chaintech vnf4

[johnnq]

i like this mobo bc: cheap, silent

i want to purchase it but there are SO many complaints i have read...but the thing is everybody seems to have a slightly different problem. i don't know what to believe. i know for a fact (i think) that if i used up 2 memory slots with pc400 and i want to use a third slot for another pc400 it'll run at 2700 speed...

can somebody please summarize the good and the bad about this mobo? this is my first build and i dont plan on overclocking a lot...but i dont want anything to break in the middle of just using windows (read some weird stuff...)

 

[us3rnotfound]

Oh you aren't OCing? You will be in good hands if you get this motherboard, then. But use caution if you ever want to upgrade the BIOS, because Chaintech's stock BIOSes are just fine for those who do not OC.

 

[GadgetBuilder]

I have the VNF4 and it has worked well for me. All SATA, no RAID, pure vanilla system, not over clocked. The hardware has given zero trouble -- amazing since I bought pieces from everywhere, including eBay. The latest VNF4's have a chipset fan so may not be as quiet as the originals unless you use SpeedFan to slow things down.

The nVidia chipset drivers and installer have been the only real problem I've encountered and they likely account for many of the VNF4 problems you've read about. A small minority of NF4 owners (from various mobo manufacturers) encounter one or more oddball problems which seem to stem from these drivers. There are a number of common themes to the problems encountered but because there are so many owners who don't encounter problems they aren't getting much attention. An interesting point is that these driver problems are seldom mentioned in hardware reviews - I'm only aware of one instance:
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/vnf4ultra/8.html (follow the link near the end of the page)

nVidia never acknowledges that there are problems with the chipset drivers and/or firewall or respond in any way to issues raised in their forums. Visit the nVidia mobo forums for more insight: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s=f3...ead353326152f9b12af806c46&showforum=34

Like a number of NF4 owners, I have some "issues" with the nVidia drivers but like many NF4 owners I live with them because having paid my money I don't have much choice. Plus, this system works better than any other system I've owned in spite of the problems

 

[johnnq]

what do these "problems" do?
and what if i do decide to overclock in a few years when my computer becomes slow compared to new technology...why is it not the best for overclocking?

if these problems are bad can you recommend a better mobo?

 

[GadgetBuilder]

The difficulty is that the nVidia driver/installer problems are unpredictable. Anything from a BSOD when you access the net to corrupted disk files to innocuous things like the icons disappearing from IE's favorites. The majority of users have no problems or don't recognize the problems as stemming from the nVidia drivers. Many problems are "cured" by not using the nVidia firewall. Visit the nVidia forum I mentioned earlier and read the threads with over 1000 views to get a feel for the situation.

I'm not an overclocker but have read that the card overclocks well if the proper approach is used, see this forum for info:
http://forums.pcper.com/forumdisplay.php?f=46
There is a problem achieving Vcore voltages between 1.4 and 1.6v. Some overclockers complain about this, others say it doesn't matter to them... it has been known for months and Chaintech hasn't addressed it. No on knows whether it is a BIOS problem or a board problem.

As far as better mobo's -- I'm fairly happy with mine in spite of the nVidia stuff. The major remaining nVidia driver issue I have is that the firewall flogs my disk several times per second; as I mentioned there are many different symptoms displayed by these drivers and mine is one of the less common problems so I have little hope that it will be addressed any time soon -- and my disk has a 5 year warranty The last nVidia driver update was over 2 months ago so they clearly think the problems are not important/widespread enough to affect sales.

Another facet of the nVidia driver problem which I encountered is a BSOD on accessing the net after I upgraded to the 6.39 or 6.53 drivers regardless of the technique I used to upgrade (and I tried many approaches). I had to reformat the disk and reinstall XP SP2 followed by the 6.53 drivers to achieve stability. This took several hours instead of minutes for a driver upgrade. Other owners upgrade the nVidia drivers without difficulty -- I have no clue why some systems like the drivers better than others; this is simply another aspect of the unpredictable nature of the drivers/installer.

The nVidia driver problems are common to all NF4 and NF3 boards since they share the mobo drivers. If you purchase a board which uses either of these chips then you will have (in my estimation) about a 1 in 10 chance of encountering one or more of the problems covered in the nVidia mobo forum. It's a crapshoot where you must decide how lucky you feel and if you're willing to deal with problems should you be unlucky.

NF4 boards seem to have more than a normal probability of corruption problems with certain models of Maxtor drives. Hard to say whether this is a disk or driver problem. If you decide to try your luck with an NF4 system, research carefully if you intend to use Maxtor disks.

 

[johnnq]

i saw your sig. u have a sonata...but doesnt the sonata have truepower 1? i thought that doesnt fit a nf4.

 

[GadgetBuilder]

The 380S PSU has a 20 pin connector. The VNF4 has a 24 pin connector. The 20 pin occupies the upper 20 pins and leaves the others open. The other 4 pin connector needed by the board for 12v is included on the 380S.

Chaintech said the board was designed to work with a 20 pin supply and also accommodate 24 pin supplies. Chaintech realizes that this is a transition time for PSUs so they designed the VNF4 to work with both types now commonly available.

The Sonata case is reasonably quiet and the 380S supply works well with my VNF4. SpeedFan controls the CPU fan making it inaudible and my (older) VNF4 doesn't have the chipset fan. My video card is an X300 so it draws modest power and does not require a cooling fan. Overall, a very quiet setup, very stable, and MUCH faster than my 3 year old HP.

 

[Akash]

hey gadgetbuilder.. what sata seagate drive do you have?
i have a vnf4 ultra board and i recently have 2 seagate sata ncq drives and none of them get detected in teh bios..
what are your bios settings.. i guess thats what i'm lookin for.. the hard drives are not bad since both of them are new.. please help thanks

 

[GadgetBuilder]

I have a Seagate ST380817AS SATA drive on my older VNF4 (passive chip cooler) and it works fine with the original 12/29/04 BIOS, I haven't tried updating the BIOS yet. Although my drive has NCQ, I turned it off based on problems reported on some other NF4 systems (plus, NCQ may reduce disk performance in single user systems).

My BIOS setup is the default: I connected the Seagate HD and the Plextor optical (both are SATA) inserted the XP CD and installation went along on auto pilot; I didn't install SATA drivers via floppy. I suspect the Chaintech engineers tested with a simple setup like mine because the XP installation could not have been easier.

I don't recall doing any fiddling with BIOS other than enabling the USB mouse (to make BootitNG easier to use). With two drives you may need to ensure RAID is disabled; with one drive it seems to be disabled automatically. All of the SATA ports are enabled but I think that was automatic too. My Seagate is on SATA 1 and the optical is on SATA 3. Some of the BIOS screens seem to reference IDE rather than SATA which makes things a little confusing. The drives presence is shown in all the spots you'd expect in the BIOS but again, this was not my doing - it was automatic.

If you'd like to review specific settings in the VNF4 BIOS, screen by screen to see if you can identify the problem, contact me via my website email. I know you've been chasing this problem for a while, I saw your post in the main VNF4 thread

 

[Silversierra]

I have the vnf4ultra, and haven't had any major issues. I like it. I got it when it first came out and have a passive chipset cooler. It doesn't make sense to me that people complain that the board is "cheap" and "has issues." The only "issue" I've had is that the vcore doesn't work between 1.4(stock) and 1.6v. But 1.6v is fairly safe. So if you want to oc a little stock works, if you want a lot, 1.6v is for you. The nv firewall is confusing, but that's a nv issue, not this boards problem. It seems that several people say(even reviews) that it doesn't overclock worth a hoot. Well, my 3000+(1.8ghz) is running prime stable at 2.45ghz, not bad, but the oc depends more on the cpu you get than the board, as long as the board has the options. For the $85 it costs now it's awesome. I paid $130 IIRC, and at that price it's a good deal. It doesn't work with 4 dimms properly with a winchester cpu(that's a winchester problem, not a board problem). Venice cpus support 4 dimms, plus they oc well.

 

[Gusdawg]

I personally love the board. I have had no driver problems to speak of. I am a budget overclocker and dont use SATA or RAID yet. The only issues I have found are incorrect cpu speeds at posting (if overclocking) and the inability to run between 1.45 and 1.6 volts VCore. However, there is a bios update coming soon to fix the voltage issue according to the tech support response from Chaintech posted below:

-----Reply Message-----
From : FAE <fae@chaintechusa.com>
Sent : Tuesday, May 24, 2005 9:54 PM
To : <myaddress@hotmail.com>
Subject : RE: New Required from Chaintech Web


Kevin,

A fix for the bios on the cpu should be coming out early next month.

Chaintech Tech Support



-----Original Message-----
From: myaddress@hotmail.com [mailto:myaddress@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 2:38 PM
To: support@chaintechusa.com
Subject: New Required from Chaintech Web

Frist Name : Kevin
Last Name : xxxx
Mail Date : 5/20/2005
Mail Address : myaddress@hotmail.com
Select Country : US
Telephone No : xxxxxx
FAX No :
Main Board Model : VNF4 Ultra
VGA Type : PCI-Ex NVIDIA Geforce 6600GT
Product Serial Number : 0502085xxx
Distributor / Retailer : Newegg.com
Problem Description : I am unable to set processor voltage to anything
between 1.45 and 1.6 volts. If this is a bios problem, any idea when a
fix is coming?
BIOS Date : 3/15/05
CD Version :
Operating System : Windows XP SP2
CPU Type : Athlon64 3200+
Memory Modules :
Other Devices :

 

[johnnqq]

so it just doesn't run at all at 1.45-1.6? so my 3000 venice won't work??

 

[the cobbler]

Originally posted by: johnnqq
so it just doesn't run at all at 1.45-1.6? so my 3000 venice won't work??

It does with the 4/27/05 Bios revision 4.0, available here.

 

[Kimikaze]

Hi all. Looks like I'm in the right place, so let me ask a question. I'm currently building a new system with a Chaintech VNF4/Ultra in a Sonata case. A little confused about the pin connectors from the front of the case. Specifically, the P-LED (Power LED) pins in the mobo. Which one is hot? I'm 90% sure I'm reading the diagram correctly in the manual, but just want confirmation.

Thanks.

 

[Kimikaze]

I hope there's still someone here. Just in case, I'll post this message and look around.

Here's a strange sorta problem. I installed a Samsung SATA drive, but neglected to install the SATA drivers from the Chaintech CD. The drive seems to work fine, but I've noticed that it appears in the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray. When I clicked on Properties, it showed that the drive is in Location 0 (Primary ATA Channel). Should I be concerned? Should I just start over and reinstall Windows XP including the SATA drivers? I'm leaning towards the latter now, but would like to avoid the trouble.

Please help. Thanks.

 

[krose]

You only need SATA drivers for RAID, so you are fine. The tray icon is there because the SATA drive is supposed to be hot-swappable, and this is normal.

 

[Kimikaze]

Originally posted by: krose
You only need SATA drivers for RAID, so you are fine. The tray icon is there because the SATA drive is supposed to be hot-swappable, and this is normal.

Thanks. I'm feeling better about it now and I think I'll just leave things be. Do you know if the icon would remain even if I installed Chaintech's SATA drivers?

 

[LyNX31]

Originally posted by: GadgetBuilder
The difficulty is that the nVidia driver/installer problems are unpredictable. Anything from a BSOD when you access the net to corrupted disk files to innocuous things like the icons disappearing from IE's favorites. The majority of users have no problems or don't recognize the problems as stemming from the nVidia drivers. Many problems are "cured" by not using the nVidia firewall. Visit the nVidia forum I mentioned earlier and read the threads with over 1000 views to get a feel for the situation.

I'm not an overclocker but have read that the card overclocks well if the proper approach is used, see this forum for info:
http://forums.pcper.com/forumdisplay.php?f=46
There is a problem achieving Vcore voltages between 1.4 and 1.6v. Some overclockers complain about this, others say it doesn't matter to them... it has been known for months and Chaintech hasn't addressed it. No on knows whether it is a BIOS problem or a board problem.

As far as better mobo's -- I'm fairly happy with mine in spite of the nVidia stuff. The major remaining nVidia driver issue I have is that the firewall flogs my disk several times per second; as I mentioned there are many different symptoms displayed by these drivers and mine is one of the less common problems so I have little hope that it will be addressed any time soon -- and my disk has a 5 year warranty The last nVidia driver update was over 2 months ago so they clearly think the problems are not important/widespread enough to affect sales.

Another facet of the nVidia driver problem which I encountered is a BSOD on accessing the net after I upgraded to the 6.39 or 6.53 drivers regardless of the technique I used to upgrade (and I tried many approaches). I had to reformat the disk and reinstall XP SP2 followed by the 6.53 drivers to achieve stability. This took several hours instead of minutes for a driver upgrade. Other owners upgrade the nVidia drivers without difficulty -- I have no clue why some systems like the drivers better than others; this is simply another aspect of the unpredictable nature of the drivers/installer.

The nVidia driver problems are common to all NF4 and NF3 boards since they share the mobo drivers. If you purchase a board which uses either of these chips then you will have (in my estimation) about a 1 in 10 chance of encountering one or more of the problems covered in the nVidia mobo forum. It's a crapshoot where you must decide how lucky you feel and if you're willing to deal with problems should you be unlucky.

NF4 boards seem to have more than a normal probability of corruption problems with certain models of Maxtor drives. Hard to say whether this is a disk or driver problem. If you decide to try your luck with an NF4 system, research carefully if you intend to use Maxtor disks.

are these problems fixed with the latest 5.0 bios?

 

[GadgetBuilder]

The latest recommended BIOS for the VNF4 is V4.0, dated 4/27/2005. The V5.0 BIOS seems to be mostly for dual core support and some owners report issues with XP vs V5.0 so I haven't tried it.

I updated to the V4.0 BIOS and it does not have any effect on the problems that affect my system (constant disk access, occasional ethernet dropout). There are many problems reported in the nVidia forums so perhaps some are fixed by this BIOS revision, but it doesn't seem likely.

I have tried the 6.53 nVidia driver set and am currently running the 7.12 Intel Beta driver set on my AMD system. No apparent change from earlier drivers -- still continuous disk access and occasional ethernet dropout on my machine. Perhaps these drivers fix some of the many other problems that affect some NF3/NF4 owners but they didn't fix anything for me.

One hopeful sign is that a normal driver install worked with the 7.12 driver set. The 6.53 set caused a BSOD until I did a clean XP install followed immediately by the 6.53 drivers.

 

[johnnqq]

nobody answered one of my original questions. if i stuck 4 dimms of 3200 memory in, would it changed the speed to 2700?

 

[BTA]

Mine works fine with 4x512 @ DDR400

2T though.