Boot loop before post issue

Banjaxed

Banjaxed

Banjaxed

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24 Mar 2016
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7
Hi,
this is a bit of a long and convoluted tale but I'll try to be as clear as i can. First, system specs:

GA-Z97X-Gaming 7
i7 4790K @ stock settings
EVGA 980TI SC
16GB DDR3 2400MHz Corsair Vengence RAM
250GB Samsung 840 SSD
750W Seasonic PSU

Ok so every few weeks my system will on a cold boot fall into a boot loop before the post beep. It will just keep churning over and over until I hold down the power button.
Now when this happened the first time around I tried various things.

I found that if i booted on one stick of RAM I could get back into windows. So I then turned the machine off and tried to boot from cold, still with the one stick inserted and the same happened again, boot loop. This meant I couldn't even use the one stick trick to get back into windows but luckily I had some spare RAM from an old build so popped a stick of that in and it booted up.

Yayy i thought it must have been the RAM... Er nope! Even with this different ram if then turned the machine off and tried to boot it would again fall back into the boot loop.

So i popped one of the original ram sticks back in and weirdly it booted, I then flashed the bios which seemed to be the solution. Everything worked as it should and i thought no more of it.

A few weeks later it happened again. I got back into windows and flashed the bios. Once again all was fixed.

A few weeks later and it's now yesterday and it happens again. As I'm at the highest bios version I flash it back to F7 and in doing so heard some very weird bios beeps. At one point the bios was beeping continually although eventually it seemed to sort itself out and that's where I'm now at.
System seems to be working without flaw but then again it always does until this damned issue raises it's head again.

The issue occurs in both bios, 1 and 2 as it's dual bios system.

I've ran the Intel diagnostic on the chip which passed

As i said above I've tried two sets of RAM both did the same thing.

I sent a support ticket to Gigabyte but I think the issue is too difficult and they stopped replying lol..

If anyone has an idea I'd appreciate it.
 
Wow no replies... Mind you no one else I've asked know's either.

I've since reflashed the bios back to F8 using Qflash as before I was using @BIOS without realising how bad it was. I'm hoping this will help although I'm probably clutching at straws.
System is running perfectly so I guess i'll post again once the issue re-occurrs, if it ever does of course.
 
Updating the BIOS through Windows is not the best way. Qflash is the safest method as it works outside windows.

Hopefully your issue is resolved now, but do post again if it re-occurs. It could be caused by any number of reasons. Next time it occurs, try running the RAM at it's stock speed with XMP disabled (if you haven't already tried). This should be either 1333MHz or 1600MHz depending on the RAM.
 
Hi Borealis,
thanks for the reply. Yeah tried that I'm afraid, in fact first thing i always do when it happens is to press my clear cmos button although this doesn't seem to make any difference until I pull a stick out then I can boot into the bios and apply optimised defaults. I've then tried turning the machine totally off again but still the boot loop is there when I boot up.
As I said the only thing which stops it dead is a bios flash.

I've been building Gigabyte based machines for over ten years and never encountered anything like this.
I always knew it wasn't good practice to use @BIOS but as i never had an issue I just carried on. It wasn't until I read some stuff about the horror's it can do I quickly decided to reflash using Qflash and just hope that was the ultimate reason.
 
Seems really odd. Next time it does it (if there is a next time) take everything out of the case and run the bare minimum - CPU, 1 stick RAM, onboard GFX etc. Have you tried using one stick of RAM in a different slot each time, just in case you've got a bad memory slot?

It seems like the BIOS is getting corrupted - suggests either a CPU, RAM or motherboard issue. Since you've tried a set of known working RAM, it would suggest CPU or motherboard.

What CPU cooler are you using? Depending on how it's secured, it could be flexing the board very slightly and causing you issues.
 
I only really seem to get stuck in boot loop when I forget to turn up my ram voltage or if I set my video ram too high. If you do try running at optimised settings you might have to still set your ram voltage, my ram just doesn't work at 1.5v and causes the bios to corrupt.
 
Have you tried replacing CMOS battery?

I was getting a boot loop with Gigabyte Z68AP-D3/2500K where fans spin up, no display, powers off, repeat.

This was resolved by replacing the CMOS battery, after testing same with new RAM/PSU and thinking possible mobo failure.

If your loop is similar may be worth trying, at least a battery is cheap.
 
Borealis said:
Seems really odd. Next time it does it (if there is a next time) take everything out of the case and run the bare minimum - CPU, 1 stick RAM, onboard GFX etc. Have you tried using one stick of RAM in a different slot each time, just in case you've got a bad memory slot?

It seems like the BIOS is getting corrupted - suggests either a CPU, RAM or motherboard issue. Since you've tried a set of known working RAM, it would suggest CPU or motherboard.

What CPU cooler are you using? Depending on how it's secured, it could be flexing the board very slightly and causing you issues.
Click to expand...
I'm using a cooler that's similar to the hyper212 so no problems with weight.

Out of the suggestions listed here the only thing i haven't tried is booting up with the onboard graphics. Oh and changing the bios battery.

I thought it sounded like the bios was getting corrupted somehow so hence my reason for using the Qflash and reflashing back to F8. It's early days yet but so far so good.
I'll keep you guy's updated if it ever happens again. Thank you for all the replies. :)
 
It's looking more and more evident that my issue stemmed from using @BIOS. It looks like it simply wasn't flashing the bios correctly unless it was because of Windows 10? Anyhoo I'll never use it again and after using Qflash the machine seems 'happier'but I guess only time will tell...
 
Have u got your uefi settings (if w8/w10) and boot priorities configured correctly? Reflashing resets back to default.

Also have u tried with / without xmp applied? I know 2667 can be plug and play, I assume 2400 is too.
 
Adam123 said:
Have u got your uefi settings (if w8/w10) and boot priorities configured correctly? Reflashing resets back to default.

Also have u tried with / without xmp applied? I know 2667 can be plug and play, I assume 2400 is too.
Click to expand...

Hi Adam,
yes to both questions.

I've been reading recently that with dual bios boards one can have cold boot issues if the the two bioses are very different.
I was running with F6 on the back up and F8 on the main and apparently this can be bad.
Apparently once you've found a good stable bios your supposed to load optimised defaults and then flash the bios over to the back up.
This is achieved if one boots from cold and presses alt+F10 (some of the guides said F12 but I found it was F10) just after the bios beep or when you'd normally press delete to enter the bios.
A dual bios screen will appear (I had to try twice before getting this screen) which will allow you to flash the back up bios.

So now we'll see I guess. System is running fine at the moment and I just hope this is finally the solution.
Time will tell.

I forgot to write that the guide mentioned about using a PS/2 connector on the k'board. Apparently you get better results using the connector. I had an old adapter spare so used one. I'm not sure if the above can be done without?
Here's where i found this info although I also found the same in other places/forums too
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=9462.0
 
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