Chaintech NF4, board installed!

[JNav89GT]

Will update as time allows.
Initially at stock speeds, slightly slower than Gigabyte K8NF-9

[texuspete00]

I guess my first jump to a new platfrom is not going to be without it's confusion. So I guess this board has the new power connector with four extra pins? I see the separate 4 pin connector that started with P4's is separate so what gives? Do I need a converter mechanism of some sort to go 24 pin? The ATX power block fits snugly at the top of the power block. No manual whatsoever.

[JNav89GT]

having probs scaling htt :O

[JNav89GT]

you can use a 20pin plug, won't be as good, but will work.
this shipping bios suxs. No scalling of HTT allows pretty much. PCI doesn't lock until PCI express set to 103.
I can't get bus to 230 even

[omega65]

CPU Multiplier Options?

[Feiticeira]

What posisiton do you put the 20 pin plug into to make it work, middle? or one side?
On a side note how does the gigabyte board overclock, I notice you can pick up that board very cheaply aswell. Lets hope theyll release a new bios soon.

Dave

[JNav89GT]

220 is max postable HTT
bah, they better get new bios soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[omega65]

The 20pin Plug should fit to one side only

[JNav89GT]

What posisiton do you put the 20 pin plug into to make it work, middle? or one side?
On a side note how does the gigabyte board overclock, I notice you can pick up that board very cheaply aswell. Lets hope theyll release a new bios soon.

Dave

only one way you can make it work, they are keyed to only go in certain way, it sits so 4 pins are unused on one side.

[JNav89GT]

well I'm about done with this board, lol, 1hr and it's pissed me off bad

[Feiticeira]

Sorry to hear that m8 and cheers for the advice

[JNav89GT]

hrm
trying nvidia Ntune seems better, but still not great grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[JNav89GT]

well I'm sorry to say this(at leasy my board) is a flaming turd. I am going back to gigabyte till something better comes along.

[texuspete00]

Thanks for the info on the connector. I guess the odds are stacked against me... I'll push on. My GB of BH5 needs volts to shine but I can try HTT with dividers. I'm an A64 nub but maybe I'll luck out.

[JNav89GT]

I tried HTT with dividers and no luck. I have questions as to weather PCI lock properly working, or if this 1st bios is just total trash for oc'ers
I wrote tech support. should hear back by the time K12 rolls out lol!

[spinboy]

So the chaintech board was a disappointment?

[texuspete00]

I just slapped mine together and got greeted with steady but separated beeps. Took a stick of my BH5 out and the beeping went away but the monitor stayed dormant. Tried 1 stick of different ram (Old KingMax PC2700) and beep came back. I was using a standby 350w sparkle PS, the 6800GT's minimum, as I was hoping to not break down my regular system with the luck JNav89GT is having. So much for that. Gonna go try my TruePower.

[texuspete00]

OK... phew. I won't hijack the thread when I get some results. I needed to use the converter to get PCI-express Power plug into my GT (Y connector with two molexes). One of the pins going into one of the molexes was a little ajar. Maybe the sparkle would have worked not sure when it happenned.

[IvanAndreevich]

220*5 = 1100.. So maybe LTD adjustment is not working (if present at all). The ASUS was having similar problems I heard.

[apu673]

Hopefully the MSI Neo4 nf4 ultra will be much better, but then again its also $50 more.

[trans am]

I am using my spare thermaltake xaser III 480w. it doesn't have the BTX power dongle, but it did connct fine and works perfectly. I noticed 12v rail is 11.XXv so this could be due to the lack of the extra 4 pins on the atx dongle, or it could just be a crappy psu. but all the rails are just a tad under the correct values. 3.3 rail is just under 3.3, 5.0v rail is just under 5..etc. I didn't need to press F6 for sata drivers upon windows install.

I booted into windows out of the bios @ 220x10 3x htt then used clockgen in small increments 3mhz at a time then would run a superpi 1m run each time I got to an even ten. ex. 220 run, 230 run, 240 run.etc. I ran it up to 255mhz with no problems and no errors or lockups in superpi. latest version of cpuz shows everything except my ras-cas. very strange. 260 made it fine in clockgen without lockup, however I got error in superpi. One thing I noticed was the Nf4 heatsink was really hot. I took the thermal paste off and put as5 on it, then added a 40mm fan over it, so it's cooling down much better. We really need a new bios from chaintech. I haven't given up on this board yet, it has real potential with a bios update. I plan on contacting Chaintech about the issues. I set my pcie at 101 and it still locks while using clockgen. I'm using the Nf4 clockgen and it works perfectly. gonna try lower multi and see if I can max out the htt over 250. BRB

albatron 6600gt
week 44 winnie 3200+
2x256 gskill LC
Thermaltake XaserIII 480w
WDRaptor74GB
all stock cooling

[trans am]

Ok, i'm back. tried lower multi absolutely no gains in htt. This is not good right now. I'm glad I didn't install this in a case, because I would've really been doing a lot of work for nothing. Time to contact chaintech and hope to get someone on the phone. There is not much support from anyone around this time of year, but we'll see. Chaintech skipped nf3 ultra 939 all together, so maybe they need to learn a thing or 2 about 939 first. I wish there was a decent PCI-e 939 board. ATI maybe holds the key to this one. Gonna just stay on the ol' DFi 754 for now until things clear up. Good luck everyone.

[trans am]

Gigabyte?

Looks solid so far from JNav's first tests.

And misterroadster's.

What about ASUS? Looks promising in that new BIOS thread....

I don't know man, after 2 k8ns ultra boards and 2 msi neo2's I'm not that eager to order either of their nf4 boards. But that could change really quick if chaintech doesn't fix these issues.

[DGeNeRaT3]

who the heck is chaintech? kidding....

[trans am]

Oh, 1 more thing. Layout is good except for stupid caps are way too close to the cpu socket. This could be really crappy for people using phase with large evap heads or very large heatsinks, but I guess phase with this board at the present time is pointless lol.