Gigabyte GAZ87n WIFI — issues? (LONG)

Hardware Motherboards
1

I've been noticing a bunch of weird issues with my build lately. I did my first build back in January. It's an ITX build, and I think I did a pretty damn fine job, considering that I'd never done this before. But there have been some strange, seemingly random occurrences recently.

Here's what I've got:

Intel i5 4670

Corsair Vengeance 8GB, DDR3-1600

Western Digital Green 1TB

Samsung EVO 250GB (with the OS, and most of my games installed here)

I used to have a GTX 770 in here, but I sold it since I'm not playing much these days because of school. The PS is a SeaSonic 660W 80+ Platinum.

Anyway, the first issue I had with the computer was installing Windows 7 on the SSD. I had to fool around with the drive format or something. It was a hassle. All I remember was that the Windows installation wouldn't let me install to the SSD.

I've had a few weird, seemingly isolated issues since then. It should be noted that I'm not super savvy. I know how to figure stuff out, but I'm not really great at actually diagnosing issues.

Here are the issues:

After noticing that my computer had been waking itself from sleep, I changed it so my ethernet couldn't wake the computer, but that hasn't helped. Every once in a while this happens, and I can't figure out for the life of me why it happens (I disconnected the wifi antenna, and the wifi a while back, since I'm using ethernet).

Every once in a while, when waking the computer from sleep, the computer will instead restart into a safe boot menu.

A few times now, my computer has randomly blue-screened. As far as I can tell, this has never happened after an update or anything else. It seems random.

And the windows message center has been giving me those messages saying that there's a solution available for the computer not having shut down correctly, but then won't connect when I ask it to search for the solution. I've always hated the windows action center...

Finally, and this is the most frustrating, starting about three weeks ago my computer sometimes won't power my mouse and keyboard and USB audio interface when I'm hard booting. I'll be able to use my keyboard in the safe boot menu, but once Windows loads, the keyboard will stop working, as well as the mouse. Sometimes their lights are on, sometimes off. I end up having to use the case's restart button, and unplugging the USB connections until Windows loads, and this always works.

When I looked this up, people mentioned that it could be the motherboard in the throes of death. I saw a lot of people saying that this issue was common with Gigabyte motherboards. People suggested unplugging the power cable from the power supply for a few hours, to drain the CMOS battery. I tried that, and the computer hard booted okay, but the issue promptly returned every time I shut the computer down all the way.

Thanks for taking the time to read the entire thread. Any advice or help is greatly appreciated!

2

WOW, i think it is just a Motherboard Problem, hopefully cause if its anything else it will probably be a bitch to figure out.

I would just RMA the board and maybe get a different brand (Personally Asus looks good for me)

3

Bump.

Is it possible this could be an issue with the electricity in my house? I don't have a way to measure the voltage coming out of the walls, is it possible I might be getting less from the wall than I'm supposed to be?

4

Yes I suppose but would the like of Fridges, Freezers and Microwaves not suffer as well. It is morelikely this is a motherboard issue. 

5

Now that I think about it, my freezer is relatively warm. And I can't use my coffee grinder while I'm microwaving something... Guess it wouldn't hurt to go get a multimeter and check my sockets. I don't have the money to replace my mobo right now, so I'm really hoping that won't be necessary.

6

If you were checking the back of the freezer it is normal to be warm. it is pulling the heat out effectively and then dispersing it into the air through a radiator at the back. 

But since you said other things are playing up it is definitely worth checking the sockets. 

An RMA if the board is not too old should be free save for the shipping. 

7

Are you overloading any power points in the house?

8

Haha. I meant inside the freezer :D

I'll look into RMA, but it's been quite a while since I bought it.

9

It's entirely possible. It's an old house, and I just moved in in March. In the lease, it said the electricity was up to "1974 standard". The plugs are three prong, but I don't think they're grounded.

I did just bring over my Furman conditioner, and plugged in. So I'll have to see if the computer keeps acting up. It's not a voltage regulator, but we'll see if it helps at all.

10

Questions:

  • is the bios to date?
  • are system drivers up to date?
  • have you tried a linux environment and see if things are different?
  • did you bend any socket pins when installing the cpu?
  • have you run memtest86?
  • tried a barebones setup outside your pc case and out on a test bench?
  • are you able to test the machine at another house (modern wiring)?
11

"is the bios to date?"

Not at home. Will check tonight.

"are system drivers up to date?"

Yes.

"have you tried a linux environment and see if things are different?"

No. And since I don't really know how to reproduce these issues, I don't really feel like running Linux long term to see if the issues happen there too.

"did you bend any socket pins when installing the cpu?"

Nope. I'm very confident in the physical condition of my components after putting the PC together. Plus, these issues didn't start right away after firing up for the first time. These issues started coming up later on down the line.

"have you run memtest86?"

I will look into this later tonight. Thanks for the heads up.

"tried a barebones setup outside your pc case and out on a test bench?"

For me, this is too impractical. I don't have the space, or the time, or the patience to pull everything out of the case and run through everything.

"are you able to test the machine at another house (modern wiring)?"

Well, for the first 5 months I had the PC, I was living in a house with good, consistent electricity, and modern wiring. And, just to mention it again, I just brought my power conditioner over from my old house. I shut my PC off last night (I usually "sleep" it), and turning it on this morning, the KB/M were both powered (LEDs were lit), but weren't responding. Thing is, the KB/M issue isn't consistent. It's not happening every time I turn off the computer.

Let me know if you need more info. I'll look into the BIOS and memtest, and check back in tomorrow or Monday with an update. And thanks for taking the time to respond to the thread!