Gigabyte P67A-UD5 Sata Issue

[Five21]

Hi all,

I'm at my wits end here, as I have been stuck with this issues for almost a month now and am running out of ideas. Essentially in a nutshell the problem is that if I connect either of my 2 Sata DVD drives, the system won't POST.

I'm running stock everything currently with the F3 bios, I've tried updating and it made no difference. I have the original Sata DVD which I had working with this system for the best part of a year, and also a new one I purchased to test to see if it was drive related. Both cause the issue:

During POST it says, "Detecting IDE Drives" and one of several things will happen:
1) It will hang with no drives detected.
2) It will hang with only my SSD and HDD detected.
3) It will hang with all drives detected including the DVD.
4) It will print weird "L" characters after it detects the DVD on each line, indented by 1 character each time - so it looks like a staircase made from "L"s. This has only happened a half dozen times, and only with the new 'test' drive.
5) It will boot to Windows7 64bit, I will see the drive in Windows Explorer, and then it will vanish.

That's it.

My specs:
Gigabyte P67A-UD5
8GB GSkill RAM
2xHD 5770 GPUs
Zalman 850W PSU
OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD
Seagate 1TB HDD

I've tried all combinations of Sata ports, and cables.
I've given the drive it's own rail and power cable.
I've played around with about as many bios settings as there are available to do with the ports, Sata modes and so forth.
I've checked all cables, removed all hardware, and still no dice.

I'm essentially starting to consider that it may be the motherboard... which is painful to replace. :| Has anyone had this before? It's driving me insane, as POST errors don't really give you much to go on, other than "Something is wrong."

[Fatbird]

Is your motherboard's model "P67A-UD5-B3"? Remove all your SATA devices first. Attach your OS HDD to SATA3_0 and one of your ODD to SATA3_1 only. System OK~?

[Five21]

Hey Fatbird, thanks for the reply. I cannot see any mention of B3 on the box, label or anywhere else. So I don't think so.

I have enabled SATA AHCI mode, which lets me boot into Win7 at least. I have both DVD drives connected. However one of them doesn't show in explorer, and the other is not useable - it works briefly, pauses, the program errors or crashes, and so on - rinse/repeat. When you say ODD do you mean HDD/SDD or DVD? I will give it a go regardless, even if it's not a B3 revision. Thanks!

P.S. Without the DVDs in, and even with the DVDs in (running in AHCI Sata mode) the system is stable, but I can't use the DVDs naturally.

[Five21]

Ok so my SSD is in SATA3_0 and my main 1TB HDD is in SATA3_1 and the system is fine.

The issue arises when I put either DVD into any other SATA port.

[flesheatinvirus]

When ran together I believe they overdrive the s2 circuits with current which can cause issues, early issue with rev1 boards perhaps.

[AMD_Freak]

IMO if its not a B3 version of the UD5 I would contact Gigabyte for a RMA, have you tried to update to the newest Bios I see you mention your using F3 which I believe is the stock (1st release) bios. there is a known issues with Sata with the non b3 versions.

[Fatbird]

Ok so my SSD is in SATA3_0 and my main 1TB HDD is in SATA3_1 and the system is fine.

The issue arises when I put either DVD into any other SATA port.

Great~~~ I suppose u ran into the dead loop of the famous Intel call-back action on PCH B2 stepping. Contact your regional Gigabyte tech support and ask for the call-back action of your motherboard.

[Five21]

Thanks for all the replies.

I'm confused as to why this was working fine earlier this year, and now it refuses to work regardless of what I do. I've sent a message to Gigabyte, there may be somewhere I can send it here for an RMA. I'm kind of annoyed my retailer sold me a board with such a fundamental issue if there actually are issues with the early pre B3 revisions.

[flesheatinvirus]

Yes they had issues to the degree of Gig offering replacement B3 rev boards. I still have one of the rev1 boards though I only use the two sata 3 ports and the board cranks so I kept it.

[Five21]

I'm assuming if this was a B3 board, it would be clearly marked somewhere?

I upgraded to the F7 bios last night, and still no dice. One person suggested just getting a Sata->USB converter and plugging in the DVD like that, and calling it a day. If the board was stopping me from using my GPUs or something, I would be far more fussed, but going through all this for just my DVD drive, seems more work than reward.

Thoughts?

[Fatbird]

Problem happens at Intel side regarding the design (or something) of SATA2 that requires a silicon level fix. Your board is the first version B2 PCH board. Not only gigabyte board will have this problem, if you are using Asus B2 board the situation will be just the same. Return the board and get a new one... otherwise take the USB suggestion. for me? I'll get a new one.

[Five21]

Yeah I can see the logic in that Fatbird, I just use my PC for work, and the RMA time has been given to me as 2-4 weeks, and I simply cannot wait for that. So today I bought to USB kits, and will give it a whirl in a moment. When I got home today however, my board had lost my network adapter... somehow. So I really hope this is not the start of something new, it appeared again after a reboot, and then went, and now it's back.

Seriously, I would love to just get a break.

Anyway, thanks for all the information and help, I never knew these boards had a manufacturing issue, I'm surprised my store sold it to me in the first place. o_o'

[Five21]

Ok so I got some USB->SATA adapters and tada, problem fix... well, problem avoided.

Thanks for the information, advice and help.