Official GIGABYTE Forum
Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with Intel processors => Topic started by: jwhiter on July 10, 2011, 11:15:18 pm
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Because my PC was behaving strangely when waking from sleep (sometimes failing to load network drivers on wake up, sometimes just waking to a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top right, sometimes waking normally) I recently updated BIOS from FF to FG1. I used @BIOS as recommended and the update seemed to go smoothly. Unfortunately the problem remains though, although it presents slightly differently now. Now the computer always wakes to the log on screen as you would expect, and it appears to allow a normal log on. But sometimes when when one attempts after log on to open any program the whole computer freezes before going to a screen that says "Preparing Security Options". It hangs there for about 5 minutes and then goes to a screen carrying a lot of text beginning with "A problem has been detected and Windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer." There is some advice about disabling Memory options in BIOS and finally there is a set of long strings which I think, although I'm not sure, is different each time. One recent set said "Technical information: ***STOP. 0x000000F4, 0x0000000000000003, 0xFFFA80065C1950, 0XFFFFFA8006FC13C0, 0XFFFFF80002FE5F40. Collecting data for Crash Dump. Initialising disc for Crash Dump" although I wouldn't sware to the accuracy of those numbers. This screen hangs until the computer is shut down from the power button. When it is powered up again it gets through POST to "Resuming Windows" OK but then goes to the black screen with the flashing cursor. I shut it down again via the power button and this time it gives the option to Delete Restoration Data, which I do, and then boots successfully. This is happening about twice a day. I have not looked at BIOS memory options because I don't know where to find them. I am Running Win 7 Ultimate SP1 and my operating system is on an OCZ Aglity2 which has the latest firmware. Does anyone have any advice?
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You can get passed the blinking cursor by either disabling USB3 or updating your driver/firmware for the USB3 chip.
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,3866.msg52045.html#msg52045
However, this board will refuse to wake up from hybrid sleep. I can't get passed that issue. It wakes up if I let it sleep less than 3 hours anything passed that and the rate of wake up failure increases. At 12 hours it almost never wakes up properly.
Got it from CyberPower and they won't do anything about it. It will be the last time purchase anything from them.
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Not a guarantee but a UPS can fix this issue on a lot of boards .... black out are easy to see, brown out can be undetectable, .....in there low power states (PCs)........can be very sensitive to minor power fluctuations
Aussie Allan
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Hi
Where was iot recommended that you should use @BIOS for updating your BIOS files ? Apart from one circumstance we always recommend quite the opposite. QFlash or even FLASHSPI are much better options.
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So I gave what you said a thought because I have another PC (home theater PC also with a different gigabyte motherboard) in a different room (living room) and it has NEVER given me any S3 resume issues. It works flawlessly.
So just to discard any electric issues in the room where I have my work PC (my home office) I disconnected it and placed it in the living room for a week. I setup a scheduled task to wake up and e-mail me every two hours. I had no issues for a week. The darn PC didn't miss sending a single e-mail or waking up a single time. I even changed it to 3 & 4 hour intervals and it still worked.
Then, I moved it back to my home office. Left the task running and the PC won't wake up more than twice. It never makes it to the third e-mail. Every morning I find the case with the motherboard LEDs and case lights ON but nothing on the screen and unresponsive.
So I went out and bought a UPS as you suggested. No difference. The PC still will not wake up more than two times with the scheduled task. What can be causing this issue?? It's so annoying and frustrating.
Not a guarantee but a UPS can fix this issue on a lot of boards .... black out are easy to see, brown out can be undetectable, .....in there low power states (PCs)........can be very sensitive to minor power fluctuations
Aussie Allan
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Besides the UPS (which is a excellent addition to any PC...... period) does the theatre setup run through a quality filter board?...... as well as the Ethernet cable ?
The home theatre would be another place as it work so well.......troll through the BIOS (Home theatre) and see if there's any critical differences re Power settings
I don't know the distance from the two setup locations but........20M Ethernet cables on flee bay are stupid cheap ( I paid about £4 even for rip off UK)
With this you could emphaticly rule out Data connection.......
I also went back and found some interesting hits....this being one....http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330100 ..... might be worth copy/paste the BSOD code you generated earlier , grab a coffee and start reading...... I saw 3 completely different reads that possibly could be related!
Aussie Allan
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I notice that you didn't mention what UPS you had purchased to help fix the problem. There are several different types (styles) of UPS and the different way in which they work. The best is like I use a line interactive type. Some are more passive, as I say there are various varieties.
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OK. A few answers...
First, this is the UPS I bought: http://tinyurl.com/dyjwbvl
1. On the Home theater setup, I do use a surge protector. Is that what you mean by a quality filter board? I remember it wasn't cheap. I think it's made by Monster Cable if I'm not mistaken but it's about 10 years old. I doubt it's better than an actual UPS. Can it be??
2. I've never really gone into the BIOS for the Home Theater PC. I only use it to play movies from Netflix/Hulu/Youtube some times Pandora or AVI movies. So I guess it's using defaults but I'll go and check.
3. The testing was done by both computers with WIFI usb dongles in both rooms. Didn't have a cable that would reach to the living room so I pulled out a wifi usb dongle from a laptop and installed it in the PC. As I said, I used that same dongle during both tests. One fails constantly, the other does not.
4. I read KB330100 but I don't really get a BSOD. My screen just stays blank. I have to forcebly shut off the computer completely. Wait about 5 - 10 minutes and then it will boot into "Resuming to Windows" So, it never really registers as a BSOD. Just as a loss of power.
I wonder what's causing this loss of power, or voltage fluctuation or electrical issue and why the UPS is not able to kick in?
I am also wondering if the Power Supply may be contributing to the issue. Can't find anyone saying anything good about it in the CyberPowerPC forums. This is the power supply I got from them: XtremeGear 700Watt Power Supply. But why would it work fine in the living room? It's mind-boggling.
Can either of you explain what an Active Power Factor Correction (PFC) power supply is? All I know is that it's more expensive than a normal power supply. I doubt CyberPowerPC included that on my setup since it wouldn't be cost effective for them (meaning: they're cheap as hell) but apparently the UPS I bought doesn't work with that type of power supply. It seems to be working fine with mine though. I tested it by unplugging it from the wall and the PC kept working fine.
If I'm going to try a new power supply, should I try a PFC one or a regular one? What's the advantage/disadvantage? I'd have to make the call on returning the UPS I bought though.
Thank you both for your help!
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I find it hard to believe ( but I do believe you) that your teco stated the UPS you have won't work with high end PSUs ::)......He may be getting confused with 3 phase PFC! which would not be compatible with your UPS :D
You can get/have active as well as passive PFC as well
A really high end PSU we gladly recommend is the Corsair AX TX or HX series power supply's that all have Active PFC as far as I know , ........and efficiencies in the 90% range ........ compatible with All UPSs
Here's a layman's description of PFC but it's still taxing on the noodle if you struggle with Watts ,amps and Volts.........Don't worry, ....I struggle too!
http://www.save-energy.org/power_factor_correction.htm
The XtremeGear 700Watt Power Supply was touted in 2008 as ........"A piece of crap" back as far as 2008.....Not my words..... so you have a PSU that's 3 or 4 years old......was never rated as being very good......Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
Aussie Allan
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Well, I was saying that based on the fact that the company makes a different line of UPSs that are "PFC compatible" The equivalent to what I bought would be: http://tinyurl.com/7jzoubj
Now, this is funny. Just got home and took a look inside my PC and my power supply says it's model PSAZ-CP700 700 Watt Active PFC. :D I actually found the reference in the CyberPowerPC site. http://tinyurl.com/c6klz8b
I think I'm going to give a new UPS a shot, since XtremeGear doesn't even sell the one I have now.
Now, my UPS (and Kill-a-watt) say I'm using about 135-170watts. Do I really need a 700watt supply? How do I calculate how much power I need? I don't really use this PC for gaming, so I don't really overclock it. It's for work. Run VMWare, some development tools. The power consumption has never reached 200watts even with 3 VMs running. And for hardware:
1 DVD recorder
2 1TB HDs in RAID 0
12GB RAM
1GB Video card
By the way, for my home theater setup I got this PSU: http://tinyurl.com/coxocwo but I definitely would like to get something better (just don't know how much power) for my workhorse.
Thanks again.
I find it hard to believe ( but I do believe you) that your teco stated the UPS you have won't work with high end PSUs ::)......He may be getting confused with 3 phase PFC! which would not be compatible with your UPS :D
You can get/have active as well as passive PFC as well
A really high end PSU we gladly recommend is the Corsair AX TX or HX series power supply's that all have Active PFC as far as I know , ........and efficiencies in the 90% range ........ compatible with All UPSs
Here's a layman's description of PFC but it's still taxing on the noodle if you struggle with Watts ,amps and Volts.........Don't worry, ....I struggle too!
http://www.save-energy.org/power_factor_correction.htm
The XtremeGear 700Watt Power Supply was touted in 2008 as ........"A piece of crap" back as far as 2008.....Not my words..... so you have a PSU that's 3 or 4 years old......was never rated as being very good......Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
Aussie Allan
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Hiya Diablito ..... no simple answer as yet Huh!
Here you go.....book mark this one....http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp .... this is one of the better ones out there we use and recommend.
Power supply manufactures will generally overstate a PSUs ability (WATTS) and no one factors in age degradation.....for this I usually recommend multiplying the final figure by 1.3 ..... be critical when filling the fields and to remember the worst case scenario re upgrade in the coming year or two.
Had a critical look at the UPS you posted......Bloody nice units for the money ..... most people take it for granted when there lights go out and the Laptop there working on is still up and running ;) ....
Peak load of a PSU is is always a hard one to come to terms with in the field (Home).....remember....all the components and drives have a running load but the start-up load just like a DC motor will always be higher.
It's a really hard call until you have good,clean power going into your PC.....PC god you know :D .... let me know how you get on with the calculator and everything else as well .
Aussie Allan
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The thing with buying a UPS is that you never really know if it is a good one and big enough until the power goes out and you rely on it to keep your system up and running.
I would always recommend getting a decent one like APC. These are used in industry and commerce all the time and are relied upon for mission critical servers etc.
Try and work out realistically what size you need and then get a bigger one! It will be constrained by your budget most likely as they are far from cheap. I run a APC Smart UPS 1500 for my everyday system that I am on now and it will guard my gear as well as act as a backup in the event of power failure.
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OK. So it's not the UPS, it's not the PSU. I've changed both with new ones and the random wake failures still persist. The UPS works beautifully by the way. I tested by unplugging it from the wall and by cutting power from my circuit breakers. It worked fine both times.
It's gotta be either of 4 things I have not changed yet.
1. The motherboard
2. The CPU
3. The Memory
4. The Video Card
After all the testing I've done, I'm leaning towards the motherboard but it's just too much money to replace it right now (especially after replacing everything else on this PC) and calling CyberPower is useless, their support is garbage. What a disappointment this board has been!
For now, I'm going to leave it on all the time and pray it doesn't lock up.
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Funny thing is ..... leaving a PC on all the time is actually a pretty good thing from the perspective of hardware life ...... a stable thermal load will make your PC live and last longer.
of the 1,2,3 and 4 in the list there is in fact a 5 and 6 ......5 being driver issue, don't know how many times I've found this to be at the root of some unexplained problems but a living hell to find .... and 6 would be the BIOS.
Personally I have a theory that, ....unfortunately I have no way of testing ...... when a PC drops down into "Hibernate" power is still being supplied to the Memory ....... when the PC wakes ....... everything comes on at once, .... 10 odd fans, drives, cpu, gpu and what ever else you have connected to the box ...... it is possible this load drain drops the power to the volatile memory to a point that a corruption takes place ..... who knows .... maybe a tweak of load line calibration might help!
Aussie Allan
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I agree with #6, it may be the BIOS but a driver I doubt it. It would probably be more reproducible. However, the failure only depends in time. The longer I let the PC sleep, the more likely it will fail to wake up.
The electric issue you're mentioning makes more sense to me. It does seem as if the PC doesn't get enough power that nanosecond to wake up properly. I looked up Load Line Calibration and it seems to be related to the CPU more than the actual memory. Do you have any info on it? or can you point me to something I can read about it?
Thanks!
Funny thing is ..... leaving a PC on all the time is actually a pretty good thing from the perspective of hardware life ...... a stable thermal load will make your PC live and last longer.
of the 1,2,3 and 4 in the list there is in fact a 5 and 6 ......5 being driver issue, don't know how many times I've found this to be at the root of some unexplained problems but a living hell to find .... and 6 would be the BIOS.
Personally I have a theory that, ....unfortunately I have no way of testing ...... when a PC drops down into "Hibernate" power is still being supplied to the Memory ....... when the PC wakes ....... everything comes on at once, .... 10 odd fans, drives, cpu, gpu and what ever else you have connected to the box ...... it is possible this load drain drops the power to the volatile memory to a point that a corruption takes place ..... who knows .... maybe a tweak of load line calibration might help!
Aussie Allan
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when a PC drops down into "Hibernate" power is still being supplied to the Memory .......
You meant to say "Sleep" (S3), didn't you? :)
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"Both"
Aussie Allan
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Although hibernation uses (the least) amount of power, according to microsoft (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Sleep-and-hibernation-frequently-asked-questions (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Sleep-and-hibernation-frequently-asked-questions)), I have tested that if you put your pc into hibernation, then remove any power from it, there is no problem to resume into windows.
But your theory about the corruption after S3/S4 seems very logical.
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Dukal ....
"I have tested that if you put your pc into hibernation, then remove any power from it, there is no problem to resume into windows."
This is true for LAPTOPS and those lucky enough that have a UPS covering there desktop system .... in this scenario mains or battery power is still present in spades ...... what I'm refereeing to specifically is when the tower is connected to the mains only via the installed PSU .... think of it as a system , self induced "Brown out" ...... it might be only milliseconds long ..... but long enough to corrupt the volatile memory ...... it totally relies on the PSU ability to also wake and supply enough current at the correct voltage almost instantaneously...... it might just mean a bigger capacitor on the motherboard as a voltage buffer for the memory .... interesting though anyway!
Would be interest to hear what the boffin's at Gigabyte thought .
Aussie Allan 8)
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What? No. You are thinking suspend. Hibernation is to be used when you don't want power draw or when power will be completely removed. Memory contents and CPU state are written to disk (hiberfil.sys) and the computer is shut down. This is what you want your power settings to do before your battery (laptop or UPS) runs out of power to power down quickest without data loss.
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Rolo84 ..... Koo ...Koo ...Koo..... :) ..... perhaps I left the door open a tad! ..... the description was meant to be rather general so just about all understand where I'm coming from...
most don't really know the difference between Hibernation, suspend, sleep, Hybrid sleep, the list goes on to the extent Windows 8 has a novel new way of doing things so the recovery time is shorter by compressing the cache data still further to be written to disc (or ssd)..... Greeeeeat ! ..... one more flaky mode that probable won't work out of the box! :D
Perhaps I just should have left out "Hibernate" .... while on the subject .... one of my favorite reference points is Wiki ..... for the data to be excepted....it's checked, .... double checked ..... scrutinized and checked again by literally 100s of members ..... compare this with a review .... it's only as good as the the single person punching the keys and one proof reader if you're lucky.
If like me ....you want to know a little more on the above subject .... I'll include two cool links below.
My favorite extract that sums up how far manufactures have to go , and why most people on the forum recommend against, Sleep hibernate ext, is this statement .....
Entering into hibernation can cause incorrect operation on restarting, due to problems with the hibernation software, or with devices or software which is not fully compliant. Hibernation will also "USUALLY" cause connections to "PERIPHERAL" devices to terminate; this may cause problems for peripherals that were in use when hibernation started
Sums it up nicely, Doesn't it... ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_mode
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation_%28computing%29
Aussie Allan
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I think that this is the most up-to-date discussion that I've found on this topic - and it's been going on for a long time...
I have a UD3R, rev 2, that I use as the basis of a system for recording off-air television, so it needs to reliably hibernate and resume. It has never done this reliably - as with the OP, it works a lot of the time but then fails to resume for no apparent reason. Failure mode varies from freezing with the Windows desktop (Win 7 Ultimate) displayed to BSOD - data in page or secondary processor failed to receive clock tick (or something like that). I have tried a number of fixes.
- USB3 hardware problem. Tried latest USB3 drivers; eventually disabled USB3 controller. No effect.
- SATA3 hardware problem. Disabled Marvell SATA3 controller. This stopped an occasional hang just after "DMI pool loaded" but this looks like a different problem
- Changed TV tuner card from Kworld device with flaky Win7 driver to Black Gold written-for-Win7 driver - no difference
- There is a theory that the X58 chipset is happy to drive DRAM at 1.65V (which my original memory required) but when resuming from hibernate it switches to 1.5V until memory has been rewritten from the hibernate file and only then switches to 1.65V (or whatever is selected in the BIOS). This could cause memory corruption in the restored image, and certainly the random hang symptoms are consistent with this. I tried running memory at 1066 and 1.5V where Corsair claim it should work (only needs 1.65V at higher speeds). That didn't make any difference. I have now installed 1.5V memory although again running at only 1066, just to stay well within spec. That doesn't make any difference. I've also played with QPI/VTT with no effect.
- Tried disabling ErP (some suggestions around that this can cause problems) but still testing
Using latest drivers for everything, and fairly recent BIOS (FH5, from memory). No SSD, which seem to give problems, but I do have a single system disk plus 4 disks in RAID5 on the Intel controller - needed for disk space for off-air recordings. Nvidia GTX460 with latest driver. No overclocking - I would be happy to underclock if it made the thing stable...
Happy to compare notes with anyone else chasing this problem.
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Keep in touch Nealeb and the link active .... we have been researching this and the occasional new theory pops up and thanks for your's
I'm starting to suspect it could be something thats already been discovered but a combination of two or three .... really frustrating that a pretty good platform can get this old but a few niggely things persist with no end in sight ... as with anything , eventually someone will put there finger on it.
Also nice to find someone willing to just shoot the breeze and talk about it rather then turn every second word into a "Battle of the Keyboards."
Going back to what you said about it hoping from 1.68 to 1.5 IS very interesting and potentially could be one of the two or three I was talking about.....I'll be putting it into the file I keep to test a few Ideas with this new information.....
Aussie Allan
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Yeah, I thought he had it with the 1.5 vs. 1.65v there.
Hibernate has been flaky since Win95 and because it's been that way for so long, a fair amount of acceptance may have precluded its resolution.
(I have nothing technical to add, so there's some philosophy.) ;D
Fortunately, ours works (I inadvertently tested it by accidentally leaving the wife's battery config to "Critical = 100% and hibernate" and power went out for about a second.); let me know if there's any way I can help.
What about disabling hybrid sleep..?
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Yeah, I thought he had it with the 1.5 vs. 1.65v there.
Yes me too! It really seemed to make sense there and I was expecting a "Eureka" moment.
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Every few weeks I've been doing some googling around the subject - just surprised that I didn't stumble across this thread before! I should point out that none of the things I've tried are my own idea - found them all by endless reading. The ones that I've tried are the ones that at least sound technically plausible - even the BIOS DRAM voltage switching which seemed to be based on someone's measurements. But there is an awful lot of nonsense talked and often by people with "loud keyboards" and little thought process.
I get the feeling as well that there are a few problems that give similar end-results. Some of these are the USB3 and SATA3 problems, which are hardware and/or driver related. Then there's the Windows issues, like PCI-e power saving settings and hybrid sleep. SSDs seem to have their own problems, and if you look very carefully through the Intel release notes for the RAID controller driver, there is mention of something done to improve S3 resume reliability. Graphics cards aren't above suspicion - I have a plan in place to borrow an older lower-spec graphics card just for testing, if my current test doesn't show up anything. Oh, and I forgot the bunch of Windows patches dealing with SCSI miniport issues, large disks, and so on - and the fact that a lot of people have claimed that the problems started with Win7 SP1. Dunno about that one - I started this game post-SP1.
I shall watch this space, and report back anything that I find.
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As will I Nealeb
For what it's worth .... all Raid or non Raid HD or SSD aside ..... the biggest overall stability improvement I have had with several small issues including a couple you just mentioned ......was going over to a big, high quality PSU in conjunction with a quality UPS
Aussie Allan
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I never let my systems sleep or do anything other than fall back to a screensaver! My attitude is that I pay enough for my hardware and don't want it kipping on the job! Besides as for what is saved in electrical costs are negligable and just not worth the trouble. Of course not everyone has the same attitude and I agree that these things should work fine if wanted.
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Just gone back to check when I started this game. I built the system back in August 2010. I started with a Radeon ATI graphics card and as I remember (this was before I started writing things down) had hibernate/resume problems so I swapped the card for an Nvidia GTX460. I had had success with Nvidia on a previous machine running XP - although I had problems with hibernate/resume with that one until I eventually tamed it.
I also have an Antec CP850 power supply, one of the bigger-than-ATX-standard supplies that only fits a few Antec cases. Seems to have had good reviews for stability, ripple and so on. No UPS, though. Additionally, in the last 18 months or so, I think that I might have had just one unexplained BSOD while the machine was running. It has been pretty stable by Windows standards. It is only at resume-time that I see problems. What's different about resume that doesn't happen at boot? Is the Vdram thing relevant? Dunno - haven't actually hung a voltmeter on the motherboard test point to check.
Once past the "verifying DMI pool" stage where I did have problems with (I think) the SATA3 controller, the hang or BSOD only seems to happen once Windows has been reloaded into memory and started running. Is there a driver somewhere that does not do the right things on resume when it comes to reinitialising the hardware? Is the memory image itself corrupt (and the symptoms are consistent with this)? Does the BIOS do the right things on resume to reset the hardware properly (and there is mention of this in an X58 chipset release note that I found that gives a BIOS instruction sequence necessary to properly do this - Gigabyte would have done this, wouldn't they?)
I'm currently running the system with ErP disabled in the BIOS (power management-related parameter that just might be relevant as it affects power to the motherboard in "S5" state - although that's not a very well-defined power state). So far, it's done a couple of days and maybe a half-dozen resumes without a problem, but sometimes it can go a week without showing any issues. It's also unclear whether there is any sensitivity to how long it has hibernated before resuming, so 7 hibernate/resume cycles in a day is not the same as one cycle per day for a week. I hate intermittent faults with a passion! My personal next-steps are going to be:
- replace graphics card with a different model (despite this being the second card that I have used but it's an easy one to try)
- reconfigure the disks by moving around data so I can use it normally with only one hard drive in use and the RAID controller and its disks disabled.
18 months this has been going on. I've just built a new system for my daughter-in-law with an i7 and Z68 chipset, so the mark 2 version of the CPU and newer chipset. Wonder if she'll notice if I sneak it out for testing here...?
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Man I'd say go for it ... Koo-koo-koo ;) What you have done so far, and what you have already been through ..... You'll kill your self if you don't follow this through to the end :D
Here's another tit bit I can/will share ...... when I moved it this last house ....power problems .... big power problems! ....... quoted at 230V (UK) ....I would have been happy with even 240V ..... but the 262V peak down to 248V min ..... it was slowly roasting all my equipment
Compounding this was a flaky region with blackouts and brownouts easily on a daily bases ..... we tested this out last year with an Oscilloscope covering the power going into the PSU during brown outs ..... the resulting bell negative curve during very short brownouts was expected ..... what was not expected was when well monitored the power after the PSU going into the board ..... what we saw was the expected negative bell curve immediately followed by a positive bell curve to the same magnitude ? ? ?
Above all this , when the UPS was put into the loop .... this all stopped (all most,very small) .... mind you , the first cheap UPS did not have as big as an effect on getting rid of this problem as we both expected ...... we can only assume the more expensive unit had a superior,faster power Filter layout.
Not a total fix, but a big step forward if you run any and all "S" states and or RAID.
Aussie Allan
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Whether or not to hibernate or leave running - well, the fact that I'm chasing this problem indicates my view! In principle, I know that switching on and off can shorten the life of electronic components, although in a PC things are not as stressed as they were in my early days of electronics working on valve televisions (black and white, 405 line of course :)). I did measure PC power consumption once but have lost the bit of paper with the numbers written down but they did show that running a background high-CPU process (Folding@Home, in my case) measurably increased power consumption so I don't run one of those any more, and as a matter of principle I like to turn off things that I'm not using. I don't reckon to keep a PC long enough for the long-term reliability to be an issue, and I know that hibernate reduces my power bill. I have the PC on an intelligent mains adaptor which means that a bunch of external devices also get turned on/off automatically with the PC.
Couple of observations from looking through my notes taken over the last 4 months or so (since I realised that I was forgetting what fault-finding measures I had already taken and started recording all significant events):
- About 80-90% of hangs or BSODs happen before Windows has removed the old hibernate file (or marked it as used), even if the Windows desktop is showing. I know that because a reset allows you to re-resume, and this takes you back to where you wanted to be in the first place. In the other 10-20% of cases, it's a Windows restart.
- When a BSOD happens, I have Windows configured to take a crash dump. The last thing written to the BSOD screen says "initialising disk for crash dump, writing crash dump" (or words like that) but it has never, ever, written a crash file. I have tested the mechanism by using the documented "manually cause a crash" mechanism and I get a crash dump then. Does this mean that there is something funny about the state of the disk subsystem?
- Again, when checking after a hang/BSOD, the windows event log never seems to contain anything useful. Did the machine stop before Windows was ready to write, or is there a disk subsystem problem that stops it writing?
No idea what these observations add to the sum total of knowledge but when fault-finding, I always try to identify all observations, and look both for what they might imply and also whether any deduced failure mechanism is consistent with all the observations. In this case, we can't rule out the fact that there may be more than one thing happening here, but it would be good to come up with a theory that explains all these phenomena :)
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All good reading Nealab....some call it Gut feel (probably the subconscious kicking in :D) some just experience .....either,iether the ..."In the other 10-20% of cases, it's a Windows restart" .... you quoted in the most resent post.... I would say this is where the UPS could reduce it 20% allowing one to concentrate on the real issue at hand....
Because this has and is still effecting the X58, 67 and Z68 ....and some newish information has been posted in this one post/resource ..... could be an Idea to pull a few talented others in to the post to share there views.
We all have our talents ..... some Very specific ...... other a smattering of most areas ...... if you want to combine talents and more resources ..... you could use the PM system we have here to contact/CC several people to this thread ...... heres a few people that I think could flesh out whats already been covered and hopefully some new ideas.
"runn3R"
"DarkMantis"
"Absic"
"Lsdmeasap"
"Rolo42"
"F5BJR"
"oggmonster"
And myself ...... if a panel of people were to be put together to "Crack a tough Nut" ..... these are the people on this site (that are active) that I would put together........they all don't get on like drinking buddy's ..... but all have a tested skill set applicable.
Just a thought ........ Aussie Allan 8)
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Sleep issues on X58A should be solved long ago, and were last I tested, unless maybe a new BIOS broke it again(!)
FH is the latest BIOS
http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/BIOS/mb_bios_ga-x58a-ud3r_2.x_fh.exe
I do not have a UD3R ver 2.0 here, but I can test the above mentioned BIOS on aUD7 Rev 1.0 if you guys need me to. That would verify the BIOS works fine for S3 sleep if it doesn't fail for me, but it would not rule out any specific issues with your particular boards or that model itself either since I'd be using a different board.
S3 sleep issues are so hard to diagnose, since they can be caused by incorrect windows settings, drivers, programs, ect and the list goes on (Including broken BIOS). But I never have S3 sleep issues in any tests I run, once the BIOSes have been fixed for working S3 that is. So I wouldn't need to rule out anything mentioned above, except for the BIOS.
So if anyone needs me to test that BIOS I can just let me know, but keep in mind what I said above about not having this exact model.
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Thanks Lsdmeasap for stepping up to the plate ..... although personalty I don't use these advanced functions/features .....there are a lot who do ..... and this subject still continually reappear time and again.
Any help given I'm sure will be greatly appreciated .....Like you I'm a a big advocate of "Update The BIOS" there's so many small changes that we are just not privy too ,....to not rule out adopting this simple procedure.
Aussie Allan
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No problem, I'm always happy to help when I can!!
Ya, I don't use S3 either. I shut off my computer when I'm not using it, and turn it on when I need it :)
But I'm always testing S3 for others, so I've tested plenty of boards and BIOSes, and the last I know and tested all X58A BIOSes had S3 fixed, but I haven't updated to any X58A BIOSes lately. So I thought maybe it could have been broken again with a BIOS update, so I knew it was my time to test again, I always do and it's good to know which BIOSes have S3 broken if any so I can report it as well.
For sure, I always suggest the latest beta BIOSes actually, over finals posted on the board web pages, because they normally have many of the fixes people are waiting on and some people aren't even aware of too. I never actually use a final BIOS, unless someone wants me to test something, other than that it's always latest beta for me.
As mentioned above, I can test any X58A BIOS (Any model), but I only have UD5 and UD7 boards here so any BIOS testing would be done on those two boards. Mainly I'd test on the UD7 because it's already setup for testing, but just want everyone to know there could be specific board/model issues that might not show for me on UD7. But I think if I test a BIOS on UD7 and it works no problem, then it should be working on the board the BIOS belongs to as well. I suppose there is a slim chance something different between the boards might cause a BIOS to work for me but not the board it's supposed to be flashed on, but I doubt that would happen often since many of the boards are very similar aside from connectivity and add-ons
I have X58A-OC too, but S3 is OK on it last I checked and that wasn't too long ago.
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Lsdmeasap .... have you noticed in testing if Memory count/Population plays any part....... in any of the "S" states with the X58 platforms ?
Aussie Allan
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No I haven't noticed anything like that, but I could imagine if the memory is not 100% stable it would fail to resume for sure because it'll do that even with a single module. System has to be 100% tested stable, otherwise S3 can fail anytime simply due to instability.
The only S state I ever test is S3 though, so all my thoughts only apply to S3 sleep.
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If I'm being strictly accurate, I guess that I should acknowledge that I'm not talking about S3 (STR or whatever) but S4 or S5 (depending on how you define those). That is, I am trying to resume from hibernate and a disk-stored memory image, so there are elements of the disk subsystem involved as well.
As far as memory is concerned, I do not see any difference between the 3x2GB OCZ memory I was using and the 3x4GB Corsair that's now in there. Same level of unreliability. In all cases, I have been running 1600MHz memory at 1066 but keeping memory timings at the recommended "1600" values so should be very conservative at 1066.
I have also been tracking the beta BIOSes; I believe that I'm running the latest from Tweaktown (FH5, with the latest Intel RAID firmware included) but I haven't seen any difference with any BIOS since the one that was delivered with the system originally. So to me that says that either it's not BIOS, or it's a BIOS issue that hasn't been fixed yet. I think that I've run FG, FH1, FH3, FH4, and now FH5. I ran some others earlier than that but I don't have my notes in front of me.
I can confirm that disabling ErP in the BIOS (to do with low-power behaviour in S5) doesn't help. Worked OK for a dozen or so hibernate/resume cycles over 2-3 days, then hung again.
Trouble is, of course, that we all have slightly different configurations. I run a GTX460, plus 4 disks on Intel RAID5, plus system disk on the JMB(?) controller.
If we're down to the comparing gut feel level :), my money is on some kind of memory corruption, either during the writing of the memory image back from disk or maybe a hardware glitch during initialisation. This seems consistent with the various stopcodes that get thrown up, or hanging at various times during resume (e.g. while the "resuming..." window is displayed) or shortly afterwards. It depends on when the randomly-corrupted memory location concerned gets executed. Hence, sometimes, the hang or crash happens before the hibernate file-to-memory restore has finished so it is still valid (and that fact that I can usually resume from it suggests that the actual disk image is good) but occasionally the crash doesn't happen until after the restore is flagged as complete, so a Windows restart is needed. I really did like that idea of memory voltage issues but now that I'm still seeing the problem with genuine 1.5V-rated memory, I guess that that one is a non-starter.
I'm inclined to discount hardware initialisation as hangs sometime happen before the resume has finished, and presumably, then, before Windows has let the drivers reinitialise their respective hardware, but this is making rather a lot of assumptions about internal Windows driver behaviour that might not be valid.
Of course, the mechanism might be completely different for the case of S3 resume problems...
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- Need to know what the BSODs are
- Are you using any USB devices, namely ones that routinely get plugged in/out (mobile phones, drives, etc.)?
- Run CHKDSK /R on the partition with hiberfil.sys, if you haven't already
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S4/S5 would indicate you'd have to have S1/hibernate enabled in the BIOS and not be using S3. Normally there are never any issues with S1, only S3 and those are eventually addressed with BIOS updates.
Since you are having hibernate issues, I think it may have to do with how you have things setup. We would need to know the BSOD codes (Filter windows, system event logs for ID 1001) and the driver named in those codes. I am leaning towards it having something to do with your operating system being ran from the J.Micron ports because a setup like this is rarely used so if there was issues directly related we'd hardly ever hear about them.
Can you move your OS disk to SATAII_0 on the Intel port, or do you not have enough room? If you do not have room, can you move it there if you also move your CD/DVD over to the J.Micron port instead, so you'd have your RAID and OS drive on the Intel ports (OS on SATAII_0 is best)? YOu should have room to set it up this way since there are 6 Intel ports, OS on SATAII_0, followed by your four disk RAID array, and then CD/DVD either on the last Intel port or the J.Micron port.
This may solve your issue instantly!
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Do agree Nealab with the "Gut Feeling" although mine also says it's not the root cause but an after effect of the initiator ..... If you have them ...Give Rolo those BSOD code he requested ..... All have our favorite areas we like to dabble in .... he might be able to uncover something else thats been misses so far. ....
I do not see any difference between the 3x2GB OCZ memory I was using and the 3x4GB Corsair
I asked a question to Lsdmeasap in this area who has done extensive testing on the platforms (and others) and he concurred that memory populations and densities seem to have no bearing in his tests with hibernation or S3 states .
Aussie Allan
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Dam! .... :D.....gotta learn to type quicker.
AA
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;D
Ya, it shouldn't matter as long as whatever memory in use is 100% tested stable via a few programs at least.
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There's some good ideas in those last few posts!
I'm not at home at the moment but I shall scroll back through the event logs and see what I can find. I know that a lot of the time the "hang" happens without anything being written to the event log - as far as Windows is concerned it might never have happened - but I'm not sure that I've looked at the log after a BSOD. I know that the "failing module" on the blue screen does not always have the same module name, and the stopcodes vary (most common have been, from memory, something like "data-in-page execution" and "secondary processor did not respond to clock tick", but because they have never been very consistent, I've tended not to write down the full details. Windows is configured to write a crash dump on BSOD but because the crash seems to happen before Windows is properly resumed, this has never actually happened. Straight hangs are much more common than BSOD as well.
I have a question on the BIOS S1/S3 setting. I have always had this set to "allow S3 (STR)" on the assumption that this was a good thing to do even though I don't actually use S3 in practice. I also have hybrid sleep disabled, so I should be using a pure hibernate with no retained memory image - at least, that's my understanding. If I'm using S4/S5, is it better to set the BIOS to S1?
As far as disk connections are concerned, it's set up the way it is mainly because that is the way that I did it on a previous motherboard which had a 4-port Intel RAID controller. I put the 4-disk RAID array on the new controller, and then used one other port for a DVD writer. I wasn't sure that I could mix and match (at that time) RAID and non-RAID drives on the same controller although I now see that you can. There was also a problem on the old machine that ran XP in that it was a real pain to install on a RAID system disk as the XP boot image did not have a RAID driver and the PC didn't have a floppy drive. None of which applies under Win7, of course, but I didn't realise that at the time. Anyway, it's not a big deal to swap a few SATA cables around and that's something that I can try very easily. I do have two DVD writers in the box but there will be enough SATA ports even without the Marvell SATA3 ports, which are currently disabled at BIOS level.
Thanks for the helpful comments to dates, guys, and sorry if this doesn't advance the "S3" issue at all. I'm at work at present so reconfig will have to wait until this evening, and then however long it takes to see something go wrong! I'll have a trawl for stopcodes in the event log this evening, though, and report back.
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Since you don't use S3 you'd want to set the BIOS to S1, that in itself may also be part of the issues here. But I think the main thing that may be causing issues here is the current disk configuration as I mentioned above. If you are sure your memory is 100% tested stable, then I lay my money on the disk layout.
I'd go ahead and test the disk moves I mentioned above, with and without setting BIOS to S1 in case that doesn't matter. And then if the issue persists, test your memory again for at least 5 full passes or overnight using Memtest86+ just to be sure (If you haven't already recently).
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso
As for the stop codes, since you mention they always vary you are right, they probably wont be much help in this situation so go ahead and pass on trying to look them up until you're sure these latest suggestions don't help.
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I agree with pursuing the JMicron route; I can almost remember something in the mental cobwebs about those things not quite playing well with others.
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I've just reconfigured the SATA connectors. System disk (non-RAID) is now on Intel controller slot 0 with the 4 RAIDed disks on 2-5. DVD writers now connected to the JMicron slots. Windows came back up and all the disks look present and correct. Testing begins - I have my PVR software configured to wake/hibernate the machine a few times a day. Let's see what happens.
Don't remember seeing any posts about JMicron controller issues, but you guys are making it sound like one of those "but I thought everyone knew that!" situations:) I am going to feel very silly if it all turns out to be something so trivial to fix...
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Nealab
"Don't remember seeing any posts about JMicron controller issues," ;D ;D ;D When I spotted your admission of using The JMicron ..... I had a real head slapping moment .... but the horse had already bolted with Lsdmeasap coming in with his usual impeccable diplomacy :D
Marvell 9128 was bigger than "WaterGate" there for a while and probably responsible for a spike in keyboards in monitor returns world wide ....
But for your specific problem.... it's not over till the fat lady sings .... Although a big step forward ..... the 88SE9128 Marvell controller chip was the first mainstream chip that was touted to have 6GB capabilities .... so everyone (manufactures) used it ..... little did we all know ...
Things have changed though .... I actually have and use the HighPoint RocketRaid 640 PCI-E card that has not one but 2 of these chips in them and it actually flies ..... this was my work-around to getting the X58 board up to full speed with more than 6 drives under the bonnet.
Fingers crossed for you buddy ;)
Aussie Allan
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Don't remember seeing any posts about JMicron controller issues
Not in this thread, just from years ago (haven't used JMicron controllers in ages).
I'm an engineer; I need that guy who deals with the customers so I don't have to.
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I know for sure the J.Micron ports are slow, so they rarely get used, as for them causing issues directly I can't say with certainty because not enough users use them long enough for anyone to report issues. Those I do see using them switch quickly to Intel ports, or sometimes they are used for additional storage ports when the Intel ones are all filled. And of course that usually doesn't cause problems other than slow transfers, it's the use of the OS on these ports that concerned me, and since S1 writes to disk while windows tries to shut it all down quickly is what made me think this may be the cause of his issues.
Hopefully now that he's moved the drives around we can find out for sure!
I don't know if anyone has addressed this or not, but have you also tested your hard drive for errors with the manufacturers tool? Just thinking of additional things that could be causing these issues, no need to hurry and test now unless the drive move doesn't help anything.
And EuP/ErP, yes please disable this ;)
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I can't say with certainty because not enough users use them long enough for anyone to report issues. :D :D :D :D
That would be one of the most diplomatic statement I've had the pleasure to read in some time Lsdmeasap .... My attempts usually end up sounding like a "Hand grenade in a chicken coop" .... to be fair to the Marvell logo, .... and head off a slapping around the head for a retraction..........Marvells 9128 chip is only one of many ..... there market penetration is also huge .... if you turn over your hard drive ... odds on you'll see a Marvell logo.
The 9128 fiasco was limited to just that chip and only under certain platforms .... as I stated earlier I have a raid card that using this same chip(S) with no problems .... lets just hope the advice given to Nealab helps him to a solution.
Aussie Allan
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I can't say that I remember seeing any issues directly connected to the JMicron chips either other than the slow speed problem. It still surprises me how many people are unaware of the Marvell 9128 chip troubles. I would have thought that every amnm and his dog has seen all the write ups about it by now.
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Just for clarity (and it's not directly relevant to what I'm testing at the moment) can I ask which controller you guys mean when you say "JMicron"?
According to the motherboard manual (decoded from the original Japanese by a blind Urdu speaker who once learnt French at school and who speaks neither Japanese nor English) I think that there are four disk controllers on the UD3R board.(*)
- Intel RAID controller. 6 ports, SATA2, can support mix of one RAID set and a bunch of other single drives.
- Marvell 9128 controller. 2 ports, SATA3. I have this one disabled at BIOS level as it seemed to be associated with hangs earlier in the boot sequence than I'm now seeing - although that might have been the USB3 controller. Anyway, I don't have any drives fast enough to justify it
- Gigabyte controller. 2 ports, SATA2, which I'm now using for a couple of DVD drives so speed is not an issue.
- JMicron controller, 2 ports but eSATA and hard-wired to a couple of USB/eSATA ports on the back panel.
The ICH10R drives the Intel SATA ports directly, but the other three controllers hang off PCIe bus(es) driven by the ICH10R, so it's reasonable to assume that the Intel ports would be faster overall. So, whether or not the controller choice is the root of my problem, from a performance point of view it wasn't the best idea in the world to put the system disk on the "Gigabyte" controller. Ho hum - we live and learn! In any case, the ICH10R is an integral part of the chipset while the Gigabyte (and Marvell) controllers are a level of driver away - although presumably the BIOS code should be able to handle drives connected to these for reading, for example, hiberfil.sys. But maybe that's the point where it gets a bit flaky.
(*)Actually, that's rather unfair and it's better than some I've seen, but you always feel that it nearly but not quite tells you the things that you really want to know - especially around BIOS settings which are never well-explained.
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I can't say with certainty because not enough users use them long enough for anyone to report issues. :D :D :D :D
That would be one of the most diplomatic statement I've had the pleasure to read in some time Lsdmeasap .... My attempts usually end up sounding like a "Hand grenade in a chicken coop" .... to be fair to the Marvell logo, .... and head off a slapping around the head for a retraction..........Marvells 9128 chip is only one of many ..... there market penetration is also huge .... if you turn over your hard drive ... odds on you'll see a Marvell logo.
The 9128 fiasco was limited to just that chip and only under certain platforms .... as I stated earlier I have a raid card that using this same chip(S) with no problems .... lets just hope the advice given to Nealab helps him to a solution.
Aussie Allan
Are you being mean or sarcastic, or is this a compliment? Sorry I'm not sure, and this is the second time you referred to me as diplomatic, so I wanted to ask to be sure what you meant. Hopefully it's a nice comment, I don't try to make anyone mad, rather the opposite as I try to avoid making anyone mad or stepping on anyone's toes. If it was meant as a compliment, thank you! If you were being bad, shame on you and Grrrrrr! >:( ;D J/K
Yes, I have a RR 640 here too, and it's much better than a single 9128, due to dual chips and an extra PCIE lane, plus the bridge chip. But it can easily be overloaded too, with two SSD's or four. Found in RAID will slow it down just like the onboard single chips, and 2 SSD's can do that too if you don't connect them correctly. When using 2 SSDs on the 640 you have to make sure you only put one SSD on each controller, so they split the load. But even when you don't, using 2 SSD's, it's still not as unstable or slow as the onboard solutions.
I used it in my awesome C300 review, if you have a few hours you can read it here if you're interested.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=261789
Ans yes, I use Marvell based drives, C300's and soon to be M4's. I also like their new onboard solution, it's a much needed improvement to the 9128, the 9182 and 9172 are pretty good controllers, but since they are now used on P67/Z68 boards that's a little bit too late since Intel finally stepped up!
Now, wheres our Native 4-6 6Gb/s ports Intel, they were supposed to arrive with X79??? ;D
Just for clarity (and it's not directly relevant to what I'm testing at the moment) can I ask which controller you guys mean when you say "JMicron"?
According to the motherboard manual (decoded from the original Japanese by a blind Urdu speaker who once learnt French at school and who speaks neither Japanese nor English) I think that there are four disk controllers on the UD3R board.(*)
- Intel RAID controller. 6 ports, SATA2, can support mix of one RAID set and a bunch of other single drives.
- Marvell 9128 controller. 2 ports, SATA3. I have this one disabled at BIOS level as it seemed to be associated with hangs earlier in the boot sequence than I'm now seeing - although that might have been the USB3 controller. Anyway, I don't have any drives fast enough to justify it
- Gigabyte controller. 2 ports, SATA2, which I'm now using for a couple of DVD drives so speed is not an issue.
- JMicron controller, 2 ports but eSATA and hard-wired to a couple of USB/eSATA ports on the back panel.
The ICH10R drives the Intel SATA ports directly, but the other three controllers hang off PCIe bus(es) driven by the ICH10R, so it's reasonable to assume that the Intel ports would be faster overall. So, whether or not the controller choice is the root of my problem, from a performance point of view it wasn't the best idea in the world to put the system disk on the "Gigabyte" controller. Ho hum - we live and learn! In any case, the ICH10R is an integral part of the chipset while the Gigabyte (and Marvell) controllers are a level of driver away - although presumably the BIOS code should be able to handle drives connected to these for reading, for example, hiberfil.sys. But maybe that's the point where it gets a bit flaky.
(*)Actually, that's rather unfair and it's better than some I've seen, but you always feel that it nearly but not quite tells you the things that you really want to know - especially around BIOS settings which are never well-explained.
J.Micron ports are the ones labeled GSATA2_8/9, the last set of ports at the bottom of the SATA stack.
Yes, there is four hard drive controllers, and they are as you mentioned, ICH10R (SATA2_0-6), Marvell 9128 (GSATA3_6/7), J.Micron JMB362 (2 eSATA on Rear I/O panel), and Gigabyte/ Also J.Micron (GSATA_8/9 + IDE x 2 ports). If you want a good view on what's what, generally the motherboard block diagram shows you everything fairly well towards the front of the manual (Page 8 for this board). A better description of the controllers used on each board is best described on the motherboards homepage, in specifications, in case you want to look up other boards or future board details. Once you look at the specs on those pages, and then the block diagram, it's much easier to see what's really under the hood.
Any results yet on the move to the Intel ports? Another thing I thought to mention to you earlier today is this, sometimes with any board if you put it to sleep S1 or S3 all the time, but never actually shut it down or reset it, this can end up leading to issues eventually. So from time to time be sure you do an actual shut down or reset when time permits.
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I didn't see any reference to JMicron against the "Gigabyte" ports, as they are described in the MB manual, but I'm quite prepared to believe that that's who made the controller. I guess that the manual author just wanted to differentiate from the eSATA controller. I had a look at the block diagram earlier, and I have to admit that the text describing what plugs in where was more than adequate when I first put the system together. What frustrates me, though, is the lack of indication of many of the board-specific BIOS settings mean and it's forums like this one that help the user to understand. For example, the "S5" power save state setting (now disabled on my system). If you read most descriptions of the power states, S5 is supposed to be fully powered-off with no saved state. Now, that's clearly not what Gigabyte mean!
However, it's done 3-4 hibernate/resume cycles since I swapped cables last night and it's all been fine so far, but unfortunately that's no guarantee of anything. Sometimes it can go for a week or so and a dozen or two cycles without problem, and then it fails when it's supposed to be recording something important...
I note the point about a reboot from time to time; I've been working with Windows for many years now and that's always seemed like a good idea. In practice, though, there seems to be enough patches and updates to make sure that you reboot on a regular basis anyway!
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Firstly the most important Lsdmeasap
" If you were being bad, shame on you and Grrrrrr! Angry Grin J/K"
Your "Grrrrrrrr!" sent me scurrying under the table :D .... Yes Mate it was a complement (did you not notice the karma I pinged you) ..... Please don't read it any other way!
Being raised in OZ ..... we tend to not hide behind witticism and shaded remarks ..... but calmly walk up to people with a sledge hammer over ones shoulder .... If I have beef with anyone .... I'm pretty up front and most will know the difference. ;) .... the emphases was directed to those who read that have been less tactful of past .... and yours was a good example of how to tackle a subject still rather sensitive to many, including Giga and the manufacture .... And thanks for the review link ...... might be applicable reading as I'm shortly going to need ideas on raiding 4 Virtex3s when they dip under £100 .... got a little project on the hop ( X79 Monster build) that will be steeling my Revox2.... and the editing machine gets the Vertex upgrade ....need a good solution to max out 4 of them under Raid0
The 640! .... Yup! worked out some time ago that it performs optimally with a single SSD per controller .... as a X58 "fixya" it was a excellent cost effective solution that I've recommended several times and still do now .... for the money, is there something more current that performs as well for X58 owners ?
Nealeb .... Glad you have been able to get in touch with people that seem to have helped you move forward ..... please keep in contact so the fix goes up for prosperity when you finally get there .... now you have got this far.....if it does wobble ..... get the dump codes ext and what time local the event happened....... I still think power may be in the equation
Aussie Allan
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I didn't see any reference to JMicron against the "Gigabyte" ports, as they are described in the MB manual, but I'm quite prepared to believe that that's who made the controller. I guess that the manual author just wanted to differentiate from the eSATA controller. I had a look at the block diagram earlier, and I have to admit that the text describing what plugs in where was more than adequate when I first put the system together. What frustrates me, though, is the lack of indication of many of the board-specific BIOS settings mean and it's forums like this one that help the user to understand. For example, the "S5" power save state setting (now disabled on my system). If you read most descriptions of the power states, S5 is supposed to be fully powered-off with no saved state. Now, that's clearly not what Gigabyte mean!
However, it's done 3-4 hibernate/resume cycles since I swapped cables last night and it's all been fine so far, but unfortunately that's no guarantee of anything. Sometimes it can go for a week or so and a dozen or two cycles without problem, and then it fails when it's supposed to be recording something important...
I note the point about a reboot from time to time; I've been working with Windows for many years now and that's always seemed like a good idea. In practice, though, there seems to be enough patches and updates to make sure that you reboot on a regular basis anyway!
Well they don't reference it anywhere, but I know for the past several years when there was only J.Micron controller as secondary they would label those ports Gigabyte/J.Micron in some places, so I assume the same controller is used here and they just label it Gigabyte, and yes likely to differentiate between those ports and the eSATA ones as you mentioned.
I agree, they could benefit (Or end users could anyway) from adding more info in the manuals for the BIOS settings. They have improved over the years though, at least now the manual actually includes all of the BIOS settings, in the past many were missing from the manual altogether.
Here's some real information for you on the various sleep / Power Saving / C-States
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/611
http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2008/03/27/update-c-states-c-states-and-even-more-c-states/
Awesome to hear sleep and resume have now been working for you so far, hopefully this will continue and you can call this solved!!
Firstly the most important Lsdmeasap
" If you were being bad, shame on you and Grrrrrr! Angry Grin J/K"
Your "Grrrrrrrr!" sent me scurrying under the table :D .... Yes Mate it was a complement (did you not notice the karma I pinged you) ..... Please don't read it any other way!
Being raised in OZ ..... we tend to not hide behind witticism and shaded remarks ..... but calmly walk up to people with a sledge hammer over ones shoulder .... If I have beef with anyone .... I'm pretty up front and most will know the difference. ;) .... the emphases was directed to those who read that have been less tactful of past .... and yours was a good example of how to tackle a subject still rather sensitive to many, including Giga and the manufacture .... And thanks for the review link ...... might be applicable reading as I'm shortly going to need ideas on raiding 4 Virtex3s when they dip under £100 .... got a little project on the hop ( X79 Monster build) that will be steeling my Revox2.... and the editing machine gets the Vertex upgrade ....need a good solution to max out 4 of them under Raid0
The 640! .... Yup! worked out some time ago that it performs optimally with a single SSD per controller .... as a X58 "fixya" it was a excellent cost effective solution that I've recommended several times and still do now .... for the money, is there something more current that performs as well for X58 owners ?
Nealeb .... Glad you have been able to get in touch with people that seem to have helped you move forward ..... please keep in contact so the fix goes up for prosperity when you finally get there .... now you have got this far.....if it does wobble ..... get the dump codes ext and what time local the event happened....... I still think power may be in the equation
Aussie Allan
Haha, sorry, didn't mean to scare you ;D Haha, that's too funny, I know your playing though, as was I!
Great to hear it was a compliment! I just wasn't sure because I know sometimes language or regional differences end up making many words or comments mean different things to different people around the world, so I thought I better ask to be sure in case I was offending you somehow!
I like that! >> Calmly walk up to people with a sledgehammer! ;D ;) :D
Yes, the 640 was a great solution for many with X58, that wanted multiple 6Gb/s SSD's! I was sent one for review, so I didn't have to buy it, not sure if I would have one otherwise because I was happy personally with RAID on the Intel ports anyway.
I haven't been keeping up with RAID controllers recently, but I do know there are many new 6Gb/s capable controllers out now, and many that don't use 9128. And Marvell has improved too with onboard controllers, the 9172 and 9182 work pretty damn good actually. Well I know they bench much better than 9182, I have not used them for testing with an OS so I can't vouch for their stability or lack of.
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Lsdmeasap
sometimes language or regional differences end up making many words or comments mean different things to different people around the world,
Tell me about it! ..... I remember one Russian chappie on another forum praising me for helping him and commenting on my in-depth knowledge on the subject......His words of praise of ....."You seem to know F*%^K all on this subject" eventually made me wet myself with laughter.
This thread has been Valuable ..... I've picked up a couple of goodies for the skull drive .... and Nealab may be back in calm waters.
One rather specific question though ..... if you had 4 Vertex3 in your hand..... and an X58 in the other....... what would you add as an interpreter to make them truly fly (Raid0 for OS) ? ..... All opinions are welcome ;)
Aussie Allan
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Hahaha, ya that is funny!! I'd be laughing too, and actually I am right now, so he's still funny all this time later!
Yes, this is a good thread with lots of helpful information for others! And hopefully Nealab's issues are finally sorted out for him, I know it sucks to have issues drag out for long periods with no one able to help, that's terrible. So hopefully he's good to go now!
I can't help on the SSD question, I haven't read into any new controllers lately, but if you are not already a member or have not visited this site you should check it out. They are always doing tons of SSD and RAID controller testing, aside from all the overclocking in the extreme sections.
Here's the storage area, you'll find some nice controller results here that should help you pick out a nice one!
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?62-Storage
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I've had around 10-12 hibernate/resume cycles over the last couple of days with no problems seen. That's no guarantee that it's fixed but it looks promising!
I can't say that I haven't seen people trying to help in other forums. Trouble is that it's difficult to take them seriously when it's blindingly obvious that they know even less about it than I do. It's been good to have a sensible discussion with people who both know a lot and are prepared to accept that there are still more things to learn. I've been playing with computers for about 45 years now and still playing :) but PCs aren't really part of the day job and it's difficult to keep up with the changes in hardware.
Thanks again and I'll drop in from time to time to update. A definite conclusion might help other people who pass this way via Google in the future.
But to finish, a small admission... Some few months ago I joined the forum under a different name (Oyster16) via a thread about USB3-related hangs. I had completely forgotten that I was already a member when I came across this thread via Google - didn't even realise that I had been to this forum before. That particular problem does not seem to have quite been satisfactorily resolved but maybe I'll go back to it if I can feel confident that the current problem has been fixed. I'll also do some research on disk controllers if I ever need SATA 3 speeds and forget the onboard 9128...
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Nice admission Nealab :D .... shows character .... the UD3R is actually a fine board .... just got to know how to finesse them .
My editing machine has turned out to be a solid performer and is still going strong .... hard to retire things just aren't broke :D
Credit where it's due though Lsdmeasap advice was instrumental to get you to here ... keep in touch, or start posting in other sections....nice people are always especially welcome.
Aussie Allan
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I've had around 10-12 hibernate/resume cycles over the last couple of days with no problems seen. That's no guarantee that it's fixed but it looks promising!
I can't say that I haven't seen people trying to help in other forums. Trouble is that it's difficult to take them seriously when it's blindingly obvious that they know even less about it than I do. It's been good to have a sensible discussion with people who both know a lot and are prepared to accept that there are still more things to learn. I've been playing with computers for about 45 years now and still playing :) but PCs aren't really part of the day job and it's difficult to keep up with the changes in hardware.
Thanks again and I'll drop in from time to time to update. A definite conclusion might help other people who pass this way via Google in the future.
But to finish, a small admission... Some few months ago I joined the forum under a different name (Oyster16) via a thread about USB3-related hangs. I had completely forgotten that I was already a member when I came across this thread via Google - didn't even realise that I had been to this forum before. That particular problem does not seem to have quite been satisfactorily resolved but maybe I'll go back to it if I can feel confident that the current problem has been fixed. I'll also do some research on disk controllers if I ever need SATA 3 speeds and forget the onboard 9128...
Great to hear!! Hopefully that will continue and you can consider this solved!!
Thanks for your kind words! And I do know what you mean about some trying to help when they shouldn't be, but at least they try I guess? When I come across something I can't help with, I either say I can't help directly due to lack of knowledge, or I move along without replying and let someone else with more knowledge on the subject step in.
Link us to your other thread, if you are still having issues, and we'll see if we can help! And of course be sure to come back in a few weeks on this thread and let us know for sure one way or the other if this can be considered solved for you!
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Quick update a week after I reconfigured the disks...
7 days, probably at least 3-4 resume/hibernate cycles per day, and it hasn't put a foot wrong when it comes to resuming. I should probably now go back to less frequent (more normal) cycles to allow a bit more time in hibernate state although from memory that didn't make much difference before.
Only one unexplained glitch and that was when the system hung and wouldn't respond to mouse/keyboard. However, that was after 4-5 hours of running so would appear to be unconnected and I'm quite prepared to put it down to random Windows/application behaviour. So there was one unscheduled reboot in the middle of the test period but again, that didn't seem to make much difference before - it had to be rebooted via the reset button whenever it crashed or hung and it still failed...
'Sfunny - both the fastest and slowest disk controllers on this board are suspect, but good ol' Intel carry the day!
Thanks for the advice,
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Great to hear Nealeb!! Hopefully you can consider this solved for good now!
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With a bit of luck, my last post on the topic...
It's now two weeks from reconfiguring the disks and I have had no problems despite 3-4 resume/hibernate cycles per day. I have rebooted a couple of times in that period for other reasons but the system now looks pretty good. Time to wind the memory speed up to 1600 from 1066, and maybe look at re-enabling the USB3 ports.
Conclusion - don't use the Gigabyte/JMicron disk controller for the system disk on these boards...
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Great to hear all is still working smoothly, and thanks for stopping back in for one more final update!
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So, I've had this issue (they are actually 2 issues) since 2/27/2011. After months and months of testing and money spent on a new power supply and a UPS neither of which fixed the issue, I'm here to report back on my findings. I have logged my testing and have quite a bit of data by now.
There's no formal fix for this issue but there's a workaround and I came to a few conclusions:
1. Wake from sleep becomes unreliable once the PC is asleep for more than 2 hours.
2. The longer the computer sleeps, the more likely it is to have problems waking up.
3. FG is the least unstable BIOS and the only bios produced that fixes the (second issue) USB3 issue mentioned here:
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,3866.msg63791.html#msg63791
4. The FH bios re-introduces the aforementioned issue (USB3 hybrid sleep resume after powerloss fails)
My workaround:
Setup a scheduled task that wakes the computer every 2 hours. I set it to e-mail me, so I know it's happening. It then goes back to sleep 5 minutes later.
It sucks that Gigabyte never really fixed this but at least my computer has not failed to wake up this way since March 12 2012.
Good luck!