Gigabyte 970A-UD3P no option to disable spread spectrum?

So yea, I can't find where to disable spread spectrum in the bios for the 970A-UD3P. Am I missing something obvious?

I see mentions that other gigabyte 970 boards have the option:
GA-970A-UD3
GA-970A-D3
GA-970A-DS3
And those are older boards.

But I sure can't find it for the UD3P. Nor is there any to adjust PCIe clock (which sometimes settings other than "auto" also disables Spread Spectrum).

Why did gigabyte leave it out? Is there any way to request for bios with it? Even if it's beta?

It's really maddening because otherwise this board has been a lot of fun, but having the base clock jump around +/- 3mhz it kinda nuts for having cpu/NB flux 30-40Mhz as a result.

I would contact Giga support and tell them bios version in use and ask where in hale the feaure is located.
RGone...

I'll send an email / phone gigabyte support and see if anything happens. I have a bad feeling it will be blown off as "working as intended."

But don't know until I try I guess.

Also, some of the numbers coming out of cpuz don't even make sense? When Bus speed goes down, Core and HT Link report higher? Actually wth none of the numbers add up right.

Seen a few people come thru going to buy that mobo. None have come back reporting anything like what you are seeing. I might try and RMA with the seller if you are still in time frame to do so.
Get me a new board.
RGone...

If you have this page then disable all the options from the top down to the CPU core control option.

xrror said:

So yea, I can't find where to disable spread spectrum in the bios for the 970A-UD3P. Am I missing something obvious?

I see mentions that other gigabyte 970 boards have the option:
GA-970A-UD3
GA-970A-D3
GA-970A-DS3
And those are older boards.

But I sure can't find it for the UD3P. Nor is there any to adjust PCIe clock (which sometimes settings other than "auto" also disables Spread Spectrum).

Why did gigabyte leave it out? Is there any way to request for bios with it? Even if it's beta?

It's really maddening because otherwise this board has been a lot of fun, but having the base clock jump around +/- 3mhz it kinda nuts for having cpu/NB flux 30-40Mhz as a result.

Click to expand...

I think it's in there but Gigabyte may have renamed it with the use of the UEFI BIOS, ask about that when you email/call them.

I wouldn't bother honestly... unless you are using extreme overclocking, a bit of a jump here and there on the 'FSB' is not harmful.

It may just be a software error also. I have the same issue with different versions of Cpu-Z on all of my motherboards. Depending on the rig, I've seen the FSB/BCLK change slightly as you are seeing. It never bothered me enough to even investigate where the issue lies. I just figured it was an errant reading in Cpu-Z.

EarthDog said:

I wouldn't bother honestly... unless you are using extreme overclocking, a bit of a jump here and there on the 'FSB' is not harmful.

Click to expand...

You're probably right, but it's bugging me because I'm skirting the edge of where the memory controller on this chip drops out, or maybe the memory itself.

Plus I just kinda expected for the option to be there on any recent retail motherboard - it's a small thing but just didn't expect to not have it.

A buddy of mine actually has this same board with an FX in it, next time I see him I'll ask if his also does this. I'd think it would be worse with an FX, since they run a higher multiplier?

Actually now that I mention that, that might be a rather important question since this board is often one of the cheapest with a decent power section.

Been busy most of the day and no time to really look...

however the answer is likely as outlined below.

This is from the FAQ for the really pain in the booty GA-990FXA-UD3 (rev. 3.0)
I am betting since the board you have is "supposed" to replace that series of board, I suspect you have to do the same thing for your later replacement model of mobo.
How to disable 'Spread Spectrum' in BIOS setting?
Kindly set [CPU Host Clock Control] to [Manual] to disable "Spread Spectrum".
I imagine AUTO was auto enabling Spread Spectrum. It has been quite a while, but there were some older boards did the same thing.
RGone...

EDIT ADD: Just realized you said the GA-990FXA-UD3, this one is just a 970 board so it shouldn't be replacing a 990 (one hopes).

CPU Host Clock control. Where art thou?

So after failing to figure out how the UEFI screenshot function works, resorted to the camera.

Heck they have now named the Host Clock Control as BCLK Control as if the dang board were an Intel one. Most other boards call it HT Ref Freq and we used to call it FSB. It is the "host" clock now from which all the other buss clocks are derived from and why when you change it; the Ram, HT Link and CPU_NB all go up if you up the BCLK Control or what is normally called HT Ref Freq aka Host Clck Control.

I have never seen a bios quite like what Giga is using on that mobo.

Also you have the FSB/HT Ref Freq/Host Clock Control changed so that must not be what turns off Spread Spectrum or the Oscillator is just that wonky on that mobo. I would be interest to see what Giga says. It should be fun to read.

Luck man.
RGone...

Seriously BCLK? Mayby they want you to think it's an Intel board!

If they've switched to Intel nomenclature does that mean AMD CPUs will now perform on a par like Intels (toungue and cheek)?

slaps knee...

trents said:

If they've switched to Intel nomenclature does that mean AMD CPUs will now perform on a par like Intels (toungue and cheek)?

Click to expand...

Yes, that must be it, Mr T...good thinking

trents said:

If they've switched to Intel nomenclature does that mean AMD CPUs will now perform on a par like Intels (toungue and cheek)?

Click to expand...

"trents" that is a thought for sure. Now to test it out. Have to get a Giga board though and I think that is not on my horizon at all.
RGone...ster.

Well, I got a reply.

"Dear Customer,
Unfortunately these options are not available on this board, what type of issue you are encountering?"

So I think I'm boned, since they can only really guarantee settings at stock. And it works stock so... mmeeehh

I'll ask as a feature request if maybe these could be added, but yeeaaaa. Right. I'm sure they'll get right back to me on that.

right?

*crickets*

EarthDog said:

I wouldn't bother honestly...

Click to expand...

In the end I think you're proven right. I can't get anything past 286 ... HTT clock (lol what to call it) to run 24/7 stable. Well sadly I think the CPU/memory seem up to it, but the board itself goes la la land. I'll get back to that...

But another coincidence? I keep seeing on random posts of when using locked Thurban (1055T mostly) on 9xx chipset that 286/287 keeps popping up as a common speed people "stabilize at" which is... suspicious.

Which okay the bios/uefi screenshots above were of 290. Everything runs fine except after a few hours the vid card won't wake the monitor up, mouse/keyboard are unresponsive, power button doesn't do anything (well long press does shut off) which okay it's locked up right?

Except I can still Remote Desktop into it? And play around remotely. Like huh? So maybe chipset or other parts of the board aren't happy? I've tried putting a fan on the chipset heatsink but this still happened. I need to log chipset temps maybe to see.

But there is some definite "wall" there. 286 runs for days. 287 won't wake up.

Lastly this board seems strange with not "resetting" everything when you reboot. For instance if I try say 305 for a suicide shot, sometimes the USB flakes out (mouse keyboard erratic) but if you manage to reboot - and then set something that worked before like 280 and reboot, the USB is still nuts. Then the machine will still go "zombie sleep" or crash outright.

Unplugging keyboard/mouse thinking maybe the devices are confused results in them not being detected again that boot, which smacks of USB controller overspec/undefined state.

If you shutdown fully (soft shutdown works thankfully) then power back up this goes away. So you can "fuzz" various controllers on the board like this then when they don't get reset on a restart, it will cause you grief wondering why things that were stable before at a lower speed aren't now.

And that comes back around to wondering what PCIe speed actually is being set to, or other things on the board are. I'd chalk it up to just "chipset crash" except... you can still remote into it. Just weird!

Lastly I keep reading things that 9xx chipsets are really tuned for Bulldozer gen and not Phenom which makes sense really, but even 286 isn't a bad result considering. Unless 8xx chipsets were pulling 310+ easily on Phenom II's - I haven't looked for that, but if that were true I'd think the 1035T would suddenly have been a LOT more popular

But after all this, my buddy who has this same mobo except with an FX better hide his computer, cause I've got some experimenting to do on it

While on the main BIOS press CONTROL+F1, a new menu will appear, there you shuld be able to disable SS.
Hope it helps.