Windows won't start with Gigabyte Board

[steven1209]

Thanks Tman! I'll hold off on returning memory for a couple of more days.

[steven1209]

gigabyte came back with another reply today saying the board should have no problem with 8gb sticks of memeory but they couldn't verify the gskill memory. Then they asked to try putting one 8gb stick (then the other one also) into slot 2 and does the machine reboot after posting and saying memory's ok. The answer is yes. We'll see what they come back with.

[Tradesman]

Hopefully that's a positive step, sounds like they may have or had a problem and have a testing methodology for it

[steven1209]

Well I finally found a phone number to call support from gigabyte instead of the extremely slow email ticket system which was driving me crazy. Got a response back to try putting in the memory sticks seperately and what were the results even though I had already gave them that info of when I tried that.

Guy on phone was nice and said memory 2 X 8gb should work on that board. Gave me model number of corsair memory to try. CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10 - 2 X 8GB. Now the fun part tonight. The fryes electronics by me has CMZ16GX3M2A1600C11 - 2 X 8GB. I hope the one difference in the end of the model number doesn't make a difference!!!! I can't find that model that fryes is selling on cosair's site.....argh. I hope it just works!

[Tradesman]

The set they have is CL11, just a tad slower than the CL10 they mentioned, wish I had a Frys close, we've got one in Phoenix, but it's about 1.5 hours each way...sigh

[steven1209]

Well this has too be one of my worst experiences dealing with a motherboard manufactorer but after email tickets and 2 days of phone calls I'm actually being told it's gigabyte's not gigabytes responsiblity to test the actual memory from different companies with their motherboards. It should work but can't tell me who's memory will work with it and while on the phone they couldn't find this model on different memory makers website(which I told them I couldn't either).

One tech yesterday told me a certain corsair memory but that diddn't work and the last tech from gigabyte was extremely rude in tell me it's my responsibilty to find some memory maker who has the board listed to work with their boards. Although I understand they can't test all how about 'ONE' they know works. Now they're also telling me it could be the processor as there is a memory controller on there.

My biggest beef at the moment is gigabyte doc says it can support up to 16gb total on this motherboard. They don't list one single memory model that works for this motherboard for 8gb sticks but they list low level ones....not any of the major memory makers can I find this motherboard listed as them having tested with and according to the first gigabyte tech I talked to this morning it's my problem finding one. Arghhhhhh what rude customer service skills. Now after being transferred around I ended up with a decent tech guy at gigabyte who got my specs and said he can get their lab to test it out. Wow why didn't they offer that in the beginning. Well where ever this ends up I don't think I'll be buying gigabyte motherboards in the future!

[Tradesman]

Another little secret, most mobo makers only test sets at the mobos default boot freq, normally 1333 or 1600, which is why you often see them list a set of 2x2GB or 2x4GB sticks and say it will work with 4 sticks, whereas GSkill and most builders will tell you not to mix sets, even of the same model as they won't always play nice with one another. Support at most of the mobo makers I've seen is extremely low and very few have ANY 'techs' that know DRAM other than to install and leave it at defaults, they don't want to support it, they just want the sales. (might see my thread:

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=10566

Hopefully they'll have good news, and I've got a note in the GSkill Tech to take a look when he gets a chance, know they are swamped with email and phone support tickets (which come first)

[GSKILL TECH]

Frankly, I don't see how it could work. 8GB was fairly recent released, so it would be unlikely that they took new technology to try and make it compatible with older. Unfortunately, technology goes forward, never backward, so in my opinion it was probably a typo as the chipset is H55 and should support 16GB 4 slots, but this one only has 2 slots 8GB.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[steven1209]

I'm no expert on chipsets or memory but all documentation, specs on their website, specs on newegg, tigerdirect all state this board accepts 16gb and that's the reason I bought it with the expectation to upgrade to 16gb so what more can I do.

They did get back to me today that in their lab they couldn't get it working either and then on top of it told me as a bonus 8gb weren't around at the time the board went prod but as I stated back I went with all the specs, manual, so we'll see what customer service comes back with.

[steven1209]

and least we forget that up to this point every gigabyte tech told me it could work so that's why I have another set of 2 X 8 GB memory from corsair I have to return. Now the one technician just emailed me back again saying it could work if I had a newer processor!!!!!! This is getting better all the time. A expert from gskill saying the chipset couldn't support 2 dimm slots accepting 8gb sticks and now after telling me (from gigabyte) it couldn't work.....it does work but you need a newer processor.

I'm ready to pull my hair out...well what left I have : ) Am I suppose to trust them and go out and buy a newer processor model they said and then low and behold it still doesn't work. I wrote back again that I have a support processor and I don't see any notation anywhere in manuals, on website , wherever of this requirement to get 8gb sticks working in this board.

[steven1209]

Waiting now from customer service at gigabyte to see if they'll make this right or not. If they give me a newer board that accepts 16 gb of memory and I still have to buy a newer processor though I would find that acceptable. I can return the 2 sets of memory I have bought and get 4 X 4gb instead.

[Tradesman]

I doubt if it's the CPU, but I don't know, based on what GSkill said, I looked at some other H55s and it seems 8GB it the typical max....Think I'll step aside, I was basing it like you on the advertised specs

[DocTony]

UPDATE! ATTN: Tradesman and Steven1209! See my post in the General Discussions forum where I put this issue to bed where due to user feedback Gigabyte 'finally' has REVISED their website archive on this mobo and in fact the mobo can only support a max of "8" GB. Tradesman, you hit the nail on the head when you said ".... I was basing it like you on the advertised specs ... " Exactly and as did 'many' buyers of this mobo [like myself back in October of 2010] where the specs AND the accompanying mobo user manual were both wrong in saying the mobo would support up to 16GB system memory! This mobo can only support 8 GB max with two 2 X 4 gig sticks and 'finally' Gigabyte has revised their archive. My compliments, Tradesman, on your otherwise excellent recommendations [to Steven1209] for, shall we say, cajoling Windows to load via BIOS settings where they, IMO, would have most likely worked ==IF== the end user buyer of the H55M-S2V mobo had been given true information versus wholly bogus information by Gigabyte which Gigabyte was subsequently forced to change in their mobo archives for --all-- versions of the H55M-S2V mobo.

[Tradesman]

Thanks for the update