Gigabyte Boards and DPC Latency

[cactusdog]

Originally posted by: Green Gigs
I just sent an email to Gigabyte tech support about the DPC on my GA-EP35-DS3R. Anyone else find the poor english logos and buttons humorous on their website?

Got problem!? Check here for answer! hah.

LOL yes. I've had a good laugh reading the manuals/bios options etc too. I know its a taiwanese company and English isnt their first language but how hard would it be to hire someone to proof read their manuals/website/bios options etc before they are published.?

Its a big company surely they have the resources.

Anyway just thought i would mention it doesnt look like they are going to release "final" bioses for most boards so if youre waiting for it, you might be waiting forever.

I think, that they think, its not an issue for most people and will have the betas for people that ask for it.

 

[chriskwarren]

Well I want to overclock and I hear that this beta bios affects overclocking ability (ie voltage settings). To be honest I haven't tried the beta so it might be fine for me but I don't feel comfortable using a bios that Gigabyte doesn't have the ball$ to call final and post for all to use. I had hoped that this would be resolved properly by now and I am losing patience for sure and have stopped recommending these boards for people in case they run into this issue. I have also been toying with the idea of getting another board (possibly the Rampage Formula I was thinking about before I bought this Board) but I don't want to waste my money, as everything else with this board has been great and rock solid.

 

[Green Gigs]

Well I just got a reply to my email from tech support in regards to my EP35-DS3R. I asked them in the email when we might expect an official bios. The reply I got was in broken english and didn't answer the question. The reply simply said, here try this bios and check again.

The bios they included is f3g. When I asked GigabyteColin for one about a month ago he gave me f3h...so I guess they're going back now? Anyone else know if they realized something wrong with f3h? I guess I'm glad I didn't have the nerver to try it out. I'm not so sure I want to mess with my computer now as a guinea pig for the f3g.

 

[kpo6969]

Originally posted by: Big Roger
Well, after using the newest unofficial BIOS I do get the better results but have become aware of a slightly longer boot time and a much longer shut down time. Before, it would boot v quickly and the shut down would only take a couple of seconds. Now it will wait for a good 5+ seconds befoire attempting to shut down. It seems as though the hard drive activity 'hangs' somewhat before kicking into action and thus shutting down.

Still getting things up and running as I am about to do a clean install to see if that's of any benefit..

A marked improvement, albeit one that has bought the boot times to be slightyl lengthier. Shutting down is only really the noticable difference. I just hope there isn't a dergradation in performance of some functionality as a result, like IDE/Sata data speeds I'm sure they are working on it and yes, let them know your system specs and email tech support. That must be a benefit to them to gather information so they can help and also to let them know people out there d require a fix.

Same situation here but had worse results so I'm back to F8f.
I was sent 3 bios in two replies.
F7 I have a Wolfdale, board came with F7, ??? F8a is for Wolfdale support
F8t Worse than F8f
F8i Worse than F8t

I found a result with a F8n, no good either:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.a...51472&mpage=10&key=%22
posts #278 and 279

what mine looks like:
http://i239.photobucket.com/al...kpo6969/DPCLatency.jpg

 

[beray]

I'd like to report that all my problems are gone after the patch. No bad side effects as results of the patch.

My system had been on continuous 24/7 for the last 4 days after quick check of other OS versions than XP_X64. Previously I rarely ever had gone more than one day without encountering DPC latency spike problems.

 

[Green Gigs]

When you say patch are you talking about a new bios? Which board and what bios?

 

[ultra laser]

I'm using a GA-P35-DSR and my board maxes out at 77 or so us. Guess I'm lucky.

 

[beray]

Originally posted by: Green Gigs
When you say patch are you talking about a new bios? Which board and what bios?

Yes I am. BIOS patch version F11i used on nearly one year old GA-P35C-DS3R rev2.

 

[Blazer7]

Hello guys,

since my last post on how my board is behaving (05/12/2008 ? page 3) I had installed a ton of new drivers. Among them Realtek's latest R1.96 audio driver, nVidia's leaked 177.39 with 177.35 moded inf & the 8.6.12 physX drivers (also from nVidia). I've also rearranged my USB devices which resulted in some of them now being connected to different ports from those I had them back then.

In the end I just thought of re-running the DPC checker utility. Guess what. I went from constant green to constant red with latencies from 2500 to 3100 but no spikes above that. The bars are all kinda level. However this hasn't affected playback a bit. There's no stuttering during audio or video playback not even when I'm running some other task in parallel like burning a DVD. I can't say that this is a problem as everything performs as in the past but It got me thinking.

What do you guys make of this? Is the DPC checker 100% reliable or is the fact that I have no big flucttuations in my DPC latencies the reason why I don't get any stuttering?

 

[kpo6969]

Same thought here:
http://i239.photobucket.com/al...po6969/DPCLatency2.jpg

http://i239.photobucket.com/al...po6969/DPCLatency3.jpg

http://i239.photobucket.com/al...6969/DPCLatency3-1.jpg

 

[FellowTraveller]

Originally posted by: Blazer7
Hello guys,

since my last post on how my board is behaving (05/12/2008 ? page 3) I had installed a ton of new drivers. Among them Realtek's latest R1.96 audio driver, nVidia's leaked 177.39 with 177.35 moded inf & the 8.6.12 physX drivers (also from nVidia). I've also rearranged my USB devices which resulted in some of them now being connected to different ports from those I had them back then.

In the end I just thought of re-running the DPC checker utility. Guess what. I went from constant green to constant red with latencies from 2500 to 3100 but no spikes above that. The bars are all kinda level. However this hasn't affected playback a bit. There's no stuttering during audio or video playback not even when I'm running some other task in parallel like burning a DVD. I can't say that this is a problem as everything performs as in the past but It got me thinking.

What do you guys make of this? Is the DPC checker 100% reliable or is the fact that I have no big flucttuations in my DPC latencies the reason why I don't get any stuttering?

It's most likely the Nvidia 177.xx drivers. I tried them last week and my latency did the exact same thing as yours. Went back to the official driver and all is normal again. Those drivers are written for the 260/280 Nvidia cards and seem to cause the latency spikes when a modded version is used on older cards. Although you haven't experienced stuttering with audio/video playback, consistent latency at that level is nowhere near normal.

 

[Blazer7]

Hello FellowTraveller,

The 177.35/177.39 are indeed written for the GT200 cards but I don't think that this is the problem. I?ve reverted back a full month using an old restore point and I also replaced the video drivers with official WHQL but nothing happened. I also tried the latest GB audio drivers but still nothing.

Today I'll install the 175.19 WHQL released yesterday and I'll try the DPC checker again with some of my USB devices unplugged.

I agree that it is not normal to have such latency levels but the complete absence of stuttering makes me wonder on how reliable this DPC checker program is.

Does anyone else know of any other utility that measures DPC latencies?

 

[g00n]

I was very close to ordering a GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS4 (or DS3R) yesterday but after seeing this thread and some of the discussion elsewhere I am not sure I want to. Has Gigabyte since resolved these issues 100% with later BIOS updates? Does it affect all of the P35 based boards?

Perhaps I should go with Asus? What is an equivalent Asus board with a second slot for future SLI should i go that route (like the DS4). Or even one without it, I need to keep cost down. I dont really want to spend more than about $150. I have 4gb of DDR2 800 so I dont need DDR3 support or anything like that. Any recommendations? I just want stability...

 

[FellowTraveller]

Apparently the P45 boards don't have this issue. If you're shopping for Gigabyte, you might want to jump to that series. Most P35s have the issue, though the latest beta bios essentially solves the problem for me. Under Vista x64 I rarely spike above 60us now. Other people haven't been so lucky, though.

 

[Blazer7]

@ g00n

Neither the P35 nor the P45 are capable of SLI. They can do crossfire but not SLI. If you want SLI then you'll have to go for an nVidia based board (750/780/980 etc). The only Intel based board that can do both (cf & SLI) is the Skulltrail.

 

[g00n]

Thanks for the advice guys...

It seems like there are problems with many boards out there. I decided to shy away from the Gigabyte P35 boards in favor of Asus to avoid the problem in this thread. Well, then I see a LOT of reports that the Asus PK5 Pro (comparable to the GA-EP35-DS3R) DOES not support 4x 1gb ram and will only show 3gb EVEN with a 64-bit OS that fully supports more than 3gb. Apparently, Asus avoids answering why and there is no fix but numerous users report issues on forums and comments.

For example @ Newegg: 3 star review

Pros: Well, it's cheap. Capacitors look like they can handle any voltage you put through it. It's small. Started on first try. Bundled software underclocks the cpu when power isn't needed. 6 USB's are nice. Can run RAID. Ran my E8400 out of the box, which Abit doesn't care to offer - yet.

Cons: Have to warn people - DONT buy four 1gb RAM chips! It will recognize less than three, even WITH a 64-bit OS! Asus didn't care to answer why this was so. Also - yes, don't buy a Zalman or other big cpu cooler - unless you have an XL size case, which I had. In my thermaltake armor, I routed it to the side of the cooler, which was lucky.

Other Thoughts: Has some very annoying flaws, but has some potential to overclock. Worry about support from ASUS.

Whats the deal here? Are there no mainstream entry gaming boards that are problem free. Two of the biggest names in the industry appear to have legit issues with basic functionality. This is sort of sad.

I also see that there are boot hangs and slowdowns when you use an IDE with many of these newer mobos. All my drives are SATA but I do still have a DVDRW burner that is IDE. Will I notice a slowdown on boot because of this?

My planned build:
Wolfdale 3.0ghz
9800GTX (or GTX+)
4gb Corsair XMS 800
mobo -- ??

 

[chriskwarren]

Originally posted by: g00n
Thanks for the advice guys...

It seems like there are problems with many boards out there. I decided to shy away from the Gigabyte P35 boards in favor of Asus to avoid the problem in this thread. Well, then I see a LOT of reports that the Asus PK5 Pro (comparable to the GA-EP35-DS3R) DOES not support 4x 1gb ram and will only show 3gb EVEN with a 64-bit OS that fully supports more than 3gb. Apparently, Asus avoids answering why and there is no fix but numerous users report issues on forums and comments.


Whats the deal here? Are there no mainstream entry gaming boards that are problem free. Two of the biggest names in the industry appear to have legit issues with basic functionality. This is sort of sad.

I also see that there are boot hangs and slowdowns when you use an IDE with many of these newer mobos. All my drives are SATA but I do still have a DVDRW burner that is IDE. Will I notice a slowdown on boot because of this?

My planned build:
Wolfdale 3.0ghz
9800GTX (or GTX+)
4gb Corsair XMS 800
mobo -- ??

I haven't heard of these issues with the Asus boards in particular (however many boards will have some issues with 4 sticks of ram from many manufacturers). My DS3P has been excellent (booted up right away, OC first try using no extra volts, rock solid), but I do have some issues when creating videos or doing audio work that are caused by this latency crap.

Gigabyte seems to have this issue resolved with the P45 boards, many of which are priced reasonably. The only problem is that the boards are new so you may have a few issues with it that will probably get ironed out with a new bios.

So if you have read much about all kinds of issues with the P35 boards from Asus and Gigabyte that have you second-guessing try focusing on a P45 board.

 

[santiagodraco]

Originally posted by: cactusdog
It looks like Gigabyte have solved it with the new P45 boards.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...howthread.php?t=190360

I can confirm that they have NOT fixed the issue with X48 boards. I have an X48-DQ6 and I'm seeing an average of 500-1000 with spikes up to 13,000 every 10-15 seconds or so.

I'm running the latest bios, I think it's F7b or something like that.

Gigabyte, any word on this? I really don't want to have to return this for Asus but as old as this problem is it's looking like that is the only solution ;/

 

[santiagodraco]

Heh, I was just remembering when I bought this board at Fry's. A guy walked buy, said he worked for Intel (probably does considering where I live) and said that Gigabyte has a known issue with this latency problem, enough so that enthusiasts he knows at Intel have stopped using, or returned, boards and went to Asus. This is dissapointing as these boards are really great and exactly what I've been looking for. I've had two Asus boards die on me and don't want to go back, but wonder if I have a choice. I also wonder if this problem might be affecting overall performance in games causing reduced framerates when using onboard audio (assuming a steady 1000 delay).

 

[cactusdog]

Originally posted by: santiagodraco

Originally posted by: cactusdog
It looks like Gigabyte have solved it with the new P45 boards.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...howthread.php?t=190360

I can confirm that they have NOT fixed the issue with X48 boards. I have an X48-DQ6 and I'm seeing an average of 500-1000 with spikes up to 13,000 every 10-15 seconds or so.

I'm running the latest bios, I think it's F7b or something like that.

Gigabyte, any word on this? I really don't want to have to return this for Asus but as old as this problem is it's looking like that is the only solution ;/

Yeh we know. Only the P45's are problem free,(apparently) but i switched to a Asus P5E X38. On the X38DQ6 i had the DPC latency thing but my computer was unresponsive and gaming was laggy too.

I got the P5E and used all the same parts CPU/RAM/PSU/HD/Video Card and the problem was solved and i have a lightening fast, responsive sytem again.

 

[spammah]

I wish I had never seen this thread. Now this is going to keep me thinking for a long while after already having MAJOR troubles with the MSI P7N Diamond with 780i chipset. I switched to the MSI P45 Neo3 mobo with P45 chipset and I can confirm that I too have the same latency problems.

http://aus-space.alarsad.com/anas/dpclatency.JPG


However in real-world applications such as games and programs, I don't see any effect which is strange. Sometimes in the desktop or in Firefox, when I double click on a file or switch websites, there might be a very slight pause and then it's fine. I guess this is what the DPC latency is about? :-/

Tested this program with my old AMD 3800+ X2 with ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI X16 chipset and I have below 20 us constantly.

Sorry for posting about a different motherboard vendor but I thought I'd like to let you guys know that this exists in the P45 chipset and other potential mobos. *sigh*

 

[spammah]

Could it be something that would have to do with RAM or the RAM values in the BIOS?

 

[g00n]

After reading all this I'm really leaning toward the Asus P5Q for $139. It is a shame because the Gigabyte P35-DS3R really suits my needs and it was cheaper. I just dont think its worth the risk of future problems. I cant find any complaints for this P5Q and I do see grumblings for the P35 based Asus boards (3gb ram issue). Then again, Im doing 2x2gb not 1x1gb.

 

[beray]

Originally posted by: spammah
Could it be something that would have to do with RAM or the RAM values in the BIOS?

No, it's directly related to "PCI latency" which is a misnomer. The accurate name is IRQ LATENCY .

More INFO

Originally posted by: spammah
Tested this program with my old AMD 3800+ X2 with ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI X16 chipset and I have below 20 us constantly.

AMD systems inherently better for realtime apps as AMD had lower LATENCY values from onboard memory controller.

 

[semaj1286]

Originally posted by: cactusdog
There are some problems with high DPC latency on most Gigabyte boards released since P35 upto X38/X48. Some people have the problem and dont know it.

You can check by downloading DPC Checker from here:

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

DPC's (deferred procedure calls) should be around 50 us or less without any spikes on a normal PC.

Regular spikes upto 1000us is not good and any higher into the red will result in audio dropouts and stuttering of streaming data.

Its mainly affects people who do things like audio editing on the PC but it can be a problem for anyone, even affecting system responsiveness .

Gigabyte have acknowledged the issue and have released a beta bios for some P35 boards but you have to contact them and ask for it so if anyone has run the checker and has problems , i suggest you contact Gigabyte tech support and report the issue.

Many "slow Vista" complaints can be traced back to this issue and you can check if its having an impact by opening Event Viewer/Applications and services logs/microsoft/windows/diagnostic-performance/operational.

You may have a bunch of errors and warnings complaining of "system degradation" "boot degradation" and other related issues.

So if you have regular spikes in the DPC checker report it to Gigabyte so they realise this is a widespread issue and it needs to be resolved quickly.

Also maybe some guys at Anandtech can look into this problem please.

Gigabyte Tech support:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/ServiceCenter.aspx

You can also get a bios from GigabyteColin on this forum.

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on my issue and if it even relates to the one discussed in this thread. I use Gigabyte's GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard, version 1.0. I'm currently on BIOS F5 which was just released recently. I've been trying to figure out the audio/video stuttering that I've been seeing randomly (mostly apparent while gaming).

The easiest way for me to get the issue to occur is to simply load Half-Life 2 or Team Fortress 2 and strafe back and forth. I can see the FPS spike occur and occasionally the audio will stutter with it.

Finally after searching forever across Google and forums I came across that DPC Latency Checker program. While I'm even typing this message the DPC Latency Checker is spiking into the 50,000us+ range. If I leave the computer sitting without typing or anything it won't spike over 200us. From what I've read 50,000+ is pretty insane, but I really have no idea how to go about fixing it or if it's the same issue you all are dealing with. I put in a ticket on Gigabyte's site and PM'ed GigabyteColin on here as well thinking and hoping that's my issue.

I was wondering cactusdog since you said "There are some problems with high DPC latency on most Gigabyte boards released since P35 upto X38/X48. Some people have the problem and dont know it. " if you know if my motherboard is affected by this issue or if it sounds like I have the same issue?