New setup with GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R + Q6600

[kiriakos]

I do not need cheap philosophy ...

I need the words of truly expert users , who have this setup in action..

Thanks.

 

[AstroGuardian]

I have had that kind of setup.
2 x 320Gb Western Digitls in RAID1 (mirror) on the Gigabyte sata controller for the OS (Windows 2003 Server Standard R2) and:
4 x 500Gb Western digitals in RAID5 on the ICH10R controller.

It had to rebuild the mirror nearly every time i shut down the server in order to power up the eSata drive for backup. I got tired of it and moved the mirror array to the ICH10R controller. Never had the same problem again. In another case a friend of mine made a STRIPE array on the gigabyte controller with couple of drives. After a week or so the array broke down and he had to reinstall the Windows since the partition died with the array.

I get the impression that they put that controller in order to offer two more sata ports best run in IDE mode and not RAID. I don't say the controller sucks but also the drivers might suck. Either way you look at it you are screwed with that controller if you use it for RAID

 

[kiriakos]

That's boring .... Next user ... please .

 

[AstroGuardian]

FU

 

[kiriakos]

Next ...

 

[AstroGuardian]

Lol!

 

[kiriakos]

Next ..


You need to ignore AstroGuardian. Keep this up, and YOU will get an infraction. One more post like this, and you get an infraction
Markfw900
Anandtech Moderator

 

[kiriakos]

Well I found something interesting , the location on the PCB of the temperature sensor No2 .
The No1 its the CPU ..

In order to find it , I got an tinny fan , and started too cool down random areas on the PCB.

Why in earth GIGABYTE added the sensor on this spot , and not next to an true hot-spot , like the South bridge or North bridge , it is an mystery.

Picture ..

 

[Markfw9OO]

Maybe cause they need an ambient temperature sensor. That's how they know if there is something wrong with CPU cooling. For example CPU temp should not be more than 30c hotter than the ambient temp. In that case there is an obvious cooling problem. Also if the ambient temp is too high, the fans spin faster and CPUs start throttling down.

 

[kiriakos]

Well , I had email Gigabyte asking about the CPU temperature scaling VS the rpm speed scaling of the PWM control circuitry .

The specific motherboard offers zero manual control of the fan speeds.

The reply that I got was that if the CPU become hot as 40C , the fan operates at full speed .
If its below 40C , it works at the lower fixed speed.


About the VGA and motherboard temp , it looks that Gigabyte and possibly others , they count on the VGA cooler , that it will cool down and the nearby PCB of the motherboard too.

I received just yesterday, my new Sapphire 5770 , and the on board cooler, it does cause an strong air circulation = all around ventilation = it cools down the south-bridge + and the drops down the PCB sensor temperature.

The first picture shows how well it cools down the south-bridge.

The second , its an example of the bottom air circulation path,
all those blueish tint represents the "air circulation".

All that I can imagine are, that slot type GPU coolers does not do that.

No1

No2

 

[kiriakos]

If any owner of the EP35C-DS3R ,
faces issues with cold boot :
System powers up, Bios starts to boot the CPU but fails , Bios shut down , Bios restarts the system with default Bios settings ... then It boots correctly.


Read this to cure it ( yes it my finding )
Plus some O/C Tips.


http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30749056&postcount=16

 

[kiriakos]

And one more useful tip ...

There is many (many official beta) bios for this motherboard

Check out this link.. http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-bios.html

The last version called as F5b (EP3CDS3R.zip),
and came out at 17-11-2010 :biggrin:


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