GIGABYTE DS3 FAQ by CrazyJohn /FAQ on 1st page/

[wolfman140]

Which test are you running in torture test, though? There are 3. If you aren't changing it, then on the Dialog Box that says "Run a Torture Test", set it to Small FFTs. It sounds like you are using Blend. Small FFTs will stress the CPU and try to keep your RAM out of the equation, as it uses a data set that fits into the L2 cache of the CPU.

Aye OK I know what you mean. Yeah I goto Custom to set the RAM amount (its the choice below Blend I believe) I'm at work right now, so I'll have to check it out when I get back. So I'll give that a shot later, and if it runs successfully that would confirm my RAM is the weakest link? Could a hot northbridge temp be a cause as well? The thing I don't understand is that I'm actually running my 800Mhz RAM at 730Mhz right now...So why should it fail? It runs fine at 800Mhz at stock settings. Thanks for the tips and I'll give it a shot later.

[korruptedone]

Aye OK I know what you mean. Yeah I goto Custom to set the RAM amount (its the choice below Blend I believe) I'm at work right now, so I'll have to check it out when I get back. So I'll give that a shot later, and if it runs successfully that would confirm my RAM is the weakest link? Could a hot northbridge temp be a cause as well? The thing I don't understand is that I'm actually running my 800Mhz RAM at 730Mhz right now...So why should it fail? It runs fine at 800Mhz at stock settings. Thanks for the tips and I'll give it a shot later.

Ya if those tests pass, something somewhere is not right. Another thing you could try is to set the divider to AUTO, and set your chip to stock FSB. That should run your RAM at 800mhz. Then run some tests. Because if you are failing small FFT's it almost certainly isn't your RAM, and if you can run what I just suggested and not get any errors in memtest or a blend test, then it's definately not your RAM. The NB heat could very well be your problem. However, if, when running stock FSB and your RAM at 800, if you get memtest errors or blend errors, it probably is the RAM. Let us know how those tests work out for ya.

[wolfman140]

Ya if those tests pass, something somewhere is not right. Another thing you could try is to set the divider to AUTO, and set your chip to stock FSB. That should run your RAM at 800mhz. Then run some tests. Because if you are failing small FFT's it almost certainly isn't your RAM, and if you can run what I just suggested and not get any errors in memtest or a blend test, then it's definately not your RAM. The NB heat could very well be your problem. However, if, when running stock FSB and your RAM at 800, if you get memtest errors or blend errors, it probably is the RAM. Let us know how those tests work out for ya.

I can tell you already I know for a fact that at stock fsb, and RAM divider on Auto that my system is stable. I ran Prime and memtest on it at stock before I started OC'ing and all was rock solid. I'll run the tests...But the FIRST thing I'm going to do is latch a fan onto the side of the NB heatsink and see what happens. I'll let ya know.

[korruptedone]

I can tell you already I know for a fact that at stock fsb, and RAM divider on Auto that my system is stable. I ran Prime and memtest on it at stock before I started OC'ing and all was rock solid. I'll run the tests...But the FIRST thing I'm going to do is latch a fan onto the side of the NB heatsink and see what happens. I'll let ya know.

Okay so that narrows it down, and I'd lean towards putting the blame on heat. If you don't have an aftermarket cooler or a fan on the NB, definately slap one on there. If you don't plan to get a new cooler and just go the fan route, take the cooler off, do your best to get that ghetto ass stuff Gigabyte has the nerve to call thermal paste (mine was paste and then there was this layer of hard ass tin foil....wtf?) off of the cooler, and put something worthwhile on there, like some AS5. If you do that, be careful as the NB is an open die (I think that's the right term....there's no heatspreader like I was used to on nforce chipsets). I wasn't prepared for that and thought I might have broken something since the heatsink came off rather violently.

Set your RAM voltage to whatever your RAM specifically needs, as well. Too much voltage can give you errors as well, as you've noticed with not being able to boot. You shouldn't need more vmem until you AT LEAST hit 800mhz (remember the DS3 stock vmem is 1.8v).

[darkandlong]

Well I set up my Spirit II, NB is nice and cool... But the Southbridge gets pretty damn warm too.

[Hypertek]

quick question, is the S3 as good as the DS3?

[mitftw]

Anyone having problems hitting high FSBs with DS3 using an IDE hard drive?

[wolfman140]

OK...the only test I didn't conduct was putting a fan on the NB, I may do that yet but as of now here's the dealo:

A) I ran the Small FFT tests on my cpu (which hardly stresses RAM), it ran fine at 3.0Ghz...after that, it fails when trying to run the second instance. No matter what VCore I up it to or adding FSB/GMch voltage, it fails. I don't know how to explain that. I'm hoping maybe if I cool my NB chip better that will change?

B) I actually did have too much juice going to my RAM, I lowered it down to stock, and was damn close to stable at 3.0Ghz but not quite, so I upped it another .1v and its stable now. (Even though its not running at a rated 800Mhz)

C) I can't even begin to boot if I set the multiplier to 7 and up the FSB to 450 or so.

In conclusion, I fear that the wall I'm hitting is cause of my cpu and/or motherboard. I've still got some room to go up with my RAM so its not the RAM. I've got an AC unit very near to my comp so I fear that the NB isn't over heating either, as I DO NOT have any added GMch voltage. I'll just cross my fingers that Gigabyte will be releasing more BIOS revisions. For now, 3.0 Ghz from 2.13 Ghz will have to do. Scoring 19.5's in Super PI.

[Denithor]

Ok, I haven't even been able to get to overclocking yet on this thing. Here's the problem:

When I first set up DS3+e6400+OCZ Gold it would not boot. Used some low end Kingston to boot up, flashed to F4c, then would boot using OCZ ram and was able to install XP Pro without issues. Everything seemed good, until I found that it would crash within a few minutes of running any 3D game. By crash I mean either freeze solid, drop to Windows, or else just reboot itself (nothing like going from a fragfest to looking at your BIOS, is there?). Because this happened in games only, I presumed video card (and an older one didn't seem to have the problem) problems so I RMAd the card (earlier this week). Then this afternoon, I loaded a game using the old card and started playing. It suddenly froze up completely, so I powered it off. When I turned it back on, I get a No Signal Detected and my monitor shuts off. Nothing. Nada. No post, won't respond to clearing the BIOS, changing the memory to the cheap stuff again, nothing.

Anyone got any suggestions to try? I'm at my wit's end here...

[vintage_guitar]

Anyone having problems hitting high FSBs with DS3 using an IDE hard drive?

Yes, in fact. I was, my wall was under 400. i had to use like 1.6 vcore to hit 400fsb...... no thanks so i took my conroe/mobo right back to fry's where it will stay until this conroe crap is sorted out. It was a week 24 e6400. the next im gonna try to buy is 25+ or wait for kentsfield..or just use 975 chipset

[numbers]

Yes, in fact. I was, my wall was under 400. i had to use like 1.6 vcore to hit 400fsb...... no thanks so i took my conroe/mobo right back to fry's where it will stay until this conroe crap is sorted out. It was a week 24 e6400. the next im gonna try to buy is 25+ or wait for kentsfield..or just use 975 chipset

What bios are you guys using? I'm on F3 and i'm under 350 atm. Passive cooling, and stock volts though. Dont feel like pushing it yet, so maybe tommorow >_>

[wolfman140]

Yup, just spent 3 hours re-wiring my case for better cable management, and put an 80mm fan inside shooting up towards RAM and Northbridge in a very ghetto, twisty-tie style. After all that work, I only see a drop in temps maybe 2C and still can't OC any further (so maybe its not a hot NB after all). So that was a total waste of time, not to mention there is a fan twisty-tied onto power cables in there. Can't be good news.

Well...Whatever. In a couple months I'll just get a water-cooling system and get a NB and VGA waterblock. If I can over clock more from lower temps...awesome. If I can't, well I guess I just have a cooler running system.

Final Specs:
E6400 OC to 3.0 Ghz at 1.34 Vcore
2 gig of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 6400 at 2.10v (running 5-5-5-12 @ 730Mhz)
Leadtek 7900GT 560/760
Silverstone Zeus PSU
And an additional fan twisty-tied down inside the case..woo woo.

[faruquehabib]

quick question, is the S3 as good as the DS3?

i guess there are solid-state caps on the ds3 and not the s3. i just ordered an S3 because it was cheaper, but i prolly wont get as good an OC as with a ds3.

[Alpha]

the max oc i hit on my 6400 is about 3.79ghz, 474x8 @ 1.6v. i dont know about you guys, but i only hit a fsb wall with the F1 bios, im running the F4e now

[richnewman]

Thanks for this! Let's me know how the DS3 is ahead of time.

[Kougar]

Hey I see some people not liking the F4 bios for the DS3? Did I see that there is a F4C BIOS as well?

Before the F4, I couldn't OC at all, not even 1 Mhz. Now I can OC fine, except at I can't dual Prime95 stable at 3.0 Ghz, but I can at 2.92 Ghz.

Specs are:
E6300 Allendale OC'ed to 2.92 Ghz (8 X 365)
2 gigs of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 6400 (currently running at 730 Mhz though using 2.0 multpipler)
Gigabyte DS3
Vcore: 1.345 - DIMM: 2.1v (+.3v) - GMCH: +.2v from stock- FSB +.2v from stock

So get this, my memory isn't stable at 400x8 OC though it SHOULD be because its meant for 800Mhz. No matter how much I up the voltage on the VCore or GMch, I still am not stable. IF I try to goto 2.3v on my RAM, I can't boot (with some funky system file error). Any ideas of why memory isn't stable when it should be a 800Mhz? I'm thinking I should disable some of those advanced features in BIOS like the virtual technology blah blah and USB legacy things. Anyone have this issue?

Yes, you have to disable some of the uneeded BIOS stuff if you want to OC further. I'm using Corsair 6400 XMS2 2x1gb and it OCs just fine beyond 1,000mhz with only 2v. This RAM does not want and does not like voltage. If you are having issues with it then manually set to 5-5-5-15. Soon as my Scythe Ninja arrives I'll see about going higher than 476x7 that I've been running due to temp concerns. I'm still using the F4e BIOS. I found out all it takes is just one of the other "advanced bios features" to make everything unstable, so if you want over 400FSB then disable them.

486x7=3.5ghz
MCH=Stock
FSB=Stock
RAM=+0.2 (for 2v)
PCIe=AUTO (No PCIe GPU card here)
vCore=1.356v
F4e DS3 BIOS
Booting off a SATA drive, CPU cooler is currently active cooling the MCH heatsink and I stuck a 40mm fan on the ICH8 heatsink. I wouldn't have a clue about a "S3" board...

Wolfman, what are your CPU temps like? I can OC to the moon, but it doesn't matter at what point if the CPU reads 58c or higher as then it'll instantly error in Prime95. I wasn't using CoreTemp at the time so I can't say what those were at, however right now for an hour of Dual Prime95ing CoreTemp reads 58-60c. I expect the Scythe Ninja to knock 8-10c off of that, and I'll OC futher...

Denithor, sounds like your RAM wasn't stable. F4c BIOS does not set the voltages correctly, you must do that on your own. I'd suggest trying the Kingston RAM again, and keep in mind your board is only givng 1.8v for the RAM.

[Reflex1]

I have a DS4, not a DS3, so sorry for posting here but im having similar problems just like the DS3, im one of the people who can't even OC 1mhz.

Ive tried the diable legacy USB storage detect ...no go

i have a 6800GT videocard and GEIL 2x1gb PC6400 value ram ...does anyone know whether these are known to cause problems?

[mitftw]

I have a DS4, not a DS3, so sorry for posting here but im having similar problems just like the DS3, im one of the people who can't even OC 1mhz.

Ive tried the diable legacy USB storage detect ...no go

i have a 6800GT videocard and GEIL 2x1gb PC6400 value ram ...does anyone know whether these are known to cause problems?

The 6800GT has consistenly caused problems with this board.

[Frackal]

Right now I'm running at the specs in sig. I was having many memory errors in memtest which were entirely alleviated by increasing the voltage of the MCH and FSB both by +1. After that at 5-5-5-15 (haven't messed with lowered timings) it passes 2 instances of memtest at 800mb/each and at least 10 min of single instance P95 (0 errors I just stopped the test.) I don't do anything IMO that is more stressful than 10 min of uninterrupted P95 so if it passes that point I'm usually satisfied.

My goal is at least 3.5ghz on this DS-3, right now I'm just happy to have it stable and will stick with this for awhile. The system is massively fast, and I'm quite pleased.


BTW, my temps in CoreTemp on 1 instance P95 are 44c for both cores with an ambient of about 85F. (Hot day.) In Smartguardian however my CPU temp idles at 23 right now, and loads w/ P95 in the 31-33 range.

The DS-3, Big Typhoon and Antec P180 compliment each other well. The cpu is right next to both vents on my case, the BTHSF is literally tucked a quarter inch away from both fans which are running at high speed, along with a 120mm fan on top of the HSF also at high speed. In colder weather Smartguardian actually shows temps in the high teens at idle. I also think the mounting went well

[Denithor]

Denithor, sounds like your RAM wasn't stable. F4c BIOS does not set the voltages correctly, you must do that on your own. I'd suggest trying the Kingston RAM again, and keep in mind your board is only givng 1.8v for the RAM.

Kougar, thanks for taking the time to respond. I have two other pieces of info: I'm using the OCZ gold ram that only requires 1.8V to run (and it has run fine on the board since I flashed to F4c) and also this board seems to run fine with this memory and a Celeron D 2.53GHz cpu (completely stable in superpi and memtest86 as well as general gaming). If I swap for the Celie it boots up and everything runs stable. With the e6400 it makes this funky screetching sound when it boots, seems to run fine, but will eventually fail to boot back up after a shutdown (whether it froze up or I rebooted for some reason). I'm gonna RMA the board for another from eWiz and see if that helps. Otherwise I am going to have to see if Intel will replace the e6400 (yikes) because that will be the last piece that won't have been replaced at that point. The board will go back Monday if you guys can't recommend something else to try. Thanks!

[Kougar]

Well then I think yer the first person in these forums to use "1.8v" RAM... Some people have said that when the DIMM Overvoltage is left to stock the board will auto adjust the vDimm, so I would suggest you set the DIMM overvoltage to "+0.1v" yourself and try it one more time at stock.

[Denithor]

Well then I think yer the first person in these forums to use "1.8v" RAM... Some people have said that when the DIMM Overvoltage is left to stock the board will auto adjust the vDimm, so I would suggest you set the DIMM overvoltage to "+0.1v" yourself and try it one more time at stock.

My problem is that I can't even get into the BIOS once it locks up with the e6400 installed. I just get the monitor saying "no signal" and turning itself off after a few seconds. Same problem with different video cards and different sticks of RAM. The only way to get anything out of it again at that point is to reinstall the CeleronD cpu and then it boots up fine with whatever RAM is installed (Kingston, PNY, OCZ, single or double sticks, in whichever slots). But once the Conroe is put back in, I get the strange screech when it boots up and eventually (within a few reboots) it quits working again and won't boot at all until the Celeron is put in again. Just a weird problem, I have not seen anything like this before in nearly 10 years of building systems.

I think I'm going to just RMA the board and see if I have better luck with a different one in a week or so.

Thanks for the help!

EDIT: By the way, I chose the OCZ ram I did exactly because of the issues I'd heard of with the "1.8V" problem. It still didn't work--the system wouldn't boot with that RAM at all (even with the Celeron installed) and I was forced to use the Kingston RAM then flash the BIOS to F4c. Since the flash the OCZ works great with or without voltage boost on either cpu and is completely memtest86 stable.

[OB-one]

Is the E6300+DS3+Team value (512x2) 1gb can get 3Ghz?

[gr8golf]

Is there a good post somewhere on what BIOS settings to use for the DS3 / Conroe to overclock? I am not doing very well so far and wonder if it is because I am trying to push my Corsair RAM too fast. I've seen bits and pieces - just looking for a complete walkthrough on what I should be doing with these components. The best FSB I've been able to get is ~330, and the CPU is still in the high 2XXX range. Tells me I'm doing something wrong. Any help would be appreciated - and I'll keep searching and reading through posts.

[Dazog]

There is a new Jmicron RAID driver on Windows update

and how do I disable NCQ with the Gigabyte RAID?

Anyone know.