Unfortunately, Gigabyte support doesn't say anything other than "please try this beta BIOS". The fact the the BIOS eliminates the repeating pattern DPC spiking, and on my system, that has resulted in being able to use smaller sample buffers and latencies of 1.3ms leads me to the conclusion that the DPC spiking caused a problem for me. I started this thread because I had trouble getting low enough latencies out of my system and someone asked me to check the DPC latencies. It indeed turned out to be the problem in my system. There are obviously other things that can cause DPC spiking, but that is not what I have referred to in this thread. If you look at the very first post, you will see an image illustrating the repeating pattern that I refer to.

The fact that a BIOS change, and no other changes to drivers, etc can fix the problem leads me to conclude that it is the BIOS. Also, in reference to your suggestion that I may have a different setting somewhere in the BIOS setup with the beta BIOS, I don't. I wrote down every setting before flashing to the beta BIOS and set it up exactly the same.

I have tried to refrain from personal attacks because I don't believe they are warranted and it just fosters unnecessary vitriol. But since you've opened the door... I believe that you are trying to help others, and therefore I give you the benefit of the doubt that you are sincere in your objective. But you also display a serious maladjustment in your personality that seems to require you to be correct all the time. I don't know how old you are, but from your behavior I suspect that I am old enough to be your father. So here's some fatherly advice. It's OK not to know everything. People will respect you more for displaying an honest willingness to learn than for being a "know it all". As Abraham Lincoln said "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

it is important to recognize that when people say there is a latency issue with the gigabyte boards, they mean DPC latency, not necessarily audio latency, though DPC latency could certainly impact audio performance in some way as Dan has measured in his tests. Specifically, Dan found that ASIO performance was rather drastically improved by fixing the DPC latency with the beta BIOS. he also observed, if I recall, that WDM audio performance did not seem to change. So this tells me that ASIO technology is somehow more effected by DPC latency problems than WDM technology is.

In any case, the only thing I wanted to point out is that the rumors you heard about latency problems are related to DPC latency, which is not audio latency. Nonetheless, there is definitely a rather consistent pattern seen by a large number of gigabyte users with this spiking DPC latency. And a lot of them solved the problem by either going back to a really old BIOS version or else they received a new beta BIOS directly from Gigabyte support which solved the problem. There are also a few people that tried the beta bios and still have problems, and those are the people that I think may have other issues to continue addresing.

The word we have is that Gigabyte went back to using old code for this beta bios, while still supporting new processors, etc.. So what can be inferred is that somewhere along the line in the development process, gigabyte upgraded the code of their BIOS and in so doing introduced some kind of bug that causes this DPC latency spike pattern that so many people have reported. This is why some people have gone back to a really old BIOS version (which is not available for download anymore) and the DPC spiking went away. Other people communicated with Gigabyte and received from them a bios, a different version number depending on which mobo you have. For me it was version 13b. And in many cases, that eliminated the DPC spiking. It did for me.

Unfortunately this beta bios also introduces a new bug, in that the vcore setting can't be changed with beta bios 13b. This is important for overclocking. So what some of us are doing is to flash to F12, set the vcore and then flash back to 13b and luckily the vcore setting sticks this way. I was able to flash back and forth a few dozen times and eventually acheive an overclock setup that is stable and the way I want it, so now its just on 13b and running fine, with no DPC spikes.

We do not know for sure if Gigabyte is going to release these beta bios releases as production releases. I sure hope so and hopefully with the vcore bug fixed.

In any case, you should go to TweakTown.com and look in the Gigabyte forum there. Several tech support guys from Gigabyte will sometimes answer questions there, there is one guy named "Janus" from Gigabyte who has responded to many of us and provided us with custom built bios. My impression is that he was literally building a custom beta bios for everyone that asked. or you can email him directly: janus.yeh@gigabyte.com.tw. There are a few threads related to the DPC spiking on that TweakTown gigabyte forum as well.

There is nothing wrong with trying to make sure your system is running smoothly so you can sleep better at night knowing that you are not leaving some unresolved problem on the table.

ORIGINAL: foxwolfen

Gents,

Please allow me to apologize.

I do not know why this thread irritated me so much. Possibly because there was a lot of Gigabyte bashing going on up in the Sonar forum where the other threads similar to this one were.

It was unfair of me to take it out so harshly on you folks.

Cheers
Shad

Thanks, Shad. Apology accepted. I know you were trying to help.

I like this Gigabyte motherboard, and I'm impressed with their attempts to address the issue, especially since it only affects a small number of users, as you pointed out.

ORIGINAL: flankp

I didn't wait long enough, I was emailed the f4b beta bios, less than 48hrs for gigabyte to respond. I'm happy. :)

Glad to hear you got it. Does it work for you?

Well, it turns out that a reinstall of the M-audio drivers did the trick in clearing up the problem with sound loss in BF2. Geez, I only reinstalled because the problem became worse, I remembered it as an "incurable", how newbish. A driver reinstall... Anyways, still have the latency "ladder", but am not too worried with my system. I mailed Janus for a bios a few days ago, didn't hear from him yet.

I had quite high DPC latency spikes on my GA-P35-DS3 v 2.1 board (with an E8400) 1ms "ladders"
I was thinking of sending my gigabyte board back today but I received the 13k bios after logging a problem with gigabytes tech support.
This is the link they sent me (it works at the moment)

GA-P35-DS3 v 2.1 board

http://ggts.gigabyte.eu/FileList/618226/p35ds3.13k

No more high latency! Hovering around 2-5 micros peaks to 45 when I open up sonar.

Hope this is a useful contribution

Beta BIOS v. F4h for GA-EP35-DS4 rev. 2.1: EP35DS4.F4H
Same results as F4b regarding the DPC latency. I don't really know what this version fixes. Maybe the problem of not being able to change CPU voltage, haven't checked.

Sorry if this is a repost, too busy using the DAW now that my DPC spiking is fixed.


Thanks to Janus, and the Tweaktown forum, the fix for the GA-P35C-DS3R was BIOS F11.

Everything i got from the GB website (F1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 11e) gave 500-800µs at idle with spikes to 1000-1200µs every 5 secs. Removing Easytune helped a bit, but the F11 BIOS got me down to an even 5-6µs at idle, 20-30µs with a project running in Sonar.

Hope it works for you too. If anyone needs the file, PM me.

Regards

Thanks for letting us know Dan! can't wait to try it, but I can't seem to find it. Where did you find it?

Installed the official BIOS F4 and then the latest F5. Everything seems to work fine with the DPC latency now staying at 5-10us most of the time (when there is no disk activity).

The latest F5 is available at http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=2744.

This was F2:


This is F5:

New BIOS F6a for EP35-DS4 (rev. 2.1) is out. The website says it's a beta version.

It can be downloaded at http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_DownloadFile.aspx?FileType=BIOS&FileID=13926.

infinity2009


Hi,
ive been reading here with a lot of interest as i have had pretty much the same problems with my GA-81945G Pro - awful latency issues. ive tried flashing the bios with various versions available through Gigabyte but no joy.
Is there a Beta Bios available or some advice someone can give me to sort this out on a GA-81945G Pro ? driving me mental.
many thanks in advance

mike

Welcome to the forum, Mike.

It would help if you told us more about your system, like which audio interface are you using. You're problems could turn out to not be your motherboard/BIOS at all. Also, if you're using the built-in sound chips instead of a real audio interface, you should expect latency problems.

Mike - Are you using ASIO or WDM drivers? Assuming you are, did you already go though the routine of adjusting your latency buffers?

Mike - I'm assuming you already checked which chipset your motherboard's firewire interface is using. Is it Texas Instruments (TI)?

Well the last thing I can think of are applications that may be running. Maybe anti-virus, or drive indexing, etc. I'm assuming you've already used msconfig and disabled everything that's not absolutely necessary.

If that's not it, then I have no idea also.