Gigabyte GA-EP45-Extreme Appreciation Society

BusError · 6 Nov 2008 at 17:56

OcUK is selling this really over the top board for a very competitive price. So join the club here !

I wanted to replace a P35 board, wanted 2 Gigabits, firewire, and good cooling support to run an operating system that is neither Windows nor Linux

D). This one was out of the equation until I realised it was cheaper than the DS5 !

Please post any tip & tricks here !

DJ_Switch · 6 Nov 2008 at 19:11

Good job on starting the thread, BusError.

Just looking at the picture there...mine seems slightly different in that there's the waterblock and the heatpipe add on that screws in beside it. The picture makes it look like one or the other. It is good to have the option to go for watercooling at some point although at the moment I really can't see the need for it.

Just for the reference of anyone wondering about the cooling connections.

w3bbo · 6 Nov 2008 at 19:19

Nice photo - who took that?

DJ_Switch · 6 Nov 2008 at 19:29

It wasn't me that took that photo but I'll need to take some pics of the new build soon and post them up in the new builds section.

BusError · 6 Nov 2008 at 19:31

Yes I think the OcUK picture I link to is some sort of prototype, my production board is the same as DJ's
I'm not sure myself I'll ever use the watercooling at all, but the heatpipe seems to be doing quite a good job as regulating the temperature. Also it prevents "hot spots" on the board, it must be significant for longevity as there is a lot less thermal stress.

On a side note, I also installed one of these :

I wanted mostly to use the temp sensors to monitor places where there isn't any. So far the memory runs at 36C, the PSU at 30, the case at 25C.

Edit: found a lame bug in this controller. I'm returning it.

It's a reasonably good buy, the quality externally is fine and I like VCDs. The soldering at the back is a bit less polished, but I can't complain. Plenty of cables (including a pair of spare sensors!)

Someone also lent me one of these:

This one is more doubtful. it's quite bulky and sits in front of the fan of the CPU cooler. Also, strangely enough, it does /not/ nake the memory any cooler. With the fan at 3/4 speed using the fan controller, the memory temo sensor still reports.... 36C !
I think that what happends is that it's it's bulk cancels the normal case airflow, and the fans just compensates for /that/. I don't think I'll keep it or buy one for myself...

w3bbo · 6 Nov 2008 at 19:33

Just yanking your chain DJ. It was me who took that photo and me who wrote the review. Would have been nice not to crop the review sites name from it tho - give credit when using other peoples photos tbh

.

EP45 Extreme review

DJ_Switch · 6 Nov 2008 at 19:55

My apologies. It was a good review and was wanting to link to it but I thought it would be against the rules to link to other sites. That was the only reason I cropped it as well...seen a few people getting touchy about linking to things from here so was perhaps a bit too cautious. Once again, apologies, it is a good review.

Fixed

w3bbo · 6 Nov 2008 at 20:17

We are in no way a competitor to OCUK or affiliated with them (yet although that might change soon fingers crossed) - we actually use OCUK as recommended retailers on occasions. Its only links to competitors which OCUK mods don't like for obvious reasons. OCUK were the cheapest we could find selling this board at the time of review too so in effect its a free advert for them

!

Anyway....The board is great, a tad low performing compared to some of the other boards available but that was based on our Q6600 test rig. With a wolfy I'm sure it will be stonkingly fast (as proven on some hardcore overclocking sites).

BusError · 7 Nov 2008 at 18:25

Any of you guys can shed some light on the voltage "drop" that is measured, compared to the voltage that is set in the bios ? I get .02-.04 or so difference, it looks significant..

Could it be my PSU that is not beefy enough ? I got the PSU because it has a nice 120mm on it and is truely silent, however it's nowhere near the most powerful on the shelves.. I'm also wondering if that 500W is now under what I should use...

DJ_Switch · 8 Nov 2008 at 02:38

Did you have any problems updating the bios from a USB, BusError?

I unpacked the bios (correct one) onto the USB stick although QFlash just can't seem to detect it or the USB for some reason. The stick was FAT32 formatted and the file name is correct. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

smids · 8 Nov 2008 at 08:56

No problems here on a GA-EP45-UD3P... I think they are virtually the same in this regard. I used a Corsair Flash Voyager FAT32 formatted 2GB drive. I love this board!

BusError · 8 Nov 2008 at 10:05

DJ_Switch said:
Did you have any problems updating the bios from a USB, BusError?

I unpacked the bios (correct one) onto the USB stick although QFlash just can't seem to detect it or the USB for some reason. The stick was FAT32 formatted and the file name is correct. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I think you need the "USB Legacy" option turned on or something similar. Also in QFlash, you select "HDD" and not floppy. It's not very user friendly

DJ_Switch · 8 Nov 2008 at 14:21

The USB legacy option is set to enabled and it's seeing the drive, under the floppy A section, however the file doesn't appear. It does show that there is 1mb taken up on the USB stick though but only shows <DIR> and then nothing, 0 Files Found. I really am at a loss now.

BusError · 8 Nov 2008 at 14:41

hmm you copied it to the root of the drive, and kept the name exactly the same ? You checked the size too ?
I used a crapo usb stick myself, with just that file on:

Code:

[michel@yelp ~]% ll /Volumes/USB\ DISK            
total 2048
-rwxrwxrwx  1 michel  staff  1048576  4 Nov 21:15 ep45ex.f8
[michel@yelp ~]% md5 /Volumes/USB\ DISK/ep45ex.f8  
MD5 (/Volumes/USB DISK/ep45ex.f8) = e472e9fbc32b58590e75da6dfc2017f4

DJ_Switch · 8 Nov 2008 at 14:53

Yeah...I kept the file name the same although just dragged and dropped the file onto the stick. I'll try the way you suggested there. Thanks for the help.

As you can tell...this will be the first bios flash I've done and am just trying to get it right, and avoid using the @BIOS utility. I did read and reread everything although the manual isn't much help in the case of not using a floppy.

BusError · 8 Nov 2008 at 14:56

I used the flasher that is accessible via the bios (I don't even own a windows CD

), it worked without any problem...

DJ_Switch · 8 Nov 2008 at 15:41

I used the md5sum and verified that we've got the same "e472e9fbc32b58590e75da6dfc2017f4" and all is correct so I don't know what it's problem is. It's strange how the stick is showing up under floppy rather than HDD though. About the only thing left that I can try is using a different USB stick and seeing if there's any difference.

EDIT: I just used another USB stick and formatted it using FAT rather than FAT32 and it worked 1st time. Mad! Cheers for the swift replies, BusError.

BusError · 8 Nov 2008 at 16:21

Welcome! I must have been lucky using that old, crummy 128MB stick that I had lying around

Do you notice anything different on the board behaviour ? Since I updated mine right away, I don't know how significantly different it is...

DJ_Switch · 8 Nov 2008 at 17:19

Finally. Haha! Yeah...it worked from the old 256mb stick I had although couldn't read anything from the newer 4gb one. It was either the size of it or that I formatted the old one to FAT rather than FAT32 which did the trick. Either way I'm just glad it's up to date now.

As far as the differences go I've not noticed too much. The only real difference I noticed was that it had correct set the timings of my memory this time around. I had to input them manually the last time. I still had to change the voltage to the right amount although it was good that it set the correct timings this time.

I'm still having a few problems increasing the VCORE though. Even with it set to 1.225 it's still only showing as 1.64 -1.84 in CPU-Z and continually jumpes between the 2. I'm sure it's just something I've not set correctly though. The overclocking is very much a learning experience for me at the moment but I'm sure I'll suss it out. The highest I've pushed it yet was just up to 3.85ghz although that was on the same 1.64 -1.84v so as soon as I get the VCORE setting to stick at what I input then I'll be able to get a bit more out of it. At full load in prime I'm only seeing temps of around the mid 40's so I'm quite happy with that so far.

Having the power button on the MB has been a Godsend though as I'm missing an adaptor for the power button on the stupid Comos S.

BusError · 9 Nov 2008 at 11:34

Wierd that your vcore would jump; mine is steady (save for the rather constant "drop" I mentioned before). Do you have a modern, trusted PSU ? 1.8 or 1.6V are /bad/ too (way too high), if the reading is true...(!)
You sure it's not 1.164 ? If so it could be explained by the motherboard using speedstep to underclock/undervolt the CPU when not in use.

I tried a bit more play yesterday; I tried to see how much I could push on stock voltage (1.22 here) and it goes very nicely a 3.43Ghz ! I'm quite impressed with that...