Lol never buying another Gigabyte MB again

[Chen G]

Back in 2012, I bought a Gigabyte X79 motherboard, while it kept working and working for a very long time, and it still is working, it had this one quirky bug, to actually boot I must follow this exact procedure:

• Press power button
• Smash delete to get into BIOS, because otherwise it will fail to boot 100%
• Choose save and exit, or anything that will make the system reboot
• Smash delete to get into BIOS again, because again it will not boot if you don't
• Choose save and exist, again.
• This time it will boot 100% 

Yes I had to follow this procedure for 7 years, it has always worked and failure to do so has never worked. The thing is, this is only required once I overclock beyond a certain point, I believe it was over 3.8Ghz on the 3930k. Anything below or at 3.8Ghz can just boot normally without doing all that stunt, but anything beyond 4Ghz requires it to work. And no, it's not because some settings got reset and I'm booting into the system with stock settings or anything stupid like that, it does run the exact overclock I entered in BIOS, but somehow that stunt just is mandatory. Also it's been 7 years so I know the overclock is stable.

 

Now I have myself a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master, I put together this rather complicated build with custom loop and modified case, what do I get? A very similar stupid bug. I think there' just something seriously wrong with Gigabyte's boot firmware. Although quite similar, it isn't exactly the same, I haven't figured out the exact pattern yet but from what I have figured out so far:

• A straight cold boot is 100% fail, Windows boot manager comes up with a blue screen saying some kernel file can't be loaded or something
• It sometimes will freeze either during the POST logo, or inside the BIOS
• If I go in the BIOS and just select save and exit, it will almost certainly boot

Although it appears that booting does not require two restarts like before, the fact that it can sometimes freeze at the POST screen makes installing and updating Windows a nightmare. What can happen is during a critical boot sequence, like the first boot or first boot after major update, it may fail with that can't find kernel file stuff, and then Windows will thing something went wrong and it won't boot normaly the next time but go to recovery or try to roll back the update, which may also fail and just causing the entire system to be corrupted.

 

I'm not sure if this time it only happens with overclocking, haven't done enough testing yet. But I do know the freezing in BIOS thing only happens when overcloking, it does not happen with stock settings. But it's not like I have an unstable clock, I'm just using PBO it's not even a manual overclock like the last system. Also It's rock stable once it boots, it's just the POST and boot sequence that's extremely fragile and finicky. 

 

Between these two boards I used an ASUS Rampage Extreme VI for a year, never had any issues, it ran beautifully, felt a distinct lack of quirky random bugs. Like for example on this x570 BIOS if you go into settings>miscellaneous and back out, the contents of the "settings" category changes, and has 3 more options, which would normally be in different places. What a mess.

[Statik]

Soooo, have you contacted Gigabyte about either of these issues? Or are you just going to condemn a usually reputable company because you've had two issues that you've never really tried to find a fix for.

[tikker]

12 minutes ago, Chen G said:

The thing is, this is only required once I overclock beyond a certain point,

12 minutes ago, Chen G said:

I'm not sure if this time it only happens with overclocking,

12 minutes ago, Chen G said:

But it's not like I have an unstable clock,

Every now and then I see this pop up. You undeniably do not have a stable overclock if issues appear after applying it. If some elses CPU reaches 5 GHz, that also does not mean yours will be able to. That's just the game of the silicon lottery.

22 minutes ago, Chen G said:

Also It's rock stable once it boots, it's just the POST and boot sequence that's extremely fragile and finicky.

Failing to boot most of the time means it's unstable.

 

 

As with any troubleshooting, as a first step disable all overclocks on anything. CPU, GPU, RAM; reset it all to stock settings. Do the problems disappear? Most likely it was just an unstable overclock. Try overclocking slowly again until the issues return and then dial back one step. Do your (stress) tests to see if it passes your definition of "stable" and temperatures are acceptable and be a happy camper.

 

If issues persist, perhaps also try reinstalling Windows (with only the target drive attached) and/or updating the motherboard to its latest BIOS if applicable. If all else fails, contact Gigabyte or your seller, explain your issues and ask for an RMA.

 

 

[Tristerin]

I only like stable overclocks.

 

All else cause failed boots, or quirks.

 

Also me: If system is taken out of spec and doesnt work...is it the manufacturers fault?

 

EDIT - stop overclocking your systems to instability and then trying to update windows, pro tip

[Chen G]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

Every now and then I see this pop up. You undeniably do not have a stable overclock if issues appear after applying it. If some elses CPU reaches 5 GHz, that also does not mean yours will be able to. That's just the game of the silicon lottery.

Failing to boot most of the time means it's unstable.

 

 

As with any troubleshooting, as a first step disable all overclocks on anything. CPU, GPU, RAM; reset it all to stock settings. Do the problems disappear? Most likely it was just an unstable overclock. Try overclocking slowly again until the issues return and then dial back one step. Do your (stress) tests to see if it passes your definition of "stable" and temperatures are acceptable and be a happy camper.

 

If issues persist, perhaps also try reinstalling Windows (with only the target drive attached) and/or updating the motherboard to its latest BIOS if applicable. If all else fails, contact Gigabyte or your seller, explain your issues and ask for an RMA.

 

 

It is 100% stable once booted, I can run everything I want, prime 95, memetest, you name it.

Also how come it failes 100% the first two times, if it's just unstable it should at least be able to boot sometimes.

 

I've been doing this for very long I know how to overclock, how to test for stability, what is or isn't stable, thank you.

 

I have some much better guesses, it probably has something to do with the unusual setups I run. The X79 booted from a PCIE SSD, and the X570 now I'm running RAID0 from 2x970 pro. It probably fails because it booted before the array is fully initialized, so the file could not be read correctly.

 

Or maybe it's the crappy memory timing training, and it trains different values between cold boots and reboots.

[tikker]

On 7/11/2020 at 1:49 AM, Chen G said:

It is 100% stable once booted, I can run everything I want, prime 95, memetest, you name it.

Also how come it failes 100% the first two times, if it's just unstable it should at least be able to boot sometimes.

...

I've been doing this for very long I know how to overclock, how to test for stability, what is or isn't stable, thank you.

I mean, you can call it "stable" in the sense that it's predictable, but generally a stable system means you press the button and it boots. Not doubting your abilities to overclock or anything, but being unstable doesn't mean that it has to crash, fail or succeed randomly. It needs certain conditions to work and doesn't if you deviate from those conditions. If you can't guarantee it to boot, it's not stable. If you find the occasional troubleshooting acceptable, that's perfectly fine and up to you.

  

On 7/11/2020 at 1:49 AM, Chen G said:

I have some much better guesses, it probably has something to do with the unusual setups I run. The X79 booted from a PCIE SSD, and the X570 now I'm running RAID0 from 2x970 pro. It probably fails because it booted before the array is fully initialized, so the file could not be read correctly.

 

Or maybe it's the crappy memory timing training, and it trains different values between cold boots and reboots.

All valid points, I have no personal experience booting from a RAID array, only reading that sometimes that can be finnicky.

 

Checking up quickly on PBO I see it's not actually overclocking anything, making that less of a suspect I guess, but I'd still check without it to see if that works. You already mentioned you are unsure if your overclock causes it, and since this fail is guaranteed to happen from your description, why not take out the uncertainty and remove the overclock for now? If it still fails to boot, OC is not the problem and if it doesn't, you've found (one of) the culprit(s).