Intel DP45SG (Skyburg)

[preyingrazor]

Non-motherboard related question:

What is the correct card and connector to attach my LCD's VGA cable to in a crossfire HD4850 config.

I'm guessing the one closer to the processor and the connector that's closest to the cards bracket (the top)

[CrowdAds]

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by hawkeyelom

333, 9.5 and 3.16 are fror an E8500, as I understand it you have an E8400?, which has different settings--so you have to set the Yes values for your processor and save then go backin and check that thye are retained- change to No and save.

I believe everyone's BIOS shows x9.5 and 3.16GHz regardless of the CPU you are using. There should not be any glaring errors such as this and it makes me wonder how this BIOS possibly passed inspection and was released.

Originally Posted by hawkeyelom

I haqve the Antec signature 650 --sazse Antec P182==have had for about 6 weeeks-everything seems to be working great as far as case and PS--My fans are wired directly to PS, not MB headers.

The only possible drawbacks I see right now are the length of the supply. It is a little over 7" long which will lessen the room at the bottom of my case. Also the cabling is stiffer but I will work with it the best I can and get things rearanged. I have the Antec 300 with all Antec Tri-Cools running directly off the power supply. Less heat and noise traveling through the mobo from having to run .5-1.0 amps of fans (3x120mm, 1x140mm).

[Dandy]

I would like to know if possible how do I get to see the preboot information that I have always seen on my other boards. Memory setting and disk stuff. All I get is the Intel splash screen and post counts in the bottom right. BTW my last number is always 92. Is this right?

Thanks

[hawkeyelom]

Originally Posted by Sandog

I believe everyone's BIOS shows x9.5 and 3.16GHz regardless of the CPU you are using. There should not be any glaring errors such as this and it makes me wonder how this BIOS possibly passed inspection and was released.

I do not think this is the case- an 8400 should have different valuses under the Yes prompt than an 8500--It is may opinion Dave has set something incorrectly under yes-and that is why his processor is seen at 2/3 rds when testing under load.

When I overclocked my 8500 to 3.33 and went ino BIOs and changed Yes to NO--the processor values did not automatically revert to correct on main page. I had to set values under YES to correct settings and then change to auutomatic on some lines and save and reenter or change to No right away--can't remember exact steps--but main point is to get Yes values correcct and save bios and re-enter BIOS and change to NO--main page then should be correct for process model and speed and so shoul dvalues under NO under performance.

but< I agree this BIIOS seemsd not to have been tested properly

[Clipper]

Greetings to all DP45SG owners
I think I found another one problem with this motherboard, it always enables AAM on my hard drive Tested on WD and Hitachi drives, all drives had AAM disabled, but when attached to DP45SG AAM become enabled after every boot. I manually disabled AAM, but at the next boot it became enabled again! This occurs for any operating system, not only in Windows but in clean DOS as well, so I think it is not an OS or driver problem, but a BIOS bug. The motherboard should not change AAM settings of the hard drives.
Seagate drives are not affected however, since they have AAM settings locked by manufacturer.
Does someone have the same problem?

[DaveLessnau]

I agree with Sandog. I think that, for some reason, this BIOS shows 9.5, 333, and 3.16 for everyone, no matter what processor they're using. That's what mine showed with my E8400 before I did anything. The correct values for an E8400 are 9.0, 333, and 3.00 (I believe the 2.99 I got when I manually set the multiplier and frequency is considered close enough to 3.00). I've manually set those lines to the correct values several times. I've saved with The Prompt at Yes and No several times with the settings at Manual and at Automatic both before and after setting them. No matter what I do, with The Prompt set to No, the system behaves correctly and at default speeds (9.0 x 333 = 3.00 GHz) regardless of the 3.16 GHz that shows at the bottom of the Processor Overrides page. No matter what I set those values to (manually or automatically), with The Prompt set to Yes, the system actually runs at 6 x 333 = 2.0 GHz no matter the load (i.e., no SpeedStep). And, no matter what I do, when I return The Prompt to No, the system runs at 9.0 x 333 = 3.00 GHz but still shows the 9.5 x 333 = 3.16 GHz it defaults to.

I don't want to give the impression that this is bad for me. Personally, I run with The Prompt set to No. So, I have no personal problem with the BIOS. It's more of an intellectual affront that Intel would release a BIOS like this that causes me to run these tests and try to track down what's happening.

hawkeyelom: just to confirm, you ran Intel's Processor Identifier Utility with The Prompt set to both Yes and No and that utility said the Expected Processor Frequency matched the Reported Processor Frequency both times?

[hawkeyelom]

Yes both times, but I still maintain you should set the values under yes so that the bottom of the processor over rides page--and the main page-- shows the correct values for YOUR processor-then the YES and NO load and idle tests, IMO, would be correct.

[DaveLessnau]

Originally Posted by Clipper

Greetings to all DP45SG owners
I think I found another one problem with this motherboard, it always enables AAM on my hard drive Tested on WD and Hitachi drives, all drives had AAM disabled, but when attached to DP45SG AAM become enabled after every boot. I manually disabled AAM, but at the next boot it became enabled again! This occurs for any operating system, not only in Windows but in clean DOS as well, so I think it is not an OS or driver problem, but a BIOS bug. The motherboard should not change AAM settings of the hard drives.
Seagate drives are not affected however, since they have AAM settings locked by manufacturer.
Does someone have the same problem?

How are you viewing the status of AAM? I thought my WD diagnostics would show the status, but it doesn't.

[Sandog]

Intel says you can flash back to a previous BIOS. I may give it a try.

Desktop Boards - BIOS update instructions

[DaveLessnau]

Originally Posted by Sandog

Intel says you can flash back to a previous BIOS. I may give it a try.

Desktop Boards - BIOS update instructions

I just came back here to say that I successfully reverted back to 0093 and I saw your note. Since hawkeyelom's PIU test was showing full processor use with The Prompt at both Yes and No, I decided I'd probably have to do the Recovery BIOS flash. Since I was going to do something so big, I decided to try reverting back to 0093 first. I've got all these files on a bootable USB Thumb drive so it's fast and easy. Anyway, the flash back to 0093 went without problem (just a regular flash, I didn't even bother with the Recovery flash -- oh, first I cleared all my Integrator Toolkit changes from 0102 by copying ITOOLKIT.EXE to my flash drive and running ITOOLKIT REMOVE). After IFLASH told me it was successful, I rebooted. I then got a message that there was an NVRAM error and it was restoring the defaults (something like that, anyway). Another reboot, into the BIOS, F9 to load optimized defaults, saved and exited, then back into the BIOS. Everything's fine.

The first thing I did was check the Processor Overrides page. Upon changing The Prompt to Yes, it correctly came up with a 9 x 333 = 2.99 GHz reading (and 1.2500V). That changed the Main page speed from 3.00 GHz to 2.99. I exited without saving and it was back to 3.00 GHz. Into Vista and checked HWMonitor and CPU-Z while running Prime95 and all was well. I also ran Intel's Processor Identification Utility (PIU) and it got the expected 3.00 GHz reading. One change I did notice here, though, was that under 0102, PIU listed Enhanced Halt State as No. Back under 0093, it now says Yes.

At this point, I'm just staying put. Since, at best, 0102 gave me nothing, I'm just staying with 0093 until the next BIOS version comes out. Anyway, I sure learned a lot doing all this.

[hawkeyelom]

Dave did you have to remove the recovery jumper to flash back-and how do you make the flash drive bootable?

Anyone else may answer--not sure Dave is coming back here for a while?

[Tiger90]

Still waiting for delivery of my DP45SG. I figure a bootable thumbdrive is a must when owning this board. I found some very simple (5 min) instructions for creating a Win98 bootable thumbdrive. Worked great for me, boots quick and takes up only a few mb on the stick. I have not tried it to flash bios but will do as soon as my board arrives. The steps for a bootable Vista or XP stick appear to be a bit more complicated.

www
bay-wolf
com/
usbmemstick.htm

Sorry for the piece-wise URL but I need more posts to enter links..

[TI99]

I finally reverted back to 0093 by using a bootable USB Thumb drive (after I figured how to make one without a floppy drive...thanks to the HP utility). The flash back to 0093 went without problem except for message that there was an NVRAM error on the 1st boot. Everything's is working the way it did before I tried 102. Set my E8500 freq to 370 which gets it to 3.51 gig when it steps up to 9.5 under load and 2.2gig when it steps down to 6 when idle. The front side bus is at 1480 with these settings. Also run memory at 8,8,8,18 at 1.7volts. Ran memtest for 3hrs and Prime95 for 3 more hrs all error free. I am happy again and don't think I'll ever upgrade the BIOS again. The only thing I was looking to fix was the double power on, but I can now live with that.

[Clipper]

Originally Posted by DaveLessnau

How are you viewing the status of AAM? I thought my WD diagnostics would show the status, but it doesn't.

You can view Automatic Acoustic Management status in Everest in "Storage->ATA" section. Also you can run any HDD benchmark utility and check Random Access time. If AAM is enabled it will be slow, (~16-18ms instead of 12-13 ms).
Seems that the problem exists on all new Intel boards, I just checked DP43TF, it also forces AAM enabled. The same drives attached to Gigabyte EP45-DS4 work fine, the motherboard does not change AAM settings. So I think the problem is with Intel.

[Der Keyser]

Hi all

Jezzz, I would really recommend reading the first page in this review of x58 motherboards. Not because of x58, but because theres a large section from Anand himself on how pitifull a state the BIOS's they recieve on new boards are in. Basically they find and fix numerous flaws before they can even finish the review.
AnandTech: Intel X58 Motherboard Roundup - What does $300 Get You?

A long story made short. Since this board (DP45SG) has not been reviewed anywhere serious, that also could be a reason why no BIOS development and testing is being done. There are no complaints from anyone Intel is taking serious enough to really act upon.

it's a sad situation.

-Der Keyser