Hi all.

I'm on my phone so I'm not sure how to format this correctly or anything so I'll try to keep it short.

I haven't been able to use my computer for the last few days because it EITHER crashes and reboots straight away or just freezes at the motherboard splash screen.

I've tried starting it with no USB devices plugged in, taking out the RAM as a test (I get beeps so I'm guessing mobo works?), removing my gtx 480 and using integrated graphics (mobo is "Gigabyte Ultra Durable 3" (?)), clearing CMOS, and lastly replacing the CMOS battery (those dang things are like 5 dollars each).

None of these actions have changed anything. I have progressed to a couple of different screens very rarely. One displays the message "BIOS is updating ec firmware" and the other shows "checksum error" "post error".

My processor is an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T and power supply is TX750.

If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this or has been through something similar I'd love your help. Thank you. Try booting off of a single ram stick of the pair. If you only had a single stick to begin with then see if you can borrow one from another computer either your own or a friends.

Try booting with hard drive not connected this way your not going to get any boot level error messages from a drive issue etc.

Try a Linux Live Disc such as burn Knoppix or Linux Mint 17.1 32-bit cinnamon to a DVD and try to boot off the DVD direct and see if it works... * Do this if when disconnecting your Hard Drive it complains about missing OS.

Any other information to share about this system such as anything strange that happened leading up to the failure or a recent upgrade that might have gone bad etc, or any damage from lightning, brown out, or power surge etc.Thanks for the response. I'm very happy to have new things to try because I'm lost right now.

I have 4 sticks of "Patriot" 2Gb DDR3 1600mhz RAM. I tried booting with one at a time in different slots.

Similar thing was happening. It would crash about 3 - 5 times. Sometimes before the MB splash (so after 1 - 3 secs).

Then it would freeze on the splash screen.

I tried unplugging the hard drive and the same thing occurs. A boot LOOP then a freeze. Sometimes straight to a freeze.

Would booting from a DVD work in this situation? Can't even get to any boot options or anything. Very frustrating.

There hasn't been any power surges or anything of which I'm aware.

But for the last few months it has crashed wi the error "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered".

Sometimes the colours would go wild and it would freeze or blue screen.

I was thinking that was the graphics card going bad, none of the fixes I found solved that issue.

But taking the graphics card out and running on IG didn't change the boot error I'm having now.Might have to send the motherboard back and get a replacement. Sounds like the motherboard may have something wrong with it.I think it's about 6 years old. Is that how long motherboards usually last? Probably past warranty now, I bought the pc off gumtree. I'll send an email to Gigabyte to see how much it'll cost to replace. Hopefully that'll fix it because I really don't have much to spend. Thank you for the insight I had no idea what was going on. Is the PSU that old as well ? ?...what brand is it ?Hi patio. Good to see you're still active on these forums. I'm not sure if the PSU is the same age since I bought it from someone about a 18 months ago. It's a Corsair TX750. Model Number: CMPSU-750TXV2. Can't see a YEAR on it.Good to seeya again...i'd borrow 1 of the same or greater wattage from a buddy and swap it in there overnite...
If it still does the same thing i'm afraid David may be right...The other thing i'd try also is keep it hooked up to onboard vid...re-boot to safemode...and uninstall all instances of the vid card and drivers...
That may lend a clue as well.My mistake in thinking it was a recent build... I just recently bought a similar board brand new a 78LMT-USB3 pretty cheaply which on the outside of the Gigabyte box it stated "Gigabyte Ultra Durable 3" similar info to yours, as well as your running DDR3 1600Mhz RAM sticks which I am also running 8GB of. I guess they have been using this as a marketing term for quite a few years.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128565

If you FIND yourself needing a new motherboard in the end, this board here is a good one with options for legacy support in addition to an upgrade to a FX 8 core if that's a direction you want to go. Although the Phenom II x6 is probably plenty still for most games etc. I bought it for my AMD FX-8350 4000Mhz 8-core build and it hasn't had any issues. My prior fastest system was a Athlon II x4 620 2.6Ghz and it was starting to struggle with higher end modern games and multitasking at same time etc. The 8-core CPU I got on a deal for $139.99 which the CPU is normally $179.99 or more depending on the store etc for brand new unused.patio: a friend of mine has a high end build that I'm sure would contain a sufficient PSU for testing. Getting him to remove it and lend it to me for a couple of hours is another matter. I'll see if he's willing tomorrow (4am atm in Aus).
I haven't been able to progress to the point of having the option of booting in safe mode, even with the graphics card out.

Dave: I'm not sure of the model number for the MB but it is indeed very similar to the one you linked, similar layout and all, but your one looks more modern and is coloured better. Yeah the setup I have seemed to run fine with games like Dead Space 3 at max settings. All I really wanna play in the future is Diablo 3, which isn't demanding at all. I mostly use my computer to edit videos. When I get full time work and manage to save up I'll just build a new one from scratch. In the meantime I feel like I'll be having to get a new motherboard! Depending on how this test with a different PSU goes. Thanks for the link. Quote

(4am atm in Aus).