Ga-965P-DS3 Updates

[jph1589]

I know there was a thread where I did a little pep rally for the DS3 board in the past week and I am not sure which thread it was, so here is another post of what I think I remember saying.

The DS3 has/had some memory issues with certain D9 micron memory and they have been working very hard to fix them. There were some rumors that Gigabyte had a resistor problem that was causing this and they have abandoned that idea in the past week. There is a new bios coming (probably next week) that lets people get the FSB and memory up over 500 in some cases and people seem to be pretty encouraged by the beta version of it. They have also added additional memory dividers in the past 2 bios releases and have added some vista components (don't remember what the option is called) also. There are also vista drivers on the G website now.

My system is rock solid stable at 288 FSB on my Presler 920 and I couldn't be happier with it. I am running a beta version of their F8 bios and am very pleased with what they have fixed.

If anyone plans on buying the DS3 and overclocking it much, you will probably want to plan to either replace the northbride passive cooler with an active one, or aim an 80mm fan directly at it (thats what I did).

The Jmicron Sata II controller seems very stable and fast for my Raid 0 setup. The ICH8 .....well it is an ICH8 LOL. I have one Sata drive hooked up to it and it functions pretty well as my video storage drive.

So I highly recomment this board to anyone still trying to make a decision on what to buy. GB has shown a real commitment to fixing/improving it and I think it is one of the best for the money.

That being said, the first line support at GB is a little frustrating, so you will need to go higher than them for real help. That is pretty much the case for any MFG I've dealt with though. So I wouldn't worry about that.

[Panda Man]

Yea, eVGA is about the only company with a strong customer support line.

Good review!

[jph1589]

OK......I promise I wasn't smoking anything before I typed this.

As a part of my testing of F8i this afternoon, I was testing my memory overclocking. My memory has run at DDR904 on another motherboard so I wanted to see how close I could get.

I must have been smoking something afterall. My bad.

[gvblake22]

I've seen overclocked machines do some really crazy stuff before. Just be glad that it went back to normal!

[screwballl]

note to self: don't overclock, it is too big of a pain in the ass

[Quakindude]

Over Clocking can be a fun and safe adventure. However, going from a FSB of 200 to 266 without relaxing your memory timings is what caused your failed boot. As you over clock your memory, you have to relax your timings more and more. I eventually got my memory to 900Mhz, but the timings went from 4-4-4-15 to 6-6-5-20 and a T2 command rate. It would help you tremendously to learn how to manually set your memory timings. The SPD reported by the chip on your memory modules is often mis-read by the mobo.

[jph1589]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

Over Clocking can be a fun and safe adventure. However, going from a FSB of 200 to 266 without relaxing your memory timings is what caused your failed boot. As you over clock your memory, you have to relax your timings more and more. I eventually got my memory to 900Mhz, but the timings went from 4-4-4-15 to 6-6-5-20 and a T2 command rate. It would help you tremendously to learn how to manually set your memory timings. The SPD reported by the chip on your memory modules is often mis-read by the mobo.

I did adjust the memory timings. I always do, but I negelected to mention it. I normally run this system at 288-300 FSB and was only testing different settings because it became apparent in the past few days that GB has a few problems with the P4 and memory and its new bios.

My timings for the test at 888 were 5-6-6-20. This memory tested at a little above that speed with tighter timings than that in the HL review, and yes that may have been the reason it wouldn't post, but the odd/bizarre thing was that I had to use the clear cmos for the first time because the auto recovery in the bios didn't work. The thing that resulted after the cmos clear with the multiplier should not have been able to happen. My cpu has a locked multiplier according to intel. So I was actully more shocked than worried.

[jph1589]

Well, over the past 3 weeks I have experienced and read about various S3 resume problems (doesn't work anymore), IDE detection problems (cant see more than one optical drive), memory problems )can't get over 900 mhz on ddr1000, fan control problems (who knows what they are doing), a faulty resistor that GB decided they are gonna clam up about, .......hmmmmm what else.....oh yeah.....and an admission that the DS3 now has some serious issues with P4s.

So about a week ago I saw they put version 1 next to the DS3 on their website and I got this sick feeling in my stomach. Sure enough, the DS3P Version 2 was announced this morning. Looks like the cause of a lot of the problems was removed (the jmicron controller) and the other cause of problems was replaced (ich8 replaced with ich8r).

So that explains why there was a beta bios out for 3 weeks that didnt work and why they aren't fixing the resistor and why they aren't fixing the IDE problems, I guess I can shut up now. Yes capper I am a grumpy old man.

Shaking my head and wondering if I am ever going to find a hardware vendor that doesn't beta test their hardware on me.

I tried so hard to be patient. I thought after the C19-a screw job that I needed to be more patient. HAAAA!

What a flaming fiasco!!

I still can't install Vista by the way on my Vista ready machine LOL. GB won't even answer my email about that question.

[Capper]

Something you need to keep in mind is a lot of companies don't work together or support each other. There's been a lot of clamoring about CPU makers (you know the big two) not supplying companies with new processors, as to memory....its pretty hit and miss, they test with what they have. And chipsets, well, those are constantly changing.
Gigabyte did in fact just release new revisions of their two 965P boards, the DS3 and DQ6, to address some issues.....If I were you, I'd contact their customer support and see about getting your board replaced with one of these revisions....I don't see there being a problem doing that, and if you get any guff.....email me, I have a little pull with the companies.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by jph1589

GB won't even answer my email about that question.

I e-mailed Gigabyte with a question once and they responded in a few days. Their e-mail system is wierd, they don't send an e-mail response to your question, they send you a notification that your e-mail has been responded to and you have to log into your e-mail "account" on the Gigabyte website to see what they responded with. So there may be an e-mail waiting for you on the Gigabyte website. How long ago did you e-mail them?