DFI, great overclocker, poor reliability?

[sumyungai]

Three months after I purchased my DFI Ultra-D, the Nvidia LAN went bad, but since there was another LAN, I just switched it over to save myself the hassle of RMA. Eight months later (2 days ago), my secondary IDE channel went bad. Also, a few months ago I built a system for a friend using the same board and the Nvidia LAN died after 3 weeks. Now I'm having second thoughts on the quality of DFI. Perhaps my friend and I had bad luck, but what are the odds of this happening? Just wondering if anyone with DFI mobo have similar issues?

 

[sumyungai]

32 views and no reply? I take it everyone here with DFI has worked flawlessly?

 

[Madellga]

Yes. I'm in my 3rd DFI board (the other 2 are still running) and they were always OK.

The only thing is the first time setup, to tweak the bios and match memory/cpu takes time. After you get it right, it runs flawlessly.

I think you had bad luck

 

[n7]

It seems to be i've heard of more dying DFI boards than most other manufacturers, but it could also be due to more OCers owning them, & stressing them harder than normal users would.

 

[vanvock]

no probs here

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

1 1/2 years running here, no problems.

I think n7 makes a good point. When hardcore overclockers start running 3.3V+ through their RAM, and 1.6V CPU's, and running 300+ FSB speeds, they are going to get more failures then the average user (or even average overclocker).

 

[jiffylube1024]

Two DFI Ultra-D's used for me and both have been excellent boards, extremely reliable, very nice performance.

My buddy got a DFI SLI Expert - nothing but problems. Cold boot issues, poor RAID performance (something I experienced with my Ultra-D as well, unfortunately), extreme pickiness. The Expert is a b!tch on power supplies too - very few work properly with it. Enermax Noisetaker and OCZ Modstream both had cold boot issues with the DFI Expert board (an OCZ Powerstream worked fine).

I recommended to my friend the new ASUS A8R32-MVP (ATI's RD580 chipset) - great success with the board! Extremely fast, stable and reliable.

----------

I think DFI is a good brand but they're going to have to keep it up to maintain the reputation. I've heard of many people having problems with the Expert series (though the Ultra-D and SLI-DR were, in my opinion, pure gold!).

One thing (I think this is true for all Nforce4 boards) that annoys me is the horrible RAID 1 performance. RAID 1 (two mirrored discs) performed mediocre for me on my Ultra-D (slower than a single drive!) and RAID 0 + 1 like crap (a tad faster than a single drive, only!!). RAID 0 is very quick on NF4 (as it should be). Plus Nvidia's IDE drivers suck - I don't even bother installing them anymore.

On the RD580, using the ULI chipset, RAID 0 + 1 absolutely flies - performs just like a RAID 0 array, that is, twice the speed of a single disc, only with the security of mirroring as well. RAID 1 performs as it should too (about equal to a single disc).

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: n7
It seems to be i've heard of more dying DFI boards than most other manufacturers, but it could also be due to more OCers owning them, & stressing them harder than normal users would.

Probably more than a grain of truth in this.
I know that 2 well known UK suppliers stopped dealing with DFI both supposedly over RMA issues. Basically they say that the sale of 1 mobo that gets RMAed wipes out the profit of selling 3 boards so you can read between the lines that they were having a greater than 1 in 3 return rate ...

 

[sumyungai]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst

Originally posted by: n7
It seems to be i've heard of more dying DFI boards than most other manufacturers, but it could also be due to more OCers owning them, & stressing them harder than normal users would.

Probably more than a grain of truth in this.
I know that 2 well known UK suppliers stopped dealing with DFI both supposedly over RMA issues. Basically they say that the sale of 1 mobo that gets RMAed wipes out the profit of selling 3 boards so you can read between the lines that they were having a greater than 1 in 3 return rate ...

That is good information, I just wish those who us who had to RMA would be more vocal and voice them here in this thread.

 

[Thor86]

I still use one in my main rig. I don't use the nVidia lan, but do use both IDE ports for Optical drives, and no probs whatsoever.

 

[Tweakin]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
...My buddy got a DFI SLI Expert - nothing but problems. Cold boot issues, poor RAID performance (something I experienced with my Ultra-D as well, unfortunately), extreme pickiness. The Expert is a b!tch on power supplies too - very few work properly with it. Enermax Noisetaker and OCZ Modstream both had cold boot issues with the DFI Expert board (an OCZ Powerstream worked fine)...

Just want to add something about the Expert. I researched hard before I picked up this board and the only issue I could consistantly find was the temp sensor. I have had my board for 6+ months and have nothing bad to say about it at all...other then the temp sensor that's about 10c off. If you look at my sig, I have this board loaded fairly well and used it to take my Opty up and past 3Ghz during testing, and it will run my X2 @ 2.65 stable if I crank up the volts. Just wanted to add my experience.

As it has been stated already, DFI is in a strange situation as most individuals that purchase this board are looking for extreme performance and as such, extreme currents and voltages are used to obtain every last hz of performance out of these boards...and I just don't think most are willing to admit they cooked a board...it's easier to just say the board is bad.

 

[Kakumba]

my only experience with DFI, an SLI-D, was great. really easy to get setup, rock solid with a mild overclock (friends compy, so was very cautious)

 

[MegaWorks]

I always like ABIT, but because DFI bought some of the best ABIT engineering team I switched to DFI.

You can't stop me from overclocking.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: Tweakin
As it has been stated already, DFI is in a strange situation as most individuals that purchase this board are looking for extreme performance and as such, extreme currents and voltages are used to obtain every last hz of performance out of these boards...and I just don't think most are willing to admit they cooked a board...it's easier to just say the board is bad.

Possibly, but this board (the DFI Expert) is known to be extremely picky with PSU's. They say it's perfectly compatible with PSU's using the 4-pin power plug, and certain boards may work, but I've seen compatibility problems with Enermax Noisetakers (425W, 485W) and the OCZ 520W Modstream. Cold boot issues, etc. The DFI forums are full of posts of people having problems with this board out of the box; they aren't suddenly frying them -- they can't get them to work with known working configurations after swapping out other boards.

I would strongly recommend a PSU with the rare 8-pin EPS power connector when using the DFI Expert. The OCZ Powerstream seems to work well.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

I have atleast on of every AMD lanparty board they've made and they all run flawlessly with one exception, my nf2 rev.a has fried usb ports, one fried fan port and fried firewire but, thats my own fault, i dropped a screwdriver in the computer while it was running. Everyone is an amatuer atleast once, right?

 

[rickn]

never had any trouble with my dfi lanparty ultra-d *knock wood*

 

[Pens1566]

Expert running A-OK here. Didn't skimp on any parts though. They do like OCZ Ram and the Powerstreams.

 

[CP5670]

I have had a nearly flawless experience with my SLI-DR. It worked out of the box and didn't need any tweaking, even though I'm using the Corsair value memory that is supposed to be incompatible with it. I recently also bought an Ultra-D for another system, but I haven't had time to set it up yet.

The only thing I don't like about these boards are those annoying fans and the way they are positioned so close to the video card(s).

 

[sumyungai]

I forgot I mention my northbridge fan died after 3 months and was replaced by a passive zalman heatsink. I threw away the dead northbridge fan and that was another reason why I didn't RMA the board since DFI wouldn't do a cross-shipment.

 

[LED]

I've had problems with a couple of Infinity Socket A Mobo's but nothing out of the ordianary considering I've been through close to a Dozen DFI Mobo's.
I was cut short/cheated out of a couple of cables that was uppose to be included in their LanParty set-up...even promised that they would ship them to me and wasn't.
Support/Service hasn't been that great in the past BTA I've hardly needed it other than an RMA which was never issued :disgust:

Abit's support has been great for me in the past with RMAing and performance of their Mobo's although I thought they released versions of Mobo's in a hasty manner