GA X38-DQ6 problem

[Kivech]

GA X38-DQ6 problem [SOLVED]

Hi all,

I've got a problem with my newly purchased GA X38-DQ6 motherboard.

First I ofcourse verified if all my components are compatible with the board, and they are. This is what I have.

Pentium D 3.2 Ghz processor
2 Gb Corsair XMS2-6400C5 memory
3 WD 210 Gb SATA HDDs
HIS IceQ3 1900XT vid card with 512 Mb of DDR3 ram

This all was running fine on an Asus P5WDG2-WS motherboard.

However, the board has given me booting problems from the start, so I figured maybe it was time to replace it with a better/newer one. I'm not an overclocker myself (I'm way too scared to fry something by accident) but I do want top notch hardware, hence the reason I check out these forums and order most of my hardware from OC.

First I wanted the new Asus Maximus SE, but after having read tons of threads about it frying memory at random and other odd problems I RMAd it even before it arrived and decided to order the GA X38-DQ6.

Upon arrival I assembled it all (nothing new to me here since I have built most of my systems from scratch over the years) and fired it up. Oddly enough it wouldn't do anything but just spin the fans, sit there for 3 secs and then switch itself off, just to switch itself back on again 3 secs later and repeat that into infinity.
Now, I've worked in the IT industry in all different fields over the past 12 years, but this one was new to me. Tried it all, but nothing worked. Called Gigabyte support in the US (there is none here in Italy) and they told me to take all components out and check if it does the same to verify PSU and motherboard. Then add component by component to find the culprit.

So I did this and narrowed the problem down to the CPU. Odd though, since it had never given me problems before. Sure enough on the mobo no problems alone so I thought I had to replace my CPU. Got a new Pentium core DUO 2.4 Ghz. Plugged it in, and.... same deal...

Ok, so the board was faulty, and I immediately requested an RMA and will be sending it back tomorrow. Meanwhile I'm waiting for the replacement to arrive any day now (got them from different suppliers, this time from OC).

My question now is this: after having browsed the forums here and more specificly the Gigabyte thread, it seems to me that particularly previous generation boards of Gigabyte had this problem a lot. Those of you that have experience with this particular motherboard (given my set up of hardware) think that I might be prone to having these problems generally with this motherboard or have I just been unlucky with the first one I got (which is what I hope)?

In all honesty, I just want a top notch, stable and reliable system, not one that I have to tinker with all the time, that really would drive me nuts. Does my choice make sense to you guys?

My reasoning behind this board was: it accepts all my current components, seems solid and reliable (might have mistaken here though) and has plenty of room for expansion over the next couple of years. Was I right, or did I make a silly mistake?

Any advice and help is highly appreciated.

Kivech

 

[Thorne]

I had the same problem with the first X38-DQ6 that i ordered, it just went into a power up/down loop and never got any further, I guessed it could have been one of my components so I bought a second X38-DQ6 from another source.

The second X38 booted first time and was stable until I tried to configure for my black dragon memory at 1066 upping the voltage to 2.4 as per the memory spec. On the reboot the unit went into the boot up/down routine I had seen on the first board. I had to remove all memory, graphics card and wipe the cmos then power the board up and wait for the bios beeps indicating a post memory fault.

Replacing the memory and graphics card and the board booted fine however I have still been unable to get my memory working at 1066, any attempt to reconfigure for 1066 causes the same up/down loop problem.

Apart from that the board has been stable and I run a QX6850 at 3.6Ghz without fault.

 

[jbloggs]

I have had this board now for a while, using it with a Q6600 @3.6GHz, 4GB (4 x 1GB) Crucial Ballistix PC6400 which is completely stable, this board worked right from the word "go" with me.

What BIOS did you use in the first mobo? BIOS F4 gave quite a lot of people problems, I have found BIOS F6b to be the best so far, with F5h not far behind it.

This all was running fine on an Asus P5WDG2-WS motherboard

I also used this board with a number of different processors, E6600, 6850 and Q6600, found it to be an excellent board, it also had PCI-X which worked really well.

 

[londonbairn]

I had the same boot up problem when I got the board. It turned out the RAM was actually failing upon memtesting in depth on another machine and was thus faulty. I went out and got a 2x2gb and I have never ever had any problems whatsoever.

I like the board a lot and glad I got it.

 

[eggnoodle]

I had this problem myself with the x38t-dq6 and this was because I was putting my sticks of RAM in incorrectly. It sounds stupid, but have you made sure that your RAM sticks are in their respective color slots? 1+3 = green i think, 2+4 = pink? My pc did the boot up and turn off and then reboot because I had put my ram sticks into 1 green and 1 pink slot by mistake.

 

[Kivech]

Thanks for all your replies.

Just a few quick reactions to what you guys wrote:

@Thorne: good to hear you have got it working now. Hopefully you'll sort out the mem frequency as well.

@jbloggs: unfortunately I never got to the bios screen, so I have no clue which bios version was on the board. The Asus board I am looking to replace is indeed a good one, but it's getting old, hence the reason I got myself the Gigabyte board. I'm still waiting for my replacement board though.

@rafster: to be honest, I'm hoping it is not that in my case, and according to the Gigabyte technician the procedure I followed did show a defect on the motherboard, so I'm assuming my mem is still ok.

@eggnoodle: thanks for the tip, but it was one of the first things I've checked. I tried different ones also: 1 and 3, 2 and 4, and tried each stick in all of the slots independantly, but nothing changed. Since I had no problems with my mem with my other board, I'm assuming the problem lies in something else.

Hopefully I'll have more clarity today or tomorrow (which is when my replacement board should arrive). When I do, I'll certainly update you guys on what my problem was. Especially for others who in the future might run into similar problems.

Thanks again all for your replies, really appreciate you sharing your experiences! Especially for those who managed to solve their problems and where the problem was not the motherboard, at least that confirms that I made a good pick instead of a stupid error.

Kivech

 

[Rezident]

Exact same boot up problems with this board. RMA'd it and the second one was fine. I did have to remove 2 of the RAM sticks and update the BIOS before it would work with 4 sticks.

Fine for the last few months, but I'm having boot problems again, although I think these are nVidia-related because I can hear Vista starting up in the background but GPU will not display anything at most start-ups!? Back to ATI I think.

 

[londonbairn]

@rafster: to be honest, I'm hoping it is not that in my case, and according to the Gigabyte technician the procedure I followed did show a defect on the motherboard, so I'm assuming my mem is still ok.

It seems to me this board is less tolerant of bad memory; the P5K Premium I had would still boot with the bad RAM, but it would crash in Windows within a few seconds. The Gigabyte just refused to boot. Not exactly a bad thing in my case as the RAM was screwed.

Rezident: I had the same problem with my Geforce 8800 GTS, but it was because I did not put my DVI panel into the DVI "1" socket.

Once I had replaced the RAM, it has never ever failed to POST. It always boots which is not something I could have said about the P5K Premium/Deluxe beforehand.

 

[Rezident]

Rezident: I had the same problem with my Geforce 8800 GTS, but it was because I did not put my DVI panel into the DVI "1" socket.

Is that just the first DVI socket on the card, i.e. the one on the left? It's in there, but I have tried both.

It only started over the last couple of weeks so that's why I assumed the Nvidia beta drivers had something to do with it.

 

[Kivech]

Well, I got my replacement board, and I've got it running.

At first I thought I was going to cry since the second board did the exact same thing as the first. And taking my chances I decided to get two new memory sticks. After all, those were the only components I hadn't tried to replace before.

The thing works like a charm.

I think rafster is right and I agree with him that in a sense I'm glad it is less tolerant of bad memory. I had weird crashes before also. No doubt that was due to the faulty ram I had.

All in all, I'm a happy camper now. Never had a board this fast before either, it really shows.

Thanks for all the replies and tips, but I finally sorted it out.

Kivech

 

[londonbairn]

Well, I got my replacement board, and I've got it running.

At first I thought I was going to cry since the second board did the exact same thing as the first. And taking my chances I decided to get two new memory sticks. After all, those were the only components I hadn't tried to replace before.

The thing works like a charm.

I think rafster is right and I agree with him that in a sense I'm glad it is less tolerant of bad memory. I had weird crashes before also. No doubt that was due to the faulty ram I had.

All in all, I'm a happy camper now. Never had a board this fast before either, it really shows.

Thanks for all the replies and tips, but I finally sorted it out.

Kivech

Just put my other set of 2x2gb back. Would not boot (I know RAM sticks and slots are fine) so I reset CMOS and put the same settings in again and it is fine Maybe something bizarre like the DMI Pool data or something!

Looks like there is very little droop on the VDIMM which is nice with 4 sticks.