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

[Richard Dower]

sorry to sound a bit behind > where do you down the latest x38-dq6 bios?

i'll like to see if its fixed the dual channel 1066 problem

you did very well to tune your baord at 1080 with 4 unmatched modules.

thanks for any help

http://rapidshare.com/files/77686852/x38dq6.f7h.html

Happy to report the SATA optical drive issue has been fixed with this bios
My Plextor 716DA is now detected in bios.

[Richard Dower]

A new beta for the X38-DS4 is being listed at:

http://www.jzelectronic.de/jz2/index.php

Beta F2f.

[Richard Dower]

Datasheet for the Intersil ISL6327CRZ:

http://pdf1.alldatasheet.co.kr/datas...SL6327CRZ.html

APL1117A:

http://www.anpec.com.tw/products/dow...17/APL1117.htm

[Richard Dower]

You know that Gigabyte SATAII chip?...it really gets hot!...might i suggest putting a small heatsink on there.

[Richard Dower]

Many thanks for the first class pics Hornet, it be nice if someone gave us a masterclass on the various components of a mobo, how they all work together etc.

[freqy]

thanks for the link ,hey must be nice to have a sata dvd drive rather thana big clumbsy IDE version.

hmm?...i thinks i might give this bios a little go , see if it has anything to offer. i have a spare day to try it out.

i heard someone on here talk about cooling the NB and getting better performance. maybe this board is a bit flawed hardware wise?

me shall report backs

peace

[panzer948]

Hi,

Just got my X38-DQ6 and will start my rebuild tomorrow.

This is probably a dumb question, but I have seen no documentation about this other than the manual. Out of our two PCI-E slots, does it matter which one we install the video card? I have the 8800GTS G92 512MB card and the manual does mention to use the slot closest to the power supply, but I thought if I installed it in the other one it may help with the heat (since it would be further from the NB and CPU). What is the norm with the typical users here?

Also, the Gigabyte manual mentions installing power to the motherboards PCIE_12V connector if you have two cards. Just to confirm, there is really no reason to connect to this with only one card.

Thanks!

[freqy]

hi panzer have fun building your board tomrw.

i have just one card too...i put it in the one furthest from my pci cards.....i dont think there is a problem because in the bios you can select the slot to be detected first.

good idea to keep it away from the nb ...seems a great idea if you have no sensitive pci cards.

also i read somewhere to conect the power to the pcie socket on the board if you have one because it aids stability. i have done this and it works fine, maybe someone else can add further,

[freqy]

ive deleted this post as the info i gave was inaccurate. i thought f7h gave me some added benifits regarding ram overclocking...it may for others but i found problems 2hrs+ on prime.

[freqy]

im wondering how you guys know what to type here?

CPU?PCIEX CLOCK DRIVING CONTROL =?
PCI-E overvoltage control = ?

thanks

[Supershanks]

Hi Panzer use either slot. tbh if there's a socket I plug iy in where's the harm??
I've only run with 1 xcard but going back to nf4 days with a DFI board , i always plug the cables in.

luck

[2DIFF]

im wondering how you guys know what to type here?

CPU?PCIEX CLOCK DRIVING CONTROL =?
PCI-E overvoltage control = ?

thanks

Good question...same for "Sketch skew control"...there's nothing in the manual (terms are not even listed). I'd really like to know how these things work and/or are linked together. If they don't put it in the manual, it'll be nice to offer a knowledge base or something for those who'd like to know more. Didn't find anything in the FAQ's though. If they say that a mobo is "Over-clocking Enhanced", they should also provide the infos you need to get the rest out of your system. PCI-E overvoltage control never changed anything in terms of graphics performance in my case.

[Richard Dower]

I'm guessing Gigabyte are shooting for an official F7 bios to lauch Rev 1.1 of the X38?

[Caped Crusader]

Guys:

http://oc.gigabyte.us/index.php

Gigabyte's Overcloking contest. For owners of P35 and X38 line of motherboards.
Good luck!

[~aoe~]

hmmm....

$2500 isn't much of an incentive. Anyone wanting to try and win would most likely have to spend considerably more than that on their system

In addition, it also looks like you're obliged to buy 3DMark06

It looks like systems are going to be compared based on their 3DMark06 score, so you're probably gonna need dual graphics to pump up that score. Stability doesn't seem to be necessary - just enough to get that 3DMark score. There also seems to be no restriction on cooling solutions.

The fact that I don't live in the US or Canada means I'm ineligible, but not sure I would have bothered anyway

[~aoe~]

I'm guessing Gigabyte are shooting for an official F7 bios to lauch Rev 1.1 of the X38?

Let's hope so. It's about time they released a decent bios for this board

[Caped Crusader]

hmmm....

$2500 isn't much of an incentive. Anyone wanting to try and win would most likely have to spend considerably more than that on their system

In addition, it also looks like you're obliged to buy 3DMark06

It looks like systems are going to be compared based on their 3DMark06 score, so you're probably gonna need dual graphics to pump up that score. Stability doesn't seem to be necessary - just enough to get that 3DMark score. There also seems to be no restriction on cooling solutions.

The fact that I don't live in the US or Canada means I'm ineligible, but not sure I would have bothered anyway

yeah, I guess you're right... I'm not from the USA or Canada either. :P

[Hornet331]

first run, nothing special, just adjustet voltages and raised cpu/fsb clock

[dMITIj]

http://rapidshare.com/files/77686852/x38dq6.f7h.html

Happy to report the SATA optical drive issue has been fixed with this bios
My Plextor 716DA is now detected in bios.

How is the F7H BIOS compared to the F5H?
Because ill get my Gigabyte GA X38-DQ6 tomorrow and would like the best of the best haha

[Sobek]

Hmm, I figure it's probably best to ask here before I run off and make any threads about it or such...

Does anyone know of any issues with the X38-DQ6 (rev 1.0) and HD2900 crossfire? I ask because I've had nothing but problems with this setup from the start. I get massive flickering and horizontal scrolling bars during freeze frames (death shots) in TF2, Test Drive Unlimited has flickering sunlight occasionally, King of Clubs (budget mini golf game) has wierd 'bleeding' menu effects where my mouse cursor forever leaves an overlaying trail. In TF2, each freeze frame seems to 'stick' in memory, and the next time I get a freeze frame, it's semi transparent with the previous freeze frame shot overlayed into it... This can continue all night untill I've got 20 or more freeze frame shots all blending in to each other.

I've tried every driver imaginable, I've tried running everything at stock, I've tested each card individually both in my sytem and others (they function perfectly as individual cards), I've tried crossfire with one bridge instead of two (this makes the flickering slightly more bearable), I've purchased new crossfire bridges to rule those out, I've reinstalled Windows (I'm running XP), i've adjusted every BIOS setting I can possibly think of that could be a culprit. All of my parts are brand new (Q6600, 2gb Reaper HPC pc6400).

I'm at a loss. I've tested everything I can possibly think of. I know of one other person having almost identical problems to me who has done all of the same, and seems to believe it's got something to do with the motherboard. Any ideas? I understand that TF2 (and source games as a whole) are having a lot of issues recently, but I get this no matter what driver I use... And i've tried back to the 7.5's now. Call of Duty 4 also displays occasional random flashes of light, or what could be polygons flying around (every few minutes this might happen). Nothing ever shows up in screenshots.

[DaddyRabbit]

Hi,

Just got my X38-DQ6 and will start my rebuild tomorrow.

This is probably a dumb question, but I have seen no documentation about this other than the manual. Out of our two PCI-E slots, does it matter which one we install the video card? I have the 8800GTS G92 512MB card and the manual does mention to use the slot closest to the power supply, but I thought if I installed it in the other one it may help with the heat (since it would be further from the NB and CPU). What is the norm with the typical users here?

The 8800 GTS 512 is a dual slot cooler. In a normal mid-tower config it will suck air from the bottom direction of the case and the edges of the card and exhaust the hot air out of the back of the case. Any heat from the CPU area would, in theory, rise away from the vid card. While I don't think that there is a problem with using PEG2 I don't think it will make a difference either way but I'm not a thermal engineer either

Also, the Gigabyte manual mentions installing power to the motherboards PCIE_12V connector if you have two cards. Just to confirm, there is really no reason to connect to this with only one card.

IMHO it's better safe than sorry, if you have the plug on the PSU and there's no good reason NOT to then plug it up. It's not going to use any additional juice and if it does that means you needed it to begin with. The real issue would be a year down the road and you upgrade or add something and the system gets flaky and you forgot that you didn't connect it and spend 4 days troubleshooting before you remember (not that I've ever done anything like that...)

Good luck on the build...

[Isepick]

@Sobek: I have the T version (1.0) and had similar problems, also could not get the board prime stable at ALL on any settings....until I removed the Gigabyte Sata driver...and now it is rock solid, although I cant get the FSB over 375, think it has something to do with the NB getting hot, will let everyone know when I get all my watercooling gear in after the holidays whether or not that helps...My problems were only apparent when I had 2nd 3870 in the computer...didnt matter which board was in which slot and whether or not I had the crossfire cable attached, just having two vid cards in the slots seemed to do it. I get windows wanting to install new hardware everytime it boots, but since I am not using those 2 sata ports atm, I ignore it...I had tried removing the JMB ide controller, but that didnt work. It took me a WHILE to finally make it fail to the point where win xp refused to see the 2nd card until I started removing drivers out of the system...I also removed the EasyTune utility in all of that, since I do all my OCing in the bios anyway...But since those pcie 2.0 slots go through the NB directly I think there may be a bug either in the NB itself or just in all the fubared bioses we get from GB...anyhow thats how I solved my problem, hope it helps you and others....

[Sobek]

Interesting. So removing the Gigabyte Sata Driver cleared up your issues (similar flickering in games and such?). I'm quite happy with system stability, haven't run prime for as long as I probably should (did about 6 hours overnight while I slept and it was still ticking along without issue when I woke up), so it's really only the problems with games.

If uninstalling Gigabytes sata driver did the trick for you, then by god I'm trying that the instant I get in the door today :P

*edit* I've already gone as far as uninstalling Quicktime, FRAPS, and anything else anyone's ever mentioned that might be a cause. If it really is an NB issue, I wonder if a Rev 1.1 board would help at all? Not sure what's changed with 1.1, quite frankly I expected to get one to begin with since I had to wait to buy this board because new stock was entering the country when I ordered.

*double-edit* Wierd, thought I had my system specs setup in my sig already. Hmpf.

[Isepick]

Prime for me would lock up within 5 minutes on large ffts...might be a ddr3 thing tho...I did have flickering on all the 'intro' screens for Crysis, COD4, etc, but gameplay was pretty good (except for random system reboots/lockups, which is what drove me to start agressively tracking this problem down) and now that has gone away...Crysis on all High settings with 4xAA is sweet, tho a bit jerky, I havent OC'ed my 3870's yet, still playing with the memory timings and such.

I too searched far and wide on the net and could find nothing on this issue, some days it sucks being on the pointed end of the stick When it was happening it felt like an IRQ conflict from back in the day, and that was where I first concentrated my efforts, but for me its something with that 2nd set of sata ports. Maybe mine are defective, I dunno...be a good reason to rma for a 1.1 board tho

So far the only thing extreme about this board is the amount of time it has cost me just to get it to run near stock speeds...

[Hornet331]

@Sobek: I have the T version (1.0) and had similar problems, also could not get the board prime stable at ALL on any settings....until I removed the Gigabyte Sata driver...and now it is rock solid, although I cant get the FSB over 375, think it has something to do with the NB getting hot, will let everyone know when I get all my watercooling gear in after the holidays whether or not that helps...My problems were only apparent when I had 2nd 3870 in the computer...didnt matter which board was in which slot and whether or not I had the crossfire cable attached, just having two vid cards in the slots seemed to do it. I get windows wanting to install new hardware everytime it boots, but since I am not using those 2 sata ports atm, I ignore it...I had tried removing the JMB ide controller, but that didnt work. It took me a WHILE to finally make it fail to the point where win xp refused to see the 2nd card until I started removing drivers out of the system...I also removed the EasyTune utility in all of that, since I do all my OCing in the bios anyway...But since those pcie 2.0 slots go through the NB directly I think there may be a bug either in the NB itself or just in all the fubared bioses we get from GB...anyhow thats how I solved my problem, hope it helps you and others....

interesstening that your jmicron sata controller also seems fubar, i have the same probleme here (Rev 1.1 X38T).
I had my optical drives controlled by the Jmicron but everytime i installed the drivers my system began to stutter while starting windows or shuting it down...
I removed the drivers and disabled it in bios -> rock stabel since than...

But its strange, cause on my old 965P-DS4 has the same Jmicron controller and it works without a problem...