990FXA-UD3 Rev 3.0 Throttling and other issues

[Scorpion49]

Hello everyone, I signed up over here to ask a quick question about this board. It seems to be BIOS related. My setup is as follows:

Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 Rev 3.0
FX-8320
16GB Patriot Viper 3 1.35V RAM
Samsung 830 128GB SSD
Windows 7 64 bit

I have several issues. The board came with BIOS FA installed out of the box, and everything booted up fine and worked. I stress tested the system after installing windows to ensure there were no problems before putting programs on. I found that the CPU is throttled to 2900mhz/14.5 multiplier every 1-2 seconds on all cores with everything stock and on auto. I tweaked settings for a little while but could not find the APM (application power management) setting that has helped this issue in the past when I had a Crosshair V and an FX 8150.

I tried updating to the FB BIOS that was available on the website, and the problem continued. I decided to wait and see if a new BIOS would be released and live with it for the time being, but now I have found that the computer will not play HD video. Youtube videos and such stutter extremely badly.

The third problem I have is it will not output sound to my Corsair Vengeance 2000 wireless headphone setup. It is selected as the primary audio source, but no sound comes out. Onboard audio works fine with speakers. I've tried several USB ports and it makes no difference.

All of the hardware besides the motherboard and CPU was used immediately prior to installing these with a Gigabyte X79-UD3 and i7 3930k so I know everything works.

If anyone has a suggestion I would love to hear it.

[Scorpion49]

Just an update, I have been on the phone with Gigabyte today. The guy suggested I try CTRL+F1 upon entering the BIOS to see if it unlocks extra options. The only thing this does is trigger the help menu. He knew about the issues with the 1.0 revision of the board but could not comment on the new UEFI setup.

[Vezina]

To avoid throttling disable APM ,C6 and Turbo core.If you care about sound quality disable C1E.
To make the CPU power efficient let the CnQ on ,set the CPU voltage lower with 2 steps as a starting point.
If the Northbridge gets to hot set the voltage to ~ 1,000 Volts

If the USB sound card is not working ,install the AMD southbridge driver and select USB filter driver to be installed.If you already installed it , then uninstall it.

[Scorpion49]

To avoid throttling disable APM ,C6 and Turbo core.If you care about sound quality disable C1E.
To make the CPU power efficient let the CnQ on ,set the CPU voltage lower with 2 steps as a starting point.
If the Northbridge gets to hot set the voltage to ~ 1,000 Volts

If the USB sound card is not working ,install the AMD southbridge driver and select USB filter driver to be installed.If you already installed it , then uninstall it.

There are NO APM settings on the Revision 3.0 board. The BIOS options are extremely limited and it appears even manual voltage is broken in the FA version it was shipped with. This is the entirety of the issue here. Gigabyte did not see fit to include them in this UEFI implementation. The only workaround is to run AOD every time the computer boots and disable turbo core, which also confirms it as a BIOS issue.

I have fixed the problem with the Vengeance 2000 headset, the USB adapter can not be plugged into USB 3.0 on this board, it causes severe stuttering when it is used wirelessly. USB 2.0 works fine. This has not been an issue on any of the other 20+ motherboards I have used this headset with, but at least it is an easy fix.

Everything else is good, the throttling is just very irritating when I know what needs to be turned off to fix it but the options simply are not there. That is something I might expect in a low end board but not an advertised overclocking motherboard with an 8+2 power phase.

[Vezina]

Just stay in touch with the manufacturer until they give you a proper BIOS with the right options.
As you may have already observed we are just users here ,helping other users ,making suggestions in the effort to help.

Otherwise RMA.

[Scorpion49]

Just stay in touch with the manufacturer until they give you a proper BIOS with the right options.
As you may have already observed we are just users here ,helping other users ,making suggestions in the effort to help.

Otherwise RMA.

Yeah, I ended up returning it and getting a different board. Thanks for trying to help. Now the thread is here in the future if someone else has the problem.

[Scorpion49]

Just another update, a solution has been found for the throttling issue. Turn ON the HPC mode under power management tab and it will stop throttling. Why Gigabyte tech support couldn't tell me this, I don't know (Maybe they didn't know either?) but there it is. So if you have a Rev 3.0 board with throttling FX CPU use this solution.

[Vezina]

Just another update, a solution has been found for the throttling issue. Turn ON the HPC mode under power management tab and it will stop throttling. Why Gigabyte tech support couldn't tell me this, I don't know (Maybe they didn't know either?) but there it is. So if you have a Rev 3.0 board with throttling FX CPU use this solution.

Older boards dont have this HPC.Maybe they will add the option in newer BIOS-es.
If i am not mistaking that option is used by other manufacturers for a long time already   

[SeruX]

Just another update, a solution has been found for the throttling issue. Turn ON the HPC mode under power management tab and it will stop throttling. Why Gigabyte tech support couldn't tell me this, I don't know (Maybe they didn't know either?) but there it is. So if you have a Rev 3.0 board with throttling FX CPU use this solution.

Older boards dont have this HPC.Maybe they will add the option in newer BIOS-es.
If i am not mistaking that option is used by other manufacturers for a long time already    

I Lose my battle against the board... i do all kind stuff and receive nothing but trouble.

The FC revision of the bios have this option HPC but even with this enabled keep throttling, even when temperatures is under 60c after 5 minutos of prime large fft the board start throttling.

Another problem is the heat i test same processor on other motherboard and with same settings and cooler (TPC 812 push pull) processor running like 9c cooler serious voltage problem on this one even setting all manual with default values.

I'm really sad in saying this but this board is low end overpriced, i don't expect this from gigabyte.

PS today i upgrade the bios with beta FDC  and APM settings is back on business but still throttling... i will run my 8350 default clocks and run prime95 if this throttling in default i will broke this board in two and no more gigabyte in this live time.

[SeruX]

YEAP! throttling with default speed  UNDERVOLTED 39c  congratulations Gigabyte you made completely crap board


Platinium PSU btw

[DigDeep]

YEAP! throttling with default speed  UNDERVOLTED 39c  congratulations Gigabyte you made completely crap board


Platinium PSU btw

Same with 97a ud3p-undervolted. They should fix this with new bios. hpc does help, but causes more heat an power consumption.

[nachtfrost]

I know this thread is pretty old, but maybe there are some others (like me) who are having the same problem nowadays.

I'm using a FX 8320 on a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 rev 3.0 and was facing the throthling issue.
I tried to disable a lot of the power saving mechanisms, but none of it helped.

Finally I disabled "Core Performance Boost" an that did help.

Sure the CPU doesn't auto-oc now, but those 300MHz on a few of the cores surely aren't such a big deal and most users might oc on there own anyway.
Hopefully my answer will help someone out there who's annoyed by a missing option to disable APM.

[nachtfrost]

Sorry, I have to correct myself. When I gave it another try, throttling was back and I couldn't overcome it. 

[reeven]

Sorry, I have to correct myself. When I gave it another try, throttling was back and I couldn't overcome it. 

fx turbo core by default has higher voltage, example:
fx8350 4.2ghz turbo is 1.425v

If you disabled turbo, and set all cores to 4.2ghz, you could put 1.35v and vcore load to medium, then temps will drop.
also disable high performance mod in bios.