Gigabyte k8NSNXP-939/K8NS Ultra-939 tips, tricks and guide thread

[chew*]

heres a pic i promised. This is highest stable speed at 1.45 vcore. Its a winnie yes a winner no. but still 500mhx over default im not crying.

ill follow up with highest clock possible into windows and highest bus possible when i get the chance.

[sauria]

heres a pic i promised. This is highest stable speed at 1.45 vcore. Its a winnie yes a winner no. but still 500mhx over default im not crying.

ill follow up with highest clock possible into windows and highest bus possible when i get the chance.

Great, not bad for a 3000+ -- think TCCD would let it O/C more? I bet that Mushkin will fly on your next nf4 board!?

Any news on 4 DIMMS or DS DIMMS? Yours are SS?

[chew*]

Waiting to get in touch with my friend gonna borrow 2x512mb of kingston hyperX pc 3500. Heh not the greatest memory but it should at least verify the problem. Heres the other pics i promised. Highest speed into windows. As you can see 3dmark and super pi run fine but it crashes in prime immediately.

[chew*]

Highest bus into windows at 2x ht i didnt bother with 1x seems pointless to have a max of 350 ht x1

[sauria]

Thanks Chew -- I can't wait for your 2x512mb of kingston hyperX pc 3500 results!

[chew*]

yah should be interesting but not gonna be able to steal it tonight it seems.

btw for viewing fun of my past projects. nf2 home made water chilling. I hit 2750mhz on this rig when nforce first came out with a 2100xp.http://hometown.aol.com/wmdieselmc26...age/index.html

I'm working on a similar project now however gonna fix the original problems i had first etc moisture (death of my 8rda+) should be colder this time to using a bigger compressor.

[sauria]

cool

[sauria]

This is off the Si chipset?

*update*

Tried changing the uniprocessor driver. *WARNING* If you are running raid do not change this driver your sytem will not boot up again and unless your good at hacking your windows you will be forced to reinstall.

2nd issue.
I discovered that the sata raid driver provided by gigabyte is junk. Using this driver will corrupt and or cause permanent damage to your hard drives. Use the silicon images driver provided by MS in they're auto update section. I have tested it and you lose minimal performance but gain maximum stability.

Example of issue with the gigabyte supplied driver. When running in raid 0 if you run sisoft tuneup wizard you will be given a BSOD right near the end of test.

I also experimented with some third party drivers for nf3. In games it would cause my game to freeze. I am now using a whql certified nvidia driver version 5.10. The driver i tested was a 7.xx series.

Will tackle the ram issue over the weekend with dualsided ddr dimms.

[chew*]

Yes but I also believe it had something to do with the gigabyte provided driver also now. However I havent had the guts to try it again.
Some interesting things I've discovered are this.
Whql driver for the sil chip is far better than gigabytes.
gigabytes nvidia chipset driver also has issues using the whql nvidia driver makes for a more stable OC.
The radeon 5.1 catylyst produces very unstable performance with the radeon 9800 pro on this board.(In some games vpu recover was engaging. I reflashed bios to stock believing that was the problem and got same issues at stock).
The 5.2 catylyst produces stable performance at the cost of performance.(3dmark score at 20,800)
Catylyst 4.12 seems to provide the most stable / best results on this board.
(score at same settings as the 5.2 catylyst 21,900)
I can confirm after severe testing with this board and mushkin pc3200 ddr lv2 running 2.8 volts ddr416 that these timings are 100% stable(refer to a64 tweaker for order of timings starting from top) 2-8-12-2-2-5-2-2-1-1-200mhz 3.9us.
Unfortunately my buddy is computer illterate and thought he had 1 gig of pc 3500 when in fact he only had 512 pc3200 so I havent been able to test the boards possible issue of 2x512 sticks of ddr 400 defaulting speed to ddr 333.
I can confirm though that this board will not run with 3 sticks of memory.
you have to use either 2 or 4.
Another problem I'm having is getting my bh5 chips to run stable above ddr416. I was 100% stable at ddr 462 with same memory in my nf7-s at 2.8 volts.

[sauria]

Thanks Chew! Does it pass memtest86?

[chew*]

Honestly i didn't try that. I will now however it passed a 3 days continuos of prime 95 blend torture test.

[sauria]

Ok, I've been reading about Winchesters having trouble with it or with Prime stability??

[chew*]

Ran memtest for 2 hours it looped 12 times pass 12 times 0 errors.
Also i made a mistake in above post but I will edit it now. My memory is running at 208mhz fsb/ddr416 not 204fsb/ddr408. The settings im using in bios now are cpu multi 9x fsb 250 ht multi 4x memory 166.

[sauria]

thanks, good to know with a winny 3000+?

[chew*]

yep same one in my pics. I'ts not a good one so i backed it off from 2300 which is stable at 1.45v down to 2250 at same 1.45v which allowed me to run somewhat tighter timings on memory. Also my ht is right at 250x4 1000htt at that speed i feel a little more comfortable running like that.
I also emailed support about a modded bios which would give x.5 multis and more memory dividers etc instead of 100/133/166/200.I asked for 100/133/150/166/183/200. They basically told me NO! I pm'ed tictac to see if he can work his magic with the k8ns ultra we shall see if he agrees. Guess I'm gonna be sticking with this awhile till I see how the an8 series of abit does against dfi. Plus i always wait for revision 2 at least before i buy. Prolly gonna buy a couple more cpu's also maybe ill get lucky and get a better one.

[sauria]

Great I just ordered this board and I am waiting to build it with a 3200+ -- looking for some bios setup screenshots for the f5 Bios.

[Jethro]

I got one on the way to play with to! That and an 3200+ retail as well Gonna find out what that fancy looking phase circuitry is made of

[sauria]

Great jethro, let's make 'em fly!

[chew*]

well my camera sux for bios pics so i cant help ya there i can tell ya this.
find the max of chip first.

Before you crank the fsb set it to 201 first.
Make sure agp fast writes are off
Make sure cpu thermal throttling is off.
when upping bus 200-230 then drop ht and use this formula as u go higher up 30 mhz fsb down ht by 1

If i were you id run memory at 100 and ht at 2 and just crank your fsb to find max stable of chip then go from there.

In most cases you can go preety high with default or 1.45 volts. When you hit a wall in most cases youll have to bump voltage up quite a bit after that.
thats just the way these a64's seem to behave.

edit bios screenies its a k8nsxp but the bios is the same
http://www.hothardware.com/viewartic...leid=574&cid=3
unfortunately they dont show the ctrl f1 memory adjustment screen

P.S. before you install board you might wanna remove the chipset heatsink and take the crap thermal pad off and apply some as5.

[Main Target]

im going to buy this board... the ultra 939...

abit av8 has some serious flippin problems thats all i want to say

[sauria]

http://www.hardwarezone.com/guides/a...ndex.php?pg=22

Thanks Chew -- found this for a guide also -- it's the older DPS version of the board but uses the same BIOS.

[sauria]

This may be due to the memory controller on your 3000+ not the board. Are you runnning BIOS F5? What is your most stable nforce / RAID driver combo on the Sil? A new NF4 board has to wait awhile for me.

Thanks!

Yes but I also believe it had something to do with the gigabyte provided driver also now. However I havent had the guts to try it again.
...
Another problem I'm having is getting my bh5 chips to run stable above ddr416. I was 100% stable at ddr 462 with same memory in my nf7-s at 2.8 volts.

[chew*]

Well ill have to look up the drivers but i dled them in a windows update if you use those you should be good to go mind the fact that i use win2k.

In other news it seems my cpu or maybe board is starting to cooperate more.
I'm at 2500mhz 277x9 memory at 133(changed with a64 tweaker to 150* gives me 208) ht at 3x cpu vcore 1.6

Right now I'm priming so im not sure if she's 100% stable yet after priming tonight into early tommorw morning then running mem test I'll know if I'm stable. However so far ive run 3dmark 01 and 03 without a hitch I might run 05 but i always feel sorry for my card when i run that i can just hear it screaming NOOOOO!! also ran pcmark 01 and 04 and super pi. Hit 34secs in pi
8400ish on cpu in pc mark and 11000ish in mem. heres a link to 3d01 and pc04 scores when i do an exact comparison with all OS's I'm # 1.

pc04 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm04=2817095

3d01 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8425329

I always crash immediately at 2.6gig with 1.6v but im starting to wonder if the board dont like being run at 290 fsb i think im gonna drop cpu multi and run again at same bus see what happens. I shoulda bought a 3200 for the 10 mutli.

yes bios is f5
sil driver version is 1.0.0.51(note this is win 2k)
not sure what driver MS installed for nvidia.

[sauria]

Thanks, Chew. so no nvidia HD driver? W2K SP4 CD you have?

Great scores. I have a Winchester 3200+ on the way with the new board.

I really want to see the screenshots from CTRL-F1 screens.
Good to hear that your board is starting to scream!

[chew*]

Yah I've never used nvidia raid as long as they have made it in fact that was one reason i bought this board was to use the sil raid i have nv raid disabled in bios as do i have nv/lan disabled also.

I use win2k sp4 yes i hate xp. alot easier to tweak 2k IMHO.

Only way i know how to take a bios screenie is with a decent camera. Mine costs like $17.00 = junk

I just ran a few lines of prime to see if board didnt like 290 fsb and it was fine so its cpu holding me back.

I really have to get my chiller up and running again :/ breaking a 100f with this koolance system at 1.6vcore