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Strange experience with P35-DS4

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Toro

Registered
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Hi, everyone, wanted to share a strange experience I had with my board and ask someone to give me some insight.

I purchased Q6600 and P35-DS4 based on all the reviews and it's overclocking potential. I went all out and am running it in Antec P182 with Corsair 520HX, XFX 7600GT, and 8GB of OCZ DDR2 800Mhz SLI ready ram.

When I run it at clock setting, everything is well. But, It would not overclock at all even at a moderate 333Mhz FSB speed. I tried 3 sets of RAM modules, another Q6600, changed out the PSU, and the same.

Today, I went through all the BIOS settings, and disabled USB Mouse support (Computer was always freezing right after RAM post, so i figured something was interfering with the boot process). Guess what? I can comfortably go up to 3.6GHz with stock voltage. And with my Thermalright Ultima 90, it passes 8 hours of prime95 test with max load temperture at 57C.

I am back down to 3.2GHz and the chip is running on 1.24V stably although my VID is 1.325V.

Has anyone had any experience with this USB Mouse Support in the bios preventing any form of overclocking? I don't know why that would? And also wondering if my motherboard is defective?

Any help would be greatly appreciated from a fellow P35 comrade.

Thanks in advance.

Theo
 
That's the strangest thing i've read! I haven't seen that problem occur to anyone before.. Sounds like it would be defective.

Have you tried upgrading your BIOS, same results?
 
Yes, my Bios is the latest F11. I went all the way up to 1.45V to see if my system would boot. It never booted until I actually disabled USB Mouse Support. This is really baffling me. I wonder if it has anything to do with the PSU.
 
Is it possible that my CPU hasn't really burnt in? Does it require to be burnt in before it becomes more overclockable? Mine is only a week old...
 
man, i'd kill to have a q6600 that could do 3.6 at stock volts lol :|

mine does 3.6 (400x9) stable, but at 1.5 (1.45 with vdroop) ;(
 
Yes, I have the same board and it is a USB problem. I know this, as my pc would fail to boot from cold and retain any overclocking settings while my USB external drive was pluged in.

I will try to dissable the USB mouse and keyboard and see if this helps. At the moment my pc fails to keep any overclock when I save. I thought it was due to the speed in whcih it shuts down and starts up the pc as I have to shut down the power when the bios shuts down the power. I leave it 4 seconds and it posts with my overclock.
 
I wish I had know this earlier. I RMA's my board, but I can only replace it with the same board. It's interesting that not many other DS4 users reported this problem. I wonder if this is something that can be fixed via BIOS update.

I will need the USB keyboard support because I need access to boot menu for running multiple OS. Has any other DS4 user experienced this problem?

BTW, the system boots fine and retains OC settings, but whenever I press any key during initial post, the bios fails and reverts to default clock setting.

Maybe I should've gone for IP35 Pro. :bang head
 
I have revision 2.0. I tried BIOS F7 through F11. I am hoping my replacement will not exhibit this issue.

If you have a overclocked system, could you hold DEL key while it's posting and see if the computer reboots with default clock setting? If not, I suspect it's either an issue with the specific board or the revision. As far as I understand, the only difference between 2.0 and 2.1 is the energy saving feature.

Look forward to hearing your result.
 
I have Rev 2 and this is for sure a design fault. The two things iv found are for sure causing my problem. USB devices effecting bios boot during memory check, a longer than normal pause. Second is the fact that any bios setting that requires no power shut down saves fine, however any bios setting that does require a shut down resets clock speeds to default. I know this has somthink to do with the way or speed in which is shuts down as if I step in and power it down and wait longer than what bios would to power it back up all settings are retained.

Iv been told by GB suport to RMA it, but I think il just get the same problem with the next one.
 
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Thanks for the insightful reply. I will be getting my rev.2 replacement today. I will certainly try this out. I am hoping this is an issue with a few boards. If this is the problem with all DS4 boards, I am quite surprised not many people have complained about this. It is a pretty serious and annoying bug. I had the exact same symptoms you describe. Anytime BIOS had to save and power down to reboot, all my OC setting reverted to safe BIOS saved as a backup. The only way to get it back up and running is to power off for a few seconds (using PSU off), then reboot.

Will post after my own testing with the new board.
 
Thanks for the insightful reply. I will be getting my rev.2 replacement today. I will certainly try this out. I am hoping this is an issue with a few boards. If this is the problem with all DS4 boards, I am quite surprised not many people have complained about this. It is a pretty serious and annoying bug. I had the exact same symptoms you describe. Anytime BIOS had to save and power down to reboot, all my OC setting reverted to safe BIOS saved as a backup. The only way to get it back up and running is to power off for a few seconds (using PSU off), then reboot.

Will post after my own testing with the new board.

I look forward to hearing your results as its difficalt to know if its a physical fault with the board, or a poorly writen bios that has compatability issues with some hardware. I hope that it is a fault with certain boards in a way, as I like this board should I have a working one.
 
Well, I just installed the replacement board which is rev. 2.1. My older one was rev. 2.0. The result is not good. I have the exact same problem. I have to conclude that this is an issue with the motherboard design given I have tried 3 CPU's, 2 sets of different RAM, 2 PSU, and hours of testing. This is quite frustrating. I hope Gigabyte will fix this issue. I will try to send my result to Gigabyte tech guys.

Hope someone else could chime in if my finding is incorrect.
 
Well, I just installed the replacement board which is rev. 2.1. My older one was rev. 2.0. The result is not good. I have the exact same problem. I have to conclude that this is an issue with the motherboard design given I have tried 3 CPU's, 2 sets of different RAM, 2 PSU, and hours of testing. This is quite frustrating. I hope Gigabyte will fix this issue. I will try to send my result to Gigabyte tech guys.

Hope someone else could chime in if my finding is incorrect.

I was realy hoping that it was a bad batch of boards. Looks like Gigabyte has some sorting out to do. Iv looked for days on this subject and im finding more and more people having issues with overclocks not sticking, even if they are fully stable. I retain my thought that if this bios didnt completly shut down the pc during saving the bios, that it would have no problems. Second issue is for sure a problem with USB and bios with cold boots.

Im going to send my board back as I got this to get away from the dreaded 680i chipset killing my Ram.

Can anyone recomend a P35 board that dont have any issues:confused:
 
I will try that. I have tried a different mouse. But, I suspect the issue might be with the USB keyboard. I will give that a try.
 
I was realy hoping that it was a bad batch of boards. Looks like Gigabyte has some sorting out to do. Iv looked for days on this subject and im finding more and more people having issues with overclocks not sticking, even if they are fully stable. I retain my thought that if this bios didnt completly shut down the pc during saving the bios, that it would have no problems. Second issue is for sure a problem with USB and bios with cold boots.

Im going to send my board back as I got this to get away from the dreaded 680i chipset killing my Ram.

Can anyone recomend a P35 board that dont have any issues:confused:

I hear you. I was hoping that as well. I know that Abit IP35 is one of the highest rated P35 boards. I wish I had gone for that one. But, with newegg, I can only return it for exchange. Somehow, Newegg does not offer refund option for certain Gigabyte boards. So I am stuck and have to wish that GB will fix the problem.

Could you point out where you found people complaining with the same issue?
 
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