Biostar TA790GX A2+ Install

gigaxtreme1 said:
Edit: If not Yate Loon, can anyone recommend some good high output 120mm fans?
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What do you consider high output? For >2000rpm I'd look at Panaflos and for <2000rpm maybe the Scythe S-Flex series. I'm about to buy a stack of S-Flex fans myself at Sidewinder since they have a discount on sets of five. For single fans I think Petra Tech has better prices on the Scythe.

My UPS shows up as a notebook battery as well when I don't have the APC software installed. You didn't mention which brand but just check if the manufacturer has their own package. The APC software gives me loads more options than the regular Windows power settings.
 
I'd still stick with the Yate Loons or S-Flexs just because I find fan noise intolerable. Only thing I hear from my PC right now is a muted hum and deep seeks from the Raptor.

@ DedEmbryonic

You may be on to something. I do indeed have an APC UPS attached to this computer so I think it may just be the APC battery rather than some weird glitch. I gotta find that APC software now....
 
i just installed this board. i dont know why when i plug in the dvi on to dvi-hdmi to the tv. the screen is blinked 3 x then the tv go to blue.
 
I don't really trust those trustedreviews ppls haha.

@ rickyman,
giga is correct, you can only use one digital signal at a time with this board. So that blue screen will happen if you connect more than one at a time.

If that doesn't solve the problem, I can also suggest you alter the video memory settings from UMA+sideport to UMA or sideport. I had initial video corruption on the DVI line of the integrated graphics but after I changed my setting from UMA+sideport to either just UMA or just sideport, I didn't get the distortion anymore. There may be some issues with using the combination memory when overclocking (my RAM was at DDR2-960 at the time).
 
No need to disable surroundview.The signal is cloned if you have only one display. If you have 2 displays you would use surroundview. The reason for disabling it is if you have a discrete graphics card and you want to disable onboard.
 
Sometimes graphics would be scrambled on startup. Supposedly this is fixed. There are other things added to the BIOS as well from what I have seen.
 
I like how 4 BIOSes are available in China but none yet here in US...hahahaha.... You woulda thought it would have been at least 4:1 but no. Great that they fixed that scrambled graphics. When I first booted up I had that problem, thought my graphics were crapped till I did a warm boot and it was fixed.
 
Yeah, this new BIOS sucks. Have to run Vcore way too high. May roll back to the Rebels Haven mod BIOS
 
I'm just going to stick with 807 for the time being. It seems to work well so far.

Oh, just a note to potential buyers of this board. This board has quite possibly one of the worst accessory packages I've ever seen. Inside, you get:

1x Molex to SATA power adapter
2x Locking SATA cables (can't you give me at least 4 Biostar???)
1x IDE cable
1x Instruction manual
1x I/O backplate
1x Driver CD

That's IT. I just with they had packaged more SATA connectors since they have 6 on the board.
 
Just saw a new BIOS has been added to the U.S. site: 78DBA919.BST. Anybody tried it yet and if so with what kind of results?
 
yeah, I saw it yesterday, downloaded it but didn't flash it. It's supposed to improve the Integrated video, so maybe that means the video will wake up from sleep mode. I still have problems when the system goes into suspend, I guess. It won't wake up. Usually after four hours. May try it later. Downloaded Mythbuntu and want to try that. Have to back off the overclock to flash. Figure let someone else be the guinea pig first.
 
Are you using a USB mouse and keyboard? If USB goes into deep sleep you won't be able to wake it up with a USB device.
 
Nope, PS2. I don't worry about it because I set the power function way long for sleep. Happened 1 time recently and I usually power dow when II'm done playing or whatever.
 
gigaxtreme1 said:
yeah, I saw it yesterday, downloaded it but didn't flash it. It's supposed to improve the Integrated video, so maybe that means the video will wake up from sleep mode. I still have problems when the system goes into suspend, I guess. It won't wake up. Usually after four hours. May try it later. Downloaded Mythbuntu and want to try that. Have to back off the overclock to flash. Figure let someone else be the guinea pig first.
Click to expand...

gigaxtreme1 said:
I can't seem to find any BIOS files on the US site. I use the China site. Got a link?
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whuaaaa???? :confused:
 
That's the one. Thought I was on their U.S. site. Sorry for not posting the link.

Mine seems to be doing fine so far so I'll probably skip flashing for now. I'm not using on-board video though I did try it when I first powered the board up. I'm using one of the BE-2400's @ 3Ghz and it seems stable.
 
Running into some strange problems recently. System is stable at 2.8Ghz but putting it in sleep mode causes the computer to reboot when I wake out of sleep. Any ideas?
 
Do you have C&Q enabled? I've seen several posts from people having problems with overclocked systems after enabling C&Q. Voltage drop causes CPU to become unstable.
 
I'm pretty sure I've got it turned off...but you've got a good point! I'll check!
 
I'm also having problems with this board, without even OC'ing.

AMD 64 x2 BE-2400 dual core processor
Biostar TA790GX A2 mainboard
Corsair XMS DDR2 800 RAM, 2Gb
Antec "Basiq" 550W PS (80+ certified)
Win XP SP3
CoolerMaster Centurion 590 case

I built this for multi-GPU Folding and to learn more about Windows, which I don't use much.

Got everything installed, all the drivers from the CD's, and it folds just fine with one GPU.

However, it won't recognize the second GPU. Device Manager doesn't see it, it gives a blank screen when hooked to a monitor, Folding with the -forcegpu nvidia_g80 flag doesn't see it. But the fan is going full blast so it definitely has power

Flashed the bios, no joy.

Swapped the cards around, they are both good. The problem is at the motherboard (or possibly between keyboard and chair)

How can I get the system to recognize the second card? Something in the BIOS perhaps? TIA for your advice.
 
I wonder if 550 watts is enough for 2 GPUs. In fact I think you are underpowered with a basiq power supply for surround, crossfire or SLI. Look at your voltages
 
checking with cpu-z:
mobo voltages:
+3.3V =3.34V
+5 = 5.08
+12 = 12.17
-12 = -7.34
-5 = -5.06
+5 = 4.76

whether Folding is running, with one CPU and the GPU fully occupied, or whether it's idle.
A Kill-a-Watt shows that the rig is pulling 180W when folding, 131W when idle.
It's unlikely to be the power.
 
Yep, saw them, but they're a bit cryptic for a n00b.

For internal graphics mode there's a choice of UMA, Sideport, UMA+Sideport, or disable.
I picked disable - is there a better choice?

Lower down there is a Surround View with choices Auto or Disable. What does this do? Do you suggest Disable?

(EDIT: oops, in the new BIOS that is gone. No choice. Instead there is an option to enable or disable the REALTEK PCIE NIC - the onboard PCIE network controller, currently enabled)

Also, the BIOS has a page for PCI Express configuration
For GFX Dual Slot Configuration (Auto, enable disable) I selected enable.
For GPP Slots Power Limit, W I left it at the 25W default. What is GPP anyway?
Then there are selections for Port 02 through Port 10 features. Each one has:
Gen2 High Speed Mode (enable, disable)
Link ASPM (disable (default), L0s, L1s, L0x+L1x)
Link Width (Auto (default) , x1, x2, x4, x8, x16)
Slot Power Limit, W (0-255, default 75)
Compliance Mode (enabled (default), disabled)

Not sure whether any of these ports represent the PCI-e 2.0 slots, so I left everything on default.

Finally there are "Primary Video Controller" optios to allow selection of the video controller in charge. Options are:
PCI-GFX0-GPP-IGFX (Default)
GFX0-GPP-IGFX-PCI
GPP-GFX0-IGFX-PCI
IGFX-GFX0-GPP-PCI


IGFX must mean internal graphics, but I'm not sure about PCI, GFX0 and GPP. I left it on default. Which of these codes might represent the secondary PCI-e slot? Selecting it would make the secondary GPU into the primary GPU and let me test whether the slot works.

I also have hypertransport link speed set to the default, "auto".

Thanks for your quick responses gigaxtreme1, I really appreciate your assistance.
 
If you are not using IGFX disable is fine. UMA uses system memory for IGFX.
The manual sucks and I don't know what that stuff means, but I would select enable high speed, L0x+L1x, x8, default, and not sure about compliance, enable for starters.
Default is fine, but I don't think you can enable the slave slot a primary unless it's PCI. You can try those settings but don't shoot me if you bork your system! Just kidding.
 
For what it's worth, here's what I've found so far:
PCI= PCI vid card, IGFX= internal graphics, GFX0= PCIe x16 master slot, GPP= ?.
I found this in the FoxConn manual for their 790GX board. They don't list a 'GPP' setting.

I'm using an HD3850 in the 'Slave' slot because I need both PCI slots and it seems to work fine. It boots to the correct slot regardless of the order selected in BIOS so that shouldn't be an issue with a single card. I haven't gotten any deeper into it yet so I don't know about the other settings. The only game I play is Quake III so the 3850 is overkill even if it isn't running at optimum efficiency.

Download the manuals for every 790GX board you can find and you may be able to glean enough from each one to make some sense out of this board as the manual does indeed suck.
 
Aha, so you're running a single card in the slave slot since you can't fit it in the master slot, and it's fine.

I'll try that to see if the slot itself might be the problem, and will post back. Thanks!
 
susato said:
Aha, so you're running a single card in the slave slot since you can't fit it in the master slot, and it's fine.
Click to expand...

It seems to be. I couldn't see any difference running some basic benchmarks regardless of how I set the card up. I did some more research on the "GPP" setting and I've found references to it's meaning as "graphics point to point" or alternatively, "graphics peer to peer". Smells like Crossfire stuff to me.
 
I just built a system using this MB also. I have no problems with it so far.

Just to add to the 9/19 bios patch that improves PCI-E performance. This is not just internal, but also external graphics, I gained 15-20 (HUGE) FPS on Warhammer with my HD 4850 with just the Bios update. In SAME SPOT, (test spot for me in game) I was getting 33-35 FPS (THis is with just about everything cranked in Catalyst, and of course MAX sttings in game)...

AFTER BIOS UPDATE (went from 7/15/08 Bios to 9/19/08 bios, and now at 45-55 FPS SAME PLACE .

Like I said, this was my test spot in game that I was tweaking my card settings to. I logged out, updated bios, and logged back in, Instantly gained a TON of FPS.

If you havn't done this update yet, dont' think it just applies to built in GPU (3300)...

I was running at 8x before I installed the paddle card (which the manual clearly tells you to do), I didn't notice too much difference by the seat of my pants (Ran 8x for 2 days w/out Fraps) so I have no FPS comparasons, and I'm not about to take it out ...

Now the idea of X-Fireing is going to chew a hole in my brain until I do it. Since the 4850's dropped to $150 at Best Buy,...
 
I've been fiddling with settings on and off over the past few weeks but still no dice @ getting suspend to work with overclocked settings.

CnQ is off. Voltage is manually set to 1.35V atm. RAM timings are loose, 6-6-6-18-2T. RAM voltage is manually set to 2.1V (max allowable under OCZ warranty). Machine tests fine @ 2.8GHz (11.5x240) but BIOS resets every time I start back from suspend. Any other information needed? Suggestions?
 
You may need C&Q on for that, but I gave up on that for later BIOS updates, maybe, but definitely more info needed. I have some weird problems, though. No audio over HDMI unless I remove the 2gig stick from slot 4. I have reapers and a Xigmatek1283, so I use slots 3 and 4. Going back to the stock heatsink and try slots 1 and 2. The other is in Vista x64 Media center with TV pack installed I get no channels analog or digital, but I got analog before. I should try s-video direct from the cable box. I have more TV cards to try though.
 
New Bios 78DBAB06.rar on China website. The B06 might mean beta. Has something to do with the GPU.
Edit: Have to be beta BIOS. Now the file is 78DBAB11.rar
 
I too bought one of these TA790GX A2+ boards recently hoping to run multiple GPUs in a non-crossfire config. I've read four manuals so far and none of them come right out and say this, but I'm beginning to feel like I can't get video output from GPUs in both PCI-Ex16 slots. I've got an Athlon X2 BE-2400, 6GB of RAM (2GB of Aenon HP stuff, 4GB of Corsair DHX), an HIS Radeon 4670 and an passive Gigabyte x1650 in a P180 case with a Seasonic 400W psu. I want to be able to support 4 monitors as silently as possible - but that's really neither here nor there (I did get SurroundView to work but only up to 1280 x 1024 - not gonna cut it as I have two 1600 x 1200 and two 1920 x 1200). Has anyone been able to divine how the 790GX chipset works with regards to using both PCI-Ex16 slots in non-crossfire? I have not gotten an answer from an email to Biostar yet.
 
I received a prompt response from Biostar - I have to admit I'm surprised :
"Yes, you can as individual for dual monitor support. However, recommend to use two 4670 or same video cards for compatibility reasons, even if not running in crossfire."

For reference, my email to them :
"Is it possible to use 2 video cards in a non-crossfire setup? When I install a Radeon 4670 card in PCI-Ex16 slot 1 and a Radeon x1650 card in PCI-Ex16 slot 2 only the 4670 card displays video signal. If I swap the slots that the two cards are installed in, the 4670 card is the only one that displays video signal. If I test each card separately they both work fine in either slot."

I still cannot get my x1650 to display a signal when the 4670 is present. I also could not get SurroundView working with the x1650. At the moment I've got 2 monitors on the 4670 and 2 on SurroundView, albeit one of them is on VGA... hmmm, time for another 4670 for me. This is just a work machine, so no need for gaming horsepower - primary desire is for quiet. So far the HIS 4670 with dual-slot cooler fills the bill. So it looks like the older gen cards don't play well with this setup, for whatever reason.
 
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