Gigabyte P35C-DS3R v1.x

[jcc5169]

Has anyone else encountered bios problems with this board? I RMA'd one back to NewEgg after it caught on fire. The second one didnt catch on fire, but it is very hard to boot with
(2/3/4) Corsair DOMINATOR CM2X1024-8500C5D DIMMS installed at 5-5-5-15. I am currently running F9 as F10 was intolerably flaky.

What am I missing? Gigabyte tech support's main focus seems to be to make me go away, rather than address the problem, so I guess I'm on my own. Just wanted to leverage anyone else's experience, if it exists.

 

[lopri]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about the accident. Hope nothing else is damaged and no one's hurt.

Now, I'd like to ask you a couple of question:

- Is this your first attempt at building a computer?
- Are you absolutely sure that you plugged right power connectors to the right places?
- What are the rest of your specs? Especially the CPU, GPU, and the PSU. You need to give us more details.

Welcome to AT Forums.

 

[jcc5169]

The accident was last year --- bad memory caused the problem

I have built several computers, plug the components in properly, and have been dealing with a long series of problems with this motherboard since the RMA.

Here are the specs ....

Model Name : GA-P35C-DS3R
--------------------------
M/B Rev : 1.1
BIOS Ver : F9
Serial No. : 0732030326
Purchase Dealer : New Egg
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VGA Brand : MSI Model : 8600GTS
CPU Brand : Intel Model : 6850 Speed : 1333 running at 5-5-5-15
Operation System : Vista 64-bit SP : 1
Memory Brand : Corsair Dominator CM2X1024-8500C5D Type : DDRII
Memory Size : 2048 Speed : 1066
Power Supply : Corsair 520 W

The actual problem occurs at boot up ... the system will not boot unless I reset the system about 15 times ... which I know is indicative of a memory setting error, however it behave the same at 800 mhz and 1066 mhz. It will eventually boot and runs great for several days, but boot-up requires about 5-10 minutes. I have dealt with lots of flaky computer problems, but this one has me stumped
:frown:

 

[jcc5169]

You guys were just about as much help as Gigabyte was ....

 

[mikemcc]

With all due respect, you told us almost nothing about what the problem is, other than your board has a hard time booting with specific memory. What does that mean? Does it not boot at all? Does it take a long time? How far along into the boot process does it go? Does it boot with just one stick but not two? Does it boot with other memory? Have you run Memtest on the Corsair? Are you overclocking? What are your settings? You don't have a sig, so no one even knows what processor you are running or what PS you are using.

I think you'll find that people here are very good about helping others, but you have to provide them with at least *some* level of useful information...

 

[jcc5169]

Sorry if I was testy ...... I was experiencing one of the most bizarre problems with a motherboard I have every experienced in 12 years of system building. There were many problems with this board, all related to bios.

The reason I posted here was to see if the problems were common to the board, or just to my installation. If it were my installation, I would assume it was hardware failure and buy another board or RMA the current board. This has been going on for about 6 months.

I updated to the F11 bios yesterday, and the problem appears to have gone away. Mind you, I have installed every bios from F2-F10 (several times), then fell back to F9 because it was most stable of all the unstable Bios's.

All during this time I was trying to converse with Gigabyte support thru their email portal, and every email takes 1-2 days to be read and replied to. So this took a while. I had 4 1-gigabyte Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066 dimms in the box, and the motherbaord would only work stably with 2.

The last problem was that the motherboard would not POST unless you reset the system 10-15 times, and would sometimes (not always) start beeping in 3 beep increments, in which case it would power off. Or, it would reset itself (off and on). It would eventually post and boot, but only after 5-10 minutes of re-booting.

Gigabyte always blamed memory, but would not specifically state that my memory was not compatible. In short, a very bizarre experience. This will be my last Gigabyte board for a while.:disgust:

 

[jcc5169]

This is my current config.

Model Name : GA-P35C-DS3R
--------------------------
M/B Rev : 1.1
BIOS Ver : F11
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VGA Brand : MSI Model : 8600GTX
CPU Brand : Intel Model : 6850 Speed : 1333
Operation System : Vista x64 SP : 1
Memory Brand : CM2X1024-8500C5D Type : DDRII
Memory Size : 2048 Speed : 1066
Power Supply : 520 W Corsair

I am currently running 2 sticks of memory, I will now attempt to add the two that wouldn't work before.

 

[honolululu]

Originally posted by: jcc5169
The last problem was that the motherboard would not POST unless you reset the system 10-15 times, and would sometimes (not always) start beeping in 3 beep increments, in which case it would power off. Or, it would reset itself (off and on). It would eventually post and boot, but only after 5-10 minutes of re-booting.

That exact thing happened to me with the beeping and not posting. It stopped as soon as I replaced my faulty RAM with my backup set. My new RMA Mushkin RAM has been perfect, but I've only got two sticks.
Good luck.

 

[ultra laser]

Originally posted by: jcc5169
Sorry if I was testy ...... I was experiencing one of the most bizarre problems with a motherboard I have every experienced in 12 years of system building. There were many problems with this board, all related to bios.

The reason I posted here was to see if the problems were common to the board, or just to my installation. If it were my installation, I would assume it was hardware failure and buy another board or RMA the current board. This has been going on for about 6 months.

I updated to the F11 bios yesterday, and the problem appears to have gone away. Mind you, I have installed every bios from F2-F10 (several times), then fell back to F9 because it was most stable of all the unstable Bios's.

All during this time I was trying to converse with Gigabyte support thru their email portal, and every email takes 1-2 days to be read and replied to. So this took a while. I had 4 1-gigabyte Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066 dimms in the box, and the motherbaord would only work stably with 2.

The last problem was that the motherboard would not POST unless you reset the system 10-15 times, and would sometimes (not always) start beeping in 3 beep increments, in which case it would power off. Or, it would reset itself (off and on). It would eventually post and boot, but only after 5-10 minutes of re-booting.

Gigabyte always blamed memory, but would not specifically state that my memory was not compatible. In short, a very bizarre experience. This will be my last Gigabyte board for a while.:disgust:

It's a common problem with that model. Get a new motherboard (not a gigabyte) and save yourself a lot of frustration. It's worth the money, imo.

 

[fausto412]

i don't know if it applied to all boards but this board does not like 4 sticks of ram.

a recent article on anandtech talked about how not just gigabyte but all MB makers focus on overclocking more than stability.

glad to hear you finally have it stable.

fyi, there is a new bios f12e on the giga site....it's a beta

 

[fausto412]

anybody try ddr3 ram on this board? overclocking?