BIOS Setup

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 mainboard uses very common looking BIOS based on Award-Phoenix micro-code. However, Gigabyte engineers expanded and adapted some of its features and functions for their particular mainboard in a very creative way.

Gigabyte mainboards used to have a few unpleasant issues. For example, they hid some of the important BIOS settings, so that many users had really hard times finding them. to get full access to the entire list of available BIOS features, you had to press Ctrl-F1 from the main menu. Now this key combination provides only a few additional options in the Integrated Peripherals and PnP/PCI Configurations sections.

First of all, let’s check out Advanced BIOS Features page for two very good reasons. In our recent review of ASRock 4Core1600P35-WiFi+ mainboard we pointed out that it could automatically boot from a USB Flash Drive. To enable this option you have to set USB on top of the list in the Boot Menu, the mainboard detects connected devices upon boot-up and if the USB drive is a boot-up device, it will start. Advanced BIOS Features of Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 mainboard also offers the same option: USB-HDD.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get it to work, and the board wouldn’t boot from a USB flash drive automatically. Like on many other mainboards, you have to connect the USB drive to the system to be detected, then access the BIOS and set it as the first boot-up device. Or you have to press Esc on boot-up to access the boot menu and select the desired device manually.

The second reason, why we paid special attention to Advanced BIOS Features page is the CPU parameters that other mainboards often have singled out into a separate CPU Features section or placed closer to the page with overclocking friendly functions. There is nothing wrong with these parameters being placed into Advanced BIOS Features section, as they are not changed that frequently anyway. Only one of them – CPU EIST Function – caused us some problems. This parameter deals with power-saving technologies, such as Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology and is enabled by default. If we change the processor clock frequency multiplier, these power-saving technologies get disabled and even the CPU EIST Function parameter disappears from the Advanced BIOS Features section.

At this point, there is nothing wrong, but the problems appear when we return the processor clock frequency multiplier to its default value. CPU EIST Function appears again, but this time it is Disabled. The problem is that we change the multiplier in the MB Intelligent Tweaker section, and the CPU EIST Function should be enabled in a completely different section – Advanced BIOS Features. It would be rally great if at least one CPU EIST Function parameter could be moved to the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T) section, otherwise you can simply forget to change it back.

Let’s move on. The next section we will discuss is PC Health Status. It has been significantly improved compared with what we saw on other Gigabyte mainboards. However, it could be even better, as there is certainly no limit to perfection :)

Now we see actual voltages instead of OK or Fail that hardly mean anything. Among them are processor Vcore and Vmem, and the memory voltage has been increased to 2.1V. We didn’t do it manually, it is simply the default voltage for our Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-9136C5D, as written in the modules SPD. Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 mainboard read it from the SPD and set in the BIOS. However, overclockers wouldn’t mind also having the current North Bridge voltage and temperature readings, too.

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 mainboard can control rotation speed of four fans out of five that can be connected to it. It is also great. You can enable failure alarm for three of these fans, but you can actually adjust the rotation speed of only one processor fan.

This is indeed the most important fan in the system. The temperature inside the system case changes slowly and gradually, so it is important but not obligatory to have the option to adjust rotation speed of case fans. Only the processor temperature can double in a matter of seconds from the safe 35°С to the dangerous 70°С once the workload increases. That is why we only have two choices: to constantly maintain the cooling efficiency at the maximum, or to adjust it depending on the processor temperature at the given moment of time. Gigabyte mainboards are among those few boards that can still adjust the rotation speed of the processor fan even if it only has a three-pin connector. It is a great advantage that can determine our decision in favor of Gigabyte’s mainboard over a solution from some other manufacturer. However, there is still room for improvement.

As we have already mentioned, by default all Gigabyte mainboards use very aggressive algorithm for processor fan rotation speed management. It usually doesn’t even start upon boot-up. As a result, the fanless chipset cooling system heats up tremendously without additional airflow from the CPU cooler. It is more or less acceptable for nominal work modes, but becomes pretty dangerous during overclocking with increased voltage. You can use some utilities to change the adjustment algorithm parameters, but it would be much more convenient to have the settings available to us from the mainboard BIOS. In this case the “correct” adjustment mode will kick in right after the system boots, and not when we load the OS and launch the appropriate utilities.

As for the adjustment of other fans rotation speed, it is not a must, but it would be nice to have around. And we don’t really need the complicated connections between the temperature and fan rotation speeds. All we need is the option to set the fans rotation speed at a few given levels, for example from 60% to 100% with a 10% increment. It could be much easier to implement. In this case any user could find the best operational mode for all other fans in the system, such as case fans, for instance.