GIGABYTE Latest Beta BIOS

[solo1420]

I know what you mean, I personally use winrar and I always just right click SFX's myself and extract to XX/Here

Yeap, 920 can run 8.0Gt/s +QPI Speeds, it will be fine. Did you check with CPU tweaker or CPU-z to be sure it is really at 6.4 instead of just showing that for Auto in the BIOS? 920 default is 4.8, but 6.4 is just as stable/easy to use

What is the problem? You never said, LED's on during Bootup/BIOS/DOS is normal.

wow! had no idea 920 could run at 6.4 (8.0 even!) Isn't that a measure of the QPI's bandwidth? And no? I haven't checked CPU-z yet. ATM, I am actually formatting another HDD so I can install an OS and at least be able to use my poor system!! LOL...... I will respond after I can boot into my rig(atm I am using my PS3!!, and typing via SIXAXXIS is very much teh suxxorz.........)

[Psycho101]

Are there actually any benefits to OCing the QPI? After all, there's already way more bandwidth there than needed. With the 1336 i7's being re-badged server chips, the QPI's large bandwidth is for multi CPU intercommunication.

The newer Lynnfield i7's have done away with the external QPI and just use it for inter-core communication and there seems to be no performance loss.

[solo1420]

Are there actually any benefits to OCing the QPI? After all, there's already way more bandwidth there than needed. With the 1336 i7's being re-badged server chips, the QPI's large bandwidth is for multi CPU intercommunication.

The newer Lynnfield i7's have done away with the external QPI and just use it for inter-core communication and there seems to be no performance loss.

I was thinking the same about QPI, as far as utilizing the entire available bandwidth. Isn't QPI @ 6.4 = to about a 3.2ghz FSB? (technically speaking that is)

[solo1420]

OK, I am desperate now...... ugh, I really hate typing lol........wish the forum had a ventrilo or something lol.......
here's my problem........I been running my (main)OS on RAID 0 [2 x WD velociraptor 300gb] on the ICH10R chip. I have the JMicron chip disabled. I built my rig in March, (only had one 10k drive then) and got the second 10k drive about May iirc, and striped the drives that day, and cloned my win ult x64 from single drive backup, onto the striped set of 10k's. Well, I *usually* keep my rig on 24/7 (no sleep, hibernate disabled), but as you already know, certain changes to the bios require cold boot, not reset. If I do turn my rig off, (doesn't matter if PSU stays plugged in or unplug PSU, i've tried all combinations) upon next boot-up, the ICH10R bios lists both drives in my raid as "offline members". doesn't matter how many times you reboot, from that point on, they are always listed as offline members. Well, me being the "geek" that I am, my boot disk happens to be a linux environment. Well, low and behold, booting into linux environment, boom!!, there is my lovely "raid set" as linux dubs it. So this got me scratching my head....... wtf is wrong with this picture?!?? Very strange indeed.........One would be so inclined to think that if the ICH10R's bios is not listing the 2 drives as a striped set, then why does the linux kernel even see it as a striped set? (much less, why even see either drive at all?) And here's the real kicker.......after booting into linux and seeing the raid correctly identified, simply rebooting my rig (after removing linux cd), like Houdini himself had paid a quick visit, I'll be damned if the ICH10R lists both HDD's as not only online, but members of my RAID 0!!! Windows boots up like it never missed a tick!! So I did lots and lots of perusing various threads at a multitude of different forums and finally found some others had experienced problems as well. These problems seem to be isolated to the ICH10R chip and the WD velociraptors in RAID 0 configuration. Most of these guys had lost raid arrays due to this problem, but the extent of my problem was nothing more than an annoyance to me at most. So, I have learned to live with this minor "annoyance" and carried on life as usual.
Well about the last week of last month, I started up my WoW client and it loads up fine at first, then I get to the screen where you type in your account name and password. I type everything in and hit enter.........all seems normal(HDD LED is blinking just as it always does), and a few moments after I entered my password, my screen wigs out (only way I can think how to explain this is remember back in the day, if the contacts on your NES cartridge were dirty, and you forgot to blow on the contacts and smack the cartridge up a bit before you insert it into the console? remember there would be like patterns or artifacts or some **** covering your screen?) my screen just did that, and it wasn't a cord issue or connection issue because she was froze up(old habit I have is when something like this happens, I always press the NUMlock key on my keyboard to confirm if it is froze or just a dispaly issue, so I can CTRL+ALT+DEL and try to get a halfway graceful shutdown without resorting to using the power switch. Well, after pounding the numlock key numerous times, it was confirmed to be froze up. I reboot and do the same thing, login screen on WoW client, hit enter, same exact scenario..........At the time, I happened to be using a beta video driver that wasnt released to the public, only developers. Immediately, I assumed this could possibly be the culprit, and downgraded my driver to last stable release. Same problem. Tried 3 or 4 other versions with no success. Tried downgrading DirectX with same results. Double checked all other drivers to make sure that wasn't it(I very regularly check for updates to every driver in my system as well as bios updates etc...) Even tried wiping my WoW directory and reinstalling the game(all 15 gigs =( So I finally bite the bullet, and come to the conclusion that this is going to require a HDD wipe and OS reinstall......../cry ....
Hundreds of gigs of misc torrents, massive iTunes directory, several hundred gigs of games..........get all this stuff backed up and wipe my raid set, go into ICH's bios and delete raid set, individually wipe both 10k drives, create RAID 0 set in ICH's bios and reinstall win ultimate x64, DL all the damn updates from M$ and SP2 etc...... all is looking good!!! Got all my games/progs installed everything is running smooth as butter. YAY! Fast forward 3 weeks to this past Monday.
Same scenario, just started up WoW client and same exact garbage displays on my LCD!! I forgot to mention I play WoW on a daily basis for the most part. So I reboot my system and this time don't even make it to windows.......you know the screen that shows the progress bar and shows the "loading" progress filling up the bar, and below the bar it says "copyright Microsoft" yada yada yada.....then the Vista symbol pops up in the center of the screen with the 4 sections colored red blue grgeen yellow? then after that screen your desktop shows up and all is good.....well not for me.....after the loading screen then the 4 colored vista symbol shows up for like 2 seconds and then my screen does the same s*@t.......tried over and over same results....... Sooooooo........ did my usual search for and updates to drivers/bios and ran into the F10d bios listed on gigabyte's website. Well managed to get bios flashed with Qflash(no floppy to use DOS/SPIflash, which would be my preferred method of attack), and too lazy to re-assemble my C2D notebook ATM =), so that left me with my (PS3) linux box, and I am far from a linux guru, so don't know how or even if I could make an SD "floppy" to boot into with no available windows OS to do it with. So, 2 hours ago, I backed up all my torrents, and game settings/directories, and decided to just pop my 2.5" 500gb notebook drive into my E-SATA HDD dock and just wipe it and install OS onto it, so I can access my RAID set and go from there.......Well, turns out my vista x64 DVD is evidently scratched just right(very minor scratch at that) and I cannot boot into it!!......./sigh.......could it get any worse? I'm on the same boat as LSD as far as not caring too much at all for win7, but, I do happen to have a copy of win 7 ultimate x64 build 7600 RTM.......so I boot up to the install disk and do my thing(btw, win7 installs very fast =)), and everything is looking good, install finishes and it reboots and then it gets to the screen where it says starting windows for the first time yada yada yada etc....., preparing your desktop for first use or something similar, and I'll be godd@*!ed if it does the same garbage again!!!! I dunno what to do anymore.......I am the guy that never asks for help, always using my seemingly endless resourcefulness to persevere and triumph over any obstacles encountered..........but this...........THIS takes the cake; I am at a loss for words.......(not counting the book I just posted above =)) LSD, help me brother! I need your infinite wisdom!

[solo1420]

*sigh*
looks like I've managed to scare the living s*@t out of LSD =(
QQ
*crosses fingers* maybe he's just on lunch? =)

anyone else finished reading my book.....er....post yet can possibly help?

[Psycho101]

I'm reading it now mate and will reply back.

It does look a little daunting. If you place a clear line between each paragraph it would be easier on the eye. Maybe also break up the paragraphs into smaller ones.

I don't mean any disrespect by this and I'm not trying to give you an English/creative writing lesson, just that it's looking a bit "wall of text" like at the moment, making it look more lengthy than it actually is.

[bodean]

*sigh*
looks like I've managed to scare the living s*@t out of LSD =(
QQ
*crosses fingers* maybe he's just on lunch? =)

anyone else finished reading my book.....er....post yet can possibly help?

This topic is for UPDATED BIO'S only. I see no relevance in your post with bios. Maybe start your own thread and not clutter this one.

[solo1420]

I'm reading it now mate and will reply back.

It does look a little daunting. If you place a clear line between each paragraph it would be easier on the eye. Maybe also break up the paragraphs into smaller ones.

I don't mean any disrespect by this and I'm not trying to give you an English/creative writing lesson, just that it's looking a bit "wall of text" like at the moment, making it look more lengthy than it actually is.

lol thanks bro! don't worry, criticism taken at face value I *mostly* have fantastic grammar, and nearly flawless vocabulary skills. Given my current situation/mood..............not so much. Not to mention, typing with a PS3 controller, on a PS3 browser, with an onscreen keyboard.............you get my drift lol.
as for the post after your's, (don't feel like going back to quote btw) yeah i realize this is the update bios thread, but maybe you should go back and read every single reply on all 203 pages. I did, and tbh, if this thread was "uncluttered", it would have less than half of the replies it currently has. So, thanks for the concern (/sarcasm off), but I really would like to get back to (my) issue at hand. Being w/out my computer is not good......at all!!

[Psycho101]

@solo1420

I'll be a bit brief in this thread with what I personally think may be wrong. Although the tone of Bodean's thread may not have been too kind (I mean no disrespect to you Bodean), it would be best if you posted in a new thread so we can go into the problem in a bit more depth.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the screen corruption may be nothing to do with your RAID issues. It may be that it is and that data is being corrupted on the way to/from the HDD or HDD buffer via the GPU. It does sound like some kind of GPU/CP/RAM issue though.

The usual trouble shooting steps apply. After checking all RAM and CPU settings are as they should be, and running a single full Memtest pass, seek out a spare GPU to test with. As you're running WoW, you don't need anything cutting edge, as WoW is very scalable and runs OK on DX8 hardware with medium/low settings. If the spare GPU runs OK it's either a driver, GPU or PCIE issue. If the same problem happens I'd investigate general stability further (CPU with pPrime, even at stock etc), try running the RAM temporarily at 1066 (native 920 speed) or 1333 DDR etc.

The new thread would allow us to chat about the steps you've made and what to do next. Also, Lsdmeasap monitors new threads and does his level best to reply to every single one of them. He may have missed your post hidden away in this BIOS thread. He's very knowledgeable about RAID on P45 (ICH10R) and X58, and will probably know if RAID can cause such issues, as well as explain why a non functioning RAID array may be ok after booting then exiting from Linux.

[solo1420]

@Psycho101 Thank you so much for the reply! You have no idea of the gratitude I have for it!! If I may have come off a little "edgy" previously, I do offer my apologies, fwiw. Since then I have had some time to further collect myself, and do some further testing as well. I am going to cut this short, so I can find the proper forum to begin a thread.