Gigabyte DS3/DS4/DQ6 Guide

nVIDIA_Master · 6 Dec 2006 at 10:12

The problem I get is that for about half a second every now and then my sound stutters, like a quick drum hardly noticable but its there in music / games / whatever

Happens when the system comes "under load" ie Changing zones in WoW

System updated, even did bios but no luck so far.

Specs as followed

Conroe 6600
2GB OCZ DDR 800
2 X 74gb raptors in raid 0 using Gigaraid controller
300gb Storage Drive
7950 GX2
Gigabyte DQ6 Mobo
700 Watt modular PSU
XP sp2 fully patched

Any ideas?

Already tried re-installing chipset + audio drivers but no luck.

prism · 6 Dec 2006 at 10:34

nVIDIA_Master said:
The problem I get is that for about half a second every now and then my sound stutters, like a quick drum hardly noticable but its there in music / games / whatever

Happens when the system comes "under load" ie Changing zones in WoW

System updated, even did bios but no luck so far.

Specs as followed

Conroe 6600
2GB OCZ DDR 800
2 X 74gb raptors in raid 0 using Gigaraid controller
300gb Storage Drive
7950 GX2
Gigabyte DQ6 Mobo
700 Watt modular PSU
XP sp2 fully patched

Any ideas?

Already tried re-installing chipset + audio drivers but no luck.

What are your temps? As you say that it only happens when the system get's under load.

I am using a DQ6 myself and playing WoW every day and I haven't seen any stutters so far which is since about early october.

nVIDIA_Master · 6 Dec 2006 at 11:34

prism said:
What are your temps? As you say that it only happens when the system get's under load.

I am using a DQ6 myself and playing WoW every day and I haven't seen any stutters so far which is since about early october.

righto, are you using a setup similar to mine + using the onboard sound?

If so are u using the gigaraid controller?

Temps around 31 Degrees

Monstermunch · 6 Dec 2006 at 12:13

ns400r said:
Not seen this mentioned I don't think.

DS4 and CPU fan speed.

Noticed that the CPU fan only runs at 50% if the bios fan control is set to anything other than disabled.

If Easytune is configured to run the fan at full speed in the Smart Fan page then the fan still only runs at 50% on boot up until Easytune is first run.

Speedfan when set to 100% for the CPU fan speed only runs the fan at 50% of it's full speed.

Setting Legacy and PWM in the bios runs the fan at 50%.

Either turning off the fan speed control in bios or setting Easytune Smart Fan feature to 100% at all temps(or your desired temp) and actually running Easytune at bootup seems to be the only way to get a true 100% fan speed.

100% fan speed on my Intel stock fan is 1685.

Well mine is set to Legacy and PWM in bios and shows as 1178 rpm on a 1200rpm fan for my scythe ninja, which is 100%. Was only running at about 600rpm in std settings.

Monstermunch · 6 Dec 2006 at 12:18

LoadsaMoney said:
@Torch [P4] Im running the DS4 here with the Geil Ram (Low Latency 6400 stuff), works a treat, no problems at all, no need to get a cheapo stick to get it to boot either as it works right off the bat.

Thats right that ns400r about the fan speed as ive just tried it, when its set to Leagcy and PWM here, it runs at about 1300rpms (Freezer 7 pro), and when disabled it runs about 2600rpms, doesn't need to be set to run full speed though for me, as when its running full speed my idle temp is 27-28, where as if i have it set to Legacy, and PWM my idle temps 29-31, not much differance, and its quieter.

I've had two DS4's, the first one was RMA'd but wouldn't boot except with a cheapo stick of DDR2...... The replacement however worked first time without any kind of problems. Same std bios version as well.

Some of these boards just don't run properly.... My advice to anyone having big problems trying to get things to run is to RMA (making sure that the board is tested with the stuff you bought) and demand a working replacement.

regal123 · 6 Dec 2006 at 14:21

Hi I posted this somewere else and was told to come here.
can anyone help me with with a prob i am having my new self build
I finnished it about 2 weeks ago and it was going fine until 2 days ago .
When I power of it won't start up again unless unless I take the cable out for 5 mins,
when I put it in gain it starts up ok.
I think its running ok,it boots up normal when I restart it .
I pulled everything out so the only things connected were the graphics card and hard drive
I took both sticks of mem out and used them one at a time
I even re-seated the CPU
still the same prob
I also tried another PSU the same as the one I have listed below
still no joy.
Hope someone can help

Gigabyte DS4/ F6 bios
Core 2 Duo E6300
GeIL 2GB PC6400C4
GeForce 6200
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Cheapo Trust 550w (saving up for a better one)

ns400r · 6 Dec 2006 at 14:37

Monstermunch said:
Well mine is set to Legacy and PWM in bios and shows as 1178 rpm on a 1200rpm fan for my scythe ninja, which is 100%. Was only running at about 600rpm in std settings.

Well with the F6 bios mine still runs at around 50% until I set it to dsabled. Also the fan that comes with the rev b Ninja. Have to set it back to Legacy & PWM and check again.

Monstermunch · 7 Dec 2006 at 12:05

ns400r said:
Well with the F6 bios mine still runs at around 50% until I set it to dsabled. Also the fan that comes with the rev b Ninja. Have to set it back to Legacy & PWM and check again.

Don't forget that you have to save & exit and restart the PC to change those settings. If you just change them and sit in bios they will still read the 50% speeds cos changing the fan power settings etc only take effect with a re-start.

ns400r · 7 Dec 2006 at 13:42

Monstermunch said:
Don't forget that you have to save & exit and restart the PC to change those settings. If you just change them and sit in bios they will still read the 50% speeds cos changing the fan power settings etc only take effect with a re-start.

Yes, I know.

Cob · 7 Dec 2006 at 13:53

There's a new version of the DS3 up on the Gigabyte website- GA-965P-DS3P (rev. 2.0).

Looks like a DS4 minus the heatpipes and a repositioned IDE socket.

prism · 15 Dec 2006 at 13:28

nVIDIA_Master said:
righto, are you using a setup similar to mine + using the onboard sound?

If so are u using the gigaraid controller?

Temps around 31 Degrees

Sorry for the late reply. I don't always seem to get reply notifications.

My setup is a bit less then yours I guess, But I do have more drives installed.

I also don't use the onboard sound as I found the control panel for it crap since I can't set the Bass level 20% lower (downstairs neighbours don't like the deep basses for some reason...) so I use my trusty Audigy 2 Value.

I have 2*160GB WD's in RAID0 and 2*80GB Hitachi in RAID1 plus a 200GB WDC. The RAID arrays are on the Intel Matrix controller, and the 200GB (which is PATA) is on the JMicron together with a DVD burner.

Rest of my specs are C2D [email protected], 2GB GeIL PC6400, 7900GTX, 12V water pump and bunch of fan's. And a Seasonic M12-500 PSU to power it all.

About that Gigaraid controller (which is the JMicron controller), I have played WoW under linux which runs from the PATA drive just fine. No stuttering etc.

If your temps are 31C under load, then that ain't the problem.
Have you tried running memtest86 on that memory?

nVIDIA_Master · 15 Dec 2006 at 15:12

prism said:
Sorry for the late reply. I don't always seem to get reply notifications.

My setup is a bit less then yours I guess, But I do have more drives installed.

I also don't use the onboard sound as I found the control panel for it crap since I can't set the Bass level 20% lower (downstairs neighbours don't like the deep basses for some reason...) so I use my trusty Audigy 2 Value.

I have 2*160GB WD's in RAID0 and 2*80GB Hitachi in RAID1 plus a 200GB WDC. The RAID arrays are on the Intel Matrix controller, and the 200GB (which is PATA) is on the JMicron together with a DVD burner.

Rest of my specs are C2D [email protected], 2GB GeIL PC6400, 7900GTX, 12V water pump and bunch of fan's. And a Seasonic M12-500 PSU to power it all.

About that Gigaraid controller (which is the JMicron controller), I have played WoW under linux which runs from the PATA drive just fine. No stuttering etc.

If your temps are 31C under load, then that ain't the problem.
Have you tried running memtest86 on that memory?

Will try memtest, but i seem to be qetting poor performance generally while on the Intel Raid driver, the burst seek is lower and generally the load times in games are longer :S

:confused:

prism · 15 Dec 2006 at 16:11

nVIDIA_Master said:
Will try memtest, but i seem to be qetting poor performance generally while on the Intel Raid driver, the burst seek is lower and generally the load times in games are longer :S

I only have experience with Windows Vista RC2 and Windows XP Pro atm with the Intel Matrix controller, and under Vista it's a lot faster but that is due to the new way of loading Vista does, but general loading ain't too bad for me atm.

I haven't tested RAID at all on the JMicron, so can't comment on that.
Using the Intel Matrix controller I get about 120MB/s throughput.
Not too much interested in Burst rate, as continious throughput is more important on the long run.

Welshcruncher · 16 Dec 2006 at 00:10

Im so glad I cam across this thread, I was one of the first to purchase a EVGA 680i along with a Core2 Duo B2 6300 retail. Also with Corsair 6400C4 memory and a 8800GTX. The best clock I got was 3.150 with memory at 867 at 5 6 6 2T and Vcore at 1.4250 in bios, 1.39 actual, but I suffered from some weird issues all the time, unless I ran at stock. Then I realised it was a board issue, so today i did an RMA on that board and got my DS3 instead (£78 versus £200). My chips is currently sitting quite nicely at 3.4 gig at 1.36v in bios 1.33 actual with my memory at 1:1 at 5 5 6 with +0.4, It is currently playing a dvd, while I type this along with running Orthos for the last 5 hours, will let it run for 24. Not a single glitch so far. Im hoping the chip will go further, but I am only on air with the Scythe Infinity, TAT shows 62 under full load, Easy tune reports 49. What a hell of a board for £78.00.

Sawbill · 16 Dec 2006 at 11:38

I went for one of these boards (DQ6 + 6600 + 2GB Geil 6400 + X1950 Pro) to be a fast PC to run Vista. Alas, I am having problems.

Vista x64 RTM keeps having BSODs and even when id doesn't it CHKDSKs ar boot and fixes various corruptions. So I went back to XP 32.

More stable untill I run Super PI, Prime95 and PCMark. They all crashed or reported errors randomly. (I had forgotten to alter the VDIMM and timings, but that made is LESS satble - Super PI crashed calculating 16K. Even 2.1V and the default timings were less stable.)

Any suggetions what I should check/do next?

prism · 16 Dec 2006 at 15:15

Sawbill said:
I went for one of these boards (DQ6 + 6600 + 2GB Geil 6400 + X1950 Pro) to be a fast PC to run Vista. Alas, I am having problems.

Vista x64 RTM keeps having BSODs and even when id doesn't it CHKDSKs ar boot and fixes various corruptions. So I went back to XP 32.

More stable untill I run Super PI, Prime95 and PCMark. They all crashed or reported errors randomly. (I had forgotten to alter the VDIMM and timings, but that made is LESS satble - Super PI crashed calculating 16K. Even 2.1V and the default timings were less stable.)

Any suggetions what I should check/do next?

Did you check the CPU cooler's position and the temps of it already?

Sawbill · 16 Dec 2006 at 18:16

prism said:
Did you check the CPU cooler's position and the temps of it already?

It looks OK to me, but I can not be certain. CoreTemp shows ~37 deg C each idle, increasing slowly (each core within 1deg) to ~50C under 100%load. This is currently using the stock Intel cooler. I was waiting to see how cool it ran before deciding if a better cooler would be needed, but since I am not overclocking, I hoped the standard cooler would do the job.

Sawbill · 17 Dec 2006 at 11:41

Sawbill said:
It looks OK to me, but I can not be certain. CoreTemp shows ~37 deg C each idle, increasing slowly (each core within 1deg) to ~50C under 100%load. This is currently using the stock Intel cooler. I was waiting to see how cool it ran before deciding if a better cooler would be needed, but since I am not overclocking, I hoped the standard cooler would do the job.

Well, room temp must have increased today, as it is now consistently idleing at just under 40 deg C and stabilizes as 55(+/-1) dec C under 100% load.

Are these temps what I should expect?

ran MenTest86 for 2 runs (default tests) OK
SuperPI calculated 2M digits OK, but crashed for 4M
SP2004 Orthos just crashed after 29 mins.

Interestingly, SuperPI and SP2004 sometimes crach very quickly (1 second, with temps in low 40s). Does that suggest anything?

Is it likely to be MB, Memory or CPU?

Finally, I have a spare Zalman 9500 AT. Would it be worth trying to fix this. (With the crazy cool the screws don't fit, but I considred recessing them into the H/S mount.)

Sawbill · 17 Dec 2006 at 20:46

Sawbill said:
ran MenTest86 for 2 runs (default tests) OK
SuperPI calculated 2M digits OK, but crashed for 4M
SP2004 Orthos just crashed after 29 mins.

Well, after more fiddling, ran SP2004 for 3 hours (before I give up), but SuperPI would still not manage 4M digits without crashing.

After this (about 6 Hrs running @ ~100%) I re-ran MemTest86+.

This time it threw out 1000s of errors! All only 1 or 2 bits in error, all in the last byte. All in 1 word sequences. All with addresses ending in C !

So I tried each memory module individually. Both worked individually (in both slots 1 & 3).

So I tried turning the DIMM Volts back down to normal (1.8v). One module still worked fine, the other would not POST.

Put both modules back in and vDIMM back to 2.1v and errors again - same pattern.

So does this sound like a Memory problem, Motherboard problem or CPU problem? Alas, I don't have any bits to swap out. My nearest alternate PC is much slower (so would not really stress things much).

I had hoped to have this working by Xmas, but that is not looking promising if I'm going to have to start RMAing bits at random!

beast · 17 Dec 2006 at 23:34

Guys, just bought the DS3 965 (ie NOT the 965P) will this make a big difference? Hoping to use the geIL 6400 RAM and overclock an E6600. Is it an earlier design or something?

edit - it's a 965G sorry. And I've started a separate thread so nevermind.