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

[audscott]

Originally posted by: StopSign

Originally posted by: audscott
I was a bit bored tonight, so I updated BIOS to F10 from F6 on my R2 DS3: I've tried all the others with lackluster results except F6, which has allowed me max OC of 485, 1:1, 5, 5, 5, 15 with memory VMEM at +.4: always stable, 24/7 or off at night. No cold boot or unusual behavior.

Running Vista RC2, BTY.

Just flashed like 10 minutes ago, so can't comment on stability, but I'm running 495 now, which I had never been able to boot into - although I had to crank VMEM to +.5. Temps (memory diode) are right in line with +.4 on F6.

I'll post some screen links later if anyone's interested. My 6300 has always run at 1.325 - set manually.

For me, F10 is looking like a great release out of Gigabyte.

By the way: Maybe my imagination (playin' 'round with meeee) but it "seems" really snappy: boot, loading GUI and apps response.

Fun anyway I look at it (al long as no BSD).

I'm gonna do some more research on F10 to try and find out if it fixes the X-Fi issues or not. If it does, it sure sounds like a winner.

I haven't updated my sig (will now) I'm running an X-Fi XtremeMusic - no problems at all!! Niceness all the way around thus far. No BSD's, shakey knees or bleeding from anywhere.

 

[StopSign]

Actually the X-Fi issue was fixed since F8. I meant I wanted to know if it fixes the cold boot problem because that's the new problem introduced in F8. It does not, therefore F10 is still no good.

And it has been bugging me for a while now. How come that Anandtech article never mentioned any cold boot problems with F8 and F9?

 

[audscott]

Originally posted by: StopSign
Actually the X-Fi issue was fixed since F8. I meant I wanted to know if it fixes the cold boot problem because the new problem introduced in F8. It does not, therefore F10 is still no good.

With F9 my X-Fi drivers corrupted, or what-ever. I could reload but the overclock was crap, so went back to F6 until the F10 was posted.

Funny too: All my system drivers reloaded and Vista had to be reactivated. :evil: Activation was seamless though - didn't have to call MS or stand on my head in waste deep crap.

 

[DuncanA]

Originally posted by: audscott
I haven't updated my sig (will now) I'm running an X-Fi XtremeMusic - no problems at all!! Niceness all the way around thus far. No BSD's, shakey knees or bleeding from anywhere.

audscott, do you or did you ever experience the cold boot start issues? Are they gone in F10? Do you know of a bios that does not have the cold boot issue and detects X-Fi's properly?

 

[redhawk56]

Newegg recieved my RMA'd DS3 on Tuesday this week and I had to make a decision today about what to do. The DS3 was out of stock and I couldn't really make a decision on another board. I was about to pick an ASUS board when I noticed that all the ASUS boards I would pick had been changed from their normal return policy to a 30 day/no refund policy. I'm not sure why they did that, but it was enough to make me stop in my tracks and just tell them to refund my money. I lose the 15% restocking charge, but after paying for the board once and shipping 3 times, it was time to cut my losses.

I guess looking back on it, I should have bought a core2 for the DS3 instead of using a 920. I didn't realize at the time that they had so many problems with the P4 and PD cpu and the 965P chipset. I also didn't see anything about that in the Anandtech review. Actually a lot of the problems with the DS3 in particular have been glossed over by all the review sites.

IMO......there should be someone from GB who is plugged into the major forums and trying to help, but they dont seem to have that. I know the one time I got on the phone with GB technical people, they were very rude and very defensive and did not admit that any of the issues I had with the board even existed.

So in summary, I would never buy another GB board. But the sad thing is, I can't find another board that I'd buy either. Everyone of the manufacturers including Intel is beta testing their motherboards and bios on the public and I am tired of that game. So far in the last two years, I've scratched Intel, ECS, and Gigabyte off my list of vendors that I'd use for a motherboard. The shocking thing is that of the 3, if I had to pick one that I'd give a second chance to, it would be ECS. So I've reinstalled the C19-A SLI with my PD 920 and gone back to air cooling and have it all running at stock even though this board will overclock nicely. And you know what? The system runs perfectly.

So even though I've enjoyed all of your company, I'm gonna stop watching this thread. I wish you all well.

 

[audscott]

Originally posted by: DuncanA

Originally posted by: audscott
I haven't updated my sig (will now) I'm running an X-Fi XtremeMusic - no problems at all!! Niceness all the way around thus far. No BSD's, shakey knees or bleeding from anywhere.

audscott, do you or did you ever experience the cold boot start issues? Are they gone in F10? Do you know of a bios that does not have the cold boot issue and detects X-Fi's properly?

I never have had a cold boot problem with the DS3 or any board. I credit this to a UPS - the same as unplugging power cord from from the wall I suppose. Might be the Enermax 565 (535 WATT) - it's proven to be a great PSU. If anyone recalls the DFI NF4 board cold boot problem - a plague to lots of folk, which I didn't suffer through. :thumbsup:

 

[StopSign]

That has nothing to do with not having cold boot problems. It's purely a bios problem and you're one of the lucky ones.

 

[Endlessshampoo]

got bios f6 when i bought my d3. After 5 reboots my x.fi just disapeared. So i flashed to f9 and reinstalled the x-fi driver and im running with a oc of 3.0 ghz on my e6600 with nps but thats with a 1:1 divider.

 

[amenx]

The cold boot issue I had with the F8/F9 was only with OC'd settings, no problem with stock settings. Same with X-fi, at stock bios values it was always detected properly.

I should add that the X-fi no detect problem is not unique to DS3 boards, but others as well incl Asus.. this as seen at the Creative forum.

 

[AdamK47]

Is there an AHCI driver I can use for the DS3? I enabled AHCI and booted into Windows off of my RAID setup. It required a driver after setting AHCI for the ICH8. I downloaded the Intel Matrix Storage manager software, but it says my computer does not meet the minimum requirements. I'd like to get my backup SATA drive working with this.

Edit: I'm using the F10 BIOS with the option to set AHCI for the ICH8 chipset.

 

[DuncanA]

Originally posted by: amenx
The cold boot issue I had with the F8/F9 was only with OC'd settings, no problem with stock settings. Same with X-fi, at stock bios values it was always detected properly.

I should add that the X-fi no detect problem is not unique to DS3 boards, but others as well incl Asus.. this as seen at the Creative forum.

You are correct. Using the F9 bios only gives me cold boot issues *if* I overclock. It's weird because it works fine on F7, not sure what the deal is with F8 and F9.

 

[ThePiston]

I keep hearing about HDD drivers for this board - do I need them? I'm using a Raptor in one of the non-raid controllers and I have already installed the mobo drivers...

 

[StopSign]

Then you already installed the drivers and you're fine. The drivers are for the JMicron controller to function as SATA.

 

[AdamK47]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: StopSign
I'm not sure if it was ever "fixed" or not but my RAM is rated at 2.1 and I booted with two sticks at 1.8 when I first put my system together.

Originally posted by: ThePiston
quick F10 update - the ram timings are gone in F10 and replaced by 2 options - option 1 for ram running <1000Mhz and option 2 for ram running >1000Mhz. I could get my FSB a little higher than with F7-F9 at 465 (could have gone higher but still do not have good cooling). My pseudo-top speed really didn't change much with any config (~3.4Ghz) and I still got the cold boot problem - really badly too. Last night I booted up and checked email at 7X465 with everything mostly at stock (ram at 2.1 and cpu at 1.40) but then i rebooted and had to back it way down to boot again. I left it at 8X410 which was really stable at night and tried to boot in the morning - it went threw 20 on/off cycles before I finally had to clear CMOS. Bottom line: F10 suffers from same cold boot issue and you can't fine-tune ram.

That pretty much answers my questions about F10...

Yep. Me too.

/holds down Shift, right clicks downloaded D10 bios, clicks Delete

I don't understand how ThePiston could say that the RAM timing selections are gone in F10. They are there and they work.

 

[dolphumous]

Hmmm, which controller gives best performance anyway?

 

[ThePiston]

I don't understand how ThePiston could say that the RAM timing selections are gone in F10. They are there and they work.

i'll have to recheck - i do my computer stuff late at night and i could have missed it...

 

[vailr]

Originally posted by: AdamK47 3DS
Is there an AHCI driver I can use for the DS3? I enabled AHCI and booted into Windows off of my RAID setup. It required a driver after setting AHCI for the ICH8. I downloaded the Intel Matrix Storage manager software, but it says my computer does not meet the minimum requirements. I'd like to get my backup SATA drive working with this.

Edit: I'm using the F10 BIOS with the option to set AHCI for the ICH8 chipset.

The AHCI setting only applies to SATA drives connected to one of the 2 purple JMicron SATA ports. And, not all SATA hard drives support "AHCI mode", only very recently released drives. The DS3 board uses the ICH8-non "R" chipset. So, the Intel Matrix Storage drivers are only for Intel Raid chipsets. The DS3 board does provide Raid, but only via the JMicron Raid controller (purple ports only).
The latest JMicron driver can be found here:
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/jmicron.htm
Use these drivers to make a floppy disk for a fresh Windows install (press F6 while booting from the Windows install CD). The target SATA boot drive (connected to a purple port) can be AHCI mode for either Raid or non-Raid.
Note: not sure whether the AHCI setting would also apply to the orange Intel non-Raid SATA ports (doubtful).

 

[AdamK47]

Originally posted by: vailr

Originally posted by: AdamK47 3DS
Is there an AHCI driver I can use for the DS3? I enabled AHCI and booted into Windows off of my RAID setup. It required a driver after setting AHCI for the ICH8. I downloaded the Intel Matrix Storage manager software, but it says my computer does not meet the minimum requirements. I'd like to get my backup SATA drive working with this.

Edit: I'm using the F10 BIOS with the option to set AHCI for the ICH8 chipset.

The AHCI setting only applies to SATA drives connected to one of the 2 purple JMicron SATA ports. And, not all SATA hard drives support "AHCI mode", only very recently released drives. The DS3 board uses the ICH8-non "R" chipset. So, the Intel Matrix Storage drivers are only for Intel Raid chipsets. The DS3 board does provide Raid, but only via the JMicron Raid controller (purple ports only).
The latest JMicron driver can be found here:
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/jmicron.htm
Use these drivers to make a floppy disk for a fresh Windows install (press F6 while booting from the Windows install CD). The target SATA boot drive (connected to a purple port) can be AHCI mode for either Raid or non-Raid.
Note: not sure whether the AHCI setting would also apply to the orange Intel non-Raid SATA ports (doubtful).

Yes, I've been running RAID since day 1 with this board. That works great. The new F10 BIOS has a ACHI mode available for the ICH8 non-R chipset. It seems to be doing something when I enable it. Once I'm in Windows (Windows XP is on my RAID Array) it detects a new PCI device and my 120GB Western Digital drive which is on the ICH8 disappears. It seems that GigaByte has found a way for ACHI to work on the non-R chipset.

 

[ThePiston]

Originally posted by: ThePiston

I don't understand how ThePiston could say that the RAM timing selections are gone in F10. They are there and they work.

i'll have to recheck - i do my computer stuff late at night and i could have missed it...

yrsh, i found it - i hadn't been hitting cntrl-F1

 

[AdamK47]

I've been doing some memory overclock testing. With all other BIOS revision I wasn't able to get a 1000MHz memory speed to hold an overclock. With F10 I don't get any cold boot BIOS resets. It boots up fine each time I've tried to boot my system at 1000MHz memory speed (400 x 2.5).

Edit: This is with a memory voltage of 1.8V (Normal). Also, with F8 and F9 I had to set the MCH to +.1V to even boot at 400MHz FSB. With F10 I can leave it at Normal. All voltages are at their default normal value in the BIOS except the CPU which is at 1.300V @ 3.2GHz. F10 is a winner for me.

 

[amenx]

Yep, similar positive experiences with the F10, no more cold boots and my X-fi has booted up properly in over a dozen reboots. I'm happy with this bios!

 

[ScythedBlade]

MichaelD: Shift, Right Click, Label Nub

Anyway, the BIOS is actually pretty good. It finally fixed my 450 FSB unstableness when I turn on EIST and C1E....

 

[yiranhu]

Thanks for all the posting on F10 bios. Now you just made me want to try it . We'll see how that goes.
I'm currently running F7 with C2D 6300 at 400 x 7 at 1.25 Volts completely stable. I would be happy if F10 can just replicate this...

On a separate note, I just turned on RAID, WITHOUT installing windows over. (couldn't reinstall windows because no floppy + slipstream could not work for some reason). JMicron's driver was perfectly happy to let me set it up in windows. I setup raid 0 and that thing just started chugging away (to form the stripping). 5 hours later, the computer stopped responding at 90%!! I thought I was F***ed. But after resetting, everything seemed right... Bios says stripping is on, and windows loaded without fuss...

Checked HDTACH and found that sequential reading speed increased from 60 to 100 MB/sec. So I'm happy. NOT HAPPY ABOUT THAT 90% stuck thing though because I can't even get these to redo this process make sure everything is peachy!

 

[xboxist]

Question:

I'm running revision F4 with this board, and it's been flawless thus far. If run everything at stock speeds and could care less about OC'ing, would you even bother with a new BIOS revision if you were me?

 

[yiranhu]

well just installed new bios. Seems great. all the old OC setting worked. finally...