Gigabyte Mobo's : My Tale of Woe

[Peter R.]

I have been building PC's since around 89. I build at least 5 a year, and regularly take theme apart, put them back together and do all kinds of crazy experiments with them. I have built hacks with 945's, P55's, Z68's, Z87's, B75's, and many more.

I have also used Gigabyte mobo's for donkey's years. They are usually the sensible decision when you want to build a Hack, and have been since the days of injectors and funky chips that promised you trouble free Hackintoshing by plugging a chippy on an internal header.

I've also built a few with somewhat diverging hardware. In short, I tend to know my way around a mobo.

I've tried building a Hack with a X99. First an Asus Sabertooth, and later with a Gigabyte UD5 because people said they had made it work. Some of them on this site. I never even got as far as booting an X99 twice in a row. I gave up.

So when I decided I was going back to a 'regular' Hack I naturally chose a Gigabyte X170 UD3. I also purchased an i7-6700K, a Nepton cooler and started building.

After assembling the system it would not boot. It got into an endless reboot cycle. I disassembled the mobo and took it back to the store. I have been a customer in this store for a long time, and spent to the tune of 20K Euro's on computer related hardware there in the last 6 to 7 years. You are reading that number right. So am I. I checked with accounting.

They inspected the mobo and concluded some of the socket 1151 pins were bent. Naturally, this was something I was responsible for myself(according to them) and not covered under warranty, because they had NEVER had a new mobo with bent pins.

The only thing for it was to RMA the board and HOPE Gigabyte would repair it. Being in somewhat of a bind, I Left the board with them and purchased another one : A Gaming 5, top 3 of the list in Tony's recommended list.
I came home and assembled the PC. It booted and worked under win 7. However, there was some instability when using XMP Profile 2 with the Corsair Vengeance Memory. Upon inspection, I discovered the board was still on BIOS F3, somewhere early to mid 2015. There was a much more recent BIOS available on the Gigabyte website, F, so I flashed that. The flash completed successfully and the system announced it would need to cycle power to complete the update.
The system rebooted, and -again- got stuck in an endless reboot loop. Normally, It would then revert to the older BIOS (Gigabyte DUAL-BIOS) but it did not. No amount of BIOS resetting, battery removing and waiting it out helped. Unfortunately, the old switches where you could force the board to revert to the old BIOS are no longer present.

So the board went back in the box and was returned to the store. Upon arriving there, it was discovered that AGAIN about 10 pins had gotten bent out of shape (10 random ones distributed over the entire socket, no adjoining ones).

AGAIN, I was informed that this board hat to be RMA'd and if I got lucky it might be repairable.

I must therefor conclude one of two things are happening :

1. I have all of a sudden become totally inept at building systems, and from now on shall have to revert to buying built systems (not happening, I have since rebuilt 2 1150 systems and an X99 without issues)
2. Gigabyte are using a socket manufacturer or supplier (I think these were Foxconn) or a newer design, and these are built so lightly and cheaply they bend as soon as you look at them. I have also noticed the new generation boards (especially the UD3, but the Gaming 5 as well) are extremely thin and fragile in looks and feel.

A third inevitable conclusion is, that if you live in this part of the world, there is no more reason to pay your local supplier a premium in the hope of getting some service. From now on, I'm buying uniquely online, because it affords me better protection. Even as a business.

You may draw whatever conclusion you deem fit from this report. I am just reporting.

 

[Going Bald]

Your probable cause for bent pins is too much tension on the CPU cooler bracket - you are tightening the screws too much.
Sky Lake from what I am reading are sensitive to pressure on the CPU.

Were I you I would try a different cooler and do not tighten the screws down so tight.

 

[Peter R.]

Neptons are spring loaded and the mounting hardware is 'idiot proof', i.e. you tighten the screws of the cooler until you run out of thread.
I have used this cooler in the past on other systems without issues.

 

[Going Bald]

Neptons are spring loaded and the mounting hardware is 'idiot proof', i.e. you tighten the screws of the cooler until you run out of thread.
I have used this cooler in the past on other systems without issues.

What is the rated spring tension? Is it more than the recommended pressure on the socket pins? Just because you have used the cooler on other builds does not make it suitable for all builds. Suggest on the next board you get examine the pins carefully and take pics.

 

[Peter R.]

What is the rated spring tension ? Really, Baldrick ? Of a CPU cooler spring ? OK, I'll play. Are you referring to Hooke's law or do you want the finite tensor analysis ?

Anyhoo, the TWO boards returned from RMA yesterday. I have the impression they 'fixed' the UD3, and indeed it now works without issues.

I have the distinct impression they replaced the Gaming 5, which I will attempt to test tonight. Problem being, I'll have to remove the CPU from the UD3 again, and I'm looking forward to that about as much as to a dentist's visit. But needs must.

Then I will have to decide which board to build the new Windoze/Hack box with. I think I prefer the UD3, because of it's lack of funky audio output modules and Killer Ethernet. Just 1150 audio and Intel GBE. In fact, this may very well be the ideal platform to build a Z170 Hack on. No distractions.

Pete

 

[Adrian B]

Baldrick?
Don't apply so much tension with modern boards - it can easily damage the pins.

 

[Peter R.]

As I indicated, yesterday I got round to testing board no.2. This necessitated removing the CPU from board no.1. For testing purposes I used a very lightweight air cooler. Needless to emphasize I used extra special super delicate care doing this, duly put the plastic lid back on the socket and put it aside.

Board no. 2 subsequently tested without issues and was repacked in its original packing and filed for a future project.

Upon re-installing the CPU in the UD3 and booting, I was greeted with that no familiar phenomenon : the endless boot loop. But now I knew what I was looking for. Out came the watchmaker's glasses and tools, and I set about inspecting the pins. Again, a bent pin was discovered (yes, ONE, somewhere along third row), but this did not cure it. After three more careful inspections, another pin was discovered that was fractionally put of alignment (on the other side of the socket). After correcting this pin, the board is now 100% functional again.

I urge my fellow builders on this forum to be really careful when handling the 1151 Foxconn sockets (and quite possibly other manufacturers as well) : they are indeed extremely fragile.

Good luck,

Pete

 

[trs96]

I've spent many hours of my time straightening out bent AMD CPU pins. These are on the CPU instead of in the mobo socket. When working on older Dell and HP machines for clients I'll often have to remove the whole heatsink and shroud and fan to blast out years of accumulated dust and debris with air.



The AMD approach seems to cause less problems on the install and many more on the removal of the CPU. The thermal paste will stick to the IHS when you struggle to remove the heatsink and commonly cause bent CPU pins. When you lift up on the heatsink, the CPU comes with it, out of the socket, unless you know the technique of how to properly remove it. I won't go into that here as no one is using AMD CPUs.

Intel's CPU socket is designed much better in this respect. The CPU will never come out when the heatsink is separated. So I prefer the Intel design of having just the gold contacts on the CPU itself. With AMD though, it is easier to see the bent pins and correct them when needed. Moral of the story is, take your CPU out of the socket as infrequently as possible as the gold pins are easily bent and damaged. Intel pins are in the socket and just as easily bent but harder to see with your eyes.