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Hello again everyone. I wanted to make this thread so anyone having problems with the popular Gigabyte MA790GP-UD4H AM2+ 790GX motherboard!
I have been running this board for over 6 months now, it runs great, fast, cool, what can I say I am a huge Gigabyte fanboy now!
I've said this before, but I really mean it now, this is my favorite motherboard of all time!
Anyway, I just installed Windows 7 on my build in sig with this board. I encountered a problem, and wanted to share the solution I found here. Also, I've basically read and learned all there is to know about the board, so if anyone else is having a problem or issue with any aspect of the board, this thread is here for you to post your question or issue in. Myself and surely many others would be happy to help. I'm also looking to get this board even more popular with the enthusiast crowd, as more people using kick-butt boards with their Phenom II's is good for AMD & Phenom II popularity as well.
My issue was as follows. I just upgraded to windows 7 last week. I had no problems finding all the drivers I needed for it. Note that windows 7 has a generic driver built in for the audio. Also, the ethernet driver is part of the ATI/AMD chipset driver package. So when you go to the gigabyte web site's download page for windows 7 64, dont be alarmed that the only driver there is for the chipset. As AMD/ati makes the chipset for the board, there were win7 drivers available before win7 was even declared RTM (release to manufacturer, for putting on OEM pc's before the retail discs are released).
Anyway, on Gigabytes website, there are no audio drivers available for windows 7 yet. It ran fine without, but I wanted to use the front headphone and microphone jacks on my Antec Three Hundred case for using new headphones I have on the way from amazon (koss portapro's, ultra comfy). The default windows drivers for the onboard Realtek Azalia audio chipset did not do it. (If you also have an antec 300, use the connector marked "HDA", for HD Audio. I used the AC97 connector at first, thinking hd audio meant optical or something like that, but it actually seems to directly refer to realtek chipsets. The azalia chipset on this board is a realtek high definition audio chip!)
So first I checked realtek's site. They have win7 drivers available for the azalia, they are under the High Definition Audio drivers page on realtek's site! But, as there is a warning on that page that you should use the mobo manufacturers custom drivers to enable all functionality, I went ahead and downloaded and installed the Vista 64 Realtek driver instead from gigabytes website.
They worked like a charm, and now my headphone and mic jacks on the cases' front panel work perfectly. No conflicts installing the vista64 drivers on win7 x64.
Note that the onboard audio actually sounds just as good as the audigy. Interestingly I found out you can run 2 cards at the same time! I have onboard hooked up to the front headphone port, and the speakers hooked up to the Audigy, so all I need to do is click a button in windows control panel to switch between headphones and speakers.
I had done this before I installed the realtek drivers. I found out afterwards that you can actually use both the front headphone jack, and the rear speaker out jack, at the same time or switch between them at will, I didnt need the audigy. But its already in there and Im too lazy to remove it right now. It did however give me the opportunity to compare both audio sources easily, and as I said I cannot hear a difference on headphones or my logitech 2.1 speakers between the 2!
AMD kicks butt, no way around it. Nothing can compare to the Phenom II platform price
erformance wise right now. Even more so if you go with DDR2. Thanks AMD for the uber fast driver updates! And thanks gigabyte for the fantastic board (at a great price too!!).
Who wants to go i5 with a 200+ dollar motherboard when you can get a fantastic feature rich 790gx board for 100 bucks and a Phenom 2 X4 flavor for 150-200 range! Pfft Intel
I have been running this board for over 6 months now, it runs great, fast, cool, what can I say I am a huge Gigabyte fanboy now!
I've said this before, but I really mean it now, this is my favorite motherboard of all time!
Anyway, I just installed Windows 7 on my build in sig with this board. I encountered a problem, and wanted to share the solution I found here. Also, I've basically read and learned all there is to know about the board, so if anyone else is having a problem or issue with any aspect of the board, this thread is here for you to post your question or issue in. Myself and surely many others would be happy to help. I'm also looking to get this board even more popular with the enthusiast crowd, as more people using kick-butt boards with their Phenom II's is good for AMD & Phenom II popularity as well.
My issue was as follows. I just upgraded to windows 7 last week. I had no problems finding all the drivers I needed for it. Note that windows 7 has a generic driver built in for the audio. Also, the ethernet driver is part of the ATI/AMD chipset driver package. So when you go to the gigabyte web site's download page for windows 7 64, dont be alarmed that the only driver there is for the chipset. As AMD/ati makes the chipset for the board, there were win7 drivers available before win7 was even declared RTM (release to manufacturer, for putting on OEM pc's before the retail discs are released).
Anyway, on Gigabytes website, there are no audio drivers available for windows 7 yet. It ran fine without, but I wanted to use the front headphone and microphone jacks on my Antec Three Hundred case for using new headphones I have on the way from amazon (koss portapro's, ultra comfy). The default windows drivers for the onboard Realtek Azalia audio chipset did not do it. (If you also have an antec 300, use the connector marked "HDA", for HD Audio. I used the AC97 connector at first, thinking hd audio meant optical or something like that, but it actually seems to directly refer to realtek chipsets. The azalia chipset on this board is a realtek high definition audio chip!)
So first I checked realtek's site. They have win7 drivers available for the azalia, they are under the High Definition Audio drivers page on realtek's site! But, as there is a warning on that page that you should use the mobo manufacturers custom drivers to enable all functionality, I went ahead and downloaded and installed the Vista 64 Realtek driver instead from gigabytes website.
They worked like a charm, and now my headphone and mic jacks on the cases' front panel work perfectly. No conflicts installing the vista64 drivers on win7 x64.
Note that the onboard audio actually sounds just as good as the audigy. Interestingly I found out you can run 2 cards at the same time! I have onboard hooked up to the front headphone port, and the speakers hooked up to the Audigy, so all I need to do is click a button in windows control panel to switch between headphones and speakers.
I had done this before I installed the realtek drivers. I found out afterwards that you can actually use both the front headphone jack, and the rear speaker out jack, at the same time or switch between them at will, I didnt need the audigy. But its already in there and Im too lazy to remove it right now. It did however give me the opportunity to compare both audio sources easily, and as I said I cannot hear a difference on headphones or my logitech 2.1 speakers between the 2!
AMD kicks butt, no way around it. Nothing can compare to the Phenom II platform price
erformance wise right now. Even more so if you go with DDR2. Thanks AMD for the uber fast driver updates! And thanks gigabyte for the fantastic board (at a great price too!!).Who wants to go i5 with a 200+ dollar motherboard when you can get a fantastic feature rich 790gx board for 100 bucks and a Phenom 2 X4 flavor for 150-200 range! Pfft Intel
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