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

[Grinch]

thank you...

[Grinch]

owcraftsman here are some 3d mark benchs:

3d mark05


3d mark06



not the highest in the world..but decent for 1 8800gtx I guess...

[Jobeo]

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

tx... from my experience, and this is all conjecture, the GTL's seem tied to the FSB only. when you fiddled with the FSB the gtl's have to be tweaked to support it. i think thats why my tests with 11-12-13 went OK cause i wasn't changing the FSB at all.

on the 400 FSB i've been talking about i was using a low 7x multi... i just bumped it to 8x and it passed all the 3dmark03 tests without any changes to the VTT/GTL's... they are still at 180 100 90

i think thats probably why those of us with quads have so much trouble above 400... the GTL's probably need to be even tighter, say within 1 pt of where they need to be, or the OC won't prove stable.

[simonmaltby]

I got this board last week and so far its reasonably good in most ways and very good in others.

I have found it more stable than the BFG 680i i had before and can get rock solid stability at 450FSB.

Got my chipset water blocks today... Link mofset, Nb and SB so will let you know when all setup and running.

[Grinch]

I got this board last week and so far its reasonably good in most ways and very good in others.

I have found it more stable than the BFG 680i i had before and can get rock solid stability at 450FSB.

Got my chipset water blocks today... Link mofset, Nb and SB so will let you know when all setup and running.

looking forward to it

[simonmaltby]

For info.

I suffered some really wierd issues over the weekend with the board.

First i flashed to 521 from the official site and all was well with my X6800 (indeed it did 4.5 without issue on freon). The i changed to my E6600 and could not find multi unlocking...

So i flashed to Beta 504 and sure enough the multi unlocking came up, but other parts of the bios were poor. so i flashed back to 521. On doing this the multi unlocked remained... good news i thought... No this is when the really wierd stuff happened.

At this point i could not get stable even at stock. In windows as i moved the mouse, or accessed HD the num lock keyboard loght would flash and ther would be a stuttering. This only happened when using Raid. After a few moments the system would just freeze.

I trued battery out etc - nothing worked. In the end i flashed back to 504. then flashed back to 521 - removing the battery between each flash. I also flashed in Windows XP using Winflash and did the old DFI trick of flash once and then without re booing flash again.

Anyway that got me back to stable, but no multi unlocked.... so for me 521 does not enable downward multi's which is a pain.

[Jobeo]

For info.

I suffered some really wierd issues over the weekend with the board.

hrmm... ive never heard of anything like those issues... when i flash the BIOS i just winflash it once and have never removed the battery afterwards.

as far as switching processors... ya i could see some trouble with that. are you sure you're removing the battery for long enough? the last time i did the BIOS reported a new CPU detected and installed the proper siprom table for it...

[virtualrain]

For info.

I suffered some really wierd issues over the weekend with the board.

First i flashed to 521 from the official site and all was well with my X6800 (indeed it did 4.5 without issue on freon). The i changed to my E6600 and could not find multi unlocking...

So i flashed to Beta 504 and sure enough the multi unlocking came up, but other parts of the bios were poor. so i flashed back to 521. On doing this the multi unlocked remained... good news i thought... No this is when the really wierd stuff happened.

At this point i could not get stable even at stock. In windows as i moved the mouse, or accessed HD the num lock keyboard loght would flash and ther would be a stuttering. This only happened when using Raid. After a few moments the system would just freeze.

I trued battery out etc - nothing worked. In the end i flashed back to 504. then flashed back to 521 - removing the battery between each flash. I also flashed in Windows XP using Winflash and did the old DFI trick of flash once and then without re booing flash again.

Anyway that got me back to stable, but no multi unlocked.... so for me 521 does not enable downward multi's which is a pain.

Are you using the 4CTST or the 2CTST version of 521. The 2CTST should have unlocked downward multis... at least it does for me.

[simonmaltby]

Are you using the 4CTST or the 2CTST version of 521. The 2CTST should have unlocked downward multis... at least it does for me.

using 4CTST - ah so ic the 2CTST is 2 core and the 4CTST is quad... That explains why there are so many different versions on the DFI site... wonder why i picked the 4CTST i normally just pick the top one and now the 2CTST is at the top... maybe it was not there when i downloaded originally... oh well.

Anyway flashed to 2CTST and multi's are there again. Many thanks for the info

[Raja@ASUS]

4CT bios is for XE edition cpu's including the dual core versions, for all upward locked (non XE's) multi cpu's use 2CT..

regards
Raja

[BAR*B*Q]

I got this board last week and so far its reasonably good in most ways and very good in others.

I have found it more stable than the BFG 680i i had before and can get rock solid stability at 450FSB.

Got my chipset water blocks today... Link mofset, Nb and SB so will let you know when all setup and running.

would you share your voltage settings please ? im trying to get 400 x 9 primestable. theres allways a fft length that fails.

[Jobeo]

would you share your voltage settings please ? im trying to get 400 x 9 primestable. theres allways a fft length that fails.

or you could share yours and we could see if anything is glaringly wrong .. . .

[TheBeast1590]

couldn't read all the pages, 50+...

Where is the strap?
What is the hightest FSB you have got on air (water)?

[simonmaltby]

Ok here we go, a few pics of my water cooled setup and some bios shots.











Now, i must say, this board is so typical DFI... Its can be great, but you have to work at it.

Today I spent a great deal of time playing with the settings to get a stable clock... My aim was 3.6Ghz 400x9 prime and Vista stable.
I started by picking what i though would be ok.
That included setting HT to x3 for a 400 fsb. Oddly i found that what everr my ram settings at x3 memtest threw an error on test 3. Changing the HT to x4 gave no errors --- explain that if you can!
Anyway, the above bios setup seems to work. I did 4 cycles through memtest and an hour of Orthos (prime). I get the odd lockup in Vista but that seems to be due to a build up of temps on the northbridge... but then ambiant temps in the UK are very high atm and the issue is only suffered with the case side on, so i'm confident its not a long term issue.

Hope this helps.

[Borgod]

Can you post a pic of Smart Guardian to see what NB temps you're getting with the mips gear?

Cheers

[owcraftsman]

Can you post a pic of Smart Guardian to see what NB temps you're getting with the mips gear?

Cheers

I'd like to see those temps too. Load + Idle

Is that two loops or mixing 3/8 & 1/4 inch tubing?

[Raja@ASUS]

@simon, on dual cores for 400fsb (1600), I find only 1.48-1.51 vnb is usually required, the lock ups will then go away, ldt should be fine too @ 5x...

[simonmaltby]

I'd like to see those temps too. Load + Idle

Is that two loops or mixing 3/8 & 1/4 inch tubing?

I will take a screen shot of Smarg Guardian later, but my finding on the temps are as follows: On air at same speeds I was getting both System and Chipset temps in Smart Guardian at about 50c Idle and 60 under load. Those have now droped by about 10c - idle at about 40c and full load i have not seen more than 52c, even with my over inflated NB volts as Raja points out.

My loop.. well the Koolance comes with 3/8" I have taken the 3/8" directly to the CPU then as the 3/8 leaves the CPU i have setup a parallel split using 8mm internal (10mm OT) tube. At the moment one parallel run does nothing and acts as a quick route so i can maximise CPU cooling, the other loop goes to the SB then onto NB then finally Mofset.

Raja - If i set anything less than 1.65v on the NB in the Bios then Orthos (prime) fails with a graphical screen distortion and lock up after time. The time it takes to lock is related to the NB volts i select. i.e. 1.51 gives it about 10 seconds, 1.57 gets to about 30 seconds. I do note that Smart Guardian reports quite low NB volts at 1.65 ut shows the NB as 1.48 / 1.5, so maybe thats why i need more voltage there?

My idea with the unused parallel link is that i can use as a test. Firstly when open i am stopping any major flow restriction because the 3/8 technically goes to 2x8mm or 16mm inner. If i find i needs more flow to the chipset, i can restrict, or cut the flow down that pipe. Lastly its there so i can isolate one of the chipset blocks if needed and run that pipe directly if more cooling is needed... i.e. put the NB block on its own parallel run.

So far tbh, ristricting flow seem to mak no difference at all to any of the temps.

Remember my main aim is to run as quiet as possible at 9x400. So far I can run with the temps described with the fans on the Koolance set at possition 3 out of 10 and thats running prime and in this hot weather. If i wind them up to full speed the temps drop by aprox another 6 - 10c all round.

[Jobeo]

Raja - If i set anything less than 1.65v on the NB in the Bios then Orthos (prime) fails with a graphical screen distortion and lock up after time.

i agree with raja ... 1.65v is extreme at 400 FSB ... i'd check your other settings first before cranking it that high... i haven't seen one person need it that high for 400 FSB...

i recall a post from tony a while back where he didn't even need that much NB voltage for 450 FSB...

[Raja@ASUS]

a lot of the high vnb requirement probably has to do with you running ddr 1100 I guess..


regards
Raja

[virtualrain]

i agree with raja ... 1.65v is extreme at 400 FSB ... i'd check your other settings first before cranking it that high... i haven't seen one person need it that high for 400 FSB...

i recall a post from tony a while back where he didn't even need that much NB voltage for 450 FSB...

I initially needed 1.75v on the NB for my quad OC to 400FSB ... keep in mind that there's a 0.12V undervolt on the NB setting... it's about 1.53 actual reading with a setting of 1.65 which is not that high... this is now what I'm running on the 521 bios.

Keep in mind I'm running 4GB of RAM at 1T as well. I think it really depends on your particular proc, NB and RAM as to what voltage you will need. You need what you need... no matter how rediculous it sounds to others!

[virtualrain]

BTW Simonmaltby, nice water cooling setup! I just got my MIPS mosfet cooler. It looks very good... great attention to detail including slightly different milled planes on the bottom to account for the different height of the PWM components.

[Borgod]

I ordered my mips kit lastnight, very nearly ordered the mips RAM freezer 4 aswell for kicks and giggles.

[BAR*B*Q]

or you could share yours and we could see if anything is glaringly wrong .. . .

tried so many mate. none of them really prime stable.
all i can say is that im testing with an e6600 + 2x1gb d9gmh memory on 423 bios: 400 x 9 in sync mode 1T.

[simonmaltby]

Spent some time on the reasons why i needed a lot of NB volts.

Firstly With the OCZ 8500 SLI memory I found that I had one dud stick in the 4 1GB modules. But even using the two good ones in Dual Channel i got lockups, These reduced with nore NB volts but were always there - Even if running the ram at stock, or under clocked at 800.

Interestingly running each stick as a single module (no dual channel) windows was perfectly stable. As soon as two sticks went in Dual Channel i got lock ups.

Anyway, i have returned the SLI for a refund and put in my trusty OCZ Rev 2 Plat 6400 at 800 4,4,4,15 and no more lockups - NB volts as sugested at 1.48 and nice and stable.

Conclusion... Either the OCZ 8500 SLI chips I had were all bad or the DFI board just does not get on with these chips.

Out of interest - in these changes I had to reset the CMOS and did it by removing the battery. In all the changes I now have a re occurence of my USB keyboard flashing num lock light and system pauses. I need to iron this out, it could be... reset cmos issue by remove battery, moved GPU from Slot1 (nearest NB) to Slot 2(next one up) or the change of RAM. At the moment my best guess is the movement of the graphics card because it seems to be grahics related.