GA-EP45-UD3R Will not post

[Vocalpoint]

Morning!

So - after building a new box with the above motherboard and completing a Vista 64 build yesterday - after a shutdown last night - it appears the box now will no longer post.

Specs are as follows:

CPU: Intel Core™2 Quad Processor Q9450
Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-UD3R
Graphics: eVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB (PCI-E )
Memory: 4GB Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX
Optical Drive: Samsung (SATA) Samsung SH-S203N
HD1: (System) Seagate 160 GB Barracuda 7200.10 SATA II (ST3160815AS)
HD2: (Data) Seagate 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA II (ST3500320AS)
HD3: (Scratch) Seagate 80GB Barracuda 7200.10 SATA II (ST380815AS)
Case: ANTEC P182
PSU: Corsair VX 550W PSU
OS: Windows Vista Business SP2

This apparently seems to be a common problem. The board is brand new and appears to be running BIOS F10....

How to proceed?

Cheers!
VP

[clo007]

Clear CMOS, try with one stick of ram and see if it will post. Also, just have your system drive installed(unplug the other 2).

[Vocalpoint]

Originally Posted by clo007

Clear CMOS, try with one stick of ram and see if it will post. Also, just have your system drive installed(unplug the other 2).

Why would everything work straight away yesterday and then as soon as I shut it down (completely( for the first time...no boot?

I could accept it not booting or throwing a hissy fit at first start if it's a memory thing or whatever...but I had it running fine all day yesterday...rebooted 20 or 30 times....

Only when we shut it down for the night and started it again this morning does it do this. First it was no boot...then I shut down the PS (switch on back) for a minute...tried again...then it went it a reboot loop where the BIOS begins to load...then restarts etc etc....

I do not think I can even hit Delete to get into the BIOS....

To think I dumped a failing ASUS P5Q for this....jeez....I have this thing on the bench now...will do a reset etc...and see what happens...will report back!

CHeers!

VP

[profJim]

Did you load Optimized bios settings before you initially made any bios changes.
Is your system overclocked, cpu, memory, and/or video card?
Do you have a speaker hooked up to motherboard's front header connectors? If yes, do you hear any short or long beeps?
Does your system appear to go into a reboot loop? If yes, have you let it loop for at least 4 or more times?
Have you tried shutting off your system at the psu and waiting 15 - 20 minutes or longer?

If you are able to get into the bios, post your current settings using this EP45 generic bios template.
Apply the basic bios settings in this post and follow steps 1 -4 to provide additional information about your system.

[profJim]

You might need to test with a different psu. Others have had similar problems where a warm reboot is fine, but they have problems after their system has to do a "cold" reboot.

[Vocalpoint]

Originally Posted by profJim

You might need to test with a different psu. Others have had similar problems where a warm reboot is fine, but they have problems after their system has to do a "cold" reboot.

I was thinking PSU...but the one in here is brand new. Just put it in yesterday. I have an Antec Truepower on hand as well...if this BS continues AFTER I try to load Optimized BIOS setiings...I will attempt a PSU swap out...

Thank you for ALL the suggestions....

Will report back...

Cheers!

VP

[Vocalpoint]

Update!

I am up. Not really sure what the deal was...but I:

1. Checked, rechecked and rewired all front panel connectors (Power, HD Led etc)
2. Changed the RAM from the Corsair to Mushkin 2x2GB
3. Loaded all Optimized Defaults.

It came right up. Went back into the BIOS...reset a few basics like turning off the LAN, Serial ports etc and updated the CPU "basic" values as suggested. Good to go.

Thanks all for the help - especially on a Sunday morning.

Cheers!

VP

[profJim]

Glad to hear that everything appears to be OK.
Keep in mind that your system is probably not running optimally, even with the optimized bios settings and the "basic" settings.

Save your current bios settings as a saved bios profile, using F11 from the main bios screen, using a profile name such as Basic-Settings.
If you want optimal performance from your current settings, follow steps 1 - 4 from the linked to post for basic settings.
To ensure that your system is stable, run Prime95 Blend test for at least 12 hours. If there are no errors, you're good to go.

[Vocalpoint]

Originally Posted by profJim

Keep in mind that your system is probably not running optimally, even with the optimized bios settings and the "basic" settings.

Jim,

Thanks for the assistance. Followed the steps, applied the recommended values...ran Prime95 and it looks good!

Say - I posted another thread reagrding BIOS F10 for this board...is it a bad choice? I notice it does not exist on the official Gigabyte download page. Comments?

Cheers!

VP

[marsey99]

its a beta bios m8, i found f9 was pretty stable but was slow and the raid bios version was very slow, f11 was a little picky with me in that some dividers would only work if ram was in red slots but it was faster and the raid bios was loads faster.

one other thingtho, my oc settings from f9 which were 100% stable would fail on f11 :(