*** Official Gigabyte P965-DS3 Thread ***

[tenax]

well, my best guess cause i haven't read anything definitive:

theoretically, it's all to improve stability of system when overclocking..whether it does or not is questionable.

pci-e to stabilize vid card when overclocking..not necessary from my experience anyway. more important to keep the frequency at a reasonable level.
mch- can't remember..southbridge or northbridge..likely northbridge voltage..careful with this one..the northbridge if that's the one already runs really hot. .1 volts may not seem like much but.
fsb- totally unsure of this one.. i suspect it's the northbridge voltage..again, be very careful on this one. not recommended to touch the mch and fsb voltages if you can avoid and get results you want.

i wouldn't go any higher than .1 on fsb and mch and not touch pci-e freq or voltage at all. doesn't take much to heat up the vid card gpu.

 

[anibalin]

thanks, do you happen to know which are the changes?

 

[tenax]

Originally posted by: anibalin
thanks, do you happen to know which are the changes?

re: f11a beta bios i assume..here's the only info i found in a number of places (by the way, some who have installed went back to f10..thought it felt snappier..otherwise, no different than f10)

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 Rev 1.x/2.x/3.3 BIOS F11a Beta driver

1. Supports Intel® Core?2 Duo / Pentium® D Processor
2. Features All-Solid Capacitors motherboard design
3. Features PCI Express x16 for outstanding graphics performance
4. Features SATA 3Gb/s interface
5. Optimized Gigabit LAN connection
6. Features 8-channel Intel High Definition Audio
7. Supports Windows Vista Premium

 

[PFCWintergreen]

So I bought a DS3 as well as one of the Seagate 320GB 7200.10 drives, and for some reason it only shows it as having 131GB. This is a 3.3rev board. Anyone know why this might be?

 

[tenax]

what os? drive put into an external case? long shot on that idea, but you can see this thread:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=57898

but it sounds more likely to me like large drive support (LBA) is not enabled in your bios? (i'm sure that is an option and it should be autodetected as a drive or 131gigs but not always) or some jumper is limiting the size..you may need to reformat it using a seagate tool if you have not formatted already. or you aren't running an os that recognizes a large drive (pre-winxp i believe) given the size you're referring to, my money is on lba not being enabled

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: PFCWintergreen
So I bought a DS3 as well as one of the Seagate 320GB 7200.10 drives, and for some reason it only shows it as having 131GB. This is a 3.3rev board. Anyone know why this might be?

Hard to guess without more history about the drive and how it was installed/used. I assume you're talking about a Seagate 320GB 7200.10 SATA drive, correct?

You wouldn't happen to be using any operating system other than Windows XP SP2 (or Vista, of course)? If so, then as a another post suggested your problem may well be that 48-bit LBA support is not enabled in your OS.

FWIW, I have a DS3 rev 3.3 and have had no problems accessing all the capacity of a 400GB Seagate SATA drive using Windows XP SP2.

If it's not an OS problem, you might double check the jumpers to make sure it's not capacity limited that way. You might also have a BIOS setting for the drive set to something other than "auto". Both unlikely, I know. But without more info on exactly what is happening I'm resorting to grasping at straws.

What exactly does your DS3 BIOS report about your 320GB drive when it detects it?

-john

 

[PFCWintergreen]

I made the post before downloading the service packs, and I just went and looked in the Disk Management and it now shows another 104GB that is unformatted. That gives me around 231GB out of the 320. I know that part of the hard drive gets used for referencing (sorry, the word escapes me right now), but 90GB seems like a bit much

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: PFCWintergreen
I made the post before downloading the service packs, and I just went and looked in the Disk Management and it now shows another 104GB that is unformatted. That gives me around 231GB out of the 320.

So are you saying that you now have SP2 installed and Windows sees more of the drive, but still not all of it?

If it were me, I wouldn't trust the original XP installation. I suppose it's probably OK, but I'd still be nervous about it. (I'm a paranoid kind of guy). If you are going to continue to use an XP install disk without SP2, then at least create a partition no bigger than 128GiB ... better something around 20-32GiB ... for the OS install. Don't try to access the rest of the hard drive until after SP2 is installed.

Even better, I'd very strongly suggest that you create a copy of your XP install CD that includes SP2 so you don't have to worry about nonsense like this in the future. (The instructions on how to do this are out there. Just Google something like "slipstream XP SP2").

Originally posted by: PFCWintergreen
I know that part of the hard drive gets used for referencing (sorry, the word escapes me right now), but 90GB seems like a bit much

??????? ??????? I'm afraid I can't guess what you might be thinking of here. According to the commonly accepted deceptive hard drive capacity accounting practices, your Seagate "320GB" should hold at least 320*(1,000,000,000) bytes or ~300GiB. If you're seeing 131 + 104 or 235GiB that would leave you with ~65GiB that Windows ... for whatever reasons ... is not seeing at the moment.

What capacity does the BIOS report for this drive? My guess is that the BIOS is more likely to give you an accurate capacity reading at this point. You might also want to download and boot and run the latest Seagate diagnostics. I remember a time or two in the past going round and around with someone about why they were having problems with their Windows install. It ultimately turned out to be a bad drive. Easiest and quickest way to rule that out is to simply run the manufacturer's diagnostics, no?

-john

 

[mercanucaribe]

I'm using 2gb of OCZ DDR2 800 RAM with mine, and it seems to be working fine. Currently running Orthos while I'm at work. When I checked this morning, no errors after running 7 hours overnight. I guess I'll also memtest, but should I run some other CPU stress tester?
Or will problems arise from overclocking with the OCZ?

 

[mercanucaribe]

Is anyone else having problems with SATA native mode? I have the drivers installed, but when I set to native, WinXP won't boot. The loading bar on the XP splash screen moves for a while, then it reboots.


Edit: I just tried the driver from here http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/cs-015001.htm

It said that I don't meet the minimum requirements.. Sandra says I have a P965, so why won't the P965 driver work??

Do I have to have it in native mode in order to install the drivers? If so, how am I supposed to do that??

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
Edit: I just tried the driver from here http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/cs-015001.htm
It said that I don't meet the minimum requirements.. Sandra says I have a P965, so why won't the P965 driver work??

If you're talking about the Intel Matrix Storage drivers, then, no, the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 does not meet the requirements. The 965P-DS3 comes with an Intel ICH8 southbridge. Intel RAID support is only provided by the Intel ICH8R southbridge. You do not need to install any drivers ... other than possibly the basic Intel 965P chipset support drivers ... to get the Intel SATA ports working on a 965P-DS3. (Don't need it for the JMicron ports either when it is working in "IDE" mode).

The only RAID or AHCI support provided on the 965P-DS3 is via the SATA ports provided by the JMicron 363 chipset.

-john, the ostensibly clueless redundant legacy-in-transition dinosaur

 

[mercanucaribe]

I have the chipset drivers installed and the drive has always been plugged into an Intel port.

 

[yiranhu]

do you have ahci mode or raid turned on? that would cause problems...

do you have an IDE dvd drive?

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
Is anyone else having problems with SATA native mode? I have the drivers installed, but when I set to native, WinXP won't boot. The loading bar on the XP splash screen moves for a while, then it reboots.

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
I have the chipset drivers installed and the drive has always been plugged into an Intel port.

I can't really tell much about what is going on for you from the above information. I'm guessing that you have a 965P-DS3 because of the thread you're posting to. But aside from that you haven't mentioned which revision of the motherboard you have (1.0, 2.0, or 3.3?) and which BIOS version you have installed.

I have a 965P-DS3 rev 3.3 with the F10 BIOS. When I go to the Integrated Peripherals page of the BIOS I see an extra/new line at the top of the screen that does not appear in my owner's manual. The first two lines at the top of my Integrated Peripherals page are:
[*]SATA AHCI Mode [Disabled]
[*]SATA Port0-3 Native Mode [Enabled]

If I enable SATA AHCI Mode by setting it to the value AHCI, then two things happen. First, I get a Serial ATA BIOS message during POST. Second, Windows hangs shortly after it starts to boot. The latter sounds like the problem you are experiencing.

Soooooooooooo ... What's in your BIOS? And do you see any SATA AHCI BIOS messages when you reboot your system?

-john, the ostensibly clueless redundant legacy-in-transition dinosaur

 

[mercanucaribe]

It's rev 3.3, which doesn't exist according to Gigabyte's website. The BIOS is F10.

I had SATA AHCI enabled. I thought that was how you set native SATA. Of course the BIOS doesn't tell you any useful information. The other setting I played with was the one near the bottom, where you select RAID, IDE, and AHCI. I guess IDE is the one you select? The other settings don't work. I have the native mode enabled, so I guess that's all I need to do. Thanks.

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
It's rev 3.3, which doesn't exist according to Gigabyte's website. The BIOS is F10.

Not sure what you mean. Here's a link to the GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 3.3) on the Gigabyte website. Are you looking for something else on the website related to rev 3.3 DS3?

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
I had SATA AHCI enabled. I thought that was how you set native SATA. Of course the BIOS doesn't tell you any useful information.

Yeah, that would cause the problem you were seeing ... at least it did in my experience.

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
The other setting I played with was the one near the bottom, where you select RAID, IDE, and AHCI. I guess IDE is the one you select? The other settings don't work.

Those other settings "near the bottom" pertain to the two "purple" SATA ports which are supported by a JMicron 363 chipset. When the JMicron is set to IDE you don't need a driver. When you set it to AHCI (or RAID) mode you should see AHCI (or RAID) BIOS messages when you reboot and you would need to install either the Gigabyte or JMicron drivers to get it to work.

I've tried at least AHCI mode and wasn't all that impressed with it. I don't believe it offers any extra speed and it appeared you loose access to hard drive temperature readings provided by SMART. The one feature AHCI provides which might someday interest me is the ability to "hotplug" a SATA hard drive. (In Windows XP it works via the "Safely Remove Hardware" mechanism used for USB drives). My advice, unless there is something you definitely know you want from AHCI mode, stick with plain IDE mode. For most of us, AHCI ain't worth the driver headaches.

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
I have the native mode enabled, so I guess that's all I need to do.

I wish I knew what the heck having "native mode enabled" actually meant. I once tried poking around with Google. The best guess I've been able to come up with about what "Legacy IDE Mode" and "Native IDE Mode" may refer to is what is talked about in this Microsoft article: BIOS Settings for Native-Mode-Capable ATA Controllers. Looks like it's a "nice to have" thing but probably doesn't mean much in terms of day to day use.

-john, the ostensibly clueless redundant legacy-in-transition dinosaur

 

[Imported]

So.. I got my computer setup. Installing Windows now.. The weird thing is it is reading my CPU temps at like 9-11º C.. which makes no sense to me? I also had to disable the Smart FAN control to get the CPU fan to spin.. that normal?

Oh, it is a Rev. 3.3 F10 board.

 

[newb54]

Anyone have any problems running Mushkin ram on this?

I am planning on getting some http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146673 to use in this board.

 

[Imported]

Wow.. I just spent 2 hours trying to get my computer to boot up into Windows after installing it. Tried memory in different banks, changing the voltage (since it's OCZ), changing a million settings.. and then I unplug the 3rd HD I have thats on the last Intel SATA slot, and it works.. This mean it's a problem with my mobo or the HD?

Edit: Looks like an HDD problem for me. Took out what I believed to be the offending HD and all was good. Tried it in place of the other HDD I had and it wouldn't go.. Back to Newegg it goes!

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: Imported
The weird thing is it is reading my CPU temps at like 9-11º C.. which makes no sense to me? I also had to disable the Smart FAN control to get the CPU fan to spin.. that normal?
Oh, it is a Rev. 3.3 F10 board.

Yes it's normal. Or at least it matches my experience.

I honestly don't know what the correct CPU temperature is. Gigabyte's EasyTune 5 reads the temp at around 10 C at idle. Core Temp 0.95 shows the temps of Core 0/1 at 22/25 C respectively. All of them seem extremely low to me. But who knows? Maybe the extra power reduction features Intel added to the Core Duo can actually keep the CPU temps that low.

I have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. What are you using? (I assume it's not the stock HSF ... if you are using the stock Intel HSF then that is even more unusual :Q).

As for the CPU fan, you do not have to disable it to get it to run. Instead, set the FAN Control Method in the BIOS to Intel QST. The Legacy method will completely stop the fan at low (perceived) CPU temps. The Intel method has a minimum fan speed of 800RPM. On my system running the fan at 800RPM is a lot quieter than running it all the time at full speed which is what you get if you disable fan control.

Note: The above assumes you have a CPU fan with a 4-pin connector. I do know if the Intel method will work with a 3-pin fan.

-john

 

[Imported]

Originally posted by: zjohnr

Originally posted by: Imported
The weird thing is it is reading my CPU temps at like 9-11º C.. which makes no sense to me? I also had to disable the Smart FAN control to get the CPU fan to spin.. that normal?
Oh, it is a Rev. 3.3 F10 board.

Yes it's normal. Or at least it matches my experience.

I honestly don't know what the correct CPU temperature is. Gigabyte's EasyTune 5 reads the temp at around 10 C at idle. Core Temp 0.95 shows the temps of Core 0/1 at 22/25 C respectively. All of them seem extremely low to me. But who knows? Maybe the extra power reduction features Intel added to the Core Duo can actually keep the CPU temps that low.

I have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. What are you using? (I assume it's not the stock HSF ... if you are using the stock Intel HSF then that is even more unusual :Q).

As for the CPU fan, you do not have to disable it to get it to run. Instead, set the FAN Control Method in the BIOS to Intel QST. The Legacy method will completely stop the fan at low (perceived) CPU temps. The Intel method has a minimum fan speed of 800RPM. On my system running the fan at 800RPM is a lot quieter than running it all the time at full speed which is what you get if you disable fan control.

Note: The above assumes you have a CPU fan with a 4-pin connector. I do know if the Intel method will work with a 3-pin fan.

-john

I'm using the Artic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro as well. Good thing to know it's "normal" in a sense. I kept it on disabled because I like having the peace of mind knowing that the CPU fan is running at full speed. The noise doesn't get me.. my current system is a lot noisier and I've learned to zone that out.

Thanks.

 

[Imported]

Holy crap I'm having a ton of problems with my X-Fi and overclocking.. it was working fine once then I had to restart and now I can't OC at all with the X-Fi in there.. $(*!%@@&! Works fine at stock settings.. but once I overclock it just doesn't work if the X-Fi is connected..

 

[vailr]

Originally posted by: Imported
now I can't OC at all with the X-Fi in there.. $(*!%@@&! Works fine at stock settings.. but once I overclock it just doesn't work if the X-Fi is connected..

(Some bios settings can only be seen by hitting Ctrl-F1.)
PCI Express: locked @ 100 MHz, PCI @ 33 MHz

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: vailr

Originally posted by: Imported
now I can't OC at all with the X-Fi in there.. $(*!%@@&! Works fine at stock settings.. but once I overclock it just doesn't work if the X-Fi is connected..

(Some bios settings can only be seen by hitting Ctrl-F1.)
PCI Express: locked @ 100 MHz, PCI @ 33 MHz

I think that was a question. In other words, have you changed the setting for PCI Express from "Auto" to "100 MHz"? I had problems when trying to overclock until I did that. (My DS3 rev 3.3 would hang on me in the BIOS with no PCI cards installed).

FWIW, you'll probably also need to change the setting for System Memory Multiplier from auto if you haven't already done so. And I don't think there is a way to change the speed of the PCI bus ... at least I haven't seen it on my F10 BIOS level DS3.

-john

 

[Imported]

Originally posted by: zjohnr

Originally posted by: vailr

Originally posted by: Imported
now I can't OC at all with the X-Fi in there.. $(*!%@@&! Works fine at stock settings.. but once I overclock it just doesn't work if the X-Fi is connected..

(Some bios settings can only be seen by hitting Ctrl-F1.)
PCI Express: locked @ 100 MHz, PCI @ 33 MHz

I think that was a question. In other words, have you changed the setting for PCI Express from "Auto" to "100 MHz"? I had problems when trying to overclock until I did that. (My DS3 rev 3.3 would hang on me in the BIOS with no PCI cards installed).

FWIW, you'll probably also need to change the setting for System Memory Multiplier from auto if you haven't already done so. And I don't think there is a way to change the speed of the PCI bus ... at least I haven't seen it on my F10 BIOS level DS3.

-john

I had it at 102 MHz.. I'll try putting it to 100 Mhz when I put the card back in. I got frustrated and starting using the on-board sound.

Although to be honest.. I wonder if I should just use the on-board sound. Doesn't sound too bad and I can use the front jacks on my case with it. Not to mention it has a built-in optical/digital out instead of me having to buy an adapter for my X-Fi.. Hmm!