HOw is the GIGABYTE GA-8KNXP motherboard? Opinions and suggestions welcome.

[nanyangview]

I am going to build a canterwood P4 3.0 Ghz system soon so right now i am doing part shopping. The motherboard on my mind is GIGABYTE GA-8KNXP. I may do mild overclocking at first using normal HS and later i might switch to watercooling. So how is that motherboard? Anyone use that board here?

The ABIT canterwood looks good but the NB HS fan is too noisy for my taste.

 

[Fallengod]

Well judging by all the reviews, it is one of the best in terms of features. Also is one of best performers in all reviews ive seen. Of course it is $215. Highest priced mobo out there..

 

[harddrive747]

I have purchase the 8knxp board and I have enjoyed it ever since. I don't have much time to use it, but I have not had any problems with it. I'm using the RAID function, got a great video card and 1 gig of memory.

I put the board right into the chassis and it booted right up. I just had a problem with reboots, but with the help of Gigabyte, I got the problem solved. I personally am happy with the purchase that I made.

Hope this helps.

 

[wholesaledealers]

May I suggest not to use the Ga-8knxp.. You see, I overclock many boards a day and even the new beta bios that Gigabyte has for the Ga-8knxp F6 does not fix its memory compatibility errors. It is very pick on the memory used for example: OCZ Platinum pc-3500 Dual Channel does not work unless it is underclocked to 333 or 1.66. It will not completely run stable at 400 or 2.0 and especially overclocked higher. Some boards will but most will not. I suggest the newest to the overclocking family board not company is the IC7 Max II Advanced by Abit. You see.. Abit is known for its overclocking boards as fax back as the 440bx.. I have reach several boards to 220 and over at 2.0 with 1/1 timmings.. Hope this helps....

 

[genka]

I am running this MB for a second week, and it overclocks OK. I haven't tried anything extrme, when I reboot, I increase bus frequency a little bit. So far, got my 2.6CPU to 3.07- works just fine.

 

[betaman10]

Hello,

Where did you get the f6 beta bios for this mb? Are there any changes over f5 that you can tell?

Thank you,

Dan

 

[betaman10]

Also did you try changing your DRAM voltage to +1 or +2 to get your memory working? I had to do that with my Mushkin PC3200 Black Level II.

 

[daniel1113]

I have been using a Gigabyte 8KNXP in my system for the past 5 weeks and love it. It is fast, stable, and has pretty much every interface you may need. The only thing I don't like is the @Bios program which is supposed to update your bios from windows. I cannot get it to work, and don't really feel that it is "safe". I am happy that Gigabyte has dual bios on this motherboard, otherwise I'd be in big trouble due to @Bios. Other than that, I love it. The only other downside is that big heatsinks, such as the Zalman's, do not fit if you use the Dual Power Card. However, I am using a Thermalright SLK900 and I love it. As for overclocking, I have absolutely no idea how this board performs. I know there are quite a few options in the advanced bios mode, but I haven't messed with them. I hope this helps!

 

[Revs]

Anyone have Kingston hyperx 3500 with this board? Wonder if they'll work together.

 

[Revs]

Doh, found the answer, seems to be a working combination.

 

[dakels]

I also use this board (For the past 2-3 weeks or so). Its been a great performer so far and under some stressful conditions like a few power problems, very hot ambient temps, and some intense workouts doing a few 3D renders for 8-10 hours. I really love this mobo. Its got everything I want in a current Intel chipset board and then some. The only downsides I have with this board is the single sided RAM issue (which is not a huge deal unless you want to run 6 dimms in dual channel), and it didnt come with rounded cables like some higher end mobos (but it came with lots of other stuff and tons of SATA cables). Also doesn't matter for me cuz I had IOSS RD3XP rounded cables.

My Zalman 7000 cooler fits with the DSP2 card, but they are awfully close and pushing on each other very slightly. But, the cooler also blocks my first dimm slot. I had to insert the dimm (Hyper X PC3200) first then trap it in there with the giant 7000 HS. Although the Zalman 7000 coolers perform great, I wouldn't recommend it for this motherboard. On that note the bios temp readings seem pretty accurate. I used 2 thermal probes and my readout was never more then 3º C different from what the bios temp stated. I've had some systems that would give me as much as a 8-10ºC difference which is totally useless.

Also, I have the F6 beta Bios as well but I haven't used it. It was sent to me from a tech at Gigabyte via email. I have never seen it publicly available yet but it may be. I wouldn't judge a beta bios too harsh, nor would I put much faith in it. I don't trust beta software to begin with, for something as critical as a bios, I wouldn't take the chance, dual bios or not. My computer is not my toy (at least not all the time ). Its what I make a living from, so my motto for that is: "If it ain't broke..."

 

[billyjak]

I just ordered this motherboard, already ordered the Zalman 7000 because I was going to get the Abit IS7 board.
I have an Abit board right now love it.
Wanted to try something different.
I ordered
3.0 Gig Northwood
2- WD Raptors 10,000 rpm
Zalman 7000 ALCU Heatsink before I knew about the riser card
1 Gig Kingston HYPER-X pc 3500 cas 2 Ram
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128
I have a DVD burner, Samsung 48x Combo,Black floppy and Thermaltake Phaser III Black Case to put it into along with 2- 120-Gig WD 8meg IDE Hard drives.
I wanted the IDE Raid for my WD so I chose this board over the Abit.
All reviews I've read seem pretty positive except for the memory timings which can be solved in a future Bios updste I hope.

 

[VSEKH]

I've this motherboard for about a month now. Has been a great performer overall. Only problem I have that I cannot figure out is why my 2 SATA drives running in non-raid mode make clicking noises during shutdown when I run in raid-ready mode connected to the Intel SATA controllers. Does not matter if I have only 1 or 2 SATA drives connected.

The system is stable whether I use a 9800pro or 5900ultra card. Another good thing is this mother is Prescott ready.

 

[billyjak]

I'm going to be setting up raid. Which is better to use the Sata raid or intel raid.
I'm not going for +1 just 0 Raid.

 

[Psyclone]

I bought the board about a month and a half ago but haven't been able to use it. I have 2x256 of Geil Ultra Platinum PC3500 DDR 433 that I was trying to use with it. But when I tried to boot with this memory the board wouldn't even post. It beeps as if there's no memory in the board.

After extensive discussions, Gigabyte's support(or lack thereof) had me RMA the board a little over 3 weeks ago, which was a complete waste of time. They finally got to looking at it today(3 weeks after they got it)<----red flag on support quality, and they are able to boot the board fine using generic 400mhz ddr and with Kingston HyperX pc3500. People are saying not to be cheap on the RAM. Granted Geil is not top of the line but it's in the upper middle range at $56 per 256MB stick. I don't think that it's bad quality RAM, I'm leaning on a not so good motherboard. Let's just say that this whole experience is making me reluctant to buy Gigabyte in the future, or recommend it to others.

So the possible scenarios here are that both sticks of my Geil RAM are bad(not likely) or that the board is not compatible with it, which seems like the more likely scenario. The board appears to be VERY picky about memory. Some are reporting that newer bios's remedy some of the memory issues, however I'm in a bit of a catch 22 since I can't boot to upgrade the bios.

Good luck.

 

[VSEKH]

Originally posted by: Psyclone
I bought the board about a month and a half ago but haven't been able to use it. I have 2x256 of Geil Ultra Platinum PC3500 DDR 433 that I was trying to use with it. But when I tried to boot with this memory the board wouldn't even post. It beeps as if there's no memory in the board.

After extensive discussions, Gigabyte's support(or lack thereof) had me RMA the board a little over 3 weeks ago, which was a complete waste of time. They finally got to looking at it today(3 weeks after they got it)<----red flag on support quality, and they are able to boot the board fine using generic 400mhz ddr and with Kingston HyperX pc3500. People are saying not to be cheap on the RAM. Granted Geil is not top of the line but it's in the upper middle range at $56 per 256MB stick. I don't think that it's bad quality RAM, I'm leaning on a not so good motherboard. Let's just say that this whole experience is making me reluctant to buy Gigabyte in the future, or recommend it to others.

So the possible scenarios here are that both sticks of my Geil RAM are bad(not likely) or that the board is not compatible with it, which seems like the more likely scenario. The board appears to be VERY picky about memory. Some are reporting that newer bios's remedy some of the memory issues, however I'm in a bit of a catch 22 since I can't boot to upgrade the bios.

Good luck.

The problem I ran into my Mushkin PC3200 memory was that after I bootup and go into the bios for the first time to set the date and all the other settings, then reboot. I get a blank screen. I found out that if I leave the RAM setting with SPD, it will not bootup. I had to clear the CMOS and setting everything at 3 and cycle time at 6. Then, I was able to bootup and load Win XP Pro.

Have you tried these settings?

 

[rkrispies]

My setup:
-GA-8KNXP
-P4 2.8, 800FSB
-Corsair TwinX1024-3200LLPT 1GB DDR400 XMS3200 Dual Channel
-Seagate Barracuda 7200 40 GB, then tried a Maxtor ultra133 7200 80 GB

My problem:
-cannot get a clean install of either XP Professional or 2000 Professional, and cannot get a properly functioning Windows environment

My errors:
-initial setup will not be able to copy certain random files
-many stop errors in the process
-if I get into Windows to complete the setup, I still get stop errors...sometimes fatal, runtime errors, catalog errors, etc.
-if Windows installs and I get all devices installed, I get still more stop errors and other errors.

In bios, nothing is overclocked, hyper-threading was tried both ways (enabled/disabled)...

Oh dear lord, it's driving me mad. Any suggestions would me much appreciated.

I am sure this board is awesome and would love to try it out, but these are some strange errors.

 

[billyjak]

Did you try increasing your cas to ram timings. Corsair ram has kown issues with this board as I've read,
Increase your Dimm voltage a little at a time and up the cas timmings until stable.
HyperX pc 3500 was recommended by Gigabyte for this board.

 

[rkrispies]

Awesome! Thanks.

That made me think of a few more questions of which I will try and answer myself, BUT...if you have a second:

-does Corsair (or anyone) offer any solutions to their problems in those articles you read?
-I am a bit worried that the OS install is bad and will not give me accurate readings of properly working memory...how do you suppose I go about getting a clean install?
-in your opinion, is it pointless to use the Corsair and should I return if for the Hyper X?

Thanks again!

 

[billyjak]

I would try and up the voltage first, some reports had to go to 2.7v or 2.8 to make it work.
There is an issue with cas timings on this board until Gigabyte straightens it out. You may want to up it to cas 3 and go from there.
I would test it with the new settings first and see how it acts, if it holds then there is no reason to send it back.
Try loading win xp again and see what happens. Just go over the top of your previous install
My Motherboard didn't arrive today, just the Raptor drives and the Zalman 7000 fan so I can't test it with the HyperX pc 3500 I ordered yet.
There are others that got Corsair pc 3200 to work just fine, it's a matter of playing with the cas and voltage until Gigabyte straightens it out.

 

[billyjak]

Just set mine up today, everything working fine.
O have Kingston Hyperx pc3500 and works fine. I have it set at the default now.
Running at 3.075 right now.
Had a bootup problem but now solved.
Running with raid on the WD Raptors on ICH5r derial ports. No problems
Does Intel accelerator work with this board, it says for chioset ER and I thought that's what I read on my chip but the new driver will not load.
Some sights say it's using the EB chipset.

 

[billyjak]

Just set my ram to cas 2, running at 2733 now, perfectly stable with the Hyperx pc 3500
running at 210 FSB @ 3.15gig
This board is sweet.

 

[LaughnCynic]

Originally posted by: billyjak
Running with raid on the WD Raptors on ICH5r derial ports.

Are you booting from the raid on ICH5R, and did you have to sacrafice one of your ICH5R controlled IDE channels to access the raid?

Mine:
GA-8KNXP (rev 1.0, F5 bios)
P4C 2.4GHz
1GB RAM (Corsair TWINX1024-3200LL, 2x512MB PC3200 in dual channel mode)
1 Seagate ST3120026AS (120GB, 8MB cache, 7200rpm) SATA drive (currently booting off Sil3112 controller)
1 Pioneer A06U DVD -R/RW +R/RW drive
etc...

Running the ram at 2-3-2-6T1 (stock LL ram timings) at 2.7v. Stable with no memory errors after 8+ hours of Memtest86. Initially I did get 3 intermittant memory errors with Memtest86 but that was with the memory running at 2.5v. Bumping the voltage a bit seemed to be all I needed to do to get the LL Corsair working properly though Corsair recommends loosening the timings too (to 2-3-3-6T1).

 

[billyjak]

Yes I'm booting from the raid on ICH5R ports and did not have to sacrafice any IDE channels.
Just put the ICHR5 disk in on install and it took.
I did have to reset the bios settings a couple of times to find which ones were which, Running fine now.

 

[VSEKH]

The only way you will lose one of your IDE channels is if you are not running your SATA drives in raid mode. You will be forced to map your SATA controller to Primary or Secondary master if you are not running in raid mode for the Intel SATA ICH5R controller.