Gigabyte GA X38 DQ6 Blog

[lokeey]

hey s'shanks, on page 2 in your review of this board, you said you took apart the Cool 'n Quiet cooper and reapplied thermal paste. Does it have to be paste or can it be say, Zalman Super Thermal Grease. I noticed the temp on my MB was running a bit high so I was thinking about breaking it down and reapplying some thermal on North & South Bridge, mainly north.

also, do you know of any fans that will fit the NB?

[X-Kenshin-X]

Originally Posted by supershanks

X-Kenshin-X,
Sorry i'd assumed you were talking about 8500 ram. The only post you mention your ram was here on 27-02-2008, 21:00 , that's why it's better if you can put your specs either in your signature or in the User CP - Extra Options section. Thanks

What voltage are tyou running them on & what cooling are yiou using ??
luck

ok ok i went ahead and put my specs in the user CP

my cooling is well... air cooling, i have an antec 900, and i installed one more 120MM fan on the side.

also i ran the little test thingy you got me, and i got about 3-4 errors after 15min. but i was still surfing the internet and doing stuff on the computer... neways it shouldn't give me any errors, my ram isn't even overclocked or nothin'

so what now?

the current settings in the bios right now are these:
System Voltage Control
DDR2 OverVoltage Control : 0.40
PCI-E OverVoltage Control : 0.35
FSB OverVoltage Control : 0.35
(G)MCH OverVoltage Control : 0.375
MCH Reference Voltage Control : Normal
DDR Reference Voltage Control : Normal
DDR Termination Voltage Control : Normal
CPU GTLREF1 Voltage* : +3%
CPU GTLREF2 Voltage* : Normal
CPU Voltage Control :1.575 (CPU-Z however shows voltage as being v1.518-v1.520)
Normal CPU Vcore : 1.325

[supershanks]

Hi Lokeey ,
you mean Check out the Heatpipes ?? I normally do this on all new motherboards , as on many the Thermal paste is rubbish. The gigabyte is about the only board that is extremely well done so

As you can see all of the blocks are well covered with Thermal Tape.
So all i did was resecure them

If you want to use a cooling fan try this

This shows a 60mm Fan mounted using double sided tape on the mobo side. It works fine blowing into the Northbridge grill. This is on my X48 , but the layout is identical, so will work on the X38.


Another shot between the water tubes

Note: That's not a plaster on my NB It's retaining a thermal sensor so I have an idea on temps.

luck

[supershanks]

ok ok i went ahead and put my specs in the user CP

Cheers that helps

So this is your ram Transcend Introduces Ultimate Overclocking Memory – aXeRam™ DDR2-1200+ Very nice I Asked earlier , how are you cooling it ?? Fine the specified voltage is 2.2v which I see your running. Micron memory is great but runs hot. 2.20v vdimm creates a lot of heat & so you require a fan or memory cooler such as shown here Dominator Ram Cooler (see 2nd pic) . Over time the ram can deteriorate due to high voltage, especially if inadequately cooled. Most of us here have used the Crucial 8500 kits & had a set die at some time. It may be that the errors are around timings that need tweaking.

What are your settings for these

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time: : 
DRAM RAS# to CAS# : 
DRAM RAS# Precharge : 
Precharge Delay(tRAS) : 
Advanced Timing Control
ACT to ACT Delay(tRRD) :
Rank Write to READ Delay :
Write To Precharge Delay : 
Refresh to ACT Delay : 
Read To Precharge Delay : 
tRD : 
tRD Phase Adjustment : 
Command to #CS Timing: :

if their the sane as

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time:: 5
DRAM RAS# to CAS#: 5
DRAM RAS# Precharge: 5
Precharge Delay(tRAS): 15
Advanced Timing Control
ACT to ACT Delay(tRRD): Auto
Rank Write to READ Delay: Auto
Write To Precharge Delay: Auto
Refresh to ACT Delay: Auto
Read To Precharge Delay: Auto
tRD : Auto
tRD Phase Adjustment : Auto
Command to #CS Timing: 2

Then try the following & rerun tests after changing them, hopefully you'll find you hit the right spot. If the errors continue then i'd get back to transend for an RMA.

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time: : 5
DRAM RAS# to CAS# : 5 
DRAM RAS# Precharge : 5
Precharge Delay(tRAS) : 12
Advanced Timing Control
ACT to ACT Delay(tRRD) : 4
Rank Write to READ Delay : 4
Write To Precharge Delay : 8 
Refresh to ACT Delay : 35 try higher if still errors 40, 45 etc.,
Read To Precharge Delay :  4
tRD : 7 or if sdtill errors 8
tRD Phase Adjustment :  Auto
Command to #CS Timing: : 2T

luck

[X-Kenshin-X]

yeah my current timings are:

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time:: 5
DRAM RAS# to CAS#: 5
DRAM RAS# Precharge: 5
Precharge Delay(tRAS): 15
Advanced Timing Control
ACT to ACT Delay(tRRD): 7 (like u told me to make it)
Rank Write to READ Delay: Auto
Write To Precharge Delay: Auto
Refresh to ACT Delay: Auto
Read To Precharge Delay: Auto
tRD: Auto
tRD Phase Adjustment: Auto
Command to #CS Timing: 2

i have nothing directly cooling the ram, but the case has great airflow, and i bought a 120mm fan that blows just 1inch above the ramsticks, and it throws 110CFM at 'em, so i would think that is enough. the rest of the system is running pretty cool too.


ok i'll try ur timings and see how it goes.

[supershanks]

the problem with a 120mm fan is that it has a blind spot in the centre where not much air is moved. this doesn't matter in a case where it's moving volumes of air around, but does have an impact when direct cooling components. it means that somer of the memory chips are getting cooled but not all.

see how it goes.

[X-Kenshin-X]

well thxs for the info, u are very knowledgable about everything
ok well i guess i'll have to wait a while until i get some cash to buy that thing, but i defenetly will

neways guess what! i actually had my DRAM at .35 overvolt, not .4 haha, so MAYBE that's why i got the error... :P

well anyways, i went ahead and upped the voltage and i also changed all the settings to the timings you gave me, and i got no errors now.

so then, now that the ram is in the clear, what's next?

on a sidenote, i took this mem benchmark from everest, i was wonderin' if it's good, and what you all get on it too...

[supershanks]

well thxs for the info, u are very knowledgable about everything

ya think? I just make it up No , joking Flattery will get you everywhere

guess what! i actually had my DRAM at .35 overvolt, not .4 haha, so MAYBE that's why i got the error... :P

we've all done that at 1 time or another.

and i got no errors now.

good news how long did you test 1000% ??

so then, now that the ram is in the clear, what's next?

So are you now stable again ??

Everest bench looks good though it's odd it didn't pick up your memory info ??
You shoud find you'll beat my benches see the index in post #1 for my 9x450

luck

[X-Kenshin-X]

i tested it for about 45 min. past 100%

oh yeah, i thought the benches were great, until i looked at my bros, he's running stock DDR2-800 at 5-5-5-15 on an AMD FX-62, and the latency on his ram was 42ns, and some of his benches were either close to mine, or a lil better...

also, mine weren't all that much better than yours... >_>

maybe the timings you gave me are a lil too lose? i mean it should be more stable now with the extra voltage... how can i improve performance a lil more?



NOTE
if by stable u mean run Prime... well it only ran for 2 min. and the test failed...

sidenote: i was thinking, what if i put these settings all to auto,

Clock Driving and Skew Control
CPU/PCIEX Clock Driving Control : 1000mv
CPU Clock Skew Control : Normal
MCH Clock Skew Control : Normal

because i have it set at 1000mV, i dunno what that is or it does, but maybe that's the reason why my prime fails??

[supershanks]

Personally I'd of run the memtest to at least 1000% to give better probability of being error free.

With the memory controller on the CPU with AMD they always have the drop on latency.

In fairness though we spend a lot of time tweaking memorry it's CPU speed that yields higher performance. Extra mamory speed is the icing on the cake.

I'd try putting your GTLrefd back to Auto or Normal, unless this gave you more stability ??

Re Skew read this More BIOS Details It might help leaving it on the 800mV 1000mV was basically what worked for me .

if by stable u mean run Prime... well it only ran for 2 min. and the test failed...

Yep That was my point earlier , if you are running prime blend, it starts with Large FFTs which stress memory rather than CPU. So I'd expect from the time that is failed about 4 or 5th loop of fft. It might still be timings or it might have been due to the low vdimm. Have you tried re-running since you found that error ??

luck