DFI problems

[Ugly n Grey]

Ultra D FTW - never had so much fun nor tortured a piece of hardware so much in all my life. I never changed processors more often than I did with that baby. It clocked like Big Ben on roids....

I'd buy another from DFI if they had what I was looking for. To me at least the brand is a good one.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

I can safely say the only reason I'm putting an asus board in my current build is because DFI doesn't have a 780i board out. Once it does, I'll be grabbing it.

[Soulburner]

I'd pass on 780i anyway.

[Ugly n Grey]

I'd pass on 780i anyway.

QFT

Your sig needs to be taller SB I can barely read that little text...

[Wiggy McShades]

DFI's support is one person in San Francisco -.-

i kinda have to agree I have a 680i thats been in an rma cycle of about 5 months now. they've lost it, they've sent me back broken boards, they've given me the wrong rma numbers, and their latest trick is telling me i damaged the chipset and wanting me to pay 45 dollars for the second time to repair it when the board never worked from when they repair it the first time. Good job

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

I'd pass on 780i anyway.

Can't run SLI on intel without an nvidia chipset.

[Nanometer]

DFI expert was the best motherboard I ever used for overclocking. Hasn't been anything like it since.

[tiro_uspsss]

DFI expert was the best motherboard I ever used for overclocking. Hasn't been anything like it since.

thats the one thats dead I got it to post twice & then nix

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

I always wonder, always seems its a handful of people who get boards that die in large amounts.

While others go through many with no problems.

Makes you think that it is either the person is hosing the bios on them from improper booting. or they just don't know how to troubleshoot a board.

[zanzabar]

or is it esd, isnt perth hot and dry air so u need extra precautions for esd

[tiro_uspsss]

or is it esd, isnt perth hot and dry air so u need extra precautions for esd

esd? what is that?

[G H Z]

ESD = Electro Static Discharge..otherwise know as static electricity

[tiro_uspsss]

ESD = Electro Static Discharge..otherwise know as static electricity

aahhh LOL

[zanzabar]

esd? what is that?

look at this i had to watch in school the other day (and prity much every semester in school for the last 3 years)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLOQ7zOWGAA

i think that this is the only thing from apple that i can endorse

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Never had ESD issues, and I'm normally not very attentive to ground myself either.

But, I do have hardwood floors, so no carpet eliminates a lot of static.

[zanzabar]

but ur in ontario its cold there so the air dosnt get as much static some ware dry and hot u have to worry about it more for consumer grade stuff

[tiro_uspsss]

Never had ESD issues, and I'm normally not very attentive to ground myself either.

But, I do have hardwood floors, so no carpet eliminates a lot of static.

me too! I dont ground myself generally (sometimes i do) - but i almost always touch a metal object to discharge any static i may be carrying. I also have no carpet - only wood flooring here!

[C-N]

folks: DFI is an absolute POS. I have 2 dead DFI mobos & another one more flakey than a packet of cornflakes.

Dead:
DFI Venus
DFI Expert

Reason: Unknown! Both these boards never even posted when they came to me.

Flakey:
(only one guess here): CFX3200

Reason: who knows... but we all know DFI screwed us over with ABSOLUTLEY NO SUPPORT for us 'loyal' customers

To top it of, I tried RMA'ing the CFX3200 - it took 2 months the first time! - in the end I never got my $$$ back nor a working mobo. & DFIs reason for the mobo not working? " Due to overclocking " LOL. If you go to the DFI home page - thats pretty much the only thing they advertise their boards for. & of course my problems were there @ stock. What an absolute insult to my intelligence - " due to overclocking " GFY DFI.

rubbish products, very *very* poor customer support/service.

DFI?

NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN

I kind of agree & disagree with you on some of your points.

I have had several NF4 Experts all of which have had a pounding & all of which are still running to this day, IMO the NF4 Expert is an outstanding board & its only just been replaced by me as my all time favourite board.

My new favourite board is the DFI LT UT P35 in my sig, its solid, boots anything & has had a pounding & I haven't heard of any deaths from other users.

On the support front there is & as has been for as long as I can remember always been good support from DFI via forums appointed testers/helpers/reviewers & all of these people are by there very nature genuinely interested DFI fans which are pretty much always online & approachable.

I don't think DFI could do much more in terms of online support. Perhaps the only gripe I would have would be these people don't have any real balls & sometimes give a DFI censored answer rather than a straight up one but then again show me someone with attitude thats still on the DFI payroll.

The other thing that I would say about support is DFI have lost all there distributors/dealers in the UK most likely due to the spate of dying ICFX & 680i so you no longer have the ability to return the board to the supplier hence forcing you to deal direct with DFI.

Whilst we are on a bum note I would say your experiences sound just like the only RMA I ever made to DFI Europe. I got great service when my ICFX died but they sent me a used/repaired board that still had the last guys CMOS reloaded profiles in & they (Wendell Smith) claimed it was new!!!!

I ran my replacement ICFX fro 2 weeks & 3DMARK01 started stuttering so I got back onto DFI Europe & they gave me the "Well its coz you overclocked it" bulls**t they gave you. Anyway after a week of debate on the subject Wendel Smith kindly offered to inspect my whole rig CPU, RAM, PSU video etc & see if he could work out the problem. 10 ish days later he said it was my 8800GTS graphics card not playing with the RD600 chipset properly & the 8800's he had & all the 8800's Taiwan or whateva had also run fine on the ICFX. Ok I said but I thought my card was a reference card what cards did you test I'll get one of those. He dodged this question like all the DFI staff I have ever known dodge straight up questions.

In the end I told him to send it back to me & I smashed 10 bells out of it with a bloody big mooring shackle. As much & as good as DFI support the general JSP PC user they do not like overclockers with RMA's shame but thats the way it is.

Clever strategy when you consider I dont & never have met anyone that purchased a DFI to run at stock.

At the end of the day life is too short to argue for 2~3 weeks about a dead board, DFI is still the best tweakers board out there so you'll have to put up or......... if you're overclocking you're on your own, when it goes wrong just bin it & get another one or you'll end up a nervous wreck trying to deal with DFI RMA.

CN

[tiro_uspsss]

http://csd.dficlub.org/forum/showthr...?t=5475&page=4

[Boite de P4]

Yeah I got the same problem, with my Ultra D, and no RMA coz I have made a mistake for them but i've never do )

Conclusion I sold it for 20$ to pick up some components

Since this time i've BAN DFI for the rest of my life

[Polizei]

DFI support here in the USA is pretty good, from what I can tell. I called them to talk about an RMA I might need, and they were very helpful. Called the wrong number at first, they transfered me, asked about what problems I was having, suggested possible fixes, and then offered an RMA without me asking. I ended up not sending my board in because I'm planning on upgrading come summer and can deal with an intermittent issue that causes longer boot ups than usual.

When at school, I don't care how long it takes my computer to boot up... I get out of bed, hit the power button on my computer, and then take a shower. When I come back, my computer is up and running.

[virtualrain]

I'm on my 4th DFI 680i board. This board is POS to be sure. Just check the official DFI support forums. All 10 or 15 users who purchased one have had multiple RMA's... LOL!

I'm not sure how much blame should land at the feet of DFI vs. nVidia... I don't know how much of it is the chipset vs. the board. But DFI certainly has two big problems...

1) BIOS support is absolutely horrible. After my mystery ASUS BIOS experiences over the years, I thought it couldnt' be worse... DFI BIOS releases always introduce more problems than they solve and fixes that were in a previous release are often missed or removed from future releases... absolutely bizarre!

2) DFI's use of Digital PWM... especially just 6 phases on the 680i is a really poor design decision for an enthusiast overclocking board... pitched as being a good Kentsfield overclocker with all it's GTL options. The cooling required is monsterous compared to traditional mosfets and the surface area is tiny... making effective cooling near impossible under heavy loads. Furthermore, if your motherboard is warped at all due to CPU block mount pressure, you won't get even contact across all your tiny digital PWM mosfets, making it even more difficult to cool effectively.

For all of these reasons, the DFI 680i LT board was a complete disaster and was mothballed very quickly by DFI as a result leaving the few enthusiasts who purchased this board struggling.

Having said all that, the RMA process was fairly good... I was able to crossship a new board at my own expense (for shipping) twice and it got here within a couple of days.

[Mav451]

I would think anyone buying the craptacular 680i chipset would know that the fault is at nVidia (and not DFI's) feet. You can't make gold from I'm afraid. [H]'s Mobo Editor has gone through a slew of 680i boards b/c they die so easily. I don't think you hear that story from Intel chipset users.

[virtualrain]

I would think anyone buying the craptacular 680i chipset would know that the fault is at nVidia (and not DFI's) feet. You can't make gold from I'm afraid. [H]'s Mobo Editor has gone through a slew of 680i boards b/c they die so easily. I don't think you hear that story from Intel chipset users.

I'm willing to lay blame where blame is due, but as I mention in my post above, DFI made some poor decisions with respect to the board design especially with the power delivery and also the BIOS support is the worst I've ever seen from any motherboard vendor... which is a stark difference from the days of NF4.

I will personally not buy another DFI board unless I hear strong endorsement from others and see that BIOS support, workmanship, support, and digital PWM cooling improve.

BTW, the guys that manage the official DFI club forums (RGone, etc.) seem to have been in the industry too long or something... they are just too damn cranky and quick to shift blame away from the board. I understand supporting noobs is frustrating but I find their abrupt approach and assumption that user error is always to blame to be a big turn-off. Although, I guess they at least have someone providing online support.

[Mav451]

So this was more of an issue with W/C compatibility? I definitely remember hearing some caution regarding the PWM area, if you do decide to take off the stock 'sinks for something else. Someone roasted in boards in seconds b/c he didn't apply the TIM extra thick in that area (so there was 0 contact).

If you wanna talk about BIOS, I'm perfectly satisfied on the P35 side. I'm still shocked on how far nVidia has fallen since the nF4 Ultra days though.