GA-EP35-DS3L BIOS SETTINGS

[wiggywinger]

Greetings everyone 
May I first give thanks to all the contributors on this forum, as they all do a sterling job in helping and advising all the varied questions raised on here, from the basic simple ones to the advanced knowledgible ones, theres always an answer given to help people out. A special thumbs up to DM who has helped me with my recent upgrade and decision making for future components. This forum fills a large gap which, frankly, the official Gigabyte Technical support fail to.

I have a few questions to ask which I will be posting on the various different sections in the forum, but first of all to the Bios settings.

I need to do a fresh install of Windows 7 64bit with the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L motherboard but I am unsure of some of the settings I need in the Bios. I have the F6 bios version and the latest chipset drivers installed.

ok, first of all :-

SATA AHCI Mode-(default disabled). I have two Sata Hard drives, should this be enabled? I believe you can only change it when you do a fresh install, as when I tried, it would not boot. Also is there any benefit in enabling this.

HPET Mode-(default 32bit mode). What does this actually do?

Robust Graphics Booster-(default auto). I use Ati ccc overdrive for overclocking my Graphics card, should this be left on Auto?

Thanks in advance

wiggy

[Dark Mantis]

Hi
Thanks for the kind words but just happy to help and as you say plug the gap left by GGTS.

It is possible to change form IDE mode to AHCI mode after the OS installation but it does require some registry changes first. If you need to know the exact formulation please post back.

HPET is s High Precision Event Timer and should be set to match the operating system. ie HPET32 mode for x86 Windows and HPET64 mode for Windows 64 bit systems. the 64 bit windows will actually run quite happily on the 32 bit HPET mode anyway but it is a more accurate clock for the 64 bit mode when set to HPET64.

I am afraid I don't know about the  Graphics Booster question but I would have thought that either Auto or disabled would be best.

[wiggywinger]

Thanks DM

I am putting a fresh install of Windows 7 on anyway, so do I still need to make Reg changes, or do I  enable SATA AHCI before I install and then boot from disc as normal?

[Dark Mantis]

If you are doing a clean install anyway then no problem, just set the BIOS to AHCI mode along with any other tweaks you want to make.

[wiggywinger]

nice one..tyvm DM

[wiggywinger]

Just an update,
Ram is installed and Windows 7 is reinstalled, everythings running fine and i'm pleased with the performance.
I couldnt seem to get AHCI mode working, the Bios wouldnt seem to recognise my Sata hard discs when enabled and posted 'Boot Mngr Missing'
No big problem though as everything else is fine.
I manually changed the timings on the Crucial Ballistix as they were running at 5-5-5-18 1.8v so I changed to 5-5-5-15 2.0v which is what is recommended by Crucial.
I am running C.I.A.2 on Full Thrust which increases my Cpu to just short of 3Ghz
Temperatures are 39* idle and 52* when benchmarked.
All in all I am very happy with what ive got out of a relatively cheap, budget system with the help of this forum along the way so Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to my posts.
I shall now sit tight and wait for mid next year when I can get a good deal on an Intel I5 or AMD six core to upgrade again.

Thanks Guys 

[Dark Mantis]

You are very welcome and it's nice to know that everything is running fine at last. I am surer we cold sort out your boot manager missing problem but it really isn't worth it now as it is all running happily.
Have a good Christmas and we will see what the new year brings in the way of new hardware.