# GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H Owners Thread



## Sasqui (Nov 15, 2012)

If you have a GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H and are interested in sharing tips, tricks and questions about the board, please post here!

Many thanks to Cadaveca, for his review here:  http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/Z77X-UD5H_WiFi/

I recently picked up mine at Microcenter, along with a 3570K.  This will be my second Gigabyte board out of a more that a dozen over 2 decades of PC building.  It has not been powered up as of this first post, though I've gone through the manual while I was travelling.  Hope to test and burn-in this weekend.

Suggested topics:  

Overclocking
Gigabyte Software 
Hardware Compatibility
BIOS Versions
Cooling and Fan Controls
Links to downloads through www.gigabyte.us:

Manual (English): http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-z77x-ud5h_e.pdf
Manual (English, Intel Rapid Start/Intel Smart Connect/Intel Smart Response manual ...support may vary by model...: http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_intel-ui_e.pdf
BIOS List:  http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4139#bios
BIOS (latest F14): http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/BIOS/mb_bios_ga-z77x-ud5h_f14.exe
Drivers and Utilities: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4139#driver

My first question is about "*Smart Recovery 2*", which allows you to backup your OS on a partition on the primary OS drive.  Questions:  Does it work?  Can you restore the OS to a different drive?

Second question is about the BIOS, any particular version that is good/bad?

More to come.  If you own the board, please subscribe and list the CPU, memory and GPU you are using (and BIOS version if you know it), I will compile a list here.

So far:
*NeoCrisis*:  3570k / 8GB Corsair Vengeance / GTX 670
*Jack1n*:     3570k / 8GB Corsair Dominator Plat / Radeon HD7950
*mm67 *:     3770k / ? Memory / Dual HD6870's
*Sasqui*:     3570k / 16 GB G.Skill Sniper 2133 C9 / Intel 4000 HD (for now)


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## vawrvawerawe (Nov 15, 2012)

I would have probably bought this one if the MSI one wasn't on sale for such an amazing deal.


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## NeoCrisis (Nov 18, 2012)

I'm loving my motherboard havent taken advantage of the mstata yet but soon


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## Jack1n (Nov 18, 2012)

Sign me up,using latest f12 bios.


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## Sasqui (Nov 18, 2012)

Jack1n said:


> Sign me up,using latest f12 bios.



What version board? I got the v1.1, came with the f14 BIOS.


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## mm67 (Nov 18, 2012)

I'm running a rev 1.0 board with an i7-3770K, bios F15d


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## Sasqui (Nov 18, 2012)

mm67 said:


> I'm running a rev 1.0 board with an i7-3770K, bios F15d



Your sys specs show a i7 2500K in a P67 motherboard.  Did you buy yourself a christmas present?


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## mm67 (Nov 18, 2012)

I have that Z68 system in sys specs and Asrock Z68 E3G3, Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H, Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H systems


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## Jack1n (Nov 18, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> What version board? I got the v1.1, came with the f14 BIOS.



I meant to say F14 got mixed up,my board is version 1.0 is there a difference?


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## Sasqui (Nov 18, 2012)

mm67 said:


> I have that Z68 system in sys specs and Asrock Z68 E3G3, Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H, Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H systems



Nice...  so you've got a 3770K and what video card in the UD5H?  Going to add it to the list.



Jack1n said:


> I meant to say F14 got mixed up,my board is version 1.0 is there a difference?



I didn't even know they had a rev 1.1 until I took the motherboard out of the package yesterday.  I read that the LAN1 has chip update, the Atheros 8161(Atheros 8151 for rev. 1.0 of motherboard)

Someone asked about "soundproblem (greenport and 5.1 output)" in 1.0, but don't know if it's fixed in 1.1.


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## mm67 (Nov 18, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> Nice...  so you've got a 3770K and what video card in the UD5H?  Going to add it to the list.



UD5H system is running with two HD6870 cards.


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## Jack1n (Nov 18, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> Nice...  so you've got a 3770K and what video card in the UD5H?  Going to add it to the list.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Haha found exactly the same thing on google,any way i use the intel lan port and i dont use the on-board audio so its all good to me.


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## Sasqui (Nov 20, 2012)

Updated list.



Jack1n said:


> Haha found exactly the same thing on google,any way i use the intel lan port and i dont use the on-board audio so its all good to me.



Yea, I don't think there's anything big, Gigabyte doesn't even list the 1.1 rev on thier website.


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## Jimbo900 (Nov 27, 2012)

Great Idea! should make looking for help a whole lot easier.

I just bought your cousin, the GA-Z77-D3H with i5_3570K.  Don't have the parts yet but just starting to read up on possible issues.  Haven't built a system in ages.  Don't know how different the Z77-D3H is from the X-UD5H.
What did you pick for memory?


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## PatoRodrigues (Nov 30, 2012)

Sasqui, hope to get in the "club" in few days. It's coming! 

really like the OC potential this board looks to have (as told by you in another topic).

Anybody here has the version with the PCIe WiFi card included? Already used it?


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## Sasqui (Nov 30, 2012)

Jimbo900 said:


> Great Idea! should make looking for help a whole lot easier.
> 
> I just bought your cousin, the GA-Z77-D3H with i5_3570K.  Don't have the parts yet but just starting to read up on possible issues.  Haven't built a system in ages.  Don't know how different the Z77-D3H is from the X-UD5H.
> What did you pick for memory?



G.Skill Sniper 2133 C9 1.65v



PatoRodrigues said:


> Anybody here has the version with the PCIe WiFi card included? Already used it?



My guess is that the add-on is nice, but a dedicted Wifi or BT card would be better.  If you have rig that high end, likely, you'd have cable anyway?


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## PatoRodrigues (Nov 30, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> My guess is that the add-on is nice, but a dedicted Wifi or BT card would be better.  If you have rig that high end, likely, you'd have cable anyway?



Certainly you can afford a dedicated one haha!


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## drdeathx (Nov 30, 2012)

I am running the Gigabyte Z77-UP7 with 3 x Radeon 7970's and love it. It overclocks great and i broke 6GHz on dry Ice.


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## drdeathx (Nov 30, 2012)

FYI: XSPC is making a full motherboard block. Haven't seen it retail yet but it is up on their website.


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## ckoons1 (Jan 6, 2013)

how does UD5H compare to SNIPER 3?
if i am only using one video card is there any advantage?
thx


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## drdeathx (Jan 6, 2013)

ckoons1 said:


> how does UD5H compare to SNIPER 3?
> if i am only using one video card is there any advantage?
> thx



There is no real advantage. Save the $ if your only using 1 card.


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## Jack1n (Jan 6, 2013)

The sniper comes with better Audio,thats it basicly.


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## ckoons1 (Jan 13, 2013)

picked up the UD5H
thanks Cadaveca
waiting on water block


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## cadaveca (Jan 13, 2013)

ckoons1 said:


> picked up the UD5H
> thanks Cadaveca
> waiting on water block



UD5H is a killer board.


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## Sasqui (Jan 14, 2013)

ckoons1 said:


> picked up the UD5H
> thanks Cadaveca
> waiting on water block





cadaveca said:


> UD5H is a killer board.



It really is... and it's relatively simple so far.  I *still* haven't gotten mine under water yet, spent a few days cleaning out a 4 yr old gunked up loop and now it's ready for prime time.  Hoping to see my 3570K @4.8Ghz, it did 4.7Ghz stable on air with just a little work.


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## Zenith (Jan 14, 2013)

I got to RMA my P67A-UD5 since all SATA2 port are dead. Maybe I will get UD5H as replacement since P67A got to be out of stock.


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## NeoCrisis (Apr 10, 2013)

Sasqui said:


> Hoping to see my 3570K @4.8Ghz, it did 4.7Ghz stable on air with just a little work.



what are you settings? So far it seems that 4.6 is the max for mine. Also has anyone running windows 8 while using the msata for caching? It was easy setting it up on win7 and stable but on 8 i was having issues getting it to enable.


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## _ALB_R3D X (Apr 10, 2013)

Got mine a couple days after reading cadaveca's review and I'm lovin it in every way.
Minor problems I had were : after BIOS update (f14 I think) I lost the intel LAN,went back to f12 and everything was fine.
It also happens that when I first boot the whole system goes into a boot cycle 2 or 3 times and after that everything starts up fine.
I'm missing my system lately... moved to a new house and after 5 month I still don't have internet coverage in the area


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## tallguy (May 20, 2013)

Hi guys,

I may as well weigh in here too. I just finished my 1st build in probably 15 or 30 yrs, inspired by my son, as I have been needing a 'storage solution' for my new photography hobby. I needed a replacement for my aging laptop, but am intrigued by the tablets, ultrabooks and convertibles, but decided that everything is changing too quickly right now, so there is no clear way to go.

Started out with just using a new 3TB drive and decided to deploy a small SSD for the OS and used an old desktop point-of-sale system, but then shortly after decided to go ahead and build myself a desktop.

I had a ton of learning to do to catch up on the latest details of parts and such, but found out that really mostly what has changed from 15 yrs ago are the numbers and letters, the basics are still the same... sort of.   = )

I've learned a lot about Win 7, clean installs, moving the user profiles off onto the hdd, Intel's Smart Response Technology and their Rapid Storage Technology. Got my mSata drive installed and configured to cache the hdd.

Not into overclocking, so I'll just enjoy the fast new hardware for now, although I did tweak up the memory to 1600. No wi-fi or 1394, barely needed a discrete graphics card, but figured it couldn't hurt. Couldn't really verify that image processing would require much beyond basic CAD / Business graphics.

Having just a couple of issues, both related to USB ports. One is that sometimes a memory stick or external drive or printer is not 'noticed' by the the hardware.

The other is that booting from a USB stick doesn't want to be 'settable' in the BIOS, but only from the shortcut Boot Menu if/when the USB is present. (BIOS Rev 14)

Cheers, Bill~


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## Sasqui (May 20, 2013)

tallguy said:


> Not into overclocking, so I'll just enjoy the fast new hardware for now, although I did tweak up the memory to 1600. No wi-fi or 1394, barely needed a discrete graphics card, but figured it couldn't hurt. Couldn't really verify that image processing would require much beyond basic CAD / Business graphics.
> 
> Having just a couple of issues, both related to USB ports. One is that sometimes a memory stick or external drive or printer is not 'noticed' by the the hardware.
> 
> ...



Welcome to the club...  make sure to fill out your sytem specs so we know what you've got.

Cheers.


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## tallguy (May 20, 2013)

Sasqui said:


> Welcome to the club...  make sure to fill out your sytem specs so we know what you've got.
> 
> Cheers.




Thanks Sasqui, I did that before posting... and I'm hoping that shows for y'all.  ;-)


(Edit: My bad, I didn't realize I had the (default) option of hiding the specs! Should be available now! thx~)


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## tallguy (May 20, 2013)

tallguy said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> 
> ...
> ...



Is anyone else experiencing USB finicky-ness?

And how about the Boot Order for USB sticks? I'm thinking I must be missing a setting somewhere, but all my USB settings, including the legacy USB 2 settings are enabled.

This is my first experience with a graphical bios and it's impressive, indeed. But I'm surprised that even old, old bioses that I've seen easily support the boot from USB device setting, whereas this one (F14) doesn't seem to list this basic option. I can see it when I boot from USB 'manually' using the Boot Menu with stick inserted, but otherwise it's doesn't seem to be an option.


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## davnel (Jan 19, 2014)

Sasqui:
First off, since no one answered you, Xpress Recovery 2 is apparently a backup scheme for your boot disk. It ONLY supports storing he image ON THE BOOT DRIVE. Since I'm using a 240GB SSD to dual-boot W7 and W8.1, there ain't much spare room for such silliness. Therefore, I didn't install it. If you have a whirlydisk as a boot device, with lots of room, and you DON'T have Acronis or something similar, it seems like a viable option. I DO use Acronis to image my boot drive, usually before any change (no, I don't use "restore points" either - wastes too much of very limited room), and at least weekly. Those images get stored on an external 2TB drive.

Second, this is a new board, and my first UEFI BIOS. I don't think I like it much (the BIOS, that is - the board's a killer). My previous machine was based on a Gigabyte X58A-UD5 mobo, with an i7-920 and 24GB of DDR3-1600 RAM. I had installed two Antec Easy-SATA adapters to allow changing the boot drive, and one data drive, easily. That worked splendidly. Shut down, change disk, power up. No, I didn't enable AHCI on SATA channels 0..3 so I didn't have hot-swap capability. Was gonna play with that, but started having problems with that system, and replaced it. Problem turned out to be pilot error during initial build, which got fixed, so I now have two good systems.

In the X58 BIOS, I would assign which SATA slot was the boot drive, which DVD and which USB HD were checked in which order. That ain't possible in the Z77 BIOS. The silly thing goes out and looks at what's there AT THE MOMENT, then decides to boot from something entirely different, like one of the data disks. So, it sits there and cycles through POST like mad. The only way to stop it is to go into Setup and correct it's scattered brain. The worse thing is that it sometimes takes several restarts of Setup to recognize the disks that are there.

Anyway, this motherboard, and especially this BIOS, seems to be designed for a single, fixed, almost appliance mode, build (which kinda makes me wonder why it's giving me such fits over which drive to boot from). It's difficult to swap disks when that usually requires a trip into Setup, or punching F12 and selecting the disk from a list. What's the point? Anything other than the standard one-boot-disk-plus-data-disks setup is made difficult. Also, if you use the same make/model of disk, it will usually boot. If you change Mfr or size or even model, it usually won't. Frustrating! The X58 BIOS didn't care.....

"Got a bootable drive in that slot? Great! Let's go!"

Based on that, and a lot more, I have decided to set this machine up as a no-change, non experimental appliance, with an SSD to boot from. I'm going back to the X58 machine for playing around. It's better suited anyway. Total waste of time and money on this kluge. Sure wish someone had warned me. But then again, I'm probably one of three idiots in the world that use the computer this way.

Oh, well, if you listen to Microsoft, we'll all be computing on tablets, or watches, or brain implants in the near future, so we won't have to worry about a desktop messing up.

Life goes on.....
.


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## davnel (Jan 19, 2014)

tallguy said:


> Is anyone else experiencing USB finicky-ness?
> 
> And how about the Boot Order for USB sticks? I'm thinking I must be missing a setting somewhere, but all my USB settings, including the legacy USB 2 settings are enabled.
> 
> This is my first experience with a graphical bios and it's impressive, indeed. But I'm surprised that even old, old bioses that I've seen easily support the boot from USB device setting, whereas this one (F14) doesn't seem to list this basic option. I can see it when I boot from USB 'manually' using the Boot Menu with stick inserted, but otherwise it's doesn't seem to be an option.



I had tried to use a Logitech "unifying" keyboard/mouse set on this board. It just didn't work, before the OS loaded. I finally got mad and tested every USB port on the board, internal and rear-panel. What I found was that some of them were active during POST, and some weren't. Of course, the one I selected for the Logitech wasn't. I moved the adapter to an active port and it works fine now. More Gigabyte/AMI messing around. This has to be a setting issue, so I'll figure it out, eventually.

It has been said that the UEFI spec is so bloody complicated that NOBODY understands it well enough to write a good BIOS from. Probably true. Sure seems that way, anyhow.
.


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## davnel (Jan 19, 2014)

drdeathx said:


> FYI: XSPC is making a full motherboard block. Haven't seen it retail yet but it is up on their website.



You will find this water block at:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...Coverage_Motherboard_Block.html?tl=c89s147b49

for $112.99 US.


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## Vario (Jan 19, 2014)

Does that fit UD3H?


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## davnel (Jan 20, 2014)

They look the same to me, mechanically. The UD3 has smaller heatsinks, and they are not connected by a heatpipe. I don't really know. You'll have to ask XSPC.

UD3H:      http://www.gigabyte.us/fileupload/product/2/4441/7255_big.jpg
UD5H:      http://www.gigabyte.us/fileupload/product/2/4440/7251_big.jpg
UP7:         http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/4334/6676_big.jpg

On second thought, I don't think so. All three boards are different enough, in component placement, to interfere.
.


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## davnel (Jan 20, 2014)

I do have one further question.
Is there a method I can use to place a bootable MBR on both data drives? The object would be to accommodate this board's propensity for booting off the wrong disk. Maybe a Microsoft or GRUB bootloader that just sits there with a message like - "Hey, Dummy, the boot drive's broke!". I'm going to look into "Dual Boot Pro" for a possible answer.
.


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## Vario (Jan 20, 2014)

Its that darn cmos battery.  


davnel said:


> They look the same to me, mechanically. The UD3 has smaller heatsinks, and they are not connected by a heatpipe. I don't really know. You'll have to ask XSPC.
> 
> UD3H:      http://www.gigabyte.us/fileupload/product/2/4441/7255_big.jpg
> UD5H:      http://www.gigabyte.us/fileupload/product/2/4440/7251_big.jpg
> ...


Its that darn cmos battery!


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## davnel (Jan 20, 2014)

Hey! If we show enough interest, maybe they'll cover the other two also.
 On second thought, between the battery and the mSTAT socket, probably not on the UD3H, at least.

.


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## Sasqui (Jan 20, 2014)

davnel said:


> Based on that, and a lot more, I have decided to set this machine up as a no-change, non experimental appliance, with an SSD to boot from. I'm going back to the X58 machine for playing around. It's better suited anyway. Total waste of time and money on this kluge. Sure wish someone had warned me. But then again, I'm probably one of three idiots in the world that use the computer this way.



I suspect anyone wanting to boot from different drives would have the same complaint.  After some searching through other forums it definitely is an issue.  I'm only running off one OS and boot drive so it hasn't affected me.  The board has been awesome so far.


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## davnel (Jan 20, 2014)

I quite agree on the board/cpu combo. It's great! Too bad they had to mess it up with that disastrous BIOS! I guess I can try overclocking the i7-920 to gain some horsepower. It's supposed to be eminently overclockable, up to way over 4GHz on the GA-X58A-UD5 board. Should be interesting. I have a few articles on precisely how to overclock that CPU.
.


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