Trouble with Gigabyte ga-965p-ds3 build. ---> Problem Fixed!

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
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This is a fun one. First off, here are my parts:

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard
Celeron D 325 cpu (waiting on e6400)
OCZ Gold DDR2-5400 2GB Dual Channel RAM kit (4-4-4-8 @ 667 @ 1.8V)
Connect3D x1900gt
Seagate 7200.10 320GB HDD
Plextor DVDRW
Fortron Blue Storm 500W (460W max) PS

I assembled everything like I always do (been building systems for over 5 years now, so fairly experienced) and tried to fire it up. Upon pressing the power button, the PS fan and the fan on the video card spin up but the fans on the cpu and back of the case only waver in place. The fans then immediately stop spinning and it goes dormant for 4-5 seconds. It then spins up the same fans, then goes dormant again. This repeats until I physically switch off the power supply. There are no beep codes or anything at all.

The 24-pin and 4-pin connectors are plugged into their respective places on the motherboard and the 6-pin wire is plugged into the video card.

Although I know the power supply is good, I have already tried a different power supply (430W Cooler Master w/19a on 12v rail) just in case. Same exact behavior. I also pulled everything out of the case and tried it just sitting on my desk to make sure it was not shorting out, no joy there either. I also just tried an older X800GTO card to make sure it wasn't something to do with the video card, but the result was the same. This thing won't put out a video signal (although it does turn on the monitor light, but no signal) and won't post at all. This is my first system build using DDR2 so I don't have any available to try.

Please give me some advice on what to try next.

Thanks!
 

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
6,298
23
81
Ok, an update. I picked up a 512MB stick of DDR2-4200 Kingston ram from CC this evening, took out the OCZ ram, popped in the Kingston, and the system fired right up and loaded the BIOS with no problems. I set it to CAS5, turned it off, and swapped back in the OCZ ram. No joy. I added back in the Kingston ram in addition. Still nothing. I even changed the ram multiplier to run at 2.5x133=400 where the OCZ should be able to run CAS3 but the system still wouldn't boot.

It will boot with just the low speed Kingston but not with the much better OCZ. Does this sound like a simple incompatibility or something else? It is starting to look like I will have to RMA the ram and find something else.
 

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
6,298
23
81
For all having trouble with the DS3 board and various RAM sticks, try the new F4c BIOS update. I flashed to this BIOS, restarted, loaded optimized settings, restarted, set CAS to 5 and RAM voltage to +0.2V, shut down. Swapped Kingston RAM for my OCZ dual channel kit, started back up flawlessly. Went into timings, adjusted to the 4-4-4-8 that this ram is rated for and am now installing XP Pro with no further problems.

Many thanks to the guys at the Xtreme Systems forum for finding this BIOS that has not yet been officially released by Gigabyte yet.