Gigabyte EX58-UD5/Extreme Discussion Thread

[sunn]

Nope, slightly higher idling

With one on those watt meter thingys, it does seem to save 15/20w compared to them being disabled

[DavyBoy]

@ Johnny, when I first put my rig together I o/ced to 3.2GHz and I left the Vcore on Auto, and it set it to 1.35v!!!

Not a good idea using auto IMO...

My rig is screwed up, it's now picking up all 6GB of RAM everytime now!!!

I am trying to stabilize it @ 4GHz (192 x 21) with the RAM running @ 1536MHz...

I don't know if I should RMA the processor or not now, or whether I should go ahead and build it up inside my case again....

I think I will keep stress testing it for a few days to see if it will continue seeing all of the installed ram first...

[Jonny Manc]

@ Johnny, when I first put my rig together I o/ced to 3.2GHz and I left the Vcore on Auto, and it set it to 1.35v!!!

Not a good idea using auto IMO...

My rig is screwed up, it's now picking up all 6GB of RAM everytime now!!!

I am trying to stabilize it @ 4GHz (192 x 21) with the RAM running @ 1536MHz...

I don't know if I should RMA the processor or not now, or whether I should go ahead and build it up inside my case again....

I think I will keep stress testing it for a few days to see if it will continue seeing all of the installed ram first...

After doin something similar with my old Opty 170, I wont use Auto vcore again :P

Man.....your system must be female, it dont wtf to do

[Jakethesnake011]

I had no luck with the new Beta BIOS F8F, did not work with my current setting that I am using with the F8D BIOS. 4.2 stable with 1.344Vcore and 1.35V QPI and 1.68VDram. Max temps are 86 degrees which is kind of hot but that is when I am running LinX with 4 gigs of ram. But I also noticed problems with the F8F BIOS and being able to use my enter button or any button when the Windows GUI bootup screen pops up since I am running 2 OS's of 2 separate drives it lets me pick which one, and I was unable to move the selection with the F8F BIOS and I had the USB control on and all that.

[DavyBoy]

Is anyone else experiencing issues with the PWM fan control on their UD5 mobo?

On my old one PWM works perfectly with all BIOS'es from F5 upwards, but with the new mobo, the only BIOS that PWM works on is F8f...

Anyone know how to sort this out?

As I prefer F7 BIOS, but I can't stand having my fan spinning at full speed constantly, it is far to noisy!!!

I am on F8f right now, and my system is now booting with all of my RAM everytime now, and it is stable at stock settings, but I just can't seem to get it stable @ 4GHz...

::edit::

@Jake, I am also experiencing that issue with the keyboard not working with F8f BIOS, if my system BSOD's, when I restart and it comes up with the screen asking me if I want to start in safe mode, or boot up normally, I have to wait for the timer to run out because I can't press enter on the keyboard... I have USB Keyboard and Mouse enabled in the BIOS, but it refuses to work...

Also, why don't the people who write these BIOS'es not just enable USB keyboard and mouse instead of leaving it disabled at default??

It is really annoying having to go into Intergrated Peripherals to enable the mouse and keyboard all the time!!!

[Brad8988]

PWM fan didnt work on the F7 bios i had. Was fixed in F8.

[Jonny Manc]

Is anyone else experiencing issues with the PWM fan control on their UD5 mobo?

On my old one PWM works perfectly with all BIOS'es from F5 upwards, but with the new mobo, the only BIOS that PWM works on is F8f...

Anyone know how to sort this out?

As I prefer F7 BIOS, but I can't stand having my fan spinning at full speed constantly, it is far to noisy!!!

I am on F8f right now, and my system is now booting with all of my RAM everytime now, and it is stable at stock settings, but I just can't seem to get it stable @ 4GHz...

::edit::

@Jake, I am also experiencing that issue with the keyboard not working with F8f BIOS, if my system BSOD's, when I restart and it comes up with the screen asking me if I want to start in safe mode, or boot up normally, I have to wait for the timer to run out because I can't press enter on the keyboard... I have USB Keyboard and Mouse enabled in the BIOS, but it refuses to work...

Also, why don't the people who write these BIOS'es not just enable USB keyboard and mouse instead of leaving it disabled at default??

It is really annoying having to go into Intergrated Peripherals to enable the mouse and keyboard all the time!!!

Dunno about the PWM cos I have a pair of fairly quiet fans on my TRUE so they run full whack 24/7, but the keyboard thing I experienced once when I made the mistake of using ET6.......I have since deleted it and just use my BIOS for OC'ing and any other adjustments that I need to make and all is fine (so far :P)

@Brad - What idle temps you gettin on your cores with that Noctua??

[DavyBoy]

@Johnny, which fans do you use on your TRUE?

I have just bought a TRUE from the OcUK Members Market for £20, the guy will be sending it out tommorow for me, but I don't know what fan I should buy for it...

I am thinking about a Noctua fan, but they have a horrible color imo... though if they are good performing fans, then the color shouldn't really be an issue...

Trying like crazy to get my system stable @ 4GHz, but it doesn't seem to matter how much voltage I throw at it, it keeps BSOD'ing on me after a couple of passes in LinX...

[Jonny Manc]

I have a pair of Xigmatek's on it which do ok, not the most powerful but are silent (PC in the living room) and they look cool too

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Xigma...-F1253-LED-FAN (sorry to use a Scan link, but cant remember where I bought them from lol)

[ztop]

wich is the best bios for the ga x58 extreme?
thanks

[DavyBoy]

@Johnny, I have seen a couple of people using these fans on their TRUE's...

Someone on OcUK forums posted pictures of their i7 rig, and they were using two of those fans on their TRUE as well...

I would like LED fans for my TRUE when I get it... I will also need to buy the LGA1366 mounting bracket as well...

[Jakethesnake011]

Blunt
I first had the s-flex 1900rpm fans on a push pull config with my TRUE and they worked very well. Sicne then I moved to 2 ultra kaze 3000rpm fans. They cool much better and have much better static pressure due to the 38mm deep fan shroud. They are loud but work very well. I would recommend lapping the TRUE and pressure modding it, at least use a washer to put under the mounting bracket to push the TRUE down onto the chip. Without the pressure mod the heatsink can spin around easily on top of the processor IHS. But I would try and get 38mm thick fans, and then maybe slower speeds if you want quiet fans.

A question, does the UD5 have any points on the board where I can plug my mulitmeter into to read the voltages of the Vcore and IOH and other components. I did not see any laid out like some boards where they are labeled, but if anyone knows where you can take a read from let me know.

[DavyBoy]

There isn't a dedicated section of the UD5 where you can take readings with a multimeter like the Asus RIIE has, but maybe someone here knows where about on the mobo you could find these readings...

About the fans, I only plan on using one fan on my TRUE to start with.. I might add another one at some point though...

[Arcanum]

Guys, anyone noticed that?

I can pass LinX 20 passes with 1.25v, but I fail prime with 1.25v, 1.26v pass prime, but 1.26v fail occt, 1.28v pass all

1.25v = LinX pass, prime95 fail , occt medium test fail
1.26v = LinX pass, prime95 pass, occt medium test fail
1.28v = LinX pass, prime 95 pass, occt pass

Haven't noticed anyone responded, but this is really a good observation. I set out to test it.

and lo and behold - you are correct!

My OC at 3.8GHz was 20 passes Linx 11GB stable but it failed occt high test at 30 minutes...
Upped vcore + qpi 1 notch and now I'm occt stable as well.

Thanks for making my OC more stable

Note: I never once crashed, bsod or something similar with my linx stable settings, but surely more stability can't hurt ^^

[euonline]

No Vcore stays the same on the UD5 if its manually set in the bios. If left on auto it should though.

It is actually pretty sad that the bios does not let the vcore reduce when the multi reduces if you have a C1E on. (unless vcore in auto)

I have tried this feature in some other manufacturer brand board and it rocks. after all the Pc is pretty much time in idle and is no reason to keep a high vcore.

It could be very nice if the guys from gigabyte could enable this on the bios...

[devsk]

It is actually pretty sad that the bios does not let the vcore reduce when the multi reduces if you have a C1E on. (unless vcore in auto)

I have tried this feature in some other manufacturer brand board and it rocks. after all the Pc is pretty much time in idle and is no reason to keep a high vcore.

It could be very nice if the guys from gigabyte could enable this on the bios...

This is indeed sad! I am using evga x58 board and clocked to 21x210 at 1.3125vcore (BIOS), it falls to 1.03 during idle with C1E enabled. The idle temps stay close and around 40C on all cores. That's what you want!

[Jonny Manc]

It is actually pretty sad that the bios does not let the vcore reduce when the multi reduces if you have a C1E on. (unless vcore in auto)

I have tried this feature in some other manufacturer brand board and it rocks. after all the Pc is pretty much time in idle and is no reason to keep a high vcore.

It could be very nice if the guys from gigabyte could enable this on the bios...

+1 - GB should add this feature....especially with all this 'Carbon footprint' talk

[zsero]

Can I ask you to tell me some unbiased opinion about which would you think would be more stable today, a i7 920 D0 in a EX58-UD5 or a Q9650 in a EP45-UD3P?

For me, performance is not _that_ important, I would like to have a quiet and stable overclock for 24/7 usage, in the 3.6-4 Ghz range. Like how I am using my Q6600 @ 3.6 Ghz for more than a year now. Setting it up once and from that time no tweaking, not spending nights looking for more voltages, just a quiet, stable overclock for everyday work. The cooler would be a TRUE with a Scythe fan on it, for the i7 system I would need to buy more expensive RAMs and everything would be a bit more complicated, but if you say it's as stable as a UD3P could be than I would go for it.

What scares me most is that I still read about serious BIOS bugs, like no PWM no sleep, etc. I think those things are really smoothed out in the latest generation P45 boards.

[Jakethesnake011]

On the UD5 what clock generator do I leave SetFSB on to get my clocks with the program? I did not see it in the readme files or anything. Anyone have an idea?

[Bl0ss0m]

There isn't a dedicated section of the UD5 where you can take readings with a multimeter like the Asus RIIE has, but maybe someone here knows where about on the mobo you could find these readings...

I would like to know also for my UD4P.

+1 - GB should add this feature....especially with all this 'Carbon footprint' talk

+1 also, after seeing DFI's board could do this I got mad at myself for being impatient and buying this board right away.

[Jonny Manc]

Can I ask you to tell me some unbiased opinion about which would you think would be more stable today, a i7 920 D0 in a EX58-UD5 or a Q9650 in a EP45-UD3P?

For me, performance is not _that_ important, I would like to have a quiet and stable overclock for 24/7 usage, in the 3.6-4 Ghz range. Like how I am using my Q6600 @ 3.6 Ghz for more than a year now. Setting it up once and from that time no tweaking, not spending nights looking for more voltages, just a quiet, stable overclock for everyday work. The cooler would be a TRUE with a Scythe fan on it, for the i7 system I would need to buy more expensive RAMs and everything would be a bit more complicated, but if you say it's as stable as a UD3P could be than I would go for it.

What scares me most is that I still read about serious BIOS bugs, like no PWM no sleep, etc. I think those things are really smoothed out in the latest generation P45 boards.

I came from a Q6600 and an Asus P5Q-e to my current setup and found overclocking to 3.6 a piece of cake. Solid and stable with decent temps (also on a TRUE). As OC'ing is down to individual components, as much messing about is required to find the best setting on any piece of kit so really the decision should be based on whether you want to go i7, affordability and availability rather than how easy it is to get a stable clock.

Also, a 920 @ 3.2 is likely to match a 9650 @ 3.8 so you would'nt have to work as hard to get the same performance :P

[nipper575]

I would like to know also for my UD4P.



+1 also, after seeing DFI's board could do this I got mad at myself for being impatient and buying this board right away.

+1, also wish that these GB motherboards could do this.

[DavyBoy]

I wonder if anyone can help me out??

I have been trying like crazy to get my RAM running @ 1600MHz with a 4GHz o/c, but it just wont happen for me at all.. I can get my system completely stable with the RAM running @ 1200MHz, but I am having no success whatsoever running it @ 1600MHz...

@ stock CPU frequency I can have my RAM running at its rated speed, so I don't understand why it won't let me run @ 1600 when the cpu is running at 4GHz...

I have played around with the QPI/Vtt voltage to no avail, I have tried it from 1.175v right up to 1.5v but I don't seem to be getting anywhere... I also tried loosening up the ram timings to 9-9-9-26 and still nothing..

If anyone can give me some help here it would be much appreciated...

Thanks in advance

[Jakethesnake011]

You think having the turbo or extreme setting ids hurting you at those speeds? It does for me when I run my ram at 1800mhz+ I need to put it on standard or turbo to get it to work. Are you sure it is the RAm and not the Uncore? I had some problems with my Uncore trying to get my ram up to 1800+mhz, I needed to back off and only do double multiplier, I am used to running Uncore at x18 and RAM at x8 and when I run 1800mhz RAM I need Uncore at x20 and memory at x10 instaed of x22 and x10 which I would like, since this allows my Uncore and QPI link to run at the same speed. Maybe up your RAM voltage I have mine set to 1.680V when running 1800, and 1.660 when running 1600mhz. Try memtest 86+ v 2.11 to test your ram, and if it passes it is not your ram that is the problem.

[DavyBoy]

Hi jake, unfortunately I have tried everything you suggested here to no avail..

I have tested RAM voltage right up to 1.68v and QPI all the way from 1.175v to 1.5v, tried the uncore multi to exactly double my RAM multi, tried having it at 17x and 18x, and nothing works...

I have ran memtest also, and it ran for 20 passes without any trouble as well...

Also, I never use the Turbo and Extreme performance modes, I always have that set to Standard...

Maybe it has something to do with my processor.. as it is still only seeing 4GB of RAM instead of 6GB...

I had suspected it was my original UD5's DIMM slot that was dead, but it does the exact same thing on my new UD5 as well, so I am assuming the IMC on my processor is bad, and this could be what is not allowing me to run my RAM at full speed when I have the processor overclocked...

It runs perfectly at 1600MHz with XMP enabled and manually setting timings and voltages for the RAM with everything else at default settings in the BIOS...

I am getting another i920 on Wednesday next week for my fiancees rig, so I will be able to test out my hardware with another CPU as it is the only thing that hasn't changed throughout all the different hardware configurations I have tested so far, so I am failry confident I have a bad CPU...

But if anyone else can suggest something else that I can try to get my system stable @ 4GHz and RAM @ 1600MHz I am willing to try anything...

Also, I have noticed something strange in the RAM timings page in my BIOS, my Round Trip Latencies are messed up, for the stick of RAM that is in the first white slot the RTL for that stick is usually 60, then the stick in the 2nd white slot is 57, and the last stick is 59..

I thought that the stick in the first white slot was supposed to have the lowest number??

I have tried punching in these settings manually but it doesn't make any difference.. I also noticed that sometimes if I put in wrong values for RTL that my system sometimes only boots with 2GB of RAM instead of 6GB!!!

I remember someone posting on this thread explaining how the RTL was supposed to be, but I can't seem to find that post anymore... could someone else explain this settings for me??

Could it be something to do with RTL that my system is only seeing 4GB instead of 6??

I have tried setting RTL to 60 on the first stick, 62 on the second and 64 on the last one, but it still only boots with 4GB...

Also, even though I have my rig stable with LinX and Prime95 (20 passes on LinX using all available RAM, and leaving Prime95 Blend Test running overnight for around 8 hours) my system will still hang from time to time when playing games like Prototype, or Street Fighter 4... so I wouldn't really class this as being stable!!!

I hope to god when I get this new processor that it fixes all these issues, if it doesn't then I am going to send off my processor, ram and mobo to Gigabyte and have them find out what is causing the problems, as I have spent over a month now testing this system constantly with different OS'es, and as many different hardware configurations as I possibly can with the hardware I have at hand, and I am still not 100% sure what the cause of the problem could be...

Somebody suggested to me that it could be Service Pack 2 for Vista that is causing my problems, could this really be the case??

Though that doesn't explain why I was experiencing these same issues under XP SP3...

If anyone else can give me any suggestions it would be much appreciated...