GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

[Jobol]

Hey guys,

So I purchased a brand new GA-EX58-UD3R recently to run it with my i7 920 that I have been stashing for a while.

Connected everything, and booted just fine into Vista. First thing I did is take my 920 to 4.1Ghz, at a conservative 1.34 voltage...everything else was set to auto in the bios, beside my RAM that I set explicitly to 1.6v.

Started RealTemp, and then prime95, using 4 cores (8 threads). A few minutes later, the CPU reached around 80C which seems to be fine, but the heatsinks on the pwm on the mobo were getting really, really, really hot. And all of a sudden, the PC shutsdown..the smell of a burning component filled the air.

So I touched the heatsinks again and they were still hot like crazy. I waited until they cooled down and turned the system ON again, and this is where I was greeted by smoke coming out of the motherboard!! It seems to be originating from the capacitors near the heatsink that sais "Ultra Durable".. or near that area at least.

Now the system will not boot anymore, and I don't know wether the Mobo burned my CPU or my video card in the same token because I dont have another mobo to test with

So what do I do now guys? I am about to RMA it...but I am afraid they might just give me the same card and give me no choice to chose another brand.

I am now traumatized as this is my first time ever trying the Gigabyte brand and so far, not so good. I always chose Asus over everything else, and never had an issue. Was my board just bad, or is that a common failure on these motherboards?

[PrairieDawg]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Not trying to flame you ... but what the heck.....? Umm ....ok .... so you overclocked and cooked the board and it is whos' fault??? The thing started at 2.66 and you took it directly to 4.1? You may get lucky and an RMA may get through but nobody ever promised that your system would do the speed you tried. Overclocking to any particular level is not a garantee and overclocking to ANY level is, in reality, pushing components beyond what they are designed (and usually waranteed) for. Overclocking should always be done in stages and ALWAYS has a certain amount of risk that the overclocker must expect and accept.

[Jobol]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Not trying to flame you ... but what the heck.....? Umm ....ok .... so you overclocked and cooked the board and it is whos' fault??? The thing started at 2.66 and you took it directly to 4.1? You may get lucky and an RMA may get through but nobody ever promised that your system would do the speed you tried. Overclocking to any particular level is not a garantee and overclocking to ANY level is, in reality, pushing components beyond what they are designed (and usually waranteed) for. Overclocking should always be done in stages and ALWAYS has a certain amount of risk that the overclocker must expect and accept.

I didn't take it directly to 4.1Ghz. I just wanted to be brief for the sake of the message length.

What I did is that I followed Gigabyte's own guide to overclocking the CPU, and eventually lended up pretty fast to 4.1Ghz.

Not that it matters, really. If they sell you a motherboard touted to be an "overclockers" motherboard, you should not expect it to burn when it is operating under it's own set of parameters.

And btw, the 920 I had I knew it does 4.1Ghz as I had it since march and I was running it on another brand of Mobo that I have no more with no issue whatsoever.


.

[artdrivers]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Hi Jobol You might want to try this next time. http://images.tweaktown.com/imageban...2.12_(ENG).pdf

[Jobol]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Hi Jobol You might want to try this next time. http://images.tweaktown.com/imageban...2.12_(ENG).pdf

Thanks ArtDrivers for your reply.

This is the exact same guide I followed. Although I never took my CPU Vcore to 1.4...I kept it at 1.34V

Is it normal for the pwm heatsinks to get extremly hot like that?

[artdrivers]

[Jobol]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Actually, easytune was reporting 60C under load, but realtemp was reporting 80C. I don't know which one is more accurate.

I am guessing I had a bad board for it (the board) to be so hot.

[NimrodAUS]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Yeah Probably was a bad board. I have seen people with that speed on the same board with no problems. All you can do is try and RMA it just dont tell them you clocked the shi.t out of it. Sorry to hear dude.

[Jobol]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Yeah Probably was a bad board. I have seen people with that speed on the same board with no problems. All you can do is try and RMA it just dont tell them you clocked the shi.t out of it. Sorry to hear dude.

Thanks for your intervention Nimrod.

What I find weird is that I don't consider I abused of it so much. 1.34 vcore and 1.6vmem, everything else is auto. I consider that a mild voltage change from default.

I will keep you guys posted.

[NimrodAUS]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Yeah mate you havent done anything that should under normal conditions make a board to that. I dont think you will have any trouble getting a replacement or whatever. MB dont do that often. They just wont turn on or boot or stuff. Good luck mate. Keep us posted.

[demonsavatar]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

Thanks for your intervention Nimrod.

What I find weird is that I don't consider I abused of it so much. 1.34 vcore and 1.6vmem, everything else is auto. I consider that a mild voltage change from default.

I will keep you guys posted.

Ahh beware using "AUTO" at such high overclocks! The BIOS, I believe, attempts to scale things up linearly. AUTO is good and fine usually for the modest overclock but at 4.1Ghz you must take important voltages into your own hands. If it scaled your IOH voltage up too high I can imagine why this may happen.

I agree that the board burning up is strange, there are usually better failsafes to prevent physical damage. I don't think RMA should give you too much trouble. They may not believe what your settings were though stranger things have happened: I remember long ago a PII board I had burned up for no reason. Ended up a stray screw was stuck on the board and shorted the thing out!

[Jobol]

Re: GA-EX58-UD3R no more, she's on fire!

I will pay attention to the "Auto" setting next time.

And I already had boards shorted by bad contacts with the case or a lose screw. But in this case I assembled the system on the table for testing before putting it inside the case.

Again, thanks all for your replies.