GA-870A-UD3 Crashing and BSOD Problems

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dom462

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Dec 26, 2007
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I've recently just built a new system with the following specs.

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB
Sapphire HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort HDCP PCI-E Graphics Card
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 870 Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
Crucial 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz/PC3-10600 Memory Kit CL9 1.5V
Antec 550W PSU now changed to a OCZStealthXStream 500W PSU

I've been getting a number of problems with this system, with randomly timed BSOD, crashes to a black screen and sometimes fails to boot with three long beeps at POST.

When it fails to boot the only way I can solve this is to unplug the power and wait ten minutes or so. Doing things with the memory also cures this, like changing to one, moving slots etc.

I have upgraded the bios to F5a and tried tweaking some settings. I have disabled Cool 'n' quiet, all temperature warnings, tried changing the memory clock to 1033 and even lower, tried ganged and unganged on the DCTs mode, all with no success. It does seem more stable at 1033 than at 1333 though.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this?

Many Thanks
 
Try with only one stick of RAM at a time, maybe one stick is bad.

Disble the auto reboot and next time you get a BSOD give us the STOP code:
http://www.tunexp.com/tips/maintain_your_computer/disabling_blue_screen_of_death_auto-reboot/
 
Will try and do the above, however now I'm struggling to get past POST. Three longish beeps after turning on.
 
Tryed moving the graphics card to the other slot. It started but then crashed to a black screen.

The beeps at startup are three long, pause, two long, pause etc.
 
Do you think it could be a memory incompatibilty issue? This memory isn't on the motherboard recomended list. I've always used crucial memory before and never had any problems.
 
OK I have increased the voltage to 1.4V with one stick and set the speed to 1033.

Windows loaded up, was re-installing graphics drivers because i had moved it to a different slot and then I got the BSOD. PFN_LIST_CORRUPT 0x0000004E

I remember getting IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD before as well.
 
The beeps at startup are three long, pause, two long, pause etc
Click to expand...

Did you ever resolve this? I am having exactly the same issue... three long, pause, two long, pause, three long, pause, two long...

In the "pause" it sounds as if the machine is power cycling.

MOBO: Gigabyte 870A-UD3 (Rev 2.0)
CPU: Phenom 2 955BE
RAM: 2x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH (2x2GB) DDR3
GFX: Gigabyte Radeon HD 5850
PS: Zalman 600Watt
 
I have this issue as well-- for about 3 months now. Its on and off now, sometimes its stable sometimes it crashes.
I also used to get the three long beeps, not so much anymore.

I've been tweaking around with the timings and multipliers but I'm still not sure whats going on. Not to mention, I've already RMA'd one stick of my RAM.

Heres What Im running

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3

CPU: Phenom II X6 1055T

RAM:G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM (Clocked at 8-8-8-24 @ 800MHz, Dual Channel Slot 1&2, Unganged, 1.62V)

VID: XFX Radeon 5670, 512mb

PS: Corsair 650W

I really don't want to have to replace the MOBO, but if I have to, I will. I'm personally getting tired of the crashes. I'd totally rather replace the RAM but I've run memtest86+ many times on different settings (timings, voltages, multipliers, etc) and I've gotten errors on most of them.
 


No I didnt-- after some further reading of the manual, I realized that the motherboard is set to run RAM at a voltage of 1.5v. However, in the BIOS, you can adjust the voltage much past that into even the 1.7v range if I remember correctly. I am not sure of this but it seems like the fact that I attempted to run the RAM at the advertised 1600 speeds as well as 1.6 voltages, caused the mobo to become unstable.

Since I came to that conclusion, I underclocked it to 1333, 1.5v and 9-9-9-24-1T (all of these were the "system optimized" settings. And since then, everything has been relatively stable, with just 2 crashes in which windows just restarted. So I'm not sure if you would consider that completely stable, but it HAS taught me I should save my work more often LOL.

Anyways, I'm assuming if we find RAM that is set to run at higher speeds using less voltages, or use RAM that is on their "recommended" list from the mfc website, everything should be better.

Hows yours running?
 
I have tried under clocking the memory and manually setting voltages but with no luck. At the moment all BIOS settings are set to the defaults.

After booting and using the system for some arbitrary amount of time it hangs (or reboots/BSODs) and will not post until I reseat the CPU (Bizarre). Funnily enough after doing this the system will seem to operate flawlessly until I turn it off for the night and come back the next day and have to repeat the process.

So the cycle is something like this:

Turn on PC after arriving home from work
Wait till it hangs (usually this is when i get the 3 long beeps, pause, 2 long beeps pause, 3 long... etc)
Power down
Reseat CPU
Power up
Use it all night with no issues
Power off for the night
Repeat

People on the gigabyte forums said replace the mobo... but this is a major hassle for me and I really wanna know if that will fix it before I go out an get a new mobo 🙁
 
So weird with the re-seating... I wonder why that is the case (that it works after you do that)?

It sure sounds like a mobo issue though, ya think? Have you tried RMAing it? I was going to do this but I didn't want to go through the process of detaching everything and being without a computer for 1-2 months to find out nothing is wrong...

I am getting the same impression too (to replace the mobo). I am so tempted but:
1) Like you said, A major hassle
2) I am stubborn and I'm not sure if I want to give up on this yet
3) I don't even know if this is solely a mobo issue
4) I'm a poor college student and I would feel like crap to throw a ~$100 mobo away.

But from my research, we obviously aren't the only ones suffering, Gigabyte seems to have a reputation on incompatibility with mobos and RAM.

GAH. This is frustrating.
 
Well the re-seating is the only thing I have found that cosistently gets it to POST again immediately. Sometimes if I leave it off (unplugged) for a while it will POST also.

I haven't really tried RMA'ing it as (like you say) I don't want to be without a PC for a couple or months plus I have to pay postage and a fee if they find nothing wrong.


I am in exactly the same boat as you except point 4.

I can afford to replace it, but you make a really good point in point 3. If its not the MOBO then I'm going to end up replacing the parts one by one and then I may as well just buy a totally new system. MOBO => RAM => CPU

Its so annoying. Ive owned 3 other AMD based pc's over the last 10 years and all of them have been rock solid.
 
Yeah, when I had the startup issue, leaving it unplugged was my solution until I started messing with the RAM settings.

Side note: Speaking of RMA/dealing with Gigabyte, I emailed them with this issue and I'm having a feeling they don't have anyone that speaks English well that works in their tech service dept. They called me and the 4 calls I got were from ladies that spoke VERY broken English. I even had trouble understanding them coming from a family of broken English speakers. Lol sorry for the tangent.

However, since you have had experience with AMD, could this mean that it is the motherboard/ram?
 
Awesome. Yeah, I've given up on this motherboard. I RMA'd another stick of RAM to see if that was the problem. Weirdly, it ran completely stable with just one stick (2gb) but as soon as the new one came in, 3 crashes in 5 minutes. FML. lol
Time to invest in another Mobo...
 
Yeah my system did that too...ran much more stable with a single stick...but 2gb is useless

The good news (so far) is that the new mobo is going fine and I have not had a BSOD yet/lock up yet. I'm hoping this does not change.

The new mobo is the GA-870A-UD3 again but it is revision 3.1 which I am super happy about as it has the newer am3+ socket.

I am still not 100% convinced that there is something wrong with the old board and think it still may have just been a memory incompatibility with that particular revision/hardware

Let me know how you go.
 
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