DFI Mainboards eating CPUS?

[Aynjell]

this is a DFI forum for DFI users

 

people report all kinds of things at other forums

 

but the owners of this site (me and Rgone) work for DFI and not only do we see the forums here, but we also see the OFFICIAL SUPPORT EMAIL

 

we also talk daily with our boss and other techs in the DFI SUPPORT OFFICES.

 

 

now

 

so people report this or that at other forums that we don't visit

 

thats ok, I accept that not everyone will come to the Street and will report things to other forums.

 

 

but

 

when those people report such things, don't they have to still contact DFI in some way...through OFFICIAL EMAIL or through OFFICIAL TELEPHONE?

 

 

but, you say, what if they just do it quickly and return to the vendors?

 

 

well, we talk to the vendors also since they receive their boards from us and return their RMA boards to us...

 

 

and you'd think with all this mass hysteria that 'other forums' are reporting as fact, that we'd (one of us within the USA, EU, or Asia offices and HQ... anyway) see a very ugly pattern and be very worried and come right out with a BIOS fix or statement that said "HOLD UP DON'T DO THIS OR THAT UNLESS YOU HAVE THIS FIX!" because we'd not want to be responsible for possibly frying and having to replace everyone's cpu as well as motherboard and whatever else might have burned out.

 

 

 

 

 

right?

 

you'd agree that this is pretty true from our point of view since we work for DFI?

 

 

 

 

but the problem is that for the most part, here's what this 'burned up cpu' seems to end up being...

 

(take your pick, we've pretty much seen every one of these cases)

 

A. user actually didn't fry cpu

B. user removed heatspreader from cpu and hosed something himself

C. user used unsupported cpu

D. user killed it by incorrect overclocking

E. user didn't install correctly

F. user didn't use proper bios settings

G. user's problem was caused by some other hardware malfunction (like improper psu)

H. user did burn cpu and sent both cpu and board to us and we couldn't determine fault with either (ie: both worked properly for us...which means he only thought he burned cpu)

I. user did burn cpu and sent both cpu and board to us and cpu was dead but no determination could be made as to why it happened

 

 

and I top that off with what Roadie said earlier, and I will add to it...we've not seen the problem here at these forums that are still growing by 25-50 members per day, nor has any of our tech team been able to burn up a cpu (and we build and rebuild these Expert boards a couple of times a day to test something for a customer).

 

now out of all that I listed, I. is really the only for-sure cases where something bad actually happened...but because it happened to 3 users that I can think of (and lets keep in mind that one user was using a hand-built, hand-modified, not-even-pre-production-alpha motherboard directly from Oskar Wu himself so that effectively drops the actual cases to two that we can be sure of), I am not sure where that becomes "it's true and it happens because it is reported everywhere on the internet".

 

there possibly are more cases of it...I don't know...but those people must decide to not contact DFI in any way...and if that is the case....well I don't know why they would rush out to all the forums and report it like it was a pandemic of epic proportions, and then not contact DFI themselves to have it looked at.

 

maybe this thread (and more specifically this post) will spur them into action so we can get more info from all these 'reported' cases

 

but it has been a couple of months now since Expert has come out (early November) and the only pattern I can see is the SAME pattern that comes out EVERY SINGLE TIME WE RELEASE A NEW BOARD.

 

 

the pattern is always the same. Go look back at NF2, 875, NF3, NF4, RDX200...because we make the crazy overclocking motherboards, everytime we release a new one there's this giant surge of "OMG DFI KILLED MY HARDWARE" threads and people end up believing all of this...or worse, it happens to say less than 10 users and out of those 5 or less were not actually at fault and the board actually was...and that somehow is an epidemic even though that is 10 or 5 out of 10,000, or 40,000, or whatever thousand...

 

 

and the pattern always is the same in that I or Rgone or someone else has to come in and explain things, and almost every time there's a few hanger-ons who can't see reality and must keep the fight alive omg we cant lose this fight DFI is corporate evil and must be brought to task! but the argument finally goes away...not because WE (DFI) sweep it under teh rug...but because there was no issue or pandemic in the first place, and if there was, the issue would be very much alive because the forums and our email and our tech support guys would be flooded daily with hundreds or thousands of customers all reporting the same thing....that DFI killed something of theirs...

 

but we arent. We are deluged by customers daily as to why their board only gives 2 LED's, or can they use this or that psu, or will this memory work, or why the board will see 2 sticks but not 4 sticks of memory etc.

 

but not by complaints of death and destruction to their hardware.

 

 

 

so please...understand...we aren't here to be rude to you. We are here to put in proper perspective what kind of craziness can be found across the internet when a bunch of people get together like wild packs of dogs...as well as telling you 'look around...this is the house that DFI built and there's nothing but DFI users here and you'd think you would see the problem here if anywhere...and you don't...so relax and understand that this is probably a better place to find out about DFI than anywhere else since it is all about DFI, not about anything else'.

 

 

Thank you for explaining this to me. Now that I know that this is not the motherboard eating CPU's, I'm fine with my board. I've also not been a DFI customer long, I just found that my DFI NF3 250GB was the best board I've ever used, period. The first peice of hardware that did what i told it to. My asus before it died after two months of use and well... it's actually getting sold to a guy that wants the plastic socket peice.

 

Anyway I wanted to see if the eXpert would keep the trend. Pardon me for being short, but I just spent a boatload of money, haven't gotten the parts yet and after hearing that the reports were not just on the RDX200, but on other boards, if not most boards, I got worried and wanted a simple answer... and the one I got from exRoadie seemed pretty blowmeoffish. Also, the one I had gotten from you seemd to accuse me of more than answer my question, but it seems tha that is not the case... and I've also seemd to have forgotten that you deal with a lot of really annoying cases every day. Sorry for being short, and thank you for answering my question in detail.

[red930]

@Aynjell

 

Sorry you got that impression from my post. I have a feeling that if you read it again, you'll find that it is nothing more than the "readers digest" version of what AG posted.

 

There are hundreds of forum members running Expert boards and not a single CPU has been "eaten".

 

There are people that claim their CPU was destroyed by the Expert board but it turns out they were removing their CMOS battery while power was still applied to the motherboard. Not sure why they would do that but...

[Aynjell]

@Aynjell

 

Sorry you got that impression from my post. I have a feeling that if you read it again, you'll find that it is nothing more than the "readers digest" version of what AG posted.

 

I understand now, but now that I know it's not so much what you said, but user error in general, I apologize for being short with the moderators. Thanks again for answering my questions.

[Angry_Games]

I just found that my DFI NF3 250GB was the best board I've ever used, period

 

heh, I truly believe that this board is the best motherboard ever built by any mfg ever...better than the legendary Abit BP6 and Asus A7V (which was my previous bulletproof best-ever board opinion)

 

being short is ok, I can handle it (I am short to a lot of users and they hate me for it so tit for tat i guess lol). Roadie wasn't being blowoffish...he was just pointing out what we consider common sense (ie: look in the DFI FORUM and you don't see a lot of this stuff that other non-DFI forums try to pull off) that we sometimes forget is NOT common sense to users who have just arrived.

 

I've had the chance to have my hands in the RDX200, the NF4 Expert and of course the regular NF4 Lanparty of all flavors...and I still stick to my guns of "if you are not getting a bulletproof NF3 250Gb, then get the original Lanparty NF4 board".

 

This isn't saying that the Expert and RDX200 are crap or harmful...it just means that the original NF4 Lanparty board is very mature and the bioses are very mature now and for me, and most of us that have had a chance to play with teh different boards...the original NF4 LP boards are still the king overclockers because we know them (and again they are quite mature these days)

 

 

plus I hate rumours and do my best to stamp them out....if they turn out to be true, then they are not rumours and we do our best to get the problem solved.

 

Thats why DFI-Street exists...its easier to get 16,000 DFI users to show us a problem than it is to try and piece and patch together an idea of what problem there might be from 19 different forums...

[Aynjell]

heh, I truly believe that this board is the best motherboard ever built by any mfg ever...better than the legendary Abit BP6 and Asus A7V (which was my previous bulletproof best-ever board opinion)

 

being short is ok, I can handle it (I am short to a lot of users and they hate me for it so tit for tat i guess lol). Roadie wasn't being blowoffish...he was just pointing out what we consider common sense (ie: look in the DFI FORUM and you don't see a lot of this stuff that other non-DFI forums try to pull off) that we sometimes forget is NOT common sense to users who have just arrived.

 

I've had the chance to have my hands in the RDX200, the NF4 Expert and of course the regular NF4 Lanparty of all flavors...and I still stick to my guns of "if you are not getting a bulletproof NF3 250Gb, then get the original Lanparty NF4 board".

 

This isn't saying that the Expert and RDX200 are crap or harmful...it just means that the original NF4 Lanparty board is very mature and the bioses are very mature now and for me, and most of us that have had a chance to play with teh different boards...the original NF4 LP boards are still the king overclockers because we know them (and again they are quite mature these days)

 

 

plus I hate rumours and do my best to stamp them out....if they turn out to be true, then they are not rumours and we do our best to get the problem solved.

 

Thats why DFI-Street exists...its easier to get 16,000 DFI users to show us a problem than it is to try and piece and patch together an idea of what problem there might be from 19 different forums...

 

 

Agreed.

 

In fact, my DFI is burning in a Sempron 2500+ at 2170 right now. Not bad for a 1400mhz CPU... especially when it retailed at 50$ when I bought it! Anyway, I can't wait to get my board. I decided to go s939 opteron over next gen sam2's because the 939 boards were so mature and this 270$ opteron was too much to pass up... and my 3200+ died (this was the main reason, didn't wanna buy a new s754 chip).

 

If the eXpert lives up to it's potential, it'll be a fine board indeed and will make my opti squat and go where I tell it to. Anyway... thanks again. :tooth:

[Zizzman]

this is a DFI forum for DFI users

 

people report all kinds of things at other forums

 

but the owners of this site (me and Rgone) work for DFI and not only do we see the forums here, but we also see the OFFICIAL SUPPORT EMAIL

 

we also talk daily with our boss and other techs in the DFI SUPPORT OFFICES.

 

 

now

 

so people report this or that at other forums that we don't visit

 

thats ok, I accept that not everyone will come to the Street and will report things to other forums.

 

 

but

 

when those people report such things, don't they have to still contact DFI in some way...through OFFICIAL EMAIL or through OFFICIAL TELEPHONE?

 

 

but, you say, what if they just do it quickly and return to the vendors?

 

 

well, we talk to the vendors also since they receive their boards from us and return their RMA boards to us...

 

 

and you'd think with all this mass hysteria that 'other forums' are reporting as fact, that we'd (one of us within the USA, EU, or Asia offices and HQ... anyway) see a very ugly pattern and be very worried and come right out with a BIOS fix or statement that said "HOLD UP DON'T DO THIS OR THAT UNLESS YOU HAVE THIS FIX!" because we'd not want to be responsible for possibly frying and having to replace everyone's cpu as well as motherboard and whatever else might have burned out.

 

 

 

 

 

right?

 

you'd agree that this is pretty true from our point of view since we work for DFI?

 

 

 

 

but the problem is that for the most part, here's what this 'burned up cpu' seems to end up being...

 

(take your pick, we've pretty much seen every one of these cases)

 

A. user actually didn't fry cpu

B. user removed heatspreader from cpu and hosed something himself

C. user used unsupported cpu

D. user killed it by incorrect overclocking

E. user didn't install correctly

F. user didn't use proper bios settings

G. user's problem was caused by some other hardware malfunction (like improper psu)

H. user did burn cpu and sent both cpu and board to us and we couldn't determine fault with either (ie: both worked properly for us...which means he only thought he burned cpu)

I. user did burn cpu and sent both cpu and board to us and cpu was dead but no determination could be made as to why it happened

 

 

and I top that off with what Roadie said earlier, and I will add to it...we've not seen the problem here at these forums that are still growing by 25-50 members per day, nor has any of our tech team been able to burn up a cpu (and we build and rebuild these Expert boards a couple of times a day to test something for a customer).

 

now out of all that I listed, I. is really the only for-sure cases where something bad actually happened...but because it happened to 3 users that I can think of (and lets keep in mind that one user was using a hand-built, hand-modified, not-even-pre-production-alpha motherboard directly from Oskar Wu himself so that effectively drops the actual cases to two that we can be sure of), I am not sure where that becomes "it's true and it happens because it is reported everywhere on the internet".

 

there possibly are more cases of it...I don't know...but those people must decide to not contact DFI in any way...and if that is the case....well I don't know why they would rush out to all the forums and report it like it was a pandemic of epic proportions, and then not contact DFI themselves to have it looked at.

 

maybe this thread (and more specifically this post) will spur them into action so we can get more info from all these 'reported' cases

 

but it has been a couple of months now since Expert has come out (early November) and the only pattern I can see is the SAME pattern that comes out EVERY SINGLE TIME WE RELEASE A NEW BOARD.

 

 

the pattern is always the same. Go look back at NF2, 875, NF3, NF4, RDX200...because we make the crazy overclocking motherboards, everytime we release a new one there's this giant surge of "OMG DFI KILLED MY HARDWARE" threads and people end up believing all of this...or worse, it happens to say less than 10 users and out of those 5 or less were not actually at fault and the board actually was...and that somehow is an epidemic even though that is 10 or 5 out of 10,000, or 40,000, or whatever thousand...

 

 

and the pattern always is the same in that I or Rgone or someone else has to come in and explain things, and almost every time there's a few hanger-ons who can't see reality and must keep the fight alive omg we cant lose this fight DFI is corporate evil and must be brought to task! but the argument finally goes away...not because WE (DFI) sweep it under teh rug...but because there was no issue or pandemic in the first place, and if there was, the issue would be very much alive because the forums and our email and our tech support guys would be flooded daily with hundreds or thousands of customers all reporting the same thing....that DFI killed something of theirs...

 

but we arent. We are deluged by customers daily as to why their board only gives 2 LED's, or can they use this or that psu, or will this memory work, or why the board will see 2 sticks but not 4 sticks of memory etc.

 

but not by complaints of death and destruction to their hardware.

 

 

 

so please...understand...we aren't here to be rude to you. We are here to put in proper perspective what kind of craziness can be found across the internet when a bunch of people get together like wild packs of dogs...as well as telling you 'look around...this is the house that DFI built and there's nothing but DFI users here and you'd think you would see the problem here if anywhere...and you don't...so relax and understand that this is probably a better place to find out about DFI than anywhere else since it is all about DFI, not about anything else'.

 

 

I think there may be something to the Expert boards killing AMD memory controllers. Have you read all the posts regarding the problems with getting dual channel or any memory to work in Expert and other DFI boards? Is there a solution? I will post this on another thread, but as to DFI boards damaging the cpu's onboard memory controller, that part of the cpu.

[Guest Bulldog]

To all concerned:

 

AG has hit the nail on the head here. Perspective was lost in a very bad way with with the reports of "Expert/Crossfire boards burning CPU's". Speculation and rumor took the place of facts and the matter spiraled out of control. In the end the actual reported instances of damaged CPU's was very low, and of these reported instances no verifiable hard evidence has been produced that the DFI boards in question were the culprits.

 

AG, Rgone, Exroadie, and myself have touched on the dangers of speculation before, but I will say it again to be clear: The opinions presented on public mediums such as forums remain just that. Opinion. When several people get together and all seemingly suffer from the same "problem", and even more dangerous situation can result. Collective speculation. When collective speculation results people tend to think that an issue is authenticated, and that the manufacturer is bound to "solve the authenticated problem". The situation then even becomes more "real" when a I've-been-overclocking-since-the-day-I-was-born-type-so-I-am-in-the-know type joins the conversation and lends "authenticity" to the claim. The reality is that there was never any situation to begin with and that it was all based on the guess's of a few.

 

Moral of the story:

 

DON"T GET CAUGHT UP IN COLLECTIVE SPECULATION AND RUMOUR.

[Aynjell]

To all concerned:

 

AG has hit the nail on the head here. Perspective was lost in a very bad way with with the reports of "Expert/Crossfire boards burning CPU's". Speculation and rumor took the place of facts and the matter spiraled out of control. In the end the actual reported instances of damaged CPU's was very low, and of these reported instances no verifiable hard evidence has been produced that the DFI boards in question were the culprits.

 

AG, Rgone, Exroadie, and myself have touched on the dangers of speculation before, but I will say it again to be clear: The opinions presented on public mediums such as forums remain just that. Opinion. When several people get together and all seemingly suffer from the same "problem", and even more dangerous situation can result. Collective speculation. When collective speculation results people tend to think that an issue is authenticated, and that the manufacturer is bound to "solve the authenticated problem". The situation then even becomes more "real" when a I've-been-overclocking-since-the-day-I-was-born-type-so-I-am-in-the-know type joins the conversation and lends "authenticity" to the claim. The reality is that there was never any situation to begin with and that it was all based on the guess's of a few.

 

Moral of the story:

 

DON"T GET CAUGHT UP IN COLLECTIVE SPECULATION AND RUMOUR.

 

Sounsd like a good idea to me. Just got my board about an hour ago opteron already in it (monarch tested and installed). It's got the stock amd heatsink on it, and I must say, much stouter than the old ones. I'll be sure to report how it goes. Thanks for the info guys.

[Angry_Games]

To all concerned:

 

AG has hit the nail on the head here. Perspective was lost in a very bad way with with the reports of "Expert/Crossfire boards burning CPU's". Speculation and rumor took the place of facts and the matter spiraled out of control. In the end the actual reported instances of damaged CPU's was very low, and of these reported instances no verifiable hard evidence has been produced that the DFI boards in question were the culprits.

 

AG, Rgone, Exroadie, and myself have touched on the dangers of speculation before, but I will say it again to be clear: The opinions presented on public mediums such as forums remain just that. Opinion. When several people get together and all seemingly suffer from the same "problem", and even more dangerous situation can result. Collective speculation. When collective speculation results people tend to think that an issue is authenticated, and that the manufacturer is bound to "solve the authenticated problem". The situation then even becomes more "real" when a I've-been-overclocking-since-the-day-I-was-born-type-so-I-am-in-the-know type joins the conversation and lends "authenticity" to the claim. The reality is that there was never any situation to begin with and that it was all based on the guess's of a few.

 

Moral of the story:

 

DON"T GET CAUGHT UP IN COLLECTIVE SPECULATION AND RUMOUR.

 

 

I think this just about covers it