D975XBX2 - New board, several issues!

[bradders]

matsuya,

If you're running the same memory as me (which it would appear you are), I can only assume I've got some duff sticks!

The trouble is, individually they work fine, just not as a group of 4 - hence I can't really RMA them

I'm still interested to get the yellow exclamation mark sorted and the audio driver issue fixed, I can live with 2GB for now.

[ecc8gb]

On my 975XBX2 (rev 504, BIOS 2674), I've found that 4 DIMMs vs 2 DIMMs makes a difference in terms of overclockabilty.

First, there's a quirk with that 'reference freq' setting (in the Memory setup page.) If I set it to 667MHz (default for my RAM), the system won't POST, and my RAM-freq to 667MHz (for 1:1 operation) -- even the watchdog timer hangs (and I have to switch the jumper-position into safe-mode.) But if I set the ref-freq to 533 (and RAM-freq to 533, for 1:1 operation), then the system POSTs and runs fine.

With just 2 DIMMs installed, and +0.1vFSB, I could POST at 333 FSB (E4300 @ 3.0GHz.) With 4 DIMMs, it won't POST, or crashes very quickly in windows -- I have to drop back to 300FSB. That's with 'value' ram (Kingston KVR667/1GB ECC 5-5-5-15 sticks.) I'm using ECC-RAM, which may hurt overclockability a bit further than non-ECC RAM.

Funny thing is, the old November 2006 BIOS seemed to have the best overclockability (I didn't even have to increase vFSB -- was the BIOS doing that automatically without saying?), but the status-menu was wrong for ECC-RAM.

The funnest part about having 4GB physical RAM installed -- under Win/XP Pro (32-bit), only 3.2GB is usable! (If I downgrade from a NVidia 256MB 7900GS to a Radeon 128MB X600 Pro, then usable-RAM increases to 3.6GB.)

[Zertz]

The funnest part about having 4GB physical RAM installed -- under Win/XP Pro (32-bit), only 3.2GB is usable! (If I downgrade from a NVidia 256MB 7900GS to a Radeon 128MB X600 Pro, then usable-RAM increases to 3.6GB.)

Depending what you're using your computer for, going over 2GB on XP doesn't make a huge difference. Personally, I'd only use 2 sticks if it allows you to overclock more.

[mickrussom]

I've just 'upgraded' to this board from it's older brother, the D975XBX and I must say, it really wasn't worth it!

So basically, if anyone has any ideas on any of these issues, I'd be very glad to hear them. Thanks

Hi.

1) I have 4GB of ECC DDR2 800MHZ working perfectly. (Until BIOS 2745). It is Kingston KVR800D2E5K2/2G. Intel claims there is no "valid" DDR2 ECC memory, but until they screwed up on the BIOS, it worked fine. 2692. (apparently all ECC is messed up in 2745). Vista 32 Ultimate see 3.25GB.

2) I have had the yellow bang issue when I tried using a storage controller in the 3rd PCIe slot.

3) I had the same exact problem with Windows 2003 SP2. The audio cannot be made to work universally or properly in 2003. I was planning on using 2003 SP2. I know all the accelleration tricks and tweaks , they are well documented in guides like "Turning 2003 into a workstation" guides all over. The sound does not work. In fact, it doesn't work in Vista 32 if you take an optional audio upgrade for the hi-def audio bus. I tried a X-Fi Gamer card, **SAME PROBLEM**. Its clearly some general motherboard - sound issue that is very hard to track down.

4) Yes, LSI MegaRAID (megaraid, perc and megasas) all screw the pooch in this board. I also hear Areca dies. I want SAS hardware raid on PCI-express. Everything that does that from an LSI PCIe SAS HBA, to Areca, to LSI SAS RAID HBA dies. My next try is the 3ware SAS controller that is coming out. I filed a case with Intel about this issue and was basically told that they never tried an LSI SAS HBA in that board.

You MUST file cases with Intel and go after them aggressively. There are more problems with this board than any other Intel board and any other "decent" board I have ever seen (Supermicro, Asus, Intel are what I consider to usually be decent boards). I've built hundreds of server systems and a number of power boxes like these, this BIOS is just a flaming can of worms for some reason. I can honestly say with Supermicro server boards, I've never used the BIOS to fix problems like we do with this board constantly.

I'm beginning to think since this BIOS doest talk about being (C) Phoenix, AMI, etc, that Intel tried and is failing to write their own BIOS code. Both Intel EFI and this new BIOS code seems horrific. Intel may be able to do chipsets, compilers and CPUs, but this code seems to not be thier forte.

I may switch over to an Asus 975X board, or wait until bearlake comes out and switch to that. This board was a mistake.

[mickrussom]

Regarding only seeing 3.25gb of memory in XP. From what I understand, that is normal. The way XP works, you can have 4gb but it only will show as 4gb minus the memory on your video card and minus something else that I can't remember right now. My video card has 256mb and I am showing 3.325gb of Ram. I believe Vista shows the full 4gb. I really don't worry about it. I got the extra memory for Vista anyway.

Vista32 sees 3.25GB on D975XBX2 here. My VC has 768MB MEM.

I think this is simply the 3:1 split.

However, turning on PAE forcibly (36 bit memory addressing) still did not get me the full 4GB.

The 64 bit versions of the OSes do see the 4GB fine.