Tuesday, December 27th 2011
Gigabyte Recalling X79 UD3, UD5, G1.Assassin 2 Motherboards
Last week, a Taiwanese overclocker putting his OC workbench through an relatively laxed OC stress test saw its Gigabyte X79 UD3 motherboard go bust. Its CPU VRM couldn't cope with the stress, and blew a MOSFET. At the time, people responding to his video condoled him for his bad luck. It appears now that his wasn't a one-off case of "bad-egg". Gigabyte, in its latest press release on its Chinese website, noted the issue. Apparently it received several such complaints from overclockers where even moderate voltage-assisted CPU OC fried its VRM. The issue was found to be widespread, among three of its main socket LGA2011 products, the GA-X79-UD3, GA-X79-UD5, and G1.Assassin 2.
Apparently, the issue is caused by a cocktail of bad firmware to complement the board's PWM circuitry, and bad quality PWM components. As an immediate remedy, Gigabyte issued a BIOS update for the affected products. This BIOS, however, will cripple the board's overclocking abilities. The new BIOS will throttle CPU when subjected to extreme stress, to save the VRM. The BIOS remedy is only for those who opt to keep their boards, or don't subject the board to extreme tuning. The other remedy, is to return the board to Gigabyte, for a free replacement when the "right" boards are available. Gigabyte also announced a general recall of the GA-X79-UD3, GA-X79-UD5, and G1.Assassin 2, from the market. A video of the "unlucky" (not anymore) overclocker's day going bad, can be watched here.
Update (29/12): Gigabyte's German office wrote to us and explained that on their end they find the problem to be because of bad firmware, and not bad component quality; and that unlike Gigabyte Taiwan, they are not recalling products or soliciting replacements, but asking users to update their BIOS to the latest available. Gigabyte Germany set up a hotline for German customers, that's 040-253304-55.
Source:
Gigabyte
Apparently, the issue is caused by a cocktail of bad firmware to complement the board's PWM circuitry, and bad quality PWM components. As an immediate remedy, Gigabyte issued a BIOS update for the affected products. This BIOS, however, will cripple the board's overclocking abilities. The new BIOS will throttle CPU when subjected to extreme stress, to save the VRM. The BIOS remedy is only for those who opt to keep their boards, or don't subject the board to extreme tuning. The other remedy, is to return the board to Gigabyte, for a free replacement when the "right" boards are available. Gigabyte also announced a general recall of the GA-X79-UD3, GA-X79-UD5, and G1.Assassin 2, from the market. A video of the "unlucky" (not anymore) overclocker's day going bad, can be watched here.
70 Comments on Gigabyte Recalling X79 UD3, UD5, G1.Assassin 2 Motherboards
That said, my board didn't burn up at all, and I pushed pretty hard. Mind you, I use a cooler that gives a tonne of airflow to the VRM area directly(Noctua NH-C14). I had already completed all fo my testing, but I'll remount the board and see what happens with the F7 BIOS. Makes me happy I hadn't finished the review yet!
the split second you hear what sounds like someone scrunching aluminum foil into a ball you better yank that power lead quick smart :roll: :banghead:
I guess more details will come out soon but I think I would want to get a refund instead of living with a crippled bios.
edit: FWIW - I checked all the X79 bios download pages they all offer F7 bios now and all the description is exactly the same "Improve protection mechanism"
Including the UD7 board page
I'm sure Gigabyte will re-release the products at some point, as they need to have X79 products on the market. The listed products only have a single 8-pin EPS connector, while the GA-X79-UD7, which isn't mentioned, has dual 8-pin connectors. I do not know if that is what makes the difference, or what, but I'd definitely like to know.
Plus the information may help address issues while clocking on other boards, too.
In my opinion, Gigabyte's doing the right thing here, and seemingly are willing to cover whatever concern users may have. The bit about using the updated BIOS and having a lifetime warranty against the failure is a huge step, and seemingly, with that, they have properly identified the issue, and a have a fix.
I had already come to the conclusion that VRM cooling on X79-series products is very critical when overclocked, but I also noticed that the UD3 board seems to have a larger cooler than the UD5. It's all very interesting, indeed.
OCP is still 128% and OTP is still 140C as compared to BIOS F4.
Max switching frequency has been decreased by 80KHz so you can't increase that to kill the board, and under Vcore voltage response, they removed one setting, the turbo setting. now you have Fast and Standard. BIOS F4 didn't even have this option, it had been removed. Neither should impact OC, at least not on the UD7.
These two settings changed seem to be more of a user limiter, meaning the USer can't set something to hurt the board. GB had already done a lot of testing to make sure the board didn't burn, they had limited over temp protection down from 158C to 140C in the first few BIOS releases.
Just wait until GIGABYTE USA releases their statement, this whole title of recall thing is a bit over presumptuous. They never said anything about recalling boards, rather just their BIOS, and only in TW.
Tsk tsk tsk.
The difference between a good and bad manufacturer is that a good one will try to rectify the problem and makes sure their quality comes back up, whereas a bad one will just tell you, "Tough shit. Don't OC." And their quality will be consistently sub par.
Hopefully the review will go live later this week.
The reason I was getting the Assassin 2 was for the integrated Creative Sound Blaster chip!
I Cant use Realtek basically because the 7.1 Creative Gigaworks S750 Speaker System with 70 watt rms per channel ans a 210 amp Subwoofer.....An Ass Kicking Speaker System has to connect with a creative soundcard!
So my delema is ...........is there another Motherboard with the Craetive Integrated Sound Chip!!!!!!!!!!! WTF I cant catch a break
Anyone know if there is a newer board with the LGA 2011 and the Intel X67 and the Creative
CA20K2 chip? Should I wait or what??
Please Help Lefty666 Thanx!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think I answered my own question. The integrated Sound would be digital and my Speaker System is Analog.
I think I'm heading towards Arock or Asus! Good thing i checked around again while i was waiting on Microcenter!
So what is the consensus? Forget about GB and go with one of the other 2???