Problems with GA-X79S-UP5 board - please help!

Hi guys,

It's not very often that I ask for direct help, but I have an issue that has now been ongoing for a month and I am spinning my wheels. Gigabyte is making me do the run around, and I am getting nowhere and they are not resolving anything.

Anyway, if you would like to see the full issue you can go read the entire thread here http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...ifi-board.html

For those that go by the adage of TL; DR, here is the summary version.

The GA-X79S-UP5 board is not capable to overclock any of the C2 chips. It throttles every C2 chip when overclocked and loaded with AVX instruction set. At what clock the board starts to throttle is dependent on the chip. Some people have reported throttling with an OC as low as 4GHz, in my case it is 4.2GHz and up, but the idea is the same. All VRM temperatures are fully under control, the CPU temps are absolutely under control, everything checks out fine. The board just throttles the CPU no matter what the settings. The Turbo Power Limit (Watts) and Core Current Limit (Amps) settings in the UEFI BIOS have no effect what so ever for increasing the power/current envelopes of any of the chips. They are however capable of capping the power/current envelopes to lower values than factory settings of the chip. The problem plagues every single GA-X79S-UP5 in combination with a C2 chip.

Now, what do I need you may ask? I would really appreciate anyone sharing a contact over at Gigabyte that can actually assist with this. If you have one, please PM me the details. If you are not willing to share the contact, can you please get your contact to look at this issue and let me know what they say in terms of when they expect to have this resolved. Sin0822 over on Overclock.net has already reached out to them in regards to this issue but I have not heard back from him either in a while now and there seems to be no progress happening at all. Gigabyte has vaguely acknowledged the existence of a problem, but never directly to me. The best information that I have has come only through Sin0822 though it has been extremely vague.

I have had an issue open with them for over a month, produced numerous tests, tried different boards, different randomly chosen chips, spent over $1000 of my own money in spare parts and test equipment trying to resolve this to no avail. To top it off, Gigabyte has basically stopped responding to any queries and is not providing any sort of resolution to the problem.

I would greatly appreciate any help that can be provided. This experience with this board is proving to be an absolute nightmare. :(

Hmm maybe not much input, but have you tried to actively cool the VRM area of the MB just for the hell of it? My another Rampage IV Extreme would throttle down above 4.2 GHz clocks if not actively cooled, even that the heatsink did not become even warm. And this is a very high-end MB. Using active 60mm fan directly over the VRM area fixed the issue for me. Does not look too good on my 420 eur motherboard though, and looks like it's a very basic issue with X79 boards. Almost made me thinking of selling my whole X79 setup away.

By the way are you sure it happens only with the C2 stepping or C1 as well? I am thinking that when you found about the 'power limit' of the motherboard, could it also be related to heat and something is triggered. Remember the first Gigabyte X79 boards burning? They released a BIOS that actually limited your overclocking.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...on-and-burning!

Yeah I've read your thread over at Tweaktown some days or weeks ago. All I gotta say is that Gigabyte have dropped the ball on this one. It's like the P6T fiasco all over again but atleast Asus guys have released an unoffical BIOS to fix throttling while Gigabyte don't seem to care.

To bad because the X79 UP4/UP5 boards look very nice.

It's not just happening on C2, my C0 exhibits the same issue.

From what I'm hearing, they are saying it's a CPU-related issue not a mainboard one. Did you swap out for another mainboard brand already? If yes - same issues?

//edit: couldn't wait for the reply, tested P9X79 with the same C0 chip and so far no throttling

//edit2: went back to the X79S-UP5 to test behavior with gear ratio at 1.25X. Now I don't have throttling at 4.25GHz anymore (34x multiplier), but around 4.75G (38x) it would throttle back to 37x once every minute or so (under high load). It seems like the throttling occurs more often and in larger steps the higher the multiplier you're using (and not related to temperature, voltage or frequency). I'll go back to the P9X79 to double check if no throttling takes place.

//edit3: back to P9X79 running 4.5G (45x) OCCT AVX-enabled and no throttling; on the same bench with the X79S-UP5 at 4.3G (43x) it'll drop back to 42x and 41x once every 15-20sec. As said, at 4.75G (38x) it only throttles back one step (37x) every 60sec or so. As far as I can tell, the engineers are working on it (or at least aware), but so far didn't see a bios that fixes the issue. I'll keep you updated.

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Originally Posted by xarot

Hmm maybe not much input, but have you tried to actively cool the VRM area of the MB just for the hell of it? My another Rampage IV Extreme would throttle down above 4.2 GHz clocks if not actively cooled, even that the heatsink did not become even warm. And this is a very high-end MB. Using active 60mm fan directly over the VRM area fixed the issue for me. Does not look too good on my 420 eur motherboard though, and looks like it's a very basic issue with X79 boards. Almost made me thinking of selling my whole X79 setup away.

By the way are you sure it happens only with the C2 stepping or C1 as well? I am thinking that when you found about the 'power limit' of the motherboard, could it also be related to heat and something is triggered. Remember the first Gigabyte X79 boards burning? They released a BIOS that actually limited your overclocking.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...on-and-burning!

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Yeah, I'm aware of these "common" issues with X79. This is not the case here. Not only are my VRM temperatures very low, but the VRM is also actively cooled in my case so definitely not the problem.

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Originally Posted by QuadDamage

Yeah I've read your thread over at Tweaktown some days or weeks ago. All I gotta say is that Gigabyte have dropped the ball on this one. It's like the P6T fiasco all over again but atleast Asus guys have released an unoffical BIOS to fix throttling while Gigabyte don't seem to care.

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Seems to be the case sadly.

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Originally Posted by massman

It's not just happening on C2, my C0 exhibits the same issue.

From what I'm hearing, they are saying it's a CPU-related issue not a mainboard one. Did you swap out for another mainboard brand already? If yes - same issues?

//edit: couldn't wait for the reply, tested P9X79 with the same C0 chip and so far no throttling

//edit2: went back to the X79S-UP5 to test behavior with gear ratio at 1.25X. Now I don't have throttling at 4.25GHz anymore (34x multiplier), but around 4.75G (38x) it would throttle back to 37x once every minute or so (under high load). It seems like the throttling occurs more often and in larger steps the higher the multiplier you're using (and not related to temperature, voltage or frequency). I'll go back to the P9X79 to double check if no throttling takes place.

//edit3: back to P9X79 running 4.5G (45x) OCCT AVX-enabled and no throttling; on the same bench with the X79S-UP5 at 4.3G (43x) it'll drop back to 42x and 41x once every 15-20sec. As said, at 4.75G (38x) it only throttles back one step (37x) every 60sec or so. As far as I can tell, the engineers are working on it (or at least aware), but so far didn't see a bios that fixes the issue. I'll keep you updated.

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I have tested other mainboards, namely RIVE. Blameless over on OCN also tested RIVE and P9X79 and none of those boards have issues running the same chip. I have tried multiple chips, multiple GA-X79S-UP5 boards, and multiple DRAM kits with different speeds and nothing makes a difference. This is definitely a problem with this mainboard, moreover I am convinced that it is firmware related. I also have direct confirmations of issues from all other users of this board. They all have the same exact problem.

Gigabyte really dropped the ball on this one. The thing is though that in my communication with them it's now been over 1.5 months with this issue and they are still refusing to admit to me that there is a widespread problem (which there clearly is since it affects all users). They are constantly trying to blame in on my "chip quality" and no matter how much proof I provide to them they just keep going back to the same thing over and over again. I even recorded a video for them for the love of god!

"It's only in some cases" they say, "it's only over 4.4GHz" they say, male bovine excrement I say. :mad:

Do you have any updates from them?

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Originally Posted by massman

It's not just happening on C2, my C0 exhibits the same issue.

From what I'm hearing, they are saying it's a CPU-related issue not a mainboard one. Did you swap out for another mainboard brand already? If yes - same issues?

//edit: couldn't wait for the reply, tested P9X79 with the same C0 chip and so far no throttling

//edit2: went back to the X79S-UP5 to test behavior with gear ratio at 1.25X. Now I don't have throttling at 4.25GHz anymore (34x multiplier), but around 4.75G (38x) it would throttle back to 37x once every minute or so (under high load). It seems like the throttling occurs more often and in larger steps the higher the multiplier you're using (and not related to temperature, voltage or frequency). I'll go back to the P9X79 to double check if no throttling takes place.

//edit3: back to P9X79 running 4.5G (45x) OCCT AVX-enabled and no throttling; on the same bench with the X79S-UP5 at 4.3G (43x) it'll drop back to 42x and 41x once every 15-20sec. As said, at 4.75G (38x) it only throttles back one step (37x) every 60sec or so. As far as I can tell, the engineers are working on it (or at least aware), but so far didn't see a bios that fixes the issue. I'll keep you updated.

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Try BIOS f4r for the UP5 it should fix it for your C0 as it fixes it for my C0. BIOS engineers told me that the BIOS would fix for only 1 type of CPUs either ES or retail, when i tested it it fixed for C0 ES, so not retail.

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Originally Posted by sin0822

Try BIOS f4r for the UP5 it should fix it for your C0 as it fixes it for my C0. BIOS engineers told me that the BIOS would fix for only 1 type of CPUs either ES or retail, when i tested it it fixed for C0 ES, so not retail.

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:rofl: That's very useful to retail purchasers of the board. Also, you were real quiet for a while, but when I posted that massman picked this up all of a sudden you care again eh?

Don't take it personal, I'm just fed up with everyone dancing around this like it does not exist. It exists and it affects all of us who bought this board. Not a single piss-ant review out there admits that there is a problem, and all of my efforts on top of it all to actually get them to edit their reviews are fruitless because everyone is too afraid to say the truth about the quality. No wonder that every review out today for every product is a "9/10 amazing product".

Heh ... "reviews", right ;)/

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Originally Posted by dejanh

I have tested other mainboards, namely RIVE. Blameless over on OCN also tested RIVE and P9X79 and none of those boards have issues running the same chip. I have tried multiple chips, multiple GA-X79S-UP5 boards, and multiple DRAM kits with different speeds and nothing makes a difference. This is definitely a problem with this mainboard, moreover I am convinced that it is firmware related. I also have direct confirmations of issues from all other users of this board. They all have the same exact problem.

Gigabyte really dropped the ball on this one. The thing is though that in my communication with them it's now been over 1.5 months with this issue and they are still refusing to admit to me that there is a widespread problem (which there clearly is since it affects all users). They are constantly trying to blame in on my "chip quality" and no matter how much proof I provide to them they just keep going back to the same thing over and over again. I even recorded a video for them for the love of god!

"It's only in some cases" they say, "it's only over 4.4GHz" they say, male bovine excrement I say. :mad:

Do you have any updates from them?

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No updates, but they are most certainly aware of the problem. As far as I know, there is a long internal email trail to figure out the issue.

Normally, this kind of throttling would either be triggered by the VRM or CPU internal OCP but both having VRM under LN2 (temp) and disabling cores doesn't resolve the problem. But as I mentioned in my previous post: with higher voltage and changing to 1.25x BCLK, I don't get the throttling at 4.3G, even though the power consumption should be higher. So, I reckon it's something else ... but I don't know what. I'm really interested in the answer, though :).

It's not in "some cases" and not "only over 4.4G".

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Originally Posted by sin0822

Try BIOS f4r for the UP5 it should fix it for your C0 as it fixes it for my C0. BIOS engineers told me that the BIOS would fix for only 1 type of CPUs either ES or retail, when i tested it it fixed for C0 ES, so not retail.

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Well, just tested that BIOS and it doesn't so you shouldn't tell them it's fixed :p:. F4r, F4s and F4t all exhibit the same issue.

//edit: well, seems like a solution is in-bound ... well, an interesting solution that is. More info today, I think.

it honestly fixes it on my system, huge difference with C0 stepping. I did tell them it isn't fixed.

at higher voltage you could be pushing less current.

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Originally Posted by massman

Heh ... "reviews", right ;)/



No updates, but they are most certainly aware of the problem. As far as I know, there is a long internal email trail to figure out the issue.

Normally, this kind of throttling would either be triggered by the VRM or CPU internal OCP but both having VRM under LN2 (temp) and disabling cores doesn't resolve the problem. But as I mentioned in my previous post: with higher voltage and changing to 1.25x BCLK, I don't get the throttling at 4.3G, even though the power consumption should be higher. So, I reckon it's something else ... but I don't know what. I'm really interested in the answer, though :).

It's not in "some cases" and not "only over 4.4G".



Well, just tested that BIOS and it doesn't so you shouldn't tell them it's fixed :p:. F4r, F4s and F4t all exhibit the same issue.

//edit: well, seems like a solution is in-bound ... well, an interesting solution that is. More info today, I think.

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Now you got me excited :D Can't wait to see what was devised and especially what is the cause :yepp: Looking forward to that update!

By the way, in my tests I did manage to stop the throttling by disabling cores, or rather by specifying in Prime95 Small FFT test or LinX to use less cores. However, the higher the voltage or the overclock, or both, the less cores and threads you have to use to avoid seeing throttling. So maybe at 4.4GHz I'm able to stop throttling by using only 3C/6T in Prime95 Small FFT but then at 4.6GHz I have to drop that to 2C/4T only. With that said, there could still be throttling occurring but it could be very quick so that I do not necessarily see the transitions any more. Just thought I'd share that observation. I'm pretty sure that at some point in time I documented it in one of the other threads... :p:

I also did not observe throttling when AVX is not used, but that's not to say that it would not happen with a high enough overclock/voltage combination even without AVX. Not using AVX just reduces the overall current/power demands so it makes sense why throttling stops (at least to an extent).

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Originally Posted by massman

Normally, this kind of throttling would either be triggered by the VRM or CPU internal OCP but both having VRM under LN2 (temp) and disabling cores doesn't resolve the problem. But as I mentioned in my previous post: with higher voltage and changing to 1.25x BCLK, I don't get the throttling at 4.3G, even though the power consumption should be higher. So, I reckon it's something else ... but I don't know what. I'm really interested in the answer, though :).

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The throttling seems tied to the turbo multipliers, which apply current and wattage limits that do not exist on non-turbo ratios, and are more generous with lower turbo ratios, on LGA-2011 parts. The 1.25x strap allows you to use a much lower multiplier that is much less likely to be throttled.

I was also able to get my X79S-UP5 to be throttle free using 1.25x, but 1.25x is barely usable with my chip on air (horrible cold boot issues, so I need multiplier restarts bumping multiplier a few notches at a time, and even then it's not stable), so it's not at all a practical solution.

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Originally Posted by massman

//edit: well, seems like a solution is in-bound ... well, an interesting solution that is. More info today, I think.

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Any more info on this?

On a related tangent, I remember on of the fixes ASUS applied to turbo ratios with their LGA-1366 P6T line. They initially left the TDP limit that throttled the turbo multipler off at stock values, which caused serious issues with i7 920s (as odd multipliers clocked better, and 21x was the turbo ratio). So what it seems they did was just cut the reported power consumption in half. It was a half-assed solution, but it worked.

Say what?

http://img.techpowerup.org/121217/gi...r_17122012.jpg

Oh look, we're back to "it's the CPU" and "it's not a Gigabyte only problem". Other vendors apparently have the same issue...interesting, because all of us seem to not be able to reproduce this problem with any other board except for Gigabyte GA-X79S-UP5 :rolleyes:. To top it off, so far every time they ran a test for me they had a different setup.

1. C0 ES chips.
2. C2 chips with low leakage.
3. Windows 7 with no SP1.
4. Windows 7 with SP1.
5. Windows 8.

Just to name a few...

How do they even manage to keep track of their testing when every time they check anything they change all of their test parameters?! I get that you want to test varying combinations but changing your test parameters every time, well that kind of makes it hard to test doesn't it :shrug:

Now I'm really looking forward to that update from you massman.

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Originally Posted by dejanh

Now you got me excited :D Can't wait to see what was devised and especially what is the cause :yepp: Looking forward to that update!

By the way, in my tests I did manage to stop the throttling by disabling cores, or rather by specifying in Prime95 Small FFT test or LinX to use less cores. However, the higher the voltage or the overclock, or both, the less cores and threads you have to use to avoid seeing throttling. So maybe at 4.4GHz I'm able to stop throttling by using only 3C/6T in Prime95 Small FFT but then at 4.6GHz I have to drop that to 2C/4T only. With that said, there could still be throttling occurring but it could be very quick so that I do not necessarily see the transitions any more. Just thought I'd share that observation. I'm pretty sure that at some point in time I documented it in one of the other threads... :p:

I also did not observe throttling when AVX is not used, but that's not to say that it would not happen with a high enough overclock/voltage combination even without AVX. Not using AVX just reduces the overall current/power demands so it makes sense why throttling stops (at least to an extent).

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well that is different b/c my C0 would exhibit throttling without AVX......


With AVX my C0 CPus just freeze at higher speeds and crash, they can't handle being stable at any voltage at 4.5ghz+.

I also did try without AVX to compare with F4R and previous, and it worked(IBT non AVX). Then i tried with F4R with LinX and the system kept freezing after a few loops, other BIOSes would show throttling and no freezing, thus F4R was stopping the throttling but the CPU couldn't take it, so I measured the input power on the 12v rails and it did confirm that the power didn't drop like it did with throttling with F4R.

i will make a video, but the issue is that people will think that i am showing the issue be fixed.

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Originally Posted by sin0822

well that is different b/c my C0 would exhibit throttling without AVX......


With AVX my C0 CPus just freeze at higher speeds and crash, they can't handle being stable at any voltage at 4.5ghz+.

I also did try without AVX to compare with F4R and previous, and it worked(IBT non AVX). Then i tried with F4R with LinX and the system kept freezing after a few loops, other BIOSes would show throttling and no freezing, thus F4R was stopping the throttling but the CPU couldn't take it, so I measured the input power on the 12v rails and it did confirm that the power didn't drop like it did with throttling with F4R.

i will make a video, but the issue is that people will think that i am showing the issue be fixed.

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Thanks for that feedback. It's certainly interesting and it definitely illustrates that this is a rather peculiar issue that we are dealing with. I always keep my Kill-A-Watt meter plugged in between my wall and the computer and (without measuring the 12V rail) I do definitely see a power drop when not using AVX which is consistent with the software-based power reporting, and with what I would intuitively expect to see. The behavior that I am seeing is at least consistent with all of the retail chips that people have reported to date. At the end of the day, it's these ones that need to be fixed primarily as that is 99% user base for this product.

I think they are making progress, hopefully a new BIOS soon.

Glad I stumbled across this, I was actually looking into buying this board.

Any updates at all? I know that the holidays are upon us so things may be slow, but curious to know anyway. :)

PS: Happy holidays to all!

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Originally Posted by screwtech02

Glad I stumbled across this, I was actually looking into buying this board.

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I was as well. Been using Gigabyte for the last six years. My last board was problematic. Now waiting on my new Asrock to ship from newegg.

Happy New Year everyone! Unfortunately, there is still no resolution on this issue and I have not received any updates from anyone. I hope that this is due to the holidays only :shrug:

Looks like Gigabyte is still struggling with this issue. There is no resolution being offered so far. I am still personally struggling to understand what is the specific cause of this problem but it definitely appears to be a combination between the firmware and the board itself. If the issue was pure firmware I would have expected it to be resolved already, however, as you can see it is not resolved. It's a really unfortunate situation.

I'm hoping that there will be some sort of productive update soon. :(

A week ago:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1311260/r...#post_19072992

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Originally Posted by stasio

A week ago:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1311260/r...#post_19072992

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Hey stasio,

Thanks for linking that thread :) Indeed, the throttling issue is resolved with the F4u BIOS. I've been testing the BIOS for about a week now and it passed all of the scenarios that would normally cause throttling. Apologies for not responding earlier in this thread. I've been dealing with other issues.