Murphys Law (assorted problems)

[vanti]

Hi there.

 

I like computers.. unfortunately they hate me.. :sad:

I am Murphys Law personified.

 

I recently bought a DFI LanParty Ultra-D and an AMD x2 3800+

 

It went smoothly at first (except from me missing the "logical" RAM slot 2&4 placement)

 

After installing Windows everything works great.. but only one core.. after a while I realise the BIOS is probably outdated and flashed the latest official BIOS 6/23 and sure enough both cores show up but the nForce Ethernet port stops working. Later I find out that the Marvel port works fine and the nForce port works with my twisted cable to my other computer but not to my internet 10Mbit LAN socket in the wall.

 

After reinstalling Windows and installing some drivers windows start acting up and doesnt want to boot like it should. Then I find this forum (after several reinstalls of WinXP/XP64 and even Vista) and notice other people have been having the exact same problem with the Maxtor DiamondMax10 SATA drives. After updating the BIOS to 7/04 BT and setting the other SATA-ports to None instead of Auto and later connecting 2 other drives to them the DiamondMax10s seem to behave alot better (not sure what made the difference) but sometimes it looses the disks but it is less and less frequent.

 

So now everything works fine, right? You would think so, but no.. After watching some demos (www.scene.org) MBM starts warning about System (and/or PWM IC?) being 70C... I start SmartGuardian and nvMonitor and they say the same thing... when starting SmartGuardian the fans start going crazy (seems to do that everytime I start it no matter what the temps are) and the temps go down.. to -2C wich makes me think the sensor is "willy wonky".. This morning the temps look normal again... so I start another demo to tax the GPU again and the System temp goes really high... I couldn't understand why it gets so hot.. then I look at the board... the 7800GTX blows its hot air right where the northbridge is!! WHY would you put the northbridge fan UNDER the PCI-e slot?

 

So any info would be nice but here are the main questions:

 

1. What happened to the nForce4 Ethernet port?

 

2. Is there a surefire solution to make sure the DiamondMax10 works like they should (my HDD firmware _seems_ to be newer than the updated in the thread about this if they just count upward)

 

3. What do you know about the Chipset and PWM IC temp-sensors.

Are they really that hot or could the sensors just be fooled by the hot air from the GPU?

Where exactly are the sensors placed? Is there anything you can do?

In case I build watercooling, is there any block that can on the Northbridge under the 7800GTX? (a GPU-block maybe?)

 

Please help me... pretty plzplzplz with sugar on top :angel:

[Prostock62]

I can give you a ansewer to the PWMIC temp,it normal to be a bit warm they all run like that on these boards.You can try to put a heat sink on it but that will not do all that much.Ill send you a link you can check out on it.Sorry about the other problems,someone who has the maxtor drives will come along to hepl.Have you used the search,it will probley pull something up on this.Here is something about the maxtor drives also.IT seems there is a problem with maxtor drives some are having.

 

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attach...achmentid=35469

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showth...goto=nextoldest

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread...t=maxtor+drives

[vanti]

Thanks alot for the reply and the picture of where the PWM IC is.

 

I have read both the threads you posted and in the one about the PWM IC everyone seems to be guessing about what is safe temps so Im still a bit in the dark. Should I really have to mod my MB to get safe temps even when the case is open just because I have a x2 or do they handle extreme temps?

 

The thread about the Maxtor disks seems like everyone got their problem solved after a firmware update but I seem to have an even newer firmware and I still had the problems until I flashed my BIOS with a "newer than latest official" BIOS and made the MB not try to detect the other 2 ports.

 

Also there is the issue about the nForce4 Ethernet port not working with my 10Mbit internet LAN. Tried several cables and it works in another computer and in the Marvel Ethernet port. Also the nForce4 port works when connected with a twisted cable directly to another computer.

[hitman012]

The components under the PWMIC 'sinks are rated to over 100°C, so it's not a big problem. As for the northbridge, my solution was to 7-volt a spare 120mm and put it blowing right on the chipset heatsink at a slight upward angle. Load temp without 3D graphics is about 46, gets up to roughly 52 with the 7800GTX at full whack

[supertux1]

The components under the PWMIC 'sinks are rated to over 100°C, so it's not a big problem. As for the northbridge, my solution was to 7-volt a spare 120mm and put it blowing right on the chipset heatsink at a slight upward angle. Load temp without 3D graphics is about 46, gets up to roughly 52 with the 7800GTX at full whack

 

Try this if your nForce ethernet died or can't DHCP an ip address:

Look on your mobo for the MAC address, it's a sticker on top of the port.

Make sure you get the right port.

Enter that address into the CMOS screen which allows you to set the address.

 

I did a flash and bios clear once, and it totally lost the MAC for the Nvidia

ethernet controller. After I manually entered it in, works fine.

[Boppo]

Are you using the 4v jumper for your RAM?

 

You can lower your PWMIC temps by pointing a small fan towards that corner of the board. I have one there for the PWMIC and for my ram, which is running at 3.3V.

 

I also have a 60mm fan blowing on my Chipset. It keeps the temps in the mid to low 40s under load, even with my 7800GTX sitting on it.

 

For the NIC, did you install the Nvidia Firewall?

[vanti]

Thanks guys this is a great forum

 

Ok, so I don't have to worry about the PWM IC even if they approach the 80C area.

 

I think supertux1 could be on to something about the MAC-adress so I'll try that.

 

And the System temp I'll fix that with a temporary fan angeled at the Northbridge fan as a temp-solution (pun intended) until I get the watercooling and 7800GTX-block from innovatek.de to stop the hot air from going to the Northbridge.

 

I don't know wich fans make noise and wich doesn't. Do the mag-lev fan on the northbridge make any noise at all to speak of and if it does is there any waterblock that will fit in between the 7800 and the jumpers and capacitors?

 

EDIT: I haven't touched the extreme RAM-voltage Jumper so it should be OFF but I'll check.

[hitman012]

Keep the northbridge fan < 3500RPM and it's pretty much silent.

[Fight Game]

As stated above the northbridge can get pretty hot and not affect anything. You can adjust these temps in the software, so that it doesn't warn you until a higher temp.

If it still bothers you, you could move the video card to the other slot. Enable SLI mode and the slots will be 8x, rather than the 16x it's in now, but don't worry, your card won't saturate an 8x anyway. Reports I've seen say the fastest, oc'd 7800gtx is about 7x, and no differences (or very very small) are seen in benchmarks, no difference in real world app.

[vanti]

Thanks for the advice Fight Game.

I think I'll try moving the card then.

Even if the Northbridge can take high temps I think it's unnecessary to have it running close to the temp of my GPU wich reaches 80C when I could just as well have it running 50-ish temps

[Grazzhopper]

The components under the PWMIC 'sinks are rated to over 100°C, so it's not a big problem. As for the northbridge, my solution was to 7-volt a spare 120mm and put it blowing right on the chipset heatsink at a slight upward angle. Load temp without 3D graphics is about 46, gets up to roughly 52 with the 7800GTX at full whack

 

Also found that opening the case made things worse, and so fitted a front case 120mm fan. With my dinky little case I also removed a spare drive cover.