GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

[RedDwarf]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

They only post a few things in change logs, MANY other items may have been corrected/added or changed. Do not let the minor change log stop you from updating

I don't usually bother getting the latest just for the sake of it unless it will definitely benefit me. It would only be the stability with PCIe cards that is important most of all.

That Intel ROM will also improve your boot times if you are using RAID or AHCI as well, so it's well worth the update for that alone.

I don't use them so it would not benefit me.

Setting PCIE 100 is the default, so no setting that should not affect anything, we only suggest manually setting this because when overclocking if left in auto it can raise this as well without the user intending to do so.

Using more could possibly help though, not less, try 101-103 and see if anything changes. Normally though this only helps reach a higher overclock

I intend to leave it as long as possible up until the weekend to test stability without the Sat card installed, so any further testing with Bios settings with the card installed won't be until Sunday at the earliest. That will give about 4 days of testing which should be enough, it has never stayed stable with the card installed for that long.

The strange thing is that the card doesn't have to be used for my PC to freeze/lock up, so I doubt it can be a driver issue if they are not being used. It's like just having the card installed, even with no drivers is enough to lock up my PC. But no one else has reported problems like this. Other functional problems with the drivers but not system instability.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

It will benifit you I am sure, no need to hold off on BIOSes on a board this old, there may not be anymore ever made so you might as well install the latest one anyway.

[RedDwarf]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

I think it would be useful if Gigabyte would list what changes are made in the Bioses so people can decide whether there is any benefit to updating. Are F8d and F8f valid Bioses? Are they worth using? They appear on
GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS5

I have noticed the following.
DES disabled:

DES enabled with power saving level 1:

DES enabled with power saving level 3:

For some reason DES now has the 3 saving level buttons which it did not the last time I tried it. It has had those in the past but recently they have not shown. When those were not available the CPU voltage level was higher and within the correct voltage level of 1.15 to 1.2125V. Now the CPU voltage level looks low, very low when the 3rd saving level is selected.



I have some news about the testing. After about 64 hours in Windows after removing the Sat card drivers and then the card itself with some hours in standby it froze up and hung I really thought that taking out the Sat card would fix it but it looks like that isn't the culprit. Which leaves an even more confused picture.

Tried these
Ram - swapped for compatible Gigabyte certified memory, both sets tried running at 800 & 1066, Kingston only 800 - still hung
Sat card - drivers uninstalled and sat card removed - still hung
Graphics card drivers updated - still hung
Multiple (3 or 4) copies of windows used - still hung
MCH voltage increased +0.2 - still hung
Performance enhance dropped to Standard - still hung

Possibilities
PSU - 3.3v does go a bit low when overclocked and is slightly low (3.2+v) normally but 12v is solid and I have never seen it below 12V
Hard drive errors? Smart does not indicate that - I have now moved the swap file to the system partition from a swap partition on an older drive, the system partition swap file size was fairly small @ about 200MB to allow system booting if the drive with the swap partition was removed.

So I am a bit lost for ideas. It's hung on 3 or 4 windows installs and I doubt they can all be corrupt in the same way. It seems strange that it can take so long for the freeze ups to occur, 3 days is a long time and makes testing very time consuming. But I don't know of any no clues to why it is happening.

[JustRob]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

Personally I would use the Bios listed at the official website for Gigabyte boards!!!! Anyhoo it is not beyond the realms of possility that your HDD could be faulty, that's why I suggested a brand new instal on another HDD.......I know you have multiple OS's on the HDD but try another! Just a thought bud..


I checked your CPU voltage against mine and mine are the same without any load ie: 1.104V and it increases under load so that is fine, you can rule that out!

[RedDwarf]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

Personally I would use the Bios listed at the official website for Gigabyte boards!!!! Anyhoo it is not beyond the realms of possility that your HDD could be faulty, that's why I suggested a brand new instal on another HDD.......I know you have multiple OS's on the HDD but try another! Just a thought bud..

I have flashed to F8c and the Bios options are slightly different, with separate USB 1.0 & USB 2.0 enable/disable options which I don't remember being present with F7.

I already have Win XP installed on 2 different hard drives, 3 on 3 different partitions on one hard drive and 1 on the last hard drive I purchase which I use most of the time and all have the same problem!

I checked your CPU voltage against mine and mine are the same without any load ie: 1.104V and it increases under load so that is fine, you can rule that out!

That is without DES activated, when it is the voltage drops to 1.056V and 1.008V, the minimum voltage for my CPU is meant to be 1.15V so they are all below and 2 by a big margin.
Your CPU is probably different to mine and has a different VID rating. Mine is a 1.2125V VID Q9450.

As I am getting no where with this I am seriously thinking of scrapping this motherboard, it's been nothing but problems since I got it. The Gigabyte help is the best thing about it.

I was trying to create a new updated Win XP CD with the latest updates but my PC froze and locked up while doing it......more time lost.

I am losing far too much time and work like this.

[RedDwarf]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

My PC froze up yet again minutes after posting my last reply. The screen was powered down so I couldn't see anything on screen, keyboard LED's none functional, Caps lock & Num Lock, Mouse would not bring the display back on just totally locked.

System lockups and freezes are frequently caused by insufficient CPU voltage in my experience with a number of motherboards. The system either reboots or totally locks up. On this PC if I am using a TV card at the time, the TV display will stop and sometimes the last sound will repeat endlessly, mouse and keyboard become unresponsive.

I had a look through the F8c Bios and it does have more options. It has a Save/Load Bios options to Fat/Fat32 disk which could be useful as I am a bit fed up with having to keep setting up my Bios options when the board decides to trash all my settings after it claims Bios corruption occurred.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

Yes, use the latest BIOS listed on the GBT site, they are valid.

I would uninstall DES actually since you are having stability issues, using it is not going to help diagnose anything and may be causing issues.

[RedDwarf]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

Still no good.

I uninstalled DES after disabling it and the Voltages still seem too low. I flashed to F8c and moved my DECT cordless phone away from my PC and it still crashed so I am running out of things to try. That Bios didn't overclock very well and required different settings than the F7 Bios so I am not too happy with that so I flashed to F8d. I think it's a board fault, running the CPU at too low a voltage. I might try increasing the CPU voltage to try and get it above the minimum voltage for this CPU which is meant to be 1.15V and see if that will keep it stable. If so then I will RMA the board as it will be what is at fault. ATM vCore is 1.104V according to CPU-z with only the Intel power saving enabled.

The PSU might be the thing to test but that is difficult. The voltages at the ATX connector need to be tested which is difficult when it's inside the case. I could maybe swap it with a Tagan PSU that I was using for a short time before I got the Corsair HX520. I doubt the 12 volt is a problem as it has always shown above 12 V.

Getting reports for 3.3 & 5V is a problem from Windows as little seems to report it correctly. It would take an oscilloscope to get accurate readings as a multimeter doesn't react quickly enough.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

it could be the CPU voltage is too low, raise it and see. You could also disable C1E and EIST as well, testing with auto and or raised voltages and see if that helps.

[RedDwarf]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

it could be the CPU voltage is too low, raise it and see. You could also disable C1E and EIST as well, testing with auto and or raised voltages and see if that helps.

I raised the vCore to 1.25 V and had CPU-z open and running with real time priority and the voltage looked okay, it never went below the VID voltage.

Four hours later when CPU-z was not visible, it was getting in the way of me doing something, my PC locked up.

That's three lock ups in the space of 24 hours.

I think I need to check the PSU. I do have an older Tagan PSU, it's a 480 Watt so lower powered than the Corsair but I was using it with this PC for a short time before I purchased the Corsair. The amps on the 12 volt line are lower than the Corsair, the 5 & 3.3 Volt lines having higher power. The Tagan was just before most things moved to the 12 Volt line.

I could swap them out if I can find the Molex to PCI-e power adapter for my graphics card.

Is there a reliable application to show system voltages? I have Easy Tune 5 and that only shows the 12 Volt and 3.3 Volt lines.
I have CPUID Hardware Monitor latest version and that does show 5V which hardly changes (0.02V) and 12 Volts which shows different values to Easy Tuner Hardware Monitor. 12 V are lower in Hardware Monitor than they are in Easy Tune but not by a large amount, showing min 12.16, Max 12.22V. Easy Tune shows 12.04 to 12.11V but no min and max are recorded.

The vCore shows as different by Easy Tune than CPU-z, so which is to be believed? The difference is more than rounding.

Without accurate figures, I am not going to get anywhere with this.

[RedDwarf]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

I swapped the PSU's last night which took longer than expected as the Molex to PCI-e power converter wouldn't fit the power connector. I could not find the one which came with the graphics card until I had messed around with it for 2 hours trying to cut the one I had available and finally gave up on it and found the one that did fit.

5 hours after getting that up and running it froze up and locked. So not the PSU. I have removed the IDE lead as this motherboard doesn't work well with long IDE cables. I had lots of trouble with it when I first got it until I fitted a slightly shorter cable, it's a full tower case so they can't get very short.

It's locked up 3 times so far today and twice while attempting to compile a new Windows XP CD which has trebled the time it should of taken. I had an idea about the SATA cables as I was taking some measurements for a new heatsink while browsing some reviews. One drive, several partitions went missing so I think that maybe there is a cable fault. It doesn't really explain why the PC would lock up having a none system partition going missing but the drive that went missing does contain a Win XP install that I usually use. But I was using a different install while doing the XP CD which is on a different drive entirely. So I have changed the cables on the drives containing the Windows installs.

I did flash to F8f as F8c & d had both been freezing up very quickly and didn't overclock very well.

It has a Bios backup to hdd setting and it did look like it was updating the Bios backup to a newer version which has never been done before. It's always been a very early buggy version F5.

[JustRob]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

Wow this must have you pulling your hair out by now lol, have you thought about changing out the RAM for another brand like say a couple of 2 gig sticks of corsair just to be sure that it's not a compatability issue with your current OCZ ram???? I have 4 gig of OCZ ram in the cupboard that I raked of my X48 because of hard locks etc and I put the corsair stuff on and I clocked up my Q9450 to 3.2 with 400fsb and I am stable 24/7. My power supply is a 1000watt Zalman.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

I agree, maybe you should try some other memory and see if this is the issue or not

[RedDwarf]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

Thank you JustRob & Lsdmeasap for your replies. I have already swapped the memory so memory certainly isn't the problem. I have some Gigabyte certified Kingston 2x1GB PC6400 memory that exhibited the same problems. It made absolutely no difference and was just as unstable. The only things I haven't changed are the CPU and graphics card. Windows has been used on two different hard drives.

The SATA cables seemed unlikely to me as I have had faulty SATA cables in the past and they were noticeable but there doesn't look anything wrong with the two I changed. But so far it has been stable and with the F8f Bios and that is a little better. But still not really tested, it requires a lot longer.

[JustRob]

Re: GA-X48-DS5 totally unstable - need some help

Well it would seem that you more than likely have a software conflict that may be running in the background that could be causing the stability problems, seeing to me you have pretty much exhausted the hardware option. Why don't you disable all things that run when windows starts like messenger, yahoo or what ever starts with windows, then go into your msconfig then startup tab and disable all hit ok, then reboot as windows will load only what it needs. See if that helps?