Gigabyte owners READ THIS

[BillParrish]

A lot of people are having issues with (mainly DS3's) and what is called the cold boot issue.

This issue seems to consist of 2 main issues as far as I can tell.

1) Failure to boot, clear cmos does not work, board is boat anchor.

2) Bios settings not retained on reboot.


Actually the second problem is the classic "cold boot" as first reported.


I dont have a DS3 but in an effort to understand this issue I have, I think, discovered the problem. Remember that little book that came with the mb ? Now Gigabyte did do a good job of hiding the info you need but here it is.


http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/NewTech/2006_motherboard_newtech/article_04_bios_explained.htm


Stop what you are doing, right now, and install the bios recovery 2 utility.

GIGABYTE Xpress BIOS Rescue™ Technology

GIGABYTE Xpress BIOS Rescue™ is a tool that automatically recovers damaged BIOSes (plural for BIOS) to their original state. How it works is that an ISO file or image file of the BIOS is stored in a hidden file on the hard drive automatically each time your system boots. This copy is able to replace a corrupted BIOS automatically due to software applications or viruses without the need for CD or Floppy support. As the process is fully automated, there is no need to fix or change the BIOS through a command prompt. This helps to ensure your BIOS are functioning correctly at all times.

Linky for the lazy.

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/Utility_DownloadFile.aspx?FileType=Utility&FileID=62

what I think, I dont know for sure, but it seems that if you push the overclock and the board goes into its "reboot retry" cycle the bios could get corrupted espically if you get tired of it rebooting and flick off the power at the wrong moment. Without a bios image to reload the board is really screwed. Clearing the cmos will not recover from a corrupted bios. All this is guessing, I dont know for sure. but it would seem the above would at least help if such a situation is happening. It can not hurt and the board you save might be your own.

 

[cRu|Timmy]

my problem is that my damn DS3 wont boot with 2 gigs of ram. I wonder if this will fix anything....

 

[Scyles]

I had this cold boot issue about three weeks ago. I've owned the board for around 8 months. Basically, the BIOS would hang very early, like detecting RAM and drives, and then would say that I needed to install Xpress Recovery 2.

I thought I was screwed, so I left the computer there and went to Google on the other computer. I came back after what must have been 10 minutes and the computer was booted. My overclock was gone. It acted up on the next two restarts and then it just stopped. My BIOS voltage settings were retained, I just had to re-apply the CPU multiplier. Its been fine since.

Unfortunately, I'm too cool to install XPress Recovery 2.

 

[JaYp146]

Nice find, OP, much appreciated.

 

[brownbomber]

my problem is that my damn DS3 wont boot with 2 gigs of ram. I wonder if this will fix anything....

I had that same problem. I wrestle with it for 12 hrs finally i got it to boot in bank 1 and 2 filled. Then I just rma it because it was always rebooting and losing it bios setting. Its been a month since i sent my board in and the customer service agent said they are suppose to send it back to me next week > but I hope its fix if not i am going to get the EVGA 650 ultra nforce board.

 

[chrispycrunch]

Is there any noticable impact on boot times?