OT Think upgrading is easy?

JJKizak wrote on 1/23/2008, 11:07 AM
After purchasing a slug of stuff from newegg went to work to install it.

Sony BWU200S burner
Kingston 8 gig of memory DDR2 800
Gigabyte board
Q6600
800 watt power supply
Seagate Sata drives
EVA 512 video card
Vista 64 bit Ultimate
Rosewill Network card

Lots of problems setting bios and three partition "C" drive.
Guru buddy stopped in and when he left the machine was in his capable hands.
While he was on the phone with Gigabyte techs this is what transpired:

1. This board has such good capacitors that if you have to clear the bios you must pull out all cards including the video card and memory and short the battery before the bios will reset. Otherwise it will just chug along like a one lung John Deere tractor.
2..If you leave the fan controls in auto you will get a very prolonged beep at the start of the post. Recommended to keep in manual.
3..Must set the bios to AHCI if you have all SATA drives. There is RAID, RAID/AHCI, IDE. If you do not the drives and processor will run at
half speed. (I did it wrong)
4..Gigabyte recommends not to dual boot between 32 and 64 bit OS's because the bios power control is set up with HPET for 64 bit and 32 bit so everytime you change the boot you have to change the bios.
5..The board comes with the F6 bios and they recommend not to update to the F7 bios because it is more unstable.
6..Recommend to set processor temp warning to 70C.
7..In my memory "case" the auto position sets the voltage to 1.8 volts and it works out to 667 speed. Must use manual to set the voltage to 2.0 volts to get 800 speed.
8. Do not select the control processor speed by demand in the bios.
9. They also said Vista not quite what it is supposed to be at this time. Don't know any particulars other than the virtual additions.
10. If you do partition and go into the bios and switch from AHCI to RAID or IDE then back to AHCI again you will wipe some of your operating systems mostly Vista. Big no-no. (it works, I did it)
11. You can overclock the crap out of this thing. I did not.
12. The board comes with the built in 7.1 HD sound.
13. Installed XP PRO 32

All of this info is not in the manual. Guru had to double zero the "C" drive to get all the crap off. All is well now and I will crank up things Friday.
JJK

Comments

craftech wrote on 1/23/2008, 11:32 AM
JJ,

Is this the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 (rev. 2.0) or the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (rev. 2.0)?

Or is it the GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.0) that has had lots of bios issues?
Kennymusicman wrote on 1/23/2008, 1:20 PM
FWIW - I have a GA-P35-DS3R (rev2) and it's FANTASTIC
JJKizak wrote on 1/23/2008, 2:26 PM
Craftech:
It is a GA-X38-DQ6 X38 775 RTL. The Gigabyte tech said it also had a sub bios so that you could make it do what ever you want. Not sure what that means.

JJK
Kennymusicman wrote on 1/23/2008, 3:14 PM
Are you sure your guru buddy is not just pulling your leg a bit?

1. Huh - just pull the power cord and short for 5-10 sec. Standard on every board (inc gigabyte I've ever used - included the all-solid capacitors - works on mine (I have several gigabyte boards)
2. Not convinvced of that either - the beeps at start of post specifiy certain info.
3. As long as you set this before OS installation, you're safe. - depends on drives you're using.
4. I dual boot all the time and don't have any of this - the OS loads after bios - this doesn't make sense for it to keep switching
5. F7 depends on boards - some possible instabilities - although I think they've tweaked it a bit since it was first released, without changing its name. I've been running F7 for long time without instability
6. Up to you
7. Nope. Just set your multipliers correctly. Voltage varies on RAM. Mine goes to 800 @ 1.8v
8. dunno
9. Vista is very much easier to install if you have a later release CD - updated device drivers make ALL the difference from RTM cd's
10. As mentioned above - set it before OS install.
11. Secret - use manual multiplier, not automatic. (make it 2), and overclock to to hearts content
12. The board comes with the built in 7.1 HD sound. And it's pretty neat too. Realtek done a good job - just don't put any pressure on the contacts with stretched wires/fat connectors
13. Down to you..


Running gigabyte boards as stated. F7. Q600 @ 3.15Ghz, 1400FSB. Nothing clever - just set multiplier to 2, and memory to 350 (it's 800ddr, so I could go way higher, but I happy at it's current speed). There is a modifier (shift ?on power on) that opens up teh advanced section of the bios if you want to play with timings of your RAM. Another joy about "underclocking" my ram is I can run it on tighter CAS/RAS latencies.

Hope that helps

Ken
JJKizak wrote on 1/23/2008, 3:40 PM
kennymusicman:
1. Gigabyte tech told him to do that because it would not clear the conventional way.
2. The beep was immediate and very long caused by a feedback loop in the fan circuit if the fans are set to auto. Again from the Gigabyte tech.
3. With the three OS's loaded by me and then switching from AHCI to IDE the Vista 64 got wiped out. Tha''s when I handed the computer to him.
4. You have to manually switch the bios (HTEP Power section) before switching the OS if you have a 32/64 bit Dual boot OS combination. Again Gigabyte tech said this.
5. OK
6. OK
7. It used to work in auto in the old days.
8. The drives are Seagate SATA 3 16meg cache
I am really happy that it is working but the manual doesn't explain half of what is going on between RAID/AHCI/IDE/HTEP and the supposed sub bios (Gigabyte tech) said that could set up for anything you want.
JJK
Kennymusicman wrote on 1/23/2008, 4:04 PM
1) fair enough! lol
2) ditto
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface (if you want to know why)
4) Only Vista recognises HPET, nothing before (XP etc). Could cause some audio errors I suppose - always worth experimenting 'not' switching in a dual boot to see if you suffer problems.
7) yea.. p54 of your manual has the guides Set "System memory multiplier" to 2, and then configure your "cpu host control clock" to something easy like 300, and then test, and increment in 10Mhz steps.
8) p77 onwards is all about raid/ ahci etc.

Hope that helps..
ps. shortcut for extra features in bios = ctrl+F1 (p39)
JJKizak wrote on 1/23/2008, 4:49 PM
kennymusicman:
I forgot to mention that it was the peak of the full moon. Whenever Vegas 64 bit comes out at least I know what buttons to push. But then there may be a few more acronyms to deal with.
JJK
craftech wrote on 1/23/2008, 5:41 PM
JJ,
The only thing I have read about that model was that it was finnicky about ram and worked better with two sticks of ram than four for many people.

There is a slide series showing some recommended settings over at Tom's Hardware.

If it crashes again, try some of those BIOS settings and/or removing two ram sticks.

John
JJKizak wrote on 1/24/2008, 7:40 AM
I can live with the ram voltage up and down bit. What snowed me was there was nothing in the manual that said you "must" use AHCI when you have SATA drives or all your speeds will be cut in half. You have to screw around for hours trying different things to see what works because they fail to write one sentence in the manual. And why do you still have to go to the website to download the RAID drivers even before you load the OS? They could have put them on the install disc as they have everything else but the kitchen sink. But I still like their boards. I have three other boards with AMD processors. I am still trying to find someplace in the manual that says "AHCI required for SATA drive control" and "HPET has to be set for 32/64 bit operation" or "Vista requires HPET 32/64 bit setting to be correctly set" And "Warning, do not switch out of AHCI in the bios after operating system is installed or the operating system will be damaged". And when the Gigabyte tech says don't upgrade to the F7 bios I listen. I have a gulible problem in that I believe everything that anybody says until proven wrong. Kennymusicman & craftech thanks for your input.
JJK
TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/24/2008, 7:53 AM
I opened up the boxes for my Asus/AMD Quad core 3 hours before work. 100% new everything. Had OS installed before I left for work.

I thought I took long. :D

I've found it's better to partition with Linux first if you install that. Setup linux then your Win OS's. Then, when you're all done & MS has basically butchered the MBR, put the linux install disc back in & re-install it's boot manager.

craftech wrote on 1/24/2008, 8:36 AM
What snowed me was there was nothing in the manual that said you "must" use AHCI when you have SATA drives or all your speeds will be cut in half. You have to screw around for hours trying different things to see what works because they fail to write one sentence in the manual. And why do you still have to go to the website to download the RAID drivers even before you load the OS? They could have put them on the install disc as they have everything else but the kitchen sink.
=============
It's a common problem.
The Raid Driver install discs should have come with the motherboard. Even OEM versions of motherbiards are supposed to include them.

Often the procedure for a proper setup and install isn't laid out in motherboard manuals and you have to end up reading FAQ at the manufacturer's website or reading through a user group's website before you even begin. My Intel board was like that.

The BIOS will usally have three SATA modes:

IDE: which emulates a standard IDE controller

ACHI: that offers slightly higher perfromance, but that doesn't support RAID.

RAID: which supports BOTH RAID and non-RAID.

"RAID" is the recommended mode because it does everything the other two do.

Even if you don't plan to install RAID, I would have enabled RAID mode in the BIOS and then loaded both the primary and secondary RAID drivers when you installed Windows.
If RAID or ACHI isn't enabled by default in the BIOS setup of modern boards you must enable it before the drivers will load correctly or even be listed in the software installer user interface.

Mine had two SATA RAID controllers and I had to install both. One was Intel and the other was third party (Marvell). The Marvell controller isn't natively supported by any operating system so the driver disc is a must. If you don't use the secondary controller you have to disable it in the BIOS. Both Raid drivers will also supply their own management consoles within Windows, but they will run without them so if they aren't installed it's not a big deal.

Once you selected the SATA mode in the BIOS (ACHI or whatever) you can't change it after you install Windows. If you do, it won't boot.

John
4eyes wrote on 1/24/2008, 11:06 AM
I still prefer the new ASUS MB's.
With mine I don't have to bother with MBR (master boot record) for multi-booting.
To install Linux I just put another drive in and installed it to that drive.
When my ASUS machine boots you hit the "ESC" key, select what drive to boot from and that's it, including external usb drives if connected.
The BIOS performs the correct enumeration to the Operating System so I have 4-6 drives, 2 with Vista, 1 with XP & the other for Linux. All the windows installs are C: Drive, others are video/audio data. So that's 4 systems to choose & boot to.
So much easier than past years.

Capturing HDV High Def under linux has many more options than windows, works nice and Vegas reads them using it's sony mpeg encoder, not the mainconcept encoder.
Depends on what version of Linux your using, there are so many of them.
apit34356 wrote on 1/24/2008, 11:23 AM
JJKizak, I think the tech meant about the "sub bios" is that some MB now have a secondary BIOs chip or has a very large BIO chip is partition into "2". You can programming the secondary with the a backup copy of the good BIOs and then modify the old BIOs as needed, knowing that you have a good BIOs backup if everything goes bad with the changes.
LReavis wrote on 1/24/2008, 11:56 AM
I used a Gigabyte MB several years ago and it was a winner. However, when the Core 2 duo chips came out, I bought an Asus P5B (after spending a lot of time on Tom's Hardware, Anandtec, etc. reading about various motherboards) and had it working in perhaps a couple of hours.

Recently I pulled the E6400 and put in a Q6600 and it worked flawlessly even without a bios update except for some bios error message that I ignored. When I updated the bios, even that quirk disappeared. Overclocked it to 3.05 gHz and it runs very cool and stable.

I then put the E6400 on a new Asus P5?? (I can't remember which flavor, but it had a built-in GPU for VGA) motherboard for a friend and couldn't install the OS (WinXP). Sent the motherboard back to NewEgg and received a new one about a week later without any hassle. The new one was working within an hour (we had already installed the new power supply, new hard drive, new DVD drive, etc. into the new case for the faulty motherboard). Total cost for the computer with excellent power supply, 2 GB Corsair memory, etc.: about $450 (he already had a keyboard, monitor, etc.). We overclocked it to about 2.8 gHz, as I recall, and he's a happy citizen. I believe we never entered the bios except to overclock it. So far I'm quite satisfied with the Asus P5 series.

I recently ran into my first incompatibility: I couldn't get a WD 750 GB hard drive to run off the MB's SATA ports, even though my Seagate 750 worked without a hitch. So I bought I SATA 2-port card for maybe $20 and now it works too. Something is strange about those WD drives - they're supposed to be compatible with both SATA 1 and SATA 2, but that drive also would not work with my USB>Sata adapter, and I'm thinking maybe those WD drives only work with SATA 2 (I believe my P5B is only SATA-1 compatible).
4eyes wrote on 1/24/2008, 5:55 PM
The new seagate sata drives come shipped with a mini jumper so it only runs at 1.5Gig. It's a very small jumper and located on the back of the drive where the connections are.
It's easy to miss, remove the jumper if the MB support's Sata 3Gbs.

On the Asus boards I found if using the onboard audio I may had to change the audio setting from "Auto" to "Enabled". When I installed my ATI HD2600XT-Pro it installs/has a sound chip on that video card with drivers that route the sound out the hdmi connector along with the hdmi video signal.
This also showup under audio devices in windows sound configuration ultility.
When the bios saw this it disabled the onboard hd-Audio chipset. I had to change the bios setting to "Enabled" to get the onboard sound working again.