ST20G5 Graphic Flickering & USB2.0 Boot Support

[th3_soul]

I recently received my new ST20G5 and ran into a few small problems during the build process. Firstly the machine would freeze at post if a USB2.0 DVD drive was plugged in, even though it works fine once booted into Windows XP.

The second problem occured when trying to set the primary screen using the 15 PIN VGA connector to 32bit 1280x1024, the screen would flicker and flash until brought back to 16bit mode. Through a few forum's i've read it indicates this may of been working in a earlier release of the BIOS firmware, but I need the more recent version for AMD X2 Support.

I tested the memory using SiSoftware Sandra, I have 2 x 512 Mb Corsair TwinX-XL's (DDR, PC3200XLPT, Cas 2) installed in the system and was of the understanding that the system as well as the DIMMS were Dual Channel. When running the Benchmark it came back with the following: (excerpt from report)

Logical/Chipset 2 Memory Banks
Bank 0 : 512MB DDR-SDRAM 2.0-2-2-5 2CMD
Bank 1 : 512MB DDR-SDRAM 2.0-2-2-5 2CMD
Channels : 1
Bank Interleave : 2-way
Speed : 2x 201MHz (402MHz data rate)
Width : 128-bit
Maximum Memory Bus Bandwidth : 6432MB/s (estimated)

Can anyone verify if this would indicate that the Memory is running in a single channel mode and there is something I can modify in the bios to change this? Compared to other systems it was almost half of what I would expect the results to be.

Any feedback regarding the above problems would be appreciated, even if your running into the same difficulties I have.

I'm running BIOS version FT20S013, any help appreciated with any of the above.

-------------------
ST20G5
AMD 4200 X2
2 x 512 CorsairTwinX-XL PC3200
250GB MAXTOR SATA
USB Liteon DVD-RW 1653SX

[SilentDeath]

If its a s939 board, you should be abe to use dual channel.

That bandwidth sounds like dual channel to me.
Single channel theoretical bandwidth (not taking latencys into account) = 64 bit bus*400mhz/8 to convert to bytes

For dual chan, double that - and your 6432 is 32MB more than it should be

[th3_soul]

Sorry tt seams I have pasted the wrong part of the benchmark results, the actual benchmarks came back as such:

Benchmark Results
RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2 : 2205 MB/s
RAM Bandwidth Float Buff'd iSSE2 : 2186 MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

A number of other test systems AMD or INTEL that it compared it to came back in the 4000 MB/s + region.

I have also received word back from Shuttle regarding the graphics problem, they have sent me a new firmware FT20S015 which they believe the problem has been resolved. I'll report back once I have had a chance to try it tonight.

[dvlierop]

Any progress on the flickering issue? I've got the exact same problem, running in 16bit mode really sucks I just tried using an old analog CRT instead of a my DVI TFT, but the flickering didn't go away. I also tried using various bios versions, from the shipped U-version to the latest 015, and from the shipped ATI drivers 4.12 to the latest ATI catalyst 5.8 but to no avail. I'm about to return it...

[th3_soul]

Nothing as yet, tried numerous things without avail. I'm running an Acer AL1914 19" TFT Monitor and works fine with my laptop and other machines. Even in 16bit mode I have tried running games such as Halflife 2 and firstly its extremely slow but also the flickering returns.

I'm still in contact with Shuttle Support trying to resolve the problem, if I can't I may be forced to either return the system if possible or get an additonal graphics card.

[th3_soul]

dvlierop I managed to fix the issue I was having with 32bit mode in Windows. After running Sandra I discovered I was getting low memory benchmark results. Here is a post that I put in another thread going through the steps on how I fixed the memory problem and as it seams the 32bit Windows issue as well:

---------------------------

Well it seams I accidently solved the problem, playing around with the BIOS settings I raised the memory speed from 200mhz -> 250mhz which stopped the machine from going through post. I pressed the CMOS clear button on the back of the shuttle and re-entered the values (from what I can understand the same as previous) and booted into Windows.

After running Sandra again I am now getting the following results:

SiSoftware Sandra

Benchmark Results
RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2 : 4817 MB/s
RAM Bandwidth Float Buff'd iSSE2 : 4799 MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

This has also fixed the problem that I was having using 32bit mode in Windows. Thanks Killie99 for your help during the day.

---------------------------

[dvlierop]

I already figured it could be a memory problem as the IGP uses the main memory, but I hadn't looked into this yet. I wonder though what bandwith I'm getting myself. Let's find out if my ST20G5 is configured properly...

Anyway, I mailed Shuttle yesterday and they expected the BIOS to cause the problems and advised me to get the 015 update. Well, I had been running that version before but had reverted to the shipped U version with the old ATI 4.12 drivers. Anyway, installing the 015 version again did do the trick this time! Shuttle !!! (crossing my fingers it won't go wrong again tomorrow)

Maybe using the commandline parameters which Shuttle gave me made the difference, as I used WinFlash before. This is Shuttle's reply, might be usefull for someone, someday...

Dear Sir,

The 15 BIOS fixes the "flicker" problem. Please
install it in pure DOS mode as follow:

a:\awdflash ft20s015.bin /cc/cd/cp/sn/py/f/r

ftp://ftp.shuttle.com/BIOS/st20g5/ft20s015.bin

Best Regards
Shuttle Support - Germany

Update Aug. 23th: Shuttle confirmed that it was probably due to the commandline parameters, as they clear the DMI, CMOS, etc.. Without that old CMOS data will be used for new BIOS