DFI LanParty 875B Beeping during gaming? - HELP!

[mjmattson]

Here is the situation with 2 pretty much identical PC?s:

LANParty 875B Pro flashed to the latest DFI BIOS from November.
Intel P4 3.0GHz, 800MHz FSB using heatsink/fan included in retail box
Corsair TwinX Dual-Channel PC3200 DDR (1GB total in 2 - 512MB DIMMS) ? in DIMM Slots 1 & 3
ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro Video Card
Windows XP Pro
Antec 450W power supply (other is an Antec 430W)

While the computers are ?idle? or running normal applications (media player, word, outlook, etc.) everything is okay, but as soon as we run a gaming application such as "Diablo II" or "Call of Duty" we start getting a soft, intermittent ?beep? from the motherboard coming from the small piezoelectric speaker next to the battery. The PC appears to be functioning properly when this happens, but the beep is driving us *crazy* during the games. I have checked if Hardware doctor to see if it is running and it is NOT. This beep *only* happens during the games.

The CPU temp is 30-35C or under at all times. The system temp is ~32C and under at all times.

Any ideas as to why the MB is beeping? I am really getting frustrated at the total LACK of documentation that came with this board and that all I have heard from tech support is that it is either the hardware doctor or the power supply (which are not the issue). This only happens when in a game so my feeling is that it is somehow related to the use of the ATI 9800 AIW card. Could the beeps be warnings about voltage levels, etc? There doesn?t appear to be any place to set them if there is some type of built in ?Hardware Monitor?.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I would assume there are other people out there with this board and the ATI AIW 9800 Pro that play games. I really like the features of the DFI LANParty, but if I can?t solve this very quickly I am going to return the board.


Thank you,
Matthew

 

[AngryGames]

mj the only time i get this beep is when i have ran HW Doctor. My rig is overclocked so much that some of the specs are a lil low, and give the warning beep. Even after I turn off HW Dr.

i use a 9700Pro on mine also. The other LP I875"A" board only makes this beep with HW Dr either running or was running.

no word from our lab either as they only get this while HW Dr is running or has been run =(

 

[mjmattson]

I have verified that HW Doctor is not running (task manager process list) and I even reboot the machine to verify. This only happens when I am in a game, full screen. If I minimize the game to the task bar the beeping stops. Games that cause it are Diablo II, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, etc.

Why would the system beep AFTER Hw doctor is turned off? Is there any documentation on why the board beeps?

What I have found is that both of our boards have the following voltage values using HW Doctor (one with an Antec Truepower 430 and one with an older Antec Solutions SL450 power supply):

VCore = 1.52V
+3.3V = 3.15
+5V = 4.92
+12V = 11.58
-12V = -12.44
5VSB = 4.82
VBAT = 3.17

These values appear low to me. I have left all default optimized values on my board except I bumped the system bandwidth to HSP3 (this made no difference). Can some of you guys verify your hardware doctor settings and tell me if you see the same (in other words we may have bad voltage regulators since they were from the same store and production run or it is just the way the DFI boards are). It would be much appreciated in helping me resolve this.

Matt

 

[AngryGames]

mj i just finally was able to retrieve my email and saw that Taiwan is asking us to check this more for you.

why HWDR does this after you close it is a mystery to me. If I dont turn HW DR on at all, it wont beep at me, but for some reason, and i absolutely do not know why (which is why we are checking on this lol), once you close HWDR and even make sure in the Task Manager that it is off, it STILL beeps =/

give us some time to run this down as its a strange issue for sure!

 

[mjmattson]

I have exactly 8 days to resolve this fully or I will be returning the board and getting something else. I really like the features, but need some concrete answers.

I am going to try another power supply tonight just to see and will let you know what I find out. If a new power supply gives me the same results, I will consider the MB bad because there will really be no other explaination.

I will update you, but please also let me know what your voltage settings are with this board and if anyone else could do the same it would give a frame of reference to work with. I KNOW there have to be other people out there with my system specs and all of them cannot be having this problem or DFI wouldn't be selling many of these boards.

Thank you for the help and I look forward to hearing from you.

Matt

 

[AngryGames]

http://myweb.cableone.net/travish/images/875B_voltages.jpg

not likely it is a PSU issue, but keep me informed. Frank and Taiwan are looking into this =)

 

[mjmattson]

What are your system specs? (MB, memory, processor, etc.)?

 

[mjmattson]

Okay...here is some further information that I would like to pass on and some questions to ask (IN UPPERCASE).

1. I bought a power supply but did not use it, I agree that this is not a power supply issue as my friend's pc has a new Antec truepower
430 and he has the *same* voltage levels and about 1/3 of the devices in his pc that I have.

2. I have discovered that the beeping *is* caused by the hardware doctor, but the issue then becomes:
A. WHY DOES IT STILL BEEP WHEN IT IS SHUT DOWN? I went through all the windows processes and killed them in sequence
and kept trying to see if the beeping stops. It DOES NOT. I cannot understand how a process can start this beeping issue and
when it is killed continue to do it. Something HAS to be running somewhere or loading itself into protected memory???? Someone
has to know why this keeps on...I find it absolutely amazing that this has not been figured out.

3. I also found that the beep is because the hardware doctor lower limit of the +3.3V voltage monitor is set to 3.10v and through a lot of
testing found that my voltage limit drops no lower than 3.05 (at least in the time I tested it). If I drop the lower limit it will
stop beeping.
A. WHY IS THE LOWER LIMIT SET TO 3.10?
B. WHAT IS THE MINIMUM ACCEPTABLE LIMIT FOR THE P4 3GHz Processor? Is 3.05 safe? Is the 3.10 arbitrary or should the board
not actually get that low? I have *no frame of reference* for what is ok or not.
C. If I drop the lower limit it will no longer beep, but am I just covering up a problem?

4. My uncle has the Intel 865PE board and his voltages are rock solid +3.28, +12.01, +5.46, -11.96.
A. ISN'T THIS WHAT WOULD BE EXPECTED? WHY DOES THE DFI LANPARTY 875B PRO HAVE VOLTAGES THIS LOW?

5. This board is very highly reviewed, but I don't understand how an "average" person could work with it with the lack of documentation and the terrible support site that exists. There is basically *nothing* on the site for assistance.

I need specific answers to these questions or I will be returning this board and getting either an Abit, MSI, or Intel board this weekend. I can't spend much more time attempting to debug these issues and I am frankly completely fed up with this. Please attempt to get answers from tech support as quickly as possible.

Matt

 

[AngryGames]

LanParty I875B
P4 2.4C 800FSB/HT
2x256MB PC4300 Buffalo (HynixB)
36GB WD Raptor SATA
52x24x52 MSI Dragonwriter
420w ISO PSU (Chieftech)
SB Audigy mp3+
BBATI Radeon 9700P

301FSB 5:4 3.66Ghz 8-4-4-3 @ 1.55v 1.6vagp, 2.9vdimm

I'm sorry that you feel support is bad and cannot find helpful information on the website.

2. I do not know why it still beeps when the program is shut down. More than likely it is still resident somewhere and is still monitoring voltages even though the process seems to be killed. We are looking into it.

3. a. lower limit is set to 3.10v on all HW Dr programs run on the DFI boards. HW Dr is made by winbond not DFI. We have asked Winbond to look into this as well as #2.
b. the P4 gets cpu voltage from the 12v line for stability. +/- 5% is within acceptable tolerance on voltages.
c. i've lowered the limit on mine to get it to shut up and I've been overclocked at some very high speeds (this rig is always between 3.2Ghz and 3.66Ghz). My voltages tend to read a little low on some lines as you can see from the pic i linked above. I've experienced no problems in stability.

4. i've not tested with a multimeter to measure actual voltages. Relying on bios to give 100% accurate readings is not as good as measuring them and getting a true reading. My Infinity I865PE reports a bit of overvoltage on the 5v and 12v line. A bit of undervoltage on the 3.3v line.

5. again I apologize if you are unhappy with the site or any support you have requested. Most websites and users of this and other DFI boards are very happy with the support and service we offer. The website in my opinion is very straightforward and is easy to navigate even if it does take jsp a long time to load. The FAQ pages are very helpful to most who read them, and the forum support (AMDMB forums) is very helpful also.

If you feel like the board needs to be replaced by all means let us or your vendor replace it. If you wish to use another brand of motherboard then by all means I recommend that as my goal is to make sure a customer is satisfied even if it means using a non-DFI product. We try to be as helpful as possible and produce the best quality product we can but we also realize that not everyone is going to be happy with a DFI product.

We do ask that you have the motherboard replaced to make sure you do not have a faulty motherboard before anything else. If this is not an option please accept my apologies for the third time as I am unable to help. I have asked DFI to look at this issue, and they have received a web support request from you. Unfortunately it is an issue that we have to wait for Winbond to address (requested already) as it is their software and their monitoring sensors on the board.

We will do our best to resolve this in the quickest time possible.

thank you

 

[mjmattson]

Thank you for the reply, I appreciate it. It seems that from what I can tell that the voltage values I have communicated are normal for this board, so replacement will result in the same values and doesn't make sense So far I have seen 4 screenshots in addition to mine and they are consistent so I am pretty certain that the MB is not "faulty". I like the feature set on the board a lot (it is a great feature set) and simply want to understand the design better to make sure that I am not degrading my performance or possibly damaging my board and components.

- Is the lower 3.3v limit set by Winbond a critical value or just arbitrary? My understading is that the logic (TTL) on the board run on the 3.3 as a nominal value and outside of the nominal range (+/- .2v) you get increasing noise on the circuits. Is it okay to have a 3.3v value drop to 3.05? If this is consistent with the board design and the board will function properly at this level, then great, no problem, but I am frustrated because what I think I keep hearing is "if it seems stable then don't worry about it." My board consistently shows values less than industry voltage specs (unless the BIOS checks are just not accurate - which could be...). What are the repurcussions of this, if any? If the voltages are set this way on purpose because it allows greater stability for overclockers then that is what I would like to know. Overall, why did DFI choose to have the voltages within these ranges?

- Why Windoctor (or whatever is running) keeps running - I will look into that too. I just want to understand why this is the case. I dropped my threshold to 3.04 to stop the beeping, but I just want to make sure I am not covering up a real problem.

I agree on the +/- 5% voltage variance. 3.15 is within standards, until the ATI 9800 kicks in which it then drops to -8% variance. It's possible that when this board was designed, no video card would pull the current to the extent the 9700/9800 does and since we are using it with the board we are now seeing this. If the limit is more flexible than 3.10 then that is fine, I just cannot seem to get an answer if this is the case. You stated that you overclock and your voltages are a little low, but I don't overclock and see that. I'm trying to understand the significance of the lower voltages.

Please don't take offense, I really believe that you are trying to help (in fact you have put forth a lot of effort this week), but the responses from Taiwan so far have been more around the issue than really what I am asking. I do believe that they should be able to simply say "<3.10 is okay, but if you get to x.xx you should be concerned as that is out of spec with the board" or something like that, but I have not received a reply like that. I just get text or screenshots that either don't answer the question or just create more (like a couple windoctor oned I received last night that are confusing becuase they seem to imply that the type of power supply can force the 3.3 line to an actual 3.3...). Just lowering the limit to quiet a notification is not okay with me unless I understand why it is okay to do so.

I find the support site lacking simple because it is slow and sparse in documentation, manuals, detailed specs, etc. Has it helped me? It did with the RAID issue I had and I appreciated that, but beyond basic problems or questions one needs to go elsewhere. Many of the reviews I have read love the board and features, but criticize the lack of detailed documentation with the board or online. I am not alone in this assessment (whether right or wrong).

I found the dedicated intel DFI forum and am looking over it now.

I appreciate your commitment to customer satisfaction, that is important. I look forward to hearing from you.

Matt