My first post..my first DFI mobo

[the_vandyl]

hello everyone...i'll try not to be too noobish here..

 

this is a signature test, as well as some basic questions about my mobo, along with a short story as to why i ended up here in the first place

 

In september i bought a Asus A8N-SLI Premium..it was the start of my new system..well i bought all of the new hardware for in the last few months, spending what i could each paycheck...i can make some loot working overtime ..well, last week i got everything up and made a slipstreamed WINXP unattended cd, that failed miserably for some reason..then did the normal install..well the asus board was everything i hoped it wouldn't be..it was terrible, the BIOS was way old, so i flashed it to a newer bios...then my problems really started...SLI crashed my system...reset that, it was fine..installed new forceware, and new Nforce drivers...somehow NVfirewall got activated... :confused: my memory wouldn't do it's timings stable, my PCMark 2005 and 3DMark2005 scores were atrocious...SuperPi ran pretty good i guess (31.034 sec on 1m) and my system was hanging on restarts...well that fixed itself for some reason :cool: but i decided to flash my bios again and i lost my USB headers and my keyboard(p/s2)..so i couldn't even login after rebooting...so I RMA'ed the board and I ordered the Expert from Monarch...it arrives Monday. I also ordered a 4-8 pin adapter cable for my PC P&C 510 SLI, a swiftech MCX159-cu Chipset cooler (i hope it'll fit!)and some longer SATA Cables from Perfomance PC...so here i am

 

now, a few questions

 

1. is the OCZ Platinum Rev1 PC3200 good in this board..i have the 2gb kit, i also have some Corsair Twinx2048-3200c2 that i could slap in here, as well as some junk Xerox pc3200 2x512....orange or yellow slots?

 

2. should i stick with the stock BIOS for now, at least until i get used to the bells and whistles, or is their one i need to make my system more stable?

 

3. Am I correct in assuming there is no way in h*ll to load the system without re-formatting..since the whole Enum registry trick no longer works and XP requires validation???? I have a valid copy, just not sure, never done it that way and my 160gb has a lot of stuff on it i want to keep..either way, i'll do what is necessary

 

4. Should I partition the 2x250's into 4 smaller drives before making them RAID...is that possible???

 

any and all help is appreciated....thanks for having me

[wevsspot]

I'll answer the questions in order asked;

 

1. Yes, the OCZ Platinum 3200 is very good memory and should work well on your board. I'd use the OCZ before I used the Corsair. I always start in the orange slot with a single stick. Get your tiimings tweaked, Windows installed, and you can add the other stick later.

2. Update your BIOS to the latest one available. I'm not sure which one the Expert board is shipping with right now. Do a search here at the Street for the latest stable BIOS.

3. You would be crazy not to do a format and fresh install of Windows! Safe yourself the heartache and do it right!

4. Keep your 160gb as a backup drive. Just set it as a master drive on SATA channel 3 or 4 or IDE channel 1 or 2.

5. I wouldn't partition my RAID array.

[the_vandyl]

"2. Update your BIOS to the latest one available. I'm not sure which one the Expert board is shipping with right now. Do a search here at the Street for the latest stable BIOS."

 

what is the reasoning behind immediately flashing my BIOS? I flashed my Asus only because of a 333mhz-400mhz bug fix...and a dualcore fix....otherwise i keep them stock, i don't flash unless it is warranted....

[red930]

what is the reasoning behind immediately flashing my BIOS? I flashed my Asus only because of a 333mhz-400mhz bug fix...and a dualcore fix....otherwise i keep them stock, i don't flash unless it is warranted....

Trust us when we say update to the latest BIOS. Read the other threads in the forum for some background information.

[the_vandyl]

ohhh i trust you guys, just fishing for the easy answer is all...my eyes are tired..i've been overloaded with info and the BIOS section doesn't have the neat little board specific titles like this section...(edit*hmm.i see the titles on the left now )

 

can i get them from the 6.5 iso? the DFI site only shows the 2/11/05 one

[the_vandyl]

okay i found the 6.5 iso for the Bios..

 

in concerns to my memory, according to the threads i have read my memory has TCB3 chips, is their any guide/thread specifically that i am not seeing, i went through the NF4 memory guide, it had a little info, such as stock timings...i was told i should bump it up a little to get the timings OCZ lists..2.3.2.5, but to not go beyond 2.8v

 

anyone know if they are samsung chips? I'm just trying to understand the nomenclature of the chips

[the_vandyl]

wow i was 3kb over on my signature size..but in photoshop, when i saved it, the file size said 44.98kb...sorry for the 6kb mistake, hopefully now i can get some help..i honestly didn't realize that the file size was different

[lowboy]

The OCZ memory you have is not good overclocker maxs at 220 and does not like above 2.8max. I have some of the memory setting on the shelf,good mem just not good for overclocking hold the timings to 220 but even loosing the timings do not help the overclocking.

[the_vandyl]

well that's good info...i kinda figured it wasn't too good, with the lack of info on the chips...but i will be picking up some better dimms once i get the BIOS figured out, until then i will run it a little over stock

[xguy]

Do not update your bios to a beta release or else you will lose your warranty if something goes wrong, mine shipped with the 11/02 , and that's where I'm keeping it untill beta is approved.

[the_vandyl]

I'm so confused....lol

[dragon529]

so once someone gets the board, he should clear the cmos, boot then choose optimized setting, then flash to newest bios?