Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 sluggish with 16GB RAM installed

[bondisdead 3]

Swapped all the sticks in various combinations of slots, no difference. I took the Corsair Vengeance 16GB RAM and put it into my new ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe mobo, and it worked flawlessly. Really fast, to be honest, but that's another story.

 

At this point I am starting to believe that the board is indeed crippled.

[pcdoc 114]

Swapped all the sticks in various combinations of slots, no difference. I took the Corsair Vengeance 16GB RAM and put it into my new ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe mobo, and it worked flawlessly. Really fast, to be honest, but that's another story.

 

At this point I am starting to believe that the board is indeed crippled.

 

Sounds like you have a bad board, time to RMA

[ikon 438]

Swapped all the sticks in various combinations of slots, no difference. I took the Corsair Vengeance 16GB RAM and put it into my new ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe mobo, and it worked flawlessly. Really fast, to be honest, but that's another story.

 

At this point I am starting to believe that the board is indeed crippled.

 

Yeah. Really. What's left to try? If they give you a hard time, point them to this thread

 

If you bought the board at a local store, I guess you could do the old 'buy another one and return the dud in the new box' trick

[pcdoc 114]

Yeah. Really. What's left to try? If they give you a hard time, point them to this thread

 

If you bought the board at a local store, I guess you could do the old 'buy another one and return the dud in the new box' trick

 

Funny, all the local Fry's now check serial numbers with the board, box and receipt before they will take them back. Lately, the now even check the socket for pin damage.

[ikon 438]

if it's a board that has a serial # right on it, yeah, it's a problem, but it seems a lot still only have it on the box.

[pcdoc 114]

if it's a board that has a serial # right on it, yeah, it's a problem, but it seems a lot still only have it on the box.

 

All the gigabyte boards i have had for the past 2+ years all have had serial numbers buried somewhere. Not sure about other MFGs.

[ikon 438]

Good to know about the Gigabyte. Not that I would not buy one because of it.

[Dave 416]

I've had good luck with Gigabyte boards over the past two years and they come highly recommended but I have a board that is exhibiting the same characteristics that you have described in this post. I hope that proves that your not crazy! The board:GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128498&Tpk=N82E16813128498

 

It started giving me problems right out of the box. Power on loops mostly. I flashed the bios and most folks who have done so said it fixes it. I've played with memory voltages, timings, etc. It's VERY sluggish. It seems to decide to run good sometimes though. I was able to load Win7 64 and it was blazing fast on a Crucial 256 SATA III SSD. Then it crawls. Something would go wrong on Post and get stuck. Hit the reset button and it resets gives a ME countdown and then powers off and restarts. Every single time. The RAM is good. Power is plenty and clean. Video is good.

 

I blame myself for not reading the reviews thoroughly. When I read reviews of people having troubles I generally think I can build better than them and do the tweaks it takes to make it work. When I see the bad reviews after having the same issues I then tend to believe. There are several GB boards that are exhibiting the same issues as these. I think they had a build problem or quality issue or something. Something is not right here.

 

Fortunately, I can still get a refund which I will process right after this post. I'll then find another board and I won't be buying Gigabyte boards again. That's hard for me to say too as I love the board that is running my WHS 2011 server. I've also bought Gigabyte for the last year in all the builds I've done for customers. This is not just a matter of a single bad board or a DOA. I can deal with that. Bad stuff happens right? This issue spans over several GB boards. (mostly your board and mine. i had found another one in a forum that was having boot loop issues but can't locate it now.) I just can't bring myself to buy another. I hope I can find a board I can trust. I used to by ASUS exclusively. Off to search.

 

I hope you got your issues figured out OP (bondisdead). Right now, gigabyteisdead for me.

[bondisdead 3]

I have RMA'd the board, and I might be done with Gigabyte as well. Last Tuesday, they asked me to send them a full spec list of what I had, and they were going to test it out. This was after already doing alot of debug. They still have not responded to my issue. So I decided to RMA return the board last Friday. It was delivered on Mon 4/23/12, so the waiting begins. Last Gigabyte RMA took almost 3-weeks, with terrible communication in the process.

 

I honestly don't know who to trust anymore! I have had my share of both Gigabyte and ASUS boards needing RMA. I think the customer service at Gigabyte is a tad worse, but at least they are only next day away for shipping (I am in southern california), versus the ASUS repair center which is back in Indiana (good for you, Dave!!).

 

If you look at places like geeks and newegg and mwave that sell refurbished, there are *alot* of ASUS, so I might be staying away from them as well.

 

Thanks for your detailed assesment on this board, Dave. It is indeed good to hear that I am not going crazy. Just curious whether the sluggish performance was with 8gb or 16gb? They might have multiple problems with this board.

[Dave 416]

Ok. Truth be told and since the board is still installed I just ran through a battery of options, again. Reset the bios, setup the ram in bios, re-installed Win7. Installed just fine, no sluggishness. Rebooted it about 100 times. No Gigabyte install CD this time so there are no drivers for network and motherboard PCI, etc. Running Prime95 on it to heat it up a little bit. Cranked up the Corsair H100 water cooler as well. CPU is running 120 to 130 degrees F. About 55 C on the high side.

This board is taunting me.