I've had it with this board...

[madpete]

Theres barely a day goes by when this mobo doesn't annoy me, I'm counting the days till grouper arrives. One day it's the best mobo in the world, the next its a bag of pants.

Its been overnight prime stable at 2.98ghz for a few days, today I tried the new 7/02 bios and got instability so flashed back to the bios I was using before (6/23) and used cmos reloaded to set the EXACT settings I had before....yep you guest it, totally unstable...not even close to stable....ARRRGGHH :slapass:

This is just typical of this mainboard, and I cant stand it anymore, it makes you lose hair and sleep and waste hours of your life for no reason.

[The Mofo]

Why did you flash to an alpha bios? :ROTF: If its not broke, dont fix it.

One thing ive learned with DFI.. Take what you can get, greed always comes back to get you later with the board.

[madpete]

Why did you flash to an alpha bios? :ROTF: If its not broke, dont fix it.

One thing ive learned with DFI.. Take what you can get, greed always comes back to get you later with the board.


You got that right, damn thing cant make it mind up if its stable or not.

[perkam]

yet ANOTHER DFI problem thread...wow...looks like DFI isnt asus afterall huh :p:

Quite dissappointing really, but perhaps they put all those features in thinking stability would not be an issue :p: It's really quite sad to see max oc dependable upon, of all things, what mood your mobo is in today :shakes:

Perkam

[LowRun]

Yeah, i hear you man, this is typical of something that is unacceptable but common with some of the DFI boards. The ice on the cake for the European users is that DFI support is one of the crappiest one can imagine. I too am looking forward for the grouper but ATI seems deeply asleep these days.

[jinu117]

Only if Asus can bake out half assed bios now a day... I loved asus, I still do for their boards stability... just oc'ing does get very limited... Was one of first to get SLI board from them and was SEVERLY disappointed with not working HTT lock, etc. Even when it was fixed, they kept introducing wierd little stuff.

[timpanogos]

I've had a few issues, but I'm actually quite pleased with this board. I've gone from 1/25 to 3/10 to 4/14 back to 3/10 to 510-2 and now to 623-2 (tried -1 and -3).

I've used my own personalized "optimized" saved settings for all changes .. and my working oc (250*11 2.2.2.5) settings have not needed to change that much between all of them. I've done multiple hardware swaps, changes and mods .. always right back to stable - after tweaks for various changes (i.e. booster, sio mod, bios changes etc). I'm just not seeing all the nightmares that everyone else keeps seeing.

Maybe my day is just around the corner .. who knows .. but my experience till now just does not reflect that much trouble.

[madpete]

I spent all afternoon playing around with it again, gave the Mushkin a run out for awhile then went back to the TCCD and loaded those SAME SETTINGS again and now its stable. :confused:

If this board was human it would be a woman, no doubt about it :p:

Man I swear it just does it to p*ss me off. :D

[ozzimark]

I spent all afternoon playing around with it again, gave the Mushkin a run out for awhile then went back to the TCCD and loaded those SAME SETTINGS again and now its stable. :confused:
i find my dfi nf3-250 behaves differently from a boot when it previously had no power.. most notably, if i leave any voltage on 'auto', it goes to stock instead of it's last used value.

[stu_allen]

and used cmos reloaded to set the EXACT settings I had before....


Well theres your problem. Do NOT use CMOS reloaded when youve flashed our bios - set the settings manually.

[madpete]

Even if your using the same bios? Surely not, otherwise there would be little point.

[TheMeatFrog]

I like to use the settings OPB uses when I flash from a floppy...

Drop this in your autoexec.bat and give it a try :D

awdflash BIOSNAME.BIN /py /sn /cd /cp /cc /r /f

Just heads up this will reset your bios so if you don't know your settings by heart write them down before flashing with these settings if you don't want to lose them! :p:

[xs64]

Yeah, i hear you man, this is typical of something that is unacceptable but common with some of the DFI boards. The ice on the cake for the European users is that DFI support is one of the crappiest one can imagine. I too am looking forward for the grouper but ATI seems deeply asleep these days.
Me too :toast:
DFI support - RMA is nightmare :slapass:

[darksparkz]

DFI really does have the high voltages and high vdimm and stuff. But, only like 1 of 10 is stable while being tested. You have to be lucky to recieve a good motherboard, there are some that have to return it 3 times over just to get one working.

[Kunaak]

the funny thing is...

all you ever hear about, is the people that have problems with the board.
never when someone has a good board.
its the people that have problems that make the most noise.

if 1 in 10 was really the success rate for this board, do you really think people would buy them?

[xs64]

the funny thing is...

all you ever hear about, is the people that have problems with the board.
never when someone has a good board.
its the people that have problems that make the most noise.

if 1 in 10 was really the success rate for this board, do you really think people would buy them?
I dont mean the quality , i mean the support of DFI . Imagine my friend got 7 board RMA Lanparty NF2U in 1 year :nono: and now he still got nightmares with DFI :hehe: :horse:

[Kunaak]

after the 3rd board, I would pretty much assume, its not the board, but some other part of hardware, and begin looking at the other parts of my computer.

7 damaged boards in a row is nearly impossible.

[Badong]

the funny thing is...

all you ever hear about, is the people that have problems with the board.
never when someone has a good board.
Maybe it is due the fact that there are problems with boards? :)


its the people that have problems that make the most noise.

if 1 in 10 was really the success rate for this board, do you really think people would buy them?
Who said about 1 in 10? And what do you mean by the success rate?
A regular user who got an advice from his techie friend / read a review or forum might never experience half of the problems with DFI's boards.
An overclocker or just a power user who stresses, tweaks and pushes his system will notice all kind of issues.
And you can't really say that the board is flawless...

Take a recent exapmle with DFI's nForce3 Ultra board.
The BIOS is so undeveloped / untested that it makes you wonder how the board went reatil...

Personally, i think that DFI remained 3rd party OEM manufacturer in terms of product support and customer service. They hired Oskar who does a great job there, but somehow i have a feeling that DFI's R&D are loaded with future projects and current products are being neglected in some way...

[xs64]

7 damaged boards in a row is nearly impossible.
but it is ;)

@ badong : when Sapphire releases the ATI CF board , DFI must have watch their back :D

[The Mofo]

Well theres your problem. Do NOT use CMOS reloaded when youve flashed our bios - set the settings manually.

Why reset CMOS after a flash? I find this to be the problem with peoples reflashes.

[LowRun]

the funny thing is...

all you ever hear about, is the people that have problems with the board.
never when someone has a good board.
its the people that have problems that make the most noise.

if 1 in 10 was really the success rate for this board, do you really think people would buy them?

So false, the ones that make the most noise are the ones like OPP, bigtoe, OPB and others great ocers that get test samples and start threads like "Looks like XXX got a winner" with incredible numbers inside. Those threads are generaly seen by thousands of peeps and the hype begins followed by disappointment for some of the adopters and they are by far not all newbies.

[amrgb]

I never had a problem with this board and tried several bioses. I ALWAYS load my saved configuration across bios versions with NO issue so far (sometimes there are settings such as the RAID ones that change with different bios versions but its a matter of changing to the correct setting).

I must confess that when I bought this board and was mounting my system my knees were shaking and I praied a lot for the gods of overclocking. In the end my experience was far from being the nightmare others have experienced.

Also, my overclock has always been stable across different bios versions, with slight changes from bios to bios and I never noticed differences running the sames bios, except for the ones related with the ambient temperature that rose in the past weeks/months.

And please, don't compare the Asus and boards alike with this one. They are totally different. They are built for two distinct things: performance vs stability/compatibility.

Asus is noob-proof. DFI is not. Asus can take almost any hardware (memory, PSU, whatever) on it. DFI don't.

[The Mofo]

I think if there werent so many memory options at the time this board was released, the stack of problems wouldnt be so high or noted With people using old BH5, Micron, UTT, TCCD and TCC5, its tough giving people great performance with all of those kinds of memory.

I have a feeling the next DFI based on the ATI chipset wont see half the problems the NF4 is seeing. Half the complaints can be contributed to the 4V mod as well.

DFI made it real easy for the noobs to play with hardware in such a manner theyre not prepared. If you just go comb most noob forums, read some of the funny stuff people are posting about. They go on about how much experience they have building systems but if you review their past threads, their asking how to setup raids, flash bios and the famous Critique my system threads. Thats my feeling about it anyways. :toast:

[wtz54321]

Theres barely a day goes by when this mobo doesn't annoy me, I'm counting the days till grouper arrives. One day it's the best mobo in the world, the next its a bag of pants.

Its been overnight prime stable at 2.98ghz for a few days, today I tried the new 7/02 bios and got instability so flashed back to the bios I was using before (6/23) and used cmos reloaded to set the EXACT settings I had before....yep you guest it, totally unstable...not even close to stable....ARRRGGHH :slapass:

This is just typical of this mainboard, and I cant stand it anymore, it makes you lose hair and sleep and waste hours of your life for no reason.

As far as I know , do not use CMOS reloaded setting between different bios version ... There may be some different cmos define between different bios version ... And before you complain about the unstable , you should check with the non-oc configuration first to see if the system is not even stable in non-oc setup ... I don't think it's the board or bios problem ... You are dealing with overclocking , not general system ...

[wtz54321]

Personally, i think that DFI remained 3rd party OEM manufacturer in terms of product support and customer service. They hired Oskar who does a great job there, but somehow i have a feeling that DFI's R&D are loaded with future projects and current products are being neglected in some way...

I think DFI is ok in taking care of current product ... At least we still see that DFI update the bios for the user when they complain or add the new function for us ... You can check with ABIT or MSI forum about the complain and how they react , not any good compare to DFI ...

[madpete]

As far as I know , do not use CMOS reloaded setting between different bios version ... There may be some different cmos define between different bios version ... And before you complain about the unstable , you should check with the non-oc configuration first to see if the system is not even stable in non-oc setup ... I don't think it's the board or bios problem ... You are dealing with overclocking , not general system ...


Thats fair comment, except that as I pointed out before I only used cmos reloaded with the same bios version (6/23). Flashed to 7/02 to test, didn't like it so went back to 6/23 and used Cmos reloaded. I do not believe Cmos reloded to be the problem anyway, as i clear cmos a few times and tried manual setting afterwards too.

One thing I would say is that I have been in this game long enough to know when something is buggy, and in my opinion this board is very buggy. It can't make up its mind, it will be ok for a while then throw a wobbler for no reason.

I get access to a lot of hardware, and have tried differant PSU's (PCP&P, Enermax, OCZ), RAM, HDD's (SATA and IDE), CPU's (FX-53, 3800+ Venice, 4000+ Sandy, FX-55) nothing has changed the querky schizophrenic nature of this mobo...in my opinion it is flawed and I can't wait to get rid of it.

This is just my opinion, I dont not wish to upset anyone here, and I am not loyal / biased to any company. If DFI produce a great board in the Lanparty UT RDX200 CF-DR, then I would more than likely buy it as I would the grouper if thats a great board.

Just wish ATI would get a move on :stick:

[wtz54321]

One thing I would say is that I have been in this game long enough to know when something is buggy, and in my opinion this board is very buggy. It can't make up its mind, it will be ok for a while then throw a wobbler for no reason.

I think you need to check if the system is completely stable when you are in non-oc setup ... And try overclocking in the next step ... I really don't get it , but when you have been in the stable-unstable game long enough , why not find the real reason of the root cause ? Maybe it's the board you got is not a good one , maybe it's you so-called stable oc setting is not really that stable ... If I were you , I will reset all the setting and see if my system is stable under non-oc for one-week ... If it's not stable even in non-oc , I will send the board back and stop using that board ...

[madpete]

Ok, but this is the point i am trying to make here...

Last week when running @ 2.98ghz I left the PC running prime95 toture test for a little under 24hrs, it passed with no problems at all. This week with those same settings, same hardware etc, its not stable. Either its not stable at those settings, or it is, which is it?

Maybe your right, maybe i have a faulty board i wont discount that possibilty, but I have seen so many people post with very similar experiences of this board that it makes me wonder.

[wtz54321]

Ok, but this is the point i am trying to make here...

Last week when running @ 2.98ghz I left the PC running prime95 toture test for a little under 24hrs, it passed with no problems at all. This week with those same settings, same hardware etc, its not stable. Either its not stable at those settings, or it is, which is it?

Maybe your right, maybe i have a faulty board i wont discount that possibilty, but I have seen so many people post with very similar experiences of this board that it makes me wonder.

We are here dealing with extreme overclocking ... When you overclock the system to the edge , even one degree of room temperature variation makes the difference ... How do you know your setup is complete stable no matter what kind of situation that will happened ? 24hrs of prime95 does not gurantee that the when you complete 1st 24hrs of non-fail testing , it can do it once again ... Remember , the test program is always a specified pattern ... So check the system is complete stable for non-oc setting about 1 week and do the next step ...

[Walrusbonzo]

i find my dfi nf3-250 behaves differently from a boot when it previously had no power.. most notably, if i leave any voltage on 'auto', it goes to stock instead of it's last used value.


Yeah, I get the same issue with my DFI NF3 board, I'm running 24/7, with a few reboots inbetween. Occasionally, and without me changing BIOS settings, the system becomes instable, so much so that Prime 95 will error out in seconds. I simple turn it off, clear the CMOS, reset the BIOS exactly like it was, and bingo, it's stable again until the next random occasion where it decides it wants to play funny buggers.

Thankfully these random occasions only occur every 3 to 4 weeks.

[mongoled]

DFI made it real easy for the noobs to play with hardware in such a manner theyre not prepared. If you just go comb most noob forums, read some of the funny stuff people are posting about. They go on about how much experience they have building systems but if you review their past threads, their asking how to setup raids, flash bios and the famous Critique my system threads. Thats my feeling about it anyways. :toast:

Heeehehee really fun, where as some peeps may be genuine others will be the n00bs you refer to...heheheeee

:eek2:

[mongoled]

Ok, but this is the point i am trying to make here...

Last week when running @ 2.98ghz I left the PC running prime95 toture test for a little under 24hrs, it passed with no problems at all. This week with those same settings, same hardware etc, its not stable. Either its not stable at those settings, or it is, which is it?

Maybe your right, maybe i have a faulty board i wont discount that possibilty, but I have seen so many people post with very similar experiences of this board that it makes me wonder.

What you mind telling me if the ambient temperature within the case/room/freezer :D was the same as last week?

thanxs

[madpete]

Lol, it was actually hotter last week when it worked fine, maybe we're going about this the wrong way and it likes heat :p:

[dnottis]

Ive seen the same issue with mine, one day it will Prime 24+ hours. A few days later without a setting change I will prime it and fail in 15 mins. I have conceeded the fight and dropped a few MHz and now it seems to consistently be able to prime for long periods of time.

Awhile back I was using the MSI Neo2, picked up the EPOX 9NDA3J board to play with. The Neo2 would let me OC about 5 MHZ on the HT higher (~40-50Mhz clock speed), however I was having the same problem where it would prime for hours, then next run would fail in minutes. So upon getting the EPOX I realized I could not overclock quite as high while using it. The way I looked at it was that the MSI neo2 was giving me a bit more from the chip with the tradeoff being rock stability, whereas the Epox was probably giving me a more honest overclock since it was not allowing me to prime at all at the higher overclock but would never prime for 10 hours then 10 mins. Anyways I think the DFI board is doing the same thing, allowing us to run the CPU a bit higher than what is actually 100% stable.

At 2.8GHz (1.64v and up to 1.69) I can prime like this (20 hr,then 20min), however I backed off to 2770 1.60 v and I have never failed prime yet.


...and still running!!

http://www.3dxtreme.net/other/CPUS/3200%20LBBLE%200516EPGW/32hrprime.jpg

[EMC2]

I think DFI is ok in taking care of current product ... At least we still see that DFI update the bios for the user when they complain or add the new function for us ... You can check with ABIT or MSI forum about the complain and how they react , not any good compare to DFI ...

On this one we would agree :D Much better BIOS updating than most manufacturers... only complaint there would be the time to make the Vmem init change ;)

And I've seen problems with using CMOS reload when changing BIOS versions... but not when using same BIOS version as CMOS reload was for. Have also gotten into the habit now of doing a full clear when flashing to different BIOS revisions using "/cc /cd /cp" switch settings on AWDFlash.

Peace :toast:

[The Mofo]

Heeehehee really fun, where as some peeps may be genuine others will be the n00bs you refer to...heheheeee

:eek2:

Ive been doing this since 1991.. yourself?

[Dumo]

It depend on what is stable for ea. system. My 55SD can bench/game @3.49Ghz with phase, but probly will fail prime @ 20 seconds (never care to try it) with ultra-d mobo.
I got this mobo when it 1st. available @ retail and never give me any problem....ran with air or phase.....stable :D

[flexy]

Theres barely a day goes by when this mobo doesn't annoy me, I'm counting the days till grouper arrives. One day it's the best mobo in the world, the next its a bag of pants.

Its been overnight prime stable at 2.98ghz for a few days, today I tried the new 7/02 bios and got instability so flashed back to the bios I was using before (6/23) and used cmos reloaded

NEVER use CMOS reloaded after a flash !!!!!

ALways manually redi everything !

Uses CMOS reloaded ONLY within a certain bios version - never transfer settigns from one bios version to the other !

BUT - i have to agree with you....i know what you are talking about.

sadly....

[mongoled]

Lol, it was actually hotter last week when it worked fine, maybe we're going about this the wrong way and it likes heat :p:

Hehheee, who knows, wouldnt be the strangest thing in the world. Just imagine, different heat spots within the case could be effecting the flow of air (convection currents) changing critical temps in certain areas of the case

:D

Ive been doing this since 1991.. yourself?

Not that long really, I got my first computer September 2001, after half an hour looking at the case, it was in bits on my floor, another hour later I was on the phone to a friend of mine trying to find out what the bios does. Of course he didnt know, the rest is history

:)