I've been having issues overclocking my Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS4. Has anyone else had problems/issues with this board?
Here are are my specs:
Intel Xeon E3110 Wolfdale 3.0 GHz cpu (on the supported list for this board)
OCZ Platinum DDR2-800 Rev2
EX38-DS4 (of course)
Tuniq Tower 120 HSF
Seagate Barracuda ES.2 250GB SATA drive
OCZ SilentXStream 500W PSU
I have overclocked Gigabyte boards in the past, including my E6400 on a GA-965P-DS3 and a E6750 on a GA-P35-S3G. I'm fairly comfortable at overclocking. The problem with this system is that it fails to overclock at all, even by 1Mhz on the FSB. I can manually set all my voltages, spd, etc. and the system runs fine with FSB at 333, passes 5 hr Prime95, etc. As soon as I set the clock control to manual, and change the FSB to anything other than the default 333Mhz, the system fails post and resets to clock control auto. I've tried FSB settings of 332,334, 340,350 - all fail.
Any thoughts?
Thanks for the help. I think I may have got a bad board. About 50% of the time on reboot it would lose all CMOS settings or go into BIOS recovery mode, rebooting endlessly (and this was at default optimal settings), requiring CMOS reset.
I swapped out the RAM for some Corsair XMS2 that I had running stable for over a year in another system - this was no help.
The backplate on the Tuniq 120 HSF is made of metal, and there are metal contacts on the back of the board, so just in case that may have been a problem, I installed the stock boxed fan. Of course, this made no difference.
The bios was at F2 revision already (the latest), but I tried flashing it again and that was no help. It has been sent back to NewEgg for an exchange.
The backplate on the Tuniq 120 HSF is made of metal, and there are metal contacts on the back of the board, so just in case that may have been a problem, I installed the stock boxed fan. Of course, this made no difference.
Yep, probably already fried something.
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GA-X38-DS4 (BIOS F3)||E8400 C2D (3.6GHz)||2*1Gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 4-4-4-12||320Gb WD Caviar||Cooler Master Real Power Pro 750W||8800GT 512Mb||HT Omega Striker 7.1
OK, so I got my new EX38-DS4 back and rebuilt my system: but with stock fan to take the Tuniq out of the equation, and a new OCZ 700W power supply - same issue - no overclock - the minute I set my board to manual clock control the system fails to post. The system runs fine otherwise. Upgrading the BIOS to F3 was no help either.
I wonder if maybe my CPU is the problem?
Message edited by alpine18 on 03-19-2008 at 08:02:11 AM
Two 1GB sticks of OCZ Platinum Rev2 DDR2-800 @ the spec timings of 4-4-4-15 2T - I've tried 5-5-5-15, 5-5-5-18 also. I also tried two 1GB modules of Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 with the same results.
One other throught, I noticed that the memory multiplier has different settings with A, B, C, D, after the multiplier - I'm using the multiplier with B suffixes (which the legend says is for 333 FSB).
Which multiplier though?
Let's start with your Clock at 333Mhz. Set the Memory multiplier to 2.00B.
This will run your ram at 666-7Mhz.
An UNDERCLOCK I know, but lets try to eliminate one thing at a time.
What does your CPU temp read in BIOS?
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GA-X38-DS4 (BIOS F3)||E8400 C2D (3.6GHz)||2*1Gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 4-4-4-12||320Gb WD Caviar||Cooler Master Real Power Pro 750W||8800GT 512Mb||HT Omega Striker 7.1
Oh yes.
Turn all the performance enhance stuff OFF. Leave everything on STANDARD, none of this turbo junk.
There are at least 2 places I recall.
OFF. OFF I say.
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GA-X38-DS4 (BIOS F3)||E8400 C2D (3.6GHz)||2*1Gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 4-4-4-12||320Gb WD Caviar||Cooler Master Real Power Pro 750W||8800GT 512Mb||HT Omega Striker 7.1
I had all the EIST, CIA2, virtualization, and other junk off/disabled, and all the performance enhance stuff set to standard/auto. PCI bus set to auto. CPU temp in bios is typically about 25C.
Multiplier I was using was 2.00B at 333 - memory speed reads 667. If I change the 333 at all, my system fails post, and reboots with default settings in the overclock control area.
I have tried 350, 340, 334, 332 - all yield the same results.
I can set the memory speed to manual (333*2.0B) and leave cpu clock speed set to auto, the system boots fine.
Whenever I set the cpu clock speed to manual, the system fails to boot... the post screen shows up showing the new CPU speed, but it hangs at the memory detection. Then it just reboots itself with the cpu clock speed and memory settings set back to auto.
Message edited by alpine18 on 03-23-2008 at 05:10:37 PM
1. Changing Memory - I tried 3 brands of DDR2-800 memory: Adata, Corsair, OCZ.
2. Tried different memory slots - I have been using 1 & 3 and then tried sticks in 2 & 4.
3. My 700W OCZ power supply has the extra 4-pin P4 power connector (8 pin total), so I connected it and now I have 8 pins total connected.
4. I tried underclocking with a lower multiplier - same problem.
So far I have changed out the motherboard, memory, and psu - but still have the same problem. At this point I only have 2 components that have never been swapped out: the video card and the CPU. The bios has been flashed to the latest (F3) revision for this board.
This is really frustrating - my cpu is sitting at 25-26C idle. With the X38 , Tuniq HSF, and OCZ memory I should be able to get a decent overclock.
Maybe the CPU is the problem. Maybe I should just get a Q9550 or X3350 and put this E3110 in my secondary computer.
Message edited by alpine18 on 03-24-2008 at 06:21:34 PM
