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

[~aoe~]

hello

is anyone on here using an x38-dq6 , XP pro 32bit with.... 4 x 1gigs of ram?

im using 2x 1 gig at present and i need a little more(just under 3gig). i read xp cant see the full 4gigs but some systems can use up too 3 gig of the 4 installed ,but , on some systems it ruins performance.

i notice many people list in their sig's that they use 4 gigs but, not which OS they be on?

so im trying to find out if it slows down an x38-dq6 to use 4 x 1 gig on xp 32bit?

thanks

I'm on dual boot, xp 32-bit/vista ultimate 64-bit. I'm showing 3.50GB available in xp. Not really using vista much atm cos of problems with sound card. I'm happy with system response, although I've done no real measurements.

[Richard Dower]

X48 ???

What the hell??

[Richard Dower]

X48 ???

Chriss, try CPU-Z 1.42....just to see what is reported. Maybe it's a bug issue with this 1.42.3 build?

[Richard Dower]

New? X38-DQ6 review:

http://www.hardwareoc.at/Gigabyte_GA-X38-DQ6.htm

[Hornet331]

^
test is quite old, it was tested in november.

[ChrissTi]

It seems X48 has the same id as X38, so whats the difference betwen them
And something I thought I will not see that soon ...
http://www.thehardwarelabs.com/forum...read.php?t=756

[Richard Dower]

X48 is a higher binned chip, Intel guarantees it to run 400FSB...sure Gigabyte claims the X38 does the same, but Intel guarantee it.

[Sobek]

Interesting. I upped my PCI-e frequency from my previous max of 112mhz, to 115mhz... Suddenly, the tearing and blended frames have become MUCH more tolerable, pretty much bearable, really.

What would be the safe limits for pushing my PCI-e frequency? 115 is as far as I've ever gone, and I wouldn't mind going a tad higher to see if it further clears this up.

[Caped Crusader]

Interesting. I upped my PCI-e frequency from my previous max of 112mhz, to 115mhz... Suddenly, the tearing and blended frames have become MUCH more tolerable, pretty much bearable, really.

What would be the safe limits for pushing my PCI-e frequency? 115 is as far as I've ever gone, and I wouldn't mind going a tad higher to see if it further clears this up.

You're not the first person I see overclocking the PCI-E frequency in BIOS... what's the real gain in doing that? I do OC for some years now but I've been always afraid to up that thing... won't it risk damaging the PCI-E port?

[Sobek]

You're not the first person I see overclocking the PCI-E frequency in BIOS... what's the real gain in doing that? I do OC for some years now but I've been always afraid to up that thing... won't it risk damaging the PCI-E port?

More bandwidth to your videocards I suppose. Me? I'm just doing it because Crossfire is so utterly broken on this motherboard that I'm running out of things to change. Quite frankly, I'm reaching a point where a screwdriver through the NB is looking mighty pleasing.

[ChrissTi]

On another forum, I saw somebody who everytime he changed the mobo overclocked PCI-E to 118MHz no matter what mobo chipset was (but it was on nvidia VGA).

[Caped Crusader]

On another forum, I saw somebody who everytime he changed the mobo overclocked PCI-E to 118MHz no matter what mobo chipset was (but it was on nvidia VGA).

118?!! yikes!!

[Caped Crusader]

I have everything on stock voltages except vcore and vdimm. So far I don't need to give this more juice at least until an official BIOS revision comes out from Gigabyte. Next week I'm installing a new HD3870 and will check if the same settings will work with the new card, since it's PCI-E 2.0.

I'm also upgrading to a PCP&C 750 from an ENERMAX 500 after some user inputs read here. Seems that DQ6 likes stronger PSUs better.

[Don_Dan]

118?!! yikes!!

If I'm not completely mistaken, I have already seen some 130+ MHz on the PCIe-bus. Of course not for 24/7 use.

[zicada]

hello

is anyone on here using an x38-dq6 , XP pro 32bit with.... 4 x 1gigs of ram?

im using 2x 1 gig at present and i need a little more(just under 3gig). i read xp cant see the full 4gigs but some systems can use up too 3 gig of the 4 installed ,but , on some systems it ruins performance.

i notice many people list in their sig's that they use 4 gigs but, not which OS they be on?

so im trying to find out if it slows down an x38-dq6 to use 4 x 1 gig on xp 32bit?

thanks

This is a limitation in the x86 32bit architecture. No process running in 32bit mode can ever allocate more than 2048mb ram. There are ways of making winxp "see" more than 2048mb, but it wont matter much since whatever process you have that requires more, simple wont be able to use it. The memory-limitations of x86-32 is one of the big reasons to move to a 64bit OS. Really there is no reason not to use windows xp pro 64bit on these systems, since driveravailability and maturity is very good these days.

[guns81]

ok maybe are ddr3...id take another one x38t dq6 and i've try to flash f3h and f5j...and then ive a lot of problem..its possible that the problem are ddr3 supertalent?? ive these:

Supertalent 2x1GB DDR3 1333 9-9-9-27

maybe the motherboard after flash set it to 1066 and these dont support it..is it possible?

[freqy]

thanks for your reply regarding ram.

i need more than 2gig for multiple individual progs that i use at the same time .

virtual musical instruments sequencers and mixers ..all of which are stand alone programs. they divore memory. i would love to go xp64 but many of these can only be run in xp32

at the mome i get about 1500mb (windows eats the 500mb) i heard of this boot configuration that alows xp to see 3gigs..might give it a try on a test partition.
also i have a couple sticks of 667mhz ram, i might mix them with my dominator 1066 pc-8500 (clock them all down to 667 and see if 4 modules helps)
i sooo envy you guys on 64bits with water cooling haha peace

[Celerator]

In the X35-DQ6 forum, there is talk about vdrop, (not vdroop), where the voltage set in the bios is not what the MB actually gets.

Is this an issue of the bios, the board, or what?
Does someone have a link that explains this?
Is it present on the X-38-DQ6 too?
Something to worry about?

Or am I showing excessive n00biness?

[ChrissTi]

I don't think there is a vdropless mainboard. It happens because the stabilizers from the mobo doesn't give enough amperage to the CPU, or the PSU doesn't have enough amperage to pump to the CPU, when overclocked. There are not perfect Power stabilisers for such lower voltages for the CPU...

[Hornet331]

its possibel to get "stable" voltages, the vdroop is a safty feature intel specifices for all its motherboards since the P4. It has nothing to do with a bad PSU or bad VRMs.

anandtech has a good explanation why vdroop is important (page 5,6):

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3184&p=5

[Buggalugs]

Yes Hornet331, Asus have had an answer about it for a long time on their site.

http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx...Language=en-us

I remember reading it when i had a P5B-Deluxe.

[ChrissTi]

Lets refraze . A Voltage regulator gives a constant current. But the resistance of the CPU goes UP when is in full load, and because of it, the voltage must go UP too (U=I*R), but ... it's not rising fast enough when oveclocking. Why ? thats a lot to write of
Because of that, the voltage of the CPU must be set higher when overclocking, and then under full load of the cpu Voltage drops to compensate the current needed (thats why is called Vdrop ). Very simple explained but is more complex involving also the PSU, but not getting in details about that.
One solution is to rise the current when oveclocking, or to make a voltage-current regulator (a little bit harder to produce, and more expensive than a simple Voltage one).
So untill then, we are stuck with voltage regulators and that what is happening.

[Hornet331]

uhn who cares about Vdrop?

if you set eg. 1,325 and get 1,30 who cares?

what really is important is the drop while the cpu is under load and thats vdroop. Asus provides working LLC solution and idel voltage is nearly the same as load voltage (most boards with working LLC have a fluctiation of 0,01).

Gigabytes LLC = broken or at least what im hearing is, that it only works with voltages above 1,5V...

[Celerator]

Thanks for the information and the links.

This forum is very useful. Many thanks to the contributors, and happy new year.

[ChrissTi]

Hornet331 You are wrong. It works on Gigabyte only till a certain frequecy, and now they implemented some tweaks in bios. Have to test them a little.
Asus upseted me big time with a stupid mobo, and still has vdrops also. On that mobo could not oveclock at all, and the memoryes I have now gave me lots of errors .
I'll wait to buy a quad, and test more the old mb and maybe RMA.