GA-790XTA-UD4 and AMD Phenom II X6 1090T crashes if using 6 cores

[giobaldac]

Hallo everybody,
I'm reporting a problem with GA-790XTA-UD4 motherboard and brand new AMD processor Phenom II X6 1090T.
As you probably already know from an older post, the MB itself doesn't support this processor out of the box
since the BIOS must be flashed to version F3 (using ANOTHER 4 core or less processor, do figure the hassle!!!!). 
Obviously I had to get it done from the reseller. The I installed Windows XP SP3 and everything seemed to work
normally, except for Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 Ultra costantly crashing while trying to play any movie (DVD or Blu Ray,
doesn't matter).  It just crashed while scanning the movie structure so you weren't able to see anything. 
At first I blamed Cyberlink and PowerDVD 9 ultra and I was almost ready to but the new version 10. I downloaded
a demo but it crashed in exactly the same way. I then tried a demo of the latest Corel WinDVD 2010 and (guess
what) it crashed too in exactly the same manner.  Then I understood. It had something to do with the motherboard
or the OS and only regarded disc recognition. The whole process was tested on 2 different BD-drives so you can't even
blame it on the optical drive. I performed a search on the internet for similar problem (obviously nobody had that problem)
then I performed a lot of reinstallation of software and operation system to see if I could come to terms with the problem. 
A complete waste of time. Then I had the flash of genius. Could it be the 6 cores?  I tried to disable 2 of them and everything
magically started working and still works as a charm. Now I ask: someone here made a big mistake. Either AMD released a
processor with 6 cores without releasing a valid driver for Win XP SP3 to support it, or Gigabyte needs to deliver a better
compatible BIOS, or Microsoft should release some patch for the new AMD processor (I remember back then something
even worse that forced Microsoft to hastily release a patch to support some new 500 MHz AMD processor on Win98 SE).
This is my two cents. As of yet, disabling 2 cores everything works. However using a 300 euros 6-core processor with only
4 cores and performing just like the 1055T X4 that costs about half the price doesn't seem an intelligent buy, to me...
I hope somebody provides a fix to this situation soon. 

[giobaldac]

Sorry: I meant the X4 955, not the 1050T (which is still X6)

[absic]

Hi,

I'm running this Mobo and the same CPU with Windows 7 64 and have not encountered any problems with the system crashing like this. However, I did have problems with the memory that caused very similar issues and took sometime to resolve. Also, there have been issues of this nature being caused by out-of-the-box O/C'd Graphic cards. Are you sure it is the CPU and not the memory or something else causing the problem?

If you could post your full system specs and further info with regard to your set-up (ie are you over-clocking) it would help.

ATB

[giobaldac]

I'm sure. The computer is used by my old dad which has no interest in overclocking
but only wants to watch movies. The graphic card is a cheap  ATI HD 4530.
The memory is 4 Gb (2+2) Geil 1333 MHz.
I know that Windows 7 64 bit works (apparently) fine but the problem here is
different. My dad doesn't want to use new programs and new operating systems.
Windows 7 has issues when using older programs and he has some that still
wants/needs to use and doesn' want to but the upgrade just to be able to use
them on Windows 7 when they work on XP... Moreover, Windows 7 doesn't seem
to be as stable as XP was. He told me he tried to playback a Blu Ray and it crashed
after 30 minutes of play. This happened twice on Windows 7 64bit and didn't happen
on XP SP3. He was using only 4 cores during every playback so I wouldn't consider
overheating problems or the like. This look like Windows 7 stability problem, to me.
Or little uncompatibily between PowerDVD 9 Ultra and Windows 7. I know that he
could possibly buy the brand new PowerDVD 10, but I know that spending extra
money, everything can be fixed (even by purchasing a different PC). I just think
he has the right to get it fully working by patching it as needed without spending
extra money. Or is the worlwide crysis over? 

[bofh1971]

A quick sidenote guys
how many cores does your xp license support?
normally a home version is 1-2 cores

could it be XP saying "enough is enough" when a high level application like BluRay playback wants to use all cores or more than usual when the system is just idling, doing office/browsing tasks etc?

what happens if you run Prime95?

Good luck with the fix, and speaking of using legacy apps, I think I am going to need win98 drivers for new boards / audio and vga

[giobaldac]

"how many cores does your xp license support?
normally a home version is 1-2 cores"

For the record: using XP Pro.
Anyway: where did you read that one? AFAIK, XP (and Vista)
are non-parallelized operating systems that don't take
avantage from multi-core processor since they don't
use parallelization algorhithms in their common tasks.
However, running pieces of software (I mean external
software, not operating system tasks) that were developed
with multithreading in mind may benefit from multicores.
An example may be video encoding applications like
DivX Author that use all 4 cores if you have them. This
despite the fact that WinXP is conceptually single-core.
One thing is "operating system common tasks". The other
is "running software". Running software uses hardware
resources as it see fit, and every now and then it calls
system services/procedures/DLLs to perform tasks
at operating system level. This latter piece of work may
be not optimized for multi-cores. The former, instead,
can be (and should be if it's recent software).
Anyway, my point here is that a (conceptually) single-core
OS like Windows XP should not crash when there are more
than 4 cores because it was never meant to officially use
them all since it shouldn't even know of their existence. Period.

[bofh1971]

we had an issue (probably patched by now) where a 4 core cpu showed up as 4 cpu's n windows and the 1-2 cpu license told us to get lost
admittedly this was an OEM license installed on a new build.

shortly after that we went with windows 7 so it wasnt an issue anymore.

with licensing its not how the operating system works but how many devices etc the operating system counts in the system.

anyway good luck with it
any reason you dont want to upgrade to windows 7?

[neogeo]

I think the mobo BIOS is GARBAGE and nothing than GARBAGE. Expencive board, solid rock board with unpolished BIOS. Shame on GA, shame.
 

[losbellos]

IO just had a same issue today, since I ordered my new 1090T. I have read in the top of the amd boards forum that memory speed should be set back to 1066 mhz. After setting it to 1066 I have no problem so far.

[absic]

Hi
with a 1090T on this motherboard you should be able to run your RAM at 1333MHz as long as it is rated at that speed.