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**mxcrowe** · 09-10-2008, 10:23 PM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

First of all, that's a very nice setup you have coming - well selected and well balanced to maximize performance for price...a good configuration. This should be a very rewarding system with plenty of performance. Having said that, you will almost certainly need to manually set many of the BIOS parameters, first, to get stability, and second, to maximize performance. I have personally found these boards to require much, much more BIOS fiddling than anything I've ever built before. The good news is that you've found this forum, so you're in pretty good shape. Failing a bad part, you will be able to get where you need to be with your new confuser...er, computer.
I would strongly recommend that you read through two of the stickies at the top of the forum. Some poor sap spent hours of his precious time writing those things precisely for folks like yourself. In particular, "BIOS Flashing - A How To Qflash Guide" sounds like it may be helpful, eh? There's also a great tutorial on memory timings. Beyond that, you'll find lots of posts here from people who have systems very similar to (if not exactly like) yours, so look back through the threads to see how they have set their systems up.
Good luck!

**omgitscole** · 09-10-2008, 11:14 PM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Originally posted by mxcrowe View Post

First of all, that's a very nice setup you have coming - well selected and well balanced to maximize performance for price...a good configuration. This should be a very rewarding system with plenty of performance. Having said that, you will almost certainly need to manually set many of the BIOS parameters, first, to get stability, and second, to maximize performance. I have personally found these boards to require much, much more BIOS fiddling than anything I've ever built before. The good news is that you've found this forum, so you're in pretty good shape. Failing a bad part, you will be able to get where you need to be with your new confuser...er, computer.
I would strongly recommend that you read through two of the stickies at the top of the forum. Some poor sap spent hours of his precious time writing those things precisely for folks like yourself. In particular, "BIOS Flashing - A How To Qflash Guide" sounds like it may be helpful, eh? There's also a great tutorial on memory timings. Beyond that, you'll find lots of posts here from people who have systems very similar to (if not exactly like) yours, so look back through the threads to see how they have set their systems up.
Good luck!

Hey thanks. I think my main issue is the part where "im going to have to tweak things in bios and mess with settings to be stable" I have NO CLUE how to do all of that ha. And im at the level where if i plug it all in and everything seems fine I will think it is...... i dont know "what to tweaK" or what to "change" ect..

I read the how to flash bios thing that was helpfull im just really scared that I wont get the maximum that this build can offer because I dont know what im doing.

**auroa** · 09-11-2008, 12:03 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

If you happen to be lucky and the board was just recently manufactured, you might get a board with a recent bios already installed (like f4, f5). When you first boot up, check the bios number, if it's something fairly recent I'd just leave it alone. All the latest bios revisions have more to do with RAM overclocking and recognition of new CPUs, neither of which pertains to your setup.

**Lsdmeasap** · 09-11-2008, 12:17 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Well good news first of all is you wont HAVE to flash, but you may want to. Your board will ship out with a compatible BIOS for your CPU choice. But you may flash it later fro sure if you like once you get going and see what is already installed and how it works out for you. As said above I just made a BIOS Flashing guide pinned in this forum section

What I would suggest since you are new to all of this is to only install one of your 2GB sticks in slot one and leave only that one in there until you get your windows installed. Leaving things in Auto will/should work fine with only one stick.

Then later you will need to make some changes and install the second stick and start working on tweaking your system to where you plan to keep it running at.

Doing things that way will be much easier for you upon your first build. So you can get in windows and get your programs and stuff installed and have a usable system incase me or anyone else is not around to help you with the settings for 4GB. Then once you get your system built and windows installed post back here And I will post a full set of settings for you to get you moving along.

Don't worry already!!! BIOS tweaking is a art, and will take you many hours and some headaches before you start to get the hang of things. Just don't let yourself get upset or frustrated learning things like that will payoff for your build, and for any future builds you do.

Just dont get the mindset it is a "Plug and Play" type of thing. To get the best settings for performance you may spend several days to a week or more depending on what you want to do with your system, the time you have on your hands, and what type of testing you do.

**omgitscole** · 09-11-2008, 12:41 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Originally posted by Lsdmeasap View Post

Well good news first of all is you wont HAVE to flash, but you may want to. Your board will ship out with a compatible BIOS for your CPU choice. But you may flash it later fro sure if you like once you get going and see what is already installed and how it works out for you. As said above I just made a BIOS Flashing guide pinned in this forum section

What I would suggest since you are new to all of this is to only install one of your 2GB sticks in slot one and leave only that one in there until you get your windows installed. Leaving things in Auto will/should work fine with only one stick.

Then later you will need to make some changes and install the second stick and start working on tweaking your system to where you plan to keep it running at.

Doing things that way will be much easier for you upon your first build. So you can get in windows and get your programs and stuff installed and have a usable system incase me or anyone else is not around to help you with the settings for 4GB. Then once you get your system built and windows installed post back here And I will post a full set of settings for you to get you moving along.

Don't worry already!!! BIOS tweaking is a art, and will take you many hours and some headaches before you start to get the hang of things. Just don't let yourself get upset or frustrated learning things like that will payoff for your build, and for any future builds you do.

Just dont get the mindset it is a "Plug and Play" type of thing. To get the best settings for performance you may spend several days to a week or more depending on what you want to do with your system, the time you have on your hands, and what type of testing you do.

Ok well I guess I will plug everything in... which I hope I do right haha.

Leme ask a q about that. Do I just plug everything up GPU, RAM plug it all in.. then install windows and then once windows is installed I install the CD(drivers) for the RAM/Video Card ?? Is taht how it works?

I mean are there steps to take as far as installing and putting everything together..

Do I just plug in my motherboard and wire everything up and turn it on? Is that all there is? Sorry if the Q's are newbish. I am infact a newb kinda at building computers.

**Lsdmeasap** · 09-11-2008, 01:10 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Yeah, that is about it. You will have to go into the BIOS though before you load windows and setup your disks. Which you manual will explain to you what choices you want to set.

But other then that, yes it is pretty easy stuff. Keep the Cats out of the room, and your socks off. So you dont static shock anything

Be sure also all connections are tight so you dont have a partial connect and short something

**omgitscole** · 09-11-2008, 01:46 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Originally posted by Lsdmeasap View Post

Yeah, that is about it. You will have to go into the BIOS though before you load windows and setup your disks. Which you manual will explain to you what choices you want to set.

But other then that, yes it is pretty easy stuff. Keep the Cats out of the room, and your socks off. So you dont static shock anything

Be sure also all connections are tight so you dont have a partial connect and short something

Can you explain maybe how to go into the bios and setup the disks?

**Lsdmeasap** · 09-11-2008, 02:18 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Well to get into the BIOS you hit the "Delete" key at boot time. Then you will need to go into the Integrated Peripherals page and set your disks up.

Plug your disk into one of the Yellow ports 0-3, then this is what you will want to set for it in the above mentioned page of the BIOS >>>

SATA RAID/AHCI Mode...... [Disabled]
SATA Port0-3 Native Mode ..... [Enabled]

Once you do that you will need to click on the "Boot device priority" and select your Hard disk and set it as the Second device, or first. Depending if you want/need a CD or floppy set as first. You will need to boot from the CD to install your OS but you can choose it when you boot if you like by hitting F12 and chose the drive

Also, that drive ships out with a TINY jumper on the back to limit speeds to SATA I (1.5GB/s) so you will want to remove that FOR SURE before you plug it in. You will need a needle, tiny screwdriver, or some good tweezers as it is sometimes hard to get a hold of

**omgitscole** · 09-11-2008, 10:32 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Originally posted by Lsdmeasap View Post

Well to get into the BIOS you hit the "END" key at boot time. Then you will need to go into the Integreated Peripherals page and set your disks up.

Plug your disk into one of the Yellow ports 0-3, then this is what you will want to set for it in the above mentioned page of the BIOS >>>

SATA RAID/AHCI Mode...... [Disabled]
SATA Port0-3 Native Mode ..... [Enabled]

Once you do that you will need to click on the "Boot device priority" and select your Hard disk and set it as the Second device, or first. Depending if you want/need a CD or floppy set as first. You will need to boot from the CD to install your OS but you can choose it when you boot if you like by hitting F12 and chose the drive

Also, that drive ships out with a TINY jumper on the back to limit speeds to SATA I (1.5GB/s) so you will want to remove that FOR SURE before you plug it in. You will need a needle, tiny screwdriver, or some good tweezers as it is sometimes hard to get a hold of

your talking about my "disks" as in my hard drive right? Or are you talking about my hard drive and my CD/DVD drives?? And your also refering to the bottom left part of the MOBO where the ports say SATA0 SATA1 SATA2 SATA3 ect.. right? So Hard drive would go in sata 1 what would go in he other ports? just any other hard drives i want to set upp? Those SATA ports are ONLY for hard drive right?

and so shud I set my CD drive for 1 and hard drive for 2 ?

haha i feel like such a noob. HAHA I DO understand more than i make it seem I just wana make sure I have a smoothe setup with all of this.

And if I remove the jumper on my hard drive what speeds will it run at instead of 1.5GB/s ?

So thats the only stuff I have to do before installing my OS? Is set up my hard drive? God I hope I dont have as much trouble as im anticipating lol.

Also another thing. All this stuf will be going in my current case, until my Antec 900 comes next week. That shud be ok to unplug everything and move it into the Antec next week right?

**harry23lim** · 09-11-2008, 10:40 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

@LSD

i think hitting END key will let you use Q flash utility

do you mean DEL key? ^_^

another thing..

he has a Sata HDD not an IDE so he dont need to set the jumper in the HDD because there is none ^_^

**mxcrowe** · 09-11-2008, 10:50 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Hitting the END key takes you straight to the QFlash utility from the Gibabyte splash screen. You can also get there from the BIOS main screen (which, of course, you have to get to first by hitting DEL during boot). LSD meant to type DEL key to enter BIOS.

**harry23lim** · 09-11-2008, 10:54 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

@omgitscole

flash to f10G theres no harm on flashing with this board because it has a dual bios.

just format a flash drive with fat32 and put the downloaded bios inside the flashdrive(without folder)

then reboot.. and when the bios post screen appeared hit END key and you will be starting Qflash utility.

when your inside Q flash. you will see a box that is showing your flash drive. go inside it and find the bios version you downloaded. Eg:EP45DS3R10g

and it will be check'ed and it will prompt you again to continue flashing the bios or not. let it continue.(note: dont turn off computer or restart while flashing)

**mxcrowe** · 09-11-2008, 10:58 AM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

@Harry: That is incorrect. Some SATA drives have a jumper that forces the drive to operate at 150mb/s for older controllers.

**Lsdmeasap** · 09-11-2008, 01:14 PM

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R help pls

Originally posted by omgitscole View Post

your talking about my "disks" as in my hard drive right? Or are you talking about my hard drive and my CD/DVD drives?? And your also refering to the bottom left part of the MOBO where the ports say SATA0 SATA1 SATA2 SATA3 ect.. right? So Hard drive would go in sata 1 what would go in he other ports? just any other hard drives i want to set upp? Those SATA ports are ONLY for hard drive right?

and so shud I set my CD drive for 1 and hard drive for 2 ?

haha i feel like such a noob. HAHA I DO understand more than i make it seem I just wana make sure I have a smoothe setup with all of this.

And if I remove the jumper on my hard drive what speeds will it run at instead of 1.5GB/s ?

So thats the only stuff I have to do before installing my OS? Is set up my hard drive? God I hope I dont have as much trouble as im anticipating lol.

Also another thing. All this stuf will be going in my current case, until my Antec 900 comes next week. That shud be ok to unplug everything and move it into the Antec next week right?

Yeah, I meant disks/hard drives. DVD/CD may also be plugged in there as well. You should put your HD's first then CD drives next.

Removing the jumper it will run at SATA II Speed (3.0GB/s) as it should

Best to wait to move things until you have it all there, that way you do not have to take things out twice

Originally posted by harry23lim View Post

@LSD

i think hitting END key will let you use Q flash utility

do you mean DEL key? ^_^

another thing..

he has a Sata HDD not an IDE so he dont need to set the jumper in the HDD because there is none ^_^

Yes, Edited. Sorry I often type that wrong I did mean Delete Key! And Some SATA drives ship out with a speed limiting jumper as Said above, it will need to be removed to get the full available speeds from the disk.

And that drive in particular is one that does ship with a jumper, so it will need to be removed.

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