what's the deal with Gigabyte motherboards?

[ShawnD1]

One of my computers has had 2 Gigabyte motherboards in it (7VTXE) and both of them have gone south. Windows ends up shutting the computer down to "prevent damage" due to many things with paging in the memory (it means the ram, now virtual), IRQ problems, IDE problems and so on. Reinstallation of Windows never fixes the problem.
Last time this happened to my computer, some tech guys at the store tested the motherboard for me, found it had problems and sent it to Gigabyte under warranty. The replacement motherboard Gigabyte sent fixed the problems immediately and everything was great for the time being. Few months later (now) the computer is doing the same screwy crap it was doing before. Moving a large file like 400mb+ causes the computer to crash. Playing any video game causes the computer to crash after a few minutes of playing. Merely clicking once and not actually running certain video files causes the computer to crash.

So what's the deal with Gigabyte motherboards? This makes it 2 bad out of 2 total. That's 100% failure and that ain't right. Has anybody else had serious problem with Gigabyte motherboards?

[Gettinbye]

I used to have a Gigabyte GA-7VAX that was extremely stable running windows '98 and millenium, but could not run xp without system-wide failure. I upgraded to the GA-7VAXP and could not be happier. Very stable environment, and performance that I cannot complain about. I have zero experience with the 7VTXE. I'm guessing it's a matter of choosing the motherboard for the operating system and tasks you want to perform. I'm curious, though, if perhaps you're having problems due to heat stress and/or damage. You stated that you had no problems with a newly replaced board, and after a few months you again had the same problems. Have you monitored your temps? Or perhaps the 7VTXE is just a poorly designed board-I have no way of knowing as I've never used one, but I have been very happy with the 7VAXP.

[ShawnD1]

CPU temps?

The CPU temps are around 60C all the time because I run that program Genome@Home. I had to take off the right side of my case in order to keep the temps under 65. Damn them palamino cores run hot

[Gettinbye]

IMO, even under load that is a little on the warm side. Given that the mainboard will be within roughly 10-15*F, I'd guess your mainboard is running too hot. That could easily lead to premature failure. As a rule of thumb, anything over 50*C is unhealthy for a motherboard.

[Omardeth]

ya 60c is rather on the warm side . you must have bad air flow in the box .

[John Prophet]

could it be the curse of the stolen bad capacitor formula?

Have you looked at your caps to see if they are "bulged" at the top...they are sposed to be flat..if they are bulged out it is a problem.

There are some shots here http://www.feistworks.com/3comfix/

the second pic down..3 capacitors on the left..the middle cap has a small bulge...sometimes it is way more noticable but in the pic it is still "blown".

Can cause general instability etc

[dafanman]

ShawnD1
Sorry to hear about all of your troubles
I am running my first gigabyte board ever, and would have to say im very pleased with my gigabyte 7n400pro, Its been absolutely rock solid, overclocked, exactly what I expected from it.

Because I have a gigabyte board I frequent gigabyte mb forums, and find a lot of users with problems that a majority of them turn out to be power related.

So im wondering, how confident are you in your power supply?
Do you know what brand, and what the specs are per the label?
What all hardware is in the box?

Yeah, as I re read your post, I would be checking for power fluxuations.

[ShawnD1]

JP, my capacitors don't look like that now but they looked like that on my previous motherboard. They even started to have some weird crust forming on them.

Daf, the power is not a problem; trust me

[Scott Tiger]

Not that I'm doubting you ShawnD1 but what makes you sure your PSU isn't flaking out on you? Have you tested it?

Just having 450 jigawatt jobbie doesn't necessarily mean everything is okay. Testing that seems like a logical place to start. I'd test the RAM next.

[eagle1]

Well.. the manufacturer of the motherboard is not to blame.!
In fact, most of my mobos are Gigabyte (and I still have a k6-2 with a Gigabyte mobo somewhere) and they are quite stable and very good performers.

It COULD be that the motherboard is bad, but try checking every card and the memory modules first.