[First Look] DFI 680i LT NF-680i LT SLI (56K Warning~~~)

[owcraftsman]

Looks like it is set up for 1/4" am I wrong? I hope so

I sent the email hope somebody over there can read English.

Seems the headers are in English but all the rest is in German?

I wonder.... hi or low flow
are the nozzles changeable
etc

[owcraftsman]

After some tweaking and alot of hours of benckmarking I have found my new sweet spot for me..

Looks like a pretty sweet sweet spot
Any benchies to post??

[BAR*B*Q]

Looks like it is set up for 1/4" am I wrong? I hope so

I sent the email hope somebody over there can read English.

Seems the headers are in English but all the rest is in German?

I wonder.... hi or low flow
are the nozzles changeable
etc

yes they use 1/4" threads and there are no fittings included.

[Grinch]

Looks like a pretty sweet sweet spot
Any benchies to post??

I have some 3d mark 03,05,06...super pi....and will work on prime95 tonight..

[BAR*B*Q]

hmmm... got my first freeze on post. how can i clear cmos without risking to kill memory ?

removing battery = save ?

[Borgod]

Ive had a bit of correspondenace with MIPS over the past week or so and indeed they speak great english, are very friendly and sell a great product! Their gear is not cheap, but it's handmade and makes every board it's fitted to quite unique

Yep they use 1/4" thread... so all the usual DD and EK barbs will fit to the MIPS blocks no problem I believe!

BARBQ: How would you freeze memory? Just unplug your MB, swap the jumper over and then back again, reboot into BIOS and check your VDIMM voltage and you're good to go!!
The DFI board requires very little CMOS resetting

[BAR*B*Q]

dont forget to ask for availability. if they dont have all coolers in stock it could take some time.
you can use any common barbs. for too long threads they deliver distance rings with any cooler.

BARBQ: How would you freeze memory? Just unplug your MB, swap the jumper over and then back again, reboot into BIOS and check your VDIMM voltage and you're good to go!!
The DFI board requires very little CMOS resetting

hmm... i dont even want to feed my ram's with 3,04v for seconds

[Borgod]

hmm... i dont even want to feed my ram's with 3,04v for seconds

I understand that, but if it makes you feel better I ran my G.Skill GBHZ at 3v for about 10-15mins and there was no meltdown

[century child]

[QUOTE=hmm... i dont even want to feed my ram's with 3,04v for seconds [/QUOTE]

As I understand it, this only happened when loading a saved BIOS profile, not at every BIOS clear.

[denden]

Hi everyone I just got one dfi 680i, priming my e4300 at 3150mh@1.4vcore(bios)1.36vcore(actual) . found 2 main problem 1) quite a serious vdrop in vdimmn, nb and core even though I using the updated bios. 2)have to clear cmos whenever oc failed to boot . Any guide here to get away from the desparated on & off and any way to fix the vdrop?

[virtualrain]

Wow lots of action in here this weekend... some thoughts:

@Borgod/MikeMK - it looks like the Enermax mystery is solved? Use the 4+4 and not the 8 pin ATX connector?

@MikeMK - If you haven't given up on the DFI... I've had most success with the 2CTEST 521 BIOS on my quad (X3220). You may want to try that. I found with the 4C version, that I couldn't change my multi and that it wasn't stable at lower voltages like the 2C version.

BTW, what OC did you get on the DFI board before you switched to the EVGA?

@Borgod... 80-Deg on the NB?!?

@Grinch... your image of your new sweet spot isn't showing up for me... where are you at now?

@Jobeo, I'm sorry to hear your supcomm story... what's the latest? Have you found anything in particular that is causing the instability with that program?

[virtualrain]

Hi everyone I just got one dfi 680i, priming my e4300 at 3150mh@1.4vcore(bios)1.36vcore(actual) . found 2 main problem 1) quite a serious vdrop in vdimmn, nb and core even though I using the updated bios. 2)have to clear cmos whenever oc failed to boot . Any guide here to get away from the desparated on & off and any way to fix the vdrop?

There is definitely an undervolt between what you set and what you get in BIOS for CPU VID and NB Voltage... just dial in some extra to compensate. There's more info on my blog (via the link in my sig). VDIMM is similar but not as bad... what exactly is the gap you are observing?

The actual droop under load of these values is not bad. CPU droop is much better than most and NB and VDIMM is insignificant.

When you can't boot due to your OC, use the power/reset button trick as described in the manual to quickly clear CMOS. Keep your baseline settings in a "CMOS Reloaded" profile and you can quickly get back to where you were in no time.

[Borgod]

Yes 4+4 only with the Galaxy on quadcore. I have been using that since day dot with my DFI since the meltdown of my aforementioned QuadGT.

Yep my NB temps hover around 80degrees. It's not the weight of the 80mm fan pulling it off the core as I have moved the HSF up and down and the temps only get worse - very quickly.
I'm going to watercool it with a mips kit anyway.

Over the weekend I was considering hard how to lower my CPU temps. I came up with an awesome idea of a double loop system with no less than 2x PA120.3 for the CPU and a PA120.3 and PA120.2 for the SLI 880GTX, NB, PWM and SB.

I devised a superb unobtrusive mounting method that would of made it the ultimate water cool system for myself.
But then I did the costs and realised how quickly it added up.

Now I am considering using my existing PA120.2 and PA160 to cool the SLI, NB, PWM * SB and phase change the CPU. kayl lives a 15min drive away from me, it works out cheaper, will be a lot less work and I'll be able to crack 4000Mhz with ease

[denden]

There is definitely a gap between what you set and what you get in BIOS for CPU VID and NB Voltage... just dial in some extra to compensate. There's more info on my blog (via the link in my sig). VDIMM is similar but not as bad... what exactly is the gap you are observing?

The actual droop under load of these values is not bad. CPU droop is much better than most and NB and VDIMM is insignificant. cpu around 0.04v, NB around 0.2V

When you can't boot due to your OC, use the power/reset button trick as described in the manual to quickly clear CMOS. Keep your baseline settings in a "CMOS Reloaded" profile and you can quickly get back to where you were in no time.

yeah I know to restore the last bootable setting but only feed up with moving the jumper, I will get bk on the manual on the power/reset button, thks a lot

[virtualrain]

yeah I know to restore the last bootable setting but only feed up with moving the jumper, I will get bk on the manual on the power/reset button, thks a lot

That power/reset button trick is a life saver for sure.

As for the voltages, I think you mean there is a significant undervolt on the CPU/NB... and while there is a bit of droop (as expected on the CPU) there is no droop on the NB right?

Undervolt = gap between what is set in BIOS and what you get
droop = difference between idle and load voltage

[virtualrain]

... phase change the CPU. kayl lives a 15min drive away from me, it works out cheaper, will be a lot less work and I'll be able to crack 4000Mhz with ease

Phase... Isn't that going to be noisy though?

[Jobeo]

@Jobeo, I'm sorry to hear your supcomm story... what's the latest? Have you found anything in particular that is causing the instability with that program?

i haven't messed with it today but i'm gonna try some stuff right now. someone recommended 3dmark a few pages ago and i have several versions of that i will try.

in supcom the instability seems related to heavy load. somehow the game is pushing the components harder than prime testing... i blame it all on the 400 FSB OC settings i'm using. something is off and i'm just not sure what it is. with those settings i'm barely overclocking the CPU itself by using a lower multi.

from what i've seen the VTT/GTL's are seriously important for 400 FSB. at stock FSB i could raise the multi to 11-12-13 without tweaking the VTT or GTL's...

i'll see what i can do and hopefully report back something good =/

[denden]

That power/reset button trick is a life saver for sure.

As for the voltages, I think you mean there is a significant undervolt on the CPU/NB... and while there is a bit of droop (as expected on the CPU) there is no droop on the NB right?

Undervolt = gap between what is set in BIOS and what you get
droop = difference between idle and load voltage

oh...I not reliased the difference of load and idle voltage and will check it tonight, but there is definiately an undervolt, does it matter?

[Jobeo]

well i got somewhere... installed 3dmark03 and loaded my sketchy settings... the reboot crash occured during the benchmark, which actually made me happy cause now i had a better way of testing it.

i tweaked the NB volts higher that didn't help. even tried running the test non-SLI and it seemed to reboot even faster. all of the reboots were occuring at different times during the test there seemed to be no pattern.

so i started fiddling with the GTL's ... i had them set at the "sweet spot" of 1.44v and 170 95 85... tried them a bit higher and the test seemed to run a bit longer before rebooting. finally ended up with GTL's of 180 100 90 and 3dmark03 passed for the first time ! ! i ran the test 3 more times and it passed each time. then ran the 3dmark05 and 3dmark06 tests and both passed. loaded an old supcom save with a lot of units and that seemed to go OK too...

SO.... to make a long story short... i mean, i knew the GTL's were important cause i've mentioned them in almost every post these past couple days.. but MAN they are _really_ important. unless i'm mistaken we're talking about tweaking millivolt settings yet it seems to have a huge impact on stability.

so i think i've found a new sweet spot at 1.44 and 180 100 90. which doesn't really add up cause the Nvidia GTL reference table says the VTT should be 1.55 at those GTL's but whatever works i'll take it... i'll probably need to test further with another prime blending session but for now things are looking good.

[C-N]

SO.... to make a long story short... i mean, i knew the GTL's were important cause i've mentioned them in almost every post these past couple days.. but MAN they are _really_ important. unless i'm mistaken we're talking about tweaking millivolt settings yet it seems to have a huge impact on stability.

Even with a dual core the GTL's make all the difference not for the CPU's sake but for the NB.

I am still working on getting 3.7GHz running 8 hours + Orthos stable & have increased my reboot/crash time from 3 to 6 hours tweaking GTL's.

I think GTL's are going to take forever to workout & understand as even the smallest variant in CPU/NB puts you back to the start again with the GTL's.

[Borgod]

Phase... Isn't that going to be noisy though?

When they first start up they're a bit noisy - sounds a little like a fridge. However when they're running the noisiest part is usually the fans that cools the condensor, and the bigger compressors may be a little noisy aswell.

I'll get mine custom made so it won't be too noisy of course.

[Praz]

so i think i've found a new sweet spot at 1.44 and 180 100 90. which doesn't really add up cause the Nvidia GTL reference table says the VTT should be 1.55 at those GTL's but whatever works i'll take it... i'll probably need to test further with another prime blending session but for now things are looking good.

It really does make sense as the reference table is just that, a reference. Raju more or less stated this several pages back in this thread.

Rhyme or reason is in the Gtl article by Kris as you thought. With regards to formula's Gtl is in the 2/3 VTT ballpark as Kris has told, the rest is down to onboard resistor/component variance and tolerance levels, including thermal drift, system specific rfi/emi etc, not forgetting individual cpu variance...

[Grinch]

Wow lots of action in here this weekend... some thoughts:

@Borgod/MikeMK - it looks like the Enermax mystery is solved? Use the 4+4 and not the 8 pin ATX connector?

@MikeMK - If you haven't given up on the DFI... I've had most success with the 2CTEST 521 BIOS on my quad (X3220). You may want to try that. I found with the 4C version, that I couldn't change my multi and that it wasn't stable at lower voltages like the 2C version.

BTW, what OC did you get on the DFI board before you switched to the EVGA?

@Borgod... 80-Deg on the NB?!?

@Grinch... your image of your new sweet spot isn't showing up for me... where are you at now?

@Jobeo, I'm sorry to hear your supcomm story... what's the latest? Have you found anything in particular that is causing the instability with that program?

try this:
http://s2.supload.com/free/500x7_1.425v.JPG/view/

[virtualrain]

well i got somewhere... installed 3dmark03 and loaded my sketchy settings... the reboot crash occured during the benchmark, which actually made me happy cause now i had a better way of testing it.

i tweaked the NB volts higher that didn't help. even tried running the test non-SLI and it seemed to reboot even faster. all of the reboots were occuring at different times during the test there seemed to be no pattern.

so i started fiddling with the GTL's ... i had them set at the "sweet spot" of 1.44v and 170 95 85... tried them a bit higher and the test seemed to run a bit longer before rebooting. finally ended up with GTL's of 180 100 90 and 3dmark03 passed for the first time ! ! i ran the test 3 more times and it passed each time. then ran the 3dmark05 and 3dmark06 tests and both passed. loaded an old supcom save with a lot of units and that seemed to go OK too...

SO.... to make a long story short... i mean, i knew the GTL's were important cause i've mentioned them in almost every post these past couple days.. but MAN they are _really_ important. unless i'm mistaken we're talking about tweaking millivolt settings yet it seems to have a huge impact on stability.

so i think i've found a new sweet spot at 1.44 and 180 100 90. which doesn't really add up cause the Nvidia GTL reference table says the VTT should be 1.55 at those GTL's but whatever works i'll take it... i'll probably need to test further with another prime blending session but for now things are looking good.

That's great. Frankly I'm totally amazed you got it prime stable without tweaking GTL.

[virtualrain]

try this:
http://s2.supload.com/free/500x7_1.425v.JPG/view/

Nice OC!