Where Are The Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 Motherboards?

[PafetikBezerka]

Originally posted by: Blazer7
Mr PafetikBezerka,

Unfortunately it seems that there is no nVidia utility that will help you fix your raid or id the hd that caused your array to degrade. There are a couple of threads over at nVidia's forums on the subject but the guys there don't seem to have an answer either. According to what the guys there have posted, the degradation of mirror arrays has been observed on various nVidia based boards, some of them with the 680.

For what is worth here are a couple of links : link1, link2

It seems that this is an ?nVidia? problem that occurs mostly on Vista based systems.

Mr Blazer7, thank you.

Vista has completed the reopair successfully.
At least I know a possible cause now, as thier description of the problem is exactly as I had. Luckily for me I've found a way of repairing easily.

 

[overpowered]

I tried overclocking a couple nights ago. I used Gigabyte's Easytune and tried to get my E6600 up to 2.8GHz using "Easy mode". The system hung. I hit the reset button. The system came up and did a chkdsk of C:. It made some repair and rebooted. Now it always hangs on "Loading your personal settings". The little "rainbow" thing in the startup message box keeps cycling but it never gets past that. I let it go 13.5 hours with nothing. It happens when I try to boot in "Safe Mode". I've reset my CMOS settings. I booted the XP x64 CD, went into repair mode and did a chkdsk /p (no errors).

Does anyone know how to turn off the stuff in "Loading your personal settings" from the command line (repair mode)?

Does anyone know how to disable auto-login from the command line so I can log in as "Administrator" to see if maybe that one's personal settings don't hang?

 

[MraK]

As i could see with you GriMRapeR, that you do indeed have 4gigs running on your board how did your system fare with the game Crysis? Call of Duty 4?? (thats if you have both games)

 

[octop8]

Hello all, I've just come across this thread and wish that I had read this before I bought my QX6850. I have the rev 1 board (F4 bios) and have been running the X6800 for 6 months now. I switched over to the QX6850 a month ago. Also have the 8800GTX on SLI. The odd thing is, I haven't had many problems with my system. I've been running the QX6850 at 1333FSB, with my RAM at 500MHz (2:3) at 2.3V.

I've run P95 for 5 hours w/o problems and have hit 17k on 3DM06. I had some blue screens (very occasionally) but I thought it was due to the NV beta drivers. Upped the multiplier and ran the system at 3.3GHz for 3DM05 and broke 22k. I also played Crysis for a couple of hours on this system. I hope I haven't jinxed myself here but it does now seem that the (very few) BSODs could be caused by the QX6850/board incompatibility.

However, the system does run somewhat stable (ok I could have run P95 for 9-12 hours), at least it can do 1333FSB. Could it be because I haven't overclocked the system or should I actually switch back to my old CPU? I'm worried about long-term damage or a sudden irrecoverable breakdown in my system! And Merry Xmas to all!

 

[Blazer7]

Mr octop8,

I'm surprised to learn that you are running a QX6850 @stock with this mobo, especially since the GA-N680SLI-DQ6 rev 1 board does not support it, at least according to Gigabyte. My guess is that the occasional BSOD is caused by the board/cpu incompatibility although I can't swear on it despite Gigabyte's claims.

If you have no problem with the occasional BSOD then there is nothing stopping you from keeping this cpu on your rig. As long as you are not ocing there shouldn't be any problem with the longevity of your components either. Even a mild oc shouldn't become a problem as all manufacturers produce their components, especially their high-end parts, with the knowledge that some users will oc them. Because of this, the tolerances of most high-end components, especially on cpus and motherboards, are such that these components will withstand at least a mild oc without any noticeable effect on their longevity.

If you are satisfied with your system I suggest that you keep it as is, BIOS ver and settings included. If your cpu is performing as it should then you are indeed very lucky. Messing with your rig in any way may disturb the fine balance you have it in and will most certainly result in more issues. This of course is just my humble opinion. I can't help it though but wonder how you did it especially with that crappy F4 BIOS.

Merry Christmas everyone.

 

[annihilat0r]

Hello to you all,

Thanks for this great informative thread. It's 90 pages long and full of information, however it also needs some sort of first post indexing all the separate information. So yes I got some problems and I've browsed like 30 pages but can't find the strength to browse any more, so forgive me if my questions have already been answered.

1. I've got a Rev 2 (which I now learned that is worse than Rev 1) board. Is it (still) impossible to hit 3.3GHz on a Quad 6600 GO with it ?
2. I have a Thermaltake Blue Orb II cooler which I used in my prev. board P5B Deluxe. It won't fit on this board. The copper piece named "silentpipe" just west of the CPU slot interferes (is too high) and it won't fit completely. So I'm stuck with the horrible stock cooler, with 50C idle at stock frequencies ! Is there a way to get around this ? Can I remove that part ?
3. If the answer to "2" is NO, I would like to buy a Zalman 9700 (which does a much better job of cooling anyway) but I also saw on this forum that some part of it needs to be cut in order to install. Is it tricky ? I saw that an instructive post by TheBeagle on the process of installing the 9700 being mentioned on this forum but I couldn't find it. Anyway, what air CPU cooler would you recommend me for this board aside from Zalman 9700 (which also preferably won't need some sort of modification to install) ?

I thought it was only Striker Extreme's problem not being able to overclock quads significantly but it now looks like it's the 680i chipset's problem. The reason I bought this board ($150) is that I wanted to SLI two GT's, but if the board lacks quad core overclocking there will probably be some sort of CPU bottleneck; which brings me to my second question: How do the 1333 FSB C2D's (especially E6750) overclock with this board ? Looks like their high FSB could cause problems, but they're certainly not quad core and would have significantly less problems. As a matter of fact I use my rig for gaming and I don't think my purchase of a quad core was really justified, as we see that the E6750 runs much much cooler and so overclocks easier and on a clock-per-clock basis it doesn't run slower than the Q6600 in most of the games.

I'm digressing, but if the answers are "Q6600 can't overclock beyond 3ghz on this board" and "E6750 overclocks great on this board" I would sell my Q6600 and get an E6750.

I'm anxiously waiting for your answers. Cheers.

 

[annihilat0r]

Oh, damn. I can't seem to boot at EVEN 3GHz with EVEN 1.4000 Vcore. Is it this way for everyone with a Q6600 ? The latest stable is 2.8GHz.

ALSO: I have problems with memory timings, spesifically: I can't see the "adjust memory timings" thing in the BIOS. From screenshots I got that it should be under the CPU freq. menu. But in my BIOS there is no such thing. My mobo is Rev2 and I've updated the BIOS.

It's probably my motherboard doesn't like my Geil Ultra sticks, isn't it ?

So, to clear:

- I have to either sell my Q6600 and get a 6750 (how good, "upgrading" from Quad to Dual); or run the quad in 2800MHz (while yesterday I was running it in 3600MHz with P5B Deluxe)

- Get some super RAMs that would "fit nicely" in this motherboard;

- Get a new CPU cooler because my old cooler which I was very happy with doesn't fit in this motherboard.

All those trouble, just to run a second 8800GT? Really?

 

[Blazer7]

Mr annihilat0r,

First of all welcome aboard.

Ref your quad oc inquiry, unfortunately the quads do not oc very well with either versions of this board. The Duos however are a completely different story. Both boards have no trouble ocing the Duos and are fully compatible with the 1333 FSB cpus. That said you should not have any trouble with the E6780 and you should expect it to scale quite well.

I wouldn't consider the rev 2 boards as inferior. The only ?noticeable? difference with the replacement of the southbridge is the absence of Linkboost. That's a ~2% disadvantage compared to rev 1 boards but it's only there when running SLI at high resolutions so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. It is known to us for sometime now that the QX6850 won't work on rev 1 boards but Gigabyte is still to announce whether the rev 2 boards will support the beast. There is no doubt as to whether the chipset can support the cpu as all 680 based boards from ASUS and MSI do support it with just a BIOS update. This delay may be an indication that there are some other differences between rev 1 & 2 boards, probably on the circuitry level and the rev 2 boards may be able to support the QX6850 in the end. Unfortunately with Gigabyte's record/level of support I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

Regarding cooling. My opinion is that you should not even think of removing any of the heatpipes or heatsinks. If the mobo craps out on you it will be very difficult to re-mount the heatpipes/heatsinks and Gigabyte will most certainly deny you an RMA or reject it as soon as they inspect the board.

Since you already got the mobo and your cooler does not fit you have no choice but to go for a replacement. I'm using the Thermalright SI-128. It is a good cooler and it does not need any modifications to fit on the board. It also gives you the advantage of choosing the fan of your liking and it is fairly light. The only downside is that because of its design and all the heatpipes surrounding the cpu socket it will give you a hard time with the push-pins as there is no easy access to all of them.

The Zalman 9700 is very popular with this board and I'm sure that Mr Beagle or some other gent will be more than happy to give you the necessary instructions as to how it must me modded to fit the board. This is undoubtedly an excellent cooler and it has the advantage of being quiet. Because of its design it is quite likely that you will be able to use it with future mobos also.

Speaking of RAM, many guys here use 4 sticks of Crucial Ballistix 1066MHz memory without any problems. I'm using 4x1GB 1066MHz G.Skills without any problems also. Some guys run into trouble with Corsair Dominators and OCZ reapers so I would avoid them if I were you.

Since you are interested in SLI I take it that you'll be using your system mostly for gaming and since DX10 is Vista only you'll have no choice but to go for it. If you'll be using Vista64 then I suggest that you go for an 8GB setup right from the start even if this means that you'll have to sacrifice some speed. If you'll be using Vista32 then you won't benefit from the 8GBs as 32bit OSs cannot allocate more than 3.2-3.3GBs. In this case I suggest that you go for 1 2-stick 4GB kit. This will be good enough for Vista32 and you'll still have room for another 2 sticks. This way if you ever decide to move to a 64bit OS and want to up your mem all you have to do is get yourself another 2-stick 4GB kit and there you go. Prices for these kits are going down and some of them are SLI ready.

Regarding your cpu dilemma, I'm not so sure that it's worth replacing your cpu. Ok, Duos are better for gaming these days but things are moving towards quad-cores and the future lies with them, no doubt here. Duos oc well with this board while quads don't. The best choice for a cpu for our board is probably one of the unlocked quads but their price is simply insane.

Another interesting choice for a cpu could be a ?new? 45nm Wolfdale? dual-core. These cpus will feature 1333FSB, 2x3MB L2 cache + SSE4 support. Unfortunately there is no official support for them yet and no one can say whether they will oc well or even if the board will support them at all. There's also talk that Intel will delay the launch of the new dual-core cpus for a couple of months or even more. This is because AMD doesn't have anything new to offer that can possibly threaten Intel's reign in this segment of the market, or any other for that matter.

SLI is another issue that you may want to thing about. Personally I don't think that it's worth all these sacrifices on your part just for SLI, especially if you consider all the disadvantages that come with it. It is much harder to upgrade your graphics sub-system if it consists of 2 cards not to mention that a next gen VGA will probably outperform any current SLI setup, at least that's the trend so far. You should also expect that the power consumption of a single next gen card will be lower than a current SLI setup. On top of that single cards are likely to suffer fewer driver issues. It is also much harder to upgrade your mobo as there are not many choices for SLI mobos out there and that's unlikely to change in the future unless Intel get their hands on a license from nVidia. Given the trick they played on nVidia with the Yorkfields I doubt that anyone can tell whether they will be getting an SLI license in the future.

There is rumour that nVidia will release a new line of G92 high-end cards to replace the 8800GTX/Ultra cards. Given the improvement of current G92 cards compared to their elder siblings and the GTX/Ultra cards, a replacement of the GTX/Ultras with new G92 variants looks inevitable. Since G92 production is ramping up and costs of G92 cores is going down I don't think that there will be any reason for nVidia not to replace their top of the line cards once the old G80 cards clear the channel.

 

[annihilat0r]

Hello Mr. Blazer7 and greetings from Istanbul,

Thanks for your informative reply.

Regarding Windows Vista and DX10 - no, DX10 has absolutely no performance or visual enhancements, moreover its performance is downright rotten in some benchmarks. So I won't be with Vista for quite some time and will stick with XP. So I don't even need 4GB RAM and I doubt anyone does as well.

I actually have two 8800 GT's already - saw a good deal and bought two of them for $400. Since I have a 550W PSU, all I needed (I thought) was a 680i motherboard and a new PSU and I would be good to go for SLI. I sold my previous P5B Deluxe for $130 and got this unused DQ6 for $150, so I didn't even spend money for this motherboard. However, now, it looks like I'll have to pull out another $70 at least for a good air cooler (9700) and anywhere between $150 and $300 for good sticks of 2 or 4G RAM. Plus, I have to use my CPU at maximum 2800MHz instead of 3600MHz ! This 800MHz difference, given that overclocking clock-per-clock benefits the quads more than other processors will most likely offset much of the performance I will gain from a second 8800GT. And honestly, I don't think the new RAMs will give me more performance, I will be buying them just because this motherboard needs very good RAMs. Actually I was very happy with my current RAM sticks (2x1GB Geil Ultra)

I think I have found what to do - I will sell this board and get a P35-DS4 (rev 1, though), will buy a 9700 with the money I will get from the trade, will sell both of the GT's and will get a G92 GTS, netting another $200. So there you have it, I'll be at minimum 3500MHz with arguably the fastest card out there and with 200$ more in my pockets

 

[GriMRapeR]

Originally posted by: MrAK
As i could see with you GriMRapeR, that you do indeed have 4gigs running on your board how did your system fare with the game Crysis? Call of Duty 4?? (thats if you have both games)

Yes I have both games. Crysis I can play @ 1680x1050 on high settings with AAx4 and I get about 35 fps which is very playable but the system definately cannot max Crysis out but then again even if I was running 2 8800GTX's in SLI I doubt I would be able to max the game as it was built for systems in 2 years from now (or so the developers say). Anyway, its a different story with COD4. Everything is set to maximum including the highest AA and dynamic shadows all at 1680x1050 and I get around 65 fps which I am very happy with. The RAM performs well on both games but very rarly is fully utilized. I see the RAM sits around the 75 - 85% mark during both games.

 

[dlbetz]

I got the final f5 bios from Janus at Gigabyte.tw Seems to be working good so far If anyone else wants a copy of it pm me.

 

[eklock2000]

annihilat0r,

Welcome. I've been running the 9700 from day 1 and it's great.

Pics on page 20 of this thread...

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

I didn't mod anything like the Beagle, but rather, bought the Zalman adapter shown in the pics and did not use the backplate. The crazy cool is stiff enough that it's not needed.

Good Luck,

EK2K

 

[Blazer7]

Mr dlbetz,

Do you have any info on that F5 BIOS ? Is this the F5g gone official or is it something new ? It would be interesting if this is indeed an official release as it is not listed on Gigabyte's site. We know that this is common practice with their betas but it would be a first with an official release.

 

[dlbetz]

Mr Blazer Janus Told me it was well let me show you the email here it is:

Dear David

Thank you very much.

your MB is GA-N680SLI-DQ6 rev.1.0, last time I gave you F5G BIOS right?

Now it become normaL BIOS, F5.

Will you try it?

Janus

So Long story shory I think it would be the final. I can't complain being she is the only one that seems to talk to me about this board from Gigabyte.

 

[rt182]

ooo F5 final hit us up =P

 

[Kaptdeath]

If F5 is "official", why ain't it on the website? I am still using F5b (it's been ok). The only major issues I have been facing are "JRAID" errors. I don't know exactly what is causing them. I suspect that it is the Jmicron driver for the IDE, (but that ain't RAID). I have downloaded an updated driver from Jmicron and have been toying with the idea of installing it. Other than that I do get a lot of Dhcp and Tcpip warnings logged, but they appear to be a minor inconvenience. (I wonder if I should disable the LAN ports I'm not using?)

I have been using OCZ Reaper memory, and it seems to do ok for me. Of course I am running at normal speeds (1066) and normal timings (5-5-5-15).

The Zalman 9700 is an excellent cooler for this board and the Beagle's instructions on mounting it are perfect. My 6700 is clocked at 3.2Ghz and the fan rarely even turns on! I get a max core temp of 35C. (Now if I could get the N680 chipset to run that cool!)

I must admit, this board has greatly soured my opinion of Gigabyte though. I just noticed that they list the GA-N650SLI-DS4L as the replacement board.... We truly have been abandoned.

The Kapt'n

 

[Blazer7]

We've been expecting this F5 ?official? since August. Back then, this was supposed to be the one BIOS to smite all evil from our board. If this is just the F5g gone official I think I will pass. Last time I tried the F5g it gave me lots of trouble with my mem. I find it suspicious that they have it, yet it is not on their site.

The F5 was supposed to implement some new microcode for the upcoming penryns. I wonder if it does. Speaking of BIOS development, Gigabyte has always been trailing the other guys and since MSI & ASUS are still to introduce a BIOS that officially supports the Wolfdales (with the exception of 2 cpus ? kudos to MSI for this) I somehow doubt that Gigabyte beat them to it.

With the knowledge that the board won't work with Yorkfield and 780 boards on their way I don't believe that Gigabyte will continue the BIOS development for this board, at least not for long. This F5 may well be the last official for this one.

 

[Kaptdeath]

Blazer7,

I thought that I read (somewhere back about 5-10 pages) that the 780 was no real improvement over the 680. (I've been trying to keep up.)

Actually the 780 information in Gary's post on page 87 seems to be consistant with the 780 not being a big change from the 680.

It would seem that if you are willing to "settle" for a dual core, this board would be ok. In your opinion what would be the "best" dual core solution. (barring anything that starts with a 68xx, I still have to eat ya know.)

The Kapt'n

 

[Blazer7]

Hello Kapt'n.

You are correct, the 780 is not exactly a new chipset. It's actually a 680 with the addition of a pci-e 2 bridge chip. Initial testing has shown only marginal improvement over the 680 in single VGA & SLI setups. The 780 supports 3SLI but very few will care, so in terms of graphics performance I don't think that there's anything staggering about it. The big plus, at least from my point of view is Yorkfield support.

The problem that the 780 brings for us is that the moment it hits the stores no one will care for the 680. With the 680 out of the picture and the 780 in its place Gigabyte will probably say bye-bye to 680 support for good. I hope I'm wrong about this but I've completely lost faith in Gigabyte.

Regarding cpus. If our board ends up supporting Wolfdale then this will be enough for anyone that doesn't care for the quads although I can't think of anyone that has spent that much ca$h to be content with just a dual-core system. This is a high-end board and a dual-core may be acceptable for a start but logic, along with the writing on the box, says that this board was made with quad-core in mind.

Personally I started with the E6600 and was aiming for a quad only to change my mind at the very last moment and that because of Yorkfield. So right now I'm stuck with an E6850 and I can't justify the purchase on a new quad for use with this board, not with a 1066 FSB. So much for empty promises.

In my opinion and given the present Intel C2D lineup, the best dual-core for this board should be something running at speeds beyond that of the E6850 (3GHz). With 6MB L2 cache & SSE4 support a Wolfdale running @3.33GHz should be an interesting toy especially if it can oc as well as the E6600 or the E6850. Have in mind that some Wolfdales come with odd multipliers (E8500 ? 3.16GHz). No one can tell how this cpus will fair with our board and how this will affect mem speeds and settings.

 

[justinburton]

Read this short horror story if you are bored. Lesson of the day: 3-way SLI isn't supported on Windows XP, not yet at least!!! Ok I think I have the worst planning ever. I decided to add an 8800GTX to my system to make it 3-way sli system. I already had all of the requirements. So I finished my setup installed Windows XP and all. When I finished installing the Nvidia drivers, the SLI option was missing. I spent the whole day installing and uninstalling the latest drivers. I thought it might be hardware, but all 3 video cards were showing up in device manager. I finally read through some articles only to find 3-way sli isn't supported on XP and might not ever be. The worst thing is, the only way tgo get 2-way SLI to work is to physically unplug the 3rd (middle) card and put the old SLI bridge on. I guess I might have to go buy Windows Vista. Being that I have 4GB RAM, I think I should get 64 bit. BUt I have read and seen the performance on 64 bit is sub-par. Any suggestions?

 

[cdfire]

I think its safe to say that Gigabyte is a name to stay away from in the future. I can't speak for anyone else but I for one will never purchase from this company again nor shall I ever recommend them to anyone ever again. I have never felt so cheated out of my hard earned cash before. Live and learn I guess.

 

[rt182]

totaly true Mr CDfire one of the mistakes i will learn from btw been trying out F5 bios dont see much difference OCing is still horrible for my QX 6700 oh well hopefully 780i should fix it but definitly not going G-byte

 

[Bayard]

yeah supports been horrible from gigabyte. Bought a averdia HDTV card PCIe x1 and it didn't work. sent it back to newegg and received a 2nd new one. still doesn't work. think it's the PCIe x1 port... they want me to put in a different PCIe card to check.... not easy finding one since not many cards are made for the PCIe port. And that means I have to pay for another PCIe card which I don't need.

 

[TheBeagle]

Greetings & Salutations To Everyone!

I wish to extend to everyone a sincere hope that each one of you enjoys a Peaceful and Prosperous New Year. We all have something to be thankful for, and I especially am thankful for reasonably good heath and a wonderful wife.

Best New Year's Regards To Everyone!! TheBeagle :beer:

 

[witas]

I have problem with this MB, after some while whole computer freeze. I use basic settings, but it does not help. it freeze after different time, sometimes in windows, sometimes in bios. I have F4 bios, CPU E6750, GPU 8800 GTS, RAM GEIL 1066 CL4.