*UPDATE* - GA8RIXP - New beta bios to fix VCore and 2/3 clock bug. Link inside :)

[rockhard]

I sent an email to Gigabyte 2 days ago and was pleasently surprised to receive a beta bios in reply to try out for them to see if it cures the problems with the F5 bios.

You can download from my webby Link deleted due to newer bios linked below.

Hope this is if some help to you guys with this board

Please can anyone who tries this bios please give me some feedback.


rockhard =)

 

[rockhard]

bump for the night

 

[rockhard]

UPDATE:

Download new F6d beta here

This new bios i received this morning i can confirm fixes the issues with this board regarding VCore and 2/3 clock.
Peace at last for my rig

Any feedback from you guys that try this bios be much appreciated.

Thanx,

rockhard =)

 

[JCDenton]

after i installed the f6d bios my windows won't boot!!!

 

[rockhard]

Check in the bios that you have the correct "PIC" or "APIC" setting.
When i flashed my bios it changed to PIC which did the same for me as what youve just encountered.
Change to APIC and everything was ok again.
Double check all your Bios settings before rebooting as a precaution.

Hope this helps

 

[Tummy]

rock, what's the 2/3 bug? Is it when you set ram to 266 it gets the wrong value for the ram bus from fsb or something like that?

 

[Tummy]

Hey, just wanted to let you know that it hasn't solved any of my problems... this bios, that is. I still can't soft reboot.

 

[rockhard]

Tummy - the 2/3 clock bug is where your change any clock settings and it reboots showing your FSB running at 66mhz like a PGA celeron!
Not a problem now with the F6d bios thank goodness


<< Hey, just wanted to let you know that it hasn't solved any of my problems... this bios, that is. I still can't soft reboot. >>


What Power Supply you using? What connectors from it have you connected to the board?
Can you give me the exact make/model no. of your PSU as im wondering if its a PSU issue and would be great to see if i can find a pattern in this as other people are having this problem yet i have not had a single problem with rebooting with any of the bioses FWIW.

thanx,

rockhard =)

 

[Tummy]

Hey dude. Weird, i have never seen the 2/3 Ram bug then. Although, I don't have mine set to auto, It's set to 200 in the bios (I'm trying 150fsb, haven't quite gotten it stable yet).

For the reboot thing, I have an Enermax 450 with all the plugs connected including the extra 4-pin 12v thingie.

One thing I've noticed for this so far is that up to 1.65V in the BIOS seems to work fine for reboots (unless I put the fsb too high). Anything over that and it doesn't seem to like rebooting much.

I'm still using the F6D bios although i see something about the official F6 bios now on the .tw ga site, so maybe I'll give that a try tonight.

 

[rockhard]

I too thought i had not seen the 2/3 bug myself, but the other night i saw it out of the blue, so looks like it will affect you eventually unless you have the F6d bios.
Overclocking is a bit of a non starter for me though as my 1.6A doesnt like to go near 2gig on any mobo so im stuck running defaults.
Its fast enough at 1.6gig for my needs as i dont game much so im a happy camper regardless
I hope gigabyte have learnt their lesson with this as i dont want to have to go through this mullarky again.
Be interesting to see if other manufacturers are as quick to fix their bioses as i have heard that some MSI boards are having the same trouble.

 

[Tummy]

Hmm.. well I know it's not just giga-byte. I've owned tonnes of motherboards (upgrade ever couple of months). I've seen reboot problems in asus, abit, ga, and epox, among the main competitors. So while it's nice to not have any reboot issues, I know that there are usually some growing pains, especially when you're in the forefront of the technology.

I'll give the F6 bios a try when I get home, I'll see how it works out.

 

[TheRaider]

I have tried the F6d bios it didnt help at all...still have reboot problem and it seems that the F6d caused more boot problems for me. I cant believe Gigabyte cant recreate the reboot problem that most people are having I sure hope they get it fixed soon

 

[SilentRunning]

Tummy you might want to check your +5Vsb on that power supply. I saw this on ASUS site about P4B266:

Question :
My system resets itself when it's resumed from standby mode (ACPI S3). Is it a known problem?
Answer :
Your ATX power supply has to be able to supply 2A at +5VSB for the power saving mode to function properly

So I am assuming Gigabyte requires similar rating and a quick search I found an Enermax EG451P-V 450w PSU that had a +5Vsb of 1.8A. Not enough for standby (again assuming that Gigabyte GA8RIXP and ASUS p4B266 require same).

Checked specs on a 400w antec PSU and it supplies 3.0A on +5Vsb in fact even the 300w antec supplies 2.0A on +5Vsb.

 

[Tummy]

Thanks for the info... but my reboot problem is actually that I CAN'T software reset. If do a shutdown/reset for example, it doesn't post. Have to power off at the power supply before it'll post.

Newest f6 bios does not help me.

 

[rockhard]

Tummy - I think the guy who posted above might be on to something with the 5v rail being too low on the Enermax.
You could always search the net and try and find how to turn it up yourself and see if it makes a difference.
If you could get your hands on a PSU that has good 5V rail im hoping that your problem will be solved.
My old Enermax had a really low rail and i had nothing but sporadic reboot problems myself with MSI/Iwill/ECS motherboards.

Im puzzled why people keep buying these Enermax PSU's, they clearly have a QA problem yet the vast majority of Forum goers keep buying them thinking theyre something great. Theres loads of people that have reboot problems and theres loads of people with these low 5v rail Enermax PSU's - conincidence? hmmm?

 

[RalfHutter]

Rockhard - re: the Enermax PSU.

I have an Enermax 465 that was in my AMD Tbird/EPoX 8K7A rig. It worked flawlessly for me, I didn't have any of the issues that people were attributing to the 5v rail problem.

When I got my Northwood chip I started with the 8IRXP board (thanks Strawberrymom and Anand!) but quickly ran into the "no boot/reboot while doing anything with Vcore" issue. After BS tech support from Gigabyte I RMA'ed the board and got an Asus P4B266.

I kinda doubt that my problem was PSU-related because if I changed the voltage setting in the BIOS to "user" (or whatever it is) I would get the noboot thing, EVEN IF I left the Vcore at 1.5 and the FSB at 100. i.e. - no OC at all, but still had boot issues.

 

[rockhard]

Yeah that may be true, but you cannot have tried the F6 bios as you already got a new mobo?
Also for the likes of STR to work properly (reliably) you need a minumum of 2 amps on the +5 volt rail which the Enermax PSU's dont give you.
Yes you may get away with the + 5 volt ampage being below 2 amps but mobo manufacturers are recommending no less than 2 amps for a reason, yeah?
Sounds like you got lucky with your Enermax My Enermax showed 4.65 v!
This rig building lottery is getting kinda rediculous aint it.
Im coming to the conclusion that QA has gone to the dogs with all the manufacturers. You picks your parts and takes your chance.
Sometimes you get lucky, other times you chase your tail
Cant say im too impressed with Gigabyte either as they should be testing for this kind of thing before they release a product.
Maybe i too will try Asus next time as my lottery ticket, though ive had bad luck with them too.

Hows your P4B266?
Be nice to hear some comments on this board compared to the GA8IRXP
Have you tried the Hypoint raid? Any good compared to the Promise raid?
I change my motherboard about every month or two so may have a look at it and the P4S333 which also is getting good postage

 

[RalfHutter]

I tried the Gigabyte in late Jan/early Feb before this new BIOS was released.

I called Gigabyte tech-support back then to see if they could help with my boot/reboot issue. Here's what the guy said: "Well, just don't overclock". WTF!, "What are all the settings for FSB/Vcore/mem speed etc on the board for if I shouldn't overclock it?", I asked? He replied "I'll pass your comments and concerns on to my supervisor". Sheeeet..........

So then I asked if there was any plans for a BIOS update that might fix this problem. His reply to this was "I wouldn't expect any new BIOS until after the end of the month because it's Chinese New Year in Taiwan and nobody's doing any work over there right now" Can you believe this?!?

This was BS tech "support". This was the first Gigabyte board I'd ever tried and after this experience it will be the last. I rarely need any tech support but when I do I'd like to actually get some support, not just get talked down to.

Within 5 minutes of this conversation I had called Newegg and got an RMA number for this POS.

In regards the P4B266, it doesn't have RAID so no comment there. It runs great for me, very stable, lot's of adjustability.Only issue I have (and it's common to all the Asu P4 boards, AFAIK) is the flakey temp monitoring but MBM takes care of this perfectly. A great board, I recommend it.

 

[rockhard]

Im quite tempted with an Asus but the lack of raid is what stopped me before
Ive had a few Ide HD's crap out on me over the years so raid1 is a must.
If i could find a reasonably priced raid card id be happy but there isnt a ATA133 raid card available here in the UK and the ones that are like the Promise Fastrak 100 cost nearly as much as a motherboard!
Guess i should just be happy with my GA8IRXP as i really should not overclock as i value my data and dont like reinstalling windows all the time.

One thing i would say with the GA8IRXP is if you overclock then i would look elsewhere. If you dont overclock then the featureset of this board is hard to beat as long as you dont get a lemon.

Oh well, one happy GA8IRXP for now

 

[JCDenton]

My ENERMAX PSU give me 2,2 Ampere on the +5Vsb rail and I have the bootproblem too!
So I don't believe that the PSU causes thr problem!!

 

[rockhard]

JCDenton - Have you tried doing a clean install with nothing but a video card present and onboard sound disabled, NIC disabled, USB 2 disabled etc.
Will your rig reboot ok with a bare system as above with the F6 bios?
If it does work, then you can enable/add one item and driver at a time till you find the culprit if this is the case maybe?

 

[JCDenton]

I tried everything!
My problem is very strange! Only if I turn off my system longer than an hour it does not boot immediatly! If i turn off my system shorter than an hour I have no problem!!!

 

[StanFL]

I used a 8IRXP for about a week with a Enermax 365PG-FC power supply. STR worked flawlessly for me as I expected it to. The entire system was stable as a rock although I was not overclocking it. I think (but am not positive) the Enermax I have has 2.0 or 2.2A of +5sbv. So all I'm saying is, the speculated probs with this board and Enermax power supplies seem to be mucho bs imho.

 

[Tummy]

Rockhard, my 5v rail has been modified and gives 5.35V (coming from a 2000+/8kha+). Maybe it's TOO high, and I need to unmodify it back so it's only around 5v flat. Dunno.

Still a tad disappointed with my rig; @2.35Ghz it's only about the same speed as my old 2000+!

 

[RalfHutter]

JCDenton - I think that by turning your system off for a while maybe it lets the PSU caps discharge?? I think this is the same thing I would accomplish by unplugging the PSU and hitting the power button when I was messing with my 8IRXP. When I'd hold the button down the power and HDD lights would flash briefly, then I'd plug back in and it would start OK. This was the only way I could get this board to start.