- Joined
- Jun 22, 2010
- Messages
- 203
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte Z170X Gaming5 EU
- CPU
- 6700K
- Graphics
- GTX980
- Mobile Phone
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.
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.