Mid Range Build: Gigabyte's GA-Z68AP-D3 doesn't work w/ Ivy Bridge

[JC Denton]

Hey PCPererers. I'm fairly new around here, but have loved the site since I started following it hardcore several times daily a few weeks back. Before then I really only visited once a month or so.

I wanted to let everyone know about a discovery I made regarding Gigabyte's GA-Z68AP-D3 (R2.0) mobo that was listed in the Mid Range build. I purchased the board along with an Ivy Bridge CPU (i5 3450). And despite Gigabyte's claim that the board is 22nm/Ivy Bridge ready out of the box--it actually isn't. I had an issue with the BIOS splash screen just freezing and wasn't getting any response from USB keyboards or anything. I did some research and found a bunch of people that bought Ivy Bridge CPUs with this mobo are having the same problem--and it's because it isn't compatible, at least without flashing. Which is very misleading by Gigabyte whom I've always been very satisfied with. I don't have another CPU to stick in to Flash so I'm stuck waiting on Gigabyte to get back to me about how they will correct this issue for me.

Just wanted to give a heads up, and see if you guys have any recommendations on how I should deal with this. I know dealing with New Egg would be much faster, but I'd get stuck paying shipping to send it back when Gigabyte is responsible for this issue and should take the hit.

[molestedbyasus]

That's really unfortunate considering that they advertise it as such. There are tricks you can do with flashing if you are comfortable with it but if you aren't an old hand at it you might want to research it first.

In some cases you can take out the EEPROM and stick it in another running PC in order to flash from DOS but it can go horribly wrong in some cases. http://badflash.com/ used to be a good resource but it might be out of date.

Getting in contact with Gigabyte is a good idea, they may ship you an EEPROM flashed to the newest BIOS that you could swap. I would think that they've heard from customers in your position before.

[JC Denton]

That's really unfortunate considering that they advertise it as such. There are tricks you can do with flashing if you are comfortable with it but if you aren't an old hand at it you might want to research it first.

In some cases you can take out the EEPROM and stick it in another running PC in order to flash from DOS but it can go horribly wrong in some cases. http://badflash.com/ used to be a good resource but it might be out of date.

Getting in contact with Gigabyte is a good idea, they may ship you an EEPROM flashed to the newest BIOS that you could swap. I would think that they've heard from customers in your position before.

Thanks for the reply. If they sent me an EEPROM wouldn't that require soldering to switch out, or is it easier? Since I was building this for a friend, I wouldn't want to do anything potentially damaging. I should get a response from Gigabyte on Monday morning I hope. And hopefully they'll send the solution overnight or with 2 day shipping to speed the process up since it's their fault.

[wizardpc]

Did you ever get a resolution to this from Gigabyte?

My HTPC/file server went out last weekend, and I bought the Z68AP-D3 along with the i5-3570K entirely because that combination was on the HW Leaderboard.

I'm pretty upset that 3 months later that combo is still up there, even though there is a known compatibility issue.