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

[keithlm]

Dang.

I have the dreaded C1 error.

I tried quick a CMOS reset. No luck.

I've tried different memory. (I've a few cheapo DDR2 sticks around.) No success.

I'm now trying the long clear with the battery out type of CMOS reset. We'll see what happens.

NOTE: THis happened when I ran the sandra tool that goes in and finds suggestions and tweaks... it rebooted and then the C1 came up... and that is "the end". I had just paid for Everest to help out testing and benchmarking... and was considering Sandra. (But based on this... I guess I'll save my money. I know... it's a DFI problem... but nothing in Sandra should have done this.)

Darn it.

Brother Esau you seem to have a lot of experience. Could running something have somehow messed up the flash?
(I was on the 3/7/2008 official release. I almost flashed the 3/31/2008 beta... but I wanted to go for stability first.)

So should I RMA or get ahold of another flash chip and get it flashed? How much do those cost anyway? (If this is the problem then apparently it wouldn't be a bad idea to have an extra chip on hand.) How much is a flash unit to actually flash them? (Looks like about $40.00 or so for a burner... what's a chip cost? $10.00 or so? Perhaps I'll buy a couple of them and a programmer. What chip does it use?)

[Undersea]

Dang.

I have the dreaded C1 error.

I tried quick a CMOS reset. No luck.

I've tried different memory. (I've a few cheapo DDR2 sticks around.) No success.

I'm now trying the long clear with the battery out type of CMOS reset. We'll see what happens.

NOTE: THis happened when I ran the sandra tool that goes in and finds suggestions and tweaks... it rebooted and then the C1 came up... and that is "the end". I had just paid for Everest to help out testing and benchmarking... and was considering Sandra. (But based on this... I guess I'll save my money. I know... it's a DFI problem... but nothing in Sandra should have done this.)

Darn it.

Brother Esau you seem to have a lot of experience. Could running something have somehow messed up the flash?
(I was on the 3/7/2008 official release. I almost flashed the 3/31/2008 beta... but I wanted to go for stability first.)

So should I RMA or get ahold of another flash chip and get it flashed? How much do those cost anyway? (If this is the problem then apparently it wouldn't be a bad idea to have an extra chip on hand.) How much is a flash unit to actually flash them? (Looks like about $40.00 or so for a burner... what's a chip cost? $10.00 or so? Perhaps I'll buy a couple of them and a programmer. What chip does it use?)

Brother should help you out. Sucks Christmas ruined.

Why would Sandra do that? I haven't read about that.

[keithlm]

Sucks Christmas ruined.

Why would Sandra do that? I haven't read about that.

Yep. No more Christmas in April.

Don't know if it was Sandra... but that is what I was running... and it caused the reboot. (And now not boot.)

I hate it... but if it IS the flash.. I'd rather buy a new chip or two and have backups. (Looks like the going average price for these on the net is about $20.00 or $30.00.)

I might even buy a EPROM programmer if the cheap $40.00 ones will do these chips. It looks the chip blanks are about $3.00 or so. I'd MUCH rather do that than deal with ANY type of RMA to Newegg OR DFI. (Unless I could call DFI and get them to send me one. Sadly I suspect that they'd rather I go through the entire RMA process with newegg... even though I doubt there is anything wrong with the motherboard, ram or CPU.)

FRUSTRATION. :-P

Guess I should have flashed that 3/31/08 beta bios... maybe this might not have happened.

I am rapidly wishing I had picked another brand. I got this because it had the best onboard sound and I liked the transpiper. But having something that WORKS would be better than anything else. And of course Newegg won't refund these. So I guess I just bought a lemon. Now I'll go buy something that will work and write off the $250.00

[Undersea]

How about putting your X2 back in?

Might be worth a try.

[Brother Esau]

Yep. No more Christmas in April.

Don't know if it was Sandra... but that is what I was running... and it caused the reboot. (And now not boot.)

I hate it... but if it IS the flash.. I'd rather buy a new chip or two and have backups. (Looks like the going average price for these on the net is about $20.00 or $30.00.)

I might even buy a EPROM programmer if the cheap $40.00 ones will do these chips. It looks the chip blanks are about $3.00 or so. I'd MUCH rather do that than deal with ANY type of RMA to Newegg OR DFI. (Unless I could call DFI and get them to send me one. Sadly I suspect that they'd rather I go through the entire RMA process with newegg... even though I doubt there is anything wrong with the motherboard, ram or CPU.)

FRUSTRATION. :-P

Guess I should have flashed that 3/31/08 beta bios... maybe this might not have happened.

I am rapidly wishing I had picked another brand. I got this because it had the best onboard sound and I liked the transpiper. But having something that WORKS would be better than anything else. And of course Newegg won't refund these. So I guess I just bought a lemon. Now I'll go buy something that will work and write off the $250.00

Calm down man and relax OK? If you get a C1 Error Please unplug the PSU for a couple of minutes and move the Jumper to clear position and after a couple of minutes reverse the process. Please wait at least 4o seconds after the PSU is plugged back in to power up.

Let us know how it goes Just got back online had to Install my new Super Micro Hot Swap Sata Cage in my Rig and install the ram and change out the heatsink for the stock AMD one will be putting my Tuniq in my DFI Expert system and sending my CoolIt TEC Cooler in this way I will be motivated enough to do so with temps that are 15c higher on stock heatsink I think I should be able to pull the hooks out of my ass and get this done finally

The Bios Chip thing....Don't have any chips right now have to put a order in for a 100 or so for Intel/AMD 8mb Flash chips just have been pre occupide with my cat getting deathly ill and almost dying and all that nightmare past couple of weeks. But if you need the chip Flashed and you cannot recover from C1 Error I'll throw it on my programmer for you and you can owe me a favor and do some beta testing for bios after you get situated with the board and all ..........Trust me no other experience comes close in the Overclocking world compared to the DFI Experience

[Brother Esau]

Dang.

I have the dreaded C1 error.

I tried quick a CMOS reset. No luck.

I've tried different memory. (I've a few cheapo DDR2 sticks around.) No success.

I'm now trying the long clear with the battery out type of CMOS reset. We'll see what happens.

NOTE: THis happened when I ran the sandra tool that goes in and finds suggestions and tweaks... it rebooted and then the C1 came up... and that is "the end". I had just paid for Everest to help out testing and benchmarking... and was considering Sandra. (But based on this... I guess I'll save my money. I know... it's a DFI problem... but nothing in Sandra should have done this.)

Darn it.

Brother Esau you seem to have a lot of experience. Could running something have somehow messed up the flash?
(I was on the 3/7/2008 official release. I almost flashed the 3/31/2008 beta... but I wanted to go for stability first.)

So should I RMA or get ahold of another flash chip and get it flashed? How much do those cost anyway? (If this is the problem then apparently it wouldn't be a bad idea to have an extra chip on hand.) How much is a flash unit to actually flash them? (Looks like about $40.00 or so for a burner... what's a chip cost? $10.00 or so? Perhaps I'll buy a couple of them and a programmer. What chip does it use?)

There have been issues with Speed Fan killing Boards and cpu's probably more like corrupting the c'mos (that will do it) but yes there have been strange reports like that since the 790 came out and its not just DFI boards either!

P.S........You have to buy more then one Blank Flash chip at a time ......LOL.. Nobodies gonna sell you one chip man. Now if you want to buy a 100 PCS.....thats a different story all together.....I get mine shipped from Taiwan which is about $50.00 just for the shipping

[keithlm]

There have been issues with Speed Fan killing Boards and cpu's probably more like corrupting the c'mos (that will do it) but yes there have been strange reports like that since the 790 came out and its not just DFI boards either!

P.S........You have to buy more then one Blank Flash chip at a time ......LOL.. Nobodies gonna sell you one chip man. Now if you want to buy a 100 PCS.....thats a different story all together.....I get mine shipped from Taiwan which is about $75.00 just for the shipping

(Doing the exact steps withe power. I've done that about 50 times. But Perhaps I didn't wait at least 40 seconds before power on.)

I read about the speedfan etc. That is why I'm pretty sure what happened seems like a bios problem.

(I was running at stock CPU and memory speeds... no overvoltage except 2.1V on memory which is the memories spec.)


Ah bulk chips... don't really want that many. Didn't think about that. Darn it. It was an idea. And I'll do you a favor now: Go buy one of these:
http://http://www.hagen.com/usa/cats..._fountain.html It is the greatest thing since sliced bread for cat owners.


I came about seconds from pulling the trigger on a $60.00 cheap AM2+ board. If I order NOW I can have it friday and then have somethign working this weekend... no matter what happens with the DFI. (Which I still want... I just want it in "operational" condition darn it.)


NO JOY on the waiting over a minute after re-attaching power before turning it on. (I turned the PS on... then waited a minute... then hit the power button. So the motherboard had that minute of power to do it's thing.

SO QUESTION: Do you agree this sounds like the bios? (I'm concerned about either getting a new bios chip or deciding to start the RMA process. Which I don't really want to do. And also I worry about the memory and CPU... I feel better knowing this has happened before.) BTW: If you send me a new bios chip... I'll contribute to the cause and pay for half your next batch. EDIT: Oh I see you wrote $75.00 just for shipping... I thought that was the price for the batch. <gulp> So perhaps not half the batch...

[Undersea]

(Doing the exact steps withe power. I've done that about 50 times. But Perhaps I didn't wait at least 40 seconds before power on.)

I read about the speedfan etc. That is why I'm pretty sure what happened seems like a bios problem.

(I was running at stock CPU and memory speeds... no overvoltage except 2.1V on memory which is the memories spec.)


Ah bulk chips... don't really want that many. Didn't think about that. Darn it. It was an idea. And I'll do you a favor now: Go buy one of these:
http://http://www.hagen.com/usa/cats..._fountain.html It is the greatest thing since sliced bread for cat owners.


I came about seconds from pulling the trigger on a $60.00 cheap AM2+ board. If I order NOW I can have it friday and then have somethign working this weekend... no matter what happens with the DFI. (Which I still want... I just want it in "operational" condition darn it.)

Someone is running a 9850 in a biostar 770.

If you get it add heat sinks to the Fets. Don't push it or the chip will burn up the board.

[keithlm]

Someone is running a 9850 in a biostar 770.

If you get it add heat sinks to the Fets. Don't push it or the chip will burn up the board.

OH.. fireworks! BONUS!

Yeah. It's a bad idea. :-P

(BTW: Don't have an X2 that will fit this socket.)

DFI should put an extra BIOS chip (or 2) into the box. For the price these boards go for... it would be courteous.

[Brother Esau]

You don't have to do that man and I hardly think you want to pay for half of my order for a Bios Chip

Well I can tell you this Keith for me it always regardless of what DFI Board I get its twice the charm first one of my P35 and 790FX-M2R had to be replaced and my Expert board before that Don't know why strange luck I suppose but this is my second board and have not had a moments trouble with it outside of Bios corruption which is common for the amount I flash and DFI is really slacking on the Bios on this board but then again if it wern't for me pimping this thing the way I have it probably would not have gone anywhere on this forum at all with the general concensus being Intel frame of mind and all...so....Kudos to Me

Hard call man could very well be the Bios Chip maybe not though.

What you can do is start the RMA process and ship you're Bios Chip out to me and I'll program it and even test it on my board for you and I'll ship it right back out your way in Fruit Cake Coffin Ville Worst case scenario is that it is the Board but it very well could be the chip too! Let me know what you want to do? I have a running offer on this thread for those that sign up with me through PM For Beta Testing in the even anything fgoes wrong while Beta Testing I will re-program their chip Free of Charge....Hows that you gonna get that with ASUS?

[keithlm]

You don't have to do that man and I hardly think you want to pay for half of my order for a Bios Chip

Well I can tell you this Keith for me it always regardless of what DFI Board I get its twice the charm first one of my P35 and 790FX-M2R had to be replaced and my Expert board before that Don't know why strange luck I suppose but this is my second board and have not had a moments trouble with it outside of Bios corruption which is common for the amount I flash and DFI is really slacking on the Bios on this board but then again if it wern't for me pimping this thing the way I have it probably would not have gone anywhere on this forum at all with the general concensus being Intel frame of mind and all...so....Kudos to Me

Hard call man could very well be the Bios Chip maybe not though.

What you can do is start the RMA process and ship you're Bios Chip out to me and I'll program it and even test it on my board for you and I'll ship it right back out your way in Fruit Cake Coffin Ville Worst case scenario is that it is the Board but it very well could be the chip too! Let me know what you want to do? I have a running offer on this thread for those that sign up with me through PM For Beta Testing in the even anything fgoes wrong while Beta Testing I will re-program their chip Free of Charge....Hows that you gonna get that with ASUS?

I thought $75.00 WAS your order. (Not just shipping.)

Anyway I think I'll send this one back to Newegg and get a replacement. But in the future... I will be more than willing to try out any of the beta bios. Actually I'm just glad this thing has a POST readout. (Another bonus the M2RS doesn't have. In fact not many motherboards have that anymore.)

And in the future... let me know if you get a new batch of chips.. I'd definitely send you some cash for an "emergency replacement" chip if I could have one on hand. (Just in case this happens again. Which it seems fairly common. I'm just glad I had extra ram to test.) With an emergency chip around I'll flash anything that comes along as soon as I see it.

BTW: QUESTION: If you didn't have the EPROM programmer... and the ability to fix your own bios... how many times would you have been "Dead in the water" even with the motherboard that has not given you any problems?? (i.e., you may have had MANY situations that would have really messed with us mere mortals.)

[Brother Esau]

The DFI P35 was some of the best Bios I swear ...just pure works of art all of them. The 790 Bios suck when comparing the 2 Bios for P35 & 790FX you would swear that they are drunk when coding them for this board when making that comparison

DFI probably thought AMD was dead in the water (can you blame them?) But I guarantee now that things are turning around with B3 Stepping and everything else positive ion the way from AMD thats not going to be the case with the future Bios at all.

You also have to figure that I am going out of my way looking for failure on the Bios level so I can save others the anguish of finding out the hard way.

Its been a very shaky road since AMD came back to bat and its really been strictly for those wishing to debug the current associated problems with the new architecture or die hard AMD fans.........All in time Sky Walker all in time!

Just think of it like this most of whats going on is not DFI's fault its primarily a source code issue attributed to AMD / AWARD and DFI and other Board Makers are doing their best to run interference with the current situation which aint easy at all and make something good out of something not so good or in infant stages to be more accurate.

Generally People even me don't have a issue with Flashing Bios or Bad Flashes with DFI unless you opt to use WINFLASH and then you are just begging for problems and not using your head so is it a common thing with DFI ? NO!!!!!

Do you get Bad Flashes for no reason ? Yes happens!!! And theres nothing you can do about it!

P.S............Its People like us or is us....lol....that have helped make Phenom B2 "LOSER" go to Phenom B3 "WINNER"!

But I cant take any credit for Phenom at all just joined this end of the Party myself

[Brother Esau]

Update............. OCZ2RPR10664GK 4GB PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066) is a Winner and Boots NO Issues whatsoever @1066 Divider

Have them Priming Blend Test right now at 1.83vdimm @1066 Divider past 1 1/2hrs

[Brother Esau]

[QUOTE=keithlm;2908246]I thought $75.00 WAS your order. (Not just shipping.)

And in the future... let me know if you get a new batch of chips.. I'd definitely send you some cash for an "emergency replacement" chip if I could have one on hand. (Just in case this happens again. Which it seems fairly common. I'm just glad I had extra ram to test.) With an emergency chip around I'll flash anything that comes along as soon as I see it.


Right Try like around $400.00 Still want to Pony up with half of that for one Bios Chip?

I will be speaking with Charles (FUGGER) about having a section on the Forum in Services for My Bios Reprogramming Service for Members for members with a 100 posts or more (No Dead Beats bouncing into the forums) will be entitled to get Bios Chips for $15.00 Each +Shipping ...which is always 2 Day Priority "Insured"

[keithlm]

Right Try like around $400.00 Still want to Pony up with half of that for one Bios Chip?

...for members with a 100 posts or more (No Dead Beats bouncing into the forums) will be entitled to get Bios Chips for $15.00 Each +Shipping ...which is always 2 Day Priority "Insured"

For $200.00 I think I'd just order a new board from NEWEGG and keep a spare.

EEEK... 100 posts... guess I need to get to posting. Although other than a few posts about my Thermalright HR-03Plus on my 8800GTS I hadn't really posted in these forums for about a year. Or two.

But yeah... $15.00 is reasonable.

NOTE: I Contacted DFI:
They didn't specificaly say: but it seems that it is possible that Sandra corrupted the bios. The technician said:

"And if you are going to run old non-updated for 790FX chipset programs, you need to disable monitoring or checking of SMBUS or you will have problems. Sandra has been notorious for that for 7 or 8 years now and one reason I moved completely away from Miss Sandra."

(Although he doesn't say if a corrpupted bios is part of "problems" you might have. Besides... they really need to just fix that. If Sandra and Speedfan can cause a corrupt bios.. something is AWRY.)

[justapost]

I will be speaking with Charles (FUGGER) about having a section on the Forum in Services for My Bios Reprogramming Service for Members for members with a 100 posts or more (No Dead Beats bouncing into the forums) will be entitled to get Bios Chips for $15.00 Each +Shipping ...which is always 2 Day Priority "Insured"[/B]

15$ is a very good price for an preflashed bios chip.
Did you receive your shippment jet?

[keithlm]

have it probably would not have gone anywhere on this forum at all with the general concensus being Intel frame of mind and all...[/B]

Double posting. (Yeah I know.)

Definite kudos for doing so.

I agree with what Tony mentions in his thread about some friends of his that mention that the AMD chips are less "jerky" than "the other brand". The other brand may do a lot of things to optimize, tweak, and win benchmarks... but EVERYTHING they do does have side effects during normal use that many people don't want to consider.

(But don't try to mention this... you'll get eaten alive.)

OH and BTW: I'm glad I had this working with the 9850 and the memory last night and today until the crash. So I know that things are probably fine with the RAM and the CPU. Plus I had fun doing a few benchmarks. That should help me in my long wait for the new board. Darn it. You pay $40.00 to get something shipped overnight, but they don't deliver it on monday, and then this happens. What did I do with my screamy guy picture??? <runs off to go look for it>