MA78GM-US2H extremely slow POST, video glitches, performance

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Apr 7, 2009
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I put together a build with MA78GM-US2H, Athlon X2 7750, 4GB DDR2-800 and Windows XP. At first I noticed some glitches - I couldn't get it to boot the Windows XP CD - it'd get into a reboot loop if I tried. After a BIOS update to F3, that was solved and I was able to get Windows installed, but I did also notice that booting a Linux LiveCD took a lot longer than it should've, and also that there was a 'black screen' pause that was rather longer than it should be when booting Windows.

After a couple days of operation it's now in a sorry state. BIOS POST takes approx 1 min, no errors are reported but it takes much too long. Windows then boots very slowly. Once up, the video 'jitters' up and down with some garbage displayed in the top few pixels of the display. It's also much slower than it should be.

I've run memtest86 and some CPU burn in tests with no errors. Swapped out the RAM for known-good modules, and disconnected all the hard disks and other peripherals.

Any ideas, or should I just RMA it?
 
You did install all the motherboard drivers off of the DVD that came with the board?
Check your memory, make sure it is running at the correct voltage and timings, could be you got unlucky though and just got a bad board.
 
I have almost the same mobo, and almost the same problem.

Mine is a GA-MA78GMS2H ver 1.1, and the problem has persisted through BIOS f8, f10, and now f11. I built my system 11 months ago, and am still trying to fix the terribly slow POST, which averages 4 to 11 MINUTES and can be much longer.

I run 8GB of G.Skill DDR2-1000 RAM (running as DDR2-800); the G.Skill tech assures me this RAM must be compatable because Windows is stable. My only problem is with the very slow POST, and the problem is limited to COLD STARTS. Restarts work fine.

It is slow going up into Windows, but not extremely slow.

CPU = Athlon 64x2 5600+
PSU = Corsair HX520W

My graphics work okay with either the onboard default Radeon 3200 or my video card, which is a Radeon 4670. The only problem I have is the very very slow POST.

I've tried a total strip of all the hardware (every bit) and all but one piece of RAM—and I have alternated WHICH single piece of RAM—and that makes no difference; not at all. It can take even longer to get to POST in a system so totally stripped it doesn't even have a boot drive or a LAN cable.

I RMAd the mobo back to Gigabyte in Los Angeles, and they returned it to me, and there is no difference in operation at all.




 
I've tried a total strip of all the hardware (every bit) and all but one piece of RAM—and I have alternated WHICH single piece of RAM—and that makes no difference; not at all. It can take even longer to get to POST in a system so totally stripped it doesn't even have a boot drive or a LAN cable.
Click to expand...
When you did this test, did you do a 'load optimized' after stripping it, so the BIOS could adjust itself to the 'new' hardware config? Could make a difference... One question that's worth asking is whether you have a Seagate drive - there are still a bunch running around that have a firmware problem (affectionately known as the "Seagate Stutter"), whose main symptom is long 'dead' pauses in an OS, and delays during the 'discovery' portion of the POST, while the BIOS waits for the drive to 'come on-line'...
 
(1) Yes, I did the Optimized Default so it was back to that.

(2) My Seagates have the final firmware update (the corrected one). But notice that the system is just as slow to start up when there are ZERO drives on the computer! No hard drives, no floppies, no opticals! In other words, in the test, it was impossible to go on up to Windows because there was no hard drive at all.
 
I'm not an expert on AMD systems, so we may need a little outside help here (hint, hint), but in my experience, pauses in operation (outside of the Seagate problem) are usually memory setup issues; you might take a peek at the G.Skill response to Mongox here, toward the end of the thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/264457-30-ma790fxt-skill-ripjaws-1600-77724-help
as it may be pertinent... Are you running the latest (F11) BIOS?
http://www.gigabyte.us/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_DownloadFile.aspx?FileType=BIOS&FileID=14993
 
Thanks a lot, bilbat. Yes, I do have the new F11. This problem has taken me all the way through BIOS F8, F10, and now F11.

I am VERY interested in your reference to the G.Skill response. I believe a couple of months ago you got me another G.Skill piece of advice (which was to raise my NB voltage +0.3 to its max 1.400V, and that was extremely important for me to find out.

I get the idea that if I could import a virtual G.Skillman to my computer, he could solve my problem. A G.Skill tech said that my RAM has to be compatable with this darned Gigabyte GA-MA78GMS2H, because he said my problem seems limited to startup speed. But I think there is likely a way for me to do more extensive adjustments with the settings. I know nothing about overclocking, and to make this system work properly, I probably need to.

Some of my settings now:
Cash Latency (3T - 6T) set at 5T
RAS to RAS R/W Delay = same as above
Row Recharge Time = same as above
Minimum Row Active Time (5T - 16T) set at 15T
Command Timing = 2T

TwTr Command Delay (1T - 3T) set at 3T
Trfc for DIMMs set all 4 either at 195 or 327.5ns
Write Recovery Time = 6T
Precharge Time = 3T
Row Cycle Time (11T - 26T) set at 25T

RAS to RAS Delay (2T - 5T) set at 3T
DQS Training = Perform (because I think this RAM is nonstandard for my system)
CKE Power Down Mode = Enabled
Memclock tri-stating = Enabled
Bank Swizzle Mode = Enabled


 
I've started digging into your BIOS, and my first question is how you have the "Patch AMD TLB Erratum" set? It is, by default, enabled, and it looks like it might 'cripple' the board to some degree - and, if my research is right, your CPU is not subject to the problem (I think) in the first place... It 'diddles' the way memory 'talks' to the L3 cache, and looks like 'the cure is worse than the disease'... Might want to toggle it, and see if it makes a difference. Will get back with a consideration of your proposed settings, either tonight or in the AM

Bill
 
Hmm, I just realized that I have accidentally hijacked this thread. Well, it had been inactive for 5 months, so hopefully that is okay.

I have now put up a new thread which is focused on the "difficult dance" between my GA-MA78GMS2H, my G.Skill RAM, and my Athlon x2 5600+. I am pursuing the idea that my RAM might work more effectively if I learn more about what the BIOS can do to make it feel more welcome.

EDIT:

@bilbat, that setting is absent in my BIOS. If it applied, it would be in my Advanced BIOS Options in this sequence:
Virtualization
Patch AMD TLB
AMD K8 Cool & Quiet Control

but mine skips from Virtualization directly to Cool & Quiet.
I notice these BIOSes are highly adaptable like that. They change their appearances to match their surroundings like chameleons.

So, because my CPU predates the Patch issue and I don't have an L3 cache, the BIOS seems to be smart enough to simply vanish that setting.
(Too bad. I thought for a little while that that was the glitch right there!)

Thanks.
 
I notice these BIOSes are highly adaptable like that. They change their appearances to match their surroundings like chameleons.
Click to expand...
I guess this is a good thing, but the problems with the 'erratum' correction did look promising :ouch: Intel BIOS are sort of the same - it reads which features are not enabled on your CPU, and simply 'greys out' those options (but they don't 'disappear...)

I'm having some troubles getting a handle on the memory timing adjustments for your board, as the manual I have doesn't show any at all! Could you post me a pointer to the board itself - maybe I'm looking at the wrong one... Also possible: where are you? - there are 'euro only' and 'pacific rim' boards...
 
@Hi, bilbat,
I appreciate your help. I can also upload data, such as a .jpg, if I know just how to get it from my hard drive to here—haven't done that yet.

I am in Vancouver, Canada.
The board would have been made in China, but Gigabyte would say it was manufactured in Los Angeles, California, I think. Anyway, it's a North American board made on one side or the other of the Pacific Rim.

I've listed more details from MemSet in my new thread, which is at
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/264665-30-ma78gms2h-skill-ddr2-1000-5600-difficult-dance


The mobo is a Gigabyte GA-MA78GMS2H ver 1.1 (version is important) with BIOS F11 (latest)
and the page with the most available information is
http://www.giga-byte.ca/Support/Motherboard/Manual_Model.aspx?ProductID=2814
Click to expand...
 
I am in Vancouver, Canada.
The board would have been made in China, but Gigabyte would say it was manufactured in Los Angeles, California, I think. Anyway, it's a North American board made on one side or the other of the Pacific Rim.
Click to expand...
no no - I meant marketing, not manufacturing... 😉 Some MOBOs are marketed and sold only in Europe, or sometimes Asia...
I downloaded the manual from the pointer you gave me, and it's the same as the one I have - no memory info whatsoever...
'Preciate it if you could capture the MemSet screen, and click on SPD, and capture that screen, & post 'em here...
The MemTest he is refering to on the other thread is here:
http://www.memtest.org/download/4.00/memtest86+-4.00.iso.zip
it unzips to an iso file, which you then burn to a CD, to create a bootable memory tester...

Maybe I'm confused here - are you refering to a memory settings screen in your BIOS, or does it even have one? If there are no BIOS settings for memory, all we can do is verify the SPD/EPP exists, and is getting set... Also, on the BIOS' "MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.)" page, are your "Memory Clock" settings in the form "DDR 400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800" or "X2.00, X2.66, X3.33, X4.00, X5.33"??
 
I'm starting out here pretty slowly—will become more adept soon, I promise!

MB Intelligent Tweaker > Memory Clock shows:
DDR 800 (which it is set at)
DDR 667
DDR 533
DDR 400

I am out of my depth, but I think the memory settings you want are managed by the AMD Athlon CPUs. A friend of mine complained that the controllers were not available in the way they "should" be—he said that by itself kept him away from AMD, or at least the Athlon series.

—That is, IF I am correct in recalling what he said. This is my only experience with memory settings, so I have nothing to compare with it in my own experience. Anyway, I can find no memory settings page in the BIOS.

There IS a screen allowing voltage settings to the CPU.
It shows
Normal
1.9000V to 1.5500V in increments of 0.0500V
1.5500V to 0.8000V in increments of 0.0250V

CPU-Z, if this is of any help (but I don't know if it is), shows my information at CPU-Z ID 774515. That is at
http://valid.canardpc.com/


I have now made a CD with the MemTest .ISO you gave me—thanks for that.

Which SPD screen do you want me to capture? In which program?
I have the MemSet details listed in the other thread, but I am still figuring out how to upload images to here.

Sorry I'm so slow. As I said, I think I'll pick up speed okay, but this is new territory.
 
I am out of my depth, but I think the memory settings you want are managed by the AMD Athlon CPUs. A friend of mine complained that the controllers were not available in the way they "should" be—he said that by itself kept him away from AMD, or at least the Athlon series.
Click to expand...

:lol: I.ve got pretty much the same attitude: here's a rant I've posted a couple times in the last few days -

I know a lot of arcane BS about Intel processors - cause they're the only ones who document everything! If you wanna know how many Lahore pigeons crap on the roof of the Santa Clara fab each year, not only can you find it in a PDF somewhere (but where - that's the skill!) on their web site, but there's probably a three year plan documented to change their feeding habits, so they crap a lighter color, causing the roof to reflect more sunlight, and cut down on the air-conditioning costs... Every time I try to find out something about an AMD BIOS for someone, I see this business about "update AGESA three point five point three point nine point more digits than pi", and I've been randomly trying for months just to find out what 'AGESA' is - bah - no luck! (I hate acronymns anyway - the only one that ever sticks in my head is back from the days when they finally got completely out of hand with 'PCMCIA' - people can't memorize computer industry acronymns!) And you don't wanna even get me started about nVidia! As far as I can figure, nVidia is actually a front company for the CIA/NSA - if you go looking there for documentation, they'll have you investigated to find out why the hell you're looking for their documents!
Click to expand...

And, yesterday, or the day before, I finally found it!

AhHa! I finally found out what it is, and why I can't get it!

"AGESA, an acroynm for 'AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture', is a bootstrap protocol by which system devices on AMD64-architecture mainboards are initialized.

The AGESA software in the BIOS of such mainboards is responsible for the initialization of the processor cores, memory, and the HyperTransport controller.

AGESA documentation is only available to AMD partners that have signed a non-disclosure agreement."

It's the nVidia NSA 'documentation protection' agents again - now they've got AMD - I better go back to wearing my tinfoil hat, so they'll quit 'tapping' my brainwaves! :pt1cable:
Actually, I'll go see if I can execute and NDA w/AMD, so at least I might understand when it goes wrong, why it goes wrong!! :kaola: even though I won't be able to tell anyone...
Click to expand...

To 'capture' screens, you click on them so they are the 'active window', then hit the <ALT><Prt Scr> combination (anther handy one is <CTRL><Prt Scr> - captures the whole desktop image...), which puts the screen image onto the clipboard; then, open Paint (or any other graphics program you're familiar with) and either do Edit/Paste, or a <CTRL><V>, to paste the image; save it with a File/SaveAs with the Jpeg file type selected (.JPG), and you'll be ready to post it. The SPD screen I'd like is the one that results from clicking the [SPD] button towards the top center of MemSet... Tomorrow AM I'll write up a quick tutorial on posting the image file here to the forum - I've been meaning (promising) to do that anyway, for some time now - but, tonight, I gotta take a big handfull of painpills and hypnotics, as I've gotten new dentures recently, and have some horrendously painful sores on my gums - getting to the point where I'm thinking about using a pair of sidecutters to remove my tongue, so it'll quit irritating the damn sores!!! :cry:

Have a good night - talk with ya' in the AM...


Bill
 
I'll write up a quick tutorial on posting the image file here to the forum
Click to expand...
Okay, I'm good as far as getting any .jpeg you like—on my own machine.

But I need your instructions about posting it here on the forum. Is there a good freeware program that will let me upload an image to the web? Or can I upload directly to Tom's? I don't have my own website.

The SPD screen I'd like is the one that results from clicking the [SPD] button towards the top center of MemSet
Click to expand...
I have looked and looked and there is no mention of SPD on my MemSet display. I'll keep researching that tonight, and tomorrow, when I know how to put up the image, I can at least show you my SPD-challenged MemSet.

[EDIT: It turns out that my MemSet face is blank where the SPD button should be. Mine looks the same but is missing several active buttons. I checked both MemSet 4.1 and 4.0, and tried them in my XP64 and my XP32 (on the same box). Definitely what you want is not there. Very much like somebody else showing you where the hundred dollar bills fit into his wallet, but when you check your own wallet, it is exactly the same but the hundred dollar bills are just not where they are supposed to be.]

Sorry about your denture ordeal. I have some friends who survived that, but they were never really the same afterwards. . . . :fou: And tonight I watched the old black-&-white of Moby Dick, in which Gregory Peck's terrible denture problems doom men & whale: "Ahab, was he the same white whale that fit ye for dentures?" "Indeed, he was." A grim movie but one we can really. . . .get our. . .teeth. .into. . . . (Very sorry about that; the devil made me do it.) :non:
.
 
See Dick and Jane Capture and Post a Screen Image to the Forum: an image posting primer! :bounce:

To 'capture' application screens, you click on them so they are the 'active window', then hit the <ALT><Prt Scr> combination (anther handy one is <CTRL><Prt Scr> - captures the whole desktop image...), which puts the screen image onto the clipboard; then, open Paint (or any other graphics program you're familiar with) and either do Edit/Paste, or a <CTRL><V>, to paste the image; save it with a File/SaveAs with the Jpeg file type selected (.JPG), and you'll be ready to post it.

To post the images, the first thing you want to do is go to ImageShack: http://imageshack.us/
and create an account (it's FREE) for yourself (and save a bookmark - I use it so often, that I keep the shortcut to it on my desktop - but then I've got a lot of desktop [four monitors worth - 😍 ]); there are any number of these file and picture 'sharing' services (I use MediaFire for sharing files like BIOS and drivers here...), but ImageShack seems to have a minimum of intrusive crappola, and seems to dependably 'keep' your files; if you want to use a different one, this should give you a pretty good general idea of 'what to do'...

Once you're registered, going to the site will 'pop' this screen:

0119w.jpg


Click on the 'Browse...' button, and find your image file; once you've selected it, a click on the orange outlined 'start upload!' button will get it up there, and it will go to this screen:

0120i.jpg


Click in the window labelled 'Hotlink for forums (1)' (encirled in green in the illustration...), and copy & paste it to your post - it will look like this:

{URL=http://img41.imageshack.us/i/0119w.jpg/}{IMG}http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7635/0119w.jpg{/IMG}{/URL}
(I have replaced the square braces with curly ones, just for illustration; otherwise you'd not see the line, just the underlying picture!)

Then, if you want to post another picture, click on the (red encircled) 'Upload another image' item, which will return you to the first screen -
-and that's it!

==============================================
Another thing that will work, is to only copy the part in green:
{URL=http://img41.imageshack.us/i/0119w.jpg/}{IMG}http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7635/0119w.jpg{/IMG}{/URL}
and paste it to your post...

===================================
Yet another way, is to only copy this part in green:
{URL=http://img41.imageshack.us/i/0119w.jpg/}{IMG}http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7635/0119w.jpg{/IMG}{/URL}
and click on the 'picture thingie' atop the posting window:



which will 'pop' this window:



where you simply paste on top of the 'undefined', and click OK. To use this method, however, requires that you enable 'scripted controls' in IE:
Click your way 'in' to InternetExplorer - Tools-> InternetOptions-> 'Security tab':



Click on 'Custom Level':



scroll down to "Allow websites to prompt for information using scripted windows", and click 'Enable' - then 'OK' and save the settings... A little more difficult, but a little more elegant :sol:
 
OK - I think it's ready to go! Give 'er a try, and tell me what I missed (having done this sort of thing before, I know there's inevitably something I missed - Murphy's Law :pt1cable: )
 
Well, this is absolutely massively superbly excellent, not to mention its better qualities. Thank you very much indeed. At this moment I'm capturing it onto a .PDF, and then I'll go through the process of learning it. Which I'll have done, when you see my image in a few minutes.
 
Thank you for the thank you :ange: , but I'll wait to accept it until you've successfully posted an image - just in case! If it appears to work and be understandable, I'll post it in a separate topic, so I can 'point' to it the next time I'm asked (which happens about every other week, and I've been putting it off for about two months...) - hate to have a pointer to something that consistently doesn't work... With any luck, Mongo will see it too for a critique - he might see something we both miss - the more eyes, the better!
 
Here is Dick and Jane's plain-Jane method:


and here is Dick and Jane Do Elegance twist:
memsetnudeoct1809.jpg


Edit:
Hm. They look remarkably similar. Well, Dick and Jane are a classy couple, so I s'pose they do Elegance even when they do Plain.

(The first one was the entire long URL, and the second was the truncated URL placed in the box.)

I'd call it a success.
:bounce:
 
You might want to mention that Image Shack is free. That is extremely important to some people (such as me). At first, Image Shack looks as though it is not really free—"Oh oh." But it IS, and so we all get to live happily ever after.
 

Yonder is the SPD button I've been talking about, and, it's obvious that you just don't have it! Makes me suspect that reading the SPD is somehow a function of the northbridge (which strikes me as really odd - as it's just a little piece of ROM on the DIMMs themselves - how complicated can it be?), and I know how to find out, on two fronts: one, is to look at the JEDEC spec for SPDs themselves - I know I've got it, and I don't think I've ever gone through it in earnest - time to now; two, is the earlier reference to AGESA - if an AMD BIOS isn't able to access the SPD functionality itself, the initialization code has to be doing it somehow - and I need to find out how... Gotta get in contact with AMD, to see if they'll let me execute an NDA to access the docs. I hope they're not like nVidia; I've tried everything up to, and including, threats, to get access to the ESA (enthusiast system architecture - which is used to get/put info from/to fan controller boards, smart power supplies and the like...), as I'd like to write a multi-input temperature control piece based on PID (proportional-integral-derivative) calculations... I know that several utility writers are also looking for this 'open standard' info, as are a number of people in the linux world - and - like I said, you'd think you were trying to break out files at the NSA! Anyhow - somehow, the freaking motherboard has to use the processor to query and setup the RAM - or it couldn't work! (But, then again, it does only seem to work marginally - most of the BIOS revs for these boards seem, in one way or another, to be updates to this 'secret' AGESA code...
 
So far this is the best I have—CPU-Z—but I am still looking.



Of course, there are 4 Slot images, all identical.



And here is my own chart showing DRAM options in the BIOS:

 
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