*Official* Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H Thread (NVIDIA 9400 mATX HDMI 8 channel LPCM) - Page 4

No, 3-pin is voltage control. PWM is indeed 4-pin. A controller is not practical for a HTPC, unless it used internal temp sensors. But that gets rather expensive (70-80 euro).

Can you confirm that the BIOS function is available for both the CPU and the SYS fan header? I checked the manual, but it only listed changing the CPU header from 4-pin PWN to 3-pin Voltage regulation.

I also checked out the output of the pins in the manual and it looks like the SYS_fan is PWM only :-(

Also, how many fans are in the S14? Did you connect multiple fans to the SYS header?

Why not something like this.

Only the CPU header. Some aftermarket CPU coolers only have 3 pin connector.

You can connect 3 pin fan to it.

1 harddrive and 2 rear. I used two of these to connect to sys header.

You can control the fan speed of a 3-pin fan connected to SYS_FAN by using SpeedFan (tested). To connect two fans, use a 3-pin Y cable (and check this post). You don't have to worry about buning out the connector (two fans draw only a few watts). The settings of SpeedFan overrides the BIOS settings.

SpeedFan

I attached my configuration file for those who want to use SpeedFan to control CPU and/or System fans with this mb. First remove the extension.txt and replace yours (located at C:\\Program Files\\SpeedFan) with it. I set Desired/Warning temperature to

- GPU: 60°C/75°C
- System: 40°C/50°C
- CPU: 40°C/60°C

Both fans are related to all three sensors and will run at 33% speed if all sensors are below Desired temperature, at 66% if at least one sensor is above Desired and all sensors below Warning, and 100% if at least one sensor is above Warning. Of course you can (and should) adjust "Desired" and "Warning" temperature of each sensor and "Minimum value" and "Maximum value" of the speed of each fan according to your system configuration. (In the first picture below, both GPU and System are below Desired, but CPU is above Desired so that both fans run at 66%.)


To start SpeedFan at startup automatically, you have to add a shorcut in the startup program folder (right-click "Start" and click "Explor All Users"). Don't forget to check "start minimized" in the Option tab.

 

speedfansens.cfg.txt 3.5693359375k . file

Quick question for those running this card as an HTPC.

How is the black/white level handling between SD DVD and HD Blu-ray content?

I currently have an ATI 780G HD 3200 based IGP system and was seriously thinking of basing a new build on this nVidia 9400 Gigabyte board. However a report in the "0-255 vs 16-235 on HTPC thread" suggests that the SD vs HD black levels are not consistently handled - as is also the case with standard ATI installs.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1090642 Post 23 from sotti.

However ATI installs can have the BT601CSC registry key enabled to ensure SD content has 601 levels expanded - as 709 HD stuff is - so that all blacks are at "Windows black" and all whites are at "Windows white" - such that SD, HD and Windows desktop stuff all have consistent black and white levels.

How do installs with this motherboard handled SD DVD and HD Blu-ray playback - do people need to alter their nVidia or display settings to get decent results on both?

@renethx: Thanx a million!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was all I needed to know :-D I use Speedfan myself and the prime reason for wanting to be able to the control fans somewhat is Speedfan. I didn't know some MB control chips had those advanced features, but this makes my day :-D

I only need a 5v PSU cable to 3 pin fan cable for the Intake fan near the HD's. From the other post you linked, I can see that Artic Cooling has PWM-fans you can Daisy Chain, that might be something for the future.

Last, how hot does you GPU/Northbridge get?

Check this post.

Saving profiles does not give me much:
- The monitors can swap the numbers and (unfortunately) some apps use #1 even of it is not the primary.
- The resolution & color settings for the big screen recover incorrectly.
- Manual action is still required each time I reconnect the display.

It seems like a general nVidia problem for HTPC owners.
Googling gives a few tipes which do not function (registry) or not supported on Vista

This is my first build. As far as I can tell, I did OK putting the hardware together:

GA-E7AUM-DS2H
E8400
2 Pairs of Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 (But realized I could only install Vista with 1 pair installed)
Samsung SH-S203N SATA DVDRW Drive
Seagate 1TB ST31000340AS

But I'm having a heck of a time getting the OS installed and working to a reasonable degree. If someone would take pity on me and give me a step-by-step procedure for installing all the OS and driver bits, I'd much appreciate it.

I have:
Vista Premium SP1 OEM
and from the Gigabyte Drivers page (for Vista x86 32-bit):
Realtek Audio Driver R2.00
Chipset/LAN/SATA RAID Driver v20.08
VGA Driver 20.08
and from nVidia's web site:
nForce Driver v20.08
nForce HDMI Audio Driver 1.00.0.37

As far as I can tell, I can't get the Vista DVD to boot if I set the BIOS to AHCI mode. If I leave it set to IDE, I can do an installation, but I have not been able to then set it to AHCI and boot successfully. (I get some Vista boot activity, a fast flash of a blue error screen - too fast to read anything - and then restart after restart.) I have tried copying the AHCI driver file off the Gigabyte CD on to a thumb drive, but the Vista install doesn't think it's compatible with my hardware. (If I don't hide incompatible drivers, I can see several copies of the AHCI driver but selecting one doesn't seem to do any good.) I *can* load things like the Ethernet driver this way. So basically, I can get a Vista install to work in IDE but that's not the best I can do, is it?

And I haven't played enough beyond that to get HDMI working - I had it plugged into my Onkyo 805, but no signs of life there - even after installing the nVidia VGA driver. (And at one point the device manager was reporting an error 43[?] for the display device....)

Sooo....exactly what order should I do what?!? And when should I have Vista do the Microsoft updates?

Thanks so much!

Brett

Have you read this article?

Do you see NVIDIA HDMI Output working in Sound dialog box?

Believe it or not, I saw the reference to that earlier in the thread and I tried it. Whether I did it correctly or not.... I left the BIOS in IDE, installed Vista, installed the chipset/lan/SATA RAID package, set that registry key, and it didn't seem to make a difference.


If I recall correctly, in one of my iterations, I did have the HDMI output available in the sound panel...

I think I'll start over from scratch and follow the manual as best I can.

Does anybody know why the AHCI SATA driver was hidden as incompatible with my hardware during the Vista driver install scan?

Thanks!
Brett

perhaps your optical drive doesn't support ahci

People seem to have gotten this drive to work with AHCI on other motherboards....

I'm at the end of a complete re-install - used the Gigabyte driver disk instead of trying to be "smart" by using the latest downloads. I'll try rebooting, then I'll try the registry key....

Play.com have this in the UK, for pre-order on 15th Dec, at £99.99 delivered. Seems a good deal to me! About £20 less than most other places.

(And if anyone fancies taking a look at post 84, I can know whether or not to cancel my order!)

I am waiting for local dealer (NY/NJ) to start stocking these boards - Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H.
If anyone is interested just let me know maybe we can get better deal if more people buy from him.

Well I'm pretty much fed up with my DG45... I have one of these boards sitting out in the garage now and I can't wait to try it out. The only bummer is I have to wait until the 25th for it to be mine!

I installed first using the IDE mode, then used the registry modification suggested by Microsoft and then set in the Bios the "Onchip SATA mode" to AHCI (under Integrated Peripherals)? Works for me.

In AHCI mode I myself have the problem when booting I keep getting the message "DES is turned off!! Please use DES application to turn it on again". (not under IDE )

DES is the Dynamic Energy Saver that I installed (latest version from Giga) and I have enabled it and it's running in stealth mode. Any suggestions ?

Even if I uninstall DES I keep getting this error !

Can someone enlighten me as to whether the sinle lane PCI-Express slot is 1.1 or 2.0 ? Gigabyte only talks about the PCI Express x16 slot being 2.0

2.0. Check this figure.

I purchased another Seagate 1TB drive which I received yesterday. Now I have three with the Gigabyte MB/HTPC. I setup for RAID 5 from the MB and had to load the RAID driver from a USB drive and reload Vista 64. Now I have to reload all my software which I didn't realize that I would have to do when I changed to the RAID system but live and learn. I wasn't sure I was going to do RAID but Newegg dropped the price of the drives to $99 w/free shpg. so I couldn't resist. I don't have a backup system at this time and was hoping that the RAID 5 would essentially give me that peace of mind until I can afford something.

So now I'm going to reload all the software and it does look like the RAID 5 is working perfectly. The three drives show up as one 1.8TB drive in "My Computer" so it looks like I'm on my may. Anything I else that I need to watch for or setup on this before I start reloading the rest of the Gigabyte drivers and my programs?

It also hit me yesterday that I don't have a UPS on the HTPC yet so I was looking at the Rosewill RU-103 1500 VA 900W Battery Backup & Surge Protection unit which is on sale for $115 shipped which seemed like a great deal but I can only find one review on it. Have any of you had any experience with this unit or the Rosewill UPS units? The software also only says it works with up to Windows XP and I have Vista 64. Even though the one reviewer thought the software was lacking it would be nice to use but I can't seem to get much of an answer from Rosewill on the compatibility. They just emailed me back and said that the unit doesn't require software to run. Duh! "But it does have a disc that comes with it to run the computer shut-down, etc." I emailed back, "and I would like to know if it will work with Vista 64". Any guidance on this from you guys? Thanks again in advance!

I was in the same position, after installing DES under Vista x64, where even uninstalling it wouldn't remove the boot error. However, I don't know if it is significant or just lucky, but when I uninstalled it using the Programs->Gigabyte->Energy Saving->uninstall menu (rather from control panel - uninstall programs) it worked. I also read on other sites that clearing the BIOS after uninstalling DES will remove the error, but then you have to re-configure the BIOS correctly or you may be locked out of the OS.

Needless to say that I won't be re-installing it in a hurry, although the idea of DES looks great.

BTW I found that Speedfan was reporting 80C for the GPU/Northbridge, which I can believe because it burnt just touching it for a fraction of a second (and I have the blister to prove it!) which seems incredibly hot. I have an 80mm fan running at 1000rpm next to it at the moment which keeps the temps below 50C and is pretty much silent.

The high temperatures may have been aggravated by the fact that I used an aftermarket CPU cooler that transferred the heat to fins next to the rear case fans, i.e. without a fan sitting on top of the CPU blowing air down on it, rather than the stock Intel cooler that may have provided some cooling to the GPU as well.

I can confirm that using Programs->Gigabyte->Energy Saving->uninstall works where as control panel does not.

Those values are really low. Tried them, but the CPU fan (Scythe Shuriken) stops @33% (E5200 so doesn't matter, 30C at idle). Same in my case with a TT Silentcat 80mm. Stops in the mid 40%.


The GPU-temp really seems dependend on both CPU and Case fans. Burned my fingers when fans were at minimal possible speed and case open; GPU was to 70C+. With fans at reasonable speed, GPU is well below 40C.

I do have issues with reading the RPM of the back-fan(s) though. At low RPM it is reasonable ok, but at higer values it gives insane values (10.000RPM+).


Works with an Optiarc DVD burner.

I do have some issues with the board. Put in 4 Kingston HyperX KHX6400D2LLK2/2GN 's (4GB). They boot @667 with 5-5-5-16 latencies. When I go to the BIOS, I can't use the EPP profiles, so I need to set them by hand to 800. They work with the same latencies, but not with 4-4-4-12 @2.1v. Might be something in the advanced timing, but I have no clue where to find those (can you read those out, e.g. the EPP profile? CPU-Z only gives the 4-4-4-12 timings).

DES and ET6 don't seem to work. ET6 crashes on startup (error in GUI.exe). DES says I need to uninstall and download an advanced version from Gigabyte. I did, but no joy, same error message. Sigh, now I know why I never install those darn utilities. Even did a BIOS upgrade with the included app. Wiped out all the settings :-(

One other issue I stumbled across is that I don't have direct access to the drives for SMART and other drive diagnostics (HDD Scan)? Nor can I find the temp sensors for them?

Last, I noticed in the BIOS there where settings for sleep states (S2 and S4). They were disabled by default. Any use turning those on?

PS: Anyone here with an OrigenAE Case? Powerled on a S16T stays orange when turned on, instead of blue. Checked all the cable and wiring, but it doesn't really match the thin booklet. Seems it uses the 5v on a molex to see whether it is on or off (why not use the darn connection on the MB?) which is connected, but... doesn't do a thing with it.

Needless to say you should adjust values of the parameters (Desired and Warning of each sensor, Minimum and Maxium of each fan [connector], which sensor(s) each fan depends on). There are various factors to consider (case, CPU, fans etc.), it's only you who can find optimal values for your system.

Both did appear to work for me (apart from DES boot message) so can't really help there except to suggest re-installing.


Me neither! There is an option in the BIOS to enable SMART but this is set and I still can't get at the HD info. Let me know if you sort it!


I believe the C2E state also reduces the CPU voltage as well as stopping the clock with a hardware signal. C4E drops the volts even further after the processor has entered the C3 sleep state and turns off the cache. I suppose both may help to save power but given the problems with bringing PCs out of the C3 state I'm not going to try them until I have a working and stable system

is anyone able to boot from a sata cd/dvd drive with the motherboard set to ahci mode. it doesn't even give me the option. i know the g45 board does support this (there's a specific message it shows saying that it's waiting to see if there is a cdrom drive to boot from or something). anyway i called tech support and they told me that since the board only has one sata controller that i can NOT boot from a sata dvd drive, it will only boot from hard drives. she said i should get an ide drive and boot from that. i argued that it works on the g45 boards and she said they have 2 controllers and that's why it worked. but i don't rememeber it having that or making sure that i plugged drive into a port on a separate controller. can anyone shed some light on this? i asked her about a bios update but she just kept saying "ok, is that all" and trying to hang up on me. seriously, i wish american companies would make more motherboards. no offense to asia but your tech support is garbage.

i have an optiarc as well and it DOES work in ahci mode on the asus g45 board. i plugged it into this board set it to ahci, and it won't boot from it. can anyone confirm booting from a sata dvd drive in ahci mode on this board?

edit:
actually i have two sony nec optiarc dvd burners both of which are not bootable from this board in ahci mode.

Hi all!
Longtime lurker, just registered to see if i can contribute something back for a change!

Got this board, took me two bloody weeks to be able to get AHCI working!

Here are the issues:
1 BIOS is very very strange; even when u set it to boot from CD (i think it tries to boot from IDE CD-see below), it tries to detect harddisks and fails and stops, if it doesnt find an OS, or a properly formatted disk. This drove me nuts!
SO the way to do it is to F12 at startup and select cd as the immediate boot up device! NOTE NOTE: do not select the first CDROM option, if u have a SATA CD. After many tries, i realised theat the first option (CD ROM) is for IDE CD. in my case my SATA CD drive was the last option, and labelled as TSSCORP (drive is a Samsung ) or somehting. Not very descriptive! SO if u cant boot from your sata cd, check this method! See if there is an unfamiliar option somewhere near the bottom of the list.

2- Re SATA drivers. this was my first sata board, and boy did i need to learn things! On IDE emulation in BIOS all is well, BUT some sata ports wont work, so you NEED AHCI in bios to enable all ports. After tons of blue screen crashes (007 error, which means XP cant find the sata drivers) here is how i did it. (sorry about the bad formatting of the info below: basically use a working pc to download the driver file from GB website, copy files as mentioned below onto floppy disk, then attach a floppy drive to the GB board, and use the above disc during F6)

1- set bios to ahci
2- boot from cd as explained above
3- use F6 on xp install
4- get your floppy drive out (yeah tell me about it, i had to find one, and a floppy disk from god knows where!) and get the SATA driver from the GB drivers WEB page for this board. I couldnt use or understand the ones that came in the MB disk.
5- Extract the downloaded file, and copy all the extracted files to the floppy. If u move the file on to the floppy, then extract it as suggested, the disc becomes full and some files wont get copied! Mine was missing the OEM.TXT file first time!
6- carry on the install as normal.

And all should be ok! hopefully! One more note, I tried a slipstreamed XP install, with SP3 and other sata drivers, but that didnt work either. it seems if you have other slipstreamed sata drivers, F6 doesnt work (somewhere in the install txt file, it only refers to the slipstreamed drviers, and wont recognise the F6 drivers!!!!)! So either slipstream the nvidia drivers, or use a virgin xp install disk and do the F6 business!
This whole thing drove me nuts, but im glad ive done it now! I had loads of problems, with the install wrecking the boot sector of the hardisks, and getting ntldr missing etc errors. But if you do the f12 at boot, you should be able to get past most of the issues.
Hope this helps someone out there!

Yes i was just screwing with this trying to fix it as well and got it to work. The trick is that it only worked when it was the only drive plugged in (no hard drives). Then since ahci is esata friendly i would just plug the drive in when vista asked which drive to install on.

My guess is that dissimilar to other motherboards like the asus p5q-em, the gigabyte board does NOT implement a delay to wait for ahci cdrom drives. I think noticed that in the bios for the p5q-em you can set it to wait for the drive to initialize so it wouldn't be skipped over on boot.

Hey GIGABYTE for bios revision 2, implement a timer so that we can properly boot from sata dvd drives in ahci mode.

Should we file a formal complaint for this?

EDIT: I am an idiot. Like farbox pointed out in the f12 boot options your drive is listed at the bottom, in the bios you will see your drive at the bottom of the list when you set first boot device. If you select cdrom like farbox said, it will look for an ide one, so if you go in the bios and go to set first boot device, scroll all the way to the bottom and select your cdrom drive's actual name. Sorry everyone, I AM an idiot.... haha

Dont beat yourself up too much!
I felt like an idiot too for two weeks, but i would like to think that the bios is pretty idiotic, for all of us to be having the same problem!
Its easy to do once you figure out the pecularities, but a bit unusual to confuse us all!
Thats why i actually registered here only to post this info, since I saw others having the same problems that I had, and god knows how many times forum posts have saved me before, so I thought I contribute a little for a change!

thanks for the info
still waiting for the board to be released in Taiwan

I suspect a similar thing was happening with my old G45 board
once I switched to ahci I couldn't boot from the vista cd in my new sata pioneer drive
that bios may have been even worse because that board didn't even have IDE