Z68XP-UD3P boot loop

robj20 · 14 Nov 2012 at 06:19

Its driving me crazy now i have tried everything to sort it the only way to start up is leave it to boot loop for 5 mins where it will eventually start.

Tried clearing cmos overnight, tried different memory, two graphics cards, 2 cpus. All manor of different bios settings.

I hear it happens to a lot of boards are there any that work, seems to be limited to P67 and Z68.

wazza300 · 15 Nov 2012 at 00:17

what memory are you using,voltages and settings,what bios version?

robj20 · 15 Nov 2012 at 07:58

U1e bios, default settings with a few things like audio and firewire turned off.
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz.

Its all worked fine for getting on 12 months now. Its annoyingly random as well, some days it does it for every power on, some days not at all.

Sgt Tackleberry · 15 Nov 2012 at 08:07

I have this board, and it happens to me sometimes!, i found it to be a voltage problem to my cpu what is O/C, when you do get into bios change the voltage up a notch for a day or two then take it back down and it will be fine.

Thats what i do and it works everytime.

varkanoid · 16 Nov 2012 at 17:23

As I understand it Gigabyte boot loops are caused by the dual BIOS. What happens is the backup BIOS is corrupt or if you have updated your BIOS at some point has an older version stored so when your main BIOS thinks there is a problem ie overclock voltage wrong or something not right it reboots and tries to use the backup bios but because this is corrupt/bad it then tries to reboot and use the main bios and goes round and round.

You are very lucky if it recovers and the main bios boots okay. On mine I had to take it back to the retailer and I was given a new one. Then I discovered a way to fix it. Always after the point!

Problem is with the Z68 Gigabyte boards is the bios is not usually on a chip that you can pop out and replace. If you look you can see both BIOS chips hardwired. So what you have to do and it can be a bit risky but you set your main bios to all the defaults. Then you restart your PC and press alt & F12 during boot up it forces a copy/backup of the main bios to the backup bios and overwrites the corrupt one (you have to do it this way you cant do it through the BIOS itself) and thus should solve the boot loop problem.

Also did you know pressing F9 whilst in the bios screen brings up an extra screen of info?

robj20 · 16 Nov 2012 at 18:20

Im on the U1e bios, alt+f12 is bringing up the boot options menu.

Its not done it at all since. Need to find a way of copying the bios over to the backup though. Gigabytes literature on the UEFI bios is rubbish.

Also something else i have noticed is i cant make any changes to voltages, everything is stuck on auto.

varkanoid · 16 Nov 2012 at 23:05

ahhh I think alt + F12 was only for the old style of BIOS not the UEFI.

wazza300 · 17 Nov 2012 at 01:28

its alt and f10 but if you dont time it right it wont work,you dont press and hold you press it together keep doing it fast

"Boards with bios switch can just flip the switch once they boot into q-flash.

ALT +F10

Hold the alt key down before the post and spam the f10 key the system should hang or appear to be hung. Release the alt key and f10 for a split second and then resume holding the alt key and press f10. You should now hear the system post spam that f10 key a couple more times then release the alt key and f10 for another second and them resume hitting them again. This should ensure that you get the screen. "

robj20 · 29 Dec 2012 at 09:41

Its back, everything set to optimized defaults except my sata is set to ahci. The annoying thing is i previously had an MSI board that did the same think but got rid because of it. Starting to wonder if it could be something like memory?

G J · 1 Jan 2013 at 12:09

I would highly recommend that you roll back to the f8 bios and ditch the U1e UEFI on this motherboard as I had a currupt bios issue where the bios would crash when attempting to get into the bios menu/ launching the boot loader and bios flash menu.

Cleariing the bios wouldn't work, attempting to roll back the bios wouldn't work (even in windows) and in the end I had to look on the gigabyte forums and there's a specific program for downgrading from a UEFI bios to a normal one. After that I was able to use the bios menu / flash utility and boot menu without any issue.

My motherboard also does not run dual channel memory mode as banks 3/4 do not work at all they just cause a boot loop regardless of settings.

Never purchasing a gigabyte board again, should've learned my lesson with my old socket 775 GA-965P-DS3 and it's flaky bios/cold boot issue.