Gigabyte 790GP-DS4H replacement with Jetway HA07 Ultra

[nanohead]

OK guys, this is just a brief update for those that are interested. As many of us had tons of problems with the Gigabyte 790GP-DS4H, I decided to part ways with it. I've had an Asus M3A78-T running at our ski house, and it has been awesome, but I wanted to try the Jetway.

I bought it from newegg, and have had super luck with it so far. A couple of notes on what I did, cuz it worked remarkably well (I'd rather be lucky than smart!)

The boards both use identical components (except the Jetway lacks a 1394 controller), so moving the existing disks over actually didn't even trigger any plug and play events (which is somewhat remarkable, as it usually re-reads the ESCD and does its thing over and over again)

I built up a test system using a couple of seagate 80GB SATA 1 disks in RAID 1. I used my lame-oh 9950, and a set of OCZ 2x1GB 1066 memory. Also used a Lite-on SATA optical DVD.

There were absolutely ZERO problems with building up the test system. I wanted to see if
1) RAID would work properly
2) If ACC actually did anything
3) If Hybrid Crossfire worked
4) If it had any cold booting or boot cycle problems
5) How the BIOS settings actually affected the system

Amazingly, EVERYTHING worked spot on. At first, I thought it had a disagreement with a microsoft 6000 laser mouse, but it turned out that the receiver for the mouse died. I've also had lots of problems with Asus EAH3450s when trying to get them to work with Hybrid Crossfire in every board I had, and the Jetway was no different (the Asus boards cause stalled POST sometimes with SurroundView enabled). But I also had an MSI 3450 that I installed and it works perfectly.

So basically, with the MSI board installed, and a new logitech mouse, everything is perfect. It doesn't have ANY of the delays or hangs that the Gigabyte had. No cold booting problems, even with ACC on.

As far as the BIOS goes, it has all the goodies. Even more than the Asus and Gigabyte in certain sections, although I have no idea what half those things do. ACC definitely does something with this board. My 4 cores behave much differently with different ACC settings (as measured with multi core Prime95). Also, with the Jetway, ACC does not stall a cold boot, it just fires right up.

I've been able to get the 9950 to 3.3Ghz @ 1.45V. But I know this CPU pretty well, and it has no balls to go beyond that, even with much higher voltage.

The BIOS has some interesting limitations (or not depending on how you look at it). I stupidly bought a set of the OCZ Fatality DDR2 1066 2x2GB sticks that clock out at 7-7-7-20 (newegg $20, couldn't resist). The Jetway board will NOT run these because the slowest the memory timings go is 6-6-6-18. I swapped the OCZ 2x2GB DDR2 1066 Platinums I had in the Asus (5-5-5-15) and it booted right up.

So after all the testing, I simply moved my RAID 1 set (2x500GB Seagate 7200.10) from the Gigabyte to the Jetway, and it just came up, probably 30% faster than the Gigabyte, with all identical parts.

I then installed some PCI Pinnacle parts, a video capture board, and an HDTV tuner (so I can continue my addiction to CNBC). It all just worked. No fuss, no muss.

All in all, I am very very pleased with the Jetway board. The only real shortcomings I see are that the DRAM timings in BIOS are too aggressive for slow memory (which is probably not a shortcoming), and they give you a PCI Express paddle card, but don't tell you what to do with it anywhere.

When I get a PII 940, I'm gonna move the hero 9850 (3.6Ghz on ripping.org) into the Jetway and floor it. Can't wait.

[charged3800z24]

OK guys, this is just a brief update for those that are interested. As many of us had tons of problems with the Gigabyte 790GP-DS4H, I decided to part ways with it. I've had an Asus M3A78-T running at our ski house, and it has been awesome, but I wanted to try the Jetway.


When I get a PII 940, I'm gonna move the hero 9850 (3.6Ghz on ripping.org) into the Jetway and floor it. Can't wait.

Sorry, had to cut out some of the quote...it was sooo big..LOL. Glad the board works as advertised. It can make a decent board for those interested. I oddly enough have had no issues with the 940 on the MA790GP-DS4H, well if you count CPU-Z not reading the processor model correctly. I should have the Asus tomorrow anyhow. I haven't loaded the latest bios either..so Might be fixed. Keep us posted with your experiance. I have a few people looking to build an inexpensive AMD quad rig.

[Meizuman]

Sorry, had to cut out some of the quote...it was sooo big..LOL. Glad the board works as advertised. It can make a decent board for those interested. I oddly enough have had no issues with the 940 on the MA790GP-DS4H, well if you count CPU-Z not reading the processor model correctly. I should have the Asus tomorrow anyhow. I haven't loaded the latest bios either..so Might be fixed. Keep us posted with your experiance. I have a few people looking to build an inexpensive AMD quad rig.

There was few things different in the F3H bios. Now the HT Link speed can be increased. For example if you set HT link to 2.2GHz, it will automatically overclock the NB too. Then the C1E support option has disappeared. And there was a new option in RAM settings, the power-down mode(?). NB multipliers now go up to x20(!) and the max CPU multi was x35

[Lightman]

....
The BIOS has some interesting limitations (or not depending on how you look at it). I stupidly bought a set of the OCZ Fatality DDR2 1066 2x2GB sticks that clock out at 7-7-7-20 (newegg $20, couldn't resist). The Jetway board will NOT run these because the slowest the memory timings go is 6-6-6-18. I swapped the OCZ 2x2GB DDR2 1066 Platinums I had in the Asus (5-5-5-15) and it booted right up.
....

You do know that if OCZ set will work using 6-6-6 or better 5-5-5 timings then you can reprogram SPD on them and enjoy fully functional DDR2 RAM (of course you will loose warranty)!

You just need Thaiphoon Burner!

EDIT: Worst case scenario you can do DDR2-800 from that 1066

[justapost]

Thanks for the details, nanohead!

Good to see the board has NB voltage and multi options now.

Few questions:
How are PWM temps and in wht extend does it overvolt the cpu under load and in idle? I'd expect true five phase system does a good job there. Have you compared power consumption with the gbt board?
Sidenote, my gbt had no boot issues with acc in the past weeks with an 9500 at 1.55V.

[nanohead]

Sorry, had to cut out some of the quote...it was sooo big..LOL. Glad the board works as advertised. It can make a decent board for those interested. I oddly enough have had no issues with the 940 on the MA790GP-DS4H, well if you count CPU-Z not reading the processor model correctly. I should have the Asus tomorrow anyhow. I haven't loaded the latest bios either..so Might be fixed. Keep us posted with your experiance. I have a few people looking to build an inexpensive AMD quad rig.

Whats interesting is that the Jetway is identical in function to the Gigabyte. Most of us trend toward the larger brand names, but here is a nice sleeper. I still find the Asus M3A78-T to be the "snappiest" performer (thats a technical term ), but the Jetway is 95% as snappy. The Asus boots way faster (POST to desktop), but compared the godawful slow Gigabyte, the Jetway is a downright speed demon

You do know that if OCZ set will work using 6-6-6 or better 5-5-5 timings then you can reprogram SPD on them and enjoy fully functional DDR2 RAM (of course you will loose warranty)!

You just need Thaiphoon Burner!

EDIT: Worst case scenario you can do DDR2-800 from that 1066

Thanks... The SPD is not really the issue, as you can manually set the timings. The memory doesn't know about the SPD, only the motherboard. Even if I flashed it, this particular memory seems to be "borderline" 800 that they loosened severely to run at 1066.... Blah, I'm a sucker for a deal. I should have known that anything that "Fatal1Ty" puts his esteemed name on would simply suck

Thanks for the details, nanohead!

Good to see the board has NB voltage and multi options now.

Few questions:
How are PWM temps and in wht extend does it overvolt the cpu under load and in idle? I'd expect true five phase system does a good job there. Have you compared power consumption with the gbt board?
Sidenote, my gbt had no boot issues with acc in the past weeks with an 9500 at 1.55V.

PWM is really cool to the touch. The board uses the Fintek F71882F sensor chip, and I'm not sure how well either it works, or Everest gets along with it. The aux temp is 37-39 most of the time, which could be just about anything on the board for all I know.

I haven't compared power consumption because...well.... I just don't care ( I hope al gore is reading this!)

[[XC] gomeler]

It's most odd, My 790GP-DS4H has no issues and works fine. My only problem is the 1.65vCPU limit in BIOS, seeing if they can write a custom BIOS with 2.2vCPU Search around for a newer BIOS, F3M is a much better BIOS.

[nanohead]

It's most odd, My 790GP-DS4H has no issues and works fine. My only problem is the 1.65vCPU limit in BIOS, seeing if they can write a custom BIOS with 2.2vCPU Search around for a newer BIOS, F3M is a much better BIOS.

Yeah, seems like either you got a good one, or a bad one. I RMAd once, and it still did the same things, so I'm just walking away. It didn't sour me permanently on Gigabyte, but they did let me personally down (not that I matter )

I also skittish to do a BIOS update, as they seem to get corrupted easily (by Gigabytes own admission..)

I still run all my family's other machines on Gigabyte AMD IGP boards (8 of them at last count) and they are terrific. I'm sure if I tried to use the DS4H as regular old board, it would be fine. But as I tried to use ALL the features it had, it kinda just couldn't hold together...

[justapost]

PWM is really cool to the touch. The board uses the Fintek F71882F sensor chip, and I'm not sure how well either it works, or Everest gets along with it. The aux temp is 37-39 most of the time, which could be just about anything on the board for all I know.

Well I think I need to find a cause to get a new board for work now. Thanks for the details.

I haven't compared power consumption because...well.... I just don't care ( I hope al gore is reading this!)

As long as the bush family kept energy prices down you where save in the US i guess.
As if green house effect would be the only cause to save energy. Can't follow you.

[RiverRicer]

It's most odd, My 790GP-DS4H has no issues and works fine. My only problem is the 1.65vCPU limit in BIOS, seeing if they can write a custom BIOS with 2.2vCPU Search around for a newer BIOS, F3M is a much better BIOS.

My experience with this board was mixed. Running a 9850BE would result in cold-boot issues, but a 9950BE worked fine. In any case, I sold the board and 9850. I'm running an Asus 79-T and have a new Foxconn A79S sitting here from the ZZF $100 deal a while back. I'm just waiting for the bios revision before putting the Fconn into a box.

[nanohead]

Well I think I need to find a cause to get a new board for work now. Thanks for the details.

As long as the bush family kept energy prices down you where save in the US i guess.
As if green house effect would be the only cause to save energy. Can't follow you.

Actually, what I meant was that whether it uses 50 or 53 watts doesn't matter to me that much. I'm always playing with all this stuff, and my electric bill is huge regardless of what I do, so a couple of watts here or there doesn't do much for me.

I once counted all the hard disk drives and CPUs that are running in my house. 26 disks (numerous desktops, plus 2 RAID 5 servers with RAID 1 boot drives) and 11 CPUs, plus all the memory, fans, etc.

[justapost]

Actually, what I meant was that whether it uses 50 or 53 watts doesn't matter to me that much. I'm always playing with all this stuff, and my electric bill is huge regardless of what I do, so a couple of watts here or there doesn't do much for me.

I once counted all the hard disk drives and CPUs that are running in my house. 26 disks (numerous desktops, plus 2 RAID 5 servers with RAID 1 boot drives) and 11 CPUs, plus all the memory, fans, etc.

Thank you for clarifying. It's true 3W make no big difference in the electriv bill would be ~3€ for me in a year if the system runs 24/7.
Your first reply sounded like, I don't care dady pays the bill, so I had to counter.

[nanohead]

Thank you for clarifying. It's true 3W make no big difference in the electriv bill would be ~3€ for me in a year if the system runs 24/7.
Your first reply sounded like, I don't care dady pays the bill, so I had to counter.

I am daddy!! And I do pay the bills (actually my wife does!) although my 3 kids don't always know what that means!!

Actually, we've been trying to chip away at power usage. I've got all the computers running S3 based sleep now on timer, so they shut off. We also changed lots of other things in the house, but no matter what we do, energy costs seem to be out of our control it sucks actually.

I'm trying to get a deposit on a Chevy Volt actually, cuz I hate the petrol world far more than the electric world. We still don't have the decent diesel cars here that you have... and diesel fuel is stupid expensive here.. although I used to have an awesome 300SD that ran to more than 200k miles with just oil changes..

[justapost]

I am daddy!! And I do pay the bills (actually my wife does!) although my 3 kids don't always know what that means!!

Actually, we've been trying to chip away at power usage. I've got all the computers running S3 based sleep now on timer, so they shut off. We also changed lots of other things in the house, but no matter what we do, energy costs seem to be out of our control it sucks actually.

Few years bad I had four or five p3, p4, k7 servers running 24/7. Replaced em with an intel 820 (power hog) server running open source xen. Saved 500€ in the following year.
Stupid LCD monitor suck alot of power, my 22" LG requires 30W in standby, bah. New more power efficient technology ios already developed but I thing they sell those LCD power hogs as long as people buy em.
If I had a house i'd try this solar powered pc project tom's made few years earlier.
As a kid I loved daddling around with soldering iron, but I allways preferd coding over gaming also that days. Think todays kid's are more interested in gaming than the tec behind.
I've been in chernobyl restricted area with an help convoy in the 90s. Was not that funny. Half sprung chicken evrywhere. Some locales still lived there. Replace coffe with vodca in the morning and life goes on.
I prefere to minimize energy usage to prevent such things from happening. Overclocking is a double-edged thing for me. I limit it to some hwbot packman sessions on the weekends usualy.

I'm trying to get a deposit on a Chevy Volt actually, cuz I hate the petrol world far more than the electric world. We still don't have the decent diesel cars here that you have... and diesel fuel is stupid expensive here.. although I used to have an awesome 300SD that ran to more than 200k miles with just oil changes..

diesel ain't that evironmental friendly. particular dust contamination still exist but may not be a problem on the country side, only in big cities. I'd love to buy a car with an hybrid engine using 3-4L/km, but those are quite overpriced. That used bmw 316 I have at the moment needs 10L/km no matter how slow I drive. Can do most of the work in my home office so I only need it once or twice a week so it's a minor problem. Diesel prices are on par with normal fuel prices here since a few years btw.

[demonkevy666]

I am daddy!! And I do pay the bills (actually my wife does!) although my 3 kids don't always know what that means!!

Actually, we've been trying to chip away at power usage. I've got all the computers running S3 based sleep now on timer, so they shut off. We also changed lots of other things in the house, but no matter what we do, energy costs seem to be out of our control it sucks actually.

I'm trying to get a deposit on a Chevy Volt actually, cuz I hate the petrol world far more than the electric world. We still don't have the decent diesel cars here that you have... and diesel fuel is stupid expensive here.. although I used to have an awesome 300SD that ran to more than 200k miles with just oil changes..

sound simaly to our pip plan in ohio my dad got our house off it a few months ago he paid in so much that the next months bill was $3. it's been down to reasonable price now.

it suppose to save you money, but it ended up paying about $400 more a year.

gas prices here where closing to $1.24 then news opened their mouths and it shout up to $2 again. diesel has been stuck above $3 for a while

[Micutzu]

I finished the Phenom II review on the Jetway HA07-Ultra. And got new BIOS too, this one works like a charm .

[crazydiamond]

crank that nb! nice clocks

[nanohead]

I finished the Phenom II review on the Jetway HA07-Ultra. And got new BIOS too, this one works like a charm .

Holy DOO DOO batman! Thats unbelievable

[Meizuman]

It's most odd, My 790GP-DS4H has no issues and works fine. My only problem is the 1.65vCPU limit in BIOS, seeing if they can write a custom BIOS with 2.2vCPU Search around for a newer BIOS, F3M is a much better BIOS.

At least Im able to increase the Vcore with AOD from what I've set in bios. For instance if I have 1.4V from bios, it shows as 1.25V in AOD and it can be increased to 1.45V resulting 1.6. Personally I haven't tried anything above 1.6 because the chip gets hot as hell... Vendetta 2 will not take that much heat... So I don't know if the limit exists, just thought there shouldn't be limit... After all, they got 1.95V with Ph II in AMD events...

I think you mean F3H?

[Aquineas]

Whats interesting is that the Jetway is identical in function to the Gigabyte. Most of us trend toward the larger brand names, but here is a nice sleeper. I still find the Asus M3A78-T to be the "snappiest" performer (thats a technical term ), but the Jetway is 95% as snappy. The Asus boots way faster (POST to desktop), but compared the godawful slow Gigabyte, the Jetway is a downright speed demon

Not to mention the Jetway has the coolest, baddest packaging I've ever seen in a MB :-).

[Glow9]

Did they add more voltage settings in bIOS yet?

[nanohead]

I finished the Phenom II review on the Jetway HA07-Ultra. And got new BIOS too, this one works like a charm .

Where did you get the new BIOS. I looked on their website and didn't see a new one!