Advice on replacing Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R mobo

[jrichview]

Bought an iBuyPower PC with the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R mobo about a year ago. On-board lan died in a few months and now the board itself is dead. NOT happy with the reliability of Gigabyte brand right now.

I'd like to replace it with something that is as good or better, but MORE RELIABLE. Any advice?

* Obviously I need another LGA1366 / x58 board as I don't want to replace other components.
* I chose this for the USB3, fast SATA and the eSata / firewire ports. I use a lot of external drives mostly due to doing music production on it. Need something with equivalent connectivity.

What would YOU get?

 

[spasmolytic46]

Personally I've always had great experiences with ASUS motherboards. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131755

 

[o1die]

I would request an rma from gigabyte. They might send you another board, which you can sell if you don't use it in your system. Check this board out from msi: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130500

 

[jaquith]

I had to replace (10) UD3R's around the same time, a RAID + SSD issue. First, the UD3R is under warranty and the 'free' way is to simply RMA the MOBO or send it back to 'iBuyPower PC' for a free warranty replacement.

I choose the ASUS P6X58D-E and have had (0) zero issues; the specs are slightly different (e.g. eSATA) - http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1366/P6X58DE/

The current alternative is the ASUS P6X58-E PRO http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1366/P6X58E_PRO/ which adds BT and eSATA.

However, IF you have a newer SATA3 SSD >380 MB/s then you want an X58 that employs the Marvell 918X chipset; Marvell 9128 is limited to ~380 MB/s. Duh, which leaves the Gigabyte GA-X58A-OC AND G1 Series X58's.

 

[jrichview]

Thanks to all for advice. I'm leaning toward the ASUS P6X58-E PRO as I definitely want the eSata ports. That does have one less firewire port, but I can live with that I think. My Digidesign 003 Rack+ will occupy that port.

I do see a lot of comments about quality control for that mobo on both NewEgg and Amazon though, and that concerns me. I'm an Amazon Prime member so hopefully if I have problems they will be good about exchanges.

I don't have an SSD drive at the moment (I can hear your shock), but though I may want one in future, one thing I know is I won't be buying another Gigabyte board.

 

[spasmolytic46]

Thanks to all for advice. I'm leaning toward the ASUS P6X58-E PRO as I definitely want the eSata ports. That does have one less firewire port, but I can live with that I think. My Digidesign 003 Rack+ will occupy that port.

I do see a lot of comments about quality control for that mobo on both NewEgg and Amazon though, and that concerns me. I'm an Amazon Prime member so hopefully if I have problems they will be good about exchanges.

I don't have an SSD drive at the moment (I can hear your shock), but though I may want one in future, one thing I know is I won't be buying another Gigabyte board.

I gotta be honest here, I didn't read reviews before recommending this board. I just looked at features and specs. It might be a good idea to make sure your ram is on their QV List. I see the largest complaint is ram not reading correctly.

 

[jaquith]

98% of problems, regardless of who makes the MOBO, it's the USER who's the root problem. The chances of of 'bad' aka DOA MOBO is ~2% so having 2 DOA's is 2% of 2% (0.04%) and the USER is killing their own MOBO. Further, I only pay attention to VERIFIED Owners. If you want 6X8GB then 9/10 the RAM is going to run DDR3-1333 and maybe DDR3-1600 CAS 9 in that density with 2 * (3 X 8GB) matched kits.

Bottom-line, people, enough of them anyway, are dumb and do dumb things.

 

[ubercake]

I have my protools 8 m-powered running on an ASUS Sabertooth board with no problems. Just a warning and it might be something to do with my protools version, but - you know how it installs its own hard disk drivers? - it didn't seem to like my SSD. I thought I would use my gaming rig for both gaming and protools, but I couldn't because of the SSD. That version also is not supported on RAID setups. Not sure if you're using protools, but just so you know... With the digirack 003 I'm guessing you're on HD?

On my gaming machine (with the SSD that protools didn't like), I run with an X58A-UD3R and have been for almost two years. Maybe you just got a bad one (or maybe I should be watching for my on-board LAN controller to fail soon as well?)? I wouldn't write off Gigabyte altogether. ASUS and Gigabyte both provide pretty solid products in the motherboard space. They are the only two brands I'd consider for a motherboard unless someone could really convince me another company provides something better.

 

[jaquith]

UD3R's RAID + SSD issue, it's a flaw in Gigabyte's implementation of Intel SATA -> http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/276715-30-x58a-ud3r-raid-bsod-disk-boot-failure ; one of my 1st posts here.

Regrading, the vast majority of SSD (AHCI) is BIOS not matching-up with the OS. Use 'Fix It' or manually verify (BIOS = IDE <=> Start = 3 <or> BIOS = AHCI/RAID <=> Start = 0) Windoze has a frequent problem implementing the correct 'Start' values which is another name for corruption and wrong drivers being loaded. Also, IMO it's best to use ALL AHCI or ALL IDE and not to mix them up in the BIOS i.e. All or None. See -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 ; you don't always see the error and instead you get funky behavior.

AHCI/RAID:

 

[jrichview]

I have my protools 8 m-powered running on an ASUS Sabertooth board with no problems. Just a warning and it might be something to do with my protools version, but - you know how it installs its own hard disk drivers? - it didn't seem to like my SSD. I thought I would use my gaming rig for both gaming and protools, but I couldn't because of the SSD. That version also is not supported on RAID setups. Not sure if you're using protools, but just so you know... With the digirack 003 I'm guessing you're on HD?

On my gaming machine (with the SSD that protools didn't like), I run with an X58A-UD3R and have been for almost two years. Maybe you just got a bad one (or maybe I should be watching for my on-board LAN controller to fail soon as well?)? I wouldn't write off Gigabyte altogether. ASUS and Gigabyte both provide pretty solid products in the motherboard space. They are the only two brands I'd consider for a motherboard unless someone could really convince me another company provides something better.

Unfortunately, I'm on the LE version, but it still is a resource hog. Thanks for the SSD warning. Hadn't thought about that. I have PT8, wondering if PT10 handles that better.

It's always possible that the power supply that iBuyPower installed is a flaky piece of crap too. That could've killed the MB. Not easy to prove tho. I've never had this much problem this soon with a mobo, so I'm feeling a little burned by the brand, but maybe they'll send me a replacement that doesn't suck. Already ordered new/better PS.

 

[jaquith]

Again, regardless the GA-X58A-UD3R carries a 3-year warranty no matter where you got it; at least in the USA. 'Most' even cheapo PSU's carry 3~5 year warranties; though I don't recommend 'cheapo' PSU's unless you don't care about your PC.

Contact Gigabyte if needed -> http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/Support/Motherboard/MainPage.aspx

 

[jrichview]

Best answer selected by jrichview.

 

[Mousemonkey]

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