DFI LanParty UT -- did I get a bad one?

[Tostada]

Well, I've never had a problem getting refurb stuff from NewEgg before, but I think I may have now. They'll let me RMA it, so I just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

I've got the LanParty UT NF3 250Gb board and a Sempron 2800 90nm, and this board gets totally unstable as soon as I get around 225 FSB. As soon as I hit 230 FSB the board won't even try to boot -- it'll just say it's detecting the IDE RAID (which I don't even have enabled) and then reboot after a few seconds.

Apparently this isn't a new problem:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1528904&enterthread=y

Originally posted by: Avalon
I dropped my LDT multiplier down to 2x. After boot screen, it would take me to the Nvidia IDE array screen, saying it was waiting to detect my array, and then would promptly reboot after about 5 seconds.

...but he fixed the problem by dropping LDT to 1.5, which didn't work for me.

If it's set at 225 FSB everything will be fine, and I can run benchmarks for a long time, but eventually the system will blue-screen. To be perfectly stable I have to run at 220 FSB, then it's 100% stable even just leaving everything else on Auto.

I'm pretty sure this is a motherboard problem because I"ve set the LDT to 1.0X and the RAM to 100 MHz and it still refuses to boot above 230 FSB. My CPU is staying right around 46C, and upping all the voltages for chipset/CPU/RAM doesn't help. I would assume that if the CPU was a problem that it would do something besides just acting like I turned on the RAID.

I don't think flashing the BIOS will help since there's only one BIOS version.

I was thinking of just getting an ASUS, but is there any hope of overclocking a board that doesn't let you specify the LDT? Should I try another DFI?

 

[sangyup81]

Actually flashing the BIOS helped me with that problem. There is only one official BIOS but Oscar Wu (the board's designer) has been making unofficial BIOSes constantly. btw are you using SATA? Don't use ports 1 and 2.

 

[imported_whatever]

Somewhat different problem, but I am having a similar thing happen to me
My EPoX 8KDA3J is P95 stable and 3dmark stable etc. But every once in a while, I will get a short (<1s) blue screen and a reset (guessing it would be a normal BSOD if it was winxp, i am running win2k)
the board is stable at 300+ MHz, and I am running it at 224MHz with a 3x LDT.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: sangyup81
Actually flashing the BIOS helped me with that problem. There is only one official BIOS but Oscar Wu (the board's designer) has been making unofficial BIOSes constantly. btw are you using SATA? Don't use ports 1 and 2.

No, I'm only using PATA (and not RAID).

What exactly helped you? Did you flash the official BIOS or an unofficial one? Where did you get the unofficial one?

Thanks.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: whatever
Somewhat different problem, but I am having a similar thing happen to me
My EPoX 8KDA3J is P95 stable and 3dmark stable etc. But every once in a while, I will get a short (<1s) blue screen and a reset (guessing it would be a normal BSOD if it was winxp, i am running win2k)
the board is stable at 300+ MHz, and I am running it at 224MHz with a 3x LDT.

That sounds exactly like what was happening to me at 225 MHz. I ran 8M SuperPI, a bunch of Sandra stuff, AquaMark3, 3DMark03, and everything was fine. I fired up Sims 2 and about one minute after getting into the game I get a very quick flash of a blue screen (too fast for me to even see what the problem was) and a reboot. I backed it off to 220 MHz and didn't see it again.

 

[TStep]

OT: did the refurb come bareboard or with accessories?

 

[sangyup81]

oh also, I reverted the LDT to Auto....

http://www.lejabeach.com/DFI/dfiut250gb/dfiut250gbbios.html

 

[Budman]

I am using the latest beta bios 2005/04/15 ever since it came out & it's great.

If i were you I would grab Winflash and flash to the Latest beta bios.

I am using the same board and HTT 4X @ 250mhz without any problems.

 

[Zebo]

Tostada- I suggest posting @ DFI-street. Normally I'd say bug master deluxe and RMA it, but this sempron is new so maybe its just waiting for proper BIOS?

 

[Budman]

I forgot to ask Brett,what power supply brand/make are you using?

And are your voltages pretty steady?

 

[Tostada]

OK, I flashed with the 04/15 beta and it's acting exactly the same. Just gives me NVIDIA IDE RAID BIOS 4.52 and reboots or something like that whenever I get over 230 FSB.

Originally posted by: Budman
I forgot to ask Brett,what power supply brand/make are you using?

And are your voltages pretty steady?

It's an EnerMax 365W. Maybe it's time for me to get a new one. It's running two 7200RPM drives, a GF4 Ti 4200 and a PCI GF4 MX440. It acted the same when I had almost nothing plugged into it, though. Things look pretty stable.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: TStep
OT: did the refurb come bareboard or with accessories?

Just the board. No IO shield.

 

[sangyup81]

I'm using OCZ Powerstream 420W thought not nearly as many components as you. Also, I'm running the 10/15/2004 BIOS. I'l try the new one as well.

 

[rise]

i'd take zebos advice and post at dfi street. they have actual dfi employee mods over there.

 

[imported_whatever]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: whatever
Somewhat different problem, but I am having a similar thing happen to me
My EPoX 8KDA3J is P95 stable and 3dmark stable etc. But every once in a while, I will get a short (<1s) blue screen and a reset (guessing it would be a normal BSOD if it was winxp, i am running win2k)
the board is stable at 300+ MHz, and I am running it at 224MHz with a 3x LDT.

That sounds exactly like what was happening to me at 225 MHz. I ran 8M SuperPI, a bunch of Sandra stuff, AquaMark3, 3DMark03, and everything was fine. I fired up Sims 2 and about one minute after getting into the game I get a very quick flash of a blue screen (too fast for me to even see what the problem was) and a reboot. I backed it off to 220 MHz and didn't see it again.

well, the thing is, it has happened running at as low as 200*8, the lowest setting allowed by the board. I usually run it at 224*11, but it is P95 stable at MUCH higher settings than it crashes like this in
I think it may be a software issue, as I didn't notice it before I reformatted, but IDK how software would cause it to do this.

 

[Budman]

I think I may know what's your problem....

do you have SATA drives? if yes are they plugged into the NF3 ports or the Marvel port?

You should plug them into the ports between your agp & cpu. these use the Nforce sata witch have a AGP/PCI lock that works unlike the marvell one. I think...

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: Tostada
It's an EnerMax 365W. Maybe it's time for me to get a new one. It's running two 7200RPM drives, a GF4 Ti 4200 and a PCI GF4 MX440. It acted the same when I had almost nothing plugged into it, though. Things look pretty stable.

That's fine then, I use a Enermax 350 watts with 2 hd's a dvd burner & a 9800 pro flashed to XT.

 

[cbehnken]

Your board she is hosed.

Running 260 HTT here with IDE raid and nvidia's IDE drivers 24x7 with 0 issues.

 

[Avalon]

Yes, your PSU should be fine for the task. I hope you received my email OP. Unfortunately, there's not much advice I can give you. Even flashing to the newest BIOS did not remove that problem, but for me it seems it is caused by a specific LDT multiplier, and you, by a certain range of HTT settings. Have you tried setting something higher than 230, such as 250 or 260? I guarantee your processor can take it, and perhaps your DFI board has a black hole range where it will reboot like that. Give that a try. If that fails, RMA the board.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: whatever
well, the thing is, it has happened running at as low as 200*8, the lowest setting allowed by the board. I usually run it at 224*11, but it is P95 stable at MUCH higher settings than it crashes like this in
I think it may be a software issue, as I didn't notice it before I reformatted, but IDK how software would cause it to do this.

As a matter of fact, I had my system running at stock 200x8 and everything was going fine, but I went to Start > Turn OFf > Restart and it gave me the blue-screen flash when it rebooted. Strange!

Originally posted by: Avalon
Yes, your PSU should be fine for the task. I hope you received my email OP. Unfortunately, there's not much advice I can give you. Even flashing to the newest BIOS did not remove that problem, but for me it seems it is caused by a specific LDT multiplier, and you, by a certain range of HTT settings. Have you tried setting something higher than 230, such as 250 or 260? I guarantee your processor can take it, and perhaps your DFI board has a black hole range where it will reboot like that. Give that a try. If that fails, RMA the board.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, but I've tried 235, 250, 300 and 325, all with 100 MHz RAM and 1x LDT ... it still just does the NVIDIA IDE RAID screen then reboots.

I'm really just trying to decide if I should:

1) RMA the board and get another $64 refurb DFI

2) RMA the board and get the $59 refurb ASUS K8N-E Deluxe

3) RMA and get the $79 retail Biostar K8NHA Grand

The bottom line is that I need a good Socket 754 board with firewire. Overclocking isn't really a primary concern, but it would be a waste to have a 90nm Sempron and not try. I just think I probably couldn't overclock very far without the LDT adjustment that the DFI/EPoX boards have.

I suppose I could pay the actual $108 for the DFI board, but I'd much rather put the money towards something else (like a video card better than a GF4 Ti 4200).

 

[Tostada]

Well, I RMA'd the board, and the new one does the exact same thing.

I really can't see how this could be the board's fault. The first one I got was revision A00 and the new one is revision A01. Both gave me the same problem with the shipping BIOS and after I updated to the unofficial 2005-04-15 BIOS.

Anybody have an ideas? I've tried resetting the BIOS, staying with all the default settings except setting FSB, and when I get FSB over 230 it just goes to the black screen that says NVIDIA IDE RAID BIOS and reboots. If I set memory to 100 MHz and LDT to 1X it does the exact same thing. The CPU is staying under 40C.

 

[Tostada]

I actually think this might be a PSU problem. Would it make any sense for it to act that strange and try to detect the RAID (which is disabled) when I overclock?

I'm thinking my PSU (EnerMax Whisper 365) might be weak because it's about 5 years old. At one point I had the PSU running an Athlon XP 1600 with multiple 10K SCSI drives, and with 3X 10K drives sometimes one of them would fail to spin up.

I'm a little confused about PSUs, though. Does the CPU run off the 12V rail with modern motherboards? Is that what dual rails are -- one for the CPU and one for the drives?

 

[Kaiser__Sose]

Do you have SATA HDDs??? if you do make sure you plug them into the ports between the vid card and the cpu.
ALSO and most importantly.. DISABLE the SATA ports that you are not using in the BIOS.. this is a common prob in the mobo.
i have the same mobo and if SATA drives are plugged into the Marvel ports the HTT will not go much above 220mhz.. if you disable the ports you can get above 300HTT..

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Kaiser__Sose
Do you have SATA HDDs???

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: sangyup81
Actually flashing the BIOS helped me with that problem. There is only one official BIOS but Oscar Wu (the board's designer) has been making unofficial BIOSes constantly. btw are you using SATA? Don't use ports 1 and 2.

No, I'm only using PATA (and not RAID).

 

[Kaiser__Sose]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: Kaiser__Sose
Do you have SATA HDDs???

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: sangyup81
Actually flashing the BIOS helped me with that problem. There is only one official BIOS but Oscar Wu (the board's designer) has been making unofficial BIOSes constantly. btw are you using SATA? Don't use ports 1 and 2.

No, I'm only using PATA (and not RAID).

did you disable the SATA ports in the bios?
while you are there disable other things you are not using (onboard sound etc)