BIOS error with EP45-UD3R...Figured it out now.

[SonnyDaze]

I have a GA-EP45-UD3R with a Q9400. Mobo. Mobo is only about 2 months old. When it boots up (cold boot) I get a BIOS error beep through the speaker. It is one long beep (maybe 2 seconds). I searched for Award Bios errors and this points to "video card not seated properly". I reseated the video card 3 times and still get this error at boot (video card works fine btw).

In addition to the beep, once I boot into Vista64, after about a minute I get the "USB device connected" sound (but nothing pops up indicating a device was connected). I have a USB keyboard and mouse already connected (tried a different mouse also).

The Q9400 is OC'ed to 3.2 and has passed Prime95 for 13+ hours.

I get the same BIOS beep error with Q9400 at stock as well.

I ran Memtest86+ overnight (13 passes) with no errors.


Any ideas what might be causing the BIOS error beep and the USB connect sound? It is bugging me and I can't find the problem.

UPDATE: It was the CPU fan failure alarm being enabled in the BIOS with the Xigmatek HSF. Disabled it and the beep stopped. Never did this before with stock hsf or ACF7 Pro though?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I've got one of those UD3R's, SonnyDaze, and I started a thread the other day looking for comments on this beast. I can't answer your question. I DO know, however, after doing a CLR-CMOS, that it wouldn't turn the monitor on and (of course) not displaying post messages. Just for the helluvit, I shut it down, pulled the 15-pin VGA plug from the analog port of my 7600 GT PCI-E card, connected the DVI-to-VGA adapter, and plugged it into the DVI port. Suddenly, everything seems to be in order [at least -- for posting, entering BIOS, and (so far) for running MEMTEST86+ v.1.70.]

I also decided to get with the program and follow my usual practice of taking a handful of the voltage options of "Auto" and setting them to fixed values.

Usually, I've experienced a long, never-ending beep from recent-gen motherboards after forgetting to hook up a 6-pin power-plug to the graphics card. My 7600 GT doesn't require (or have) such a connection. But that can't be your problem, because

I'm shooting in the dark here for the moment: Have you changed the BIOS graphics-card initiation preference from PCI to "PEG?"

There's a whole set of questions I have about these motherboards, and I don't know whether to post another thread -- a thread for each one -- or post on these existing threads.

Do you have any idea why this board (at least mine . . ) defaults my E6600 multiplier to 8 instead of its stock value of 9? Does this have something to do with how Gigabyte implements power-saving features? Do the boards do this for Penryn/Yorkfield cores, too?

Also -- what's the latest BIOS version for this board?

 

[AstroGuardian]

Is the beep just after you turn on or after the memory is initialized?

Also this sounds kind a stupid but Gigabyte does that. Just after you start the board, the CPU cooler spins a little and than stops for a couple of seconds. When cold booted it happens all the time. The alarm beeps cause the CPU cooler stops spinning.After a couple of questions it starts again and the beep stops. Try disabling CPU fan alert or just ignore the beep.

About the USB connected issue, it think it's nothing serious. There seems to be a bug when initializing USB devices. My Vista shaows it always when i have my web camera plugged in. But there are no side effects because of that so i ignore it and everything works fine.

 

[SonnyDaze]

Hey thanks for the replies guys. This thing continues to do it and I have yet to find a resolution. I think I just might unplug the speaker! 😛

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
I'm shooting in the dark here for the moment: Have you changed the BIOS graphics-card initiation preference from PCI to "PEG?"

Yes I have it set to PEG in the BIOS.

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
Do you have any idea why this board (at least mine . . ) defaults my E6600 multiplier to 8 instead of its stock value of 9? Does this have something to do with how Gigabyte implements power-saving features? Do the boards do this for Penryn/Yorkfield cores, too?

Also -- what's the latest BIOS version for this board?

I have no idea why your board would do that. I don't think power saving features change the multi only the fsb speed. i could be wrong though.

I had F5 and flashed to F8 to see if it cured it. Nope, no difference.

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
Is the beep just after you turn on or after the memory is initialized?

Also this sounds kind a stupid but Gigabyte does that. Just after you start the board, the CPU cooler spins a little and than stops for a couple of seconds. When cold booted it happens all the time. The alarm beeps cause the CPU cooler stops spinning.After a couple of questions it starts again and the beep stops. Try disabling CPU fan alert or just ignore the beep.

About the USB connected issue, it think it's nothing serious. There seems to be a bug when initializing USB devices. My Vista shaows it always when i have my web camera plugged in. But there are no side effects because of that so i ignore it and everything works

It is going through POST when the beep occurs, not sure if memory is initialized or not.

It just started making the beep recently. Matter of fact, the board ran fine with no probs with an e5200, I upgraded to the Q9400 and the beep started a few weeks afer the upgrade.

I do have fan failure alert enabled in the BIOS. I will disable that and see what happens. I also have the CPU fan set to run full speed.

I thought there might be some correlation between the BIOS error beep and the USB connect sound as they both started occuring about the same time. Could be that a USB port is going bad and the mobo BIOS knows this? Though I haven't had any probs with USB devices not working on the ports in use.

 

[SonnyDaze]

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
Try disabling CPU fan alert or just ignore the beep.

You're the man!! :thumbsup: That was it. Don't know why it never did it before with stock hsf or AC Freezer 7 Pro? And it didn't start right away with the Xigmatek upgrade. Oh well I can sleep peacefully now. :laugh: Though the USB sound still persists, but I can live with that.

 

[ElBurro]

Thanks for the update. It's always good to find out the solution to a problem.

 

[AstroGuardian]

Originally posted by: SonnyDaze

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
Try disabling CPU fan alert or just ignore the beep.

You're the man!! :thumbsup: That was it. Don't know why it never did it before with stock hsf or AC Freezer 7 Pro? And it didn't start right away with the Xigmatek upgrade. Oh well I can sleep peacefully now. :laugh: Though the USB sound still persists, but I can live with that.

The solution is provided by my more than a decade experience with Gigabyte :thumbsup:

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: SonnyDaze

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
Try disabling CPU fan alert or just ignore the beep.

You're the man!! :thumbsup: That was it. Don't know why it never did it before with stock hsf or AC Freezer 7 Pro? And it didn't start right away with the Xigmatek upgrade. Oh well I can sleep peacefully now. :laugh: Though the USB sound still persists, but I can live with that.

As you can see from my own thread on this motherboard, there are a lot of little tweaks that need to be made given the possible hardware combinations.

This is just one more I should add to my inventory list for this board.

But Geeshh!! I thought my board was defective! and it wasn't!!

 

[AstroGuardian]

You could post you knowledge base to a blog BonzaiDuck 🙂

Cheers