Irritating bug

[MagickMan]

This isn't earth-shattering, but it's mildly irritating. Sometimes, not all the time, my machine will beep like crazy from a cold boot, then it'll restart on it's own and go into the BIOS. It largely does it when it's OCed, but it did do it once when it was running stock.

Specs:
e7200 @ 3.5GHz (1.3825v)
GIGABYTE EP45-DS3L (newest BIOS, F9)
580w Athena PS
8800GT


First I thought it was the PS, Athena isn't a major brand, so I swapped in a 500W PCP&C. No dice, same behavior. The thing is, it'll run several hours of Linpack and days of OCCT perfectly, not even a burp. I tried resetting back to BIOS defaults, same thing. Could I simply have a flaky MB? Any ideas?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have some E2140s @ 3.2Ghz on GA-P35-DS3R v1.0 boards, unsure of which BIOS revision. On a cold boot they always double-post and reset the overclock. I have to go into BIOS, re-setup the OC, and then reboot into windows for it to stick. I also have problems with random reboots. It used to do it about monthly, but recently it's done it one week apart.

It seems stable otherwise, and passes any amount of stress tests just fine.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: MagickManCould I simply have a flaky MB? Any ideas?

Yup. I've seen this a few times, including one of my own builds, and a mobo swap solved the issue.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

Could be a situation where more voltage is needed. I know on the P35 version of that board the stock intel fan wouldn't start, and there was a buzzer sound because bios was set to alarm when rpms dropped below a point

 

[ther00kie16]

Ram issue? I've seen ram being the culprit in multiple systems. Otherwise, mb is a good suspect.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: MagickMan
This isn't earth-shattering, but it's mildly irritating. Sometimes, not all the time, my machine will beep like crazy from a cold boot, then it'll restart on it's own and go into the BIOS. It largely does it when it's OCed, but it did do it once when it was running stock.

Specs:
e7200 @ 3.5GHz (1.3825v)
GIGABYTE EP45-DS3L (newest BIOS, F9)
580w Athena PS
8800GT


First I thought it was the PS, Athena isn't a major brand, so I swapped in a 500W PCP&C. No dice, same behavior. The thing is, it'll run several hours of Linpack and days of OCCT perfectly, not even a burp. I tried resetting back to BIOS defaults, same thing. Could I simply have a flaky MB? Any ideas?

I need clarification on the part I bolded in your post above. Everything you write about is actually part of normal operation on the DS3L except the part you wrote that I bolded.

On a DS3L (and most other gigabyte boards from what I am told) the BIOS registers the FSB from the CPU's requirements which also stipulate the NB strap. Then it reads your ram's SPD...if you set your ram speed in BIOS to "auto" and the SPD is set to run the ram at a speed which requires the NB strap to change then the BIOS will reboot the mobo once to reset the strap to the necessary value.

Likewise of you manually specify the ram speed in the BIOS such that it requires the strap to change from the default value that the BIOS is going to assume based on its first readings from the CPU/FSB on cold boot then it will do a quick reboot of the mobo on a cold boot to register the correct NB strap.

None of that applies to your situation though if as you wrote the mobo not only reboots quickly one time on cold boot but also it then subsequently enters the bios...that part about the mobo automatically going into the bios is not good and definitely suggests your mobo is not functioning correctly.