**Official DFI LanParty UT X48-T2R(and LT) Discussion

[PnoT]

I've got a single OCZ Vertex 2 setup on a SATA port and am very pleased with performance so far. I was however thinking about throwing another one in for the hell of it.

Which file do i need to flash with as there are 3 on the site and I'd like to be 100% sure before pulling the trigger.

Btw, thanks for putting these out there!

[Jultsu]

This one: http://warez.pp.fi/DFI_Lanparty_X48_...C24_modded.BIN

It's the newest bios available (LT variant, but it'll work with UT boards also)

If you prefer an older bios, you can patch it yourself with those other files.


ah, btw. here are some quick benches:

[PnoT]

Here is a shot of my OCZ Vertex 2 60GB on SATA AHCI

[NoahLDiamond]

Everything still running well and stable. 3.85GHZ on the CPU, 850/4800 on the 5970, and 600/1600/1800 on the Physx with the PCI-E bus at 101. Running stable. Seems to be this config's limit... If only I had a larger power supply and battery backup. It says I draw 860 from the wall, though I am sure the monitor has something to do with it.

[NoahLDiamond]

And today... my mainboard died. I was hoping the board would last longer than that. Yes, I know I was pushing it to the maximum, but I am surprised at how the board degraded so quickly. It just suddenly died. No blown caps, no smoke, no bad smell... It just stopped posting and has not diagnostic codes of any kind.

A note to everyone. If you have one of these... It appears to be a time bomb.

- Noah

[zanzabar]

look at the flat pwm by the SB, dfi is supposed to still rma so i would try that as it should be fixable or they will buy it out.

[msmolt]

I owen two of these boards they have both been rmaed with error code 88 and yes theres still a rma in the usa

[NoahLDiamond]

Well, I had freezing problems with my old board of the same model, but I tossed it in and it's up. It still had the freezing problem, so I pulled the BIOS chip from the new board and popped it in the old board. It is working at the moment. I will report back. Still don't know what killed the old board, aside from serious abuse with high clocks.

[NoahLDiamond]

Is the board still under warranty? I thought it was only one year.

[NoahLDiamond]

It was still freezing. I went ahead and set it to pretty much stock settings. I will see if that helps.

[msmolt]

what are you using to see if its stable?

[NoahLDiamond]

To quickly answer the stability question... Stable to me is having a machine that can run non stop with only shutdown periods to clean out dust and polish up. A stable computer is ready to do anything without error at any moment, no matter what. It CANNOT crash in a game. It CANNOT fail to properly calculate huge numbers, and it ABSOLUTELY CANNOT FAIL to impress my friends and neighbors.

OCCT and prime. It is stable at stock clocks. I ordered a replacement board.

Apparently, when you run a motherboard to it's absolute bleeding edge maximum, it shortens it's life span.

Surprise.

I had the board running with the following settings...

CPU Feature Page

Thermal Management Control................Enabled
PPM(EIST) Mode............................Disabled
Limit CPUID MaxVal........................Disabled
CIE Function..............................Disabled
Execute Disable Bit.......................Enabled
Virtualization Technology.................Disabled
Core Multi-Processing.....................Enabled

Main BIOS Page

Exist Setup Shutdown......................Mode 2
Shutdown after AC loss....................Disabled
O.C. Fail Retry Counter...................1
Clock VCO Divider.........................AUTO
CPU Clock Ratio........................... 8.5x
CPU N/2 Ratio.............................Enabled
Target CPU Clock..........................3850 MHz
CPU Clock.................................453 MHz
Boot Up Clock.............................Auto
DRAM Speed................................333/667
Target DRAM Speed.........................DDR2 907 MHz
PCIE Clock................................101 MHz
PCIE Slot Config.......................... 1X 1X

CPU Spread Spectrum.......................Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum......................Disabled

Voltage Setting Page

CPU VID Control...........................1.34375V
CPU VID Special Add Limit.................Enabled
CPU VID Special Add ......................Auto
DRAM Voltage Control......................2.100V
SB Core/CPU PLL Voltage...................1.640V
NB Core Voltage...........................1.650V
CPU VTT Voltage...........................1.483V
VCore Droop Control.......................Enabled
Clockgen Voltage Control..................3.65V
GTL+ Buffers Strenght.....................Strong
Host Slew Rate............................Weak
MCH RON Offset Value......................00
MCH RTT Offset Value......................00
MCH Slew Rate Offset Value................00
MCH VREF 1 Value..........................00
MCH VREF 2 Value..........................00
MCH VREF 3 Value..........................00
GTL REF Voltage Control...................Enable
CPU GTL 1/2 REF Volt......................120
CPU GTL 1/3 REF Volt......................117
North Bridge GTL REF Volt ................117

DRAM Timing Page

Enhance Data Transmitting.................Fast
Enhance Addressing........................Fast
T2 Dispatch...............................Disabled

CAS Latency Time (tCL)....................5
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD).................5
RAS# Precharge (tRP)......................5
Precharge Delay (tRAS)....................15
All Precharge to Act......................Auto
REF to ACT Delay (tRFC)...................54
Performance LVL (read delay)..............8 - 9
MCH ODT Latency...........................Auto
Write to PRE Delay (tWR)..................Auto
Rank Write to Read (tWTR).................Auto
ACT to ACT Delay (tRRD)...................Auto
Read to Write Delay (tRDWR)...............Auto
Ranks Write to Write (tWRWR)..............Auto
Ranks Read to Read (tWRRD)................Auto
Read CAS# Precharge (tRTP)................Auto
ALL PRE to Refresh........................Auto


Apparently, pushing the 2.83 to 3.85 on the x48 WILL eventually kill the northbridge, no matter what motherboard you have or cooling solution you use. Pushing the FSB to 453 and tightening all the timings to precision let it run at max performance to the point where I was sincerely outperforming i5/i7 machines... granted, I do run a Radeon HD 5970 OC to 5870 dual speeds and a GT 240 for physx.

Just so you know... a mild overclock is one thing, but I have actually seen MANY top of the line motherboards degrade over a period of one week because they were pushed so hard. It's like a high performance custom built sports car. Yeah, the drive train will give out at some point from the stress, but it's one hell of a ride up until then.

I don't mind swapping a mobo every couple of years to keep my performance up. To me, the motherboard has so much integrated into it that I now consider it a "Wear Item". As for my data, power supply and extreme graphics set up with a 28" LCD 1920X1200 display driving games at the max, I must say it has been and will continue to be a fun ride.

A note to everyone who is extreme overclocking. Make sure you have a fully compatible backup board incase yours dies. There is nothing like having a machine die and not having a spare part. Thank goodness for holding on to my personal inventory.

I should also note that this board has been running nearly 24/7/365 at max clocks and extreme load, so I think I got my money's worth out of it. As for my dead board... well... I can think of a few pistol calibers that can help turn it into a piece of art.

[zsamz_]

i pushed mine 500fsb+ 24/7 and its still goin strong with new owners
i kept pwn and nb nicely cooled
biggest issue i had was easy bios corruption
thats why i had spare bios chips

[msmolt]

Well without a sig its hard to see what your dealing with . but thems some tight ass ram timming for that kind of over clock. Ive been running my DFIs to the max since the 757 but this X48 ( i have two tr2 and tr3) they both went to rma before 18 months

[msmolt]

i pushed mine 500fsb+ 24/7 and its still goin strong with new owners
i kept pwn and nb nicely cooled
biggest issue i had was easy bios corruption
thats why i had spare bios chips

your right . that seamed to be both my x48 boards problem. I do have spair chips now

[msmolt]

Well without a sig its hard to see what your dealing with . but them's some tight ass ram timing for that kind of over clock. Ive been running my DFIs to the max since the 757 but this X48 ( i have two tr2 and tr3) they both went to rma before 18 months

Well its been a long time since Ive been in my bios lol I'm running them same RAM timing

[NoahLDiamond]

So... a consensus please... Do you guys think I killed the board, or it just happened to die right around the 18 month mark?

[msmolt]

In my case. Both my boards. Bios stuck with code 88. you seam to be able to boot at stock speeds. I'm thinking that ether your CPU or memory is failing you.
or its become unstable at the clock your using Why don't you start at 3.6 and work your way up and see how far you can go before the crashing starts.
with out a sig with your parts in the PC its hard to know whats to look for.


"Apparently, when you run a motherboard to it's absolute bleeding edge maximum, it shortens it's life span."
Only shorten the life span of the CPU and or memory.
Ive run all my DFI boards since the 757 format and I'm still running them boards at the same clock they always did. And i'm known to be a mad clocker lol.
So in my case I feel this to not be the case.

Also I'm running.

CPU VID Control...........................1.350V
CPU VID Special Add Limit.................Enabled
CPU VID Special Add ......................Auto
DRAM Voltage Control......................2.100V
SB Core/CPU PLL Voltage...................1.640V
NB Core Voltage...........................1.703V
CPU VTT Voltage...........................1.483V
VCore Droop Control.......................Enabled
Clockgen Voltage Control..................3.75V
to reach 3.9 8 hours occt stable.
Notic that was 8 hours not 30 mins

[zsamz_]

you really need 1,7v on nb?
i had mine @ 1.63v but never got above 40c

noah does it matter?
the pounding my boards too shows how strong they were
rma n move on

[NoahLDiamond]

There is some confusion here.

I am running an alternate backup board that doesn't overclock any more but works stock.

The other board is dead dead. Not even a code 88. It just gave out random garbled bits of LED that made no sense, then it died completely. It just kinda gave out. I started on the RMA process. This will be my third board now when it arrives.

[NoahLDiamond]

Still stable.

CPU @ 3.614, SOLID stable, and now the memory is what is boosted, at 1021MHZ Dual channel 128-bit with over 16,336 MBps bandwidth and timings of 5-5-5-8-54 and feels like the computer is actually faster.

Perhaps this board is a keeper. I may run this board until it dies, then replace it with the RMA replaced board. I did get the RMA accepted by ITOX who has taken over the RMA department for DFI and they have EXCELLENT customer service. I was very impressed. I had my RMA number in under 2 hours! When I emailed them with questions, they responded almost in real time and told me they will either repair or replace the board, but noted the board is no longer made. I went on a search and instantly found that DFI Lanparty motherboard series has officially died :'(.

Still, if I get a replacement board, which is quite likely, I will have an extra identical motherboard on hand in case this one dies as well.

Remember... KEEP BACKUP PARTS! You will need them some day when your high end system fails. A backup PCI-E graphics card and a diagnostic/known safe and reliable PCI video card, and if possible, memory, hard drives, optical drives, a power supply and of course, BACK UP YOUR data. I make images and have a data backup folder meant for my data drive all preserved on an external USB drive that I image my C drive to every month or so, ensuring I have a great safe zone to retreat to. I also like to keep an alternate OS already made for my machine for test booting that has pretty much every driver already loaded for compatibility, and I keep ALL my original install discs and boxes. In essence, the only spare I don't have is a CPU.

IF my CPU dies, I will upgrade the entire machine, or replace it with one of the CPUs left out there to keep it running so I can save money and buy a huge upgrade, plus I ALWAYS have parts in stock for clients.

Anyway, many lessons have been learned over the course of my life as a PC engineer, but I can say that experience is much better than just education alone... And no, I am not taunting education. I received that as well, but nothing prepares you for the real world. The only reason I got into fixing computers in the first place was I kept breaking mine by pushing it too hard or abusing it or upgrading it wrong, and I had to hire a tech to fix it. I got tired of paying someone to fix it for me, so I started to learn how to fix it myself and the ball has been rolling ever since.

OK, peace everyone, and thanks a million for your common sense input and assistance with your experience as well. You all gave me hope and got me running again, possibly better than ever.

[revenant]

I picked up the UT version of this board used and it's coming to me soon... glad to see some sorta kinda recent activity here... at the very least, a LOT of good reading.

[Monkey101]

So my 4870x2 died on me, just picked up a 6870 and it doesn't seem to like to DFI board.
Works fine in my backup PC. Would a BIOS update help? If so how do i do it? I cannot find the documentation on flashing it with a USB stick.

[revenant]

I have a pair of 6850s that work on my DFI "DK" X48 fine... have you added the power connector to the pci-e power plugs on the motherboard? there's a floppy power prong near each pci-e slot and those are for addition extra pci-e power.. the 6870 should not be so demanding that you need those but it's something to try.

as for flashing, I'd just create a bootable usb drive and then stick the bios and flash util on that.

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

might help.. not sure tho as I haven't use that link in a while.. but you should be able to google and find what you need to make a bootable flash disk.

[Monkey101]

I have a pair of 6850s that work on my DFI "DK" X48 fine... have you added the power connector to the pci-e power plugs on the motherboard? there's a floppy power prong near each pci-e slot and those are for addition extra pci-e power.. the 6870 should not be so demanding that you need those but it's something to try.

as for flashing, I'd just create a bootable usb drive and then stick the bios and flash util on that.

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

might help.. not sure tho as I haven't use that link in a while.. but you should be able to google and find what you need to make a bootable flash disk.

Thanks for the advice, just managed to flash a new BIOS version now. Going to test quick.
Will give the 4pin floppy connector a try also.