BSOD playing Sim City

philmo said:

Thanks again - well this is something to consider. For info I have no overclocked anything.

I am a little rusty in terms of BIOS - so basically I need to note all current settings with a view to applying them exactly
as they were before clearing CMOS?

No, that will take you along time and defeat the purpose of clearing the CMOS :) .
What I meant was, click on the peripherals title at the top of the screen
and take note of what is the value SATA Mode Selection is set to, be it AHCI or IDE
like in the example picture below.
Then once you are done with clearing / flashing the BIOS make sure that the values are the same :) .

Attachment 283644

philmo said:

When you say "Your BIOS is not listed anymore on your motherboard's webpage", do you mean my current BIOS is not a correct version or more likely out of date?.

I will work on the CMOS tomorrow. Tks

What I meant by this was the time difference between the BIOS you currently have
and the newer one on Gigabyte's website is not too far apart,
Your current one - 05/31/2012
The Newer version - 20/08/2012
Which leads me to believe they've pulled it down because it might have had issues.

You can also consult the manual for instructions.

• User Manual

Post back with the results :)!

philmo said:

I see, thanks - you have gone to a lot of trouble here.
After your last post i went into the BIOS to re familarise muself with it.
I think i found the clear Bios, on the last tab - so does this clear the settings back to factory default?

Yes reset back to Factory Settings will do the same function.

philmo said:

But an older version?. Would this not be out of date?

Technically, yes.

philmo said:

To install the new BIOS F18 as siggested, I then qflash?. If necessary?.

Thanks again.

That's right :) .

philmo said:

So do you suggest once I reset CMOS I run the machine for a while to check the stability, and then flash to the current recommended version - I am womdering if the reset version will it also bring compatibility issues as so old ?.

Correct, I prefer not flashing the BIOS unless necessary, so working with the PC for a wahile once restting
the BIOS to see if that was the issue.
Resetting to the default setting will only eliminate the possibility that something has changed
in some way accidentally and is causing issues. If you meant flashing the BIOS to the newer
version but still "old" in terms of date, keep in mind that BIOS doesn't get regular updates like drivers do
and it is inline with the motherboard being not very new.

philmo said:

I guess I am trying understand for self help, when you say my current bios is not listed anymore on my mobo website, I presume this could cause compatability issues - would clearing CMOS also cause the same issue?. Sorry for my ignorance.

As I said earlier we can't really know why Gigabyte pulled it off their website,
we can assume there was an issue with itin some way that they wanted to contain.

philmo said:

On a differnet note when I first set-up my PC I in error forgot to change my sata settings to AHCI - and selected IDE in error. If I want to go with AHCI I guess I need to do this after CMOS is reset (I note these is an MS APP which updates the HDD to allow this). Sorry for all the questions - but trying to learning to avoiding wasting your time in future.

Again your help very appreciated.

You will not see any performance difference between AHCI and IDE
unless you have a solid-state drive (SSD), so it's not a mistake.
take note of this value on a piece of paper or something outside of the OS
because you will not be able to boot into it if the value is not set correctly (it will BSOD with 0x0000007b).

Also if you're interested in changing over to AHCI you can follow this tutorial.

• AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

philmo said:

Brilliant reply, much clearer now - will reset CMOS tonight as first step and see how it runs. If I get a crash in any application that is not a BSOD - is there a report I can post that will any investigation ?. Will the SF_Diagnostic_Tool file have all the information needed.

Yes the SFDT has all we need :) .

philmo said:

And finally (really!) when I reset the CMOS this will this simply put back default settings - but keep version F14, I guess that is what I was trying to understand. Or will the reset go back to Bios F#(#=what ever was on the Mobo from the factory).

Thanks

Yes it will simply apply the default settings for that BIOS keeping the current version.
To change a BIOS version you have to flash it or in other words "burn" the data on the chip.

philmo said:

An update (well not really) - there is never enough time to do what you plan !.
Gonna do the CMOS clean tonight, so very clear and sorry to repeat your mail have attached shots of all of my BIOS settings.

Do I select from PAGE 6 - save and exit LOAD OPTIMIZED (F7) or PREVIOUS VALUES (F5) to clear CMOS?

Select optimized defaults.

philmo said:

And the only change I then need to make when done is as per your message - PAGE 4 PART 1 PERIPHERALS - Sata mode selection to IDE. No changes on any of the offer pages attached ?.

Thanks again - I will update you when done.

If you didn't change anything yet I see that the SATA Mode is set to IDE.
You need to make sure that after you load the default settings, that its still set to
IDE mode then save your changes by pressing F10 and confirm.

I believe you might have to flash your BIOS so the same applies, in regards to the SATA mode.