Where Are The Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 Motherboards?

Page 26 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

sskmercer

Member
May 11, 2007
33
0
0
Good luck Smitty1705 and stick with it. Yeah Vista is a bit slower for benching but thats about it. As long as you have a half decent system you'll have no problems mate.

Cheers
 

Smitty1705

Member
Mar 14, 2007
130
0
0
So again.. on bootup (have to pause the screen)
SLI MEMORY DETECTED - Disabled - 4 dimms not supported

WHAT is the deal with that one? Bios option or what? Im only seeing just under 3gig. Seems like that 4th stick isn't noticed for some reason.. BUT if you look in the BIOS or on bootup it does show 4 gig of memory..

Odd
 

sskmercer

Member
May 11, 2007
33
0
0
I have the same, not sure what that is about showing 4 Dimms not supported. Though when you look in Properties for My Computer it will show only 3gig. I assume your only using Vista orXP 32bit, dont forget they only support (ie. show) 3gig of ram.

You need a 64bit OS to use more than 3gig thats all.

Personally no need to worry.
 

Warpx9

Junior Member
May 8, 2007
13
0
0
Originally posted by: cdfire
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Now it not only shows F2 in windows programs, it may have done that with the F3 BIOS also for I may not have paid much attention to it, but now sometimes upon rebooting the pc I get building data pool something, something and it sits there with a black screen. Have to hit the reset button to reboot and then it will go into windows. Not all the time, but its happened twice since this F4f BIOS. Think maybe I shall go back to the F3 BIOS.

If you've flashed a BIOS to say F4f and then when you reboot did you get any error beeps before it booted back up. Usually if it fails to post or encounters an error with the BIOS then the Backup BIOS will load whatever version you had in there and overwrite the Main BIOS. Hence F2 is what is probably in the Backup BIOS.
 

cdfire

Member
Feb 23, 2007
159
0
0
Originally posted by: Warpx9
Originally posted by: cdfire
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Now it not only shows F2 in windows programs, it may have done that with the F3 BIOS also for I may not have paid much attention to it, but now sometimes upon rebooting the pc I get building data pool something, something and it sits there with a black screen. Have to hit the reset button to reboot and then it will go into windows. Not all the time, but its happened twice since this F4f BIOS. Think maybe I shall go back to the F3 BIOS.

If you've flashed a BIOS to say F4f and then when you reboot did you get any error beeps before it booted back up. Usually if it fails to post or encounters an error with the BIOS then the Backup BIOS will load whatever version you had in there and overwrite the Main BIOS. Hence F2 is what is probably in the Backup BIOS.


I did not get any error beeps. The boot screen showed F4f then it goes threw the hard drives yada, yada and right before you get the night rider screen I got the building data pool followed by nothing but a black screen. Hit the reset button and it reboots, I get the f4f BIOS on the screen, goes threw all drives and such and boots into windows like normal. Weird. Going to try the F4e BIOS and see what happens, but even with the F3 BIOS, cpu-z and Everest still show the F2 BIOS. The only thing that shows F3 or F4, depending on what I have it flashed to, is if I look at it threw the @BIOS software of which right now it says BIOS Model Version NVIDIA NF680SLI-DQ6 F4f Award BIOS.


 

Seanies Show

Junior Member
May 7, 2007
6
0
0
What about your windows System Information, which bios version does that say you are running, (Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information).

http://img515.imageshack.us/my.php?image=systeminformationtx5.jpg

Also With CPU-z you need to run the Latency File first before you open up CPU-z, ESPECIALY if you have recently flashed your Bios.

http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuzyi7.jpg

Come on guys this is simple stuff, for system builders you should know all this stuff. :disgust:

 

cdfire

Member
Feb 23, 2007
159
0
0
Ok no matter what BIOS I use and no matter how I flash with either @BIOS or Qflash, the BIOS in windows system Info, cpu-z (Ran Legacy File) and Everest all show F2. Windows XP Pro 32.

Man is this getting fusterating. I am now back to F3 but Windows still thinks its F2. Whats really funny is under system tools is shows F2 but with the date of the F3 BIOS, not the date flashed but the actually date of the F3 BIOS file.
 

Seanies Show

Junior Member
May 7, 2007
6
0
0
Did you load bios defaults after flashing ?, this should at least re-set your date and time in the bios, also if POSTing seems to be slightly delayed, like it takes like 20secs to post rather than 3secs after switching on, hit the reset button as soon as it POST's, this is an issue I sometimes have with my machine (thinking there is something wrong with the main bios and trying to boot on the back-up bios) which is why I have flashed both the back-up and main bios chips with the same bios file, dont forget the reason Gigabyte delayed these boards so much is there was a massive issue with all of the boards bios chips which they only discovered in production of the boards, they had to stop production and change all the chips on the boards already produced.

Another way to see if its booting into the bios you want, is to disable the Gigabyte Splash Screen at POST.

Finally, how old is your Windows Installation, and have you been overclocking your system recently ? the reason I ask is whilst you are overclocking and trying to get CPU and Memory stable, it leads to corruption, especially Memory errors, many many people I know including myself, after being happy with their overclocks, re-format their drives and re-install everything with their stable overclocked settings, this removes any corruption you may have in Windows or on the Drives, and this could possibly be the problem causing issues you are having.

 

Bayard

Member
Mar 28, 2007
32
0
0
i loaded back F4E because I had 3 random freezes after installing F4f. once froze when I was watching one piece on VLC, once while getting into a battlenet warcraft 3 game, and one just when I was surfing. It's too unstable for me.
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Good Evening Everyone.

The F4f BIOS seems to work pretty much the same as the F4e one for me. However, I'm still getting an intermittent condition on boot up (using Vista Ultimate), where at the end of the POST, the last screen line says:

"Building DMI Pool.................................Flash ROM Protected"

Then the whole thing reboots and goes through the POST process again. However, after a number of reboots, when it finally decides to go into Vista, the last line on the POST display reads as follows:

"Verifying DMI Pool Data......................."

Once in Vista the whole rig is rock solid and functions perfectly.

I'm using these settings:
FSB = 378
Multiplier = 9
Vcore = 1.450
DRAM = 2.25V
**************
Speed = 3.4 GHz

For the life of me, I can't seem to figure out why it takes several boot cycles in order for Vista to make the jump into Windows. If anyone has a REAL solution for this situation, I'd like to hear about it. Thanks. TheBeagle :confused:

 

jp4miller

Junior Member
May 8, 2007
13
0
66
I am about to start the build of my new system.
All on this forum has been very informative.
I have a question about the MB and raid which I haven't found an answer to in the manual or on this forum.
I have 2 150G Raptors and 2 500G WD drives.
My intent is to creat a Raid 1 with the Raptors for the OS and create a seperate Raid 1 with the 500G WDs for data. How/can this be donw with this mb?

thanks,
jp
 

Smitty1705

Member
Mar 14, 2007
130
0
0
So... I"m running the Zalman 9700 (installed great with the clip)..
What program should I trust to get accurate temps? I get different readings from the bios vs Ntune5 from Gigabyte..
ALSO.. What temps should I see idel VS load on this thing?

BTW - Vista is up and running.. seems solid on F4f SO FAR! I haveto admit thought. My old machine p4 2.8 with a gig of memory on XP seems SO much faster then the new one on Vista.. hahaha

Thanks!

Smitty
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Hello Mr. JP4.

That plan for 2 separate RAID 1 arrays will work just fine. You didn't indicate what OS you were installing, so I'll presume that it's WinXP-SP2. Anyway, you need to put the 150 Raptors on SATA Ports 0 and 1, and the 500 GB dives on SATA Ports 2 and 3. Then start up the rig, install the latest BIOS, and then restart the rig and go into the setup routine. Make sure you access the advanced settings by pressing the Ctr-F1 keys, and then make sure those SATA ports are turned on and SELECT the RAID setting for them!

Then restart the rig, and when you get to that part of the POST where the RAID controller is acknowledged, then press the appropriate key combination to enter the RAID setup program. Then select the 150 Raptors to be in array 0 (make sure you set them to MIRROR (RAID 1), and then do the same for the other drives as array 1.

The restart the rig and install the OS. Make sure you select F6 during the initial install screen, and then provide BOTH the SATA driver AND the RAID driver for the OS to see the drives. Then just install the OS on the 150GB array. I would use the FULL FORMAT option to synchronize the drives with the controller.

Also, there is a VERY IMPORTANT utility from Western Digital, called the TLER utility, that you absolutely need to run to activate the TLER function on the WD Raptor 150 drives, and also on the WD 500GB drives to fully activate the TLER function. This is IMPERATIVE!!! I would run the TLER utility BEFORE I installed the OS. You can get the TLER utility from WD Tech Support (maybe) or Google for it on the web. Hope that helps. TheBeagle :)
 

overpowered

Member
May 8, 2007
28
0
0
I got mine up and running with XP Pro x64 with a RAID 1 C drive on the Gigabyte GSATA RAID controller. I ran into a rather annoying problem. I'm not sure if it was Gigabyte's floppy controller or Windows or what but I was getting errors trying to load the RAID driver from floppy. I only have one floppy drive (I'm waiting for Newegg to get the only silver faced drive they carry back in stock). I had to put the drive back into my old system, reformat the floppy and then copy the drivers back on. I used xcopy /v for the copy, but I had done that before the reformat with no errors. Then put the floppy drive back in the new system and it worked.

It apparently also explains why I couldn't load the new BIOS with Q-Flash.

Another thing I would like to warn people about is I have a Silverstone USB 3.5" drive bay card reader. For some reason Windows picked one of the card slots as the C drive and made the boot drive the "I" drive. I didn't like that so I disabled the USB in the CMOS and did a reinstall and renabled the USB's on reboot. I'm sure this is just Windows and not the board but it was an installation annoyance.

I've never had a smooth install with Windows -- ever.

Gigabyte's Easy Tune 5 has a tendency to go nuts and take up all of one CPU core by itself. I've uninstalled it. PITA.
 

cdfire

Member
Feb 23, 2007
159
0
0
Originally posted by: TheBeagle
Good Evening Everyone.

The F4f BIOS seems to work pretty much the same as the F4e one for me. However, I'm still getting an intermittent condition on boot up (using Vista Ultimate), where at the end of the POST, the last screen line says:

"Building DMI Pool.................................Flash ROM Protected"

Then the whole thing reboots and goes through the POST process again. However, after a number of reboots, when it finally decides to go into Vista, the last line on the POST display reads as follows:

"Verifying DMI Pool Data......................."

Once in Vista the whole rig is rock solid and functions perfectly.

I'm using these settings:
FSB = 378
Multiplier = 9
Vcore = 1.450
DRAM = 2.25V
**************
Speed = 3.4 GHz

For the life of me, I can't seem to figure out why it takes several boot cycles in order for Vista to make the jump into Windows. If anyone has a REAL solution for this situation, I'd like to hear about it. Thanks. TheBeagle :confused:


This is exactly what I get every once in a while in Windows XP Pro 32. Pc runs great, but every once in a while upon reboot or system startup, I get this same thing. "Verifying DMI Pool Data......................." and then I have to reboot to get into windows.

As stated before I also get F2 showing in any windows program which shows the BIOS only it will be followed by the new BIOS File date, so say I use F4f, it will show F2 with the F4f BIOS file date.

I guess with this board we skipped a lot of the issues the other 680I boards have, but have a couple new bugs to work out.
 

Smitty1705

Member
Mar 14, 2007
130
0
0
So has anyone tried "teaming" any of the nic cards yet? I'm curious how that's working for anyone? I may mess with that in the next day or 2 just to see if it even works...

Gary - Any word on a FINAL bios from Gigabyte anytime soon?

Thanks..

Smitty
 

justinburton

Member
Feb 5, 2007
122
0
0
As Gary said before, Everest by Lavalys is probably the best monitoring software out there. But you have to pay for this excellent program. Or you can get a cracked version but I can't tell you where. I recommend trying it out.
 

overpowered

Member
May 8, 2007
28
0
0
Originally posted by: TheBeagle
With regard to memory, WinXP-32 can only use 4GB of RAM. However, WinXP-64 can use at least 16 GB of RAM.
It's a good thing you said "at least" ;)

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/top10.mspx
From the Microsoft site
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition supports up to 128 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 16 terabytes of virtual memory
Tyan and Supermicro make a some boards that take up to 64GB (16*4GB) if you can afford it. :)

 

justinburton

Member
Feb 5, 2007
122
0
0
Originally posted by: Smitty1705
So has anyone tried "teaming" any of the nic cards yet? I'm curious how that's working for anyone? I may mess with that in the next day or 2 just to see if it even works...

Gary - Any word on a FINAL bios from Gigabyte anytime soon?

Thanks..

Smitty

I have my nvidia ethernet ports teamed. It basically makes them both look like one port. Then when you right click on LAN status at the right of the taskbar, it says my connection is "200mbps" instead of the normal "100mbps." I think it improved my download speed a little but not totally confirmed.

Good news for N680SLI-DQ6 and 8800GTX owners: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1100/...aited_r600_dx10_gpu_arrives/index.html

It looks like the 8800GTX in single and SLI and even the 8800 GTS i is killing the new ATI 2900 XT in all the benchmarks but one. Nice!!!!!
 

eklock2000

Senior member
Jan 11, 2007
292
0
0
At Smitty...

I tried some of the DualNet/Teaming stuff, but felt a little "exposed" while the firewall was down to enable it. I was hoping it would help my ping in online games. Gary Key had some good info though...

"DualNet is nice if you using the machine to both host and play a game on, as far as ping reduction, you will not see it, as far as keeping ping rates stable or increasing just slightly, you should experience this with DualNet if you are downloading, uploading in the background while playing a game."

Not worth it IMO...but please let us know if you see some advantages.

Peace,

EK2K
 

Smitty1705

Member
Mar 14, 2007
130
0
0
I'm probably just missing a setting in the bios but i don't see it. Is anyone else noticing when they do a shutdown in Vista (or XP i guess) that the machine doesn't shut down all the way and power off? Vista is shutting down but the machine still has power, with fan LED's still on as well as the power LED. I have to hold the power button down for 4 seconds or so before it goes off all the way. Any ideas?

Smitty
 

overpowered

Member
May 8, 2007
28
0
0
I haven't tried teaming. I've set up a point-to-point 1000BaseT connection (netmask 255.255.255.252) between the new system and the old system in addition to a 100BaseT connection to my router. I bought a $9 Gigabit PCI card for the old system and a crossover cable. Ping works great. Now I just have to figure out Windows file sharing and remote desktop.
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Hello Mr. Smitty.

Yes, I just started seeing that no-shutdown situation with the F4f BIOS. My rig would also "almost" shut down, but had power to the same items as yours. I couldn't make it completely stop unless I reduced the OC quite a bit - bummer.

I'm going to send Gary a PM and ask him to look into this matter. Thanks for letting me know that I wasn't the only one experiencing this problem. TheBeagle :confused:
 

Smitty1705

Member
Mar 14, 2007
130
0
0
Gary -

Isn't the F4f the one you gave us a week ago? Did you mean F4G by chance? I already have F4f on mine from you last time.. =)

Thanks..

Smitty