Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Thread

[SgtSpike]

Originally Posted by losttsol

Sorry to say I'll be leaving this group as a member. My DS3L caught fire as you can see in a re-creation picture I took in my sig. I'm upping to an X38 this time around. Those voltage regulators at the top of your MB will get hot, so make sure you have a side or top case fan blowing over them, especially if you take your voltage pretty high.

Wow... sorry to hear that. You're getting an RMA, right?

Originally Posted by Odyn

Ok, so i searched thread and it didnt reveal anything -- so anyone have any setups that use 8GB of ram and this mobo??

No, but here's Gigabyte's official list of compatible memory. http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/...5-ds3l_1.0.pdf

Of course, there's many more modules that will work just fine for this board, but several 2GB sticks are mentioned, and I know members here have done 2x2GB on this board. You shouldn't have any problems with 4x2GB, and if you do, just up the voltage a bit.

Originally Posted by daggerNC

Awesome thread all - many thanks for all the good info and guidance it provides.

OK - I'm a noob as far as Intel based CPUs and mobo's go - this is my first Intel rig. I've been an AMD fan boy from my very first PC purchase until now - but the siren call of the Intel Q6600 was too much for me to resist any longer. The Phenom came up short here when AMD had the chance to do one better, so I voted my my dollars. I'll go back because I'm sure AMD took notice of my action and will get their act back togther

There are a few things with this mobo that still leaves me a bit confused/uncertain after reading (most) of this thread, so I'm looking for some confirmation of what I've got and my settings, readings, etc. and any further guidance if I should be doing something different. In my Sig area I have most of my build identified. I THINK I got a decent Q6600 [G0 stepping, SLACR) (OK, they're ALL decent!) that's running with good voltages and settings and temps. I've had the system running with no hickups for a good 3 weeks now, with an OC to 3.2GHz. But I do see what I believe many have identified as voltage droop, and this is one of the areas that's not clear what voltage settings are good and what's real on what monitoring tools.

My settings are:

• Robust Graphics Booster - Auto
• CPU Clock - 8x
• CPU Host Frequency - 400
• PCI Express - 100
• CIA2 - Disabled
• Performance Enhance - Standard
• System Mem. Multiplier - 2.00
• DDR OverVoltage - +0.4v
• PCIE, FSB, (G)MCH - all Normal
• CPU Voltage Control - 1.2500
• Note: Normal CPU Vcore states 1.2375

My RAM is 2x1Gig of Patriot Extreme PC2 6400 that I have set to 4-4-4-12-2T with a 2.2v SPD rating. At these settings I've run MemTest, 3DMark06 and Orthos for over 9 hours and my son has done lots of Battlefield gaming (he loves this rig) without a single failure. Pretty stable.

But, the tools show me funny things with the voltages. I'm running the f8a BIOS, and PC Health Status shows vCore at 1.220v and DDR18V at 2.080v at idle. CPU-Z and Speedfan both align and show vCore at 1.20 and Speedfan shows vRAM at 2.08. Under load (like Orthos), vCore drops down to 1.17v and vRAM down to 2.06. I'm assuming this is the v-droop that is referenced here? So my big questions are am I really running at 3.2GHz with a slightly undervolted core even though the BIOS setting is 1.2500, the BIOS, CPU-Z and Speedfan all show ~1.200v (idle)?? And the droop down to 1.17v is accurate (and what appears to be "normal") for this mobo? If true, then this CPU seems to be a decent performer? Similar for the DDR - if the BIOS and Speedfan numbers are corrent, then running this RAM at this speed and settings is also under spec voltage (again that would make me happy).

Temps may be a question some have. Right now (Orthos has been running a while), the room temp is 70*F. Speedfan shows system temp of 40*C and CPU temp of 33*C (CPU 0,1,2,3 all say 28*C) at idle before I started up Orthos. With Orthos running for a while now the max CPU temp reads 50*C with a rare very short blip to 51* (again Core 0,1,2,3 read 45*C). If Speedfan is correct (?) then I believe my case/fans/CPU cooler/this Q6600 is doing a good job??

I also really like this new Palit 8800GT card. I have it clocked to 705/1005 and with the 3.2GHz CPU OC I get a 3DMark06 score of 14,585. I was blown away by this as my previous rig was an OC'd AMD x2 with OC'd 7900GS with a max score of 5,400!!

Thanks in adance for all comments on my settings and questions and any other setting suggestions you may have. Very happy with performance value of this motherboard/CPU combo!

Cheers.

Just a couple quick comments on this...

Yes, there is a vdrop (or misreported vcore) issue with this board. I'm reasonably certain it is a vdrop, not just a misrepresentation of the real voltage, so speedfan/bios/cpu-z should be correct.

Also, I read an article on this board, and for some reason the 1.8v is actually 2.08v, 1.9v = 2.12 or something, etc. 2.4v ends up at 2.38v if I remember correctly. So the memory voltages are slightly off on this board as well.

Speedfan (as long as you have one of the latest versions) is correct. Your temps are fine. Your processor is rated for up to 70c, so really, it should be absolutely safe to bring it up to 70c. 51c is not a problem at all.

And BTW, you do seem to have an excellent Q6600... running at 3.2ghz with 1.2v is always a good thing.

[KaOSoFt]

Hello there. I'm here because I need huge support on this.

Here is the information about my Q6600 G0 stepping:

BX80562Q6600SLACR - L737A716 - Packed 10/18/07

This is my VID, and also my idle temperatures using a Thermalright Ultima-90i + Zalman ZM-F3 120mmx25mm fan on the system stated in my signature:



The thing is, I haven't been able to overclock it. Wherever I just up it 60 MHz, it will just restart unexpected. I even overclocked it to 3.6 GHz once, and even passed eight Prime95 hours, and just when I opened Mozilla Firefox to post it on some forums, including this, puff, it restarted, and then it wouldn't even start Windows XP (but it POSTed perfectly).

I've tried all kind of configurations and all. I even lowered the multiplier to 8 (I was using 400x9), leaving the same core voltage in the BIOS (1.4v in BIOS, it would reach 1.296v in CPU-Z at full load), and it happened almost the same: it restarted when I started organizing the files to publish after it successfully passed Prime95 test.

Please, I need some help here. I'm not in the mood to change this board...

Do you advice me "against" automatic voltages? It's the only way it seems to work...

EDIT- RIGHT NOW, I'm running it at 3.2 GHz (400x8), with voltages on auto, C1E enabled, my RAM is running at 4-4-4-12 also on automatic voltages. If CPU-Z is correct, my vCore sets at 1.232v when running Prime95 (only two hours; I'll try eight tomorrow). I just wrote this paragraph, and I'd say everything is working fine. Oh, by the way, in SpeedFan, VCore2 shows as 2.00V. Should I assume this is my RAM voltage? It drops to 1.98V sometimes when running Prime95.

EDIT2- Nevermind, it restarted again when I tried to execute the Calculator.

Oh, and by the way, I love the way the first post is getting better and better. SgtSpike, I noticed you removed your comment about BIOS F8 reducing the amount of vDroop on this board. Why? I'm using version F6 (it was F5).

My system specifications are on my signature. Thank you in advance.

[EGOvoruhk]

First, don't use automatic settings when overclocking. Find your stock settings and throw them in there, then start working on your overclock

Second, when overclocking, you should leave C1E off. Once you get stable, you can try to turn it back on if you so chose

Lastly, you were probably testing just small FTTs with Prime95, right? I'm willing to bet if you reverted your settings to whatever you had when you ran stable for 8 hours, and had it run in blend mode, that you would crash much sooner

[EGOvoruhk]

Has anyone figured out how to slipstream drivers for AHCI in XP? I saw the method on MSFN, I just hoped there was another way

[Odyn]

TY Spike! Your a life saver

[rcf22]

Originally Posted by KaOSoFt

Hello there. I'm here because I need huge support on this.

The thing is, I haven't been able to overclock it. Wherever I just up it 60 MHz, it will just restart unexpected. I even overclocked it to 3.6 GHz once, and even passed eight Prime95 hours, and just when I opened Mozilla Firefox to post it on some forums, including this, puff, it restarted, and then it wouldn't even start Windows XP (but it POSTed perfectly).

I've tried all kind of configurations and all. I even lowered the multiplier to 8 (I was using 400x9), leaving the same core voltage in the BIOS (1.4v in BIOS, it would reach 1.296v in CPU-Z at full load), and it happened almost the same: it restarted when I started organizing the files to publish after it successfully passed Prime95 test.

Although you're having a number of different problems it appears, I would advise you to check the link to another post in this thread in my signature. I was having an issue that I can best call a "double boot:" after saving some mild OC settings (as little as 1Mhz increase in FSB), the system would turn off and POST as normal. After the memory test stage, the system would shut down a second time, and boot into the OS as normal, but the OC settings were reset to default.

If that seems similar to what happened with you, please try out the different suggestions I put in that post. What ended up working for me was disconnecting my external USB hard drive while booting, then connecting it once it was booted into Windows.

Let me know if this helps, best of luck This is the only problem I've encountered with an otherwise great board.

[rcf22]

I was going to include this int eh above post, but I also wanted to thank Sgt. Spike for putting up a great first post. You've made some great edits to it, I wish there was a way we could make everyone view that before skipping to page 162 and posting Lots of useful information there.

[daggerNC]

Originally Posted by SgtSpike

Just a couple quick comments on this...

Yes, there is a vdrop (or misreported vcore) issue with this board. I'm reasonably certain it is a vdrop, not just a misrepresentation of the real voltage, so speedfan/bios/cpu-z should be correct.

Also, I read an article on this board, and for some reason the 1.8v is actually 2.08v, 1.9v = 2.12 or something, etc. 2.4v ends up at 2.38v if I remember correctly. So the memory voltages are slightly off on this board as well.

Speedfan (as long as you have one of the latest versions) is correct. Your temps are fine. Your processor is rated for up to 70c, so really, it should be absolutely safe to bring it up to 70c. 51c is not a problem at all.

And BTW, you do seem to have an excellent Q6600... running at 3.2ghz with 1.2v is always a good thing.

SgtSpike - thanks for the reply. Yes, I have the latest Speedfan version (4.33), though it doesn't get the +12, -12 and -5 voltages right. Wasn't sure about the "Performance Enhance" option which I left at "Standard" as the BIOS notes that is most stable when overclocking. It's nice to hear this seems to be a "good" Q6600 - this was the worst build I've had to date. I had a 650W screamer PSU with low 12v rails that I had to send back and spent more for the TT Toughpower (nice PSU though), and my first faulty WD hard drive. All's great now!

[SgtSpike]

Originally Posted by KaOSoFt

Oh, and by the way, I love the way the first post is getting better and better. SgtSpike, I noticed you removed your comment about BIOS F8 reducing the amount of vDroop on this board. Why? I'm using version F6 (it was F5).

The reason I had initially posted that F8 would fix the BIOS is that on another similar Gigabyte board (can't remember which one), the vdrop issue was fixed with BIOS F8, and I heard from someone else that the F8 BIOS for this board would also fix the same vdrop issue. Obviously, now F8 is out, and the vdrop issue still isn't fixed.

Originally Posted by rcf22

I was going to include this int eh above post, but I also wanted to thank Sgt. Spike for putting up a great first post. You've made some great edits to it, I wish there was a way we could make everyone view that before skipping to page 162 and posting Lots of useful information there.

All credit for the first post currently goes to NPH2. I just uploaded it. He's done a great job so far, and we will both continue to add to it as new issues arise.

BTW, I did a google search for "GA-P35-DS3L". Guess what's 4th down on the list?

[Schroedinger]

Anyone have a link to a full explanation of the F8a BIOS memory timings? As I mentioned above I'm trying to distinguich Static read delay and the Performance Enhancer function, which I have read in different places -both- apparently correspond to tRD.

Which of course would make no sense at all...