Gigabyte MA790FX DQ6

[keithlm]

Do it Keith!

I'm tempted.

Besides... Murphy's law of system building says if I spend the money to get a new DFI because of the piddling problems with the Gigabyte then they will release a new BIOS while the DFI is in being delivered. (So it would be good for others.... I'm so altruistic.)

Luckily I have to go on a 2 week trip starting monday... so I won't be able to do anything for 3 weeks. By then we'll see if the bios is out. If not... who knows. But this "forces" me to be a bit more patient.

(But I know this memory works well on the DFI... and I really miss the power/reset button BIOS reset method.)

[Lightman]

Lightman I have the same chip.

When I first got mine it clocked up to 2.9 on multis, however it didn't like the full multiplier i.e. 11,12,13. It was ok on 11.5,12.5 13.5 etc for whatever reason.
I can get my NB voltage as high as 1.55v using AOD 2.0.17, although I still can't raise it with the bios.

I haven't oc'ed it for ages because i'm folding with it now and I'm happy with it at 2.8 and it's very stable with the SMP client and the GPU2 client.

Is your chip at 2.8GHz under x64 or x32 OS?
I'm going to dig up my HDD with 32bit OS later this week if time will allow

BTW I'm sure BIOS still needs a lot of work. If my overclocked system crashes once then even after changing it to stock settings it will be unstable. Only solution is to unplug it from the socket for 30 seconds. Not a good thing to do.

PS. I'm not sure if everyone know this, but if your system can't boot because of some new too high settings in BIOS (HDD light flashing like mad) and you are going to CLEAR CMOS try first holding RESET button for 5-6 seconds. It always brings my system back .

[Daveburt714]

Well I thought I had it stable @ 225x12.5x9x9 (2.812 cpu / 2025 NB & HTT)
Of course after typing a 20 minute message it crashed right before I was ready to post it!!!!

I'll just make this short.

Aussie: 0811 BPJW... The pic is clickable...

Lightman: When your machine become unstable to the point that you have to reset CMOS. Go into Bios and select "Optimized Defaults" before changing any other settings. Seems to clear the DMI. Works pretty well for me.

Keithlm:I have the same problems with the NB/IMC volts. Not sure if it will help, but with the 9850 mine runs best between -0.1 and -0.15.

This damn thing ran stable for hours last night, even gamed on it for an hour or 2... Lowered HT to 8x and try again I guess...

[Daveburt714]

Ok, the important stuff is out of the way.. Just a little additional info.

I tested everything seperately over the weekend and came up with these results:
Max HT Ref = 258 (Memory 1032)
Max CPU = 2875 (1.3v higher didn't help)
Max NB = 2190 (1.2v higher didn't help (-0.10 Keithlm ))
Max HT Link= 2050

These all ran stable as long as everything else was lowered, so I thought I had found the magic combination 239x12x9x8 (2868 cpu/2151 nb/1912 htt).
Did it work you ask? NOPE.... Imagine that!

I still say Phenom = Rubics Cube...

[KTE]

Looking at the congregated results here with DS5... I'd say GBT has a major BIOS problem. I know they had trouble with 1066 for a while, so before you decide what is stable or not, I'd try testing 800 mode, stock NB, stock HT and 1x2GB instead of more than 1x2GB if you use that. Many times moving HT 1MHz seems to make NB/CPU very unstable unless you add voltage to the NB - a trend with the 9850 unlike B2

Also beware, DS5 I tested a long while back was overvolting especially under load - if stock was 1.25v then under load it overvolted to 1.280v. The feature carried over to the 780G and 740G offerings too.

Hows AOD compatibility coming along?
Anyone tried the AutoClock and Stability tests at/for high MHz?

I'd test some things on it but I don't have a DS5 here.

[Aussie FX]

I think you're spot on with the bios there KTE. As I said to you last night mine is rock solid stable at 2.8. It's been running 100% on all cores for weeks now.
I'm still running the F4 bios.
AOD compatibility is perfect and NO stability issues with AOD either. I'm really happy with that now. Using v 2.0.17.


Dave have you tried going back to F4?

[Aussie FX]

Is your chip at 2.8GHz under x64 or x32 OS?
I'm going to dig up my HDD with 32bit OS later this week if time will allow

BTW I'm sure BIOS still needs a lot of work. If my overclocked system crashes once then even after changing it to stock settings it will be unstable. Only solution is to unplug it from the socket for 30 seconds. Not a good thing to do.

PS. I'm not sure if everyone know this, but if your system can't boot because of some new too high settings in BIOS (HDD light flashing like mad) and you are going to CLEAR CMOS try first holding RESET button for 5-6 seconds. It always brings my system back .

Sure is Lightman.
I put my old 9500 on an XP pro x32 install and it oc's about the same as what it did on this Vista X64.

I found exactly the same thing with my reset button...count slowly to 5.

One thing I have found with this 9850 is the IMC is nowhere as good as my 9500 was. I'm now running my ram at 800. Must be something in my bit of silicon because it's on the same bios and I know the ram is good for 1150mhz.

[keithlm]

One thing I have found with this 9850 is the IMC is nowhere as good as my 9500 was. I'm now running my ram at 800. Must be something in my bit of silicon because it's on the same bios and I know the ram is good for 1150mhz.

I disagree with you: I don't think it is the 9850 IMC. I think it is the Gigabyte bios.

This same memory worked great on the DFI board I had for a few days and I had no problems. (Up until I ran Sandra and it hosed everything. But I think that it just mangled something in the bios... who knows.) But when I say "no problems" I mean that Prime95 ran for hours with no readily apparent problems. I even ran 4xPrime95 and then kicked off the AOD stability test at the same time. I let those both run overnight at the same time with no problems.

It's either the Gigabyte BIOS or they (Gigabyte) have done something wrong in hardware.

(I'd prefer BIOS.)
===========================

ANYWAY:

This morning I did the following:

1. Reset optimized bios settings.
2. Reboot.
3. Reflashed the F3 bios. (I did this since the note on the Gigabyte website says that the F3 bios updates the "backup" bios.)
4. Optimized settings.
5. Reboot.
6. Reflashed F4.
7. Optimized settings.
8. Reboot.
9. Reset some BIOS things. (Turned off misc stuff.)

RESULTS:
1066 was very unstable. I could get windows to post, but if I started Prime95 it would reboot immediately. I lowered the memory speed to 800 and it still rebooted immediately if I ran Prime95.

I also noticed that with the F4 BIOS the CPU-VID and NB-VID both defaulted to 1.3Volts. (They defaulted to 1.2375V and 1.1375 in BIOS version F5)

But F4 was too unstable. So I reflashed F5 (optimized, save, reboot, etc.) and everything is back where it was. I can run PRIME95 and it won't immediately reboot the machine. Prime95 (blend) will fail after a few minutes... but at least it runs. (If I decrease speed to 800 Prime95 will run longer but still fail. If I put in some old DDR2-400 ram it will run for a few hours before failing.)

BTW: I think my "main problem" is the G.Skill 2x2Gb ram I have. (With the powerchip IC. They have really funky BIOS timings.) If I had a more normal RAM I think I'd be a lot more stable. (But not as stable as I'd like to be.) But even though that may be some or even most of the problem... I still suspect that the bios has some issues.

EDIT: I learned more than I wanted to know about Prime95 today. It seems that the "small FFS" test will test the cores and that the "blend" test the memory, core and communication between both. Since memtest86 runs fine on my machine for many passes... and Prime95 small ffs runs without problems for long periods of time... then that leaves the the NB. Which is what I guessed previously.)

Looking at the congregated results here with DS5... I'd say GBT has a major BIOS problem.

Apparently they don't think so:

Gigabyte's response to my question about problems with the current (DS-5 F5) BIOS. (I asked them when they'd have a fix):

There are no known issue with the 9850 with the F5 bios, please check your memory and try testing with single module

So apparently we aren't having problems... it's all our imagination.

To be honest: I had suspected I'd get a lame answer like that.

[keithlm]

NEW RESULTS::: Lowered the NB speed and got stability.

Instead of playing with the different memory speeds... and timings... et al. ad nauseum. (I am now SICK and TIRED of memory timings.)

I didn't know how to lower the Northbridge speed:

In the AOD you have a setting called NB-VID... but it won't save if you attempt to change it. (You have to change it in bios. See DaveBurts post.) But increasing the NB-VID made my system VERY unstable.)

In AOD there is also a HT Multiplier which lowers the HT Link Speed but it doesn't touch the Northbridge speed. There is no Northbridge slider. Dang it.

NOW: In the BIOS there are two settings: Memory controller (9x, 10x, 11x etc.) and also HT Link Frequency (1.8, 2.0 etc.) Apparently BOTH of these must be changed at the same time. If you decrease the Memory controller lower than the HT Link frequency the BIOS will change it back when you reboot. But if you change the "Memory Controller" to 9x (1800) and the second to 1.8... and save it... the northbridge AND the HT Link Speed will be 1800.

Apparently the BIOS "memory controller" == AOD's Northbridge and the BIOS HT Link Frequency == AOD's HT Link Speed.

I had a scary close call. I decided to raise both to 2200 just to see how unstable it would be. Hey who knows... it might have been more stable. Anyway BOINK. SPLAT. I had to remove the Phenom and boot with an X2-4800+ before I could get the Phenom to boot again. SCARY STUFF.


OKAY YEAH!

Using 1800Mhz NB/HT I can run Prime95 (Blend) without getting errors at least in the first few hours. This is running the memory at the FULL DDR2-1066 speed. (Before even if I put in old DDR2-533 memory it ran longer but eventually rebooted. Using 1066 memory it would error after a few minutes.)

In addition, because I'm impatient:: while 4xPrime95 (blend) ran for about an hour I kicked off the Everest stability test. That worked okay but it really slowed down the Prime95's. Then I ran the NVidia "Cascades" demo which mostly uses the GPU. All of these ran together. (Actually I'll kick them all off together when I go to bed. Maybe run the AOD stability test at the same time. They'll ALL run slow if you run them all together... but they should run without errors and without rebooting.)

NOTE: If I try running multiple stability tests using the default 2Ghz Northbridge/HT the system WILL reboot after a few moments.

SO I THINK I HAVE FINALLY FOUND STABILITY.

Sure I don't like the lower 1.8Ghz NB/HT... but at least this system is now running stable with this CPU, this MB and this memory. NOW I have a "zero" point and can "play." I know there is no "unknown" something that makes the system completely unstable.

So why do I need a lower NB?

Possible Reasons:

1. A Bad CPU
2. The BIOS needs updates
3. G.Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK memory doesn't play well with AMD



Oh... pretty... and BEATING the crud out of the system. (This is a dual monitor... doing a screenprint will show both screens as if it was one screen. OH NOES... only 11.2 FPS in the game... THE TRAVESTY!)

Oh wait... I need some HD Tach in there to test the RAID hardware card. :-)

[Daveburt714]

Many times moving HT 1MHz seems to make NB/CPU very unstable unless you add voltage to the NB - a trend with the 9850 unlike B2

Thanks for that tip KTE! When I was testing individually I noticed the HT Link didn't like to go very high. I picked up some 1066 Reapers cheap, but I'm still having trouble running in that mode. I'm blaming it on the fact that I have to run them in slots 3&4 because of clearance, but I still think it's a bios problem.

Also beware, DS5 I tested a long while back was overvolting especially under load - if stock was 1.25v then under load it overvolted to 1.280v. The feature carried over to the 780G and 740G offerings too.

Yep, they still do that... Only now (DS5/F5) undervolts a little at idle, and overvolts a little at load. IE: 1.275v bios = ~1.265 Idle / 1.285 Load

Keithlm: I wouldn't be too quick to blame your G.Skills. I thought the same thing, which is why I bought the Reapers.. Still had trouble with them too. Pretty sure your right it's a Bios Problem!

The worst thing for me from all of this is that I had a Stepping/Batch that looks to be awesome (0810 BPAW). I RMA'd it because of this crap, guess I'll never know for sure but I gave it 5 days tweeking and this one is only doing marginally better...

Aussie:Concerning F4 Bios... Yeah, I went all the way back to F3 on the this chip without any improvement in performance. I did just realize I still have a copy of the F4F though. It's the only one I haven't tried, guess I'll give it a shot tonight.

[Daveburt714]

NOW: In the BIOS there are two settings: Memory controller (9x, 10x, 11x etc.) and also HT Link Frequency (1.8, 2.0 etc.) Apparently BOTH of these must be changed at the same time. If you decrease the Memory controller lower than the HT Link frequency the BIOS will change it back when you reboot. But if you change the "Memory Controller" to 9x (1800) and the second to 1.8... and save it... the northbridge AND the HT Link Speed will be 1800.

Yep... 1st Rule of Phenom. HT Link Spd can't be higher than NB Spd, it's actually a good thing that Bios won't let you do that..

I really hope that stays stable for ya! Running the HT Link at 1800 is not that big a deal, but lowering you NB to 1800 will have a more detrimental effect... If all goes well and you want to get a little more out of it try raising your NB to 10x while leaving the HT@1800.

[keithlm]

Yep... 1st Rule of Phenom. HT Link Spd can't be higher than NB Spd, it's actually a good thing that Bios won't let you do that..

I really hope that stays stable for ya! Running the HT Link at 1800 is not that big a deal, but lowering you NB to 1800 will have a more detrimental effect... If all goes well and you want to get a little more out of it try raising your NB to 10x while leaving the HT@1800.

Can't do that.... it's unstable with the NB at 10X.

But I agree that all of this is probably the BIOS and not the memory. They made some pretty drastic changes between F4 and F5 for the NB voltages... so I'm sure they have more tweaks in that area.

You know: actually I might lower both NB and HT to even further to 1600 so I can play with increasing the HT multipler (What was FSB) to as high as I can. At 230Mhz the CPU would be 2875 and the NB would be 1840Mhz. (I think the memory can handle handle that.)

That would be nice... because if I can do that with just the FSB then when Gigabyte actually gets around to fixing the BIOS... I might be able to up the CPU multiplier and get 3.2Ghz. (3.4Ghz???) Of course first they have to admit that there IS a problem. (Which right now they are denying... RIGHT.)

BTW: as you can see in the picture I posted above... while slamming the system with 3 programs that can EACH use 100% of all 4 cores... the CPU temp only went up to 46C-48C. The Zalman 9700 ROCKS.

[KTE]

Dave: clearance from the cooler?
I use the Xig in the 9850 build and its an impossible fit - I just push the RAM under it though.

There's trouble with 1066 RAM IMO, my 800 works flawless, no C1 and o dead Phenoms

[Daveburt714]

I know I spoke fairly highly of the DS5 when I bought it after the K9A2 crash KTE... And it actually worked pretty well using the 96BE.

But this thing has been a nightmare with the 9850! I seriously doubt it's a problem with the PMW section of the board. The website say's it supports the 9750 (which is also a 125w CPU)... So I'm pretty sure it's a Bios problem.

Hopefully MSI will RMA my K9A2, even though it died during a beta bios flash which isn't covered under warranty. They've had it for almost 2 weeks now though so I'm not sure. Guess they have every right to reject it...

BTW folks, the F4f bios seemed to do a little better on the NB clocks (booted at 2200) but it wasn't stable either...

[Aussie FX]

What happens when you raise nb volts, does it give more stability?

There is something weird happening here. I have zero problems with 9850. The only difference. DQ6.
Which I thought was DS5 but with 2 more 8x pcie slots.

[keithlm]

What happens when you raise nb volts, does it give more stability?

There is something weird happening here. I have zero problems with 9850. The only difference. DQ6.
Which I thought was DS5 but with 2 more 8x pcie slots.

When I give mine more NB-Volts it gos unstable. (I think I gave it more NB-VOlts but that I might also have needed to give it a little bit more HTR-Core voltage.)

About the Dq6 versus DS5 I think you are correct physically... they are the same. So it all comes down to BIOS.

What do CPU-VID, NV-VID, NB-CORE and HTT-CORE, HTR-CORE voltages default to on the DQ6 with the latest BIOS?

On the DS5 with BIOS F4 these values are are 1.3V,1.3V and (???),(???),(???)
versus the F5 Bios with 1.2375V, 1.1375V, 1.255, 1.165V, and 1.162 Volts.

I think that the NB-VID, NB-CORE, HTT-Core, HTT-Core, and the HTR-Core Voltages may be very important.

I'll bet with a non-9850 Phenom and the F5 bios... that the voltages are either okay OR they are higher values and that with the 9850 these values drop below what they should be. (I'm just guessing. But it's the only real differences I can see between the F4 and F5 bios. I'll test higher NB-VID along with a bump to HTR-Core later.)

(EDIT#2: Added the NB-Core Voltages and now also the HTT-Core. So we have 4 values for voltages that might affect the NB/HT. BIOS F4 had 1.3Volts on the first one... but I didn't record the values for the other three. The BIOS appears to allow you to change all 4 values: it calls them: Memory Controller Voltage, Chipset Voltage, HTT and HTR.)

Why HTT and HTR? (Transmit and receive I think. But why are there separate values on this MB when it is only one value on other MB?)

[Aussie FX]

Keith.
you're correct with htt and htr - send and receive.

I'm using F4 bios so here's my voltages

CPU-VID 1.3, NB-VID 1.3, NB-CORE 1.165, and I have CPU-HT 1.162.
I did change my NB-VID from 1.25v to 1.3v for stability.
These are according to AOD 2.0.17.

We need to test the same chip in a different board. Did Dave say he was getting a K9A2?
I've got a Gigabyte 780G but that's useless really as it has no overclocking options. (HTT + CPU volts)

[Daveburt714]

What happens when you raise nb volts, does it give more stability?

There is something weird happening here. I have zero problems with 9850. The only difference. DQ6.
Which I thought was DS5 but with 2 more 8x pcie slots.

You can't actually raise the NB v's on the DS5 Aussie. What the F5 bios does is lower the NB v's when set to AUTO to 1.138v. Then all options from there are minus settings, but if you set it to minus it subtracts than number from the chips stock voltage (1.25 for 96BE/1.30 for 9850BE).
So for example, with a 9850 Auto = 1.138/NB, but setting it to -0.025 results in a NB voltage of 1.275.... Very confusing I know, but thats the way it works.

In reality you can never even get the NB to run at stock v's using the F5 bios. Setting it to -0.025 (1.275) is the highest possible. I've never even been able to get my machine to post at the -.025 setting though, so there may be something screwy going on there..

If you wouldn't mind man, would you let us know what your stock voltages look like on the odd things like Chipset Voltage, HTT & HTR? I think Keithlm may be on to something there.

KTE:Sorry Bud, I missed your question about the RAM sticks.. Yeah, it's clearance with the Zalman 9700, the Reapers have than big heat pipe sticking out the top. No forcing those bad boys!!

[keithlm]

Keith.
you're correct with htt and htr - send and receive.

I'm using F4 bios so here's my voltages. I'll play around some tomorrow. (I didn't want to flash the F4 bios... it's too unstable for me.)

CPU-VID 1.3, NB-VID 1.3, NB-CORE 1.165, and I have CPU-HT 1.162.
I did change my NB-VID from 1.25v to 1.3v for stability.
These are according to AOD 2.0.17.

We need to test the same chip in a different board. Did Dave say he was getting a K9A2?
I've got a Gigabyte 780G but that's useless really as it has no overclocking options. (HTT + CPU volts)

Thanks for the list of F4 voltages. I'll try some changes tomorrow. I didn't want to reflash F4 on my board because F4 was very unstable when I flashed it last time.

I did find that With the NB set to 1800 it will run Prime95 blend for 4-6 hours and then reboot. I'm now testing to see what happens with the NB at 1600.

The system stability seems about the same at 1066 or 800 memory speeds.

Today I got a second response from Gigabyte. The first response was "We know of no problems." When I told them to just look at any hardware forum they did reply; they just asked me how to recreate the problem.

I think the real problem is a combination of a lot of things... BIOS, variations in the CPU, different memory. But it should still be completely stable at the defaults.

WEIRDNESS: I just ran 3DMark06 at NB:1600 and it was actually a few points HIGHER than when I ran it at NB:2000. (Everything else the same.) I'm re-running at NB:2000; I'll probably also try out Vantage.

[Brother Esau]

Funny I can run NB @ 2.2GHZ @ STOCK VOLTAGE

[Daveburt714]

CPU-VID 1.3, NB-VID 1.3, NB-CORE 1.165, and I have CPU-HT 1.162.
I did change my NB-VID from 1.25v to 1.3v for stability.
These are according to AOD 2.0.17.

We need to test the same chip in a different board. Did Dave say he was getting a K9A2?

Sorry for the cross-post Aussie.. Thanks for the voltage info Bud!!
As far as the K9A2 goes, it's up to MSI whether they accept the RMA or not, if they do I'll be sure to keep you guys up to date..

[KTE]

Yeah I can upto 2380MHz NB at stock volts on the 9850, fully stable, no more though. No idea why people are getting B2 sorta NB problems.

[keithlm]

Funny I can run NB @ 2.2GHZ @ STOCK VOLTAGE

But you're not running a Gigabutt with a faulty BIOS.

BTW: This chip seems to like overclocking just fine... I can hit 2.9 at stock volts. (And a nice low NB.)

[Aussie FX]

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=354855

That's for you Dave

Your turn now.

XP pro x32 was the answer.

Downside, it took 1.375v.
I have to install AOD now and tweak it, as I'm not sure of stability. I had to get this screenie done first.
Priorities you know.

[keithlm]

Everest reads the G.Skill F2-8500 ram I have and shows that it needs tWR 13 and tRC 48.

The F5 bios only allows max tWR of 8T and max tRC of 42T.

(And the BIOS appears to default to 127nm on the rRFC... not 195ns.)

I'm not sure if these timings would make the NB unstable... but the differences can't be helpful.

(But since I can't change the BIOS to those values... I can't test the timings that are part of the RAM's EPP profile.)