Gigabyte Boards and DPC Latency

[chriskwarren]

Originally posted by: DarkRogue
I'm still hoping for Gigabyte to issue a fix soon. I wonder if Colin has been tracking this thread or not, it doesn't seem like Gigabyte has any official forum anywhere.

There is an 'official' Gigabyte support thread over at the Tweak Town forums. This thread in particular is addressing this issue:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/f6...latency-spiking-26456/

The forum is monitored by a Gigabyte engineer who is passing around the same bioses as Colin on here for latency issues.

 

[cactusdog]

Originally posted by: FellowTraveller
I'm still unable to pinpoint the cause of the spikes under 32-bit Vista with my GA-P35-DS4. With the beta bios, they are all but eliminated under XP and 64-bit Vista, but I continue to get 1000us spikes at regular (roughly 10-second) intervals under Vista x86. I'm using the same hardware and drivers (albeit 32-bit versions) and have tried disabling them one-by-one to no avail. Has anyone else seen the same phenomena?

I have it on Vista and xp 32 bit. From what i have seen if you get it with one OS you get it with any OS. It can be different with every reboot so....but one spike every 10 secs isnt so bad, at least i think thats as good as its gonna get.

 

[FellowTraveller]

Originally posted by: cactusdog
I have it on Vista and xp 32 bit. From what i have seen if you get it with one OS you get it with any OS. It can be different with every reboot so....but one spike every 10 secs isnt so bad, at least i think thats as good as its gonna get.

That's the weird part. On my rig, the spikes are completely eliminated with the beta bios in XP and Vista x64. It's only in Vista 32. That tells me it's more likely a system process or kernel level driver causing it, but I'm stumped as to which one.

 

[cactusdog]

I doubt it . From what you describe as the "problem install" of Vista 32 it sounds like you dont have the problem much at all. Many people with this issue have anything from a flat continuous 1000us latency or/plus regular spikes in the red at every 2 or 3 seconds.

Most people would consider your vista 32 as not having the issue from what you describe.

 

[DarkRogue]

Well, I checked out that thread on TweakTown..
I'm not so sure it was actively being monitored as Janus didn't seem to post after the first page.
..similar to Colin here not having posted in a while.

I can't be sure that's really "official" to Gigabyte or if it's just TweakTown's official thread for it, I see a few "Official" threads here, but I'm not sure if each company has representatives actively posting in them.

Either way, I really hope they're making progress on this issue.

 

[cactusdog]

Yeh its official and Janus at tweaktown and Colin here work at Gigabyte in Taiwan. Asus have their own forum as do most other companies but maybe Gigabyte thinks its easier to use existing forums than create their own.

It about time Gigabyte had their own forum becasue its usually a much better source to fix PC problems than the support system. Alot of people wouldnt be aware of Anandtech or tweaktown.

At least Gigabyte have employees of the company posting , Asus employees never post in the Asus Forum. Most other companies seem to have a rep on their sites like Corsair/OCZ etc.

Anyway there is a second bios for my X38DQ6 that says it fixes the latency issue but i cant get hold of it yet , hopefully i'll get it in a day or two. Looks like they are still working on it.

 

[chriskwarren]

You're certainly right Darkrogue about being wary of 'official' sites....as cactusdog said, if gigabyte had their own forum hosted on their domain or similar it would be easier to find reliable help. However, that Tweaktown forum seems to be as official as it gets for Gigabyte

edut4spellin

 

[Blazer7]

The TweakTown Gigabyte forums are 100% official but since Janus is on his own there it may take some time before he replies.

Originally posted by: chriskwarren
Lol is that the 680i board from Mr. TheBeagle's epic thread?

None other.

 

[cactusdog]

I just tried the second bios for X38DQ6 and at first it seemed better with alot less spikes but i'm getting strange errors like system services shutting down, ie7 crahing, audio dropping out altogether and i have to reboot to get audio back. Got a couple of BSOD's too and i have never had them before.

I think im just gonna get a different board

 

[Qbah]

I'm getting several green bars and then a yellow bar on my board, no red bars. And the information window in the bottom of the program says I'm all ready to properly do stuff on my machine. No hickups, strange audio anomalies etc on my side. Must be lucky *shrug*

 

[Green Gigs]

Same here, until I open a program. Then I spike into red with maybe as high as 10k. I wonder when Gigabyte is going to release the bios's that Collin is passing around on the net. People shouldn't have to come on discussion forums and ask employees for a fix at this stage in the issue, although it's nice to see people who care are here.

 

[Limetic]

my highest spike was 1.9k , nearly 2k.

only had 3 spikes over about 10 minutes. wonder if thats bad or good ?
2 spikes were around 900-1000 and one nearly 2 k.

my comp seems fine though, well i think it is xD

 

[sectono]

First I'd like to thank GigabyteColin for sending me the beta Bios for my GA-EP35-DS3. Unfortunately it did not help at all. In fact it just got a bit worse :-(
Not knowing if Gigabyte gets this fixed at all I think i will just get myself another Motherboard now.

 

[cactusdog]

Originally posted by: Limetic
my highest spike was 1.9k , nearly 2k.

only had 3 spikes over about 10 minutes. wonder if thats bad or good ?
2 spikes were around 900-1000 and one nearly 2 k.

my comp seems fine though, well i think it is xD

Over 10 mins? thats pretty good i wouldnt worry about it if everything is working right.

Originally posted by: sectono
First I'd like to thank GigabyteColin for sending me the beta Bios for my GA-EP35-DS3. Unfortunately it did not help at all. In fact it just got a bit worse :-(
Not knowing if Gigabyte gets this fixed at all I think i will just get myself another Motherboard now.

Yep, its not looking good for a complete resolution of this problem. If it was fixable via the bios we would have it by now. Gotta give them credit for listening and acknowledging the problem and working to try and fix it but obviously its not easy to fix so what can we do but buy another brand board.

Hopefully the P45's dont have this problem or it could be a disaster for Gigabyte.

 

[Green Gigs]

I almost wish I had never seen this thread in the first place, cuz I'd have nothing bad to think of my ep35-ds3r, lol. Since I notice no problem using my system, I'm just gonna wait for one day in the future when the beta bios versions on the Gigabyte website turn into the next official release...I guess then we will know for sure if this was fixable. I wonder how long that will be. Since I'm not doing audio editing yet, and it *seems* like I wouldn't get blips in sound even if I was...I'll probably keep this board for another 3 years before my next upgrade.

Edit: Does anyone have any links or advice on how this latency actually impacts performance in real life terms for things like gaming or photoshop besides audio drop outs? I only notice audio drop outs on my system when I go well over 10,000us which only happens sometimes by opening a program while doing something else.

Basically what Im asking is, do the small spikes such as 700us cause any *noticeable* impacts for anything, including audio editing?

 

[cactusdog]

You shouldnt notice any spikes under 1000us. Unless its like a solid continuous 1000 then you will feel a bit laggy in games and the system generally might feel a bit laggy. Most people probably wouldnt notice though to be honest. People that are used to high end machines and performance probably would.

If you dont notice anything wrong, and thers no audio stuttering etc, dont worry about it but keep and eye out for any new final bios.

 

[rhansme]

Here is a screen shot of my desktop after installing the latest beta bios for the GA-X38-DQ6
F9c from the german site.

http://www.west-tech.com/DPC%2...20GA-X38-DQ6%20F9c.jpg



I am running the DPC Latency pgm, Itunes playing a tune, Picassa imaging software, Othos at full torture test on both cores, a ham radio logging program. There are no problems at all as far as I can tell. I have had no flaky program crashes with all of this stuff running at once on my rig.

e8400 overclocked to 4.005 Ghz with XP Pro SP2 :thumbsup:

MB Intelligent Tweaker (MIT)
Robust Graphics Booster:Auto
CPU Clock Ratio:9X
CPU Host Clock Control:Enabled
CPU Host Frequency(Mhz) :445
PCI Express Frequency (Mhz) :100
C.I.A.2 isabled
Performance Enhance :Standard
System Memory Multiplier (SPD)2.04B
Memory Frequency(Mhz):800 / 1068
DRAM Timing Selectable :Manual
Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time: :5
DRAM RAS# to CAS# :5
DRAM RAS# Precharge :5
Precharge Delay(tRAS) :15
Advanced Timing Control
ACT to ACT Delay(tRRD) :Auto
Rank Write to READ Delay :Auto
Write To Precharge Delay :Auto
Refresh to ACT Delay : Auto
Read To Precharge Delay : Auto
tRD :Auto
tRD Phase Adjustment :Auto
Command to #CS Timing: :Auto
Clock Driving and Skew Control
CPU/PCIEX Clock Driving Control :800mV
CPU Clock Skew Control : Normal
(G)MCH Clock Skew Control : Normal
System Voltage ControlManual
DDR2 OverVoltage Control :+0.30
PCI-E OverVoltage Control :Normal
FSB OverVoltage Control :+0.15
(G)MCH OverVoltage Control :+0.25
MCH Reference Voltage Control : Normal
DDR Reference Voltage Control : Normal
DDR Termination Voltage Control : Normal
CPU GTLREF1 Voltage* :Auto
CPU GTLREF2 Voltage* :Normal
CPU Voltage Control :1.325
Normal CPU Vcore :1.225

Advanced Bios Features
CPU Multi-Threading
Limit CPUID Max to 3: Disabled
No-Execute Memory Protect: Enabled
CPU Enhanced Halt(CIE) isabled
CPU Thermal Monitor 2:Enabled
CPU EIST Function isabled
Virtuaalization Technology:Enabled

It is not so goon in Vista Ultimate 64 :thumbsdown:

http://www.west-tech.com/Vista...nd%20F9c%20Latency.jpg

 

[Green Gigs]

Somebody else said it was ok on xp but not Vista as well, so I guess that confuses me even more, but Cactus Dog did say most people that have it on one OS have it on all but it can differ on reboots.

 

[chriskwarren]

From what I have read the DPC spikes are often caused by drivers and / or other software running so that would explain why some people get an improvement or a change when rebooting. In fact, if you read the DPC checker software under the graphs it will tell you to check your drivers to correct spikes.

So I guess you have to figure out if the spikes on your particular system are caused by drivers or the bios. On many of these Gigabyte boards the spikes are caused by the bios/board...hence our call for a non-beta bios that corrects this issue.

 

[Blazer7]

For the last couple of months or so I've been experimenting with Realtek's HD audio drivers and so far it seems that Gigabyte's implementation of Realtek's audio codecs is pretty much std thus when installing Realtek's drivers everything is working.

I've been playing with Realtek's R1.88, R1.91, R1.92 & R1.93 drivers and every one of them has been working fine on my 680. I know that a few guys have tried some of the above on their GA-X48-DQ6s without ill effects so it may be worth a shot.

I do not know if this can help as it seems that many of the issues reported in this thread are BIOS related but you never know.

You can find the latest drivers from Realtek here (ver R1.94).

 

[cactusdog]

Rhansme im happy its working for you. Looks like its working for some people at least.

 

[beray]

Originally posted by: Green Gigs
I almost wish I had never seen this thread in the first place, cuz I'd have nothing bad to think of my ep35-ds3r, lol. Since I notice no problem using my system, I'm just gonna wait for one day in the future when the beta bios versions on the Gigabyte website turn into the next official release...I guess then we will know for sure if this was fixable. I wonder how long that will be. Since I'm not doing audio editing yet, and it *seems* like I wouldn't get blips in sound even if I was...I'll probably keep this board for another 3 years before my next upgrade.

Edit: Does anyone have any links or advice on how this latency actually impacts performance in real life terms for things like gaming or photoshop besides audio drop outs? I only notice audio drop outs on my system when I go well over 10,000us which only happens sometimes by opening a program while doing something else.

Basically what Im asking is, do the small spikes such as 700us cause any *noticeable* impacts for anything, including audio editing?

My experience with this problem other than what you stated is that the system randomly hung, no keyboard, no beep, no mouse, no error, nothing...

OSs used - XP_PRO, XP_X64, VISTA_X32, VISTA_X64, "RESET BUTTON" was the only way to recover.

PS. I normally never turn my computer off.

 

[axy1985]

A sucks. I thought I wasn't affected much by this problem. According to the DPC analyzing tool, mine NEVER goes above 1000... but 1000 is it's normal value. It's like 1000, 1000, 1000, 75, 50, 1000, 1000, etc.
I have video playback issues. Videos play in a very jerky way.
Take a look: http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/7574/39690046tl1.jpg

 

[imported_dorian]

Mine seems to be following a pattern:
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2885/dpcnw6.jpg
(GA-P35-DS3L)

I'm not "feeling" anything wrong with the computer.. should I go for the beta bios or just wait until it gets official?

 

[plion]

is this problem fixed in the new p43/p45 boards?