Cold boot Problem

Chrish_1

Chrish_1

Chrish_1

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Joined
28 Jul 2014
Posts
14
Location
Newcastle
Hi,

System specs
Intel Core i5-4690K
Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z97 Intel Z97 motherboard
Corsair Hydro H100i cooler
Crucial MX100 256GB
TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit
HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card from my old PC
Corsair RM850 PSU

Since building this new system I've had problems booting from cold where the system will boot loop. When it does this the system does not post, it just turns on, all the fans spin up then after about 10 seconds it powers down again.

After leaving it boot looping for about 5 mins eventually it will boot into windows. The motherboard debug LED displays code 15, which means Pre-memory North-Bridge initialization is started.

I decided to play around and found that the system boots up fine when the graphics card is not in the system and using the on-board graphics. The system also boots up fine when the graphics card is in the bottom x8 pci-e slot.
Though this is no good as I want to get another 7950 to run them in cross-fire if possible.
I also tried using an old power colour 4780 card in the x16 pci-e slot, in this case the system booted up fine. So seems to be a problem between the 7950 and the motherboard? Maybe only when its using the pci-e 3.0 x16 as the 4780 is only pci-e 2.0.

I've also tried reseating the cpu and checking for bent pins, they all looked ok.
Anyone got any ideas what is causing this and how to fix it?
Thanks.
 
Sadly not a completely unknown story with GB boards :S

Often I've sorted it doing an update to latest BIOS (if one available) and doing a complete reset and renter of BIOS settings.

If that fails try increasing VTT and IMC a couple of notches or so (stay below 1.2v though and generally shouldn't need more than 1.1 tops).
 
Thanks for the replies,
Ill try the latest F7b bios, see how that works out.
When you say increasing the VTT and IMC voltage, that's the system agent voltage in the bois right?
 
Sometimes known as VCSSA and other names I can never keep up with what its known as on different boards and chipsets :S
 
could be system agent,id only go one click above what auto is using

im not uptodate on haswell settinsg either its all basically the same but labelled differently and different voltage limits ect
 
Ok, I updated the bios to f7b and tried increasing the system agent voltage to +0.2 volts. It's still boot looping for about 5mins before it starts.
 
I unplugged all usb devices including the front panel usb 3.0 connection from the motherboard.
Still does not work :/. Starting to think it might just be best to rma the board now?
 
funny as it sounds I had a problem similar to this, I took it to the shop, and it turned out that the screws in my motherboard were too tight and it was shorting the computer and not letting it boot up fully, loosen the screws this fixed it for me, might be the same problem i was having. hope this helps
 
Hey, thanks for trying tony, tried that but still no luck. I worked out the system will boot ok with the graphics card in the top pci-e slot if I force the slot to run at pci-e 2.0 in the bios.
But obviously this is not working correctly and not sure if it has enough bandwidth for the graphics card.
 
you only lose 1% if that from going from pcie-3 to pcie-2

any bios updates for that gpu? it could be a bios bug with either the card or board

i remember seeing issues with his cards and gigabyte z77,so its possible on z97

anything else plugged into pci/pcie slots and anything in the m.2 slot? as that affects pcie bandwidth
 
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pretty sure its a bios issue somewhere

if it works fine at pcie-2 then i would leave it on that,you'll see 0 performance loss
 
I guess I'm happy running the cards in gen 2 pci-e if there is no performance loss. Who knows maybe gigabyte will release a bios update in the future fixing this problem.
 
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