Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

**dicky96** · 01-28-2021, 09:06 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Do you mean you have the schematics or do you need them? I added here anyway

Do you have any Vcore?

Attached Files

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3.rar (4.82 MB, 478 views)

**SMDFlea** · 01-28-2021, 09:24 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

It has a dual bios so you can try the recovery method https://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=15067.0

The full bios is available at the support site,you just need to extract it https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...upport-dl-bios

**mon2** · 01-28-2021, 10:15 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Thank you both. Very much appreciated.

Will try to invoke the 2nd bios with the noted method and will report back.

**mon2** · 01-28-2021, 11:56 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Thank you again.

The voltages appear to check out fine.

Vcore @ 0v99.

The 1v5 rail is ok.

3v3 is present on the mBios pin.

+12v is present.

1v2 rail is present.

I think we would like to give the BIOS reflashing a go. The pressing of both the RESET & POWER ON for 10 seconds did not impact this operation. Still no beeps out of the motherboard.

On the BIOS download from the Gigabyte website, is this a raw binary file?

Can this binary file be read into the flash tool and applied 1:1 ?

The file extension is not .bin but rather .10e

**SMDFlea** · 01-28-2021, 12:04 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

The *.10e file is the bios binary,Its 4096KB (4MB) .You can rename it to .bin , .rom if the programmer doesn`t recognise the file extension.

**mon2** · 01-28-2021, 12:06 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Thank you. Learning so much. Amazing info. Will report back...

**mon2** · 01-28-2021, 01:22 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Ok. Desoldered and reflashed the MBIOS IC (Winbond W25Q32) with the latest bios image from Gigabyte website. Verified ok.

The original contents were non-blank but still did a full erase and applied the latest bios.

Still no power on beep for the missing video card. Have the DRAM sticks installed at this time.

Any other ideas?

Could the CPU be dead? Looking into sourcing another AMD cpu for testing. Very strange the board would just 'die'.

**SMDFlea** · 01-28-2021, 01:41 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Did you flash to both bios chips .

**mon2** · 01-28-2021, 01:50 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

No. only the MBIOS chip. The 2nd chip is under a heatsink. Should that IC be flashed with the same latest firmware (bios) image?

**SMDFlea** · 01-28-2021, 02:08 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

The M should be main ,and B should be backup so it should be ok with the bios you flashed. I didn`t know the B was under a heatsink, i only asked to make sure you hadn`t just flashed the backup and not main.

**dicky96** · 01-28-2021, 04:19 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Not sure what test equipment you have...

but are any of the clocks running (U185A)

What is happening with the CPU reset signals

**mon2** · 01-28-2021, 09:10 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Will check tomorrow. The reset appears to be ok. Checked against the cluster of 2n7002 gets. If #reset is pressed then the open drain lines are pulled low.

All caps appear to be fine and no low resistance across the caps.

Will study the clocks tomorrow.

Thanks.

**Dannyx** · 04-27-2021, 09:17 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Hello chaps. I have a fairly similar MB with a fairly similar issue, so I thought I'd join too, in addition to creating my own thread, in case someone's been watching this more than mine.

My board is a ga-990fxa-d3 and has pretty much the same symptoms: won't do anything upon hitting the power button aside run its voltage rails and spin the fan. No beeps, not nothing. All the voltages seem there, including VCore (CPU gets hot). I know the CPU and RAM are good because I tested them in another MB and they work fine (unless this bad MB killed either of them somehow in the process, which I doubt, because I used this CPU before in it and then moved it back to the functional MB and it survived).I found the schematic for my board (though no boardview, so if anyone has one, it would be great if you could share it) and I'm thinking of maybe replacing the clock chip on page 13 (ics9lprs477)...

I tried using one of those cheap POST diagnostics cards, which although FAR from professional, tells me there's probably something wrong with the clock chip, because the "CLK" LED is only dimly lit and flashes every 2 seconds along with the RESET LED. The LCD display of the test jig shows what you see in the pics, which is not very relevant. The CPU has Vcore and gets hot, so I assume it's OK.

What I tried:
-reflashing the M_BIOS SPI chip as described before

-replacing the crystals around the bottom heatsink for the SB where the clock chip is located, not knowing what each does at that time. Looking at the schematic, I now know X7 is the one connected to the clock chip itself. It's worth noting all of them came from another dead board I had around, so it's not guaranteed they're good (do crystals have a tendency to fail or don't like being heated up too much ?)

-I noticed that if I remove the ATX_12V connector so the CPU is not powered, the CLK LED DOES light up solid, which would almost make you believe there's something wrong with the CPU and it kills the clock line. Then again, I'm not sure what these cheapo diagnostics cards really look at in order to determine if that CLOCK LED should be on or off, since there are multiple clock lines - not just the CPU one.

Attached Files

**dicky96** · 04-27-2021, 09:52 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

@DannyX
I don't know if this relevant but I have a POST test card where the RESET LED goes off when the reset switch is pressed, and comes on bright when the board is running. Like it works the opposite way round to what I would have expected. What happens with the CLK LED on your POST tester?

**Dannyx** · 04-27-2021, 10:11 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Actually, I stand corrected:

On a working MB, the RESET LED comes on when you actually hit the reset button (pull the RESET pin of the front panel connector low to GND). On the "bad" Gigabyte motherboard, it does the same thing, except it flashes every 2s as the board fails to start and keeps resetting. It stays on continuously if I unplug the ATX_12v connector, but not if I remove the CPU itself ! It's as if the CPU is not being detected, as it has little impact on the whole operation whether it's in place or not, though it DOES get hot and I get Vcore.

The CLOCK LED: it stays on in a functional MB and glows dimly on the Gigabyte one and flashes whenever the RESET one also flashes. It does this with or without the CPU in place. It goes out entirely if the ATX 12v connector is disconnected.

EDIT: I made another discovery, which for some reason I thought I had already made. The CPU I'm testing this MOBO with is an FX-8320....guess what: this is not in the supported CPU list over on Gigabyte's website....
A little backstory: this board belonged to a friend of mine who asked me to take a look at it once it no longer worked. He brought it in with his own CPU which I can assume was compatible, since it had worked till that point. He took his CPU back after a while and that's when I remembered I had this 8320 lying around, so I dug it out and without checking, just tossed it in the socket. Since it fit, I just assumed I could carry on trying to fix the MOBO, but it turns out it's not in the support list, so that is certainly part of the problem....I sure hope I didn't kill the 8320 too, since I DO have a good MOBO I want to use it in, so that would be pretty sad ! :|

**Dannyx** · 04-30-2021, 10:57 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Ok, I actually managed to get mine working. This is what happened:

After realizing the CPU I was testing with was not in the supported CPU list, I ordered the cheapest one I could find that was compatible. It didn't change anything: same exact behavior and messages from my post card. At this point I had nothing to lose, so I used some flux and hot air to reflow the Southbridge chip (bottom heatsink). Still nothing.

I was then going to scrap the board and keep the two heatsinks, so after popping off the one on the Northbridge too, since the board was still hooked up to my test setup, I thought "meh - why not" and used a screwdriver to push down pretty hard on the NB. Get this: I heard like a "click" from the buzzer and the POST codes on my POST card suddenly started changing and going apesh!t... Realizing I may be on to something, I cut the power, added a graphics card and tried firing it up again normally. This time, I actually got some POST codes AND a beep ! Better still: I got picture and the BIOS began copying over from the backup one, so the board is now working ! Turns out it was the NB all along. I didn't bother to reflow it like I did with the SB, since I'm not planning to do anything with this board, so if it works it works. If it dies again, maybe then I'll hit the NB with some heat as well. It's highly unlikely it will last, since the solder balls are probably gone and will fail again if left unused - it's probably because the chip got warmer than normal when it had its heatsink removed that got it going and me pressing down on it was just a coincidence....

Try it - nothing to lose.

**taxxin** · 05-02-2021, 06:49 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Originally posted by Dannyx

Ok, I actually managed to get mine working. This is what happened:

After realizing the CPU I was testing with was not in the supported CPU list, I ordered the cheapest one I could find that was compatible. It didn't change anything: same exact behavior and messages from my post card. At this point I had nothing to lose, so I used some flux and hot air to reflow the Southbridge chip (bottom heatsink). Still nothing.

I was then going to scrap the board and keep the two heatsinks, so after popping off the one on the Northbridge too, since the board was still hooked up to my test setup, I thought "meh - why not" and used a screwdriver to push down pretty hard on the NB. Get this: I heard like a "click" from the buzzer and the POST codes on my POST card suddenly started changing and going apesh!t... Realizing I may be on to something, I cut the power, added a graphics card and tried firing it up again normally. This time, I actually got some POST codes AND a beep ! Better still: I got picture and the BIOS began copying over from the backup one, so the board is now working ! Turns out it was the NB all along. I didn't bother to reflow it like I did with the SB, since I'm not planning to do anything with this board, so if it works it works. If it dies again, maybe then I'll hit the NB with some heat as well. It's highly unlikely it will last, since the solder balls are probably gone and will fail again if left unused - it's probably because the chip got warmer than normal when it had its heatsink removed that got it going and me pressing down on it was just a coincidence....

Try it - nothing to lose.

Very nice read, I like the screw driver trick. i have 2 amd boards sitting here untested, so its great to know

**tlhIngan** · 06-29-2021, 11:54 PM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Hello,
Just created an account to download that board view. I have the same board and it started no-POSTing and no-beeping a few days ago. I ruled out the power supply, RAM, video card and CPU by trying spares.
Tonight, I took out the board to give it a thorough look and found a burned chip near a cap, next to the northbridge. I can't attach pictures with a new account. Hopefully, this is the (only) culprit and can be replaced cheaply.
Thanks for the board view!

**dicky96** · 07-01-2021, 02:18 AM

Re: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

@tlhIngan
You're welcome

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 No boot

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