Maximum PC

I shut down my PC
(
)
from a session of only Opera, MS Word and WMP and upon startup I could not make it past the Gigabyte logo- Windows wouldn't load, and I could not access the BIOS/boot menu.

It remained this way after two restarts. The error code in the readout was 64 all three times; according to the manual, this means that "CPU DXE initialization is started." The next restart I held down Delete to try to access the BIOS- it entered, but it seemed to take an unusual amount of time for the keyboard to respond. I "quit without saving" (the BIOS is stock aside from enabling XMP and disabling internal graphics) and Windows boots without a hitch. I restart again from there, and Windows loads again.

What. My PC has never done this before, please help.

You don't need XMP if you're not overclocking, and even less is it's not XMP qualified memory. Just set the Memory to "Auto" detection w/o XMP and try again. If that doesn't work you have 1600 memory, set it to 1600 manually or Auto detect again. It's weird, but "Auto" can eventually learn what you have chosen to stick in there and just work.

I'm not a fan of Gigabyte nor Corsair for many reasons. This can get deep and dirty or "auto" just happens to work. Not that they're bad and can actually break records when combined...but we're talking basic function and not nit-picking every single BIOS setting just to POST. Asus and Mushkin are my suggestions from here on out if you want it just to run.

XMP is an overclocking profile. Who knows how aggressive the XMP profile code is stated on the chip vs what the system is really doing as a whole. Did Gigabyte not just enable XMP on the memory but also much with the CPU here and there? Many XMP profiles get aggressive very quickly. Again...I just don't like how MSI or Gigabyte goes about this process. We really just want the standard protocol/standards followed for now and just have this computer run stable. Dealing with anything other than "Auto" invokes too much to deal with really. When dealing with overclocking profiles, it gets very complicated when we just want the standard settings to just run.

It seems to boot stably now on the same settings as before... the weird thing is that there is now a screen with underscores jumping down after the Gigabyte Logo which I don't remember happening before. I enabled XMP as per the RAM packaging. On "auto" it runs at 1333 MHz. The CPU may be involved... the "Auto" setting for the base clock/front side bus seems to like to jump up 1 or 2 MHz every now and then. I don't think this'd be much of a problem for stability, but should I manually set it to 100 just to be sure?

Is your BIOS updated to the latest revision?

I don't think so; BIOS revision F5?

I would flash it if I were you, the version is up to 8 now and 7 fixed a lot of compatibility problems.

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product ... =4139#bios

Nasty

The "Q-Flash" utility does not seem to recognize that any drives are plugged in (I formatted a flash drive to FAT32) so I am going to use the @BIOS utility instead. @BIOS says that the BIOS file is "Not a regular file name", which has me a little nervous. Should I update anyway?

Did you unzip it?

Nasty

Yes, every file related to the download is on the flash drive.

Things just got quite a bit worse. I used the @BIOS utility from the driver CD to attempt to update the BIOS, double clicking on the F8 version file downloaded and extracted from the Gigabyte website. After "Installation was's successful!", I restarted as it recommended me to. This time, during the restart, the fans shut off for a second, which has never happened before. According to the BIOS/UEFI, the BIOS version is the new F8.

One critical problem, though- Windows 7 will BSOD during the loading phase every time. Full error code on request. This is starting to give me a massive headache, please help.

Did you set the bios to the optimal default setting or just run into windows without setting the default first?

Try to get the safe-mode menu to come up using F8 and choose the repair option to fix windows.

You can always download F7 version and flash to that, or to the original F5 version that was on the board to begin with.

Nasty

The BSOD happens right as you see the four segments of the Windows flag. The error code is

All of the motherboard drivers are what came off of the boxed CD.

I have tried both my old setup and the optimized defaults, both to no avail.

I briefly tried the "fix problems with Windows" option, and it did not return anything. Have not tried any of the advanced options yet. Would system restore do anything?

I downloaded and extracted the F8 BIOS files earlier to an FAT32 formatted 1GB flash drive, but the Q-Flash utility did not work. The system did not seem to recognize any drive I plugged in; when I pressed enter with the "Update BIOS from drive" option, nothing would happen.

In the safe-mode option, choose last known good configuration. Try that and let us know if that worked.

This is the problem that must be solved: iaStor-Sys- Address is screwed up and is stopping a full boot. Can you boot into windows via the safe mode menu?

Nasty

I tried to use "Safe Mode with networking" and got the same BSOD. I've been having a difficult time entering the F8 menu, it always seems to just start Windows or enter the "Repair windows" tool. The error with Startup Repair is "StartupRepairOffline" and a bunch of numbers (available on request). Now running Windows Memory Diagnostic just to make sure that it's not the RAM. Edit* I need to be in Windows to see if the RAM is good after the test. I passed same test about a week ago, though, so I'm not very concerned about it.

Would system restore be any good?

Also, I just recently built this PC, so I am not completely averse to wiping everything and making a fresh start, if that would work the best.

Try System Restore before wiping the drive and starting over.

Also try using the win 7 dvd to repair the install:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... lash-drive

Nasty

Will try system restore, more Q-flash, the Backup BIOS and possibly a system wipe tommorow- I will try to use a Linux live CD to recover my MS office files before doing so. Thanks again for all the support!

One other thing you might try before flashing the BIOS back to a previous version is updating the firmware for your SSD. If you do not have the latest firmware revision for the SSD, that is.

If none of the solutions mentioned above work for you, I would contact Gigabyte and have the motherboard RMAed. It sounds as though the motherboard may be defective.

I hate being beaten by a system! Try using the following instructions to replace the corrupt files in your system:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/15 ... ecker.html

Nasty