Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3: BIOS Mania

To be fair, the vast majority of P965 motherboards on launch day had several issues and some still do two months later. While the majority of these launch issues centered on memory compatibility and were easily rectified with either budget or very high-end memory choices, this chipset was designed for the mid-range performance sector, a sector that typically was not going to utilize generic DDR2-533 memory or spend more on DDR2-1000 modules than the cost of the motherboard and CPU combined. Over time the majority of issues have been solved through BIOS releases, updated memory SPD settings, and a more thorough understanding of the Intel P965 chipset and its capabilities.

Getting back to the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, upon release we encountered some memory compatibility issues, the JMicron IDE controller caused most optical drives to be stuck in PIO mode, there were sporadic overclocking issues with USB peripherals, and booting at various FSB speeds seemed to be the most common issues with the F1 or F2 BIOS. The memory compatibility issue was a show stopper at times. The primary issue was the board was providing the standard Intel specification of 1.8V for the memory at POST and several memory modules that defaulted to tighter timings with 2.0V or 2.1V would not allow the board to POST. One workaround was to place a 1.8V capable module in the board, boot, enter the BIOS, set the memory voltage at +.3V, save the settings, reboot, shut down, reinstall the original memory, and boot the motherboard. While not a sufficient answer to the problem, it did work for those having this boot issue.