"Official" DFI nF4 Ultra-D / SLI-DR Thread

[CheesePoofs]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs

Originally posted by: Googer
The one thing that sucks most about this motherboard is that there are no legacy Pararllel or RS232 Serial Ports. How am I supposed to hook up my GPS and Printer?

I use this.

I know about that, but my gripe is that DFI only gives you 2 pci 32 slots on these boards. They will be filled by My Sound Card and Fax Modem (for sending faxes, not internet). I like this board alot, but the lack of legacy options is a deal killer. The x4 PCI-express slot is a deifinate selling point for SCSI or SAS HBA's. I know MSI has one(x4) but I am on an MSI boycott for the time being.

Aren't there some PCIE soundcards out now? I'm with you on the MSI boycott; until they get some quality control I'm not buying their boards.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs

Originally posted by: Googer
The one thing that sucks most about this motherboard is that there are no legacy Pararllel or RS232 Serial Ports. How am I supposed to hook up my GPS and Printer?

I use this.

I know about that, but my gripe is that DFI only gives you 2 pci 32 slots on these boards. They will be filled by My Sound Card and Fax Modem (for sending faxes, not internet). I like this board alot, but the lack of legacy options is a deal killer. The x4 PCI-express slot is a deifinate selling point for SCSI or SAS HBA's. I know MSI has one(x4) but I am on an MSI boycott for the time being.

Aren't there some PCIE soundcards out now? I'm with you on the MSI boycott; until they get some quality control I'm not buying their boards.

No PCI-e soundcards avalable yet that I know of that use it. Creatives newest (finaly they redesigned the audigy) Sound Card will be legacy PCI only for the time being. Also I would like to reuse my old Audgy (ha, just like creative does) in my new system. Plus sound cards will only use one tenth of the bandwith avalable on PCI-e so it won't be needed untill we have audio that is 10x more detaied than DvD or SACD.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1813855,00.asp

 

[vanvock]

The legacy-less design was a selling point for me.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: vanvock
The legacy-less design was a selling point for me.

I still run in to the occasional moment where I need a floppy or some other legacy part. I stopped using 5.25 floppys back in 1996 or 1997, but still keep a drive around for when I may need to burn some old software to CD.

 

[vanvock]

I hear ya, I put a floppy in "just in case". The missing serial & parallel ports make things a little less cluttered on the rear panel & USB does the trick for me.

 

[Googer]

Yeah, but who really needs the RCA jacks on the back of the PC; It not like a whole lot of people use them. Legacy ports could be put there and a break out cable from the Karajan audio could be used in it's place. Besides, Just like intergrated video is becoming rare these days the same should be held for Intergrated audio; No one who pays $200 for a motherboard will be using intergrated audio to begin with, they all use discreete audio cards. To sum it all up: Get rid of intergrated audio and save us a few dollars in the process. Put something slightly more useful in it's place like extra 1394, external sata, legacy ports, etc. Or just follow the K.I.S.S. rule (Keep It Simple Stupid)

 

[CheesePoofs]

Originally posted by: Googer
Yeah, but who really needs the RCA jacks on the back of the PC; It not like a whole lot of people use them. Legacy ports could be put there and a break out cable from the Karajan audio could be used in it's place. Besides, Just like intergrated video is becoming rare these days the same should be held for Intergrated audio; No one who pays $200 for a motherboard will be using intergrated audio to begin with, they all use discreete audio cards. To sum it all up: Get rid of intergrated audio and save us a few dollars in the process. Put something slightly more useful in it's place like extra 1394, external sata, legacy ports, etc. Or just follow the K.I.S.S. rule (Keep It Simple Stupid)

I'm using integrated sound on my ultra-d

I think what they should have done is added PCI brackets with the legacy ports on them that plug directly into the mobo. That way people who wanted legacy ports could have them and those that dont' want them dont' need to have them.

 

[Googer]

I think you are one of the few, I noticed a HUGE differance when I went from Intergrated Soundmax/Realtek to my Audigy when Playing games. EAX give you a nice advantage in knowing where your enemy is, how fast he is approaching, and what direction he is coming from; Non EAX Systems are at a disadvantege. Plus Audigy is much clearer than Intergrated. (I know M-Audio is even clearer, but not good for games)

 

[CheesePoofs]

Originally posted by: Googer
I think you are one of the few, I noticed a HUGE differance when I went from Intergrated Soundmax/Realtek to my Audigy when Playing games. EAX give you a nice advantage in knowing where your enemy is, how fast he is approaching, and what direction he is coming from; Non EAX Systems are at a disadvantege. Plus Audigy is much clearer than Intergrated. (I know M-Audio is even clearer, but not good for games)

I used to have a soundblaster live!, but I decided not to use it on this build and instead stick with the onboard. I think the karajin module does help, because this onboard sounds much better than the onboard of my last board, and both were AC97.

 

[billy1ear]

Googer,
If you download the manual for this board it talks about an optional serial connector that goes from a connector on the board to an unused slot blank-out plate. It shows the pinout so you could make your own.
Good luck.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: billy1ear
Googer,
If you download the manual for this board it talks about an optional serial connector that goes from a connector on the board to an unused slot blank-out plate. It shows the pinout so you could make your own.
Good luck.

Awesome! I have used those motherboard pin type before, Are there two of them (like on my intel board)? And is there a Parallel option too?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs

Originally posted by: Googer
I think you are one of the few, I noticed a HUGE differance when I went from Intergrated Soundmax/Realtek to my Audigy when Playing games. EAX give you a nice advantage in knowing where your enemy is, how fast he is approaching, and what direction he is coming from; Non EAX Systems are at a disadvantege. Plus Audigy is much clearer than Intergrated. (I know M-Audio is even clearer, but not good for games)

I used to have a soundblaster live!, but I decided not to use it on this build and instead stick with the onboard. I think the karajin module does help, because this onboard sounds much better than the onboard of my last board, and both were AC97.

The karajan would sound better because of it's isolated circuitry. But still is not the mode of choice for games. But is ok for general playback.

Soundblaster Live is not quite the same as Audigy. Live does sound nice, but Audigy (any oneof them) sound better.

 

[billy1ear]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: billy1ear
Googer,
If you download the manual for this board it talks about an optional serial connector that goes from a connector on the board to an unused slot blank-out plate. It shows the pinout so you could make your own.
Good luck.

Awesome! I have used those motherboard pin type before, Are there two of them (like on my intel board)? And is there a Parallel option too?

I think so but I would go to http://www.dfi.com.tw and download their manual, don't trust me, I make sure everything I need is usb.

Also go to http://www.dfi-street.com and check out their forums, I made some bad choices that I could have saved some bucks on (memory & psu) if I had done a little homework.
See Ya

 

[vanvock]

I like CheesePoofs idea. The onboard is fine for me, I use headphones anyway.

 

[habs01]

I just finished putting together a new system with the DFI Ultra-D and thought this would be the place to share it with the community. First off let me start by saying that I hesitated between the DFI and the Asus A8N-E. The few reports I was getting n the A8N-E were all good and the board had 3 PCI slots which in my case was a plus. Also the Asus board, I could get for alot cheaper. Also, after visiting DFI-Street forums a few times I was under the impression that you needed $300 memory to overclock the DFI board.

So why did I go with the DFI? Well at the last minute, I found a good deal on the DFI board which made it almost the same price as the Asus board and figured, that many people can't be wrong. Plus I wanted a decent overclock - was figuring anything over 2,4 Ghz was fine. DFI had the best overclocking record from what I could gather.

Fast forward to today I'm very happy with the board. It has nice features that I hadn't considered like CMOS-reloaded and lots of fan headers. I was worried that the NB fan might be noisy, but it's not a problem (the A8N-E would have been noisy). The best part is of cours the performance. This board easily overclocked my poor little 3000 venice to 2,6 Ghz. When I say easily, I mean all I changed in the bios is the memory divider and bumped voltage to 1.45 volts.

My only beef is with the two PCI slots but I new that before purchase so it's not like it's a surprise. But still, I use one Win modem for faxing and the occasional Internet hookup if the cable goes down and I use a TV tuner and voilà the two PCI slots are used. No external audio card or nothing else is possible. Unless they start selling PCI-X cards any time soon.

Anyways, I love my new system and would recommend this board to any poweruser and then some.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Nice OC habs01. Is it prime stable?

 

[habs01]

Nice OC habs01.

Thanks CheeseP but I can't take any credit cause it was so easy it made the whole overclocking ordeal process look like it was fake.

Is it prime stable?

What's prime stable? It boots in Windoze, what else is there? Nah, just kiddin. I've tested it 6h34min prime Small FFT. I guess I should try longer...didn't get around to that yet.

It's at 9x290 right now. It will boot in Windoors at 9x300 but then won't prime even a minute. 9x300 also gives plenty of errors in memtest. So I don't know if I'm going to go through all the trouble of pushing this rig to the limit for like another 100Mhz. I don't overclock for the sport.

 

[xylem]

Dead NF4 Ultra-D?

I have had this board for about a week, and just today have had time to really zoom in on fine tuning. I am using a 3000+ Venice with xp-120 cooling, and 4 sticks of Mushkin Blue 512 with original BH-5 chips. The best stable settings I had been able to come up with are 2.6 GHz cpu frequency (9x289, HTT mult x3), ram at 150 (3/4) with cas set to 2-2-2-7 and most everything else on auto, with ram voltage set to 3.2 on the 3.3V rail. I had also tried a 5/6 ram divider on 3.4 and 3.5 V setting (5V rail), but the system would lock or randomly reboot when using the 5V setting, so I moved back to 3.2 V on the 3.3V rail and a 3/4 ram divider, and everything seemed stable (prime95 for 6 hours). My PSU is sufficient... it is a dual-redundant server PSU which provides [3.3v,40A; 5v,60A; 12v,30A], and I have been using all the power sockets on the board except the one near the main PCI-E slot. All the lines are very stable, even under load, when monitored.

Today I got around to checking out the DFI NF4 BIOS Memory Guide posted at DFI-Street, and decided to try some fine tuning. I made the following ram timing changes in bios, based on suggestions in that thread: tRTW 2.0, tWTR 2.0, DRAM Drive Strength 8, Idle Cycle Limit 32 clocks.

Upon saving, the system auto-rebooted and failed to post. I have since tried the "safe-boot" jumper, and clearing the CMOS, each a number of times, and the system will not post. It seems to hang with 3 diagnostic LEDs remaining lit. I have pulled all but one RAM stick, and the situation remains the same.

Does anyone have suggestions as to remaining options in attempting to resurrect the board, or should I RMA?

I posted this at DFI-Street as well, for increased community exposure.

 

[vanvock]

Xylem- Are you running the 3-10 BIOS? Hooking up ALL pwr connections can't hurt. Some folks have pulled the battery & let it sit overnight to clear.

 

[xylem]

I'm using the 510 beta 2 (suggested for bh-5). If I can't get it working, I'll try pulling the plugs and the battery... You really think that might work? I've already tried pulling all the plugs and clearing cmos quite a few times.

Thanks =)

 

[xylem]

I managed to get it working again. Leaving the single ram stick in the slot nearest the cpu turned out to be the problem. I moved the single stick to the slot farthest from the cpu, and it posted on the first try. I then replaced the other three sticks, and it is working fine (ran Prime95 and Memtest for 4 and a half hours to be sure).

 

[user1234]

anyone wants to trade their sli-dr + 50 bucks for a8n-sli ?

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: user1234
anyone wants to trade their sli-dr + 50 bucks for a8n-sli ?

There is already a category in the forums here specifically for that purpose. I suggest you take your interest there.

Also, and perhaps you may have missed it, but there is a very large thread about your Asus that you may enjoy participating in. Or is it that you prefer antagonism, hostility, and crapping in other user's threads?

However, if you have something constructive, or otherwise informative, (preferably intelligent, if that is possible for you) to say about the DFI board, we could discuss in this thread. But it appears you don't.

 

[user1234]

No you don't understand - I wasn't offering to trade or anything, just wanted to know how many dfi owners wish (maybe unconciously) to trade their board for the asus ? I'm sure there are quite a few of them out there

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: user1234
No you don't understand - I wasn't offering to trade or anything, just wanted to know how many dfi owners wish (maybe unconciously) to trade their board for the asus ? I'm sure there are quite a few of them out there

Why?

Because the DFI has higher overclocking potential than any other motherboard out there?

Or because of the flexibility to adjust CPU voltage anywhere from <1v to >2v in .025v increments?

Or because of the flexibility to run up to 4v to RAM, provided one has the proper RAM and cooling to handle such voltage?

Or because of additional flexibility in adding memory dividers other boards do not have options for?

Or because DFI was one of the first motherboard manufacturers to have a Venice/San Diego BIOS ready (over 3 months ago)?

Or because the Karajan audio module helps keep CPU usage during 3d gaming down to 7% (while the ASUS is up at 30%)?

Or because of the incredibly useful CMOS reloaded feature, that allows you to save different CMOS settings as you experiement with overclocks?