I have a very similar issue! I am a 1st-time computer builder (I recieved all my parts yesterday (10/27/11) which consisted of an AMD FX-8120 chip, GA 990FXA-UD3 mobo, Corsair Vengeance DDR3 4gb sticks of ram (x2 Model: CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9), Saphire Radeon HD 6770 PCI express card (Model: 100338L HD6770) Rosewil green series Power Supply (Model: RG 630-S12 ), & a Seagate 1TB HHD (Model: SATA6.0 32M ST31000524AS). After probably 4 hours of assembling (yes I know that took awhile, first time I even touched a mobo!) I finally had everything where it was suppose to go and I boot it up, all seems well so far!, A few seconds after the Mobo loading screen I come a screen which says "Loading Operating System..." sometimes it will reset to the mobo loading screen and go on a rebooting loop, other times it will stay stuck on the "Loading Operating System..." screen. I am trying to boot my os from a USB Flash drive (2.0, not the new 3.0ss USBs) Ubuntu (I have no optical drive atm, but will be buying one possibly today after work). Mind that I have messed a bit around with the BIOS settings (little troubleshooters that I have read in other forums which aren't working) and still nothing seems to give. I am an intern in a company in the IT department (as that is my major) so I asked someone here and they suggested taking apart some pieces such as the graphics card first and see if it boots from there, also my RAM sticks but I have not had the chance to attempt those troubleshooting steps yet. Once I get home it will be Round 2 of trying to get this computer up and running perfectly! I just want to ask what are your guys' suggestions on what I should do to troubleshoot. I've read around that flashing your BIOS to a new one is probably a good bet. My question, how do I flash my BIOS with a new update? how can I check my current BIOS version? What suggestions do you guys have? ALL INPUT IS APPRECIATED!=D