The joys of the BIOS

[Glenn]

Last Thursday, I installed Win 7 64 on to my games PC, it all went fine, until I checked the available memory, only 4gb available out of the 6gb fitted. I check they modules all fitted correctly, swapped them about, still only 4gb. Checking on Gigabytes site it says there is an update available, so using the @BIOS tool Gigabyte supply with the board, I updated the BIOS. From Thursday evening, through to Saturday lunchtime, the PC refused to boot more than once every 30 minutes.

I contacted the Gigabyte helpdesk, the first thing they said was, 'Don't use the @BIOS tool, it can corrupt the BIOS'  I know that now.

Anyway, it is now back to how it was on Thursday, happily working, but only seeing 4gb of ram

[Rik]

So it's behaving as a 32 bit OS? Odd. Perhaps it needs 8GB, not 6?

[Lona]

Or faulty ram fitted, Glenn.

[Glenn]

No it's a triple channel board, so 2gb x 3. It's not the OS misbehaving it's the BIOS, the fix is to upgrade it, but my board then fails to boot.  

[Glenn]

Or faulty ram fitted, Glenn.

The ram tests fine, using memtest86 Lona.

[Rik]

No it's a triple channel board, so 2gb x 3. It's not the OS misbehaving it's the BIOS, the fix is to upgrade it, but my board then fails to boot. 

Bugger.

[Steve]

Is there any other way of upgrading the bios

[Glenn]

Yes Steve, booting into the BIOS and upgrading from there, but any file above the current version, causes the same issue.

[Odos]

Depending upon which type of bios it is, AMI, Award etc, download the appropriate DOS bios updater and the updated bios. Boot into dos and update the bios.

This is the only method I ever use for updating boards. The only downside is you have to have some form of Dos boot disk but they are freely available from the net.

I know GigaByte used to have the dos updater available for download on their web site, don't know if they still do.

[Glenn]

Not that I can see, the board is a gigabyte ga-x58a-ud3r v1.0

[Odos]

Not that I can see, the board is a gigabyte ga-x58a-ud3r v1.0

Your right there is no direct link to the required utility from that boards page but there is a link to this page Link on how to update. On that page it lists that Gigabyte do supply the Dos update utility but not where to get it from.

The only thing I can think of is that it's embedded in the Bios file itself so has to be extracted before it can be used. This is implied in the wording of that page but not stated explicitly.

[Steve]

Glenn,did you check each stick of ram separately with memtest?

[Glenn]

The only thing I can think of is that it's embedded in the Bios file itself so has to be extracted before it can be used. This is implied in the wording of that page but not stated explicitly.

That's how I did it.

[Glenn]

Glenn,did you check each stick of ram separately with memtest?

No Steve, all together for around 14 hours

[Steve]

Not used memtest for ages but was it checking all 3 sticks at the time or perhaps just 2 can you tell? That why I suppose I've seen recommended check each stick separately.

[karvala]

In terms of checking that it's not a problem with the memory, the simplest and fastest way is to do three-way swaps, i.e. first boot with just two sticks, then swap one stick for the spare, then swap the other stick for the spare.  If it sees just 4Gb in each of those, then you know it's not a faulty module (at least in terms of its boot recognition, which is what we're talking about).  Then do the same, but now instead of swapping modules, swap slots, i.e. make sure that each combination of two slots is tested.  If it sees 4Gb every time there, then you know it's not a faulty slot either.  Then finally stick all three in, so all slots are filled.  If it's still just 4Gb, then it's definitely a BIOS fault of some sort.

From Thursday evening, through to Saturday lunchtime, the PC refused to boot more than once every 30 minutes.

I contacted the Gigabyte helpdesk, the first thing they said was, 'Don't use the @BIOS tool, it can corrupt the BIOS'  I know that now.

That's why I don't buy Gigabyte anymore; nice boards, dreadful support.

I'm confused about the 30-minute though: exactly what happened during the other attempts to boot during those 30 minutes, and how many times in total did it successfully boot?  It's very hard to see what sort of BIOS fault could result in an intermittent boot problem, unless it's a voltage or temperature problem.

[Glenn]

If powered on within 20 - 30 minutes of the last successful boot, it would cycle the power constantly, spinning up the drives and fans before stopping. The BIOS that works is F5, F6 cycles the power as does F7D (a beta).

[Glenn]

Possibly time to check under the CPU. http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=2446.0

[Steve]

I read that as well bent pins and perhaps warping of the the board from the cooler mounts

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82274

[karvala]

Definitely worth checking for a bent pin; pesky LGA sockets!

If powered on within 20 - 30 minutes of the last successful boot, it would cycle the power constantly, spinning up the drives and fans before stopping. The BIOS that works is F5, F6 cycles the power as does F7D (a beta).

When you had a successful boot every 30 minutes, (1) did all 6GB of memory show up in the BIOS and/or OS, and (2) did you happen to check temperatures on the BIOS monitoring screen?

[Technical Ben]

What board is it? My first instincts is it's something stupid like only supporting 2 sticks of 1666mhz ram, and 3 of 1333mhz... 
Oh, that and voltage. I've heard of problems with the latest intel systems and memory, unless the voltage is tweaked slightly.
On a slightly related/unrelated problem. My overclock works perfect on my system. However, it won't work from a cold boot (but will usually from a restart). I wonder if it's a similar problem? The only reason I can think of, is the PSU is too "wobbly" with the voltage, and so tip it over the limit, and messes up the boot. But I  suppose it could be something else. 

[Glenn]

Not that I can see, the board is a gigabyte ga-x58a-ud3r v1.0

[Technical Ben]

Sorry. Missed it.  

[edit]
Compatibility list for Ram. (Yep, they have these now, as some are not compatible. )
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3305&dl=1#memory%20support%20list (not sure if it will link externally, but you can select the "memory list" from the downloads part of the support website)
[edit]
Someone with the same problem. No solution thought.
http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88076
[edit]
Possible solution here...
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic153896.html

Use slots 1,2,3 for 6 gb. This however will disable "triple channel" (3x speed) access. However, most sytems only benifit a few micro second from this. You will not notice the loss of triple channel, unless your doing some CERN super collider research. #
[Final Edit]
This thread seems really in depth. If you memory is rated at 1600 it may apply, else it probably wont.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/270183-30-x58a-ud3r-1600-support

[Rik]

I'm getting a 404 error on the first link, Ben. 

[Technical Ben]

Oh sorry, was a "copy paste" jobby from a fourm. I'll go run around the Gigbyte website for the file.
[Done]
It's stopped raining now, so I should really go do some work, :*(