AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

[StOrmCatz]

Hi TweakTown community!

I purchased the GA-970A-D3 motherboard (rev 3 with the UEFI bios) about a week ago, and I'm finding it's missing a lot of the settings its older revision siblings had with the Award bios. I've been through the manual for the older revision, and it's evident that many things were not carried into this latest revision with the UEFI bios. Flashing from the stock FB to the latest FD bios actually further reduced the options available (Performance Enhance disappeared starting from FC)

At the very minimum I would expect all the core overclocking settings, but it's looking as though CPU-NB Voltage Configuration is completely missing. I don't think it's just my board as I've done some searching and other peoples pictures are showing the same set of options.

Under Advanced Voltage Settings I have are the following:

CPU Vcore
NB core
Dram Voltage
Dram Termination
HT Link Voltage
NB/PCIe/PLL Voltage
CPU PLL Voltage
NB Voltage
Vcore Loadline Calibration

I've played with the NB core and NB voltage just to be sure they didn't just decide to give them some random names. NB core sounded like a very high possibility, but after a couple tests with voltages I probably should not be trying, it's obvious it's not the CPU-NB voltage.

I understand I can use software to set the required voltages in windows to achieve stability (which is what I'm currently doing), but this is in my opinion completely unacceptable as it would be "unstable" during the the time between system bootup and application execution to set voltages.

I've already submitted a support request through there Global Technical Service system, but the response has been unhelpful.

Is anyone else noticing this or its just me? It's already been several months since the rev 3 was originally launched, so I'm quite surprised this has not been noticed/fixed yet.

[Formula350]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

Hi TweakTown community!

I purchased the GA-970A-D3 motherboard (rev 3 with the UEFI bios) about a week ago, and I'm finding it's missing a lot of the settings its older revision siblings had with the Award bios.

At the very minimum I would expect all the core overclocking settings, but it's looking as though CPU-NB Voltage Configuration is completely missing. I don't think it's just my board as I've done some searching and other peoples pictures are showing the same set of options.
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I've played with the NB core and NB voltage just to be sure they didn't just decide to give them some random names. NB core sounded like a very high possibility, but after a couple tests with voltages I probably should not be trying, it's obvious it's not the CPU-NB voltage.

First off, what CPU are you running in it? While GB might not be excluding certain features depending on the CPU installed, it isn't unlikely, they might be reserving them either for the higher end chips (if yours isn't a BE for example) or their more enthusiast-oriented boards.

Next, you say "it's obvious it's not the CPU-NB voltage", so I ask what, that was obvious, has made you conclude neither of them to be the CPU-NB voltage? What I would do is set the first one (under CPU VCore) to whatever you're aiming for (preferably more than a small step up) and then load up AIDA64, go under the "Computer" drop down on the left, then select "Overclock" and it should be listed directly under "CPU VID" at the top. Even if it says simply "North Bridge VID", it is CPU-NB's voltage. Now if it differs fromwhat you have in the BIOS by a large margin then it has a chance of not being it, but it also could be a simple software coding error in AIDA since I've been in contact with them in the past to get readings to display correctly. Either way, that is why we double check! Now load up AMD OverDrive and see what it reads in the Clocks and Voltages area, is it the same or does it show different? Keep in mind that if their readings are something small like 0.05V then it likely is "the same". There are other ways to check as well, like CPU-Tweaker, PhenomMsrTweaker or K10Stat.

If nothing is reporting even close to what you've set it, provided you've set it high enough to be outside margin-of-error, then go back into the BIOS and change just the NB Voltage at the bottom; repeat steps above.

In all likelihood it was just renamed for one reason or another. I love AMD to death, but unfortunately their APU design having the whole NB integrated into it and eliminating HT-Link whereby going back to ye-olde "Front Side Bus" for a base-clock, can lead to some confusion. Confusion that I think is bleeding over into the naming of BIOS settings on AM3+ boards, because on my system (an APU) it's labeling took some getting used to, that's for sure! lol

At any rate, my money is on the first one being the one you're after. What did the previous BIOS revision voltage list consist of (preferably in order as it displayed, if you happen to remember)?

If I may though, what are you trying to achieve, I presume an increase of CPU-NB clock? If so, what speed are you aiming for and voltages have you tried? And depending on what speed you're going for, what is your motivation? I only ask the latter because there is a point when the IMC's link speed exceeds the memory system's throughput and so the increase is for naught. What you want to aim for, ideally, is 1.5 * DDR speed. IOW for a PhII the IMC's native supported speed is DDR3-1333 and the default IMC (CPU-NB) clock is 2000MHz, which 1.5*1333=1999.5 :) So assuming you're running an FX, at DDR3-1866 you'd ideally want 2800MHz, but a little more won't hurt. On my 1090T for DDR3-1600 I found 2600MHz to be the sweet spot, which is higher than the "ideal" 2400Mhz.

The whole point of the above's rambling is: you might be aiming higher than you need


(and my apologies if you knew all that, but I figured that since I always had trouble finding info like this when I was tinkering, that'll inevitably be useful to somebody lol)

[StOrmCatz]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

Thanks Formula350 for the extremely informative response. Definitely a lot of great tips in your posting.

The good news is that I think I've finally found the problem. This is just a build where I'm tranferring all components to this motherboard. The CPU is a single core with an unlockable second core, and as I've already used it on a previous build I am familiar with what this CPU is capable of.

What I was trying to do was get it stable at a known good overclocked bus frequency and cpu frequency. With everything set, the vcore is at stock and the nb frequency was just under 2000mhz. As such, the cpu-nb should really not need any additional voltage.

The first issue is that NB core in the bios does not list anywhere what the current voltage is. If you attempt to change it manually, it only gives offsets. Good one Gigabyte, please fix that! I'm still honestly not sure if this is CPU-NB voltage, and will have to try Formula350's suggestions in the future.

My findings resulting in the first post:
- Bios bootup with stock Vcore and unknown CPU-NB = unstable
- Using the tools in windows to set CPU-NB and Vcore to stock = stable
Conclusion: Only unknown is CPU-NB. As such, set bios NB core and NB voltage settings to much higher value. Still unstable. As it was still unstable, CPU-NB voltage was probably not one of those settings.

My new findings:
I decided try some out of box testing. Enable cool and quiet where it is changing vcore and multiplier on the fly for me. Shockingly, it was stable at full load.

I believe what is happening is that the unlocked core might be being fed a different voltage. Once cool and quiet kicks in, it resets the second core to the correct voltage. This my guess, but the only proof I have is that it's completely stable now at full load.

The issues that need to be addressed by Gigabyte:
1. Add CPU-NB voltage if it's truly missing. Please note I have not confirmed whether or not it is NB core
2. Whatever NB core is, please at aleast show the voltage value somewhere in the bios. If not, change the offset values to the actual voltage instead. Aside from Vcore and nb core, all the other voltage settings do this
3. Investigate core unlocking as I described. It looks like it's feeding incorrect voltage to the unlocked core.


This took me a whole week to figure out. Hopefully someone from Gigabyte may come across this posting and can confirm or deny my findings.

[Formula350]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

I'll reply directly to your post a bit later but wanted to ask... What revision is your motherboard? GB's site lists these choices: rev. 3.0, rev. 1.4, rev. 1.3, rev. 1.2, or rev. 1.0/1.1

I assume Rev.3 given the BIOS naming only providing FB, FC and FD. Anyways, going to look into it and see if any of my tools will let me route around it for a more hands-on look, then get back to you with those findings and/or modified BIOS.

EDIT: OK So I downloaded FB and FD for the Rev.3 board and the voltage pages list the exact same thing, and are both AMI's UEFI, not Award BIOS. Which makes me wonder if I'm mistaken and you do not have the Rev.3 board... At any rate, I'll have to wait for your answer before I can really delve in any further and not make arbitrary downloads heh (I don't have any real internet in my neck of the woods, so am limited to 5GB/mo :()

[StOrmCatz]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

I'll reply directly to your post a bit later but wanted to ask... What revision is your motherboard? GB's site lists these choices: rev. 3.0, rev. 1.4, rev. 1.3, rev. 1.2, or rev. 1.0/1.1

I assume Rev.3 given the BIOS naming only providing FB, FC and FD. Anyways, going to look into it and see if any of my tools will let me route around it for a more hands-on look, then get back to you with those findings and/or modified BIOS.

EDIT: OK So I downloaded FB and FD for the Rev.3 board and the voltage pages list the exact same thing, and are both AMI's UEFI, not Award BIOS. Which makes me wonder if I'm mistaken and you do not have the Rev.3 board... At any rate, I'll have to wait for your answer before I can really delve in any further and not make arbitrary downloads heh (I don't have any real internet in my neck of the woods, so am limited to 5GB/mo :()

I have the rev. 3.0. The first revision to include AMI's UEFI. You are correct, the voltage pages has not changed since the initial FB bios. Performance Enhance disappeared from the memory settings page if that is what you are looking for?

[Formula350]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

I have the rev. 3.0. The first revision to include AMI's UEFI. You are correct, the voltage pages has not changed since the initial FB bios. Performance Enhance disappeared from the memory settings page if that is what you are looking for?

After re-reading the beginning of your first post, I realized now what you actually were talking about... lol

When you said "revision", I actually didn't think you meant the PCB, but the latest BIOS. So what I originally was thinking was that the board started out with an Award BIOS and it had enough EEPROM storage space that it could fit the larger UEFI, which I thought Gigabyte released an updated to "convert" your board to UEFI. As such, when you said "older revisions with Award", I thought you meant the older BIOS revisions back when it was an Award BIOS Ohh... but my mixup goes even deeper :P I also thought the renaming/change had only taken place between FB and FD and that's why I was comparing the two on my end lol

Oh well! All of that aside, my methods for finding out which is actually the one you're after is still valid at least!

If only your board supported the Touch BIOS program, it might shed a bit more light on the naming issue since it could have them labeled differently, and if so then changing it from within Windows would change the correct one in the BIOS.

WOOHOO! I forgot to click "Submit" before leaving earlier :\ Quiet an epic display of one of my Moments in Idiocy lol

[StOrmCatz]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

Hah, not a problem. Nevertheless, thanks for all your help. I appreciate you taking the time to try to assist.

In summary the bios needs work as there are some peculiarities happening. It is possible to work around, but we really shouldn't need to spend a week being a bios tester. What's unfortunate is that there is no formal way to pass on our findings to their bios team.

In the end, I'm most grateful that I was able to get the system to run stable with what I was trying to achieve.

[Formula350]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

Trust me, I totally feel your pain! I have an A75-UD4H and there were/are lots of issues with the thing that I've stumbled across, having hhhhuge performance issues if a bunch of settings weren't set right, but also there was CPU-NB speed problems on top of that! I was ale to make a contact for one of the BIOS engineers and since the issue was big enough he shot me a Beta, but I think because it was so close to FM2 arriving it didn't get further attention, so not even the Beta is on their site (I upped it to the HWBot forums though). I wish I was at liberty to provide his email though but that's a in the industry when it's no publicly available :( At least it isn't debilitating like mine, I couldn't manually change the CPU-NB speed with the released versions, so when OCing and setting to a lower RAM divider it auto-adjusted the CPU-NB, causing a huge drop in performance that negated any OC speed.

At any rate, were you ever able to spot a change in the voltages via any Windows programs, as a result of changes to only a single BIOS setting?

Oh, something to consider... I know you said you can get the changes you're after from Windows but that is annoying to have to do all the time, which I can relate to. However, have you considered only ever putting the system to Sleep when you are done using it instead of shutting it down? I used to be a huge supporter of Hibernating but that still took a bit too long IMO, and I've been only sleeping my system when not in use, having no issues with resuming at even fairly extreme overclocks (for my kind of system). Just a thought :)

And no prob, glad to help when I can! (and when I don't misunderstand hahaha)

[StOrmCatz]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

Here are the results from K10Stat from a clean boot with no tool intervention.



Notice 2 things:
1. The frequency of the 2 cores are completely different. Note the items highlighted in yellow and blue. One core is running at 1600 whereas the other one is running at 2600.
2. The CPU-NB volts is highlighted in red. Increasing the NB Core value a couple notches in the bios did not change this value whatsoever.

The issues could not be more obvious than this. I rest my case.

[z3r0_k00l75]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

I'd like to bump this thread as it may be useful for my 990fxa-ud5 rev.3.0 as well. Has anyone found anything?

[Reggie]

Re: AMD Gigabyte Rev 3 UEFI Bios Missing Settings? eg. CPU-NB Voltage

It looks like the original poster finally revealed the CPU used as being a Athlon II X2 4300e. That is an unlocked Sempron 130. Funny thing is that the Sempron 130 (SDX130HBK12GM) is not a supported processor for the GA-970A-D3 (rev. 3.0) which may explain the discrepancies.