My experiences with the GA-EP45-DQ6 [Updated 9/26/08]
Forum Motherboard & Memory : Gigabyte - My experiences with the GA-EP45-DQ6 [Updated 9/26/08]
Allow me to introduce myself. I am an overclocking noob. I recently built a new computer based on the GA-EP45-DQ6. This is my first overclocking experience ever.
My System
GA-EP45-DQ6
Q6600 G0 (VID:1.2875) with Noctua U12P
2x2GB Corsair 1066 DDR2 CAS5
2xSeagate 500G hard drives
EVGA 9800GTX KO
Enermax Modu82+ 525W
WinXP SP3
Other assorted stuff
Peculiarities of the Board
The motherboard is advertised on four pillars: Ultra Durable, Ultra Cool, Ultra Power Efficient, and Ultra Secure. Today I would like to add a fifth pillar; a couple of behaviors I have affectionately named Ultra F-You. What is this new feature you ask? One: if you have, in any way, altered the CPU, memory, or MCH setting from their defaults and remove power by turning off the PSU, unplugging the computer, or suffering a power loss the very next boot is guaranteed to fail. While annoying this really isn't that bad considering it shouldn't happen all that often and the motherboard quickly recovers by booting at default settings. Here's where the second behavior kicks in. Two: after a failed boot you will be greeted with a red box stating the boot failed due to overclocking in the M.I.T. section. At this point, you will never be able to change the FSB again. That is, you can change it all you want but the motherboard will only ever boot with the default. Huzzah! Unbelievable but true. Fortunately, there is a way to fix this. Turn off the PSU, remove the battery, and clear the CMOS. Start over from square one. Time consuming but faithful. Behavior two has been fixed as of Bios F11 possibly earlier and I just didn't notice. Changes made after a failed overclock seem less likely to work in comparison to starting fresh but at least you can make changes now.
I also encountered an infinite reboot behavior. After further investigation, it appears overclock + standby = infinite reboot loop. I currently have the standby type set to S3 in bios. I may try S1 to see what happens later. In any event, C1E/EIST are not the cause of the infinite reboot loop. To fix this turn off the PSU, remove the battery, clear the CMOS, and start over from square one. I also disabled auto standby/hibernate and have yet to experience it again.
There is a Green Lan option in bios which turns off unused ethernet ports to save power. Great idea except the on/off decision is made at boot and plugging into a disabled port while in Windows will not re-enable it.
The ethernet cable test built into bios is very unresponsive. The first time I used it I seriously thought I had locked up the bios.
Turning off the Gigabyte SATA chip also turns off IDE. I was wondering where my DVD drive disappeared to.
I enabled the TPM chip but haven't found it useful yet. I was hoping it would provide a cert for digitally signed email or encrypted email. It actualy just works in concert with an existing cert.
Other than that, the board has been a dream to work with.
My Bios Settings:
Robust Graphics Booster - Turbo
CPU Clock Ratio - 8x (3.2GHz)
CPU Host Frequency - 400MHz
PCI Express Frequency - 100MHz
C.I.A.2 - Disabled
Performance Enhance - Extreme
X.M.P. - Disabled
MCH Frequency Latch - 400MHz
Memory Frequency - 1066MHz
DRAM Timing Selectable - Manual (5, 5, 5, 15)
CPU Vcore - 1.3375V
DRAM Voltage - 2.1V
C1E - Enabled
TM2 - Enabled
EIST - Enabled
All other voltages are on auto. Playing with them generally results in a first class ticket on the fail boat.
I investigated various bios revisions for performance. I have bios F5 and F8 also but have not tested them. I sense impending doom from them since they cannot be downloaded from the Gigabyte website anymore. The benchmark of choice was 3DMark06. The numbers reported are the SM2.0/SM3.0/CPU and composite scores. 800MHz RAM tests used 4-4-4-12 timings. All of the bios revisions are pretty close in performance. I'm using F11 right now.
Using Nvidia driver 177.79
Bios F6
266x9 800 4975/5987/3819 - 12863
266x9 1066 4877/6024/3827 - 12812
333x9 800 6271/6701/4741 - 15366
333x9 1066 6151/6707/4739 - 15257
400x8 800 6527/6931/5029 - 16011
400x8 1066 6397/7064/5083 - 16046
Bios F7
266x9 800 4899/5993/3819 - 12800
266x9 1066 4863/6017/3825 - 12790
333x9 800 6154/6709/4745 - 15265
333x9 1066 6258/6704/4742 - 15357
400x8 800 6503/6927/5043 - 15992
400x8 1066 6560/7008/5049 - 16128
Bios F9
266x9 800 5011/5990/3811 - 12894
266x9 1066 4977/6001/3854 - 12901
333x9 800 6168/6817/4740 - 15379
333x9 1066 6176/6719/4729 - 15286
400x8 800 6411/6956/5041 - 15930
400x8 1066 6588/7062/5062 - 16215
Bios F10a
266x9 800 5005/5000/3760 - 12876
266x9 1066 4917/5999/3836 - 12830
333x9 800 6182/6722/4751 - 15308
333x9 1066 6054/6704/4612 - 15081
400x8 800 6456/7029/5017 - 16030
400x8 1066 6614/6953/5057 - 16133
Bios F11
266x9 800 5058/6024/3784 - 12951
266x9 1066 4922/6120/3813 - 12934
333x9 800 6285/6827/4729 - 15492
333x9 1066 6330/6859/4733 - 15567
400x8 800 6637/7057/5045 - 16247
400x8 1066 6649/7087/5079 - 16309 - (requires Performance Enhance = Turbo for stability)
Summary
Despite the goofy behavior in bios I love this motherboard. The board quickly recovers from errors, is very stable, and offers decent performance. Bios profiles are awesome for quickly changing settings. The number of SATA ports is insane not to mention quad 1000Base-T ports. I definitely recommend this board despite it's reasonably high cost. Gigabyte tech support is useless however. It's not really tech support. It's an attempt at pacifying customers. Trouble overclocking? Solution: overclocking not guaranteed! Trouble not-overclocking? Solution: new bios available soon on our page! Don't let that hold you back though. The qualtiy and performance of this board are increasing over time with new bios revisions
Comments/Questions?
Change log
7/23/08 - Added info on infinite restart
8/17/08 - Added F9 bios and rebenchmarked all with 177.79 Nvidia driver
9/26/08 - Added F11 bios
Message edited by GenKhan2 on 09-26-2008 at 07:11:02 PM
I'm getting this board soon but only because I can't get a P5Q Deluxe. Asus boards just go back to the previous setting if you fail an overclock NOT default. Has this behavior been fixed in the latest bios for the ep45-dq6? I'd hate to have to keep reseting the cmos.
| modtech wrote : I'm getting this board soon but only because I can't get a P5Q Deluxe. Asus boards just go back to the previous setting if you fail an overclock NOT default. Has this behavior been fixed in the latest bios for the ep45-dq6? I'd hate to have to keep reseting the cmos. |
I don't think I was quite clear enough in my original post. Sorry for that. After a failed overclock the bios will show the previous settings but if you look carefully at the post screen you will notice the board is not running at the settings shown in bios. The board warns you of this. In my experience, if you give the board a chance to warn you things go badly thereafter. If an overclock fails I don't give the board a chance to screw me. I immediately load optimized defaults. On the next boot a re-overlcock to where I was previously. Working this way I haven't run into issues for a long time.
when i updated to F11 nothing works!at startup pc beeps continuasly and from checking the manual its says power error.no matter what overclock setup i use i dont know why....so i returned back to f9 pc works fine at 9x445 = 4Ghz
What about Smart Backup (see my last post)?
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