*** Official NVidia nForce 680i Thread ***

[tylerw13]

for those of you who have heard of this problem......hmmm ok this is really wierd....i just tried replaceing my other e6600 with the one that i was having troubles with...and it stopped having problems with the 1500 fsb strap.....very weird...i can go up to 1700 fsb with it now...however my cpu cant go that hight booting into windows....very very crazy....my first one is a 625a*** batch and the other that has the 1500 fsb strap problem is a 628b*** that makes me wonder if that could be what is having problems with this strap problem at 1500 fsb...anyone heard anything about this problem

 

[ToadkillerDog]

Well, my EVGA board came in and booted nicely without any of the infamous SATA problems so far, but I do have the annoying flickering PS2 mouse problem which when the cpu is loaded renders the mouse unuseable. Games are unplayable as weapons switch spontaneously, and you kind of do a dance - one second looking at the enemy, the next at the floor, the ceiling, etc. Using TAT, when I load the cpus, the mouse becomes completely immobile after10-15 secs, so it appears to be directly related to cpu load. Seems not to happen with usb mice, according to EVGA forums, so I'm off to Walmart for a good usb mouse.
BTW, I have Team Extreem 2gb RAM 5,5,5,15 @1000MHZ, 8800GTX, QX6700 oem. This oem cpu runs hot at stock despite my Tuniq Tower 120 installed correctly with unloaded temps of about 55 C and 68 with loaded cpu. Drops nearly 8 deg C with case cover off. Had to take my side case fans off to fit Tuniq in so will invest in some loud, high cfm front and back case fan replacements. May be becuse my 8800gtx is right next to cpu and is so damn hot. Will try and move it to distant GPU slot.

 

[iscsidude]

Toadkillerdog,
Just curious if you upgraded to the P21 BIOS ??

 

[ToadkillerDog]

Yes, I upgraded to P21. Noticed that TAT reads 56 C or so unloaded, 82 C loaded by TAT BUT Speedfan shows unloaded temp of 49 and loaded at 62 with my cpu at 2.93 ghz. A huge discrepancy! I overclocked with multi to 12 and have been able to get to 3.2 ghz but am afraid to go farther until this temp question is settled. Starting to believe that TAT is wrong. Speedstep is reflecting more or less what my bios is telling me. FSB overclocking has been a disaster for me. Unable to post at 3.1 ghz and above. At 3 ghz, I can post but won't load windows. This is with cpu volts at 1.4, unlinked memory. Am tempted to try 3.4 by multis, but will wait to settle temp question...

 

[skrewler2]

is that with the stock HSF? also, yeah, I have a PS/2 keyboard and that problem is really annoying.. sometimes my system will beat like I entered a lot of keys at once, or a key will get stuck.. etc.

THat's really hot for the tuniq. I'm at 36C idle at 1.4v and 1500FSBx9 using the tuniq. Under load I never go above 48 at this clock

 

[ToadkillerDog]

I expect part of it is the qx6700 being 4 cores. I am inclined to believe idle at 48C and load at 62 by Speedstep's measure rather than the extremely high numbers reported by TAT.

 

[skrewler2]

my temps are from TAT. maybe your case is just getting too hot like you said?

 

[ToadkillerDog]

My temps are 8C lower with side of case off. More case cooling will help, BUT there is no explanation for the discrepancy in temp measurements between the two. In a thread in the EVGA forums, someone said that TAT actually measures the temps incorrectly or improperly. I don't know where the truth is, but my bios agrees with Speedfan not TAT which is interesting.

 

[skrewler2]

Actually I think TAT is the correct one. My BIOS reports 28C after a fresh reboot, which seems too low.. I know the Tower is a pain to put on and off, but you might want to try reapply AS5.. otherwise, no idea.

 

[Skott]

Early BIOS had a PS2 mouse and keybaord problem from what I heard. Best to switch to a USB setup.

 

[ToadkillerDog]

I have the latest bios and the mouse problem persists. However, I think it is really a PS2 keyboard problem. When I unplug my ps2 keyboard and plug in a usb keyboard, my ps2 mouse problem magically disappears. The keyboard has always worked fine, but with it in the ps2 port, my ps2 mouse was virtually unusable in many instances. Even a usb mouse did not fix the problem until I unplugged the PS2 keyboard.

About TAT, there are some people arguing the issue of TAT reliability as a true cpu core measurtement on other forums, I do have a hot 4 core chip so my numbers should be higher than yours (yours are really nice!). My numbers in TAT match those of other qx6700 owners. Nevertheless, I have reapplied the tower as suggested, the AS5 looked good, reapplied, no real difference. I will not be overclocking any higher than 2.9 ghz until I am sure what temp my cpu is really at.

Edit: Have you seen this review of the ASUS stryker board - it got low marks for overclocking compared to much cheaper EVGA board...

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIzNCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[ToadkillerDog]

Edit #2
I'm coming to believe that speedstep is wrong
Both Core Temp and TAT agree. Am going to recheck my fan/heatsink again tomorrow.

This is really pathetic, but I noticed that all along I have been saying speedstep... I have speedstep disabled BUT was referring to Speedfan in all previous posts to monitor my cpu temps. Speedfan gives me lower temps than coretemp or TAT. Jeez, what a brain fart...

 

[Mavtech]

Just put an Asus P5N32-E 680i board in my system the other night. I have a Scythe Ninja Plus on it with Arctic Silver 3. On my previous board, it said that my Core Temp was 27 degrees at idle. This board reports is in the high 30s at idle (No OC). Is this normal for an E6600? The good thing is, it maxes out at 46 degrees when under full load overclocked to 2.87 GHZ.

Asus, CoreTemp, and Everest are all pretty close in reporting the temp.

 

[Serpentarius]

Got myself an eVGA 680i, damn thing was DOA. It'd turn on for a split second, then right back off...orange and blue LEDs on. Power supply IS a good working unit. Anyone else have this problem? Should be getting a new one in a few days..

 

[QuantumPion]

I just put together my new build with a p180 and evga 680i. Using a zalman 9500+as5, the bios says my cpu temp is 18 deg. C, so apparently those crafty Koreans have managed to break the second law of thermodynamics.

 

[ToadkillerDog]

Originally posted by: Serpentarius
Got myself an eVGA 680i, damn thing was DOA. It'd turn on for a split second, then right back off...orange and blue LEDs on. Power supply IS a good working unit. Anyone else have this problem? Should be getting a new one in a few days..

If you have for example the usb pins plugged into your m/b even one pin off, it won't turn on. Check all your connections. That happened to me.

 

[ToadkillerDog]

I had vanilla Thermaltake 80mm case fans x2 on the back of my case blowing air out. These are situated just above my Tuniq Tower 120 cpu heat sink/fan. For qx700 OC to 2.93 ghz, my TAT idle temps were 62C and 60C on first two cores. TAT 100% load was 82C and 80C. Replaced those fans with Vantec Tornados putting out over 70cfm each and what a different system environment I now have: TAT idle 48C and 46C, TAT 100% load 68C and 63C. Very noisy, loud fans, but oh boy can they cool the case! Will try higher OC now.

 

[Serpentarius]

Originally posted by: ToadkillerDog

Originally posted by: Serpentarius
Got myself an eVGA 680i, damn thing was DOA. It'd turn on for a split second, then right back off...orange and blue LEDs on. Power supply IS a good working unit. Anyone else have this problem? Should be getting a new one in a few days..

If you have for example the usb pins plugged into your m/b even one pin off, it won't turn on. Check all your connections. That happened to me.

Thanks for the advice. I even had it pulled out of the case entirely with just video, ram, cpu, and power and still did the same thing. Hope I don't get another dud, these suckers aren't cheap.

 

[ToadkillerDog]

Originally posted by: ToadkillerDog
I had vanilla Thermaltake 80mm case fans x2 on the back of my case blowing air out. These are situated just above my Tuniq Tower 120 cpu heat sink/fan. For qx700 OC to 2.93 ghz, my TAT idle temps were 62C and 60C on first two cores. TAT 100% load was 82C and 80C. Replaced those fans with Vantec Tornados putting out over 70cfm each and what a different system environment I now have: TAT idle 48C and 46C, TAT 100% load 68C and 63C. Very noisy, loud fans, but oh boy can they cool the case! Will try higher OC now.

Damn, vcore was set to auto. OC again from 2.93 to 3.2 with vcore to 1.35625 and got nearly same temps as above but with higher clock - idle 49C, 49C load 71C, 68C If I can live with these loud case fans, i know I can get this sucker to at least 3.46ghz

Serpentarius, my heart goes out to you, buddy. Best of luck with the current mobo.

 

[lopri]

Q6700 @2.93GHz idle temp 60C?! With a Tuniq? Holy..

BTW, after spending much time on this board, and with my main rig (A8N32-SLI) starting to show strange behaviors, there is one thing that I can't help but keep thinking about - How solid DFI LanParty boards were.

It's astonishing how many boards are 'out for sale' without the polishment these days. Worse yet, you can't really tell a long-term stability of these new boards. I had a DFI NF4 SLI-D board (AB0, one of the first revision) for about year before I sold it, and let me tell you, that thing was a rock. I tortured the board left and right non-stop, 24/7 but other than dust, the board worked the same way from the day one till the last day.

Setting up this 680i board wasn't the smoothest experience, so this board better serve me for long.

 

[lopri]

Just found out that this board does DDR2-1066 / 4-3-3. I didn't bother to try such timings before because I didn't think they're a possibility. Will need to double-check whether this is real (could be a bug like in the infamous P5B-Deluxe), but simple WinRAR test showed a decent performance increase over DDR2-1066 / 4-4-4. Unlike Intel chipsets which require loosening tRCD first (then tCL), this board likes loose CAS latency for higher frequency. I also booted at DDR2-1280 / 5-4-4, but didn't do a thorough testing because that's not the setting I'd keep, even if the system is capable of.

 

[lopri]

Here is a couple of quick tests. The performance is a hair short of DDR2-800/1T, and it needs less vDIMM.

Super PI 32M: 13 m 56.266 s
WinRAR: 1,767 KB/s

 

[applexxe]

WoW
COOL

 

[KingofFah]

I don't know whether anyone else has posted regarding this, but HardOCP has an article pertaining to 680i problems:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI0NCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

A friend of mine recently told me he was about to drop 4k on a system, and of course I had to find out what he was getting for 4k. A little off topic, it was a 965EE (can you say, ripped off?) and an X1900XTX, the XTX is fine, but not for spending 4k. Anyway, I told him I'd build him one, and I was initially going to go with an eVGA 680i; yet after reading that article, I might wait or go with an intel chipset.

 

[ToadkillerDog]

EVGA just released a Beta bios patch that is supposed to take care of the sata and data corruption problems. On their forums, it seems that if actually installed correctly, it is working. We'll see...