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

[ChrissTi]

Just upgraded my memos . I've changed my hdd drive ... had some problems, and found a strange behaviour from a driver or program ... In the latest Sisoft Sandra the Memory bandwidth was somehow limited to about 3,5GB ... I had to reinstall win to solve this problem, and now I've got about 7,6-8GB. I'm waiting for some coolers for the memos then I'll see how high can they go.

[dinos22]

god yes, i have been waiting for halfmultis for ages, i hope the ddr3 version also will feature it.

i asked for both boards

Would you mind sharing that BIOS mate ?
Sounds interesting.

mmmm i have to ask GB if ok
don't want to create issues with RMAs if something goes wrong

Hey, is this with X38T DDR3 board right? And what CPU? For X38 DDR2 board you want to say that with F3 its posible to get 500++ FSB with Quad CPU? Looks like my chip wall is ~ 480, but outside is a winter, it can help boost it past 500+

For now Im using Q6600 @ 3.9Ghz for 24/7, looks stable, but maybe its possible more, when there will be volt mod or pencil mod for this board? Vdrop must be fixed, anyone?

i meant dual cores




btw i did receive a new bios from GB last night F2 0155 bios
it had half multies in it but they didn't stick in windows

i could force them with CrystalCPU only at default settings in bios

if i select FSB in bios i cannot use half multies

[GAR]

what is the point of loadline calibration when it doesnt work? seems kind of pointless, besides that i love the board.

[Kashelz]

what is the point of loadline calibration when it doesnt work? seems kind of pointless, besides that i love the board.

Its waste of time, need hardware mod and then all will be fine with voltage regulation

[ChrissTi]

Its waste of time, need hardware mod and then all will be fine with voltage regulation

Except that maybe they will make us a surprise

[zicada]

IT does seem to work, just not as well as anybody had hoped, since alot of it lies in the hardware.

On vcores below 1.52V there's a clear improvement atleast on my system with the official F7. Higher up, its about the same as it used to be.

[G.Foyle]

Does anybody here use a X38-DS5? I feel like I'm the only one
So far I managed to do 400x9 stable with Q6600, but the Vdroop is horrible - 1.425 in bios = 1.34 V with DMM 425x8 is stable, but 410x9 is not, no matter what votage - it looks like this board's PWM is too weak for high clocking quads.

[2DIFF]

Does anybody here use a X38-DS5? I feel like I'm the only one
So far I managed to do 400x9 stable with Q6600, but the Vdroop is horrible - 1.425 in bios = 1.34 V with DMM 425x8 is stable, but 410x9 is not, no matter what votage - it looks like this board's PWM is too weak for high clocking quads.

No, you're not the only one, but mine is out of order at the moment (see http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ostcount=1415). I see "stock heatcrapipes" in your sig - damn right you are, the thing is really trashy for a board at this price. I couldn't OC at all before replacing it. The board never really convinced me entirely. Don't know how many times I had to reset the CMOS. Didn't have the chance to test the F5 Bios though - are you using it? What RAM exactly did you put in? Did you ever play with "Clock skew control", the thing nobody knows what it is and what it does? Have you tried active NB cooling? Man, all these questions...finally somebody with a DS5

[DStealth]

@ dinos22
I've tested Max fsb with dual core with one new toy E8200 retail and you right m8
f5H and f7 gave me maximum 527-528 fsb


And F3 gave me 555 with CPU only @ 1.48V idle and load , no Vdroop almost with 45nm duals

[G.Foyle]

No, you're not the only one, but mine is out of order at the moment (see http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ostcount=1415). I see "stock heatcrapipes" in your sig - damn right you are, the thing is really trashy for a board at this price. I couldn't OC at all before replacing it. The board never really convinced me entirely. Don't know how many times I had to reset the CMOS. Didn't have the chance to test the F5 Bios though - are you using it? What RAM exactly did you put in? Did you ever play with "Clock skew control", the thing nobody knows what it is and what it does? Have you tried active NB cooling? Man, all these questions...finally somebody with a DS5

No active cooling for me, with all those Thermalright coolers I can barely see the NB cooler let alone fit anything anywhere around it...
RAM: I dont know what exactly are they, it's D9GMH, default SPD is 1.8V, 800MHz, 4-4-4-12. I might ask Saaya if he could check it for me. Both sticks are in second slots (slot 2 & 4), because HR-07's didnt let me use a fan on Ultra-120 when mems were in slot 1 & 3.
I did check clock skew control, it was 800ms default, changing it to 900ms did nothing. I'm satisfied with CPU clock, now moving to RAM clocking.

[freqy]

silly question perhaps?.. should we enable load calibration in bios on x38 dq6?

[dinos22]

@ dinos22
I've tested Max fsb with dual core with one new toy E8200 retail and you right m8
f5H and f7 gave me maximum 527-528 fsb


And F3 gave me 555 with CPU only @ 1.48V idle and load , no Vdroop almost with 45nm duals

you are lucky i lose a lot more FSB lol

[DStealth]

you are lucky i lose a lot more FSB lol

Yepp the MB is great i dоn't believe, till now
572 FSB out of the budget E8200 CPU and Sub 10 sec 1M SuperPI

GB X38 DQ6 no mod F3 bios
SuperT 2x1gb @ 1144mhz 5-4-4-10-4 PL8
Water MP05SE + Ek8800 Vmodded G80 in the loop - 21.5* Ambient temp

4575mhz @1.52V
1M SuperPI 9.953

[Buggalugs]

Wow, so how are u guys finding the new 45nm CPUs? Looks like youre getting good results. I have the first released E6600 but i think its time to upgrade. I was going to get a Quad but i think the 45nm duo is the way to go for me.

[zicada]

Wow

Cant believe you guys are getting your memory stable at X-X-4-X!

OCCT fails on my at anything i throw at it with tRP at 4 for some reason. It has to be 7. It appears i can turn off auto in memset and tighten All Precharge to Activate and All Precharge to Refresh delay manually though.

Dinos' is ofcouse 100% right about F3. It IS the best BIOS for dualcore setups. Memoryperformance is throught he roof compared to all the others.

At 4-4-7-7 460fsb 1:1 (920mhz) i get like 9450 - 8950 - 9250 53.2ms in Everest with the E6750 and Crucial Ballistix 1066 5-5-5-15 memory

As im writing this, OCCT has run for 6 hours at those settings.

F3 droops horribly though, but not under load. 1.53750 in BIOS = 1.5000 in OS idle, and 1.49 (and stays there) under load.

Also notice the 3.3V and 12V rails flucuate quite a bit more with F3 than F7 with LLC on.

Anyway. To anyone who has'nt done so yet. In memset, set tRFC to 20 or 22 and tREF to 16383T. Those should be stable for pretty much any setup, and give you quite a nice little boost in bandwith and latency.

Finally, i was pretty sure Performance Enhance = Turbo only meant TRD -4. If i set it to Normal in BIOS and set TRD down from 12 to 8 manually with memset i get poorer performance than with Turbo on. Not sure why this is,- maybe it actually does change something else, i dunno.

PS
Regarding TRD Phase adjust. Afaict, its used to fine tune the difference between two levels of TRD. Say you can run 8 but not 7, apparently you can set it to 8 and use Phase adjust to get "closer" to 7. Im not completely sure what the math is on it though, or if thats what it actually does, but it does seem to have an impact on performance (once you get a setting thats bootable). Any input on this setting would be appreciated.

[merlin76]

[...] Anyway. To anyone who has'nt done so yet. In memset, set tRFC to 20 or 22 and tREF to 16383T. Those should be stable for pretty much any setup, and give you quite a nice little boost in bandwith and latency. [...]

Memset sometimes has problems reading out tREF. If you see tREF 16383 it is due to a bug, it's not current tREF.

Micron IC's might do tRC 20 or 22, but there are other IC's out there, Powerchip eg., that need a much higher tRC.

Set all timings in BIOS manually, the BIOS has bug with tRD "Auto".

FSB460 1:1:

[zicada]

Memset sometimes has problems reading out tREF. If you see tREF 16383 it is due to a bug, it's not current tREF.

Micron IC's might do tRC 20 or 22, but there are other IC's out there, Powerchip eg., that need a much higher tRC.

Set all timings in BIOS manually, the BIOS has bug with tRD "Auto".

FSB460 1:1:

Wasnt aware of the differences were that big for tRC.

Standard tREF on my system is 3120T. The higher you set it though the more performance you gain. Doesnt seem to affect stability much at all.

[HeadShotWI]

What is the default voltage on this board? I just installed F& and my ram needs 2.2 at stock voltage for 5,5,4,12. I am a little hesitant to do +.4 overvoltage without knowing this is 1.8 default and .4 will bring me to 2.2

[zicada]

What is the default voltage on this board? I just installed F& and my ram needs 2.2 at stock voltage for 5,5,4,12. I am a little hesitant to do +.4 overvoltage without knowing this is 1.8 default and .4 will bring me to 2.2

Setting it to auto while having Performance Enhance on Turbo, should set it to 2.2 automagically. You can see current voltage in BIOS. The voltage selector will allways add to 1.8 though, so +0.4 = 2.2, regardless of Performance Enhance or SPD info.

[dinos22]

i am specifically talking about FSB for F3 bios on DDR2 board

the RAM OCs the same with other bioses for me

F3 bios has very good 1M SuperPi efficiency on Penryn but it is very bad in 32M SuperPi

try and compare if you like

i have no problem running x-x-4-x at all on any of my boards

[ChrissTi]

i am specifically talking about FSB for F3 bios on DDR2 board

the RAM OCs the same with other bioses for me

F3 bios has very good 1M SuperPi efficiency on Penryn but it is very bad in 32M SuperPi

try and compare if you like

i have no problem running x-x-4-x at all on any of my boards

I compare and the price also. Here in Romania a memory set like yours is over 1000$.
With that money I build another computer ...

[ChrissTi]

dinos22: I'm interested what is your memory bandwidth in sisoft sandra.

[dinos22]

I compare and the price also. Here in Romania a memory set like yours is over 1000$.
With that money I build another computer ...

yes but just buy some micron stuff and give it volts
hell it won't be as good as these but i'm sure you'll get close



i don't install sisoft crap on my HDDs

[BulldogPO]

What helps on never ending power on power off loop?
Brand new board and so weird behavior.
Only one time I have been able to get in Windows.

Anb few tiimes into bios, but everytime I save settings it starts that reboot loop again.

Setup:
- GA-X48-DQ6 F4 bios
- 2x1GB A-Data DDR2 800+
- 200GB Seagate S-ATA
- Optiarc S-ATA DVD+-RW
- Corsait TX 750W PSU
- Geforce 7500LE 256MB PCI-e

Any help, please?

[2DIFF]

My GA-X38-DS5 won't go into Bios anymore. The board has now been cut off from circuit for one week, but it's still the same. I can forget about RMAing it, because the silent-pipe was removed (and cut in half ). The thing that would have to be done is to rewrite the Bios-chip(s). Anybody knows who could do this besides Gigabyte? Is there another way to rescue this board? Or do I really have to trash a 250 $ board?

Any advice would be appreciated!