Gigabyte EX58-Extreme Not Posting

Norm@Home

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I'm just putting together a new system which consists of a Gigabyte Ex58-Extreme, an Intel Boxed Core I7 950, an OCZ triple channel 6 GB memory kit (OCZ3X1600LV6GK), for the purposes of just getting the system to post I'm using a basic EVGA Geforce 7200GS (I have a GeForce 9800GT which I'll swap in latter when I can get the system working) and an OCZ 850watt PSU (OCZ850GXSSLI).

Over the years I've built plenty of systems including at least 10 LGA775 systems so this is not my first system and I've dealt with initial problems before but this has me stumped.

Following all instructions in both the Gigabyte manual and the Intel processor booklet, I mounted the CPU and heatsink, memory (OCZ3X1600LV6GK) and video card. Then attached the power supply (OCZ850GXSSLI) both 24 pin ATX and the 4/8 12v connectors then with no other peripherals attached I attempted to power the system to make sure that it would post before completing the installation. First, I get no video and when the LED status reaches 6F I hear a series of very fast consecutive beeps and then the LED appears to start the post sequence all over and when it reaches the same point, gives that same fast consecutive series of beeps again.

Initially I was using a Coolermaster heatsink but in case the backing plate was shorting something I swapped it for the stock Intel heatsink but got the same results.

I've tried using only one stick of memory and swapping the single stick with one of the other two but still the exact same problem.

Has anyone ever run something like this before and have an idea what the problem here is?

Thanks,

- Norm
 

Norm@Home

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Okay, I tried the cmos reset and that didn't work and I've done enough repair work in my time that I have a PSU tester and it tests good and the video card is also good. So I'm down to either the CPU or motherboard and I'll bet that I've got a defective motherboard so it looks like I'm going to have to get Gigabyte to RMA this.

Thanks,

- Norm
 

Norm@Home

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Just an update here:

First the two banks of triple channel memory are color coded blue and white. When I was testing with single memory sticks I was only testing in the first blue bank (I thought I had tested in the white bank?), no combination worked in that bank. After clearing the cmos and trying a single stick in the second (white) channel, I am able to get the system to post and now putting all three in the second white channel again the system posts but any stick in any slot of the blue channel and I get the same as before where the system won't post.

One thing that I noticed, when just in cmos setup screen (and the system is idling) the cpu heatsink (just the stock Intel cooler) is getting very warm after just a couple minutes. This is (of course) with the system set to the defaults with no over-clocking. Is this normal?

I'm somewhat suspicious of this board now that the blue channel has proved faulty, does anyone have some thoughts on this? Is the fact that the blue memory channel obviously has a problem enough evidence for Gigabyte to rma it?

Thanks,

- Norm
 

craigh

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You are SUPPOSED to use the white banks. The blue ones are for when you want to use 6 sticks. It explains the set up somewhere in the manual. They are labeled strange (from left to right) 3_2, 3_1, 3_4, 3_3, 3_6, 3_5

You should be using 3_1 if you are using one stick, 3_1 & 3_3 if you have two sticks and 3_1, 3_3, 3_5 for 3 sticks. The blue banks won't work on their own.
 

Norm@Home

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Sorry, I've mostly always used Asus or ABit motherboards (this is my first Gigabyte) and every motherboard I've ever used has memory slot 1 closest to the cpu. Fyi, the actual picture (which is black and white on page 18 of the manual) shows a motherboard with only four slots (not six as this X58 board has) and the memory stick being installed in the picture is closest to the cpu. The diagram which is just above the picture does show three banks of two but is not labeled. The previous page does show the same diagram but with labels at the bottom in fine print which confirms your statement that the white sockets are actually bank one, but I can find no verbiage that says the memory must be installed in bank one in order for any memory to function in bank two. As a matter of fact a reply that I just received from Gigabyte technical support said verbatim "Please examine the memory, test with single module and test on all the slots" which you could take to mean that a single stick should work in the second channel slots (the blue sockets).
 

bilbat

Splendid
Single sticks should, indeed, work in any slot - this is how you verify that the slots themselves are actually good; and three sticks should work in either bank - doesn't matter to the link...
 

XcodeR

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So, if single stick isn't working in any slot except the first, I have RMA ?

GA-EX58 UD3R (1.0, F6)
i7-920
OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 (2x 1GB)

Booting with 1 stick of memory in first channel (DDR3_1) only.
When a second stick inserted in any other slot the system doesn't load and beeping.
 

bilbat

Splendid
Let's try taking a look inside your BIOS - I'm about half-way through reading my fifty megabyte of Intel tech specs and documentation for the i7/x58; maybe I've learned enough to help. I have to get a number of things opened up, and I'll get back with a preliminary inquiry...

Bill
 

bilbat

Splendid
We seem to be accumulating a sizeable crowd of people here who are having problems with the new i7/x58 hardware. I have seen the 'boots with

one stick of ram' thing from several, a couple of 'non-discovery' of various hardware, some clocking inconsistencies - well, a pretty good

sized mess!

I have an idea, and I'm going to 'plant' this post everywhere I think it might do some good, and see if we can get together a bit of a 'real-

time' experiment; I'd like to try to see if as many as possible can get together at one, mutually convenient time, and try to whip these things

as a group. I've been studying both the Intel docs for the i7/x58, and the GB manuals; my guess is that, for all the things that count (like

QPI adjustment, 'uncore' handling, memory interface, etc.), all the GB 1366 MOBO's circuitry and BIOS are pretty much the same, so hopefully if

we come up with a workable strategy, it should be workable for all...

I'm going to start a new topic (say 'Ganging up on the i7/x58'), and, if you're interested, please copy the following, and post to that topic:

MOBO Model:
CPU:
RAM (Manufacturer, speed, model number, # of sticks, nominal voltage):
BIOS rev:
Short, concise problem definition:



Suggestions for a time (date?) when you could (I'm pretty flexible here) spend an hour or two kicking its ***! :





If there are bad components involved, we'll try to isolate them, and probably we'll learn a lot about what works, and what's marginal, for

others to draw on...

Bill

aka: bilbat
 

Norm@Home

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Honestly I'm not sure, this was exactly my problem: Any single stick worked in any of the white memory slots labeled DDR3_1, DDR3_3 or DDR3_5 which is supposed to be bank one. No single stick worked in any of the blue slots labeled DDR3_2, DDR3_4 or DDR3_6 which is bank two. The symptoms of any single stick in any slot of bank two were what I mentioned, no video and a continuous beeping on the status 6F of the LED statis readout.

There is a tiny note in fine print on the bottom of page 17 that says "If only one DDR3 memory module is installed, be sure to install it in the DDR3_1 or DDR3_3". And CriagH seems to be of the opinion "You are SUPPOSED to use the white banks. The blue ones are for when you want to use 6 sticks. It explains the set up somewhere in the manual. They are labeled strange (from left to right) 3_2, 3_1, 3_4, 3_3, 3_6, 3_5. You should be using 3_1 if you are using one stick, 3_1 & 3_3 if you have two sticks and 3_1, 3_3, 3_5 for 3 sticks. The blue banks won't work on their own." while BillBat seems to think that "Single sticks should, indeed, work in any slot - this is how you verify that the slots themselves are actually good; and three sticks should work in either bank - doesn't matter to the link...".

Then I have the rather lame response from Gigabyte Technical Support (I kid you not, this was their one line reply to my message) "Please examine the memory, test with single module and test on all the slots". This could mean any number if things but you could take this to support BillBat's opinion that a single stick should work in any slot.

But between the possible problem with the blue memory slots and the seemingly overheating of the cpu while idling in the cmos setup, I really didn't want to take any chances so while the board is under warranty I figured I should rma it and hopefully get a replacement.

- Norm
 

babaki

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Hello Everyone

I have the same problem.

I have the following system:

Gigabute EX58-Extreme
Intel i7 965 Extreme Processor
3x4Gb DDR3 RAM


The problem is that when I use one of the sticks only in the slot 1 (white) i get the picture on screen and everything seems to be working fine.

I tried each module indivisually and the rams are fine, however when I go triple channel I get error post code "b9" and nothing happens no picture no nothing.

Once i remove the memories and stick with one channel only then it works again...

Now this is pissing me right off...

Anyone managed to fix that problem? any solutions?

My board is no longer under warranty as I purchased it when it had 6 months warranty on it left and it was brand new though andnot the warranty is gone...

Any idea?

Thanks
 

Norm@Home

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Hi Babaki,

I had RMA'd the board and it was returned to me with a note saying that Gigabyte could not find anything wrong with it.

In the end, as I discovered the blue slots are apparently bank 1 and the white slots are bank2. When I installed all three memory sticks in the blue slots, everything worked fine. Also the reboots that I had been experiencing while testing with MemTest86+ apparently were being caused by a glitch in the version I was using and when I went back to the prior version the memory tested fine.

After a number of Bios updates, I have not been experiencing any of the initial problems that I had with this board. I hope this is some way helps you with your problem.

- Norm
 

bilbat

Splendid
What speed, manufacturer, and part number 4G modules are you trying to use? In general, 4G modules present their own set of difficulties - if you'll look at the Memory Support List for your board, you will see there is one, single, lonely DIMM supported, and it's only 1066...
 

babaki

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Thanks Norm@Home and bilbat.

Well I have purchased some 4GB sticks from USA on eBay and they seem to be compatible with X58 chipset as the seller sold more before.

Well I thought white banks are the main banks as everyone is talking about in forums everywhere.

In that case I will try to use the blue banks with triple channel and see if it works but as far as I remember I did that already and it did not work wont hurt trying again.

My board has the stock factory bios version and according to gigabyte tech support I need to upgrade my bios to the latest version and they reckon it should work but I dont know.

I am worried my board is faulty but you mentioned you RMA'd it and they could not find a fault so it must be memory compatibility issues or bios issues.

I will try the blue bank sbut if did not work i use one bank and try installing the os and updating the bios and see what happens and will post back once I have done that.

In the mean time if anyone has any ideas or solutions please keep posting.

Regards
Babak
 

Norm@Home

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Hi Babaki,

I'm sorry to hear that you are continuing to experience problems with your memory, I feel your pain considering how much those 4GB sticks must have cost you. I was extremely frustrated in the beginning with my setup and it really took months of hard work to get my system running stable. As great as everyone is here (I'm always thankful for the support I get from the other professionals here), I would suggest that you try going to the TweakTown.Com forums since there is some official Gigabyte support there and I got some really useful advice that was specific to my board there. You can find the latest Bios for the EX58-Extreme in this sticky on the Gigabyte forum:

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/gigabyte-latest-bios-28441/

You can try and search for threads related to the EX58-Extreme and it may help you to look at the two threads related to my experience, since that forum does not allow the @ symbol in user names my user name over there is Norm74656:

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ex58-extreme-memory-issues-33492/
http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ex58-extreme-stability-issues-36168/

- Norm
 

babaki

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Thanks Norm@Home for your great support.

Here is the solution to my problem.

My board was running the F4 version of the BIOS. That is why triple channel memory was not working.

I only used one stick of RAM in the first channel (white slot 1) and then installed Windows 7 Ultimate N then updated my BIOS to the latest version F12 then shut down the PC and installed the rest of the memories and they all work great :D

Ive got 12GB of RAM and another 12Gb will be installed when they arrive cause the seller forgot to send me two sets.

Now the only thing is that this beast of a rig takes a while to boot up to windows I wondery why.

12GB of RAM and an i7 Quad-Core 965 Extreme processor running @ 3.2GHz, i'd be thinking it takes a couple of seconds to get to the desktop but its even slower than my other old machine.

When you reboot for a good few seconds the screen is black until the main board do all the posts and checks then start windows and there I am...

I must admit the the start up is much slower than my old AMD3500 machine running 2GB of RAM...
 

bilbat

Splendid
Now that you have the latest BIOS, you might want to look on the "Advanced BIOS Features" to see if a "Quick Boot" item has been added - I know they added it to the newer BIOS for at least some of the first-gen boards, but have no clue which ones...

Couple things:

Check the memory tab in the resource monitor to ensure all your memory is being 'seen' as available...

How and where are your drives hooked up?

Give Quick StartUp a try - if your system is like most, there's a ton of unwanted, unasked-for, useless cr@p installed by various programs - turning off most of this junk will often speed up win start time by 20-40%, sometimes even more...
 

babaki

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thanks i will look into that tomorrow and see if there is a quick boot option cause its very annoying for a beast like this to be started up very slow...