DFI expert delayed because of numerous board failures at monarch,, ughh,, what to do?

Well the wait continues for my DFI expert,... I called monarch on Friday and asked if they did actually have the expert in stock to which I was told yes they had 35 and I was the 32 order. So even though I usually stay away from monarch I ordered it. Well then no emails all week so I call tonight and the guy on the phone tells me this,

That he got an email saying that because of numerous board failures they are 5-6 boards behind on shipping and the new batch of 100 boards isnt coming in till the 12th. Monarch sells this combo of a CPU and mobo that a bunch of people ordered but when monarch put the CPU in to test the board for the people it failed or was faulty.

So I asked the guy why they were testing the boards and he said they normally didnt but they got so many phone calls of boards failing and having to RMA that they just started testing every DFI expert board that got send out ,,,,

So do I cancel my order and go with the Asus A8n32-sli or do I just wait till the 12th,,, I really want it sooner but I cant find it in stock anywhere I can cancel till then,,,,

what should I do ?

Why not get an Ultra-D?

Get the Asus, Great ocer.

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Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

Why not get an Ultra-D?

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I guess its an option although all the reviews I read and head to heads said the ultra D got like 30-40 less max FSB but it may not matter with the opt 170,,, im hoping to push my ram if it lets me,,, I may just go with the asus if I can ever find it in stock

I would get the Asus...:)

NewEgg looks to have just received a new shipment of the 170 and 175 Opty retail pkg. I'm trying to decide if my luck would be better there with the new product or with the 175 Opty from MWave that 's probably form an earlier batch.

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Originally Posted by shogan191

NewEgg looks to have just received a new shipment of the 170 and 175 Opty retail pkg. I'm trying to decide if my luck would be better there with the new product or with the 175 Opty from MWave that 's probably form an earlier batch.

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Are you posting in the right thread or do you not have a Corpus Callosum?

Corpus Callosum :fact:

http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/sagittal.gif

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Originally Posted by amrgb

Corpus Callosum :fact:

http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/sagittal.gif

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I like your qoutes, I remember reading that thread with venice3800 guy last week it was pretty ridiculous,,,

due to the recent rash of failures and CPU's going dead i think im gonna go witht he Asus if i can ever find it in stock,,,

as for the opt,,, how much cheaper is new egg for yo

get an asus.

My DFI expert seems to be keeping my opteron 165 ***STABLE*** at its stock speeds of 1.8 gighz.

I used to be able to clock 2.8, then 2.7, now not even 2.5

I dont know what is going on, but the board has major problems. I have spent hours screwing around with settings.

I agree with other posters, I never had any problems with my Lanparty SLI-DR, and this is supposed to be "Better"

My asus a8n-e cheapy test board that I paid 80 bucks for can OC higher.


To be blunt, this is just crap.

ive had no troubles with my expert.

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Originally Posted by xtrempinoy

ive had no troubles with my expert.

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Ditto, fingers and toes crossed :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by irev210

get an asus.

My DFI expert seems to be keeping my opteron 165 ***STABLE*** at its stock speeds of 1.8 gighz.

I used to be able to clock 2.8, then 2.7, now not even 2.5

I dont know what is going on, but the board has major problems. I have spent hours screwing around with settings.

I agree with other posters, I never had any problems with my Lanparty SLI-DR, and this is supposed to be "Better"

My asus a8n-e cheapy test board that I paid 80 bucks for can OC higher.


To be blunt, this is just crap.

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More info?

What volts did you have, what RAM and PSU did you use?

Great way to sell a product. "Oh, sorry your order is delayed because we have had numerous board failures" Can you imaging if they sold cars like that? Sheeesh . .

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Originally Posted by xgman

Great way to sell a product. "Oh, sorry your order is delayed because we have had numerous board failures" Can you imaging if they sold cars like that? Sheeesh . .

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yeah I know can you imagine that,,, but anyway I cant seem to find the asus a8n32-sli instock anywhere and im not sure if its worth going with the expert till they send out a new production run with the bugs fixed,,,, I would feel weird setting up,,, installing, and overclocking my opt 170 I just bought if there is a chance of it blowing up,,, or failing

Why order form monarch. I got mine from Newegg the day they had it. Was delivered quickly. No problems.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

irev board doesnt have major problems. Thats your OPINION. It works great for many people.

Remember this board is different from sli-dr you have to learn it again. Maybe our doing something wrong or dont know what your doing.
Will be there on the 11th

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Originally Posted by CrashOv3r1De

Why order form monarch. I got mine from Newegg the day they had it. Was delivered quickly. No problems.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

irev board doesnt have major problems. Thats your OPINION. It works great for many people.

Remember this board is different from sli-dr you have to learn it again. Maybe our doing something wrong or dont know what your doing.
Will be there on the 11th

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I think Pedro knows what he's doing. Sounds like a line from DFI forums.

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Originally Posted by xgman

Great way to sell a product. "Oh, sorry your order is delayed because we have had numerous board failures" Can you imaging if they sold cars like that? Sheeesh . .

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I disagree wholeheartedly. I'd rather get the Expert from Monarch who will test it completely for failures before shipping out, rather than ordering elsewhere and playing Russian Roulette with my CPU.

I just nabbed a sweet 3800+ X2 from Fleabay with the following stepping:

Manchester
ADA3800DAA5BV
CDBHE 0526UPBW

wOOt!!!!! I just need to find a mobo that'll get her to 2.8 on water. I'll be happy with 2.8. My current memory is in my sig, and will prolly need to run a divider. Didn't O/C too well on my current rig, but I'm hoping for great things on the AMD platform.

Not going to do the upgrade to AMD till after Christmas, probably the first week of January. At that time, the ATI R580 will probably (fingers crossed) be out, and I'll get one of those.:)

im testing my expert about week with venice 3000+, opteron 146 and opteron 170
i dont have much time to do careful testing... expert is just diffrent as CrashOv3r1De already noted.
here some screenshots... maybe these will help you.

one "bug" is there with vdim - i need to set it in bios ~0,08 more than RAM actualy need.
for example... i know that my corsair twinx 4400c25 (tccd) need 2,8v @ 280 for stable working... so - in bios i set 2,87-2,91 to get it stable. confusing but working ;)

edit: dram strengts 5/1

I would not order from monarch even if they were the last shop on earth. The worse service I have seen.

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Originally Posted by dogsx2

I think Pedro knows what he's doing.

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So do I. But, unfortunately, no one really knows why the CPU died. When you push hardware to the limits, sometimes it goes tits up. That's the way it goes.

More importantly, I spoke to another sales guy at Monarch who has vehemently denied the claims made by the thread starter. He said that there is currently NO special handling of the Expert boards whatsoever.

demonbane23, you'd better get some confirmation on this. Your story doesn't jive with the folks at Monarch.

[QUOTE=mdzcpa]So do I. But, unfortunately, no one really knows why the CPU died. When you push hardware to the limits, sometimes it goes tits up. That's the way it goes.

QUOTE]


I agree with you 100%, my point is why does it always come up "Maybe your doing something wrong or dont know what your doing."

I just hate that line, that's why I don't go to DFI forums anymore. The first thing said is you did something wrong and it's not the mb. Once in a while it is the mb. That's with any brand.

Users are always at fault... bleh...
We are stupid and don't know what we are doing... double bleh...
Well maybe 4-5 dead DFI mobos 6-8gig of memory and 2 dead cpu is because I am flat out stupid. Wonder why I was smarter back when I didn't have to deal with DFI mobo even with heavy v-mod on all kind of mobos?

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Originally Posted by mdzcpa

So do I. But, unfortunately, no one really knows why the CPU died. When you push hardware to the limits, sometimes it goes tits up. That's the way it goes.

More importantly, I spoke to another sales guy at Monarch who has vehemently denied the claims made by the thread starter. He said that there is currently NO special handling of the Expert boards whatsoever.

demonbane23, you'd better get some confirmation on this. Your story doesn't jive with the folks at Monarch.

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I guess I can call again tomorrow and see what this guy who answers the phone says. I was just reporting what the guy at monarch told me. I guess its a case of who you talk to but who knows. It doesnt make sense that the guy on the phone with me would go into so much detail and it would all be lies. Either way im suppose to get a board shipped to me on December 12th so I will find out.

I started looking around for the A8n32-sli but no one has it in stock and two sites I found that did wanted $270 and $299 for it,,, damn supply and demand,,,,

As for my story jiving I wish I took that guys name who answerd my call cause it sure jived with him he said they had a bunch of dead boards that failed the test to see if they worked,,, if not they have some very creative lieing sales people

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Originally Posted by demonbane23

they have some very creative lieing sales people

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The words lying(creative sometimes) and sales ppl in my experience generally equate to the same thing :fact:

All good points.

Now what were the volts set in the BIOS? :)

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Originally Posted by alpha0ne

The words lying(creative sometimes) and sales ppl in my experience generally equate to the same thing :fact:

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hehe yeah I know,, well lets hope for the best because I just got an fedex tracking email from Monarch saying my package was shipped 6 pound package which sounds about right,,,, i wonder how since they said they wouldnt have any more boards till the 12th,,,

Expert it is,,,

dfi board = unrealiable
asus = realiable

get asus and it overclocks better and looks better imo

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Originally Posted by jinu117

Users are always at fault... bleh...
We are stupid and don't know what we are doing... double bleh...
Well maybe 4-5 dead DFI mobos 6-8gig of memory and 2 dead cpu is because I am flat out stupid. Wonder why I was smarter back when I didn't have to deal with DFI mobo even with heavy v-mod on all kind of mobos?

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no offense but...you would think you would have learned after 2 dead mobos and 2 gig of ram and 1 cpu...

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Originally Posted by jinu117

We are stupid and don't know what we are doing... double bleh...

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No one said its the users. Perhaps it was the board...perhaps not. But, even if it was, it doesn't make it an epidemic.

All this hysteria reminds of the the KX7 days. And the NF7 days. And the 8RDA days. And the old DFI NF4 days. And so on, and so on.

Watching these threads over the years is funny. Same complaints, just different boards.

The point is that a few failed CPUs doesn't make an "issue." And, now that this has received some exposure, every tom, :banana::banana::banana::banana:, and harry with a bad system for any reason is going to chime in. Its the same pattern year after year, board after board. Its kind of amusing really.

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Originally Posted by calcal

dfi board = unrealiable
asus = realiable

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LOL...try telling that to my two dead 6800 Ultra cards that my Asus board killed last February. They were Asus EN6800Ultra TOP cards too.

I just sucked it up, tossed the board, and went to try something else.

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Originally Posted by mdzcpa

LOL...try telling that to my two dead 6800 Ultra cards that my Asus board killed last February. They were Asus EN6800Ultra TOP cards too.

I just sucked it up, tossed the board, and went to try something else.

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wow i would cry if that happened lol

i agree tho all kinds of hardware will fail because the crap is so cheaply made. but unless we wanna spend 500-600 dollars on a motherboard they are always gonna be consumer electronics prone to failure. i just try to be smart and i get lucky most times but ive had plenty of hardware die on me but i get over it.

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Originally Posted by situman

no offense but...you would think you would have learned after 2 dead mobos and 2 gig of ram and 1 cpu...

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Did I really have an option till recently? :P In fact, I have Asus A8N32 on my way right as we speak and opty 175. Should be here tomorrow morning...
Also grabbed asus crossfire board to play with from newegg so we shall see how that one behaves... I just hope it didn't kill ballistix again...

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Originally Posted by mdzcpa

Its the same pattern year after year, board after board. Its kind of amusing really.

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Yep. I remember all the problems I read about the DFI NF2 kept me away from that board but in retrospect I think missed out on the top NF2 board and settled for an Abit NF7 because of the fear of what might have happen.

I can understand why some members are concerned about the Expert. Members with some impressive credentials have lost some invaluable CPUs. But thats part of the cycle mdzcpa is talking about. You can sit back and wait for the next revision or jump in now and find out for yourself whats up with this board.

I would actually like to see more XS members jump on the Asus and Abit boards so we can see more results from newer NF4 boards. I thought I might try the Asus but finally decided there was more potential fun to be had from a marginal OC increase than a stable board with unspectaular HTT on the Asus.

I'm cracking an Expert open on Monday. I start with a Venice 3000+.:chicken:

If things don't work out with the Expert, I'll pick up the Asus for a game platform and go into gaming mode until something better comes out. :D

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Originally Posted by gundamit

I would actually like to see more XS members jump on the Asus and Abit boards so we can see more results from newer NF4 boards.

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I already gave the new Asus A8N SLI 16 a whirl, but I didn't like it. The layout was horrible rendering all other PCI slots useless when using 2 double slotted video cards in SLI. With two GTX 512 cards installed, nothing else could be added. Bad design. In addition, the CPU voltage was funky as were some of the other BIOS settings. I sold it 3 days after it arrived. Its not a bad board, it just had some serious short comings for my own taste.

Heck, I'll go any ANY brand board. I have no stock in DFI. I'll go with what works. And right now the DFI boards just happen to be it. I could care less about brand loyalty here...I just think its amatuerish to bash any peice of hardware with a few early reports of hardware failure instead of understanding the risks associated with the hobby.

"As for my story jiving I wish I took that guys name who answerd my call cause it sure jived with him he said they had a bunch of dead boards that failed the test to see if they worked,,, if not they have some very creative lieing sales people"

IMO the guy who is lying is the one who said they had no problem and are not handling them in a special way ever....

Or maybe he just doesn't know or doesn't care....

Telling the thruth is rather rare (very bad PR)...

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Originally Posted by softpain

IMO the guy who is lying is the one who said they had no problem and are not handling them in a special way ever....

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I don't think so. We have a corporate account with Monarch and I spoke to the guy I've been dealing with for 2 years. He is a senior salesman.

The only time I've been jerked around at Monarch was when I ordered this DFI board last month. I called the normal sales line (because it was a personal purchase), and got the run around as to when the board might be shipped. They charged my credit card without shipping the board and I was pissed. I received lame excuses as to why. They finally admitted that they "over sold" the board.

I smell the same thing here. They over sold and need an excuse. This time the guy is blaming the board.

When I saw this thread, I called corporate sales to confirm. He had to call me back after he took the time to look into it. I beleive I received a stright answer. Our company puts serious bucks into this account (of course we order all the plain jane vanilla stuff).

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Originally Posted by mdzcpa

I already gave the new Asus A8N SLI 16 a whirl, but I didn't like it. The layout was horrible rendering all other PCI slots useless when using 2 double slotted video cards in SLI. With two GTX 512 cards installed, nothing else could be added. Bad design. In addition, the CPU voltage was funky as were some of the other BIOS settings. I sold it 3 days after it arrived. Its not a bad board, it just had some serious short comings for my own taste.

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What board exactly was that?

Good posts, BTW. While I only have one DFI board, I don't like to see its reputation damaged until proven. My SLI-DR is clearly a very good piece of hardware and I don't have any of the issues (killing or non-killing) that people report, except for a Seasonic PSU non-starter.

If I had listened to threads like this from the NF4 times I would have wasted endless evening of my time (because the Asus boards require much more work overclocking than the DFI).

If it turns out that the original claim that Monarch holds these boards is untrue (doesn't have to be the original poster, the theory that some Monarcher looked for a cheap excuse holds potential), this would be a contra-productive thread.

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Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

What board exactly was that?

Good posts, BTW. While I only have one DFI board, I don't like to see its reputation damaged until proven. My SLI-DR is clearly a very good piece of hardware and I don't have any of the issues (killing or non-killing) that people report, except for a Seasonic PSU non-starter.

If I had listened to threads like this from the NF4 times I would have wasted endless evening of my time (because the Asus boards require much more work overclocking than the DFI).

If it turns out that the original claim that Monarch holds these boards is untrue (doesn't have to be the original poster, the theory that some Monarcher looked for a cheap excuse holds potential), this would be a contra-productive thread.

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I definetly see what your saying but just to clarify I never meant to start a rumor mill or some bogus thread I was just posting exactly what Monarch told me and asking for advice. Obviously I didnt speak to some head honcho at monarch but rather some normal sales guy so the odds of him lieing to me are good I would have to say.

Especially since I got an email saying my board should be at my house tomorrow and the guy on the phone told me no new boards were coming in till the 12th....

I am hoping its all hysteria and it runs like a dream,,,

Martin Cracauer would you mind explaining the seasonic PSU problem,,, does it apply to the expert?

I agree. My money is on Monarch looking for a lame excuse after not shipping boards sold as in-stock.

On the other hand, it might be that Monarch has orders out to their employees that vendor problems are never to be reported to customers, that the initial person you talked to disobeyed that order, but everybody has been brought in line now.

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Originally Posted by demonbane23

Martin Cracauer would you mind explaining the seasonic PSU problem,,, does it apply to the expert?

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Seasonic PSUs often don't power up DFI NF4 boards. Supposedly a new revision of Seasonic PSUs fixed this (A02 or somesuch) and supposedly they'll exchange it for you if you have one experiencing the problem.

Unfortunately, it has proven impossible to get any kind of useful information out of the DFI people at dfi-street as to whether it is a DFI or Seasonic problem. All I see there is one-sentense claims without any technical detail from DFI and quoted mails from Seasonic people which are clearly confused about basic things like power and voltage. It has also proven impossible to get a direct contact inside Seasonic to call about this.

Given that my Seasonics are my best PSUs and symptoms observed I concluded for now that the boards draw insufficient power and the PSUs don't realize there's a board connected.

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Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

Seasonic PSUs often don't power up DFI NF4 boards. Supposedly a new revision of Seasonic PSUs fixed this (A02 or somesuch) and supposedly they'll exchange it for you if you have one experiencing the problem.

Unfortunately, it has proven impossible to get any kind of useful information out of the DFI people at dfi-street as to whether it is a DFI or Seasonic problem. All I see there is one-sentense claims without any technical detail from DFI and quoted mails from Seasonic people which are clearly confused about basic things like power and voltage. It has also proven impossible to get a direct contact inside Seasonic to call about this.

Given that my Seasonics are my best PSUs and symptoms observed I concluded for now that the boards draw insufficient power and the PSUs don't realize there's a board connected.

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thanks for the info,, now I just recived my brand new seasonic S-12 600 watt SLI power supply yesterday in the mail and it was advertised as "the new version" am I to assume that it will work or when I hook this whole rig up is there a chance i hit the switch and nothing happens, when my dfi expert board comes in tomorrow,,,"

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Originally Posted by dogsx2

I think Pedro knows what he's doing. Sounds like a line from DFI forums.

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Nope I hate the way those guys deal with their customers.

Just pointing out the fact that many people have their boards working and getting great overclocks.

Yes the ASUS A8N32-SLI is a bit more stable. However the eXpert isnt one of those suicider boards thats just goes and takes everything with it. It is a pretty solid board. There have been a few cases of course but thats with every new product.

If some people are afraid go and get the a8n but please for chrissake dont WHINE ABOUT IT. :slapass:

People are still whining about OPBS isolated case. Plenty of guys have their boards working without any probs. My board doesnt even have the cut transitors. Everything is perfect :cool:

If your not extreme enough for the expert and can deal with a bit smaller headroom for OC and dont mind water cooling your SLI cards go with the asus a8n32 sli great board.

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Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

What board exactly was that?

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I was referring to the A8N32-SLI (with X16 both channels). The layout simply blows chunks if you run 2 dual slot cards. Short of that it seemed like a high quality board. If your not worried about space, I'm sure its a fine peice of hardware.