Gigabyte DS3 Question - Cold Boot??

[Airs]

DS3 rev 3.3
7900GTO
2x 1GB OCZ PC2-8500 SLI Ed.
E6600

I can start at 7x500FSB and it runs rock solid in Vista. I can also do 4x800, also rock solid.

I then reboot, go into the BIOS and change the 8x multi to 9x. The system will reboot (fans do not spin down) and go into Vista. It is then again rock solid at 9x400 - TAT loading, ORTHOS, etc.

BUT if I shutdown or reboot, the system will not come back up again - it goes back to 9x266 after trying to boot a couple times.

Time for a new motherboard?

 

[jjzelinski]

I've been reading up on this board and (as Im sure you're aware) the cold booting issue is relatively widespread. I've read that one guy replaced his CMOS battery and that appeared to resolves his issue while another tried an ATI video card ratherar than his nvidia and that worked for him. Others say the F7 BIOS is the way to go. Just some options to explore.

I hope this works out for you as I've just ordered this board with an E4300 and some G.SKILL DS9 ram; I'd like to have a soution in place by time I have to start mucking with it

 

[Heidfirst]

both of those behaviours are pretty typical of 965s (from any mobo mfr)
if you change a setting in the BIOS & save it shuts down briefly then restarts
if you have a failed overclock it tries a couple of times & if it can't boot then resets to defaults

 

[Airs]

Right but if the OC is totally stable, why wouldn't it reboot with those settings?

 

[1ManArmY]

how are your voltages?
CPU

DDR2 overvoltage (I have mine at 2.1 my RAM range is 1.9-2.2) default is 1.8v
PCI-E overvoltage
FSB overvoltage
MCH overvoltage

 

[Airs]

CPU is at 1.5V
DDR 2.3V as per OCZ
PCI-E, FSB and MCH are all +0.1V

 

[Kougar]

Pretty strange. I can only guess, maybe some difference in hardware used might be the issue? I have noticed after extensive use and reading that Micron D9 based RAM can cause issues like this though... Until just recently I've always used Corsair XMS2 ProMOS based chips, they just make the 1GHz mark just fine and they seem to be the best choice of RAM for a DS3 regarding compatibility. Beats me why, but they do, they've worked great since the old buggy as heck F1 BIOS, a couple bugged beta BIO's, and up to the F10 BIOS.

Update: After replacing my 800mhz ProMOS with 1067MHz D9's I've started to have a few of these issues where the board will default at bootup. It is only at extreme overclocks and not consistent though. Corsair's 6400 & 6400c4 RAM kits are ProMOS and do not have this issue with this board, even at 100% overclocks. Even if ya don't use D9 chip based RAM, I suspect it's the user's choice of RAM that is causing this, I believe it was extremely fortuitous that I went with the Corsair ProMOS RAM. Hopefully this will be of some help to ya.

 

[Airs]

Excellent, thanks for the tip Kougar. I will grab some different RAM from Fry's tonight...

 

[Kougar]

The Corsair stuff is good, and ya can't beat $79 at some places for a 2gb 6400 speed kit. Both the 6400 and 6400c4 will hit 1ghz in a DS3 at 2.1v @ 5-5-5-15.

 

[cruser1068]

Hey Airs, did that new RAM work out for you? Im having cold boot issues with my DQ6 and if I knew for sure it was my OCZ PC8500 DIMMS that it didnt like I may consider throwing more money down teh hole and buying some new RAM....but I dont want to do that just to find the problem still exists.

Thanks.