I just put together my new build and I can not get it to boot into anything. It wont boot from HD's although it detects them, I can not boot from a cd to do a fresh windows install or boot from a usb to flash bios. It post bios on start up and hangs on a black screen when it's time to load a OS, CD or USB. I am able to access bios and make changes.
 
My rigs is the same as my sig aside from:
x79 Classified
3960x
16BG 4x4 G.skill Ripjaw Z
 
Things I've tried:
Reset bios including removing battery for 15 mins
Strip down to 1 HD 1 stick of ram and 1 GPU
Tried setting my drives to ide and ahci
Adjusted ram voltage in bios to match manufacture recommendation, also tried to down clock my ram
Reseated the cpu
 
At this point I'm at a lose and I turn to you guys before having to suck it up an RMA the board. Thanks for you help :-p
 
EDIT: After the boot logo I get this message and then a black screen with a blinking cursor.
Marvell 88SE91xx Adapter - Bios Version 1.0.0.0023
PCIe x2 5.0Gbps
Adapter Disks Information: AHCI Mode
       No hard disk is detected!
 
Fix:
The issue is the result of bad Bios. Make sure your board is registered and email EVGA Tech Mathew for a replacement Bios chip.
Matth@evga.com

EVGA ships to the address in your profile so make sure it is current.

1 more thing i would try is a different SATA DVD drive.  I had one that would not read when I started my last build... just trashed that one and bought a new name brand (LG in my case, I would suggest try other brands as their website sucks).  Does your dvd/cd reader show up in UEFT BIOS? do you have the boot order set to read it / them. 

EVGATech_MattM

If they are not already on the black SATA ports try the drives on them and see if there is any change.  Also make sure you do not have any phones, iPods, or flash drives attached as they can sometimes cause issues at POST.

Post back the results.

 
I've tried connecting to all 6 of the Sata ports. The only usb device connected is my keyboard.
 

KenMcC
1 more thing i would try is a different SATA DVD drive.  I had one that would not read when I started my last build... just trashed that one and bought a new name brand (LG in my case, I would suggest try other brands as their website sucks).  Does your dvd/cd reader show up in UEFT BIOS? do you have the boot order set to read it / them.

 
I would have to rip out the blu-ray/dvd drive from my HTPC to test it but I don't think it is the drive it self considering it won't boot from my HD or USB drive as well. The bios do detect my current dvd drive and I able to set it to boot option 1 with no avail.
 
After the EVGA x79 image on boot I get the following before a blank black screen.
 
Marvell 88SE91xx Adapter - Bios Version 1.0.0.0023
PCIe x2 5.0Gbps
Adapter Disks Information: AHCI Mode
       No hard disk is detected!

If you press F7 and manually try and boot from the CD what happens?

EVGA_MatthewH

If you press F7 and manually try and boot from the CD what happens?

Nothing. I tried to boot to all my devices and it just gets stuck on a black screen.

EVGA_MatthewH

kris319

EVGA_MatthewH

If you press F7 and manually try and boot from the CD what happens?

Nothing. I tried to boot to all my devices and it just gets stuck on a black screen.

Is it all based off the same CD? Do you have a different one you can try, or putting a small linux distro on a usb stick to see if its bootable? You could even put memtest on the thumb drive and see if that boots.

I tried booting with a windows xp and windows 7 disk. I also tried booting to a bootable USB which I use to flash bios with.

fastrak5150

Why are these boards having so much trouble ??? this is just insane what happen to the quality EVGA MB's are known for? and please don't even remotely try to chime in with that 100% poscap business because what good is that when your having 100% problems lol post if your with me.

+9000
 
Ive been blessed with a solid X58 SLI3, was my first EVGA Mobo, but Ill be skipping EVGA mobo's on my next builds, still up in the air on getting EVGA GPU's next time.

Yea I saw your thread but now im confused as to while my x58 which I put back in won't fire up. Based on you having the same issue ill probably still rma my x79 and chalk up my current issues to something else.

mrblond

yeah, its hard to say. I have a feeling its something simple but I can't find anything on the P0 post code or what it means.

I have a feeling it's a faulty controller on the board. Mine was showing 0d which is "reserved" on the code list.

Well I hate to say it and I feel your pain (all X-79 EVGA) board owners that is, but I purchased a RIVE and it sat for a bit while CPU's were changing to C2/stores waiting on shipments, and once I received my CPU first thing I did was flash to most current BIOS and the rest was history lol was at 4.7ghz within the first 30min and haven't really spent to much more time to drop the 1.36v as is just setup to test still have a lot to do for build upgrade. But this has been a great experience, if your not to discouraged with X79 go RIVE or something of that nature because these SB-E CPU's are the **** lol

Hi people.
Same problem here.
Don't forget about the "no hard disk is detected", as other said, connect hd to black connectors (SATA) , it works for me (the HD detection) , although dont' boot... Tried to disconnect ALL except PS2 keyboard, HD and CD, and nothing..  IN cd boot, it hangs on WINDOWS Is starting UP... I take two days trying different things... I've mounted arround thousand motherboards (yes, thousand) and never get so much troubles, and no significant idea to solve it. No beeps, no error message (except 0D on motherboard which marvellous means : reserved for future uses ... haha) and no expectations..  Tried to upgrade bios, errrooooor! ... doesn't want to boot from USB.... of course...
I allways mounted asus on my pc's , and asrocks, gygabytes, msi's... never get so much troubles. Here in the forum i see lot of fails of this motherboard... Please guys, help us. It's not possible to don't get a simple boot from a USB or Hiren's boot CD...
any idea wellcome!
 

Ok, The only device connected to mobo is the cpu, the fan, and the graphic card... and a USB with bootable DOS (tested in other machines)... the computer starts... enter in bios without trouble, detect memories, hd's cd's (when they're connected) , and also, tries to start install windows 7 (from cd only), then stops....
When only usb bootable is connected (to try to upgrade bios) it detects the bootable USB, as EHCI or directly, but when select any of two, it hangs... It's very very strange... to don't get a simple DOS boot... without any device, driver or nothing loaded...
The only that i may think is the motherboard... but it's so strange that it loads the first part of W7 installation!.. until the screen that show windows is starting, and don't want to start a simple DOS boot (nor USB , nor CD from hiren's boot, nor from XP cd installation...)
Thanks for the reply... I understand the intention is to help us. I appreciate.

no, the mobo is set correctly. i guess it could be a 0d as i am looking at it from the side.

Jacob just released a new BIOS update for all the x79 motherboards.