I bought this Gigabyte motherboard at Microcenter a month or so ago as a open box with a 15day return policy.

I did't start the build until after the 15 return policy was over.

Anyway the problem I'm having is random reboots and the network port not working.

I have switched out all components some twice.

Two different power supply's
Two different RAM sticks
Two different Processors.
Two different HHDs
and two different Video cards.

Windows will install to about 30% before it reboots. I did get Linux Mint to install before it rebooted but I still have the reboot problem as well as the network port not working.

I sent the Motherboard back to GIGABYTE and they reset the CMOS and sent it back. Still the same problem.


As you can guess I'm spending way more time on this board than it is worth. Anyideas before I send it back again.

Its a GA-970A-UD3P.

Probably blown/flaky caps on the CPU power circuit.  I'm surprised all Gigabyte did was flash the cmos; next time, tell them the board won't boot.

Jumpers set properly?  Overclocked? Proper settings in BIOS?  Processor overheating?  Proper RAMsize/configuration?   Just throwing some ideas out there.

Not really any jumpers on this board. Just for the CMOS (no jumper) and SPDIF (no jumper).

No overclocking is the last thing on my mind with this thing.

All setting are set to auto in the BIOS. SATA is AHCI

I have the AMD 125watt cooler on the CPU in free air.

Only have one stick of RAM installed and have never had this type of problem do to RAM before. Have used Three different sticks of ram with this thing.

Try to get them to replace it.  If they won't, just buy a new board.  I don't know about you but my time is worth more than the $100 it would cost me for a new MB.

Another update.

They send the board back with no indication of what they fixed if anything. At this point I'm not planning to hooking everything back up to see if its fixed.

If anyone want to take a look at it I'll send it to you but I don't want to spend any more time on it.

I guess the lessen here is to stay away from GIGABYTE boards.

 

That's not the lesson at all. GB makes some good stuff; although in this case, their tech support seems to be slightly flaky.


You bought an open box item, and didn't test it straight away.


The condition of shit people return to Microcenter astounds me...

I had a similar problem with a GA-MA770T-UD3P.  It would do the same thing if you didn't tweak the memory timings and voltage just right, with no overclocking at all.  Finally put in some tame 1.5V memory and it's still running solid.  I'll play with it if you want to send it.

The OP sent me the board to try out and it is definitely a bad board.  I tried everything I could think of including re-flashing the BIOS but I could never get it to operate properly.  It appears to be normal until you actually start to use the PCI bus, USB ports, or the built-in Ethernet port.  That's when it starts to fall apart, so I suppose it is possible that it passed a Gigabyte test routine if they didn't actually use the ports like we would.

I have a good X4-965 system that I borrowed parts from to use with this board, and I attempted to install Linux Mint 14.2 many times since I had just been doing that on good systems and knew what to expect from it.  I am not familiar enough with Linux to do much in-depth diags though.

Using a PS2 keyboard, USB mouse, on-board Ethernet:
The install starts fine but I see some errors scroll by - error reading descriptor on the USB port the mouse is in.  lsusb shows the mouse connected and the mouse seems to work fine.  Install progresses until it can't detect a network connection.  The Ethernet has a link and is flashing from broadcasts on my LAN, but it isn't working.

Using a PS2 keyboard, USB mouse, and 802.11b/g USB adapter that I had just used in another install of this OS:(on-board Ethernet disabled)
The install starts fine but I see some errors scroll by - error reading descriptor on the USB ports the mouse and USB NIC are in.  lsusb shows them connected and the mouse seems to work most of the time but sometimes the click doesn't do anything.  Tried this several times and the USB NIC may light up or may stay dark.  Install progresses until it can't detect a network connection.

Using a PS2 keyboard, USB mouse, and 802.11b/g PCI adapter :(on-board Ethernet disabled)
The install starts fine but I see some errors scroll by - error reading descriptor on the USB port the mouse is in.  lsusb shows the mouse connected and the mouse seems to work most of the time but sometimes the click doesn't do anything.  Install progresses and holy cow I can see my wireless SSID and the network is running!!!  Go to enter my WPA2 password but the keyboard and mouse aren't responding all of the time, and suddenly the wireless connection is gone.  I tried this setup from the beginning again and it never did see my wireless network again.

I tried several other installs, some making it as basic as I could, even with no mouse, and I never saw a network connection again.  Looking at the block diagram I'd suspect something with the AMD 970 chip or the Hyper Transport Bus, but it could be anything.  I never did see a video problem, lock-up, or reboot in the 2+ hours that I messed with it.

just sounds like the southbridge is screwed up.