Gigabyte Recalling X79 UD3, UD5, G1.Assassin 2 Motherboards

[btarunr]

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.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[LiveOrDie]

HAHA he cook his board

 

[Zubasa]

Gigabyte :shadedshu

 

[qubit]

Looks like those muppets at Gigglebyte rushed this product to market. Problems like this should be easy to spot in the design and testing phase.

I hope they don't mess their customers about, or the whole thing will blow up in their face spectacularly.

 

[entropy13]

Oops.

 

[de.das.dude]

ASUS is just as bad.

manufacturers should stop making boards in china.

 

[DaMobsta]

Gigabyte, why :|

@entropy13 y u no longer go TPC XD

 

[dj-electric]

GG gigabyte, well played...

At least u tried.
de.das i cannot disagree more, my expirience with asus on P55 and P67 tought me that they are the very freaking best at everything they do on those motherboards
Asrock is right behind them with lower prices. I actualy have (or had) the X79 UD5 and i can tell only bad things about that black pile of vomit.

btw feel free to ask shop owners what brand of mobos visits the most in their labs, the ones i asked told me that its GB. im not suprised at all

 

[LDNL]

I feel bad for the ppl that spent 300-350+ €/$ for a motherboard thats incapable of being anything exept less than a 100 €/$ motherboard

 

[qubit]

manufacturers should stop making boards in china.

This ^^

 

[btarunr]

I feel bad for the ppl that spent 300-350+ €/$ for a motherboard thats incapable of being anything exept less than a 100 €/$ motherboard

And let's not forget those who didn't turn their rigs off in time, and ended up with fried CPUs. Pro overclockers pay 5-10X market price for good chips.

 

[de.das.dude]

Pro overclockers pay 5-10X market price for good chips

is that true?

 

[ensabrenoir]

The horror!!!!!!!!!
Thats the stuff nightmares are mad of...... At least ........did his cpu survive?
His sacrifce was not in vain. Just started liking giga again too. About to order an asrock....research time....

 

[dj-electric]

is that true?

Some have sponsors to let them find good hardware and pay it for them, some pay a lot for very good chips that others found good, of course.
btw one of the reasons they have this recall is MSI who didn't wait a single day and told about it to everyone

 

[buggalugs]

manufacturers should stop making boards in china.

This problem doesnt have anything to do with where it was made, This is a design fault.

Obviously Gigabyte did not do sufficient testing or quality control during the design phase

When your high-end, expensive overclocking board cant overclock without blowing up you have a problem, and it reflects badly on Gigabyte.

I cant think of any high-end overclocking board from Asus that needed to be recalled, other than the Intel 1155 chipset problem.

This is a major fail for Gigabyte

 

[btarunr]

is that true?

Yes, it is true. I wouldn't post it otherwise, duh.

 

[qwerty_lesh]

just FYI the UD7 may not be listed in this article but suffers the same poor VRM mosfet problems, I myself have destroyed a board simply turning it off and on 30 or so times, and was aware of the problems for a few weeks now, so all of this comes as no surprise to me.

in short, out of the numerous x79 boards ive worked with so far ASrock and Asus are the most reliable thus far. (to be fair i should mention I havent touched any MSi's/evga's yet)

 

[R_1]

Need more Power, man...

 

[erasure]

Gigabyte: i tried to Overclock like ASUS, then i took an arrow in the knee

 

[newtekie1]

I'm really not surprised, and I really can't blame Gigabyte for this.

Intel's decision to take half of the area normally dedicated to the VRM and put memory slots there instead, forcing the VRM into an area smaller than most low end boards have, then putting CPUs that can suck down 200w really threw a wrench in things.

Add to that one bad shipment of Mosfets that the OEM(not gigabyte the OEM of the Mosfets) over specced, and you have smoke in pretty tame operating conditions.

I don't believe at all that it is bad firmware to complement the VRM, they just released a firmware to fix the issue on affected boards with the bad parts.

 

[neliz]

Gigabyte: i tried to Overclock like ASUS, then i took an arrow in the knee

A meme is nothing without pictures!

 

[buggalugs]

I'm really not surprised, and I really can't blame Gigabyte for this.

Intel's decision to take half of the area normally dedicated to the VRM and put memory slots there instead, forcing the VRM into an area smaller than most low end boards have, then putting CPUs that can suck down 200w really threw a wrench in things.

.

Then how come all the other manufacturers dont have a problem?? Cant see how you can use that excuse.

EDIT:

Haha, Anandtech just posted and recommended the UD3 as a low end overclocking board

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5271/gigabyte-gax79ud3-review/8

 

[danc]

i will go for asus x79 line of boards, they seem the best built with the best features at the best prices.

 

[faramir]

Looks like those muppets at Gigglebyte rushed this product to market. Problems like this should be easy to spot in the design and testing phase.

I hope they don't mess their customers about, or the whole thing will blow up in their face spectacularly.

Um, did you actually READ the article ? They recalled their boards and will replace them. How incredibly daft must you be to turn that into "I hope they don't mess their customers about" ? They handled the situation in the best possible way, just like Intel did last year when that SATA bug was discovered in SB chipsets.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

It deserves to die for the stupid 3D bios.