Gigabyte GA-P35 DS3L, BIOS problem won't boot (black screen)

[Angerisagift]

I posted this in the Motherboards Forum but it went unanswered so I figure this is a more appropriate forum for this.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

lets start from the beginning, Recently I had a stick of RAM go bad on me and had to RMA with OCZ, since OCZ requires you to send back both sticks in dual channel kits, I decided it would be a good time to upgrade to 4GB so I wouldn't be without my desktop while waiting on the RMA.

the memory is OCZ Gold Series PN OCZ2G800R22GK, all 4 sticks are the exact same part number, 4-5-5 @ 1.8V

I got the new RAM back tonight and decided to install it in my system right away, I've worked in the IT/support industry since 2000 and have probably swapped/replaced/added RAM thousands of times to machines without issue, well I add the additional 2GB into bank 2 and 4 and when I boot up, I get the generic "windows failed to load due to software/hardware change" I thought nothing of it because I know the memory is supported by my board and I know my board can handle it, instead of loading windows, my computer reboots and "going into some sort of BIOS autorecovrery, confused but knowing better than to shut the machine down I let it finish, It reboots again, but now the screen is black. and I also notice that my CPU heatsink is still running at full RPM normally, it only runs at full RPM when I first start the machine and then it spins down to a lower quiter RPM after a few seconds.

so far I have tried the following
rebooting, rebooting again, waiting 5-10-15 minutes and rebooting again
taking out the additional RAM
trying to boot with only 1 stick of RAM, tried multiple sticks in all banks
setting the CMOS_CLR jumper and waiting up to an hour with the power supply cord disconnected.
bring my system down to basics unplugging all HDD's optical drives, etc,
verifying that my Video card is properly seated
attempted to load the BIOS image on a FAT32 formatted USB flash disk and pressing <end> at startup to trigger the BIOS recovery

here are my specs
Gigabyte GA-P35 DS3L
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 stepping (was OC'ed to 3.0GHz using Asus Artic Square)
4GB OCZ Gold Dual Channel DDR2 PC6400 800Mhz 4-5-5 @ 1.8V
XFX GeForce 8800GT 512MB
2x 80GB HDD (1 IDE, 1 SATA)
1x 500GB HDD SATA
1x DVD/RW
Corsair HX520 PSU
Antec Nine Hundred Case (note this case doesn't have a speaker so no BEEP codes)

probably going to set the CMOS jumper and unplug from wall power overnight as one last resort, fortunately I have a backup 775 mobo (ECS 671-T came with PROC), but want to try a few more things before I go the way of the RMA, really haven't been having good computer Karma at home lately.

Open to suggestsions, or if this is more appropriate in another forum please let me know.

P.S. forgot to mentions

OS's

XP Pro SP3
Vista Ultimate SP1
on dual boot

 

[Ausm]

Is this a new build or a system that was running fine until you had to replace the bad stick of RAM?

 

[Modelworks]

Unfortunately the P35-Ds3L is one of the worst boards to have any type of bios problem with. The recovery options are almost non existant so you can give up trying to restore the bios from flash/floppy/cdrom, the code isn't even in the bios to recover from those.
I know , I disassembled it when my board failed.

It was designed with 'virtual bios' where it supposedly places a copy on the hard drive, and it ONLY looks for it there. The bad part is they never tell you the drive has to be set up for that recovery option to work ahead of time.

The bios is soldered and uses an spi chip so other than RMA there is no way to recover it unless you remove the chip, flash it and resolder. I went through that process and it takes a bit of tech work to get it done, but its doable.


If you can install a pci video card, pci express will not work here, there is a chance you might get some sort of diagnostic message. Connect a speaker to the terminals to see if you can get a beep code.

My advice with this board remains, never ever mess with the bios image on this board unless it absolutely has to be done.