GA-P55A-UD7 - What software/drivers to install for Windows 7

[omnium]

I've just built a new system using the GA-P55A-UD7 motherboard, an i7 860 CPU, etc... and have installed Windows 7 on there.

I have an SSD boot drive and two drives in RAID 1 that I will use for data.  I'm using a fanless Sapphire Radeon HD 5550 1GB PCI-E graphics card & 6GB of RAM.

Is there a recommended procedure for installing this system?

I have lots of experience building WinXP systems way back in the day when Pentium4 was the latest CPU, but not since then.  Those days, you installed

• Windows XP
• All the drivers from the motherboard vendor's website
• Graphics card drivers
• Drivers for other components, like sound cards, usb devices, etc...

Now, as a first stab with this system, I installed Windows 7, then installed the mobo drivers from the CD, then the graphics drivers from the CD.  The system was rather sluggish, the Windows Experience score was below 3 and generally seemed wrong.  I regretted even taking the manufacturer's CDs out of their sleeves!

So, I reinstalled using the method in the list above and the system was VERY unstable and blue screened regularly.

Next, I reinstalled using the list above, only I skipped most drivers except the chipset INF, the graphics card and the Intel RAID driver.  Still, the system is unstable and blue screens regularly when doing nothing other than copying data from a USB drive to the RAID drives.

I've uninstalled the Intel RAID s/w and it seems to have stabilised now, but I'm not convinced that I am getting the best out of the machine.

Reading around, for Windows 7, it almost sounds like I should completely skip ALL of the motherboard drivers and just install the graphics card driver.

What are others doing?  Do you have any success after installing the drivers from Gigabyte's website?  Or do you just ignore some/all of them?

[Dark Mantis]

I think you may be looking in the wrong place to apportion blame. It may well be your memory that is causing the problems. If you can give us a list of hardware including the exact memory you are using maybe we can sort this out.

[omnium]

Hiya,

Sure, I can list it all:

Motherboard:   GA-P55A-UD7 (came with F3 bios, I've updated to F7)
CPU:           Intel Core i7 860 2.80G s1156
RAM:          Corsair Dominator 6GB DDR3 SDRAM Memory Module (6GB 3 x 2GB - 1866MHz DDR3-1866/PC3-14900 - DDR3 SDRAM - 240-pin DIMM - MPN: TR3X6G1866C9DF)
GPU:          Sapphire ATI HD5550 ULTIMATE 1GB DDR2 PCI-E HDMI DX11 FANLESS
Boot HDD:  Intel 80GB X25-M SATAII 2.5" MLC
Data HDD:  2 x 1.5TB Ssung HD154UI SATA HDD
DVD drive:  Samsung Writemaster SH-S223C
OS:             Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
PSU:            Rasurbo 550W PSU
Case:          Fractal Design Define R3

All of the drives are installed into the Intel SATA ports.  The two Samsung HDDs are configured in the Intel RAID BIOS utility as a RAID1 group.

The OS is installed to the SSD, of course.  I remember the first time I installed the machine with only the DVD & SSD drives installed, it all seemed very quick to set up.  Since installing the RAID drives, the subsequent reinstalls seems incredibly slow to me.  It could, of course, be a coincidence and I may have changed something else.

The BIOS is generally using Optimised Defaults, except I enabled the XDM (or whatever the RAID menu option is called) and I configured boot orders, disabled the floppy port, disabled the boot screen, etc... I didn't change any default clocking options or anything too technical like that.

I'm still interested to know if everyone else is installing all of the drivers from the Gigabyte website, or if the pick only the ones they need - if any.

[Dark Mantis]

I was going to say the same. I would suggest that you remove the RAID drives and see if that makes a difference to your boot time. As I intially thought it could well be down to the memory. The RAM you are using is not listed as  copmpatible buy either Gigabyte or Corsair. That doesn't mean that you can't get it working but it will take a lot more trouble.

[omnium]

Yes, I'm fairly sure I bought the "wrong" memory - as in, not the ideal memory for my setup - but it's pretty much too late now, although I guess I could exchange it for something more appropriate.

When you say it may give me trouble, I don't quite know what you mean!  Trouble as in getting the optimal setup in the BIOS?

I'll remove the RAID setup again and see how the system performs after that.  If it is playing up, what can I do about it?

[Dark Mantis]

Nowadays the motherboard chipsets are much more fussy about what memory that they work with I'm afraid. Gone are the good old days when any old ram would do. If the motherboard decides that it's not going to play nicely with your memory it will either just not boot at all or be very unstable. If you know enough about memory settings, and I mean right down to the little details, then you could probably get it to work. Probably easier to just buy some ram on the QVL.

[omnium]

Yeah, so I'm working out...    and it's all quite hard to tell...

My RAM kit is listed as part number TR3X6G1866C9DF, and Gigabyte list TR3X6G1866C9D as a supported chip in dual channel mode.  Of course, my kit was supposed to be for triple channel and I made a mistake there.  I'm now trying to work out the difference between the F and non-F sticks...

EDIT: according to this link, the F stand for the kit with the Fan included... so I guess my memory is supported in a dual channel config... except I have 3 sticks, so it will just be running a single channel, right?!
http://www.guru3d.com/article/corsair-dominator-6gb-1866-mhz-ddr3-review/16

[Dark Mantis]

Yes the F may stand for Fan or it might be for the chip that was used on those modules. They often use a suffix letter to denote what make of chip is on the boards. Even if your is ok you will need to configure it to run in single channel mode in the BIOS.