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

No, I didnt have a setup guide. I've been overclocking for so long I pretty much know what everything does at this point.

This thread has some good info about many of the timings.

More good info is in the A64Tweaker thread.

Some more observations,

HT: My neo2 didnt want anything to do with 5x HT above 200mhz. My giga ultra939 has no problem with 5x. (I always thought the neo2 needed a vht setting in its bios)

Prime95: My neo2 wasnt prime stable above default clocks, or with tight timings. (it wouldnt even boot @ 200mhz with trcd or trp @ 2)

This gigabyte is running my gskill le tccd @ 2/2/2/6/7/10/2/2/1/1 (212x13=2755). I just passed 12 hours of Large, in place FFT's with no errors.

Just tweaking around for a strong gaming system. Ill try to see what's left when I get a chance.

Some rave about the neo2. I guess I got a really bad one.

Thanks, I'm looking to get a stable fast, and affordable 939 system (I don't need PCI-E) to use with an Antec True Control 550W PSU in a Lian Li case. I guess this board has the 20 Pin ATX and 4 pin ATX connectors?

Roger that, the 20 pin atx and 4 pin 12v atx connectors are present. (pics on page 1 of this thread.)

The price of this board is great imo. It should fill your needs well.

Good luck.

Great! Thanks, is your vcore stable?

Vcore fluctuates slightly, but acceptably imo.

Im now priming large fft's at 2800mhz for the last hour. It would fail in under 8 minutes on my neo2. Ill see what happens, hope it passes 12 hrs.

This gigabyte appears to be stomping the crap outa' my neo2. You gotta love something that just works. lol.

edit: This gigabyte is running 2800 with 1.65v. My neo2 needed 1.75 to maintain 2.75ghz stable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lith1um

Vcore fluctuates slightly, but acceptably imo.

Im now priming large fft's at 2800mhz for the last hour. It would fail in under 8 minutes on my neo2. Ill see what happens, hope it passes 12 hrs.

This gigabyte appears to be stomping the crap outa' my neo2. You gotta love something that just works. lol.

edit: This gigabyte is running 2800 with 1.65v. My neo2 needed 1.75 to maintain 2.75ghz stable.

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Excellent -- with your FX-55?

Yes, but it failed after 3 hours. Oh well.

still some tweaking to do.

I just bought a k8ns-939 with a 3000+
Is there anyway to force it to 1:1 ?
I set it to 200 as max but it still only does 166

Here is the highest I've gone yet, I could get more but I'm going to wait until I can get some better cooling.
http://img68.exs.cx/img68/7629/overclocked6vc.jpg

I'm using the F5 bios,
ram is running at 166 = 256mhz
cpu at 200 = 290
ldt x 3

ran prime95 for 6 hours until I shut it down... it peaked at 62°C !!
I only bumped the voltage up a few notches, I can't wait until I get some better ram and a REAL cooler instead of this stock pos!

This winnie is looking like a great overclocker!
http://img128.exs.cx/img128/4999/cpustepping1pl.jpg

Oh and by the way, I run it at 3500+ speeds for everyday use... It's fast enough for all my games.

hitek420,
what does it do at default voltage?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ArcTan

I just bought a k8ns-939 with a 3000+
Is there anyway to force it to 1:1 ?
I set it to 200 as max but it still only does 166

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What bios are you running? Im running F5.

F6 broke the 200mhz setting for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hitek420

This winnie is looking like a great overclocker!
http://img128.exs.cx/img128/4999/cpustepping1pl.jpg

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Mine is the same, except the last 3 digits.
Doesn't seem like a good oc'er though.
Can hardly pass 280, and need 1.525V, using WC.
Using F5 bios.
Something's holding me back, but haven't figured out what yet.

But hey, not every cpu clocks the same.
Nice oc, BTW.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lith1um

What bios are you running? Im running F5.

F6 broke the 200mhz setting for me.

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is there F5/F6 bios for the non ultra board?
I just checked the australia gigabyte site and only had F2 which is what I flashed it to

Nope,
The non-ultra board has only bios F2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jupiler

Nope,
The non-ultra board has only bios F2.

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hmm that's what I though
oh well it isn't too much of a problem since I only have a 3000+
plus booster is working on this board so all's good so far

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 ???

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jupiler

I picked up a vanilla k8ns-939 today. The k8nsxp939 is to expensive and the k8ns ultra-939 wasn't even on their list. :stick: I wanted that one.
Will be installing it tomorrow and see how it performs vs my Neo2.

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So there are 3 versions of this board?

the simple one, the ultra one and the XP ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vadergr

the simple one, the ultra one and the XP ...

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Thanks, any comparisons <links> between the three models -- test of all 3 together? From reading these forums for a month now I am leaning toward getting a 939 Ultra.

Is anybody having problems with the temp sensors? If you are getting correct readings can you tell me what programs you are using!!

Thanks :)

Can someone tell me how to post images? I too (recently) built a K8NS and it's doing very well so I thought I should share.

I thought the protocol was [img][/img] but that didn't seem to work...

thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by composer

Can someone tell me how to post images? I too (recently) built a K8NS and it's doing very well so I thought I should share.

I thought the protocol was [img][/img] but that didn't seem to work...

thanks

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There's an option "Manage Attachments", located a little lower than the "Submit reply" button.
From there, you can upload pics from your HD (click "Browse">"Upload").

I am really close to buying this board also(the GA-K8NS 939 Ultra). Can anyone tell me, does it suppport Cool and Quiet? It doesn't show that in the manufacters specs. Also, I read where one guy couldn't get his firewire port to work. Has anyone tried it?

Thanks,
-Dman

i dont think it supports C&Q, that will kill your overclock anyways.

i dont have anything f/w related so i cant help you there, altho ive heard f/w-B doesnt work.

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.