NF7-S 2.0 headaches

[GMX]

Hi
The board hasn't acted nice since it came out of it's box. Intermittently, in startup it beeps, 1 long beep consistently->reseat RAM. But my RAM is seated properly. I have tried all these seperately and in different slots:
2x256mb TCCD
2x256 Twinmos SP
1x256 Pmi Value
1x256 Spectek
I cannot test the RAM in other computer since I have no other DDR board.
Sometimes the board will boot. I managed to Install windows (by the way it is starting to boot more often until about 8 hours ago). When it did boot the TCCD sticks were in slots 1 & 3
Any help or advice or just return and recieve another?

[Gray Mole]

When in doubt, RMA...

It's a pain, but if you've tried that many varieties of ram, and it's still reporting ram errors, it's the best bet...

Incidentally, have you tried to update the bios to the latest available? (From the manufacturer, of course)

Even if it seems to have gone away, I'd still be inclined to RMA it, Don't want that problem to return JUST after it's out of warranty...

Gray

[GMX]

The board shipped with D27 from the distributor.
Well when it booted in the bottom corner it said " nforce -bunch of numbers-27"
So i assume it's D27. It's also one of those new boards with the blue/green DIMM slots.

[Gray Mole]

I didn't last long with the stock bios's, went to merlin's and then tictac's and it helped me a lot, but in your case, I'd be sticking to stock...

If you want to try, and can get it stable long enough to try, flash the d27 back onto it...just download a fresh bios, and use the flash utility to put it on...

Read the instructions first and all that, not oc'd, clear the cmos before and after, and set to 'optimised' in the bios and reboot after it's flashed, then go on to resetting all your bios parameters...

Could be a corrupt bios that's in there from the start...

Just don't try to flash it if you think it might crap out during the flash, though I guess that'd force you to rma it, I suppose...

Until you know whether you've got a good or bad board, don't go near any modded bioses, if that's what you were wanting to do...I used 'em but then I never really cared much for warranties :rolleyes:

Gray

[GMX]

After playing around with it last night till 3:30am it never booted again. Called the distributor, got a number, called the courier new one should come tomorrow.

Yeah on my first two boards that flew i used Tictac's BIOSs but they suddenly died a week later when nothing was changed. I"ll get a bios saviour next time. Another wierd thing is when i insert a working tbird 800 it works into windows/causes beeps. My 1600XP with soldered pins works/beeps. Unfortunately my 2600Xpm doesn't bother to boot or beep on any occasion! Though there is a little little chip on the bottom corner. The tbird is chipped all around it and still works.

Ah well i"ll just get sempron 2200/2300 and torture it.

[Gray Mole]

heheh good choice, they seem to be oc'in quite well

I did the wire trick with my mobile, made it a lot more reliable and fsb clocked higher...

Later revisions of tictac and merlin bios's had the l12 mod included...

It happens, you get a duff board on occasion and there's nothing you can do about it...

It's just nice that your supplier is taking care of you, and I've always found Abit, like ocz, to be pretty good when it comes to rma...

Good luck on the next one :)

Gray

[Nubius]

gray mole - you got a link to the particular wire mod you used? I've found a couple and they each say to put the wires in a different spot lol so I'd be more comfortable using one from someone who's done it. I'm using D26 black mantaray XT BIOS and it's pretty good. Games like to crash at a high FSB though, a quick fix was changing my AGP Aperture from 256mb to 128mb and that seemed to work but every once in a great while they'd still crash. I've been hearing that wire mod does indeed make em more stable so when I go to water cooling I figure I might as well try it.

If you still got that link I'd much appreciate it :D

[Gray Mole]

The D26 mantaray included the softmod of the L12 in the bios, so you don't need to put in the jumper at all...

I tried it with jumper and non L12 modded bios and vice-versa and found both to work equally well...

http://www.logan.eclipse.co.uk/abit_nf7_(s)_v2_0.htm

That one show's the L12 location. That's NOT to be confused with the Multiplier Mod, that allows for multiplier unlocking on semi-locked cpu's, which may be why you've seen different locations. They're both called a 'wire trick', but have different locations and uses.

I had both bios and jumper in at one point, but saw no benifit, and as I'm not partial to jumper mods anyway, I decided to use the softmodded bios instead.

:)

Gray

[Nubius]

Well when I did a search I simply looked for "L12 mod"

I'm using the softmod L12 as you know, but it doesn't really seem to perform any better than the non L12 that I used......is it ok to use the L12 wire mod inconjuction with the wire mod?

Thanks for the link, that's actually one of the ones I got and was the one I considered the most trustworthy lol, guess it was a good assumption

[Gray Mole]

Honestly I didn't notice any difference when I used both in there, so if you're happy to leave that jumper in, along with the bios being L12 modded, the choice is your's.

I just don't like to take chances, so I only used the Bios mod, and removed the jumper.

Gray