Official GIGABYTE X38-DQ6/X38T-DQ6 Info/BIOS Thread

[jmas]

Hi,

I've just flashed to the F8 BIOS and I've noticed a new entry named: "Fine CPU Clock Ratio for 45nm [+0.0][+0.5] " Any idea about what is it? If I set it to +0.5 the resulting speed in BIOS is 400x9.5=3800 Mhz. But once in windows CPU-Z reports 400x9=3600Mhz. I have an Intel e8400.

[zicada]

Hi,

I've just flashed to the F8 BIOS and I've noticed a new entry named: "Fine CPU Clock Ratio for 45nm [+0.0][+0.5] " Any idea about what is it? If I set it to +0.5 the resulting speed in BIOS is 400x9.5=3800 Mhz. But once in windows CPU-Z reports 400x9=3600Mhz. I have an Intel e8400.

Thats for CPU's like the E8500, that comes with a multi of 9,5. You would have to have an unlocked cpu (ES or EE) to be able to set that setting manually.

[Zenoth]

Have anyone here flashed from BIOS F8C to F8 Final? If so, what were your observations in terms of differences between the two BIOS'es?

[REVHEAD]

Guys I have just got some G.Skill 1066 ram 4gb kit and I am running 400 mhz fsb for 3.6ghz.

For the life of me I cant get a 1-1 ram to fsb ratio and getting poor Everest results because of it, at the moment I am running the D strab I think to get 1066 or was it be I cant remember. Has any one got any ideas on how I can keep my cpu @ 3.6 and get my ram running at 1-1 for good read write speeds?

I am running the latest F8 final bios.

[M0b1us]

Guys I have just got some G.Skill 1066 ram 4gb kit and I am running 400 mhz fsb for 3.6ghz.

For the life of me I cant get a 1-1 ram to fsb ratio and getting poor Everest results because of it, at the moment I am running the D strab I think to get 1066 or was it be I cant remember. Has any one got any ideas on how I can keep my cpu @ 3.6 and get my ram running at 1-1 for good read write speeds?

I am running the latest F8 final bios.

Use the A strap......and set Enhanced Performance to Turbo.

[truehighroller]

I just got my ex38 dq6 last night and I got it all setup and sweeet. I have a p35 dq6 and I noticed that when I would change my settings on it regarding the turbo and extreme and what not it would not make a difference "I think it is broke" I noticed right away that it works on this board. I have a q6600 in her and managed to get it up to 3.21Ghz~ last night and had to go to bed so, I will crank her up more tonight. I also have G-Skill 2Gbx2 DDR2 1066 in her and it is sweet as hell so far. I have had that processor up to 457x9 on my p35 so, I will see how well it compares to it on my 3dmark account. I have not flashed to the f2 yet either apparently they have fix some performance issues with that one.

[ThatGuy16]

Guys I have just got some G.Skill 1066 ram 4gb kit and I am running 400 mhz fsb for 3.6ghz.

For the life of me I cant get a 1-1 ram to fsb ratio and getting poor Everest results because of it, at the moment I am running the D strab I think to get 1066 or was it be I cant remember. Has any one got any ideas on how I can keep my cpu @ 3.6 and get my ram running at 1-1 for good read write speeds?

I am running the latest F8 final bios.

I think the 1:1 ratio is called "2.00B". It will say what the ram speed will be before applying the settings

Use the A strap......and set Enhanced Performance to Turbo.

For overclocking, you want the performance enhance set to standard. Anything else can cause major instability.

[Richard Dower]

Strange things are happening:

[Richard Dower]

I think the 1:1 ratio is called "2.00B". It will say what the ram speed will be before applying the settings


For overclocking, you want the performance enhance set to standard. Anything else can cause major instability.

That was my problem with F8!!!!
Look at my screenie above for my settings...the problem was i set the performance enhance setting to Turbro and everything went tits up!!

Crashed, could not boot...works fine on standard. Then i try setting turbo again and it works, and then i get the highest bandwidth i've seen to date



Turbo seems to set the performance level to 7, as opposed to 10 for standard.

[truehighroller]

I had to slowly crank mine up to get it to do 3.21Ghz~ I know I can get plenty more but, it did not like me just cranking it up to that from the original setting of 2.4Ghz, it's like you have to show it that it can do it then it stops being cranky. I will continue my fun tonight. I had to get some slepp last night and it was 1am when I went to bed.

[ubiquityman]

I tried the RAID5 array, but restoring from Ghost, the RAID5 array would take 70hours (3 days) whereas the RAID10 array took only 5 hours. There is a big difference in performance if Windows is not running, I'm presuming to assist with the parity calculation. If left to the ICH9R, the RAID5 performance is doggy. (But it's pretty good in Windows).

Anyways, my system is now back to a "fully operational" state.
I put the Kill-A-Watt meter on it and with the "Dynamic Energy Saver", underclocked, it works out to be about 10W for a QX6700.

Overclocked (and overvoltaged) I'm expecting about 30% higher, but still that's pretty meager overall, so other than things such as fan noise, 10W-15W out of a total of 280W (as read by Kill-A-Watt) for my entire system (2 20"LCD, Corsair H X620, 5 SATA HDs, 2 DVD drives, 8600GTS), is less ~5% savings. (The fact that the CPU is cooler helps the fans stay quieter which is a plus for the power saving feature.)

So, while the power savings is a step in the right direction, I think right now it's more gimmick than significant.

However, the board is super stable. Compared to my D975XBX2, the EX38 POSTS quite a bit faster, boots faster (not sure why this is yet), comes out of suspend properly (YEAH!!!!!), and doesn't have the dead-keyboard on cold boot issue.

Overall, I'm thrilled with motherboard so far!

The only negative I've found thus far is that the Realtek HD audio is incompatible with Cisco Softphone 2.0. (whereas it worked with the onboard audio on the Bad Axe 2) This does suck, but I can resort to a USB headseat till I figure out a fix.

I should add, one of the reasons for me picking this board is the onboard COM and LPT/ECP ports.
I had some old IDC to DB9 cables from ISA card (I did say "old"). The first ones I tried were wired incorrectly for the Gigabyte motherboard, but I did eventually find one that was wired correctly.

What I couldn't find is a correctly wired IDC to DB25 for the LPT port. I have a cable that matches the gigabyte motherboard pinout except 1 wire is in the wrong position. (Pin24 "not used", is swapped with Pin26 "ground wire" on the IDC).

I'll probably end up just recrimping the IDC and flip the wires at the IDC end.

[ThatGuy16]

Alright, i need some suggestions.

About three times now when I'm playing COD4 i get a hard lockup (within 30 minutes to an hour). First i though maybe the CPU isn't getting enough juice, but now orthos has been running for two hours and still going, so i'm pretty sure thats not it. i have already raised the G MCH voltage from +0.025v to +0.05v (on auto, it would freeze within 5 minutes in windows). So now i'm not sure whats the cause, i even tried lowering my gpu OC. So the only thing i can think of is the G MCH may need more voltage or the ram (currently 5-5-5-15 / 2.0v / 890mhz)

??

[ubiquityman]

This is getting a little more interesting....

Overclocked, without DES, the system shows about 50W CPU power.
With DES (power saving) on, this drops down to under 20W.

So 30W savings, and a quieter fan. That's getting a little more worthwhile!

George

[M0b1us]

For overclocking, you want the performance enhance set to standard. Anything else can cause major instability.

To use the Turbo setting it depends on your RAM, RAM ratio, and Vmch you're using. If you hesitate to use Turbo mode try run @ 4-4-4-x latencies.

I can boot my E8400 467x9 with 2.5A ratio and CL4-4-4-12 using the Turbo Mode. Bandwith on Everest insanely high and latencies are very tight. The downside of this setting is I had to give +0.25 or +0.3 on my Vmch.

[Richard Dower]

+0.10V on the FSB and +0.150V on the (G)MCH for me to get stability.

[Richard Dower]

This is getting a little more interesting....

Overclocked, without DES, the system shows about 50W CPU power.
With DES (power saving) on, this drops down to under 20W.

So 30W savings, and a quieter fan. That's getting a little more worthwhile!

George

Any chance of pics of the mobo?

[ubiquityman]

It's installed, so unfortunately, not a very good picture.
The red plastic to help direct airflow needs to be refabricated to match where this mobo has the CPU, etc. I also put a little baffle on the video card so it will vent out the back instead of inside the case.

[ubiquityman]

Also, I got my electric rate wrong originally.
I checked my utility bill and it's just about $0.11(US) per kW*hr (winter electric rates)
So 30W savings is actually $28.50/yr for 7x24 operation.
(30W*24h*30days*12mon*$0.11/1000=$28.50)

Include AC rejection of that heat in the summer and higher summer electrical rates, and it's probably ~$50/yr.
Still not huge, but starting to add up.

I have a server that's on 7x24 and at $50/yr electricity savings, I'm starting to think about replacing the motherboard with something that has power a power saving feature.

[Richard Dower]

Same heatsink as mine, you using a Delta fan?....isn't that 38mm thick?
ESATA as well?...looks like you've got 6 HDDs, maybe a little cable management wouldn't go amiss :-)

The LEDs look better then i thought they would....and one of you memory sticks are not fastened correctly, she could fall out!

;-)

[ubiquityman]

This is the fan that I have (and where I bought it from). It's 92x32
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/ev92mespwpwm.html

The ESATA ports are pretty useful, but I usually don't have an external HD connected.

I have 5 HDs. 4 in Matrix RAID, and 1 as temp drive. (No swapfile).
I edited the registry to put the temp "garbage" on the single drive to prevent disk thrashing.
eg. TEMP, TMP, Temporary Internet Files, Local Settings/Temp, downloads, etc.

The last SATA is connected to a DVD drive.

Thanks for the note about the unlatched DIMM. I'll check it next time I power down my machine. I remember vividly snapping them all in and putting the tabs back up when I installed them, but maybe i accidentally bumped it with the cable management. When things get running and I don't forsee any more tweaking, I'll use velcro straps to neaten things up.

[Richard Dower]

LOL!...i had the EXACT same fan, which i also happened to buy from sidewinders!!

How mad is that?...that Evercool is a SERIOUSLY noisy bugger, bought it because it was 4pin PWM.

[IFMU]

Well I've been reading this thread for a bit over a week now, off and on.
Got in the ex38-DQ6 board as a replacement for the x38-DS4 that ended up dieing from a bad flash.

I've got a few questions on this, know I won't recall them all so they will prolly come up over a few posts.

1st, what is the major differences between the jmicron and the intel (purple/orange) sata ports onboard?
2nd, has anyone used Dinos bios revision he posted a link to?

I am not sure why everyones been changing bios' like they were going out of style, so far I've been using the one that came on the board, think it is F1.
I've been able to get 7x490 on this with minimal problems. I've had a few problems with tweaking the memory, but odds are that is just me not fully comprehending what it is I am doing with it, still working on that.
Ok, well I am sure there will be more to say on this, but drawing a bit of a blank at the moment.. shocked I've read all 2k+ posts in this thread... sheesh... lol

[truehighroller]

I have noticed that when I try to crank my PCIE Frequecy up to give my card more juice that the Intel Raid controller stops working what's up with that? I crank it up to 125 when this happens. I have the EX X38 DQ6 and I have left my Bios at the default revision as well as far as the last question goes so, I don't know what difference it will make if any but, their site says it fixes Overclocking stability and memory performance issues but, mine seems to be ok so far IMO.

[ChrissTi]

I have noticed that when I try to crank my PCIE Frequecy up to give my card more juice that the Intel Raid controller stops working what's up with that? I crank it up to 125 when this happens. I have the EX X38 DQ6 and I have left my Bios at the default revision as well as far as the last question goes so, I don't know what difference it will make if any but, their site says it fixes Overclocking stability and memory performance issues but, mine seems to be ok so far IMO.

What is your CPU FSB ?

[Hornet331]

I have noticed that when I try to crank my PCIE Frequecy up to give my card more juice that the Intel Raid controller stops working what's up with that? I crank it up to 125 when this happens. I have the EX X38 DQ6 and I have left my Bios at the default revision as well as far as the last question goes so, I don't know what difference it will make if any but, their site says it fixes Overclocking stability and memory performance issues but, mine seems to be ok so far IMO.

its a quite common phenomenon that the higher the pci-2 frequenzy goes the sata ports crap out, why do you think extreme ocer use ide harddrives if they want to push 3d score to a max.

btw. why do you want to raise the pci-e freq.? Your on CF/SLI?