Gigabyte marketing BS - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Supercharged
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2016, 08:42:51 pm
content: I was searching for a new Motherboard and came across this (see picture). Now is it just me or does a PWM driven LED or even just a LED driven by a switching PSU in the guard track defeat the purpose of a guard track.Now i know that a guard track like this is not very effective but advertising this shows that most Gamers don't know much about the stuff they buy and take everything manufacturers say as Gospel.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2016, 08:50:09 pm
content: You are thinking of the wrong guard track. They must be referring to the sales guard track

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 31, 2016, 09:06:18 pm
content: What the hell, either those are PWM driven, or run off some sort of counter. Either is bad news for an audio circuit.I'd bet the engineer trying to lay out that board didn't enjoy their additions.If Gigabyte want to put LEDs into their motherboards, how about starting with the USB ports on the back so we can see the bloody things.For the record I hate gaming "ricer" motherboards and the like. Especially comical when the entire thing is hidden behind a steel sidepanel as no window was fitted to the case.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:01:45 am
content: I just don't see the point.It'd take me 5 minutes to dig my box out and remove the cover to evenseemy motherboard.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:07:01 am
content: Frankly, putting those LEDs on the digital side won't make much of an effect. There is already so much noise from the high speed digital circuits that PWMing some weak LEDs won't make any difference.BTW this is not a guard track, there are no tracks in that area, they separate the analog and digital grounds with them connected in one point.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:19:39 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on February 01, 2016, 01:01:45 amPeople buying such motherboards often use cases with a transparent side cover. Or almost fully transparent case. BTW I have the same thing on my ASUS motherboard too, though without any brightness regulation. Switched those LEDs off in the bios as they don't do any good for me. And I'm using a separate sound card anyway, not that Realtek codec hidden under the tiny metal shield so nobody can see what it really is, as they call it:"SupremeFX III built-in 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC"Solder a tiny shield on top, supply some obfuscated drivers and call it as you want.

author: Xplode
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 03:41:31 am
content: Haha. My new motherboard has this feature. Looks cool, but I was never really believing that it was actually a functional beneft.My brother's computer i just built has it as well, and you can make it pulse with the audio. Can't generate any noise from that idea can it?

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 09:28:27 am
content: What a load of bollocks.Not only are LEDs noisy, they are driving them from a PWM source with hard edges which have harmonics galore and it's inside a PC which has the noisiest shittiest switchmodes you can get for your money and crazy fast digital circuits all over the place.Not that you can hear the difference anyway.

author: ShatteredRAM
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 10:27:46 am
content: I have this on the ASUS X99-A, it doesn't have the fancy audio control and I don't know if it is switch-mode driven, but you are able to disable it in the BIOS.But yeah, its inside my case which sits under my desk with no clear side panels.

author: sdancer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 10:27:57 am
content: At least they didn'tput a valve in there.

author: Srbel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 11:11:17 am
content: That's nothing!I have a Gigabyte MB that is advertised with dual BIOS safe option (if 1 BIOS chip fails, after reboot, BIOS is read from second chip). And on my MB, both chips failed... At the same time.

author: Tim F
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 12:36:33 pm
content: Quote from: Srbel on February 01, 2016, 11:11:17 amAnother funny thing about the gigabyte dual bios is that it doesn't protect against the #1 enemy of a bios chip: the user flashing the wrong binary.

author: elgonzo
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 12:39:22 pm
content: Why is everybody complaining? Gigabyte does not seem to pretend that this MB is delivering Hifi audio. (it would then be called GA-Z170N-HIFI, no?)It says there right in the product name: GA-Z170N-WIFI. It should be pretty clear from the product name that this MB is only capable of delivering audio inwishy-washyfidelity...Also, the LED's cannot sit in or underneath a guard track - which would be made of copper. And to my knowledge, the light from a tiny LED does not shine through a copper trace.Obviously, the LED's sit somewhere (embedded?) in the PCB substrate, but why are some people here so certain about them sitting in the audio area? By all means and purposes they would in all likelihood sit outside the PCB area dedicated to the analog audio circuitry.And since the analog audio circuitry has to be shielded from the rest of the MB electronics and (high-speed) digital signal lines anyhow (assuming that GB is somewhat serious with its claims about audio quality), adding two or three PWM-controlled LEDs somewhere outside of the analog audio area should not make much of a difference... i guess...

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 12:49:31 pm
content: Because a Fiat doesn't need a Flux Capacitor.

author: voltlog
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:11:06 pm
content: Actually, I think the electronics/technical related marketing used on motherboards is the most advanced and outrageous there is.Military class written all over, polymer ultra special capacitors, 6 layer ultra reliable 35um copper and the list goes on..

author: elgonzo
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:13:40 pm
content: Quote from: MrSlack on February 01, 2016, 12:49:31 pmAre you sure?

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:19:52 pm
content: Hahahaha well played

author: AF6LJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:32:20 pm
content: Give them credit for raising the "Bling Bar"

author: elgonzo
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:40:25 pm
content: Quote from: AF6LJ on February 01, 2016, 01:32:20 pmI think Asus were the first to add a band of light to "highlight" the audio capabilities of their higher-end gamer motherboards. Apparently this has been perceived by GB as a marketing success, so GB marketing is just aping Asus.If one has to give credit for raising the "bling bar", then it has to go to MSI -- they offer fully illuminated motherboards for the "enthusiast" gamer with neither taste nor style...

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:46:06 pm
content: Quote from: Srbel on February 01, 2016, 11:11:17 amDid you clear cmos after the update? Or how did you determine that they failed?If CRC check calculates fine, it won't boot from the second flash chip. There is workaround by temporarily shorting pins 1 and 8 of the first flash IC in the right moment of the boot sequence.

author: Srbel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:48:57 pm
content: Quote from: Tim F on February 01, 2016, 12:36:33 pmThat was not the issue in my case. It just failed all of a sudden.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:50:35 pm
content: Quote from: Srbel on February 01, 2016, 01:48:57 pmDid you reprogram it? Or why you decided it was a corrupted bios?

author: Srbel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 01:51:50 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on February 01, 2016, 01:46:06 pmNothing to do with upgrade.I have determined it by not being incompetent.It was confirmed in the service shop (MB was still under warranty), and they have replaced the whole MB.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 02:12:14 pm
content: Quote from: Srbel on February 01, 2016, 01:51:50 pmIf they just replaced it, they had no way to confirm it. You cannot just look on the motherboard and determine that bios is corrupted. You need to remove the IC and read/reprogram it (or do that pin shorting trick), all of those result in functioning motherboard. There are tons of things than can fail on the motherboard, not just bios.

author: Supercharged
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 04:25:59 pm
content: Quote from: Srbel on February 01, 2016, 11:11:17 amFunny thing: this motherboard has the same thing.

author: kingofkya
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 10:28:24 pm
content: Quote from: Srbel on February 01, 2016, 11:11:17 amI have returned about 20 gigbyte g41 boards for that reasson:P too. If you guys are wondering the symptom the vga goes dead then if you reboot it it will not return.But still not too bad to lose 20 out of about 300ish boards that were in use at the time for 5+ years.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 10:32:12 pm
content: Quote from: sdancer on February 01, 2016, 10:27:57 amO. M. F. G. I have now seen it all.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 10:48:30 pm
content: Quote from: kingofkya on February 01, 2016, 10:28:24 pmDoes not sound like bios fail at all. Even if you remove the IC after the computer already have booted, computer will just keep working, no black screen. I wonder why so many people right away blame the bios if something fails. You can blame it without further investigation only if it failed during an update.

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 01:01:37 am
content: Quote from: kingofkya on February 01, 2016, 10:28:24 pmSince BIOS does a grand total of precisely nothing once a PC boots, it shouldn't affect VGA at all - so that seems to be an unlikely source of that particular failure mode.Fun tip: An old desperation way to flash a new bios chip was to pull the chip out of a running system, plug in the blank one, run a flash, and then swap the chips back. Once booted, the PC doesn't care if you yank the bios. Many people seem to be under the impression that the BIOS chip is some sort of processor - it isn't. It's just CMOS memory. Its loaded into processor memory once, at boot up, and that's it. If your system fails while in use the bios chip wasn't the problem.The one time I seriously suspected a bios chip failure, I had it replaced and the system still woudn't POST. Turned out to be a faulty PCI card. Always remove all unneeded components when troubleshooting, and replace them one by one - saves a lot of headache.As to the dual bios thing not protecting against bad flashes - I haven't had a gigabyte board in a while, but I seem to remember it doing exactly that. It would never flash both chips at once, and if one failed to boot it would automatically fail over to the other. The second chip was a backup of a known good flash. In fact, protecting against bad flash is exactly what gigabyte markets it as doing!People blame the BIOS for everything because they don't know what the real failure was and they just repeat something they heard someone else say. You see the same thing with cars - people will blame problems on all sorts of things when they don't know what's wrong - they're just repeating what they heard someone else blame problems on.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 01:11:50 am
content: I thought the backup BIOS chip on the Gigabyte boards was actually read only (not flashable).

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 01:14:48 am
content: Quote from: rdl on February 02, 2016, 01:11:50 amIt is flashable if you press special key sequence during boot. Then it allows you to copy from the main bios. Also in some rare cases if bios update is very critical (like preventing blowing mosfets), both of the chips can be flashed during the update too.

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 01:15:42 am
content: It might vary by model - I thought I remembered being able to flash the second bios from the BIOS setup menu, but their website says it always contains the factory flash, so perhaps they switched to read only or my memory is just faulty - that PC is over a decade old now.

author: Srbel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 07:30:50 am
content: NOTE: This message has been deleted by the forum moderator Simon for being against the forum rules and/or at the discretion of the moderator as being in the best interests of the forum community and the nature of the thread.If you believe this to be in error, please contact the moderator involved.An optional additional explanation is:

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 10:55:32 am
content: Quote from: Srbel on February 02, 2016, 07:30:50 amDo you have any critical thinking? I guess not, and I guess you have never repaired any motherboard, unlike me.Why I don't believe you, well, for believing people should go to the church. Extraordinary claims (2 chips failed at the same time even without updating the firmware) need extraordinary proof. You are bashing someone (Gigabyte) for their technology not working, yet the reason why youbelievethis in this case don't sound very plausible, that's all.BTW people who are checking the PC hardware for warranty cases and are not actually repairing, usually are clueless in electronics.

author: Srbel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 01:12:24 pm
content: NOTE: This message has been deleted by the forum moderator Simon for being against the forum rules and/or at the discretion of the moderator as being in the best interests of the forum community and the nature of the thread.If you believe this to be in error, please contact the moderator involved.An optional additional explanation is:

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 01:26:41 pm
content: Quote from: Srbel on February 02, 2016, 01:12:24 pmPlease study the geography. And the forum rules too.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/forum-rules-please-read/QuoteQuoteCompletely agree with you.

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 03:04:52 pm
content: 1. He's further east than you are.2. You don't get to post slagging off a company for a failure and then blame it on something that doesn't make any sense and then cry when someone points out that it doesn't make any sense. Grow up.