Gigabyte k8NSNXP-939/K8NS Ultra-939 tips, tricks and guide thread

Thanks for the update -- any pics?

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Originally Posted by chew*

OK im new to the forums.

Just picked up this k8ns ultra 939 and a a64 3000. Have been using for a week and made a small list of my own pros and cons.

pros
koolance cpu-200g fits(if you go to site they say that it doesnt fit most a64 boards)
6 phase power scheme
motherboard layout is preety decent
silicon images sata raid(best most stable raid controller ive ever used)

cons
lacks x.5 ht settings
lacks the following memory settings that it works at
150/183(if us use a64 tweaker u can use these settings fine)
nvidia sata is right next to agp slot very hard to get at.(however in my case i always use silicon image sata controllers)

OK my sytem specs are as follows
gigabyte k8ns ultra 939
a64 3000
koolance 600 series case with cpu-200g
2x256mb mushkin black level 2 pc 3200(not the rev 2 crap either)
radeon 9800 pro( crappy r350 core and E die samsung mem with artic cooling cooler)
2 x 36 gig western digital raptors( i run in raid 0 always off the SIl raid)
antec 430 watt true power PSU
misc stuff cdrw-dvdr-cdr/floppy/dvdrw-cdrw-cdr.
p.s. I run WIN2K pro(XP sux imho but thats for another post)
that about covers it now on to my findings.

stage 1 inspect mobo out of box.
remove northbridge fan after verifying all componts are in tact and not loose
removed the stupid thermal pad off heatsink applied AS5 and reinstalled.
removed bracket area around cpu. applied AS5 to cpu installed waterblock(note the cpu-200g literally rests against the cpu fan header thats how tight a fit it is)

stage 2 playing around with bios
ran at default installed windows 2k sp4 installed drivers blah blah blah.
on to overclocking.

stage 3 overclocking
OK did exactly what i was told not to do first
and used bios's top performance option. You may wonder why i did this.
I wanted to see where my components stood on this board so i primed it for 8 hours like that.
now this told me 3 things my memory was capable of running 208 fsb at 2.6v
the cpu was capable of 1890 at default. but more importantly gigabyte overclocked the ht bus to 258x5 which means that gigabyte seems to think that 1040 is a safe range with no extra voltage.

my findings with further overclocking

v core unstable so i set it at 1.45 that seems the most stable setting.
fsb and ht like to be adjusted together in 30mhz intervals or cold boot issues occur. this is the pattern i found
200-230 with x5 230-260 with x4 260-290 with x3 290-319 with x2 any attempt to boot at 320 fsb was met with failure.

so once i learned the boards quirks i set out to see how high i could go on fsb
dropped ht to 2 dropped mem to 100 and cranked fsb to 319 was the highest fsb attainable.

290fsb 9x mutli 3xht 133 memory was the highest clock speed i could run which game me roughly 2.618 however it was not prime stable

the highest stable setting ive run at was 267x9x3xht giving me an average of 2403 mhz with 1.45 vcore. i use lower memory settings in bios and use a64 tweaker to adjust memory speed and timings.

At the time of this post i am now running at 2496mhz 277fsbx 9x with 3x ht and 208 fsb memory. in order to run past 2.4 gig i had to raise vcore from 1.45 to 1.55 and was dissapointed when while i was making this post prime 95 running a blend torture test crashed after 9 hours.

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:toast:

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Originally Posted by chew*

OK im new to the forums.

Just picked up this k8ns ultra 939 and a a64 3000. Have been using for a week and made a small list of my own pros and cons.

pros
koolance cpu-200g fits(if you go to site they say that it doesnt fit most a64 boards)
6 phase power scheme.

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Are you sure you have the right model? According to the Gigabyte web site only the GA-K8NSNXP-939 in the Nforce 3 line of motherboards have the 6 phase power scheme. It doesn't list it for GA-K8NS Ultra-939.

Was reading this at another website....

He is running a AMD64 300 at 2800 stable with DDR at 254mhz at 2-2-2-5-1t with a full 1gig of OCZ VX at 3.43v

My Board: 939 K8NS Ultra, AMD64 3200 10x276,

My questions:
How do I tweak the DDR?
As in A64 Tweak?

Also wondering, what do the following Bios settings do?

DDR Voltage Control, mine is [Normal], settings available are +.01, or +.02 volts
and what is:
MAX Memory Clock? mine is [Auto=200], options 100, 133, 166, 200.

I ask as I am at 10x277 (2.753) on a AMD 6432 and only at 38C idle temp and know I can do much better.

DDR is OCZ Plat. rev 2. 2.5-4-4-9-1T

My vCore (cpu) is 1.425

I think I can reach higher with a push to the vCore (cpu) and some sort of bios or AMD64 tweak.

Thanks again for the tips...

composer

ok open up a64 tweaker on the lower right side it shows memory clock frequency. It lists a bunch of them more importantly it lists some that can not be found in the gigabyte bios such as 133** 150 and 183. ive tested with these an they all work. basically what i do is say im using a 133 memory setting and at 277 fsb and 133 setting it gives me somewhere around 185 mhz ddr i bump the a64 tweaker to 150 and now check cpu z and it says memclock is now 208 ddr. basically i use this so as not to take a hit on memory. I've also emailed gigabyte and asked if they can revise the f5 bios and release a unsupported beta bios with only this alteration to the bios etc 150/183 memory settings. I doubt they will however if they don't ill take theyre bios apart my self and add it. Once tested i will release it to the public.

In answer to the first reply on the 6 phase power sheme yes the k8ns ultra 939 uses a 6 phase the only diff between the 2 boards is A. a revised newer nf3 chip and B. the lack of active mosfet cooling.

no pics at the moment im not done testing yet sauria once i find the max of this chip /board i will post pics of highest fsb possible highest clock possible and then followed by the max speed of bus and chip combined. I also might add i have done no volt mods to the board but have ordered a ocz ddr booster. My buddy had good luck with it and got this mushkin all the way up to 270 fsb.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

ok open up a64 tweaker on the lower right side it shows memory clock frequency. It lists a bunch of them more importantly it lists some that can not be found in the gigabyte bios such as 133** 150 and 183. ive tested with these an they all work. basically what i do is say im using a 133 memory setting and at 277 fsb and 133 setting it gives me somewhere around 185 mhz ddr i bump the a64 tweaker to 150 and now check cpu z and it says memclock is now 208 ddr. basically i use this so as not to take a hit on memory. I've also emailed gigabyte and asked if they can revise the f5 bios and release a unsupported beta bios with only this alteration to the bios etc 150/183 memory settings. I doubt they will however if they don't ill take theyre bios apart my self and add it. Once tested i will release it to the public.

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Thanks, will look into that...also, someone said I should install Multi hal instead of Uniprocessor. Any idea what that means? Benefits?

thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

no pics at the moment im not done testing yet sauria once i find the max of this chip /board i will post pics of highest fsb possible highest clock possible and then followed by the max speed of bus and chip combined. I also might add i have done no volt mods to the board but have ordered a ocz ddr booster. My buddy had good luck with it and got this mushkin all the way up to 270 fsb.

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Great, is that ram BH-5 single sided?

:banana:

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Originally Posted by sauria

Great, is that ram BH-5 single sided?

:banana:

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yes

Quote:

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Originally Posted by composer

Thanks, will look into that...also, someone said I should install Multi hal instead of Uniprocessor. Any idea what that means? Benefits?

thanks

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not sure ill look into it

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Originally Posted by vadergr

http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard...AQ/FAQ_444.htm

Is it true that if i use 2x512 ddr400 double sided ram modules ,the board will recon it like ddr333?
I allready ordered 2 samsung modules so i hope i will not encounter such problem...

Anyone else with 2xdouble sided modules ???

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Ever get an answer to this? :confused:

Im not sure i dont have double sided memory but i wonder how he determined that the board does not post what speed ur ddr runs at yet he says his board told him he was at ddr 333. If i had to guess he used either the eztune or nvidia utility which i found reported mem speed wrong. What i really find funny is the gigabyte reps response to the question and the link he provided.
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard...q_amdguide.jpg

note that that is a socket 754 cpu not a 939.

Yes chew, i found that odd too -- have you run it with 4 DS DIMMS?

Nope. I think a friend of mine has some memory i can stick in though, maybe i'll get it this weekend and see.

If hes running dualsided that means hes using 1 gig. Thats bleh IMHO a true overclocker runs 2x256mb of singlesided and no more. Sometimes even one stick just for high clock purposes. Just my 2 cents its been proven that more memory isnt always better. 1 more fps in doom 3 for $150 dollars more worth of ram isnt worth it to me.

As for some pics heres a couple links to my new and old 3dmark 01 scores.

when i get my ddr booster and if i had a better yield 9800 pro i could score higher i clocked the 9800 pro at 400 core and 349 mem for these tests. however my old athlon xp 3200 score i think is default cant remember.

at 2520 mhz http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8396447

at 2300 mhz ( this is the speed i run at all the time )
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8403792

and then my old abit nf7-s /xp3200
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7681928

In other news i hit a wall at 2500mhz even at 1.7vcore it wont run prime 95 for 8 hours i always crash right around 7.5 hours lol

still cant complain though i told my friend id be happy with 3500 speeds and at 9x255 im at 2300 im using a 4 x HT which gives me roughly 1020 ht and my meory is set at 166 which gives me ddr209. once i get the ddr booster ill attempt to set memory to ddr 200 see how high it goes.

btw my mem timings are in this order if u use a64 tweaker 2/11/15/2/3/10/2/3/2/3

ill try running tighter timings once i get more volts

after a little more tweaking playing with mem timings and threatening my 9800 pro that it could be a paperweight just like my 5900se i managed to get this score.
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8403856
that puts me at second place compared to all systems at that speed with any OS installed

Great, I'd like to hear of anyone running DS RAM in all 4 slots.

I'm not really an overclocker, so if I don't overclock will I get the same performance and stability from the GA-K8NS 939 as I would from the GA-K8NS 939 Ultra? I was thinking about saveing the extra cash from the difference of the two boards and useing it toward a new video card.

-Dman

*update*

Tried changing the uniprocessor driver. *WARNING* If you are running raid do not change this driver your sytem will not boot up again and unless your good at hacking your windows you will be forced to reinstall.

2nd issue.
I discovered that the sata raid driver provided by gigabyte is junk. Using this driver will corrupt and or cause permanent damage to your hard drives. Use the silicon images driver provided by MS in they're auto update section. I have tested it and you lose minimal performance but gain maximum stability.

Example of issue with the gigabyte supplied driver. When running in raid 0 if you run sisoft tuneup wizard you will be given a BSOD right near the end of test.

I also experimented with some third party drivers for nf3. In games it would cause my game to freeze. I am now using a whql certified nvidia driver version 5.10. The driver i tested was a 7.xx series.

Will tackle the ram issue over the weekend with dualsided ddr dimms.

Great chew -- thanks for the useful info!

Dman,

Sounds like a good idea if you need a new vid card, the boards should perform equally.

There arent alot of differences. I think the main ones are lack of firewire and an active chipset heatsink. Im not sure if the 939 non ultra uses the nVidia firewall or not, but I dont think it does. The non ultra only has 2 sata ports.

I may not have this board much longer. I bought this cuz abit has had they're head up they're ass for the past few months now and via chipsets were not an option for me, however abit may save face with the fatality an8. No i'm not gonna buy the board cuz of the name but more for the quality of components used and features of board. However I'm waiting for reviews to see how it does compared to other nf4 boards. SLi is definitely out of the picture for me. When a single card can sometimes beat a dual card setup why go dual. Maybe when dual cores comeout it will improve but for now it's a no go with me. I must say my experience so far with gigabyte has been decent. I was really impressed when tech support answered my email in 2 days also. With asus i never got a reply 90% of the time, go asus.

I love my Abit nf7-s rev 2 boards -- stable quality. I wonder about the company financially!?

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Originally Posted by sauria

I love my Abit nf7-s rev 2 boards -- stable quality. I wonder about the company financially!?

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I think financially they are fine. The problem was nvidia. Abit and nvidia had a falling out due to nvidia giving them crap nf2 chips at the start thus rev 2.0 nf7-s. If u remeber the first nf7-s boards had some small issues. abit wasnt happy about this. So abit was anti nvidia for awhile. Now i think they reconciled but also i think theyre boards are coming out late cuz abit basically told nvidia we dont want your chips till you get them right. instead of abit releasing rev 1.x then revision 2 the product the consumer receives may be bug free this way.I think this is one of abits new policies to quality control. This is why we didnt see a socket 754 till them as of late. Personally i'd like to see what abit can do with the radeon chipset but thats another thred. Sorry for hijacking this one sort of.

P.S. i love my abit nf7-s to 462 fsb sync on a board thats supposed to run at 400 stable gotta love that. http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm04=110602

That's a great score -- what would you pick for the best video card for your k8ns ultra 939?

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Originally Posted by sauria

That's a great score -- what would you pick for the best video card for your k8ns ultra 939?

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I'm using a ati 9800 pro. Think I hit 22k+ in 3dmark01. My scores are posted in an earlier post mind that i dont have the ultimate athlon im only stable up to 2300 mhz at 1.45 after that i need 1.6 to run at 2400 mhz and thats the highest stable clock speed i can get(thats watercooled on air i might fair worse). My vidcard isn't the overclockers dream 9800 pro either i got the crappy e die samsung/r350 core max stable 400 core 350 mem. Although the 6800gt might fair better I'm not about to shell out 400 for a card with pci express in my near future. My suggestion for someone buying a card due to the fact that they got like a 5200(poor sap)
is a 9800le and pray it has an r360 core and decent memory and either flash it to the gigacube bios or if it uses hynix memory flash it to a 9800xt.

Thanks would a 6600GT beat the 9800 Pro? :confused:

Id say it would be a toss up. halflife would go to the 9800 pro. Doom 3 to the 6600gt. Mainly would look like two cards real close to each other with no clear winner nvidia would win the usual stuff they do good in and radeon winning their usual tests. I would definitely not upgrade to a 6600 gt because its not much of an upgrade.