Gigabyte MA790FX DQ6

[Rammsteiner]

Hmmm, just checked this thread out again as I own a 790FX-DQ6 too. However the 4th RAM slot is broken (BSOD's when I put any stick in there), still have to RMA it but maybe Im glad I didnt do that yet. But this degradation of the CPU worries me...

Why you might wonder?

Well, Ive the feeling or my motherboard (DFI 790FX M2R) or CPU is degrading? Although i never heard of Athlon X2's doing that, it looks like it's doing so.

First, both on the DFI and Gigabyte, I could run 14x251Mhz max. Any higher, no matter what Voltage, crashed sooner or later. All fine, I was happy with 3.51Ghz. A week or 5 ago I guess, my PC started to crash while playing a game, but rarely also while browsing the internet. I use to play music like 24/7, also while gaming, so I suspected the soundcard. But it wasnt. As it happened while gaming, I thought the GPU's, but they weren't it either.

As Im running 4x 1GB sticks of D9GMH, I feared it was the well known electron migration thingy. I tested 12x251Mhz same settings (so dropped the multi by 2), and ran Memtest... turned out it was all fine .

But 14x251/16x219/whatever setting which resulted in 3.51Ghz, crashed. Then after a week of messing around, being pissed and confused, I ran 14x249 and it was stable. I still thought this was utterly stupid but well, I was just done with it. I gamed and gamed. Then as of monday or there abouts I got a crash again! Tuesday 2 and a BSOD (the crashes were just freeze and eventually a blackscreen).

So I thought it might be the D9 dieing this time as I ran 12x249 and I got an error in all 5 Memtest's which I ran. To be 100% sure of my case I threw in one stick of OCZ ReaperX PC6400 (two doesnt fit ), and tried 14x251 right away; BSOD. Well, ok then, tried 14x249, BSOD again. Although I dont understand why the D9's errored earlier, I think it might be the IMC on the CPU degrading maybe?

I mean, the IMC is linked to the CPU and RAM. So if the IMC isnt stable at the CPU's speed it corrupts data coming trough. And since 12x249 errored, but the single OCZ stick BSOD as well, I can only think of a dieing IMC?

Any idea's if my thoughts might be right? Or could it be my motherboard as well? I'd like to switch just quickly to the Gigabyte to see how the CPU does there, but my dad was really really mad I didnt clean my room for 7 weeks now lol, and I said Im very busy with school at this moment (which I am truely). But it might be strange if I had time I would like make even more mess by changing out all hardware.

Just one little strange thing to note about the motherboard: it makes a little sound, when under load it becomes more silent, idle makes more noise. But after all I had this in the past with GPU's and other motherboards too. I searched on google for this and it can happen and isn't effecting anything. But as I type this, it comes from near the CPU (I think), maybe it's the CPU its self?

[wiak]

dude please rename this thread, to Gigabyte 790FX Series
hehe more logical when DS5 and DQ6 is nearly identical

:wub:

some photos of Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5 and Phenom 9850 Blacky Edition

Lovely, Boxes :p


Motherboard packed out


Motherboard


Stock Cooler upsidedown


Phenom 9850 Blacky Edition with Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermalpaste


Cooler in place


Everything in case, bling bling ;-)




ps: will be changing psu soon

[Daveburt714]

Started playing around with my 9850 + 790FX DS5. My board or chip seems to disagree with changing the NB volts, i get the feeling my max NB vid is 1.138v as even AOD can't change it.

Are you getting decent NB clocks aussie? I'm topping out around 2.3Ghz which is hardly better than my old 9500.

Schneider: See my message a few back concerning NB V's (#670) and see if that helps your problems...

Aussie: Gratz on your 9850! Keep us posted, mine should be here tommorow...

[Rammsteiner]

Could someone please comment about the top post I made on this page? Thx. Im not impatient or so, just want to make sure it doesn't get overlooked by other things because I really want to know how and what is happening.

Also, I bought this X2 as a temponary thing for Phenom. Now B3's are released and get higher clocks as well. Im thinking I might order a 9850 in case my CPU is indeed dieing. Before I RMA it Ill have the Phenom then so Im not PC-less for the duration of the RMA.

However I remember these things about Phenom:
1) Too high Vdimm (above 2.2V IIRC), kills Phenom sooner or later.
2) When idle, Phenom might freeze but not while under load.
3) IMC degradation.

Is any of these still excistent in newer B3's? And what are the fixes for these problems? I can think of the solution for the first one, simply staying at 2.2Vdimm or below. But what about the other two, if they're still there that is?

Thx in advance guys.

[Aussie FX]

Rammsteiner, clean your room first.

Schneider, I think I'm having ram issues so I will get back to you on NB speeds. Mine is currently running at 2150 and is stable as a rock.
I could lift my NB voltage, I just used AOD and up she went, CPU VID can also be changed upwards now. I'm using 2.0.17v of AOD. Try changing it with that.

Daveburt, Thanks mate I'm reasonably happy with it but I got a bsod at 2.9 with stock volts but I think it's ram not the cpu as F@H keeps crashing constantly at 2.6ghz. I have to look into this one.
Now I have to put my 9500 into my shiny new Gigabyte 780G motherboard that came today. I can't wait to try overclocking that GPU.

[Schneider]

Yea I've tried doing that with AOD, sadly no change is registered after applying. It seems like I'm stuck on 1.13v.

Daveburt, I went back and tried setting it as the first setting below auto. Board just doesn't boot up, I'm stuck with auto volts for northbridge.

Well after a day of tweaking I've managed a 275 Htt clock, 2.2Ghz NB with 1100Mhz RAM . Left the CPU clocks around ~2.7. I do know this chip can boot at 3.0Ghz+ with stock volts and complete a run of 3DMark 06.

Only thing that worries me is BIOS reports the CPU temp as ~50 C. AOD reads each core as ~35 C on idle and whatever Temp 2 is as the ~50 C. Anyone know what the Temp 2 is in AOD? (btw chips being cooled by Big Typhoon)

I'll post ss of results a little later

[Daveburt714]

Daveburt, Thanks mate I'm reasonably happy with it but I got a bsod at 2.9 with stock volts but I think it's ram not the cpu as F@H keeps crashing constantly at 2.6ghz. I have to look into this one.
Now I have to put my 9500 into my shiny new Gigabyte 780G motherboard that came today. I can't wait to try overclocking that GPU.

Hey that's not too shabby Bud, there's NO WAY my 96BE would even think about 2.9! And you can always give it a little bump in V's.

Mine will be here tommorow, maybe I'll get lucky and get a Week 10 they seem to be smoking, but it sounds like your's will do 3Ghz with a little tweeking... That's all I ask, 3Ghz at reasonable v's, Is that so much to ask.

Man, you are following almost the exact same path as me! I have a GBT 780G board that I put in my HTPC with my 9600Std. If it gives you problems posting (like mine did!) lower the HTT Link speed to 1400Mhz. That was the only way I could get it stable, it still plays BluRay and HD-DVD without stutters/skipping though and actually looks pretty good on my 50" Hiatchi 720p. CnQ works really well on it too, even when playing Hi-Def the CPU stays around 25%, @ 1.05v's.

Oh and Yeah, OC that IGP...
That thing runs HOT to begin with! You might want to pull the heatsinks and make sure they're making good contact before you close the case, especially the SB, mine wasn't even making contact...

[Daveburt714]

Daveburt, I went back and tried setting it as the first setting below auto. Board just doesn't boot up, I'm stuck with auto volts for northbridge.

That sucks Schnider, maybe they implemented it a different way on the DS4..
Might be worth your while to back everything down to stock and use AMD Power Monitor to see what effect it has on your NB/IMC v's. Just to take everythnig else out of the equation.

On the DS5 mine seems to run best @ -0.0375 (1.212v's), but I'm not looking for Max, just stability with a decent OC...

I'd be interested to see your results..

[Aussie FX]

One initial impression I have is that the memory controller isn't as good as my 9500 as far as voltages go. I used to be able to run 1066 with 1.8v with the 9500. With the 9850 I'm struggling to get 1066 with 2.1v.
Is anyone else noticing this?

[Schneider]

heh I should update my siggy. I haven't had that system in a while

My 9850 won't boot with the 1066 divider with my Crucials yet they run happily on the 800 divider at 1100 with 2.1v. Gskill RAM i got in hopes of better ocs are even worse

Edit: Posted a few results on hwbot should ppl be waiting for some results
3DMark 06 score 15277

[Daveburt714]

Well after a day of tweaking I've managed a 275 Htt clock, 2.2Ghz NB with 1100Mhz RAM . Left the CPU clocks around ~2.7. I do know this chip can boot at 3.0Ghz+ with stock volts and complete a run of 3DMark 06.

Hey Man, How did you manage to get your HTRef. clock so high?
I was going to ask you in Tony's thread, but it seemed a little off topic.

Even with lowered CPU and NB multi's I have a hard time getting over 230 on the HTTRef clock.

Did you change HTT Voltage control or something? If it's not too much to ask what do you have your alternate V's set at (Chipset/HTT etc.). If you could post a pic of your M.I.T. Bios screen, that would be helpful..

Thanks. Dave

[Aussie FX]

Dave have you managed to lift your imc volts in AOD yet?

Just playing with mine and I can lift it all the way to 1.55v.
Beats editing msr registers.

[Schneider]

Did you change HTT Voltage control or something? If it's not too much to ask what do you have your alternate V's set at (Chipset/HTT etc.). If you could post a pic of your M.I.T. Bios screen, that would be helpful..

Thanks. Dave

Not sure these pics will help, htt volts are all normal.

Side note, I've had no luck increasing NB clocks even with volts , temps aren't great though. Hoping that this board n chip can handle sub-zero as a new cooler should be on its way soon

[keithlm]

BTW: I'm a Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 owner now.

(I just have to wait for Newegg to RMA my 9850 before I can enjoy quadness.)

Sadly I found out the local "enthusiast" store had them in stock on release day. If I'd have bought this Gigabyte AND the 9850 there instead of on Newegg... I'd be up and running. (They were only $5.00 more than Newegg on price.)

[vext]

BTW: I'm a Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 owner now.

(I just have to wait for Newegg to RMA my 9850 before I can enjoy quadness.)

Sadly I found out the local "enthusiast" store had them in stock on release day. If I'd have bought this Gigabyte AND the 9850 there instead of on Newegg... I'd be up and running. (They were only $5.00 more than Newegg on price.)

Hi,

I have to laugh cause I'm in the same situation as you are. I followed your posts with interest.

My DFI M2R and 9850BE went TU after I ran lm-sensors (Linux mobo monitoring utility). I thought it was the DFI board, so I RMAd it, and am still waiting for that to resolve. I was dying to run the 9850, so I ordered the lesser DFI mobo(M2RS) from Newegg. Then I found, courtesy of a friend and an available computer to test, that the 9850BE was dead. It's now winging it's way to Whittier CA for RMA review. Quadaciousness is at least a week away.

I almost went with the Gigabye DS5, but decided to stick with DFI . The M2RS reviews at Newegg don't mention a C1 error. Interesting that the M2RS uses all solid capacitors like the Gigabye Ultra Durable series.

Good luck with your DS5.

vext

[Daveburt714]

Not sure these pics will help, htt volts are all normal.

Side note, I've had no luck increasing NB clocks even with volts , temps aren't great though. Hoping that this board n chip can handle sub-zero as a new cooler should be on its way soon

Thanks for the pics Bud, I don't have time to mess with it tonight, but the weekends coming up.. You are running the F5 bios right? The Mem Clock just displays a little differently than mine.
Seems like each of these chips have their own personality, but just for reference the sweet spot for my IMC seems to be around 1.15v when set in bios.

Dave have you managed to lift your imc volts in AOD yet?

Just playing with mine and I can lift it all the way to 1.55v.
Beats editing msr registers.

Haven't seen you around in awhile stranger.. Hope your vacation went well!
Yeah, I can get much better clocks using AOD and the voltage control, but when it crashes, IT CRASHES HARD at least on my machine. Seems like it almost corrupts Vista, sometimes I'll have to wait 5 minutes for it to boot into the OS on restart.

How's that 9850 treating you? Got SS's?

Keithlm: Gratz on the DS5 purchase! Now when you figure out how to get it OC the same way twice let me know....
J/K, welcome to the GBT club man.

[THRASHER2]

Ok..... I have that board

Can anybody tell me how to install RAID"0" in Vista 32bit

It's driving me MAD!

[Aussie FX]

Haven't seen you around in awhile stranger.. Hope your vacation went well!
Yeah, I can get much better clocks using AOD and the voltage control, but when it crashes, IT CRASHES HARD at least on my machine. Seems like it almost corrupts Vista, sometimes I'll have to wait 5 minutes for it to boot into the OS on restart.

How's that 9850 treating you? Got SS's?

Sooo much to do so little time.
AOD is definitely the way to go when overclocking mine.
I struggle to get over 2.7 when overclocking through the bios, volts don't help.
I know what you mean about the crashes although I don't get anywhere near corruption. What I have found when trying to restart it is, hold the reset button down for 10 seconds and she should come straight back up.
I still haven't oc'ed mine hard yet, I'm currently running it at 2750 1.3v, 12.5 multi, and 220htt (NB 2200)
There is 3ghz in this cpu but just not through the multis, as soon as I try, CRASH. Although I have seen others say they can only overclock well with the .5 muti
My temps are in line with my 9500 She doesn't go over 50c after 100% on all cores for days even with ambients as high as 35c. It is watercooled though.
How are you finding that new bios? I have been so busy I haven't even looked to see if it's available for DQ6 yet.
I will give you a SS when I hit 3.2

Vext Good to see you here mate and let us know when your new chip arrives. You should have bought a Gigabyte though. Best for Phenom IMO. We haven't seen any yet....

It's good to see more Gigabyte owners showing up, although I notice a few have come over from other motherboards.

EDIT:DAVE, the 780G is rocking. Didn't have any dramas with the setup, although stupid me ordered 1x2gb stick of DDR2-800 instead of 2x1gb anyway it didn't complain. The 9500 is running strong at 2550. I haven't seen any sign of the degradation?? I was having in the DQ6, in fact it's running as fast as it ever had. I have installed a 3870 in it now.

[Aussie FX]

BTW: I'm a Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 owner now.

(I just have to wait for Newegg to RMA my 9850 before I can enjoy quadness.)

Sadly I found out the local "enthusiast" store had them in stock on release day. If I'd have bought this Gigabyte AND the 9850 there instead of on Newegg... I'd be up and running. (They were only $5.00 more than Newegg on price.)

Keith, let us know how that board overclocks your K8.
When I got my DQ-6 it came out before Phenom so I had a good play with it and it was a mad overclocker with a 6400 in it. In fact it was the best K8 board I ever owned, and I have had a few....
I was getting HTT speeds in excess of 450. Easily....

Thrasher I haven't set up raid on this board, but I imagine it's just the usual. Copy the Raid files from the motherboard disc onto a floppy or usb stick and load it when installing Windows. That should do it.
Just don't select AHCI mode. Set it up as an IDE raid.

[keithlm]

Keith, let us know how that board overclocks your K8.
When I got my DQ-6 it came out before Phenom so I had a good play with it and it was a mad overclocker with a 6400 in it. In fact it was the best K8 board I ever owned, and I have had a few....
I was getting HTT speeds in excess of 450. Easily....

Thrasher I haven't set up raid on this board, but I imagine it's just the usual. Copy the Raid files from the motherboard disc onto a floppy or usb stick and load it when installing Windows. That should do it.
Just don't select AHCI mode. Set it up as an IDE raid.

I will try some overclocking after enjoying a pain free system for a few days.

The entire "blown up Phenom" fiasco has me battle shy at the moment.

OBSERVATION:

My old system was a Nforce4 939 X2-4800+ with 3-3-3-8 DDR ram. (2x1Gb at 1T or 4x1Gb at 2T.) So this new system is "theoretically" about the same.

My opinion:

It loaded Vista slower. I got worried. But now that it's loaded... it is a LOT smoother and more responsive than my old system. Like in a MAJOR way. I was running a MMORPG game (WoW) and had 2xPrime95 running without the game being affected. My old system even though supposedly "the same" couldn't do that. I could get the NVidia Cascades demo running on the old system with 2xPrime95... but that is because that demo uses only the GPU.

I attribute this to the 790FX chipset of this motherboard. Although it could all be the Placebo affect at this time. (The "newness" factor.) Sure these are not things you can benchmark with Super-Pi. But these things are VERY real. (And why I bought a Phenom after waiting for the B3 stepping.)

BTW: I'm not even using my hardware RAID-0 on 2xRaptorX yet... this is all on a single 34Gb raptor at this time. (It is hooked up to the SB. Which is why Vista loaded slower... I read that there is a known Vista/SB600 issue with AHCI... I wonder if that issue is still there when using "Native-IDE" to a lesser degree.)

EDIT: Wow... I just realized I'm getting about 30fps MORE in World of Warcraft at STOCK speeds for everything when I run only the game. (I was getting "about the same" FPS as the other motherboard last night... but that was when I ran it WITH the 2xPrime95 running....)

I'm getting more and more impressed by the 790FX chipset.

[THRASHER2]

Thrasher I haven't set up raid on this board, but I imagine it's just the usual. Copy the Raid files from the motherboard disc onto a floppy or usb stick and load it when installing Windows. That should do it.
Just don't select AHCI mode. Set it up as an IDE raid.

I have two WD 74gb Raptors
So I should use a Floppy or a USB stick with the RAID drivers on them when installing Vista 32bit OS.

[Daveburt714]

**WARNING** Just got home from the bar, so if I say something stoopid please excuse me. BTW, Visual Kaos ROCKS!! If ya like R&R Check'em out at http://www.vk-rocks.com/music.cfm
A good friend of mine plays drums for the band. Always a good time!!

Aussie, you know I kinda miss my MSI K9A2 Board... Don't know what it is about the DS5 that just seems a little squirley. I think it's the Dual Bios thing that actually tries to look to the HD for old bios..

I'll just shaddup now, My MSI board did die, and this one hasn't. So I guess that kinda proves your point..

Geez, I should definetly shaddup... OK, I'm done..
I actually did get better results for the K9A2 though.

[Aussie FX]

I have two WD 74gb Raptors
So I should use a Floppy or a USB stick with the RAID drivers on them when installing Vista 32bit OS.

If you have a floppy installed in your system you can use that, if not just use a usb stick.
It doesn't matter which one, just whatever is available.

Keep us informed because I haven't setup Raid yet and will be interested if there are any dramas.

Dave Have a good night at the pub did we.
How's the head feeling now...

I agree the K9A2 is faster, but where is it...........

[AlabamaCajun]

Anybody here from Wiak, bought all them shinny new parts and no results yet. I'm worried that his DS5 is where mine is, unstable. Hope his works better.

[wiak]

new psu

it works alot better now, it has 600W on all +12v rails :P

That sucks Schnider, maybe they implemented it a different way on the DS4..
Might be worth your while to back everything down to stock and use AMD Power Monitor to see what effect it has on your NB/IMC v's. Just to take everythnig else out of the equation.

On the DS5 mine seems to run best @ -0.0375 (1.212v's), but I'm not looking for Max, just stability with a decent OC...

I'd be interested to see your results..

my run stable 2.7 with stock volt