NF4 Cold Boot Thread

[Richdog]

Ok so are you guys ready to get REALLY confused?

 

I reset my 5v vdimm jumperback to its non 5v setting... and guess what.

 

both sticks of RAM now work again.

 

Heres to hoping at least that the poor folks at OCZ dont have to replace another pair of DIMMs.

 

My 5v jumper is disabled and my RAM has your problems. I wish it had of been on and disabling it would have fixed my problem, would make life far easier.

[Forza971sbh]

But I dont hear of other mobo's having cold boot issues with VX.

 

abolutely true.... it even boots and run stable @ 2.6v and 2.5-3-3-5 (defaults/auto settings) on my neo4....

 

I'm curently running bugfree 2 vx + 2 ballistix @ DDR450 2.5-3-3-8 2T (unusual setup, isn't it )

[Boppo]

Not really from my understanding. The cold boot problem is an issue of ram voltage not being applied properly at boot up after shutdown, but I could be wrong, and am certainly willing to conceed the possibility.

 

However even if I conceed to this point, then there are two serious problems with the mobo instead of one, unless the cold boot issue is one that can be squarely laid at OCZ's feet. But I dont hear of other mobo's having cold boot issues with VX.

You are right. I read up more on it today and it seems to be the fact that the board doesn't always give the RAM the full voltage as set in the BIOS. It will give the 2.7v default instead. Therefor if your RAM has issues botting at 2.7V you can not boot.

 

I guess I am happy my RAM boots at 2.7V and apparently I did not get one of the RAM eating boards.

[Psylenced]

sure enough, even with the 5v jumper in the default off position and 2.6v vdimm and 2-3-3-10 timing on my VX on a 9/10 divider and stock fsb etc, i get the BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. So the issue occurs when I unplug my PSU from the wall outlet after managing to get both dimms working again, which sounds a lot like the cold boot issue. However using OCZ's cold boot fix (regarding timings and ram swapping) I can still only boot with one stick of ram at any speed ratings up to 3.2v 2-2-2-6 (5 too, but unstable), yet with the other stick plugged in I cannot, nor can I boot with the single suspect stick alone in the orange slot closest to the edge of the mobo, or any other slot for that matter.

 

This sounds so much like a cold boot issue, except that one stick will boot the system at all times, and the other stick will never boot the system alone, and sometimes only work with the other stick. Not to mention bios 623-3 was supposed to fix cold boots.

 

P.S. I am working closely with OCZ and DFI to try and discover this issue as I know many of you VX users out there are experiencing similar issues. If we can make headway I will be sure to post results and methods here.

 

Update: Ok I just spoke with Ricky at DFI tech support.

 

I am not RMA'ing the board to DFI, but instead shipping the board and the RAM directly to him for testing at the San Clemente branch office. Hopefully with the appropriate tools and a week of my suffering without a PC, we can get to the bottom of this to discover where the problem truly lies and what solutions are available to fix it. I plan to mail the board to him tomorrowish.

[Psylenced]

haha, just as a side note, i just turned 5v back on and tightened my ram timings, then popped the second chip in and it boots again.

 

this board is making my head hurt >.<

[&#036n@k33y3&#036]

I guess that you're one of the lucky ones. My VX RMA which was on the FedEx truck today but nobody was home, was intermittent too for a while.

 

I played the "cold boot" game as long as I could. Once I got it started it ran fine, ran like a classy lady, ran like the "energizer f'n bunny", runnin' FAH on, and on, and on. :nod:

 

Then one day I thought I'd try and tighten the timings just a touch and shut er' down. Stupid me, just to go from 2.5 to 2. No matter what I tried stick #2 just wouldn't boot. Stick #1 ran 2-2-2-5@[email protected] with "cool boot" issues, had to walk away for 5 minutes and come back and it would take off like the raped ape it was. This was after switching to 704-2BTA, on the older BIOS it wouldn't fart for days. The second stick was "toast" no matter what.

 

So is it the board, is it the memory, or is it a combo of both? Me thinks it's the board and a voltage issue.

 

I've got a gig of GEIL One S in this thing, runnin' 1:1 @ 300 X 9 @ 2.6v with no boot issues.

 

So "what say ye" do I try and "toast me some VX" tomorrow, or do I just hold it for when I get around to building another unit for HTPC? :cool:

[Psylenced]

wait till iget resultsback from Ricky at DFI, im sending him both my mobo and my VX to test together. he has an unlimited supply of boards to fry and i stringly feel this is a board issue and that the dimms are fine.

 

If the dimms werent fine they wouldnt boot up at all ever. After my system has warmed up for an hour or two i can throw my second dimm back in and be OK. its when i unplug my PSU from the wall that i screw myself and dimm 2 starts giving me .. Unfortunately i have to take my pc to work with me, so i screw myself daily. I should also note that when i unplug my PSU from the wall, and unplug my second dimm from the orange slot closest to the CPU, i can boot just fine on the single dimm.

 

But if i take THAT dimm out and try to plug the one in thats givin me crap it get the beeeeep again until the board warms up.

 

Once I hear back from Ricky we hsould know definitively whether its a board issue or a RAM issue. I just hope its a board issue so I dont have to wait a second week on my OCZ RMA.

 

BTW when I got home tonight i tried the 5v jumper setting method again and it didnt work, im assuming it was just coincidence and that my board had warmed up enough to allow the second dimm to boot. At least thats another theory we can layto rest.

 

This is really nonsense. If a board replacement fixes this issue temporarily and then it pops up again im going to raise hell at DFI. I asked opinions of people before I even put this system together here and the consensus was to go with the VX ram. To have it not work now, and possibly cause problems in the future with an RMA'd board as well will not sit well with me.

[Psylenced]

P.S. Angry_Games I know we've had disagreements in the past (namely the 939 OC DB) but would it be possible to have you take a look at this board as well for a second opinion if neccessary? I know you have a slew of rigs and some of them including VX with no issues, which is why I also think this is a board problem and not a memory problem.

 

I think what im gonig to do is drop my dimms in my wifes pc tonight to see if it boots them. If it does I'll know quite certainly that its not a ram issue.

[Guest Gir]

i have searched and couldnt really find an answer, what exactly is cold boot? i am planning on getting ocz ram from some1 on the forum, and i heard it mostly affects ppl with ocz ram, can ne1 help me out

[ErrorS]

you guys giving up on this?

 

I have the problem too.. I doubt the RAM is fried, no errors.... I don't think? Hell, I don't even know anymore. This is the weirdest problem I've ever had.

 

was happily OCed, running well and loving my PC.. restarted my PC for some reason and it wouldn't boot. I did all the normal troubleshooting, took the mobo out of my case, unplugged everything.. even checked the board with a magnifying glass to see if there was any damage. All was fine.. figured something broke internally tha was above me, so I packed it up for RMA.

 

Before shipping it out I thought I would try it again jut for the hell of it and the board booted fine.. I was soo happy, shut down my PC, plugged everything and... no boot. Cleared CMOS the long way (3hrs) and it booted fine, OCed, went to windows .. played games, watched movies, 2weeks uptime.. I went to OC my videocard, forgot to up the voltage and my system locked. I had forgotten abotu the problem so I powered down.. then, no cold boot.

 

I thought a BIOS change would fix it, of course it didnt.. im having a hell of a time even getting a second stick of my redline to work in the board, sitting fine in windows right now at 270mhz at really tight timings on one stick.. The other stick seems to be more of a pain in the neck but that might be my imagination.. this is so random it's hard to figure out.

 

even if I turn off my PC even with the 'good stick', it wont cold boot. I put in a stick of Corsair and it's just fine, I set my voltage, shut down, put in a stick of mushkin into the top yellow slot and... sometimes it boots and sometimes it doesnt. I shut down and put in the second stick when it boots and it wont boot.. but I'm sure it's just the randomness again.. and I'm tired of taking out ram sticks and putting them back in. Like before, I'm sure if I did the whole thing over and over again I could get to the point where I can run two sticks.. but I don't want to go through this crap every time I shut down my computer.

 

It's odd that it came out of nowhere. I have two guesses for what it could be..

 

5v jumper messed up my RAM somehow, now it's not really stable at stock voltages..

 

or

 

my board is possessed. Some stupid software problem or hardware problem that I don't understand causing it to not give the required voltage at start.

 

I'm assuming the first one is it.. when I first set this system up the Mushkin ran just fine at stock voltage running at SPD. My voltages, according to MBM, are stable. 2.5v goes to 2.52 but doesn't drop below 2.5. Doesn't matter what voltage I run at though.. the Mushkin was stable at 2.4 pre-coldboot issue but 2.5v didn't hurt it at all.

 

so.. yeha, uh.. they fixed it in a revision? Where is my replacement?

 

i'm pretty angry right now. I'm like, at the point where I wanna make a hardware website and get famous just to mess up DFI's name. They are SERIOUSLY going to have to go out of their way to fix this for me or I'll uh.. make lots of empty threats, complain a lot on mIRC and I might even go bald pulling my hair out.

 

Sucks to feel powerless. I sent DFI an E-Mail but I'm not even expecting a response.. even sent mushkin one begging them for any kind of help they can give me.

 

Waiting 3 weeks for a replacement that will break again, oir for them to tell me everything is fine is NOT acceptable.. I don't want to go through that with this hardware.

[Guest rcillig]

all the sudden I too have this problem, out of the blue it started a week ago or so... and now for the last 2hrs Ive been trying to get my pc to boot but no deal.... If I take out my musking redline and put my mushkin 222 special in it will boot asap... so why cant i run my redline anymore.... ! worked fine for a few months then just got possessed !

[Obry]

Same problem here...

 

I'm currently running my VX @ DDR480, 2-2-2-7 @ 3.2v for hours w/o errors on memtest but do you wanna take wild guess what will happen if I go "Start -> Turn Off Computer"?

 

I too have one chip that boots almost always, and another one that's giving me . all the time.