GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

[Tiger-Heli]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

I'm not sure if it is AMD related or not, the thread mentioned "CPU to AGP Interface" which somewhat sounds AMD related, but not sure.

Now that the Northbridge, the CPU, and the video (ATI/AMD) are all AMD, I would think most of these issues would have been resolved.

I think you are on the right track with the BIOS, Catalyst, and then other things sequence, though.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the system now only crashes maybe every 4 or 5 days and no rhyme or reason when or why, so it's quite possible I'll think I solved it only to have it pop up again.

[Flocons De Mais]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

I dropped the memory from 1600 to 1333 with no other changes (could have probably bumped the voltage instead, but more worried about stability than speed).

Bumping the voltage should help with stability in this case. 1600 speeds usually require a higher than default voltage anyway. I have Mushkin 1600 that boots fine but freezes up on Prime so I have it running at 1333 at 1.9V

Search for and delete ATIDVAG.exe if present. Change PCI TO PCI driver per this page.

I have Vista, W7 and Xp systems installed but I can't find that file anywhere.

Update Catalysts to 9.11 - I think I am running 9.6.

9.6 doesn't even officially support the 4200 chipset so definitely update those.

Maybe flash BIOS - I think I am running F1, there is an F3 and F4Beta out, but neither address the issue, but I don't know what if anything F2 did.

You should definitely be running F3. I would avoid F4A but if you're not unlocking cores or overclocking it might be fine.

Dumb newbie questions - I'm assuming that any previous changes (memory voltage and timings, etc.) will be lost in the flash, so I should write them down beforehand, correct?

You can save your cmos settings to a usb drive and load them later.

[Tiger-Heli]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

@ Flocons De Mais - Thanks!

* Voltage was bumped previously. This is OCZ 1800 DDR3 that was running fine in P95 at 1.8 or 1.85V at 1600, but BSOD (maybe not related, but I was seeing things like "Page Fault" in the errors) in games, so I dropped back to 1.8 at 1333. (So I am running similar timings to yours now.)

* Typo on my part in the filename. ATI2dvag.dll is a legit file that was showing up on the Infinite Loop BSOD. ATI2dvag.exe is apparently malware, but I didn't find it on my system.

* Perhaps it was 9.7. I absolutely HATE that ATI calls them 9.xx, but when you look up info, they are 8.XX - for example

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

You can save BIOS profiles to USB Stick via Qflash or from the F11/F12 save/load options on the MAIN page of the BIOS.

I Do not advise using old settings or profiles with different BIOSes though, but it could give you a starting point to look at, but do not load old profiles with new BIOSes and actually use them, many changes are made in each BIOS and this is not advised

Use this if you want to disable CCC from startup, I use this for many programs that like to snake there way into startup >>
Mike Lin's Home Page

This will appear in your control panel, in 32bit control panel items if you are using x64

Windows Defender > Tools > Software Explorer will also allow you to disable some items

[Tiger-Heli]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

StartupCPL is a great program - I use it all the time and really missed it when we got a new laptop with Win7 installed (but I figured out where to find the info in Win7).

My main point was that if you don't load cli.exe at boot-up, CCC is not supposed to start up, but now it still will, but ATI still has a shortcut to start the runtime, even though it doesn't seem to be needed - but I guess ATI just wanted to cover all the bases.

I'm also curious how and why the system thinks I installed a floppy drive (maybe b/c the USB stick was never removed after I updated the BIOS)???

Thanks!!!

[Tiger-Heli]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

I forgot - I also would like advice on the UMA Frame buffer size - 512M or Auto?

Which would be better and why?

For reference - I believe the board has 256M dedicated VRAM, and I have 2GB of system RAM, so the options work out to 768M VRAM and 1.5GB system RAM (for WinXP 32-bit SP3), or 256M dedicated and variable additional Video and less System.

(Or some lower than 512M but fixed setting?)

Thanks again!!!

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

Are you sure you have floppy disabled in the BIOS? Check to be sure, then I would go ahead and reinstall your chipset drivers to be sure.

I have seen this myself with Intel boards, but not for a while, and I never knew what caused it either I just did like you did and disabled it.

[Tiger-Heli]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

I ran Crysis Benchmark Demo at 1280x960 and 16xQ AA (and 3.0 FPS) for 30 minutes last night with no issues, so I'm taking that as a positive sign.

Another dumb newb question, but are there chipset drivers for the 785G - I didn't see them here, so I'm thinking they may be included with the Catalyst HD4200 drivers.

[artdrivers]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

Hi Tiger-Heli

Which would be better and why?

You should consider a dedicated graphics card. The onboard graphics can't come close to any graphics card with 128bit or 256bit memory speed. The memory speed of your onboard graphics is 64bit. Also you will free up that memory for other resources if you get a dedicated graphics solution. I went with a Sapphire HD3870 with a single slot fan. It was a huge improvement to that onboard solution. They have HD4850, HD4870, HD5800 series now which are suppose to be much better than a HD3870 but I got a good deal on this and am glad I purchased it. It was more than likely one of the best improvements I made to this system.

[Tiger-Heli]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

We keep getting deeper into the weeds from what I was asking!!!

I understand that a dedicated graphics card would improve performance - I'm not that unhappy with it as it is - if it quits BSODing, which hopefully it has.

If I don't get a dedicated graphics card, I want to know whether the UMA frame buffer should be set to AUTO, 512M, or something else?

And I want to know if there are chipset drivers separate from the Catalyst drivers?

And if there aren't - If I were to get an Nvidia Graphics card, does that mean I would have to install the Catalyst drivers for the chipset and the Forceware drivers for the new graphics card - that seems really strange, but it seems likely?

Thanks again!!!

[artdrivers]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

It does not matter if you set it to auto or 512M. With the memory you have it will still be the same. @ Auto it will set it to 512M due to the 2GB's of memory you have.
Yes you will still have ATI SATA controllers which are considered Catalyst drivers.
I am sorry I did'nt mean to put us into a forest without a gun.

[Tiger-Heli]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

Last question hopefully and then I am good - at least until something else weird happens:

You said I would still have ATI SATA controllers which ARE CONSIDERED Catalyst drivers.

If I go to support.amd.com and look for 785G drivers, I don't find anything. Am I correct in assuming the latest 9.11 HD4200 video Catalyst drivers also update the 785G chipset?

Thanks!!!

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

In this post I linked to specific manual driver downloads for AMD items

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ga-ma790x-ud4p-amd-raid-drivers-36354/#post332610

[artdrivers]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

No they are seperate. The SATA is in the Southbridge AMD SB-710 You can get a seperate SATA driver. Look closely some dates are new.
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver - GA-MA785GMT-UD2H (rev. 1.0)
Maybe these will help.
7-Series Integrated Chipset
If you want to go with Nvidia?
You can uninstall the video drivers in control panel/add remove programs click on ATI Catalyst Install Manager. There they offer a choice if you want to uninstall the chipset drivers also.

[Flocons De Mais]

Re: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H EES and other BIOS questions

I forgot - I also would like advice on the UMA Frame buffer size - 512M or Auto?

Which would be better and why?

For reference - I believe the board has 256M dedicated VRAM, and I have 2GB of system RAM, so the options work out to 768M VRAM and 1.5GB system RAM (for WinXP 32-bit SP3), or 256M dedicated and variable additional Video and less System.

If you have the GA-MA785GMT-UD2H you have no "dedicated VRAM" AKA sideport memory so all of your VRAM is borrowed form main memory. (the board with sideport is the MA785-GPMT-UD2H) I have mine set at 256MB which should be sufficient. I had it at 128Mb but got a lot of event viewer diagnostic messages about video memory "thrashing" after I was playing a few movies with DXVA in MPC-HC

And I want to know if there are chipset drivers separate from the Catalyst drivers?

The installer from the Gigabyte site has everything, including the USB filter and AHCI (SATA2) drivers. The AHCI driver is only necessary if you are running your drives in AHCI mode (not that beneficial considering the crappy drivers from AMD)

You can download the latest drivers from AMD in separate packages

Drivers & Support | GAME.AMD.COM