NE1 else been lookin' at the $112 SiS655 Gigabyte GA-8SQ800?? **UPDATED 2/22**

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Wingznut

Originally posted by: NFS4
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

No kidding! That's stupid!

Look in the manual and see if one was supposed to be included... Maybe it was just a fluke that you didn't get one?

An I/O Shield is on included ONLY on the GA-8SQ800 Ultra according to the manual.


That is messed up!:|:|

It did however come witha 3-port Firewire card, so I can't complain TOO much

 

[NFS4]

Well, I got everything up and running. Couldn't have been any easier. I upgrade to the latest BIOS using Gigabyte's @BIOS program from within Windows. Doesn't get any easier than that

I'm running at DDR333 CAS2.5 with my two memory stick right now (Samsung DDR333 CAS2.0, Crucial DDR333 CAS2.5). I'll run some PRIME95 tests and then take it to CAS2 if everything checks out.

 

[Krk3561]

I upgrade to the latest BIOS using Gigabyte's @BIOS program from within Windows.

Isn't that very dangerous? I have 3 Gigabyte boards and I am afraid to flash the bios on them in Windows because of bad things I've heard.

 

[DeviousTrap]

Originally posted by: Krk3561

I upgrade to the latest BIOS using Gigabyte's @BIOS program from within Windows.

Isn't that very dangerous? I have 3 Gigabyte boards and I am afraid to flash the bios on them in Windows because of bad things I've heard.

I've done it serveral times on my 8IHXP and on my sisters comp (forget the board) and never had problems. Where did you hear it is dangerous?

 

[Krk3561]

Originally posted by: computer89

Originally posted by: Krk3561

I upgrade to the latest BIOS using Gigabyte's @BIOS program from within Windows.

Isn't that very dangerous? I have 3 Gigabyte boards and I am afraid to flash the bios on them in Windows because of bad things I've heard.

I've done it serveral times on my 8IHXP and on my sisters comp (forget the board) and never had problems. Where did you hear it is dangerous?

These forums

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: Krk3561

I upgrade to the latest BIOS using Gigabyte's @BIOS program from within Windows.

Isn't that very dangerous? I have 3 Gigabyte boards and I am afraid to flash the bios on them in Windows because of bad things I've heard.

ONly in the sense that if Windows crashes during the flash your board is hosed. Just don't flash while doing a Divx encode and compiling a VSNET project, you'll be fine.

 

[human2k]

YOu can always recover via floppy disk, no worries, unless your board doesnt support the floppy recover method, then your screwed!

 

[Booter]

I will recive my board on monday, tuesday

 

[NFS4]

I just wanted to give you guys a little update. I've been running this board non-stop since Wednesday and it has been rock solid ever since. No lockups, no slow downs, no nothing.

I haven't been able to hit CAS2 perfectly (errors after 1 minute in Prime95), but everything is perfect at CAS2.5. I blame it on the Crucial memory which is only rated at 2.5 anyway. I did some benchmarks at both CAS2 and CAS2.5 and the difference wasn't enough to push it anyway. I plan on keeping this board for a while, so I may end up getting 1GB of DDR400 CAS2 eventually.

But for $112, I must say that this board is impressive. Even though I don't have any Firewire devices, the 3-port Firewire card is a nice addition. USB 2.0 transfer speeds appear to be a bit faster on this board than my old Epox as well. And my mouse doesn't drop out then reinitialize when I remove my iPAQ 1910 from the USB sync cable now (they are both plugged into my keyboard) like it used to.

Kudos to SiS and kudus to Gigabyte on a sweet board

 

[Hw0arang]

sinxp1394 was 200 U$ in my place.. i can't find the GA-8SQ800 here...

 

[Ken830]

I ordered the 8SQ800 from newegg.... But for the life of me, I can't get it to run stable. Every setting is left at default. I have a P4 2.4B, Corsair low latency DDR400 ram, Radeon 9500, Antec TruePower 480W PS.... It would RESET itself randomly! Even when I'm just navigating the BIOS menu!!!! After a whole lot of testing with my known good parts, I concluded that the motherboard could be flawed somehow.... The resets are weird. They actually cause the harddrive to "click" as if it had just been powered on - NOT like a normal software-initiated soft reset.

I then decided to try to update the bios, in a last-ditch effort to fix the problem... Guess what? it reseted itself half way through!!! Needless to say, this was dangerous and of course, my board wouldn't boot after that.... This would normally not be a problem for me, as I can usually just pluck the boot prom from it's socket, take it to work, and re-program the chip in the programmer with a BIOS image from their website. However, the rom is NOT in a socket (Gigabyte's cost-saving) and is soldered directly on the board. If I didn't suspect that there would be something else wrong with the board, I would have asked the technician at work to simply desolder the chip and put on a PLCCsocket. But I opted to send it back to newegg for a replacement instead. But I'm worried that they won't have stock for a -long- time....

Anyone else with a similar hardware setup having problems? I still suspect something was wrong with the MB...

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Ken830
I ordered the 8SQ800 from newegg.... But for the life of me, I can't get it to run stable. Every setting is left at default. I have a P4 2.4B, Corsair low latency DDR400 ram, Radeon 9500, Antec TruePower 480W PS.... It would RESET itself randomly! Even when I'm just navigating the BIOS menu!!!! After a whole lot of testing with my known good parts, I concluded that the motherboard could be flawed somehow.... The resets are weird. They actually cause the harddrive to "click" as if it had just been powered on - NOT like a normal software-initiated soft reset.

I then decided to try to update the bios, in a last-ditch effort to fix the problem... Guess what? it reseted itself half way through!!! Needless to say, this was dangerous and of course, my board wouldn't boot after that.... This would normally not be a problem for me, as I can usually just pluck the boot prom from it's socket, take it to work, and re-program the chip in the programmer with a BIOS image from their website. However, the rom is NOT in a socket (Gigabyte's cost-saving) and is soldered directly on the board. If I didn't suspect that there would be something else wrong with the board, I would have asked the technician at work to simply desolder the chip and put on a PLCCsocket. But I opted to send it back to newegg for a replacement instead. But I'm worried that they won't have stock for a -long- time....

Anyone else with a similar hardware setup having problems? I still suspect something was wrong with the MB...

Sounds like a bad board to me.

 

[neilm]

This question has been probably asked countless amount of times, but should I be going for the 8sq800, 8sq800ultra or 8sq800ultra2.

I'm not quite ready to build my computer just yet, but I think it would consist of:
p4 2.4bghz
512mb (256x2) crucial
80gb wd
iiyama vm 454
r9500pro
plextor cdrw 48x24x48
psu enermax 350w
volcano 9+ fan
printer, mouse, keyboard, speakers and any other minor additions

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: neilm
This question has been probably asked countless amount of times, but should I be going for the 8sq800, 8sq800ultra or 8sq800ultra2.

I'm not quite ready to build my computer just yet, but I think it would consist of:
p4 2.4bghz
512mb (256x2) crucial
80gb wd
iiyama vm 454
r9500pro
plextor cdrw 48x24x48
psu enermax 350w
volcano 9+ fan
printer, mouse, keyboard, speakers and any other minor additions

If you don't need RAID, Serial-ATA, onboard LAN, get the GA-8SQ800 for $112. Otherwise you'll have to dish out $230 for the Ultra.

 

[Tom]

Ken830,

If you are still reading this thread, I noticed some messages at the forum below about the memory timings possibly being a bit aggressive at DDR400 if you let them be set by SPD, which I assume is the default. I don't have the board so I don't know the particulars, but if you manage to restore your bios you might see if you can switch from SPD to manual and go to less aggressive timings. The info is somewhere at the forum linked below, probably in the thread by Prometheus called Sis 655 review.

Asusboards.com forum with several GA-8SQ800 posts

edit- yea, it is in that thread I mentioned. Here is a quote..

"Fifth, the chipset recognizes my Corsair Low-Latency as 400 and sets mem to 400 - a bit of a pleasant surprise. However, the timings on Low-Latency SPD may be slightly too agressive at DDR400 for this chipset. I was experiencing some random blue-screens at DDR400 until I went into Memory Timings and set manual and 2-2-2-6-1."

 

[Ken830]

Thanks Dead Parrot Sketch.... I spotted those threads last Friday... Prometheus over there is very helpful.... I tried one of his suggested memory settings, but no good... I then decided to update the BIOS... Unfortunately, the random resets truly are random as it reset half-way through the BIOS flashing routine!!! Needless to say, the board wouldn't boot after that.... RMA'd it to Newegg... but there's currently no stock there... so, I'm waiting to hear from them....

btw.... Nice truck... I LOVE the hemi =) Can't wait for them to put one of those babies in a sports sedan....