Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro

[MrSamson420]

What do you mean by good?? the only thing that I found to be good in the F2D bios was the fact that my memroy settings stuck in Manual mode.

Is everything else working for you?? Overclocking, Easttune tabs, etc...

 

[Keljian]

everything bar easytune tabs and temperature sensing seems to be working ok

 

[Razielb]

With F2d i able to boot memory timing in auto ,and max memory frequency in manual and i setting 200,is work fine at 210 sincronous mode with 2x512 ddr 500,at 220 i have problem and boot default parameter,with clockgen work fine up to 275 bus in sincronous mode,the F2d is good only for memory setting

 

[MrSamson420]

Keljian are you sure you are talking about f2d and not f2b? Because something doesn't add up.

 

[nippyjun]

What do the VDDQ and VCC12_HT voltage controls do? Should i increase these for overclocking purposes? I've gotten my 3200 chip at 10x220 but at higher FSB's the system isn't stable enough. Would increasing these 2 voltages help with overclocking stability? I've already increased the CPU voltage but that doesn't help enough.

 

[Keljian]

Yup I'm sure I'm talking about f2d. Easytune tabs don't work, memory timings stick, temperature in speedfan is high - and the cpu fan seems to be full on all the time.

Everything else is fine.

 

[likwidkool]

ok as far as defaulting to 166 it seems it only does this when running 512mb sticks. I tried 2x512 of pc3500 Mushkin L2(bh-5), OCZ pc3200 EB, OCZ pc3500 Gold, and Corsair pc3200 XMS(bh-6). All would default to 166. The Mushkin would be able to have timings changed and be set to 200 mem, but it would not overclock worth crap. At 3.2vdimm I would top at 220 2-2-2-11. These sticks did 267 at 3.3v in my K8Npro. Now My XMS were also able to be changed and would do 230 at 3.2vdimm 2-2-2-11. Same sticks in the K8Npro did 245 at 3.3vdimm. My OCZ EB would not be changed from the 166 mem option. Anything and they would not post. Now these same sticks would do 262 at 3.2v 2.5-2-2-11 in my K8Npro.

Now I was about fed up, but decided to try my 2x256 sticks. pc3500 OCZ Plat ltd. edition(bh-5), pc3500 Kingston HyperX(bh-5), and pc3700 OCZ Gold rev 2. All defaulted to the 200 mem option, and had all timings changeable. All would run same speeds they did in my K8Npro. Right now the OCZ plats are running 255x10 2-2-2-11 at 3.2v no problems.

Now I really don't have any answers, but wanted to throw my findings into the ring. All of this was done using either bios F1 for the K8NSpro, or F2 for the K8NSNXP. I found the F2 bios actually to be a little worse.

I am going to be trying the beta bios' posted here today and see if they make any difference. I will report back.

BTW as far as temps, It's funny but bios F1 for the K8NSpro will show 42°c but F2 for the K8NsNXP will show 28°c. Now when using MBM I found I was able to show both of these temps. I am figuring one is socket temp, and the other is on die temp. I do know that the K8Npro reported the lower temp as cpu temp. It usually hovered around 25-29°c in my hot apartment. TYhis is with good watercooling.

 

[Razielb]

F2d bios no boot over 220,ma memory work fine,f1 work fine but no have multiplier change and no work fine with memory,i wont new bios!!!!!!

 

[brand80]

Originally posted by: likwidkool
ok as far as defaulting to 166 it seems it only does this when running 512mb sticks. I tried 2x512 of pc3500 Mushkin L2(bh-5), OCZ pc3200 EB, OCZ pc3500 Gold, and Corsair pc3200 XMS(bh-6). All would default to 166. The Mushkin would be able to have timings changed and be set to 200 mem, but it would not overclock worth crap. At 3.2vdimm I would top at 220 2-2-2-11. These sticks did 267 at 3.3v in my K8Npro. Now My XMS were also able to be changed and would do 230 at 3.2vdimm 2-2-2-11. Same sticks in the K8Npro did 245 at 3.3vdimm. My OCZ EB would not be changed from the 166 mem option. Anything and they would not post. Now these same sticks would do 262 at 3.2v 2.5-2-2-11 in my K8Npro.

I have a 512 Stick of Samsung PC3200 and it defaults to 200 MHz. I havent tried much in the way of overclocking as I am right now trying to fix the heat problem I am having..... I hope the next BIOS fixes it. I am ready to send the board back and go for either the K8NSNXP or a different board with the nforce3 250 chipset......

Brandon

 

[brand80]

Another thing I also noticed on this board was that some of my voltages jump around alot. I am using speedfan and I noticed my negatiove voltages are reporting way off......like -12 volts shows as low as -1.3 volts and jumps around from there to about -8 and -10.....etc. Never seems to read -12.

Same thing with my -5 volts it reads sometimes in the positives like 1.1 and jumps around it sometimes shows -5 but mainly between -4 and -2.

Speedfan shows two +5 volt readings they both read around +5 volts but also sometimes get as low as 2 volts.

The +12 and +3.3 stay constant at +3.31 and +12.22.

I have tried 3 different power supplies and still no halfway steady voltages just on the +3.3 and +12....

My system runs stable, just shows aufully high CPU temps around 62c with F1 and F2b in both BIOS and windows, with f2d it says about 35c or so, but with speedfan it reports it still being high...around 58c.

I have reseated the HSF plenty of times and even reapplied thermal paste.

Brandon

 

[tOiRb]

I have been looking at this forum for awhile and want to offer my two cents on the diferent bios's.

F1 simply would not hold settings at all, temp seemed too high. I was running my 3200+ in a Foxconn mobo, (SIS chipset) but that board seemed pretty unclockable. Could only get to coverclock of 202. I have 2 x 512 Mushkin level 1 PC3500. So I bought this board> I should have seen this thread first. I might have gone another direction.

F2b seemed to work better. I clocked to 210 with mem set at 200, and it was stable. Played around with it for several hours, turning off for 15 minutes at a time. Held all my setting fine. Woke up next morning and viola... long beep, reverted back to 166!!! Temps reported high. FYI: In the Foxconn this same CPU was at 32 C under load!!! Here I was over 55 C.

F2d is the one I am now using. It will hold settings where I set them. I am not using EasyTune. The temp tabs in it don't even work with F2d, and that's the only thing I would use it for. I have ordered some temp probes so I can really get a better idea of correct temps. I was only able to OC to 210 with memmax at 200. But that's 4xHT with 2 X 512 Mushkin level 1 running 2-3-3-6. I can get to 230 with memmax set at 166 (191) with same timings at 4xHT and it's stable. That is good, but what about the temp. It shows 35 C or so, but is it correct?????

These guys need to take the F2d bios and make all the features work. I am especially concerned with the high temp issue. It is interesting that as of yesterday, the only bios they have available on their website is F1. That bios is unacceptable to the overclocking community. The F2d bios causes Nvidia utility to lock system. I was going to use that to monitor temps. No go.

I'm interested to see what others have found in regard to F2d. Is there another newer bios yet? Does Gigabyte look at threads like these? Does anyone care? Probably not.

 

[nippyjun]

I have a question about the "Hard Disk Boot Priority" setting in the advanced bios features:

Currently i have one ide hard drive hooked up and in the hard disk boot priority section i've chosen that drive as my main hard drive.

I'll be replacing that drive with a SATA drive soon. Will the SATA drive show up in the Hard Disk Boot Priority section once it's hooked up because there is currently no option there to choose a SATA drive.

 

[MrSamson420]

It seems that everyone is having the same results with the F2d Bios. I just wrote Gigabyte back to see what?s going on with the new rev that will implement the good things from F2d and enable all the things that are currently disabled. I will let you guys know what they say..

 

[tOiRb]

________________________________________________________________________________
have a question about the "Hard Disk Boot Priority" setting in the advanced bios features:

Currently i have one ide hard drive hooked up and in the hard disk boot priority section i've chosen that drive as my main hard drive.

I'll be replacing that drive with a SATA drive soon. Will the SATA drive show up in the Hard Disk Boot Priority section once it's hooked up because there is currently no option there to choose a SATA drive.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Nippyjun: Yes the sata drive will show up in the disk boot priority. I run 1 sata and 2 ide hard drives and they all show.


Mr Samson420: Thanks for your efforts. let's hope they get it together soon.

I got my Lian Li temperature monitor and hooked up to as close to the cpu as I could without taking the heat sink off. I estimate my cpu temp to be around 100-107 F (38-42 C) based on reading I got from the probe (the probe never showed over 90 F). This is consistent with readings from my Foxconn mobo using the same Athlon 64 3200. It is also close to the temps reported by Sandra and bios F2d. I believe this demonstrates the temperature monitoring flaws in bios F1 and F2b.

 

[nippyjun]

Thanks tOiRb...

is your Sata drive your primary drive? if yes, did you have to use a floppy driver disk during windows installation at the F6 step? If yes, and you have the sata on the nvidia sata port, which drivers did you put on the disk?

 

[tOiRb]

Nippyjun:

Yes, SATA is my primary. Does not require special drivers, no need for F6. Windows XP drivers will work at least thats what I remember. After XP install you can install the Nvidia drivers if you want. My sata is on the Nvidia SATA port. After XP install, I just used express install (of chipset drivers) from the Gigabyte disk, but then reinstalled the latest Nforce chipset drivers. Hope that answered your question.


When you get your sata drive and are installing winXP on it I would recommend unhooking your other drive(s) so you are sure that you are installing on your sata. I made that mistake, luckily I chose a drive that didn't have anything important on it.

For fixing WinXP installs (i.e. reinstalling operating system) the best tool to use is a program called delpart.exe. Without this program I would probably have had a stroke by now. It allows you to reformat a drive containing winxp. Much easier than using system restore/repair. Delpart can be found on the web.

 

[nippyjun]

Originally posted by: tOiRb


For fixing WinXP installs (i.e. reinstalling operating system) the best tool to use is a program called delpart.exe. Without this program I would probably have had a stroke by now. It allows you to reformat a drive containing winxp. Much easier than using system restore/repair. Delpart can be found on the web.

I just use the windows xp format option when reinstalling xp as it allows me to just format the c partition and then install the OS from scratch.

 

[Erehwon]

Originally posted by: MrSamson420
It seems that everyone is having the same results with the F2d Bios. I just wrote Gigabyte back to see what?s going on with the new rev that will implement the good things from F2d and enable all the things that are currently disabled. I will let you guys know what they say..

Samson any word on an offical release of the next BIOS rev? I was just on Giga's website and their crap is all jacked up. You can't even get anything on this board right now, not even the manual. Maybe their updating who knows. Would like to know though if you've heard anything back from them.

 

[Erehwon]

I know everyone has been having trouble with the F1 bios but I was just able to change the mem freq to 200 in Easytune... reboot... and it stuck.

Easy Tune is reporting my memory at:

200Mhz with a CPU spped of 2.21Ghz ( A64 3400+ )


I checked it in CPU-Z and I am getting the same answers

Freq is:
200.9MHz with 2.5 3 3 8

So go figure... I didn't do anything different and don't know why it's working for me.

Anyone have any clues ?

Links to pics:

http://www.troyandtina.com/pc/Aztec%20Sunset/cpu-z200.JPG

and

http://www.troyandtina.com/pc/Aztec%20Sunset/easytune200.JPG

 

[MrSamson420]

Erehwon


Yes I think this is the case for everyone. Read my first couple of posts. This is what I have refered to as the "magic boot". Most people can use easytune to get there system to work right it is only when you try to make the change perminent in the bios that you will have problems (Long annoying beep then bios reset).

As far as giga-byte is concerned they have told me that the next rev isn't complete just yet so keep trying back. Sorry I don't have better news but as soon as I know you guys will know.

 

[Erehwon]

Thanks man, yea I haven't tried to change it in the Bios, just in Easytune...

I will stay tuned to see what you hear back

 

[tOiRb]

I'm back to F1 until they fix the next bios. I'll lock at 166 until I see the next bios and can check it out.

I don't hate this board anymore, in fact many of my problems stem from the insertion of a Sparkle 550w ps, replacing my 480 antec trupower. The PS turned out to be bad and caused lots of reboots merely because the board was not getting enough power. I have rma'd it to Newegg. Put the Antec back in and now I'm having very stable results. Yes the temps show high, but my temp probes show very good. See my previous posts.

Anyway with F1 I am running at 227 (2-3-3-6 Mushkin Level 1 PC3500) which according to Sandra beats an F51 and almost matches a F53. I'm happy about that. Got my highest scores in Aqua03 (61930), 3Dmark 01 (25533) and 3Dmark 03 (10258). Running a Visontek Radeon X800 clocked at 535 X 373 which I have already set back to stock -- waiting for the X800 version of Arctic Cooling VGA Cooler.

This board seems to be OK after all, but the bios needs work.

 

[likwidkool]

I have a 512 Stick of Samsung PC3200 and it defaults to 200 MHz.

hmm this is surprising. I wonder why they would default to 200. Has anyone else seen their 512 sticks default to 200, and what brand were they?

Honestly I have not had much time to play with this board. I decided to build another box for everyday use, and keep the K8NSpro and 3200+ as a "fun" box. I was just getting tired of all the problems I was having trying to get a decent overclock I put my 3.2C and P4C800-E back into commision. Later today though I should have some time to try those bios with all my ram, and report back anything I have found.

One quick one on the volt's. Even though the +5 will report way low at idle, I have tested all rails with a dmm at a molex, and at the atx connection, and they all checked out good. There seems to be more something wrong with how the voltage is reported, than the voltage itself.

 

[poppyq]

Originally posted by: wetsuit
I bought this board 2 weeks ago and haven't been able to overclock at all until tonight. Using the Zalman 7000A My temps are showing 42c Idle and 53C after two hours of Prime 95.

How did you get the zalman to mount to this motherboard? It has no holes in it for the mounting brackets. I have the same hsf and would like to use it on this motherboard if possible. Please reply

 

[tristramshandy]

Poppyq, you can lever out the white plastic pins that hold the built-on plastic retension frame to this mobo. When the plastic frame is removed, you'll have the two parallel holes needed to mount a metal frame.