What could be causing my system/Gigabyte board to suddenly boot loop? Corrupted BIOS??

[peanutismint]

I have a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H (rev. 1.0) motherboard which has worked flawlessly since I bought it about 5 years ago until suddenly last week when my system stopped booting. Now when I power on, before I even see a 'Press [DEL] to enter BIOS' or whatever, it reboots. It seems to follow the same pattern every time I boot, which is:

1. System powers up
2. Drives/fans spin up, but no video output
3. After about 5-10 seconds, power goes off
4. a few seconds later, system powers on again
5. this time, I get the 'old' Gigabyte boot logo (backup BIOS perhaps?)
6. Blue screen with 'Gigabyte UEFI BIOS' header but no other text
7. system powers off and return to step 1.

As an aside, this happened right around the same time my various OSs on different drives stopped booting, although the only connection I can imagine is that, with all my system rebooting to try and get them working again, something on the motherboard/BIOS might've got fried...

Anyway, I assumed maybe it was something to do with the BIOS corrupting, so I tried resetting CMOS by jumping the pins inside, and when that didn't work I tried removing the battery for 10 mins. When this didn't work either, after a lot of web searching, I discovered I could manually force the system to 'rebuild' a corrupted BIOS by power-cycling from the switch on the PSU with the front power button held. This got my BIOS rebuilt and I was able to boot my system again, but then after a few shutdowns/reboots I'm back to square one. This has happened twice now and I'd rather not keep trying the power-cycling in case I'm doing more damage.

I've tested the CMOS battery with a meter and it's full. I haven't tested the PSU because I'm not sure if it's a likely culprit (or how to even check with a multimeter etc). I've also tried 'breadboarding', i.e. removing all connectors, removing the GPU and running on-board graphics, removing RAM and even re-seating the CPU, but nothing seems to work.....

Anybody have any ideas? If I'm looking at a new motherboard situation, I'd like to know what could've caused this one to break, in case I can avoid it in future....

 

[peanutismint]

Yeah; I was on it long before the issues started, and had to re-update when I finally got it booting because it had rolled back to the factory version (I guess it has a dualBIOS chip for recovery etc). I know they say don't update unless you have issues, but I had some issues and it seemed to fix them..... Mind you, the 'newest' BIOS for my board is from like 2014....!

 

[peanutismint]

Thanks, I definitely hadn't added any new devices when it started, but even if I had then I assume it would've booted when I breadboarded it without any peripherals connected... Yeah I wondered if it had just reached the end of its life, but then it's only about 5 years old and I've hardly used it (I work mostly on a Mac so the PC is just for Windows stuff and tinkering/Hackintosh).

 

[peanutismint]

What psu do you have ?

It's a ******** Powerstation 750W Black Edition. I do have a LOT of stuff in the system (including an optical drive, 2 x HDDs and 2 x SSDs) but I'd have thought that'd be enough.... Maybe I should try unplugging some of those? But as I say it's been running everything I have in the system for the past 2 years or so without complaint...

I don't think it will die from it any time soon - I've about 3 older GB boards here that do that now after a few years and they are still functioning fine albeit quite frequently failing first boot and/or then having to reload the BIOS profile due to resetting to defaults - its starting to build upto a pattern.

That's comforting to know but at the same time I don't want to have to go through this magic act every time I want to turn on my machine, which with my triple-boot setup is often quite a few times a day....

 

[peanutismint]

checked your ram? mine used to do this wen i OC it too much. maybe yours are becoming faulty?

I've checked it in so far as removing each chip and booting with just one in but both result in the same scenario.

I just wrote myself a guide to check for my issues.

My issue is likely a short circuit.

I'll post it here later after work.

Thanks, much appreciated! Will give it a try when I see it.

Sounds like one of the BIOS is corrupt. These boards have two BIOS and if one is corrupt and its trying to boot to it you get this error.

Also had this when my CPU died too so might not just be the motherboard.

Try switching BIOS when you boot. Power on PC and keep pressing Alt & F12 and it should copy the backup bios over and possible solve the issue.

I've heard about the ALT+F12 thing but I'm unsure how exactly it's supposed to work, as for me pressing these didn't seem to make any difference so I wonder if it at least needs to get to the BIOS screen to be able to do this. Also, as I wrote I managed to power cycle it enough times to where it 'rebuilt' the BIOS and then I managed to boot, but A) I don't know if this is the same procedure as pressing ALT+F12 would get me and B) once I'd power cycled my system a few times even after doing that BIOS rebuild I was back to square one again, so I don't know if maybe one of the BIOS chips (?) has gone bad and is unable to store the BIOS for more than a few tries? If so, I need to overwrite the 'backup' BIOS with a later version and then have the system default to booting to that one every time, but then I'm also up the creek if that one goes....no?

 

[peanutismint]

This is concerning....! But I share your pain. My question now would be, do I bust my balls trying to find a new 1155 motherboard OR do I take this as an omen that it's time to do an entire system upgrade in readiness for VR?? Could anything I have (in my sig) still be used on another easier-to-obtain motherboard or is it all too 'old' by today's standards?

 

[peanutismint]

That's really interesting. In my situation, there hasn't been any new hardware added… so I don't know what could be causing us to experience similar symptoms.

I got in touch with Gigabyte support but they told me there was nothing that could be done without me sending it in for a repair, assumedly at my cost… Currently, the system actually seems to be booting semi-reliably into Windows 10, seemingly from the oldest original BIOS, but I can't help but feel like it's only a matter of time before it refuses to do this again...

 

[peanutismint]

Yeah I think I agree about just paying out for an upgrade, unfortunately, although in your case it might be safe to assume the motherboard is fine and just slightly incompatible with the graphics card, whereas in my case I think I'd be a bit hesitant to sell on the motherboard for fear that there is actually a BIOS corruption issue that I wouldn't want to pass on to someone else… Maybe I'll run it for another few months to make sure it's working fine.

 

[peanutismint]

For my next upgrade (whenever it happens), I fancy moving away from gigabyte boards.

I hate to judge a company based on one bad experience but when it's happening to a few people then I'm sad to say I've been considering the same thing.....

FWIW re 'cold boots', I don't know if this is what you're talking about but mine seems to have been fine since I came back from my Christmas break.... And I know that sounds like just a weird coincidence but I only mention it because I've had one too many similar experiences with, for example, my Hackintosh build suddenly refusing to boot after I've come back from a long vacation where the machine has been off for a few weeks... I'm wondering whether it is just an odd coincidence or whether there's actually some hard evidence to suggest that older BIOS chips can lose data or corrupt after being without power for a while....?! Maybe a failing CMOS battery? But then aren't they supposed to last for like 10 years? Maybe I should try replacing mine....

 

[peanutismint]

Good luck with that mate! I may well end up joining you if a new battery doesn't solve my issue...! FWIW BTW I did test it with a meter and was still getting 3V so I'm thinking it's not going to be as simple as that for me, unfortunately.

 

[peanutismint]

Haha that sounds perilous...! Well knock on wood it hasn't looped for a couple of days now, so I'm probably going to stick with it for awhile… I think it's currently booting from the backup BIOS (i.e. probably the original BiOS version it shipped with) but I'm unsure whether to upgrade to a new are one or just stick with it as "if it ain't broke…"

 

[peanutismint]

Mine has also been running seemingly fine, though I did have to do my reflash twice before it 'took', and I still haven't dared to update to a newer BIOS so it's currently running/booting every time but on the very first (oldest!) BIOS so I'm missing quite a few features....

@reecevxr Personally I had to follow a method where I powered down, removed IEC power cable from PSU, held front power button to clear any capacitors etc, then re-plugged IEC cable and whilst holding the front power button use the switch on my PSU to quickly turn the PSU on/off a few times. I usually waited a few seconds between each 'cycle' to allow the system to truly reset, and the timing for letting the machine boot is a little tricky... I finally got success by just flipping the PSU switch long enough to allow the fans to JUST start spinning before I switched it off again.

Somewhere else on the internet somebody has offered these more concise instructions which may work:

Method #1:
1. Shut your PC down (if you're reading this guide, than your PC isn't working anyways)
2. Hold the power button until the PC starts and shuts down again
3. Press the power button again, your backup BIOS should kick in now and should re-flash the main BIOS if there's anything wrong with it.

Method #2:
1. Shut your PC down
2. Hold the power AND the reset button for about 10 sec, than release.
3. Backup BIOS should kick in anytime soon now.

Method #3:
Had to use this one in order to get my 990FXA-D3 working again. Backup BIOS kicked in using method #2, but I was back to the good ol' no signal state once the procedure finished..
1. Short out pins 1 and 6 on the main BIOS chip (pin #1 should be marked with a red dot or whatever)
2. Tell a friend (or a relative) of yours to press the power on button
3. Remove the ghetto-like jumper you're holding between pins 1 and 6 as soon as you hear a beep.
4. Backup BIOS should kick in again and everything will (hopefully) be fine.