Gigabyte MA790FX DQ6

[Lightman]

My E-Mail to Gigabyte from last week is still being processed, normaly i get an answer the next day, hope there is something in progress with a new bios.

Some news to my Phenom, due setting dimm volts higher i can manage to boot Windows at 2.83 GHz but with freezes during surfing the web. Is it possible that the dimm volts have an influence on the IMC voltage ?

+1

Still no response...

[Daveburt714]

Good news we can adjust NB voltage in Windows but still that's half-solution at least for me. That's why I wrote nice e-mail to Gigabyte regarding that issue

Lets see what they will replay....

I agree with you Lightman. The only workaround I could think of would be to run the Sam2008 Tweaker in the Windows INI file and hope that it sets the voltage before Windows gets to the point of locking up....

On the down side, I haven't seen a whole lot of improvement in IMC speeds by raising the voltage (the highest I've gone is 1.312 though). It still seems to hit a wall around 1950mhz, and I know the chip was stable at 2Ghz on the MSI K9A2, so the board may actually have a lower limit (DS5 not DQ6).

Sorry Aussie, I was hoping for better too... Not done playing yet though.

On the bright side, I could lower the IMC all the way down to 1.125 and still keep it at 1950mhz, so I'm sure that would help chip life and temps. Ofcourse theres still the question of running high Memory V's with low IMC v's, forunately my memory will go all the way up to DDR2/1000 on only 2.0volts.

Heres a full SS, if they try to tell you the hardware is incapable of changing the NB/IMC settings.



BTW: XP32 was hassling me to do the WGA thing, so I switched to Vista32..

Oh yeah, F4 final BIOS is now up on Gigabyte's site for the DS5 too.

[Boschwanza]

Still waiting for an answer .

[KTE]

Poor, very poor.

My latest qs to MSI, I got a good clear response in 3 days. My qs to Abit, I got 2 brilliant responses inside 18 hours. My qs to ASUS 2 weeks ago I have not had a response to. Now add your Gigabyte qs delay to tha tally.

[Daveburt714]

Just an Update...

Changing the NB V's via MSR registers didn't seem to offer a whole lot of promise (as Lightman suggested). I'm still not sure if it was actually changing the voltages, or if HWMonitor was just reflecting what the registers were set at. After flashing the F4 final Bios from Gigabytes website I did get a pleasant surprise though...

Looks like they changed it so that it sets the NB/IMC to 1.25v by default (at least on the 96BE chips). Heres a ss of my current OC and it actually seems stable.



250 HTT...
If this holds up as truly stable I'll be a happy camper. Hopefully I can finally make this my main rig and be confident with it.

[Lightman]

I agree Daveburt714!
F4 Final is way more stable HTT wise
I can't compare IMC clocking because of new CPU, but it looks promising .

Lack of response from GBT is on the one hand worrying but on the other it might mean that they redirected our queries to right (lazy BIOS programmers ) people.
Lets hope for the latter option .

[justapost]

BTW: XP32 was hassling me to do the WGA thing, so I switched to Vista32..

http://www.firewallleaktester.com/removewga.htm should do the job in case you installed the WGA notification update by accident.

[KTE]

Dave the NB VID changes volts just like your BIOS changes them, no different.

Sure it helps with stability but not under 2.1G NB in my experience. Sub that default volts should be good to go. But I never want sub 2.1G NB, it holds perf back in many things.

[Aussie FX]

But I never want sub 2.1G NB, it holds perf back in many things.

I just want 2ghz at the moment.

I was going to get a BE but with B3 around the corner I will wait for a couple of weeks.

Lightman I had that trouble with Gigabyte originally so I sent them a reminder and they would always get back to me within the hour after that.
I had no luck getting through to them regarding the bios though, the language barrier was too great They had no idea what I was talking about.

[Aussie FX]

I just tried to flash the F4 final bios and it didn't work. After playing around I found that the flashing utility that downloads with the bios is 32bit only. I'm using qflash and I have never had this problem before.
I refuse to use @bios as that has already killed my first motherboard.

[KTE]

Aussie, can you not hit 2G NB at stock volts stable?

If I get another Phenom I'm now going to try in both Vista x64 and x86 to try what is happening.

[Daveburt714]

Justapost: Thanks for the Link! I'm sure that will come in Handy..

Dave the NB VID changes volts just like your BIOS changes them, no different.

Sure it helps with stability but not under 2.1G NB in my experience. Sub that default volts should be good to go. But I never want sub 2.1G NB, it holds perf back in many things.

Yeah, I thought you had said that before. At least I know it's actually changing it now. It was just too hard to get my machine to boot at anything over 10x NB so that I could set it in Windows.

Aussie: I agree with you on waiting for the 9850BE! I've already got 2 Phenoms though, think I'll wait to see some OC results from the new stepping before I buy another one. If you do get one BE SURE to keep us posted!

Well, my 250x10.5x8x8 turned out NOT to be stable.
I've tested it for a couple days trying to keep it in that range and the only thing that seemed to be a constant was when the CPU temp got above 48c instability issues started poping up.

I took the Zalman 9700 cooler off my main rig and put it on this one. So far temps haven't gone above 46c and it seems to be stable at the above settings...

I've got an old water cooling rig that I built (Mag/Pond Pump, 82 Chevette Heater Core, 12v relay to activate pump, Rabbit water bottle and misc parts. ). It actually works quite well, but it's a PITA seeing as how it's all housed externally. I just need to figure out a clamping mechanism for the block.

Just to get an opinion do you folks think it would be worth the hassle or should I just get one of these?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185062

They're huge with 12 heat pipes (looks like it might block 1st 2 ram slots), but I would think it offers better cooling than the Zalman.

Or just tell me I'm crazy either way..
I'm really starting to think heat is a major problem though, and either the chips are really sensitive to it, or none of the boards are reporting it accurately....

[quik_2_win]

Daveburt- I almost bought the Zipang, but the performance of it seemed mediocre, especially for it's size and weight. http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...id=2248&page=5. I always compare the hsf's @150w as an oc'd phenom is certainly in that range. Anyway, I went with the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835202005 and am pretty pleased with it. It cools well and is not overly large. If you have more room, consider the 120mm variants...

[Daveburt714]

Quik: Thanks for the link to the Frostytech site.

Looks like my Zalman 9700 is still one of the better coolers on the market. I'm kind of a stickler for noise though, I can already notice a difference..

Guess I'll have to pull the old water cooler back out and find some way to mount the block...

Did you notice any improvement in your OC when you went to the Vendetta?

As much as I like the conviniece of Air cooling I can't see the point in buying either one of those...

If I'm gonna stay on air I might as well stick with the Zalman....
You saved me $40~60, thanks man!!

[KTE]

I've got the stock HSFs, Zalman 9500, 9700, TT120 and Xigmatek HDT-S1283 here, all tested. There's no difference in oc/stability they give me after 9700 and the 9700 is only 2-4 degrees off the Xigmatek with a Q6600 and two of my last Phenoms even at 1.5V 4000MHz/2900MHz. Xigmatek performs better than TRUE though. I just use the stock HSF, gives me the same results although temps be a little higher with it but I run all of them at the lowest fanspeed anyway...

[Aussie FX]

Aussie, can you not hit 2G NB at stock volts stable?

If I get another Phenom I'm now going to try in both Vista x64 and x86 to try what is happening.

KTE 2034mhz is the max nb speed I can get with my system.
I tried both the 11x and 10x multiplier to take the cpu cores out of the equation and both times it quit @228 htt.
This is a 9500 with nb volts @1.250v and cpu @1.25v.

I can't remember the manufacturing date but it was a first batch Phenom 0743 IIRC. So it should be one of the better Phenom clockers.

It's strange because at nb speed of 2034 it's as stable as a rock yet it locks immediately I try 2052mhz. The 18mhz jump is caused by AOD not having a selection at 227htt.

[KTE]

The BIOS affects NB oc/stability very much.

I didn't pay attention to it thinking 1.13B for the MSI was good enough, but above 2083MHz 1.25VID NB it would become unstable after 3-8 hours gaming. So I dropped it down thinking it's a CPU limit. You know, when you test and already find the limit of your CPU, you don't tend to push to it repeatedly, believing that is the actual limit. Hence I always stuck below 2080MHz 1.25VID.

Until, I had the chance to test BIOS P0J. I was at 201HT, so I just changed multiplier up to 11x and... P0J turned out to be 100% stable at even 2211MHz 1.25VID. I did not try more at stock VID.




I know 2375MHz required 1.300VID, so anywhere from 2211-2370 may be possible yet at 1.25VID. Just goes to show the difference between the quality of the BIOS.

It's strange because at nb speed of 2034 it's as stable as a rock yet it locks immediately I try 2052mhz. The 18mhz jump is caused by AOD not having a selection at 227htt.

That's not AOD actually, that'll be a BIOS limitation. AOD can only move and pickup what your BIOS allows.

[Aussie FX]

I notice a few here are saying that F4 final is ocing better. I tried to install it but the installation app is written for 32bit only. I have emailed Gigabyte and am waiting to hear back.

BTW I did get 233htt once but that was using 1.25VID + 0.05v

[Boschwanza]

New record , 275 HTT on the 770 DS3 . Will test a bit, later.

[Daveburt714]

I notice a few here are saying that F4 final is ocing better. I tried to install it but the installation app is written for 32bit only. I have emailed Gigabyte and am waiting to hear back.

BTW I did get 233htt once but that was using 1.25VID + 0.05v

Aussie, are you using Q-Flash? AFIK, it never even goes into the OS so I don't see how running 64bit would be a problem.

All I had to do was put the bios file on a flash drive (USB), and hit END while it was posting. Looked to me like Q-Flash was actually a function of bios itself...

[quik_2_win]

Daveburt, my initial phenom oc'ing ended before the Vendetta was even installed so I can't comment on any increase in oc headroom. However, the noise level and load temps dropped considerably compared to the http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...id=1962&page=1 that it replaced.

Boschwanza, most impressive! Are you still on f3?

[Nosfer@tu]

Is there a clockgen for this motherboard or ?

[Boschwanza]

I am using F4 Bios, i run 275 the last day with no freezes and perfect stable.

Some news about IMC Voltage regulation: Just got an answer from gigabyte telling me that my request has been redirected to the gigabyte hardware team. So at least there is something in progress.

[Aussie FX]

Aussie, are you using Q-Flash? AFIK, it never even goes into the OS so I don't see how running 64bit would be a problem.

All I had to do was put the bios file on a flash drive (USB), and hit END while it was posting. Looked to me like Q-Flash was actually a function of bios itself...

Thanks for getting back to me on this Dave. It's got me cause I can't see how 64bit would be an issue either, but I can't get qflash to find the bios.

I downloaded the file from GB extracted it to my usb stick, restarted, then opened qflash and it just says there is no bios file. I then started looking at things and on the usb drive there is the F4 file and an app called flash895. I tried to open flash895 and it says it's a 32bit prog. so no go.
I'm not sure what flash895 is but I assume it's just a flashing app, anyway I deleted that from the usb stick so there was just the f4 file there. I tried that again with qflash and still no go. So I'm assuming there is some problem with this flash895 app.

EDIT: Flash895 is a DOS file, so I don't think I need it when using qflash.

[LIKMARK]

AussieFX: You tried making a floppy image with drdos for example? LINK:http://www.biosflash.com/e/bios-boot-cd.htm