Forward: official GIGA 965P-S3/DS3/DS4/DQ6 beta BIOS

[markopoleo]

Most of the X-FI problems, are the X-FI problems not the board. Most of the problems people have with this board, are people problems not the board. hehe

[JPH1589]

Most of the X-FI problems, are the X-FI problems not the board. Most of the problems people have with this board, are people problems not the board. hehe

You sound like a GB employee. That is what they say every time someone reports a problem with this board. "User Error"

[Battleneter]

500MHz fsb on DS3 F8i is possible. I didn't run any stress tests, I just wanted to see if it would run at 500MHz when it's cold. Second image is the memory maxed out. Obviously that was done on a hotter day which is often in Texas.
I think this shows that it's most likely the CPU's that are the limiting factor.

Hi Fiddy

Can you tell us if you have a C1 or C2 chipset board.
It is displayed there under "Mainboard" of CPU-Z.

Ah Actually I see you are running 2x512MB ram?

Very nice overclock BTW, you should be happy with that.

[JoeBoXer]

Finally got my system together, 965-DQ6 (rev 2, bought from New Egg 19 days ago).
I have the FSB at 430, I have not tried really pushing past that, since 3 GHz was my original goal.

I am curious- the Easy Tune 5 software runs, but it will not save any overclock settings- I am pressing the "GO" button on it. Does this software work for anyone else? Does anyone really use it much?

[ziddey]

et5 works for me and my ds3. it's a real pain in the ass to use though imo (well probably everyones opinion). get setfsb. works nicely. no voltage controls though which is what i find really cool about et5

[Kashelz]

All I can say is that the best BIOS for DS3/S3 mobos is F8i, its approved by me With F8i I can hit easily 500FSB, and it is Orthos stable over 6 hours... Just tested F8j and official F8, they are no good at all, only strange beeps when I overclock and thats all. Maybe the chipset cooling for other is needed and thats the key why they cant get it working if the limit is not the CPU and memory...

Here is the link for the screenshot, went 6+ hours: http://foto.apollo.lv/resources/modu....php?id=326430 All setings set in BIOS, memory was 4-4-3-9, board is without any mods, its S3 with C1 chipset and DS3 F8i BIOS...

And some days ago I tested the same mobo S3 @ DS3 BIOS with new E6300, with onother 2Gb memory kit, new PSU, there was problems booting with F8j, the same thing was with official F8 when overclocking... then I flashed good old F8i and all is working now, it can do 400FSb and more... and cold boot must be fixed in next BIOS release, sometimes it occured. And what I have seen if there is hard to bot on XXX FSB, try it a bitlower and then go till that XXX FSB by silngle step (+1 FSB) and all will beet fine But now I just sold this board to new user, lets see how it goes to him and will he be able to get such high FSB or near it

Now eVGA 680i board is on the way, lets see how it can get be tweaked and is there any chance to get 500FSB Orthos stable with this board and my E6300 + Teamgroup D9GMH's

[dnottis]

All I can say is that the best BIOS for DS3/S3 mobos is F8i, its approved by me With F8i I can hit easily 500FSB, and it is Orthos stable over 6 hours... Just tested F8j and official F8, they are no good at all, only strange beeps when I overclock and thats all. Maybe the chipset cooling for other is needed and thats the key why they cant get it working if the limit is not the CPU and memory...

Here is the link for the screenshot, went 6+ hours: http://foto.apollo.lv/resources/modu....php?id=326430 All setings set in BIOS, memory was 4-4-3-9, board is without any mods, its S3 with C1 chipset and DS3 F8i BIOS...

And some days ago I tested the same mobo S3 @ DS3 BIOS with new E6300, with onother 2Gb memory kit, new PSU, there was problems booting with F8j, the same thing was with official F8 when overclocking... then I flashed good old F8i and all is working now, it can do 400FSb and more... and cold boot must be fixed in next BIOS release, sometimes it occured. And what I have seen if there is hard to bot on XXX FSB, try it a bitlower and then go till that XXX FSB by silngle step (+1 FSB) and all will beet fine But now I just sold this board to new user, lets see how it goes to him and will he be able to get such high FSB or near it

Now eVGA 680i board is on the way, lets see how it can get be tweaked and is there any chance to get 500FSB Orthos stable with this board and my E6300 + Teamgroup D9GMH's

following in LeStats ways - he had more problems with the EVGA board than with the DS3. You guys that aren't happy with the DS3 / S3 should just pickup a P5b.

[burn what?]

anyone know of a cpu thermal monitor that works on 64 bit? i fu--ed myself and installed vista x64 a bit too early as i can't find any cpu temp monitors that work on it. intel thermal monitor and coretemp are no go on x64. linux x64 or whatever the other 64 bit os's are have been out years so just thought i'd see if anyone knows of any....

[JumpyJim]

You could try using SpeedFan, although due to Vista's stricter driver management you will need to press F8 whilst booting and select to use unsigned drivers.

Early days for Vista, so much doesn't work as of yet.

[Richard Dower]

Happy Christmas to everyone here who has helped and offered advice/inisght over the last few months on this thread, may 2007 bring you peace and joy.

[eXceeded]

Happy Christmas to everyone here who has helped and offered advice/inisght over the last few months on this thread, may 2007 bring you peace and joy.

Thanks Richard, back at you all to! I'll be in NY from the 27th to the 3rd so here's hoping to a late christmas present from Gigabyte

[dnottis]

Ok...

Make sure you download THIS F8 BIOS (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/M...me=GA-965P-DS3
)...and the @BIOS at gigabyte.com.tw which is 1.01D, gigabyte-usa.com has @ BIOS 1.01B. Last night I swapped the P5B-E back out for the DS3, grabbed the 1.01D @BIOS and F8 official off the website. Flashed, reset CMOS (yes, necessary) and I'm at 515 rock stable and so far no cold boot issues. MadMikeSS flashed with the beta bingo13 had and his OC was jacked up... with this BIOS off their site he can OC the same. Something is not the same between the beta F8 and this final one on their site which seems to so far work flawlessly for me. If you try this - make sure to use the right files!!

Have a nice holiday everyone!!

Dean

[MadMikeSS]

To confirm what dnottis said. I downloaded the F8 bios from the Gigabyte website and flashed again. Reset the cmos via jumper as I had done previously with the F8 bios that bingo had posted. This time my 490x7 overclock with the same volts as before with the F6 for S3 bios is working perfectly fine, no resets. So for now until I run into any problems, I'm sticking with the F8 bios. Specifically because I like the fact that now I can save my bios settings in case I decide to mess around with things and want to go back to my stable OC.

[JPH1589]

Ok...

Make sure you download THIS F8 BIOS (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/M...me=GA-965P-DS3
)...and the @BIOS at gigabyte.com.tw which is 1.01D, gigabyte-usa.com has @ BIOS 1.01B. Last night I swapped the P5B-E back out for the DS3, grabbed the 1.01D @BIOS and F8 official off the website. Flashed, reset CMOS (yes, necessary) and I'm at 515 rock stable and so far no cold boot issues. MadMikeSS flashed with the beta bingo13 had and his OC was jacked up... with this BIOS off their site he can OC the same. Something is not the same between the beta F8 and this final one on their site which seems to so far work flawlessly for me. If you try this - make sure to use the right files!!

Have a nice holiday everyone!!

Dean

Thanks for your note over on Anandtech. I know we didn't see eye to eye, but you have supplied a lot of useful information here and there.

Thanks
Merry Christmas Everyone.

[HamidFULL]

new @BIOS B6.1124.1 :
http://america.giga-byte.com/FileLis...gbt_atbios.exe

[ziddey]

What's the @bios? It's good that you mention problems are gone with f8 and newer @bios. I may indeed look to giving this a try after all. Wonder what my current @bios is. Need to migrate my vmware servers to another machine so I can start fiddling again.

Merry christmas to you all too

[soodent]

Read most of this giant thread and noticed that higher fsb can mostly be reached with e6300 then 6600 cpu.My ds3 rev.1 e6600@3,36 works with micron D9GCT memory ddr840 cl4-4-4-12 100% stable 8x420.All biosis excluding f7 give cold boot or zillion other problems.Very picky to memory- ocz and g.skill work only cl5-5-5-15 with no overclock to keep stability.Can anybody point out some link about best bios settings for ds3- i mean in detail to everything helping overclock and stability.Found that mvch volt means little and fsb volt to max gives little more mhz.3,6ghz+ overclockers- post your know-how on bios details.

[Janne2]

Read most of this giant thread and noticed that higher fsb can mostly be reached with e6300 then 6600 cpu.My ds3 rev.1 e6600@3,36 works with micron D9GCT memory ddr840 cl4-4-4-12 100% stable 8x420.All biosis excluding f7 give cold boot or zillion other problems.Very picky to memory- ocz and g.skill work only cl5-5-5-15 with no overclock to keep stability.Can anybody point out some link about best bios settings for ds3- i mean in detail to everything helping overclock and stability.Found that mvch volt means little and fsb volt to max gives little more mhz.3,6ghz+ overclockers- post your know-how on bios details.

[img=http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/9697/clipboard01gh9.th.jpg]
thats with 2.2v, goes 900+ 4-4-4-9 2.2v

Stable up to 1020mhz, 5-5-5-15, 2.3v

[[XC] riptide]

Man these GA boards can be depressing. Just got a DS3 C2 , and it clocks wrose than my S3 C1 ! Freezes up at 330FSB idle using clockgen on a E6600. Weird. All on F8 Bios. Damn. Time for Asus me thinks!

[ziddey]

Man these GA boards can be depressing. Just got a DS3 C2 , and it clocks wrose than my S3 C1 ! Freezes up at 330FSB idle using clockgen on a E6600. Weird. All on F8 Bios. Damn. Time for Asus me thinks!

haha when I got my ds3, I never even thought to work my way up. I just set it to 400fsb and forgot about it, Ronco style.

[gooface]

what does @Bios do? does it flash for you? cuz i flash with floppy.

[ziddey]

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/...ech_a_bios.htm
looks like it's just the windows flasher.

[Stalk3r]

Can't boot >375 fsb now with F8, going back to F4e.

[ziddey]

To confirm what dnottis said. I downloaded the F8 bios from the Gigabyte website and flashed again. Reset the cmos via jumper as I had done previously with the F8 bios that bingo had posted. This time my 490x7 overclock with the same volts as before with the F6 for S3 bios is working perfectly fine, no resets. So for now until I run into any problems, I'm sticking with the F8 bios. Specifically because I like the fact that now I can save my bios settings in case I decide to mess around with things and want to go back to my stable OC.

Damn I was really hoping to see results from people with ds3 rev2 before I jumped ship onto F8. But with a testimonial like that (and I think F6 for s3 is roughly the same as F7 for ds3), I really wanted to get testing myself. So I migrated my vmware servers over to my laptop (lol). Here we go... So much for 13 days uptime (1 more until activation grace period runs out!! Hope I can get something stable and see how long past the 14 days goes before I have to activate.) I remember a few years back, with one of my daily use computers, I got to half a year of uptime before I had to activate. And I lost uptime not because of a crash but due to a power failure!! Never been able to come close to that without a crash since then.

[ziddey]

Ok...

Make sure you download THIS F8 BIOS (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/M...me=GA-965P-DS3
)...and the @BIOS at gigabyte.com.tw which is 1.01D, gigabyte-usa.com has @ BIOS 1.01B. Last night I swapped the P5B-E back out for the DS3, grabbed the 1.01D @BIOS and F8 official off the website. Flashed, reset CMOS (yes, necessary) and I'm at 515 rock stable and so far no cold boot issues. MadMikeSS flashed with the beta bingo13 had and his OC was jacked up... with this BIOS off their site he can OC the same. Something is not the same between the beta F8 and this final one on their site which seems to so far work flawlessly for me. If you try this - make sure to use the right files!!

Have a nice holiday everyone!!

Dean

I just hit the update @bios button and it says 1.01g now. Just did the flash to f8. Time to shut down and clear cmos and see how it does.



Update: Alright. Flashed F8 final from giga tw. Powered off. Took out battery. Shorted that. Shorted cmos clear. Shorted battery connects again. Shorted cmos clear again. Put in battery. Booted up.

Reconfigured everything to what I had before. 8x400 1.3625v, +0.4v vdimm, 4-4-4-12 4:5 (1000mhz), everything else defaults. pcie running at 110 (out of curiosity, how many people here run 110pcie all the time?? Just want to make sure I'm not the only one).

Hit save and reboot. System goes crazy making fast paced beep beep beep beep beep and shuts down. I think oh . Then it comes on and the power led is blinking but I got nothing on screen. I manually shut off and turn back on. It turns on, turns off, turns back on. POST shows it took my settings of 8x400. Ok.. Go in bios to check everything. Everything looks good... Having spd settings in a column next to your set settings is kind of cool. Save a profile with these settings, reboot. The thing, instead of doing a normal warm boot, forces a cold boot even though nothing was changed. Fine. Boot into windows.

First signs show that the vcore actual vs set vcore is slightly better. I used to have to set 1.375v to get 1.296 load. Now I'm setting 1.3625 and seeing 1.296-1.312 under load. It needs 1.280v to be stable at 3200, which was what needed 1.3625v in F7 to maintain.

So alright, great, right? Before I get overzealous and try to push things any, I figure I should spend a few minutes to test stability at what was a known stable setting. So I load up prime and keep it at blend for now, hoping for it to go through cycles of short and large fft's to stress everything.

What do you know!!! As I'm typing this post, it starts beeping at me. Orthos failed already?!?!?!

Good friggin grief F8.

Also, I can't remember which setting it was (don't have memtest at the moment to pull up), but spd was like 35 or something and it's being set to 0 right now. I think that's the same as in F7, but just wanted to make sure. I'm curious since all the settings were at "auto" except for that which was at 0, and there were only choices from something like 0 to 511. No auto to choose.

From the initial response to it fast beeping and shutting off, I wasn't impressed. I didn't come into F8 expecting it to be better than F7, but it certainly isn't looking good on my ds3 c2 rev2.

So there you have it. Hopefully when my water supplies get here, I'll be able to do some real testing. For now, this arctic freezer that won't even stay on the cpu properly is really pissing me off.

And to confirm with everyone running around with high fsb's, you're keeping everything at stock volts? I know if you set voltage control in bios to auto, it autoscales everything up, usually needlessly.
And can't wait to get that thermalright heatsink for the northbridge. You guys convinced me away from watercooling the nb. Hope this keeps it cool enough to see some results

edit: strange. It failed within a minute the first time when doing a blend test. However, I hit the resume button right away and now it's been going for 40minutes strong. Obviously, something's wrong but I'm too lazy to reboot at the moment to see if cranking up vcore would help (even though reported values are actually slightly higher than what was previously found to be stable). I did notice a horrid vdroop when I first hit orthos load and vcore shot down to 1.20v for a split second.