Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H questions

[rob426]

Gigabyte Z87x-UD4H F3 bios


1: Bios Switches.

There are two switches on this board, one for main or backup bios and one for single or duel bios.Does the first one mean you can have, for example version F3 on one and F6 on the other and switch
between the two?.

Also what does single or duel bios do ?

2: Debug Led

When the pc boot's up : I either get "A0" or "04" on the display. looking in the manual Code A0 is "IDE initialization is started" , I have sata mode set to ahci so why does it show this code ?

Code 04 is not listed in the manual, so no idea that that. Any Ideas?

3: The only problems I've had so far are (no bsod's), One time I switched the pc on , had no mouse control. (usb2 mouse plugged into back usb3 port) Using keyboard to get to device manager showed a yellow trangle on "Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 0100 (Microsoft)" and the following error in event viewer "windows failed to start the USB xHCI compliant Host Controller for the following reason:
Controller reset timed out. Check with your computer manufacturer for a updated firmware for the controller"

when this happened, even plugging my mouse into the front usb2 didnt work.

Hit reset and this error has not happened again since. do you think this error was mb related or win8 ?

Cheers

 

[SilentRunning]

As to the BIOS switches

BIOS_SW switches between the main BIOS and the backup BIOS.

SB switches between single BIOS and dual BIOS.

In the event of failure to boot into the main BIOS the board would normally try to automatically boot into the backup BIOS. I would assume that the SB switch would prevent this. Setting the SB switch to single and then using the BIOS_SW to toggle between two different BIOS's like you mention.

The USB problem is what got my attention. I am struggling with a USB issue waking from sleep on a different Z87 motherboard and am beginning to think it is the intel bug rearing it's ugly head.

 

[vailr]

For whatever reason, Intel does not provide a Windows 8 USB 3.0 driver for the "Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller", relying on Microsoft's device driver alone. An alternate Windows 7 driver (newer/better/more compatible) for that same device is provided by Intel. However, the Intel driver installer balks if you try installing the Windows 7 driver on a Windows 8 system.

 

[KentState]

USB 3.0 is native to Windows 8 which is why the driver is not wanting to install.

I to have had some issues with the drivers on my Z87 MB. I had to get the newest drivers from Gigabyte as the ones out of the box took forever to initialize when Windows started.

 

[Kougar]

Rob, to answer question #1, yes. You can flip between different BIOS versions.

#2 As I recall (it is mentioned in the video the Gigabyte Rep made with Anand), the motherboard will auto-flash the main bios from the backup if it detects corruption. When setting the board to operate in single-bios mode, it won't do this if it thinks the first BIOS failed. It also keeps the board from booting to the wrong BIOS without you realizing it.

As for the debug LED, I ran into taht myself and it was annoying. A0 is basically the last thing the UEFI does before it's done.. there apparently is no "completed, booted Windows" code. So when you see A0 you should just assume it's booted Windows. Either A2 or A6 means it's in the UEFI screen instead, I don't remember offhand.

Regarding the USB driver thing, it's not perfectly smooth. There's issues with how the USB drivers are being implemented and that's all I know.

 

[Adul]

damn I been wondering if anyone else had USB issues as well. I found plugging in my EVO LTE causes bsods. Sure made it hellish last night trying to install windows when I built the system.

 

[KentState]

damn I been wondering if anyone else had USB issues as well. I found plugging in my EVO LTE causes bsods. Sure made it hellish last night trying to install windows when I built the system.

I realized the downside to the new chipset when the motherboard didn't have USB 2.0 on the back panel.

 

[sin0822]

First off I think if USb3.0 can't be used you can disable xHCI it should set the USb 3.0 ports to USB 2.0 mode, i think, but i have to double check this.

Second off 04 means that you have come back from sleep. So instead of A0 it will show 03 or 04 depending on the type of sleep/hibernations.

The reason the Single BIOS/Dual BIOS mode is there is actually not obvious on the first encounter. The reason GBT Z68 and P67 had boot loops was because of dual BIOS, on Z77 there was also a "db" error code that would pop up during BCLK OC recovery(when the BCLK OC goes back the recovery process would take like 5-6 loops and the "db" error is very annoying). So the solution was to disable dual BIOS mechanism straight up, either by a switch or through the UEFI, i think switch is better so you can re-enable it if one of the BIOSes gets corrupted. It heavily reduce BCLK OC recovery time, as the way dual BIOS is designed(and it is patented so I don't think anyone else does this) the main and backup check each other on every boot.

 

[rob426]

Cheers for the reply's

I never put the pc in sleep mode, but I use the hybrid shutdown in win8, I guess its sort of like sleep. Just did a test

Shut down - power on - code 04 - hit restart - code A0

Other than that one time, usb3 ports working fine now, If It happen again, Ill just get a usb bracket and plug into the usb2 header on the mb.