X58 failing motherboard help

AWPC · 15 Dec 2015 at 21:56

My now 7 years old Gigabyte X58 UD5 motherboard is finally starting to die

Random restarts no pattern to it. Happens in IE browsing, Gaming or just sitting on Memtest+ screen. It can be stable for 24 hours or slighly longer then suddenly it restarts without warning.

Tried:
1: New CMOS battery
2: New Ram
3: Testing existing Ram (passed all clear)
4: New PSU
5: Different working in another PC PSU
6: Bios upgrade (Oct 2012 the last official release)
7: Reflashing the Dual Bios (twice). This made it stable with no reboots for 1 month exactly until the other day....
8: Win 7 or Win 10 it random reboots on different SSD's (its got quad boot OSes each on a different SSD). So that rules out the OS or SSD corruption

Nothing else left I can think to try really as no obvious signs of dodgy capacitors.

Its just over 7 years old now one of the very first batch of Rev 1 X58 Gigabyte UD5 motherboards sold in the UK back in Nov 2008

I know I got a good life out of it & cannot believe the price some people want for manky used X58 motherboards. Seen them going for over £100 not working as spares only which is just ridiculous. A decent used one seems to be £150-200 not worth it when for another £150 you can have either an X99 or Z170 mobo+cpu!

Looks like I have to buy a new system its just not cost effective to spend £200 for an X58 motherboard when I can strip this system down & get some money back on it towards a new system.

Does anyone have any other ideas apart from what I have tried above?

Thanks

Caracus2k · 15 Dec 2015 at 23:00

the availability of cheap six core xeons means these boards are worth £100+ to some.

Looks like you have had a good stab at diagnosing the problem with no joy.

Maybe try removing and re seating the CPU with fresh TIM?
Try removing the ram, cpu etc and give the whole board a good clean with compressed air and isopropyl alcohol?

If this fails probably best just to start fresh...

nick_000000 · 16 Dec 2015 at 14:04

AWPC said:
My now 7 years old Gigabyte X58 UD5 motherboard is finally starting to die Random restarts no pattern to it. Happens in IE browsing, Gaming or just sitting on Memtest+ screen. It can be stable for 24 hours or slighly longer then suddenly it restarts without warning.

Tried:
1: New CMOS battery
2: New Ram
3: Testing existing Ram (passed all clear)
4: New PSU
5: Different working in another PC PSU
6: Bios upgrade (Oct 2012 the last official release)
7: Reflashing the Dual Bios (twice). This made it stable with no reboots for 1 month exactly until the other day....
8: Win 7 or Win 10 it random reboots on different SSD's (its got quad boot OSes each on a different SSD). So that rules out the OS or SSD corruption

Nothing else left I can think to try really as no obvious signs of dodgy capacitors.

Its just over 7 years old now one of the very first batch of Rev 1 X58 Gigabyte UD5 motherboards sold in the UK back in Nov 2008

I know I got a good life out of it & cannot believe the price some people want for manky used X58 motherboards. Seen them going for over £100 not working as spares only which is just ridiculous. A decent used one seems to be £150-200 not worth it when for another £150 you can have either an X99 or Z170 mobo+cpu!

Looks like I have to buy a new system its just not cost effective to spend £200 for an X58 motherboard when I can strip this system down & get some money back on it towards a new system.

Does anyone have any other ideas apart from what I have tried above?

Thanks

I guess maybe they sell for so much as others are in the same boat with failing motherboards and just want a replacement so they can keep all their existing components and not have to build a new system. Also as Caracus2k has said you can pick up a good hex core Xeon for £70-£100 and have a 12 threaded PC for much less than a newer x99 chipset build will cost.

Not so good for you as it means if you want to do the same then it will cost you a fair bit more, I myself wouldn't want to replace my motherboard if it were to start to fail and would just sell the CPU and motherboard and setup a new build with the benifits of proper SATA 3 ports, m.2, native usb3 and all the extra bells and whistles that the newer chipsets bring

.

Still a bit of a pain but I guess you may be able to find someone that can repair the motherboard for you but that's if you want to go down that route...

AWPC · 16 Dec 2015 at 14:54

nick_000000 said:
I guess maybe they sell for so much as others are in the same boat with failing motherboards and just want a replacement so they can keep all their existing components and not have to build a new system. Also as Caracus2k has said you can pick up a good hex core Xeon for £70-£100 and have a 12 threaded PC for much less than a newer x99 chipset build will cost.

Not so good for you as it means if you want to do the same then it will cost you a fair bit more, I myself wouldn't want to replace my motherboard if it were to start to fail and would just sell the CPU and motherboard and setup a new build with the benifits of proper SATA 3 ports, m.2, native usb3 and all the extra bells and whistles that the newer chipsets bring .

Still a bit of a pain but I guess you may be able to find someone that can repair the motherboard for you but that's if you want to go down that route...

Not cost viable to repair it has no visible signs of failure it still looks brand new even after 7 years use I look after my hardware pretty well!

The issue is so intermittent it can work for several hours then go without warning other times it goes within a few minutes of being powered on regardless of load (internet browsing or gaming or just sitting idle in the memtest+ screen).

To me this means its most likely caps going bad not sure they are easy to replace as none have any visible signs there are about 16 as well that would cost a lot to replace its just not financially viable is it!

They are rated for 100,000 hours but I think that's Gigabyte marketing BS & or some other related motherboard components are failing like the VRM's. Easy to diagnose if you are Gigabyte you just hook the mobo up to the test bench rig but its virtually impossible for anyone to find the fault without an electrical engineering masters degree AND the actual mobo blueprints with all the current & volts on.

nick_000000 · 16 Dec 2015 at 16:44

AWPC said:
Not cost viable to repair it has no visible signs of failure it still looks brand new even after 7 years use I look after my hardware pretty well!

The issue is so intermittent it can work for several hours then go without warning other times it goes within a few minutes of being powered on regardless of load (internet browsing or gaming or just sitting idle in the memtest+ screen).

To me this means its most likely caps going bad not sure they are easy to replace as none have any visible signs there are about 16 as well that would cost a lot to replace its just not financially viable is it!

They are rated for 100,000 hours but I think that's Gigabyte marketing BS & or some other related motherboard components are failing like the VRM's. Easy to diagnose if you are Gigabyte you just hook the mobo up to the test bench rig but its virtually impossible for anyone to find the fault without an electrical engineering masters degree AND the actual mobo blueprints with all the current & volts on.

Have you tried swapping out the CPU (if you have one spare that is) to see if it could be that, you can get old I7s for peanuts now or possibly if you have someone that you know with one spare? I have an I7 930 sitting on my desk but it will probably cost me a bit more to send it to you (just to test) as I live in the channel islands and shipping costs are more expensive

.

AWPC · 16 Dec 2015 at 17:04

nick_000000 said:
Have you tried swapping out the CPU (if you have one spare that is) to see if it could be that, you can get old I7s for peanuts now or possibly if you have someone that you know with one spare? I have an I7 930 sitting on my desk but it will probably cost me a bit more to send it to you (just to test) as I live in the channel islands and shipping costs are more expensive .

Its ok I have another CPU (Core i7 965XE) it makes no difference its almost 99.9% certain something on the motherboard is about to fail.

Whats strange is it last failed about 5 weeks ago now it fails every few hours.

wazza300 · 16 Dec 2015 at 17:57

any bsod codes when it crashes?

my x58 ud5 had a blown cap,it affected one of the memory slots but they soldered on a new one for free outside of the warranty too,might be worth trying an rma? you never know

AWPC · 16 Dec 2015 at 20:11

wazza300 said:
any bsod codes when it crashes?

my x58 ud5 had a blown cap,it affected one of the memory slots but they soldered on a new one for free outside of the warranty too,might be worth trying an rma? you never know

No BSOD ever it just restarts instantly with no BSOD & logs the same error 41 "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly"

In the eventlog. This can mean many things its a generic error code.

AWPC · 17 Dec 2015 at 23:49

Cannot believe how much some people want for used X58 mobos £200-300 is ridiculous. You can build a new system for little more!

wazza300 · 18 Dec 2015 at 00:28

Have you contacted gigabyte UK and see what they say?

AWPC · 18 Dec 2015 at 01:43

wazza300 said:
Have you contacted gigabyte UK and see what they say?

Nope because its long out of warranty (bought in 2008) and also I use the PC everyday so sending back to gigabyte is not really an option right now.

I need a replacement X58 mobo now otherwise I need to buy a new X99 system.

AWPC · 20 Dec 2015 at 12:34

Spent several hours dismantling the system & removed the motherboard.

Then I double checked all caps they all look fine as do all the chips.

As a last resort I pulled the Northbridge + Southbridge + ICH10 + Mosfests HSF off. Found the thermal material was all intact so pulled the NB+SB+ICH10 thermal pads off & replaced with some proper thermal paste.

2 days later its still 100% stable so looks like the thermal material had reached the end of its life & replacing with proper thermal paste has stopped the instability

Lot of hassle/time to do this (around 3 hours) but way less cheaper than buying a manky used X58 mobo for up to £200 :rolleyes:

AWPC · 28 Dec 2015 at 21:38

8 days later its still 100% stable looks like the original Thermal pads had worn out. Replacing for proper TIM seems to have cured this (way cheaper than a used X58 mobo or new X99 based system!).

Here's to another 7 years (I hope!).

CaNsA · 28 Dec 2015 at 21:44

I'm not sure if your mobo, like my gigabyte x58, has blue metal panels over the board mounted heatsinks with GIGABYTE slapped on them.

If it does... rip those things off and chuck em in the bin and see the temps drop 5C

ltron · 28 Dec 2015 at 22:04

This is very interesting, I bought a new X99 system because I was having exactly the same problem with my X58 system which uses this exact board. I still haven't sold it, which I was planning to do. Might try replacing the TIM as you did.

NB temps were always fine but may be the Mosfets or Southbridge causing the problem. Although sometimes the problem would occur in quick succession, other times it would be weeks between it occurring so will keep an eye on this thread to see whether it re-occurs for you.

cadmunkey · 29 Dec 2015 at 00:40

AWPC said:
Spent several hours dismantling the system & removed the motherboard.

Then I double checked all caps they all look fine as do all the chips.

As a last resort I pulled the Northbridge + Southbridge + ICH10 + Mosfests HSF off. Found the thermal material was all intact so pulled the NB+SB+ICH10 thermal pads off & replaced with some proper thermal paste.

2 days later its still 100% stable so looks like the thermal material had reached the end of its life & replacing with proper thermal paste has stopped the instability

Lot of hassle/time to do this (around 3 hours) but way less cheaper than buying a manky used X58 mobo for up to £200

Had the exact same board and also the exact same problem. Congrats on making more of an effort than I did and getting it up and running again. I'm on x99 now...

AWPC · 29 Dec 2015 at 00:52

CaNsA said:
I'm not sure if your mobo, like my gigabyte x58, has blue metal panels over the board mounted heatsinks with GIGABYTE slapped on them.

If it does... rip those things off and chuck em in the bin and see the temps drop 5C

Yeah it has the same blue metal panels I will see how it goes before ripping them off though!

CaNsA · 29 Dec 2015 at 00:57

AWPC said:
Yeah it has the same blue metal panels I will see how it goes before ripping them off though!

They're only stuck on with some double sided tape.
Get it done

AWPC · 29 Dec 2015 at 00:57

cadmunkey said:
Had the exact same board and also the exact same problem. Congrats on making more of an effort than I did and getting it up and running again. I'm on x99 now...

This was/is the last resort I am glad it worked!!

I was so close to X99 but just could not bring myself to order the parts when its not that much faster real world than X58 + Core i7 980x. Due to poor multicore software optimisation/effort & Intel abusing their power by refusing to release proper upgrades just continual slow minor updates as they know its pointless to release the proper CPU upgrades for home users unless they get some serious competition from AMD!

Get those X58 mobos back into action lads

AWPC · 29 Dec 2015 at 01:01

ltron said:
This is very interesting, I bought a new X99 system because I was having exactly the same problem with my X58 system which uses this exact board. I still haven't sold it, which I was planning to do. Might try replacing the TIM as you did.

NB temps were always fine but may be the Mosfets or Southbridge causing the problem. Although sometimes the problem would occur in quick succession, other times it would be weeks between it occurring so will keep an eye on this thread to see whether it re-occurs for you.

I left the Mosfets thermal pads on no way can you use TIM on those way too many little fiddly chips to cover. You get some on the mobo trace wires nearby may not end happily methinks :eek: