**Official DFI LanParty UT 790FX-M2R Review/Overclock/Guide Thread**

[Brother Esau]

I had a Random shut down after installing it and I was only at optimized defaults and here on the forum reading when it happened Also I am not quite sure of whats up but my stable settings from 11/22/07 fail within minutes with Prime so I flashed back to 11/22/07 just to make sure whats what and I still fail prime within minutes so at this point I am hoping the 2700 mile trip from Arizona to North Carolina didn't do any damage with vibration and what not. I would not think it would because I package and pack all of my stuff very well but I cannot rule that out because what else could it be??? I always work on my rigs at my ESD Work station where I program my Bios chips so I know its not that! I have just done a dual program on the Bios chip and if I continue to fail Prime at know stable settings with the 11/22/07 Bios I will yank the chip out and throw it on the programmer and Erase the whole damn thing and start fresh! If it aint that and that does not do the trick then I need to send the board in but I'm hoping it won't have to go down that way

[Oese]

weird..

but honestly, i weren't as before as well if i had to do a 2700mile trip and i think by car

perhaps you know germany is only about 600miles in diameter and damn i think that is a long way

btt: perhaps i should flash back to 01/30 as well and test if that settings are stable..

BE, did you reflash with the old or with the new awdflash included with the 03/07 as you mentioned?

[Brother Esau]

The 11/22/07 Bios has the Award 8.83 Flasher in it and it works well so no need to rock the boat.

[Brother Esau]

Well reformat and still issues on what have always been rock solid settings with this 11/22/07 Bios If my programmer does not straighten this out it loks like its RMA time for the board

[Oese]

mmh mine are not stable as well with 01/30 and i wonder if an about 2°C delta in room temp can be responsible for this.. perhaps have to check thermal paste or re-tighten the cooler.. don't think its a board issue in my case, the 3,2ghz @ 1,4v i spoke of were only 1 night, so i cannot speak of known rock solid settings as in your case... but i wonder anyways..

[Brother Esau]

[B]Attention Urgent Announcement Regarding Recent Bios!......Download Links>>>>> ...... 11/07/2007 Bios........11/22/2007 Bios........DRDOS
[/URL]
It appears that the Recent 3/7/200 Beta Bios does a complete Bios Flash unlike all of the other Bios versions with the exception of the original 11/07/2007 Initial Release which also Flashes the Entire Bios from start to finish. The new Beta 3/7/2008 is "Bugged" and should be avoided! As you all know from some of my previous posts I mentioned that what have been Rock solid 13+ hr Prime stable settings Failed within minutes, you have also heard me say that regardless of 5 Bios Flashes and a Reformat it changed Nothing and I would Fail Prime within Minutes even at Proven Stable settings on the 11/22/07 Official Bios. So as my last resort with the hunch that I either had Vibration/Shock damage from my trip back East or my only other possible choice would be that the New 3/7/2008 Beta Bios corrupted my Bios Chip or made it impossible to straighten out with Flashing due to the entirety of the Flash Procedure with the AWARD 8.90 Flash Utility.

Well as it it appears my Hunch was correct the 3/7/2008 Beta Bios Corrupted my Bios chip! I removed the Bios Chip and threw it on my Programmer and Erased and un-scrambled it and Programmed the 11/7/2007 Initial Release Bios on it then after it was installed and up and running at Defaults for a couple of hours I then Upadated Flash the Bios to 11/22/2007 official through Floppy and voila I am now back to previous state at proven Know Rock solid settings and Priming into 2hrs now at what was failing within minutes.


"Attention"...... If any of you have been having issues with these DFI 790FX-M2R Bios Releases and have run into the situation that I have just described? There is only one thing that you can do to fix the situation short of having the Bios chip re-programmed you must follow this procedure only if you have experienced or are experiencing issues that are similar to what I have described due to recent Bios Update with either 1/30/2008 Official or 3/7/2008 Beta

You must do this exactly as I describe!

Please Do this..... Do Proper Clear Cmos DO NOT REMOVE BATTERY Boot into Pure DOS with DR DOS using only PS2 Keyboard when you get to A:\ prompt insert 11/07/07 Bios .EXE Floppy ..Type at ....A:\ Prompt

A:\AWDFLASH.EXE R7LDB07.BIN /CD /CP /CC /PY /CKS /SN /QI /LD /WB /E ....after its done Flashing the /E switch will take you back to A:\ Prompt at that time repeat .........A:\AWDFLASH.EXE R7LDB07.BIN /CD /CP /CC /PY /CKS /SN /QI /LD /WB /E

Remove Floppy Power Down computer manually, allow clear cmos for 10 minutes load optimed defaults /save/exit go back into Bios set up Date accordingly and leave at Optimized defaults for about a hour....Please.

EDIT: ...Proper Spacing between switching Parameters is CRITICAL!!!!

Now in order to ensure that we get back normal working status with our Bios Recovery you will Flash to 11/22/07 Official Bios but this time we will add another switching command which is the /F switch what this does is it will use the programming Algorithm from the Bios that is currently installed which in this case will be 11/07/2007 Official

Please Follow these steps exactly!

Boot into Pure DOS with DR DOS using only PS2 Keyboard when you get to A:\ prompt insert 11/22/07 Bios .EXE Floppy ..Type at ....A:\ Prompt

A:\AWDFLASH.EXE R7LDB22.BIN /CD /CP /CC /PY /CKS /SN /F /QI /LD /WB /E .......... (Do this Procedure with the /F Switch only one time. Do Not get to A:\ and repeat!!)

When you get back to A:\ Prompt......
Remove Floppy, Power Down computer manually allow clear cmos for 10 minutes load optimed defaults /save/exit go back into Bios set up Date accordingly and leave at Optimized defaults for about a hour....Please.


The last part of this procedure Will involve another flash with the 11/22/07 Official Bios which will go like this

[/B]Please Boot into Pure DOS with DR DOS using only PS2 Keyboard when you get to A:\ prompt insert 11/22/07 Bios .EXE Floppy ..Type at ....A:\ Prompt

A:\AWDFLASH.EXE R7LDB22.BIN /CD /CP /CC /PY /CKS /SN /QI /LD /WB /E ....after its done Flashing the /E switch will take you back to A:\ Prompt at that time repeat .........A:\AWDFLASH.EXE R7LDB22.BIN /CD /CP /CC /PY /CKS /SN /QI /LD /WB /E

Remove Floppy Power Down computer manually, allow clear cmos for 10 minutes load optimed defaults /save/exit go back into Bios set up Date accordingly and leave at Optimized defaults for about a hour....Please.

EDIT: ...Proper Spacing between switching Parameters is CRITICAL!!!!



I know this appears to be excessive but there is and has been a issue with the way these Bios get programmed during the Flash Procedure and why this is still a ongoing issue with this Board and these Bios from D.F.I is beyond me considering this is the same bios team that codes the Bios for the P35 Motherboard I just don't understand why us AMD people are getting this Sub Par sh**t! Like I said too guys what this really took for me to get my situation sorted out was to throw my chip on my programmer and erase it and start with the Initial Release 11/07/2007 Bios and then Flash with the 11/22/07 Official which is proven stable Bios by me so as long winded as it appears due to the fact you don't have another Bios chip what I described in the procedure should get you squared away again!

[Oese]

thank you brother esau will do that... i had a lockup yesterday even at 1,45v (proven stable setting at my rig) whereas i got 1,4v to work for 6 hours prime 2 days ago as described.. there is something wrong with this bios..

had such in mind as you mention as well but didn't figure it out correctly..

will post results.

[KTE]

Hey Bro, so I just hacked you... where's my DFI package now? ()

On the BIOS front, too bad. That's very poor BIOS quality, so much difference and buginess will drive users crazy. I'm getting a headache just reading the above post. I'm glad I'm not using this board for home yet, not until they get their major issues sorted.

BTW... maybe you guys really do have unstable overclocks and the latest best BIOS knew how to find them

[justapost]

Sounds like i had luck that i did not yet manage to test the beta bios. Testing an qx6850 and an 8400 took me ~5 days and i', totally of the timetable right now.
Think i'm too busy with office work till friday to test it.
Looking at the bios issues it might be a good idea to get a second bios chip in case anything goes wrong.
Someone described a way to flas an chip without a burner. Description was booting into free/dr dos replace the bios chip while running and flash a bios on that new chip.
@Campbell, i'm unfamilar with bios chips, can you tell me what chip i must order?

thx achim~

EDIT: About the cpu multi tweaker tool i planned to write. I might drop that and try to extend crystal cpu's already existing multi management for phenoms. The source code is avalable but i did not yet take a look at it.

[Oese]

yeah, hot flash is possible, did it a few times with the older, bigger chips with those fiddly legs older mainboards did have (if you remember..).. i think that was even more risky

just loosen the chip that it will be easily removed whilst the board is working, boot, take away the bioschip and place a new one in, flash...

But I'll think of getting some preflashed from DFI or ebay as a spare...

[KTE]

Anyone run above 626 5-5-5-15 DFI+Phenom stable with bandwidth tests yet?

Looks like poor MEM oc's so far.

[Oese]

ehm, is there a new 03/12 beta bios available? and a new 03/07 final? how about corruption with these bios'??

[Brother Esau]

Sounds like i had luck that i did not yet manage to test the beta bios. Testing an qx6850 and an 8400 took me ~5 days and i', totally of the timetable right now.
Think i'm too busy with office work till friday to test it.
Looking at the bios issues it might be a good idea to get a second bios chip in case anything goes wrong.
Someone described a way to flas an chip without a burner. Description was booting into free/dr dos replace the bios chip while running and flash a bios on that new chip.
@Campbell, i'm unfamilar with bios chips, can you tell me what chip i must order?

thx achim~

EDIT: About the cpu multi tweaker tool i planned to write. I might drop that and try to extend crystal cpu's already existing multi management for phenoms. The source code is avalable but i did not yet take a look at it.

Hey, Achim the Bios chip for or boards is SST49LF080A and don't bother getting a Bios chip I will be putting a order into Taiwan for about 100 Blank Bios Chips for both the Latest 8mb Flash Chips for both Intel and AMD and a few 4mb Flash chips as well just to have on hand for those still on 939 and older socket systems. I will also be speaking with FUGGER about having my Bios Programming Service a Staple on the Forums here for Members of XSystems

Hey Bro, so I just hacked you... where's my DFI package now? ()

Bastage


On the BIOS front, too bad. That's very poor BIOS quality, so much difference and buginess will drive users crazy. I'm getting a headache just reading the above post. I'm glad I'm not using this board for home yet, not until they get their major issues sorted.

Its very disappointing seeing this kind of disconcern from DFI on these Bios that are being coded for the AMD 790FX

BTW... maybe you guys really do have unstable overclocks and the latest best BIOS knew how to find them

ehm, is there a new 03/12 beta bios available? and a new 03/07 final? how about corruption with these bios'??

I have spoken with RGone on this Issue and he informs me that DFI Taiwan has Changed all of the AWARD Flash Utilities to version 8.83 in all of the Bios Download .EXE Packages and even in the ZIP File Packages the version is AWARD 8.83 and the AUTOEXEC.BAT chanelog has been changed as well to address this issue. Also my understanding is that the Bios Packages that have a (U) in them on the side is the reference for this change over although I do not see a U after the 3/7/2008 Official so I have no idea whats up with that still and after months of debugging these Bios which have all just about been a worthless pile of Sub Par Sh***t I really don't know what to advise on this anymore and I am really starting to think that DFI just not give a about the quality of workmanship that goes into these Bios just own a DFI P35 and compare the quality of the Bios writing of those Bios to these ///// There is absolutely NO comparison as each and every Bios written for that Board ios pretty much a masterpiece they are so well written.

[Oese]

ok so i will look into the autoexec.bat whether all switches are contained within otherwise flash like in your description.

after that i'll use 01/30 until it is confirmed which bios can be used without fearing bios corruption

[Brother Esau]

For a Dual Core AMD system 11/22/07 is the Best Bios and the most stable and I have tested it extensively and its proven its worth and merit time and time again thats why I keep going back to it

The 11/07/2007 Initial Release is very good as well but the Lay out is premature and harder to understand for setting up the Bios Ram Parameters.

[Brother Esau]

ok so i will look into the autoexec.bat whether all switches are contained within otherwise flash like in your description.

after that i'll use 01/30 until it is confirmed which bios can be used without fearing bios corruption

If you download the 11/22/07 ZIP. Package and also the 1/30/2008 zip package and compare the chanelog of both when you click Edit you will see that Taiwan has added the /ch Switch and thats it as for that switching Parameter I had never heard of it and can find no reference to it with AWARD Switching Command Parameters, so I asked RGone what the Hell it did and he has stated to me that the /ch switch forces it to write the (whole Bios)


I also Noticed that when I was on the DFI Site the 3/07/2008 Bios was 0 bytes on the File Size and also the same for the 3/12/2008 Beta 0 bytes

[justapost]

Hey, Achim the Bios chip for or boards is SST49LF080A and don't bother getting a Bios chip I will be putting a order into Taiwan for about 100 Blank Bios Chips for both the Latest 8mb Flash Chips for both Intel and AMD and a few 4mb Flash chips as well just to have on hand for those still on 939 and older socket systems. I will also be speaking with FUGGER about having my Bios Programming Service a Staple on the Forums here for Members of XSystems

Ah k, so i can order an chips with a stable dfi bios on it from you.
Great service, i'll wait till you get your chips then.

[Brother Esau]

The upcoming 45nm Phenom look promising guys Gotta love them German Engineers! If they would just let the Germans handle the CPU situation vs sending it out to Malaysia and god knows wherte else I belive this crap with Phenom would never have went the way it did

[justapost]

Campbell, can I pay with these?

[Oese]

hehe i have a real lot of this really tasty weinsauerkraut as well and would like to change against new 45nm phenom ES sample

ok flashed to 11/07 gave me nice sound corruption and no LAN

did dual-flash to 01/30 now cmos clear again..

then an hour at defaults..

then flash to 11/22..

hehe how about this?

[Brother Esau]

Does not sound like the Instructions that I gave with the Flash procedure posted above Also refer to post regarding Bios and it clearly states Do Not do this Unless you are having Problems like I explained.

[Brother Esau]

Campbell, can I pay with these?

You can pay with Proper German Cooked meal with Knocwurst I will gladly except that in Lieu of money oh yeah and German Beer from Pub as well not that rubbish they pass of as German Beer in this Country either please

[Oese]

Does not sound like the Instructions that I gave with the Flash procedure posted above Also refer to post regarding Bios and it clearly states Do Not do this Unless you are having Problems like I explained.

hehe will see what this flash procedure (which comes very close to yours i think (oh i see, 01/30 was the question.. )) will do.. and i sadly i had problems..

now flash to 11/22 with the /f switch.

and har i'm having great german mai-ur-bock at the moment.. special beer in may with 6,5% vol. alc. its doing good work i hope the flash will do as well

ok will see whether this is doing better now..

i wonder why 11/07 as well as 11/22 both wont flash the first section of the bios although using all switches??

[hive]

Mm after watching this forum for over 5 weeks now i still do not dare to flash the factory default bios.

Just when i see that you guys got a proper bios always some issue's are coming up after some days .

i'm not overclocking this stuff yet , the problem i have so far is that i can't get my ocz mem at the proper 1066 mhz setting it just won't boot.
also when i set it at 800mhz with the relexed settings of 5.5.5.18 at 2t it is still not 100% stable. even at 2.30V

So i have left it at default 667mhz at 1t 5.5.5.18 it works very fine at that setting but still with world of warcraft it can cause the game to crash and report

This application has encountered a critical error:

ERROR #132 (0x85100084) Fatal Exception
Program: E:\Games\World of Warcraft\WoW.exe
Exception: 0xC0000005 (ACCESS_VIOLATION) at 0023:0074FB70

The instruction at "0x0074FB70" referenced memory at "0x00000008".
The memory could not be "read".


I'm almost sure that it is the mem setting that are still far from optimal.
but from what i've seen it still seems that we have to be patient for a proper bios

luckely this error comes once a week and i play it more then 6 hours each day.

I'm also having that Nasty C1 error once or twice a week just by resetting the bios with the reset and power button at once, and load the profile it works again but still it shouldn't be showing that error.

side note.

I'm not using the areca raid controller yet i've installed it to see if it works still having it prept for if i'm going to flash the bios that i'm going to that controller . I've bought that card because of the damn sb600 raid screw ups, but it seems fixed but still that card is faster so it's no waste.

[Brother Esau]

I never get any Errors such as that but I only use my Areca Controller and I suggest that those errors would stop for you as well if you start using your's instead of SB600 Don't play WOW but I game pretty damn hard on my rig and outside of CRYSIS issues ( NO Big Surprise There!) I never have any issues with gaming ever