Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro

[tristramshandy]

Hey everyone, I've been lurking, but now I have two questions:

(1) I've had the d@mnedest time getting games to run lately. I've installed the latest NVidia unified drivers & the updated ide drivers as well, but I'm getting crashing on all DirectX games. Temps are very low, so that's not the problem. Anyone had similar experience?

(2) I installed F2D bios, and it was terrifice (as has been reported here), except that the backup bios has been reinstating F1 automatically. I've turned off auto-restore in the bios, but it happens anyway. Anyone found a clue.

 

[CantThinkOfUsername]

Maybe I can get an answer in here. I got this mobo for my new computer, but I haven't a clue in hell where the multiplier and FSB controls are. I have the F2b BIOS, and I press Ctrl + F1 once I get in there, but I can't find the settings. I have been using EasyTune4, but I really hate OCing from inside of Windows, and dxdiag doesn't seem to recognize the changes anyways. Anyways, once I get into the BIOS, where are the multi and FSB settings? Help GREATLY appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[nippyjun]

There isn't a multiplier adjustment. For FSB look under frequency/voltage control for "cpu overclock"

 

[CantThinkOfUsername]

Oh, I've been misinterpreting that. I assumed that was an auto-overclock feature, not the FSB. Thanks man.

 

[poppyq]

Originally posted by: 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.

The mounting brackets for the Zalman 7000 require four mounting holes spaced in a square pattern (the typical mounting holes) and then the zalman 7000 mounts to those brackets with the two parallel holes. I still don't see how you can use those two parallel holes for the mounting brackets.

 

[StannyMann]

Hope someone here can help me.

Can't seem to post with 2x512 3200CL2 CorsairXMS DDR400 installed, either stick works fine if installed by itself (512@200MHz stable), but if I try both sticks together, system hangs during post immediately before memory check. Tried default settings F1 & F2d bios and changing timings and speed with CNTR F1 in bios. Also tired all combination of DDR slots (1/2, 2/3, 1/3). Thought it may be a conflict with video, but tried anther card with same results. Any ideas??? Haven't heard anything back from techsupport and at this point can't decide whether to rma board or ram to NewEgg.


-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3200
2x512 Corsair 3200CL2
Giga-Byte K8NS-Pro
Western Digital 74GB 10000RPM
NV5900SE
Antec TrueBlue 480w

 

[nippyjun]

Originally posted by: StannyMann
Hope someone here can help me.

Can't seem to post with 2x512 3200CL2 CorsairXMS DDR400 installed, either stick works fine if installed by itself (512@200MHz stable), but if I try both sticks together, system hangs during post immediately before memory check. Tried default settings F1 & F2d bios and changing timings and speed with CNTR F1 in bios. Also tired all combination of DDR slots (1/2, 2/3, 1/3). Thought it may be a conflict with video, but tried anther card with same results. Any ideas??? Haven't heard anything back from techsupport and at this point can't decide whether to rma board or ram to NewEgg.


-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3200
2x512 Corsair 3200CL2
Giga-Byte K8NS-Pro
Western Digital 74GB 10000RPM
NV5900SE
Antec TrueBlue 480w

Can you set the mobo to not halt at any errors and see if it boots? Also, you said you changed the timings... do they stick... meaning that when you reboot and go into the bios the changes are still there?

I found that i need to increase the CAS setting to get mine to be stable.

Hope this helps.

 

[StannyMann]

Originally posted by: nippyjun
Can you set the mobo to not halt at any errors and see if it boots? Also, you said you changed the timings... do they stick... meaning that when you reboot and go into the bios the changes are still there?

I found that i need to increase the CAS setting to get mine to be stable.

Hope this helps.

Okay, just tried 'Halt on no Errors' system constantly rebooted every few seconds in F2d, but boots through video bios and CPU check in F1, but hangs right before memory check. At this point, I can't even hit 'Del' to get to bios screen and the case power/reboot switches won't work - which is what I been experiencing with 2x512 installed. CL CAS timing sticks at 2 with 200MHz if only 1x512 installed.

 

[nippyjun]

With 2 sticks is the memory speed at 166? If not make it that. Change the CAS to 3 as well.

 

[StannyMann]

2x512 wouldn't post at all with 166 CAS 3 and those settings reverted back to auto (200max/CAS 3) after rebooting with 1x512. When I tried 166 CAS 3 with 1x512 noticed that system rebooted once and when I checked the bios, settings had reverted back to auto.

 

[StannyMann]

Also, single stick must be in DDR slot one to post. If I try to boot with single stick in slot 2 or 3 - no post, constant rebooting. Shouldn't this work?

-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3200
2x512 Corsair 3200CL2
Giga-Byte K8NS-Pro
Western Digital 74GB 10000RPM
NV5900SE
Antec TrueBlue 480w

 

[tOiRb]

tristramshandy asked:

(2) I installed F2D bios, and it was terrifice (as has been reported here), except that the backup bios has been reinstating F1 automatically. I've turned off auto-restore in the bios, but it happens anyway. Anyone found a clue.
_________________________________________________________________

I installed F2d as the backup as well and it cured the problem. Hit F8 within bios and load F2d into main and backup. When I had F2d and F1 installed it would always revert to the F1 (the easier boot?)


I have found that this mobo is very very picky about power. It wants a lot! It killed (or so it seems) my Antec 480, 5v rail was fluctuating from 1.2v to 4.7!!!! Crash city!! Put in a backup 450 antec and it seems fine for now. Am ordering a new PS today. It did not like my 550 sparkle either.

 

[tristramshandy]

tOiRb, thanks for your suggestion. I bought the Gigabyte dual bios because the extra bios seemed like a good backup security option (search these forums and you might find my thread from a few years ago about the Asus mobo that got the bad flash). I felt implicitly that I would be acting too hastily if I flashed the backup bios to F2D as well.

But now I'm not so sure. So good suggestion. I should have figured that out for myself. Cheers.

 

[Erehwon]

Anyone have any words back from Giga on the next offical bios release?

 

[nippyjun]

Ok, yesterday i installed a sata drive onto one of the Nvidia Sata ports and made it my primary boot drive. I installed windows without a hitch. Then i installed an ide drive on IDE1 as master and the system wouldn't boot. It would start up and do a drive scan and just go really, really slow. I wound up having to put the IDE drive onto IDE3 and it worked. I didn't want to use IDE3 as it's one of the gigaraid ports and i had originally disabled gigaraid to make boot up faster (doesn't have to go through the gigaraid part of the boot up process), but now i had to reenable the gigaraid so that it could find ide3.

Any ideas on why adding an ide hard drive to IDE1 "confused" the motherboard?

Also, any way to make the boot up process faster even with the IDE3 port being used?


One other thing: The "safely remove hardware" icon is always present on my system tray and when you click on that icon it gives you the option of removing my main sata drive. Of course that drive is my main drive so i won't want to remove it while in use. Is there a way to tell the system not to consider it a removable drive?

 

[Erehwon]

Originally posted by: nippyjun

One other thing: The "safely remove hardware" icon is always present on my system tray and when you click on that icon it gives you the option of removing my main sata drive. Of course that drive is my main drive so i won't want to remove it while in use. Is there a way to tell the system not to consider it a removable drive?

Cause the SATA drives are hot swapable or at least should be

 

[Ignatz]

Hi all,

This is my first post here, I came to this thread via the Mushkin forums.

To nippyjun, I had the same problem with an IDE drive after setting up a SATA as the system "master" drive.

No boot that is...

I finally got xp to recognise the drive by going to "Standard CMOS Features" and setting the "IDE Primary Master" to "None".

This allowed me to partition and format the drive (120GB) from within xp.

I must say I haven't really used it that much yet as I am trying to tune this machine up some for the intended user.

Now, as for the lastest BIOS that allows OCing settings to stick, I have seen the Betas you guys have been talking about and since this machine is going far away from me when I get it right, I don't want to risk installing a BIOS that is not a regular release.

I know next to nothing about OCing but I would like to take this A64 3200+ up to 3400+.

I also have 1GB of Mushkin Level 1 (2-2-2) installed and Memtest is showing my timings as being 2-3-2.

This is an explanation of the way this ram "acts" with an A64 non FX CPU;

Athlon64 3000+ and Higher

The Athlon64 itself uses a single memory channel and only one controller on the CPU. Because of this, the Athlon 64 (non-FX) can actually use plain vanilla, unbuffered, non-ECC modules. There are, however, still some peculiarities of the Athlon64 systems in how they are handling memory which effects memory compatibility.

One of the most critical issues in this resepect relates to the first step in the memory access sequence, that is, the opening of a memory page and subsequent steps until a read command can be issued. All of these steps fall into the time frame referred to as RAS-to-CAS delay or tRCD. In a typical system, the memory controller on the chipset is running at bus speed. On the Athlon64, it is running at CPU speed, which means that it is A LOT faster. That means that the internal sequence of commands also goes faster, and that's where all systems are getting hiccups if the memory chips used can only run at a high tRCD.

A very trivial explanation is that the controller expects that the memory is as fast as it itself but we don't have memory yet running at a 2 GHz and beyond clock rate. What it comes down to is that, depending on the BIOS tuning (by the manufacturer), the read command is issued a bit too early and violates the tRCD. The workaround is to add one additional cycle to the actual memory latency, that is, a 2:2:2-rated DIMM will run stable at 2:3:2; a 2:3:2 rated module will, most likely, need to be set to 2:4:2 in order to run stable (where the latencies are CAS:tRCD:tRP). Bottom line is that when shopping for memory for the Athlon64, it is highly advisable and in most cases mandatory to only consider memory with a tRCD of 2 or, to make it simple, memory that is rated at 2:2:2 a the designated speed. Alternatively, registered DIMMs can be used as well without problems, even though they are slightly more expensive and will give lower performance.

According to this if I'm reading it right, 2-2-2 will run most stably at 2-3-2.

So is there no point in trying to get those timings up to 2-2-2?

Great to be here and I know I will learn alot from you guys.

Thanks in advance for any input!

Ken

 

[nippyjun]

Originally posted by: Erehwon

Originally posted by: nippyjun

One other thing: The "safely remove hardware" icon is always present on my system tray and when you click on that icon it gives you the option of removing my main sata drive. Of course that drive is my main drive so i won't want to remove it while in use. Is there a way to tell the system not to consider it a removable drive?

Cause the SATA drives are hot swapable or at least should be

Is there a way to not have it appear, i wouldn't want to "stop" my main drive by accident.

Also, any answers to my other questions:


Ok, yesterday i installed a sata drive onto one of the Nvidia Sata ports and made it my primary boot drive. I installed windows without a hitch. Then i installed an ide drive on IDE1 as master and the system wouldn't boot. It would start up and do a drive scan and just go really, really slow. I wound up having to put the IDE drive onto IDE3 and it worked. I didn't want to use IDE3 as it's one of the gigaraid ports and i had originally disabled gigaraid to make boot up faster (doesn't have to go through the gigaraid part of the boot up process), but now i had to reenable the gigaraid so that it could find ide3.

Any ideas on why adding an ide hard drive to IDE1 "confused" the motherboard?

Also, any way to make the boot up process faster even with the IDE3 port being used?


Thanks very much.

 

[Ignatz]

Also, any answers to my other questions:


Ok, yesterday i installed a sata drive onto one of the Nvidia Sata ports and made it my primary boot drive. I installed windows without a hitch. Then i installed an ide drive on IDE1 as master and the system wouldn't boot. It would start up and do a drive scan and just go really, really slow. I wound up having to put the IDE drive onto IDE3 and it worked. I didn't want to use IDE3 as it's one of the gigaraid ports and i had originally disabled gigaraid to make boot up faster (doesn't have to go through the gigaraid part of the boot up process), but now i had to reenable the gigaraid so that it could find ide3.

I will quote myself from above;

To nippyjun, I had the same problem with an IDE drive after setting up a SATA as the system "master" drive.

No boot that is...

I finally got xp to recognise the drive by going to "Standard CMOS Features" and setting the "IDE Primary Master" to "None".

This allowed me to partition and format the drive (120GB) from within xp.

I must say I haven't really used it that much yet as I am trying to tune this machine up some for the intended user.

Hope this helps,

Ken

 

[Bad Dude]

So can this board runs 3 sticks of double sided RAM at DDR400? It seems like a piece of junk if you can even do so with 2 sticks.
Thanks.

 

[Erehwon]

Originally posted by: Bad_Dude
So can this board runs 3 sticks of double sided RAM at DDR400? It seems like a piece of junk if you can even do so with 2 sticks.
Thanks.

What in the heck are you talking about

 

[StannyMann]

Originally posted by: Erehwon

Originally posted by: Bad_Dude
So can this board runs 3 sticks of double sided RAM at DDR400? It seems like a piece of junk if you can even do so with 2 sticks.
Thanks.

What in the heck are you talking about

Bad_Dude might be talking about my troubles with trying to boot with two sticks of Corsair RAM on this motherboard (see posts from last week). I believe that slot 2 and 3 are not working on the board that I have as I can boot no problem with either stick in slot 1, but not in slot 2 or 3 - tech support assures me that this should be possible. I'm having Newegg send a replacement board and hope that solves the issue.

-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3200
2x512 Corsair 3200CL2
Giga-Byte K8NS-Pro
Western Digital 74GB 10000RPM
NV5900SE
Antec TrueBlue 480w

 

[Erehwon]

Gotcha..... yea I use Corsair memory and have no trouble using slots 1 and 2

 

[nippyjun]

Originally posted by: nippyjun
Ok, yesterday i installed a sata drive onto one of the Nvidia Sata ports and made it my primary boot drive. I installed windows without a hitch. Then i installed an ide drive on IDE1 as master and the system wouldn't boot. It would start up and do a drive scan and just go really, really slow. I wound up having to put the IDE drive onto IDE3 and it worked. I didn't want to use IDE3 as it's one of the gigaraid ports and i had originally disabled gigaraid to make boot up faster (doesn't have to go through the gigaraid part of the boot up process), but now i had to reenable the gigaraid so that it could find ide3.

Any ideas on why adding an ide hard drive to IDE1 "confused" the motherboard?

Also, any way to make the boot up process faster even with the IDE3 port being used?


One other thing: The "safely remove hardware" icon is always present on my system tray and when you click on that icon it gives you the option of removing my main sata drive. Of course that drive is my main drive so i won't want to remove it while in use. Is there a way to tell the system not to consider it a removable drive?

OK, I solved the problems: My IDE drive didn't have the jumper set correctly. Stupid me!


I still want to know however how to make the sata drive not appear in the "safely remove hardware" list.

 

[Bad Dude]

Originally posted by: Erehwon
Gotcha..... yea I use Corsair memory and have no trouble using slots 1 and 2

Let's take this question if I may to another impossible or possible level, what are the chances of having 3 double sided RAM in all 3 slots and run them at DDR400 like the Chaintech and the MSI boards? I like this board b/c of the RAID IDE and the firewire. The MSI does not support DTR and the chaintech does not have firewire and I don't have an extra slot for the PCI card. The Epox one is good also but no 3 stable 3 slot memory and no firewire. Though I like the 6 PCI slots.