GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

[z0mbi3]

First off I'd like to apologise for the long read, I can't see any way of making it shorter whilst still making my problem clear.

Last week the memory on my ati 3870 died, so this week I replaced it with a 4670. The problem is that since I've put this 4670 in my cpu overclock doesn't work any more. I'd just like to make it clear that this overclock has been working fine without issue for the last 6 months, so I'm 100% sure the problem I'm having is not related to it.

I'm putting in the same settings as I did before but now as soon as I save the bios, the pc restarts, gets to the memory count bit and restarts again back at default clocks.

I've done a bit more investigating and the even weirder thing is that if if I leave everything at stock, but change the cpu host clock control to manual but leave it at the stock FSB it will still restart itself and clear the settings as described above. If I go back into the bios I can see that cpu host control has changed from manual back to auto.

Now I've had a read of this forum and I've seen it recommended to pull the power cord, hit the power button to discharge the psu and to leave a jumper on the cmon clear pins for a good 10 minutes. I tried this yesterday morning and it worked, my overclock kicked back in and I could restart and shutdown the machine without it losing the settings. As sods law would have it when I did a quick restart before bed last night to check that it was still working it restarted itself during the memory count bit and reverted back to stock settings. I've also made sure I had legacy usb device support disabled.

I tried leaving the cmos in the clear position again as described above, but this time I left it over night, and it won't remember the overclocks at all this morning. It's behaving in exactly the same way as before, even if i just change the cpu host clock control to manual it'll restart itself during the memory check and stick it back to auto.

My specs:

e6300
GA P35C-DS3R (running f12e, upgraded from f8)
4670
2gb x 2 DDR2 patriot memory
x-fi fatality
edit: Antec Trio 650 watt psu

It might be worth adding that I was having this problem with the f8 bios, so I upgraded to f12e to see if it fixed it. It's still behaving exactly the same.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate it. Seems like a good community here and I'm really desperate for some help. Anything anyone can advise would be greatly appreciated.

[godto]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

i think you meant 4870 ...
first i read few place that some mother board have strange effect on the newer video card.
also the new video card require more voltage ... make sure your PSU support it ... it need like 20A .. some thing like that ... and some older PSU can't handle it.
your mother board any problem with voltage will revert back to auto .. that is normal.

but for now .. check your PSU make sure it can handle the new card.

[z0mbi3]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

I definitely mean 4670. The 3870 actually had higher power requirements than the 4670 I replaced it with. Apologies for not including it in my original post, but my PSU is a Antec Trio 650 watt with three 12v+ rails and is more than capable of powering this card.

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

Firstly I don't like the F12e bios and are still using the F11 bios. However, did you complete the bios update by:-

1) Loading up the optimised Defaults (in the bios's first screen)
2) Save
3) Reboot
4) Re-enter the bios to set up your own personal specifics (such as raid/ahci etc)

Edit: Don't use @Bios btw, use QFlash or the Dos boot disk method.
Edit 2: F11 has now been pulled from the Gigabyte site but is still available.

[z0mbi3]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

I used qflash and I made sure I read the sticky on bios flashing before doing so. I did everything with regards to loading optimised defaults and saving before putting any of my custom settings in.

Just to clarify I was running f8 up until 2 days ago, so this problem started before I updated the bios.

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

Before you changed your Graphics card, did you always leave the PC on? It could be a coincedence that that a problem with overclocking has now showed, Or, your last overclock was on the threshold of stability and perhaps a change in loading on the board by your new card, has altered overall stability.

You say it won't hold the same overclock as before, but what happens if you back that off a bit, or relax the memory timings etc.

What was the Overclock, your FSB and Memory multiplier. Where you running the memory on Auto (ie SPD's values). Have you changed any of the voltages?

[z0mbi3]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

The PC was turned off pretty much every night for the last 6 months or so.

Just to point out this bit again from my original post:

I've done a bit more investigating and the even weirder thing is that if if I leave everything at stock, but change the cpu host clock control to manual but leave it at the stock FSB it will still restart itself and clear the settings as described above. If I go back into the bios I can see that cpu host control has changed from manual back to auto.

Basically I can pretty much change every other setting, including overclocking the memory by adjusting the ratios and the system will boot fine. As soon as I set the cpu clock from auto to manual it will restart and change that setting back to auto. Auto at 266 fsb works, but manual at 266 fsb restarts at the memory check and sets itself back to auto.

So just to be clear if I clear the cmos, go into the bios and flick that setting to manual and save, then the system will restart during the memory check and when I go into the bios to check that setting will be back to auto.

The overclock is not at fault here, the system is behaving as described previously with no overclock whatsoever.

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

You don't say (unless I've missed it), what you are running your DDR at, what it's rated at etc or if you are using a manual Memory multiplier or Auto.

For 4GB, you should haave the folowing set to:-

1) Performance Enhance = Standard
2) tRFC = 56

What is the voltage rating of your Ram?

Ideally you could do with filling out the P35 template with your settings, so others can see your exact setup. The template can be found on this forum, but the Moderator (when he's on) should be able to supply you with it.

Like I said before though, either you have a bug in the flashing of the bios (but you said you had the problem before flashing - so that could be ruled out).
You don't say though that when you were running a higher FSB (for your previous overclock) what memory multiplier you used, what voltage you ran the memory at and what effective frequency both the cPU and memory were running at.
The bios defaults back to Auto when it encounters a problem at POST. Very often this is when memory is highly overclocked and/or has tight timings, or is faulty.
Maybe now, your memory is not running even at stock - either possibly because there has been some degradation or there is a faulty module.

Auto can be Defaulted to Globally even when there is a problem in another subsection.
You could prove a lot more by Underclocking and/or checking with memtest when it does boot.

[z0mbi3]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

It's pointless going on about it but my DDR2 is running at stock clocks at 800 mhz and performance enhance is at standard. It's entirely irrelevant though as after a cmos reset if it at default (i.e. turbo) then it works fine. I can even overclockthe memory and it'll work fine. The only setting that makes the bios reset itself is cpu host freq if I set it to manual. At auto it works fine, but if I set it to manual and just leave it at the stock speed it was already at when set to auto then it crashes.

Anyway I have had some half way success with this tonight, I'll post back later and let you know what I did. Trouble is I don't want to speak to soon incase it's not done the job.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

Try adding PCIE voltage to +0.1-0.2 and see if that fixes it. If not, your board may just not work well with the new card, it does sometimes happen

[z0mbi3]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

Okay well here's the update I promised. If I go into the bios, unplug the power then plug it back in and power on then set the oc then it'll remember the oc for awhile but after a couple of power cycles it'll clear it again :(

I'll try that pcie voltage bump described above.

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

My point was that "Auto" appears to truncate some settings - so Auto and Manual might appear the same, but in some cases are not the same. (An additional classic scenario to this would be the Strap assigned to a multiplier - ie you will not know what strap Auto has assigned to a multiplier, ie A,B,C,D or +,#,~) What you don't say is if there are any settings that will work manually, like an underclock for instance that I mentioned a few posts back.

I also pointed out that the Bios will revert back to "Auto" settings if it encounters something manually set it doesn't like.
At the moment you seem to be happy working with very little information

Edit:-
I'm surprised that it's not showing any other problems, ie in memtest, prime95, graphics benchmark with everything back to Auto (that it reverts to). Seeing that Auto is it's self defence routine, which it does in regard to poor manual settings vs hardware - it might still well boot on Auto, but still clearly have a fault, that isn't great enough for it not to boot at all.

[z0mbi3]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

Vorlon, I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. Every other setting, manual or otherwise can be adjusted without issue. It's just the fsb on the cpu that acts up. I could down clock it or overclock it and it would still act the same way (that is to say restarting and clearing the settings) . I can even decrease the multiplier but leave the clock control at auto and it will still save and work fine.

like an underclock for instance that I mentioned a few posts back.

I thought I'd made this clear, it doesn't matter what fsb the cpu is set at, if it's anything other than auto it kicks up a fuss.

I'm not happy to work with little info, I just don't want my thread getting trashed with talk of other settings when I've already discounted them as an issue.

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

Vorlon, I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. Every other setting, manual or otherwise can be adjusted without issue. It's just the fsb on the cpu that acts up. I could down clock it or overclock it and it would still act the same way (that is to say restarting and clearing the settings) . I can even decrease the multiplier but leave the clock control at auto and it will still save and work fine.



I thought I'd made this clear, it doesn't matter what fsb the cpu is set at, if it's anything other than auto it kicks up a fuss.

I'm not happy to work with little info, I just don't want my thread getting trashed with talk of other settings when I've already discounted them as an issue.

I fully understand, but I hadn't seen where you had said you had say attempted to run and test (memtest) on an underclocked FSB - appologies for that.

It was this comment that got me wondering about the Ram:

As sods law would have it when I did a quick restart before bed last night to check that it was still working it restarted itself during the memory count bit and reverted back to stock settings.

I was trying to discount from the equation anything memory related by making sure that was definately ok with several passes of memtest - even with the system residing back at Auto!.

Then more focus could have been put on the changing over of your Graphics card.

Have you tried going back to the F11 bios (i know the problem showed up before the bios upgrade), as the F12e is beta and has it's focus on all the latest CPU's.

Edit:-

Regardless of the bios "problems", does your new 4670 work as it should? Have you compared your 3dmark, 05, 06, vantage scores etc?

[z0mbi3]

Re: GA P35C-DS3R bios and no overclock holding

I've given the card a fair run in Tf2, Vampyre Story on Windows and Compiz effects under linux. Based on that it's performing fine. I don't really have any reason to assume it's faulty.

I'll go with f11 a try now.

The only other thing I could think to try that I haven't yet would be to stick the old card back in. It's only suffering memory errors so I'd be able to work out the right key presses and see if it behaves the same way.