Where Are The Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 Motherboards?

[Blazer7]

@ the Kapt'n,

***Update on G92 SLI***

I'm still using forceware 169.28 and my score is 12.918 3DMarks with a single GTS & 14.437 with 2 cards. That's pretty pathetic. A Single GTS outscores my old GTX but the 2nd card just adds a lousy 12%. It seems that it's all in the drivers. The default profile for 3DMark is set to single GPU. Enabling SLI for 3DMark only results in lower scores. Reviewing the profiles in nVidia's control panel revealed that few games have SLI set as default. Crysis, Oblivion, Everquest 2, F.E.A.R., Ghost Recon, Guild Wars, Halo, Hellgate London, Neverwinter Nights 2, Stalker, Call of Juarez, World in conflict, are just few of those that default to single GPU. The drivers are just lousy and as Mr justinburton pointed out nVidia need to fix their shit. I expect a score of 20k to be the norm once the drivers mature so in that aspect our present scores suck. The board however seem to have no problem with the new G92 cards. if it wasn't for that penryn compatibility thing everything would have been great.

PS
Do you have any scores with 1 card ?


@ Simes,

I hope that this works out for you. Keep us posted.

 

[Smitty1705]

So what are the chances of getting this DQ6 as a replacement for our bug ridden board? Has anyone with an RMA or any contact with Gigabyte asked them about this one yet?

Smitty

----------------------

Originally posted by: justinburton
Gigabyte's GA-790SLI-DQ6 pixelized

http://www.fudzilla.com/index....=view&id=6131&Itemid=1

I can't believe I might consider buying it if they don't offer the trade in program. You just don't find those extra SATA on any other 680/780/790i board.

 

[justinburton]

I installed the new Nvidia Drivers and I can't even get 3DMark06 to finish a test before my computer freezes. More shitty Nvidia drivers for SLI/3-way SLI. I was able to pass 3dmark06 before installing the new drivers. I thought maybe my memory or CPU was too overclocked but my PC has been stable before these new drivers.

 

[Simes]

Originally posted by: Simes

Thanks Blazer! Looks as if that's done the trick. The new disk kept on coming up as a Floppy Drive. Had me rather perplexed! Formatting it as I type.

The icing on the cake will be if they all work once I install them in the Icy Box caddies!

The mysterious floppy was revealed as the re-enabled BIOS entry due to reloading the defaults! Doh!

Still cant get the disks working in caddies - tried 3 brands/models (Icybox 128 & 138 and a Startech). None want to know! Looking like it's mounting kits all the way. Hey ho!

For Blazer...

Thanks! A little encouragement goes a long way!

 

[Blazer7]

Ok this is another puzzle for you guys.

Realtek ALC888 HD audio drivers ver R1.87 (GB site ? release date March 7)

Realtek ALC888 HD audio drivers ver R1.88 (Realtek site ? release date March 5)

 

[Jas6]

lol that sure is puzzling Blazer7, Gigabye must be the only mobo company that is so efficient and fast at releasing bios's and drivers.................................


YaY 100 pages of posts,way to go Gigabyte!

 

[EateryOfPiza]

Originally posted by: Blazer7
Ok this is another puzzle for you guys.

Realtek ALC888 HD audio drivers ver R1.87 (GB site ? release date March 7)

Realtek ALC888 HD audio drivers ver R1.88 (Realtek site ? release date March 5)

It is common for motherboard manufacturers to release drivers for their third party components a lot slower than the actual third party because they generally need to do testing on the drivers before they can release them since the motherboard manufacturer actually has to provide support, unlike the third party.

 

[EateryOfPiza]

Originally posted by: Kaptdeath
EateryOfPiza,

I have been having similar problems with the Jmicron disk controller. Do you get messages in the system log like:

...

I get these fairly often, and rebooting is the only thing that fixes em. I updated the Jmicron drivers a few weeks ago to the latest: (R1.17.31). As you can see, I just had another one this morning. I haven't found any information on this problem anywhere. If you do , please share it.

The Kapt'n

Sorry for replying to you late, I have not had a chance to mess with my computer until now. Anyways, I have not seen such errors when I used the GSATA/Jmicron controller.

To update on my issue:

Originally posted by: EateryOfPiza
Is anybody having trouble with their purple Gigabyte SATA controllers? I put a new 1TB drive on it and if I copy anything to that 1TB drive, it ends up corrupted (ie. MD5 sums do not match)

The GSATA/Jmicron controller seems to work with one of my 500 GB Seagate drives, so I just moved it there. Gigabyte, Jmicron, nor Western Digital was able to provide me with any fix, so I'll just say it:

In my experience, the Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS 1TB drive does not work on the GSATA/JMB363 controller.

I don't know if this extends to other 1tb drives or if this is just a problem because of the GP technology that reduces spin speed to 5400rpm to 7200rpm.

 

[EateryOfPiza]

Originally posted by: EateryOfPiza
The GSATA/Jmicron controller seems to work with one of my 500 GB Seagate drives, so I just moved it there.

Welp, okay now there seem to be errors again. This is getting really tedious. I'll try updating drivers.

 

[GriMRapeR]

******UPDATE*******

OK as per my last post the Australian GB rep told me that the 780i boards would be released in Australia in about mid April. I then asked him if I could get a full refund instead as I was not prepared to wait another 6 weeks. Well I am happy to report that GB have agreed to give me a full refund as per the reps email to me today below:

Sorry about the waiting, person who handling credit was out of the country,
I have convince our HQ for credit, so could you pls assist me forward your invoice with retailers detail so that way Gigabyte could credit your amount to our disty then our disty would transfer your credit on behalf of us o your retailer.
I apologise on this inconvenience due to our business structure/registration in Australia were only allow to do with disty.

When above steps is done I will notice you with confirmation of status for dropping your m/b back to retailer.
Pls do not hesitate to contact me If there is any questions


So it looks like I will definately be taking this offer. I encourage everyone else here who wants to get rid of this board and avoid GB products any further to do the same. Quote my case number if it helps - Gigabyte Australia Case ID:554359. Don't let them get away with it. Sure it may take a few emails and phone calls but if they are willing to fully refund me on the basis that I claimed the board was sold with false or misleading advertising then they have to do it for everyone who claims the same thing. If you all just let it go then they will think they can get away with this 680i debarcle. Why not get your money back? The 680SLI-DQ6 was clearly mis represented in its product spec claims and GB have now acknowledged that, well to me at least so I can't see why all of you are not entitled to the same refund. Go for it and goodluck.

Now I will be getting $432AU refunded which is what I paid for the board in April 2007 and the cost of an ASUS Striker II Formula is $429AU or an EVGA 780i for about $435AU. So it looks like I will be able to switch over to a 780i for no extra cash (except the time to install the new board) Problem is I am not exactly sure what board to go for in the 780i chipset.

Any suggestions guys?

 

[Blazer7]

It's hard to make any suggestions. I have very good past experience with ASUS mobos and eVGA's support is unmatched. I believe that either one will be fine for you. One thing to look for is whether there're other people out there that use the same mem you do.

 

[Kaptdeath]

GriMRapeR,

I have heard really good things about the eVGA board. If (sorry WHEN) my board dies I will probably be looking to the eVGA 780 as a replacement. The customer reviews and price on newegg are pretty compelling.

EateryOfPiza,

The new JMicron drivers do seem to help me a little. (I have a Rev1 board.) I also stopped using RAID on that controller as that seemed to make things worse. I don't use those drives all the time as I usually just store processed video out there until I can get it burned to DVD. When I have trouble with the JMicron stuff I can't access the drive at all and eventually it will crash Windows. I've never had it corrupt a file. Of course I've never run extensive torture tests on those drives either......

I haven't found much information about using the NVIDIA autotune feature in nTune. Before I test it out I'll need to backup my BIOS to disk and run some benchmarks so I'll be able to compare to my original state.

The Kapt'n

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Evening Everyone.

I thought I'd drop by to say hello and see how things are progressing with getting Gigabyte to be at least a partially responsible corporate citizen. I see that our colleague Mr. Grim-R has had some significant success in making GB eat that defective 680i board. I sure hope that the rest of you that want/need a refund/replacement are equally successful.

As of right now, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the X48 boards which should happen early next week (March 18th or so). I've already obtained 4 sticks of G.Skill 2GB, PC2-8500 (1066) memory and have a Q9450 proc on advance order. So when I get all the parts, I'll get it assembled and give it a run. Early reports indicate that the new 45nm Quad-Core procs may be able to sustain 4GHz+ on air cooling. If that bears out to be true, the new X48 rig ought to be a screamer. I'll keep everyone posted on those occurrences.

It is very good to see all the 680i board owners banding together to continue the pressure on GB. Keep up the good work! Roast GB's chestnuts!

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle :beer:

 

[Blazer7]

Originally posted by: EateryOfPiza

It is common for motherboard manufacturers to release drivers for their third party components a lot slower than the actual third party because they generally need to do testing on the drivers before they can release them since the motherboard manufacturer actually has to provide support, unlike the third party.

I?ve installed Realtek?s latest yesterday and everything is working just fine. Even GB?s control panel works. I do not know how much time GB needs in order to evaluate 3rd party drivers but since Realtek?s latest complies to the Windows Driver Model I?m not expecting any problems. Realtek?s HD chips can be found in many products and it would be extremely foolish of them to release a WDM driver that?s not 100% ready. As for GB I think that they do not pay any attention to some long now EOL product.


@ TheBeagle,

Nice to see you drop by. I hope that your new rig gives you no trouble at all, after all, you?ve had your fair share just like the rest of us.

 

[Kaptdeath]

Blazer7,

3DMark06 score with single card is 12092. So SLI is yielding a 21% increase as you have indicated. Wow, that ain't much for having purchased a whole extra card..... Do you expect NVIDIA to be able to improve on this with better drivers?

What version of RealTek's drivers are you using?

Oh, and I ran across a statement in another forum yesterday that stated that the JMicron drivers were best described as a "total POS". Other folks seemed to indicate that some problems had been fixed in recent version whilst others stated that the only way to get the JMicron IDE stuff to work was to uninstall it and switch to the standard Microsoft drivers.

The Kapt'n

 

[EateryOfPiza]

Originally posted by: Kaptdeath
Oh, and I ran across a statement in another forum yesterday that stated that the JMicron drivers were best described as a "total POS". Other folks seemed to indicate that some problems had been fixed in recent version whilst others stated that the only way to get the JMicron IDE stuff to work was to uninstall it and switch to the standard Microsoft drivers.

Can you link me to that forum? Were they talking about the IDE controller or the SATA controllers?

 

[Kaptdeath]

EateryOfPiza,

Sounded like both:

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4932

I actaully have something VERY IMPORTANT to contribute. A few days ago I was toying with the idea of seeing what NVIDIAs nTune software cound do for me. It seemed well designed and supplied an abundance of monitering and diagnostic software. It also has in intreguing feature to automatically tune your PC.

DO NOT USE THIS FEATURE!!!!! IT IS MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN ANY VIRUS OR MALWARE YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE. IT HAS COMPLETELY WIPED EVERY DRIVE ON MY COMPUTER AND MAY HAVE DESTROYED MY SYSTEM BEYOND ALL RECOVERY!!!!

Thank you for your attention. Now I have to go and ask some NVIDIA techs WTF were they thinking

The Kapt'n

 

[Blazer7]

Originally posted by: Kaptdeath
Blazer7,

3DMark06 score with single card is 12092. So SLI is yielding a 21% increase as you have indicated. Wow, that ain't much for having purchased a whole extra card..... Do you expect NVIDIA to be able to improve on this with better drivers?

Hello Kapt'n,
The drivers definitely need some polishing but I've been asking some questions over at the Video Cards and Graphics section and the guys there did help me work some of my problems out. Here are some numbers for you.

GA-N680SLI-DQ6 rev 1 - BIOS F5b - E6850@3.00GHz - 2 x ASUS 8800GTS TOP - Windows XP Pro - Forceware 169.44 beta.

Resolution : 1280x1024
Anti-Aliasing : 8 samples
Texture Filtering : Anisotropic
3DMark03 - Single GPU 12.841 - SLI 22.643 + 76%
3DMark05 - Single GPU 14.862 - SLI 18.779 + 26%
3DMark06 - Single GPU 8.470 - SLI 12.450 + 47%

What version of RealTek's drivers are you using?

ver R1.88

 

[Kaptdeath]

Blazer7,

Thanks, it's too bad I won't be able to use any of that. My machine looks to be absolutely dead. nTune killed it. No boot. No recovery. I can't even come up with anything else to try. I searched to see if nTune was safe...no mention of any problems like this. I guess there wouldn't be though. After running it you can't post any findings as your machine is DEAD!

The Kapt'n

 

[EateryOfPiza]

Originally posted by: Kaptdeath
Blazer7,

Thanks, it's too bad I won't be able to use any of that. My machine looks to be absolutely dead. nTune killed it. No boot. No recovery. I can't even come up with anything else to try. I searched to see if nTune was safe...no mention of any problems like this. I guess there wouldn't be though. After running it you can't post any findings as your machine is DEAD!

The Kapt'n

Safe mode? Linux live CD? BIOS reset? I wonder if nTune applies changes on the hardware once it starts up in Windows, or applies it permanently.

 

[Kaptdeath]

EateryOfPiza,

I tried safe mode and a BIOS reset. I'll give a Linux live CD a shot.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that.

The Kapt'n

 

[Blazer7]

Originally posted by: EateryOfPiza

Were they talking about the IDE controller or the SATA controllers?

The IDE channel has nothing to do with the JMicron controllers. This device is part of nVidia's MCP55PXE/MCP55P southbridge.

From what I've read so far most problems with the JMicrons are related with high capacity hard disks. I've been using all 4 ports from day 1 without the slightest problem.

Controller 1 : Plextor DVD-RW 716SA + Plextor DVD-RW 760SA
Controller 2 : 2 x Seagate Barracudas 7200.10 320GB @ raid 0

@ The Kapt'n,

Sorry to hear of your OS dying. I always keep a ghost image of my OS stored somewhere just in case. It's not a bad idea if you consider what we are dealing with.

 

[Kaptdeath]

Blazer7,

Not sure that would help as the message I am getting (when I get one) says invalid boot device. But you are right, I should have backed up the OS. I did save off some stuff like pictures and stuff. But I had sooo much installed s/w that will take forever to get back.

The Kapt'n

 

[GoaGas]

@ The Kapt'n : Are you running Windows? If yes have you tried the Recovery Console on the Installation disc?
I'm a bit rusty on the exact technique but I think with XP you go as if you are doing a total re-install. After Windows has loaded all the files it needs to install you get the option to install or use the Recovery Console. Press R. On the DOS screen type BOOTCFG /REBUILD
That should detect all boot files, old & new on the computer. Find the one that is fairly recent & points to the right directory of your OS - select it.
Then type FIXBOOT - that should make sure that windows will load the right boot file.
Type EXIT windows should re-boot. Remove the XP CD & with lots of luck & many a missed heartbeat you should be fine.

Please try to double check my instructions before you proceed. However even if it doesn't work you shouldn't have done any damage. There is another technique I know to recover an OS but its more risky.

Good Luck.

 

[Kaptdeath]

GoaGas,

Thanks, I have windows recovery as a boot option. (I have had issues for quite some time.)I have tried that and the disk based recovery both result in the BSOD. (I have to admit, that's a new one, even for me.) They both indicate some type of hardware error or "Bad Boot Device". What's really strange is that no matter what boot order I select what is shown as the "C" drive is what used to be the "F" drive. If anyone can help (or has a suggestion) this was the state of affairs before the "nTune disaster":

A: 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy
C: 2X160GB RAID0 -NVIDIA SATA 0 & 1
D: IDE DVD RW
E: IDE DVD RW
F: 2X160GB RAID0 - NVIDIA SATA 2 & 3
G 160GB SATA - JMicron channel 0
H: 160GB SATA - JMicron channel 1

What drives I see do not include the original "C" drive. Here's the really weird part. Like I said, I had an option of booting either Windows XP "normally", or booting the recovery console. THAT STILL WORKS, so I would guess that my MBR is still valid somehow. I did create a new SuSe 10.3 Live disk. It refused to finish booting. (No messages, it just died.) I will try it an another machine. I will try a hard BIOS reset.

The Kapt'n