj7.jpg

[ 2/16/2009 1:34:55 AM] Please see my previous 2 messages aswll. However I think the issue is the motherboard. My computer all of the sudden froze, I reboot it and it would no longer book, I tried running a MFG diagnostic test and it would not complete. So I thought the drive was bad. I exchanged the drive, reloaded windows the very next day same thing happened again. When I boot the computer with ONLY the hard 1.5TB hard drive attatched it says "Disk Error Has Occured" Press Ctrl Alt Del to continue. I dont think my luck is that bad to have 2 defective hard drives within 2 weeks. Also when I plugged the hard drive into my PCI-E controller card Windows went to boot off it but BSOD`ed but I figure thats probably due to the original install being done on the onboard controller and not a addon card.

<<<Board was then sent to XFX for RMA>>

[WILLIAM 3/9/2009 5:39:25 PM] Your recent returns ref: XXXXXX has recently completed the testing process with the following status: {serialxxxx = FAULTY}. A technician will be in contact shortly to discuss completion of this returns. If you have any queries regarding this test result - please send a message to the support team. Thank You. XFX Support Team

[ 3/14/2009 2:03:18 AM] I got my new motherboard today and installed it. I only connected my 1.5TB Seagate hard drive, and my Samsung SATA DVDROM to the onboard controller. I boot up the PC and during the POST the text that would say what model my CDROM drive is, is nothing but random symbols just like it did on my other board. I installed my PCI-E SATA Controller card and again it works fine. This is irritating I paid $30.00 to overnight this board to you guys only to get it back and have the same exact issue

 

[supaspoon]

Just to confirm, my board also will not take a sata optical. I've tried two different models (a pioneer and a lg). Both of them will cause the machine to simply bsod and restart indefinately. I simply put an ide in there and be done w/ it, no prob.'s since.

 

[Bunkey]

I moved from an absolutely terrible NVidia 680i to the XFX 780i in Early 2008 and used it for about 3 months. Even though it was an improvement to the 680i, it also developed problems. One BIOS version caused a sudden snap to a BSOD and my SATA HDD would have errors. Checkdisk had to be run often and the last time it snapped I was forced to do a new OS install, just after a new BIOS version was released, that seemed to cure the issue. The problem BIOS was pulled from release. But the 780i ran for a week to a bit over two weeks and then have problems of one sort or another, the 680i about three or four days. I am pretty certain I had two strikes against me in using NVidia boards, using a Quad CPU QX6850 and four DIMMs of RAM and the third might be having a SATA HDD. I threw in the towel and went to an Intel board and the ATI 4800 video cards, because I will never support NVidia products after the some six months of dealing with their terrible products at that time. I have no problems or complaints about my current system, that has delivered a stable and pleasurable computing experience a user should expect.

 

[damtachoa]

xfx products are craps