No offense but I'm seriously not liking this Mobo!!!

[oeqvist]

I am decently happy but to much quirks to get it going I agree.

 

To not being able to cut the power through the power button and then have to cut the power on the PSU and back on to boot again is a bit awkward. Don´t understand why that would be necessary.

 

I also has this that my fans spins up a bit when powering on again which really makes me nervous. But I guess that should have killed my computer already if it feeded that to my CPU...

 

Overclocking is not going so well with my Gskill memory but I haven´t tried these steps yet. Seems like a one shot deal if you don´t manage to boot after doing this you have to redo all the process from ground up. Also got the advice to use only 1 stick and then add the other after a successful boot

 

Originally Posted by Angry_Games

Here is the 'official' DFI way of clearing the CMOS:

 

every time you flash to a new bios, it is very important to clear the old BIOS settings out this way:

 

1. pull power

2. pull battery

3. clear cmos jumper for minimum of 30-60 seconds

4. replace cmos jumper to normal position

5. replace battery

6. replace power

7. boot to bios and load optimized defaults

8. save and exit

9. boot back to bios and now you can change settings to your liking.

 

 

See if that helps otherwise I guess I am unlucky again with choice of mainboard. Or not though nice to have two PCI slots available even though I run 2 VGA silencers. But with load temps of like 32 degrees on CPU and chipset temps of 40 I should be able to get a decent overclock on a 510 ASL I feel...

[RGone]

Updated for Expert and RDX200. STILL works on early boards but steps are re-ordered to take into account the Expert and RDX200.

 

Here is the 'official' DFI way of clearing the CMOS:

 

1. pull power *A/C Power from wall outlet*.

2. pull battery

3. clear cmos jumper to pins 2 and 3 for minimum of 30-60 seconds *For Real troublesome systems use 8 hours*.

4. replace battery

5. replace cmos jumper to normal position pins 1 and 2.

6. replace power *A/C Power from wall outlet*.

7. boot to bios and load optimized defaults

8. save and exit

9. boot back to bios and now you can change settings to your liking. *Is what we are trying to get to*.

 

The above is especially true after some unknown boot failure and after a bios flash or major component change which is the same as you have when first assembling a computer.

 

RGone...

[Aynjell]

Sata 2 issues? What is that? Also, could we use the venus bios?

[Angry_Games]

NO you CANNOT USE ANY BIOS BUT THE BIOS INTENDED FOR YOUR BOARD

 

not sure why you guys sitll ask these questions

 

 

 

coolmonk: you can send me your board, memory, and cpu (or at least board/memory) and let me take a look at it and see if I can determine any problem or solution

[coolmonk]

AG, with all respect to DFI and the support you have offered on this great forum...I think it's a bit unfair to the consumers when we have to ship back 2-3 of our other components for testing purposes. I would imagine that DFI techs should have more than enough spare cpu/memory/psu laying around that they can test for themselves the functionality of the Expert to resolve this issue (I'm sure the techs have experienced it too).

 

What bothers me most about reading through all the Expert discussions on this forum is that no one will really admit to the Expert's flaws. Sure it is a wonderful board...but only "if" one can get it to boot. Am I setting my expectations too high? ..No, I don't think so seeing as this is one of the more expensive selections out there. I understand DFI has never been plug-and-go, and that's what makes their boards so much more fun to work with...but when you have ONE board that gives the SAME problem to HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of advanced PC users who understand hardware and troubleshooting, it's obvious that either the board's design was a failure...or it is extremely limited in compatibility.

 

That said, I appreciate the offer for personally testing my parts...but regarding my earlier post about quickly pressing/releasing the power button...well, that method has failed on me as I've experienced 4 unsuccessful boots again. I am simply going to exchange this one with Newegg for another one and I'll post back when the new one gets here.

 

[EDIT]

Forgot to mention that my board's revision is AA0.

[bestmancajun]

Anybody using a OCZ Powerstream configure your rails in BIOS. The green lights say yes but expert says "no boot".

The common voltages used on non-expert NF4 (LDT=1.4V & Chipset=1.7V) will not nessarily work and can lead to major instabilites. Same goes for memory.

If you have probelms booting with high Vcore use 1.5V or less then use the voltage multiplier to increase the juice.

If you don't have BH5/Ch5 chances are you will be fighting for memory stability (In my case at stock speeds and volts) Get your memory stable at stock before the OC or you will be wasting your time.

[oeqvist]

It´s common practise sadly that you will have to ship in the faulty products before you can get new ones...

 

Don´t see a problem with that.

 

Anyway I did the above and man on second try it now boots at 250 FSB 1:1 with 1T timings and run prime like never before. Would crash after 1 minute whenever I got it to boot now it run 11 hours before I quitted blend torture test.

 

So please do these steps...

 

I did lower the voltages but never seen that help. It´s not that I overheat the CPU in any way running higher voltages... That and disabling SATA 2 was the only differences I made...

 

2,5 gig according to ntune I have now uninstalled and 2,55 according to the amd tool. Which to believe?

 

at 1,4 Vcore so should have a bit more coming hopefully

 

Oh and about the fan spinning up thing. I think if I pull the power cord this doesn´t happen. Only if I use the switch button at the back of the PSU...

[Angry_Games]

AG, with all respect to DFI and the support you have offered on this great forum...I think it's a bit unfair to the consumers when we have to ship back 2-3 of our other components for testing purposes. I would imagine that DFI techs should have more than enough spare cpu/memory/psu laying around that they can test for themselves the functionality of the Expert to resolve this issue (I'm sure the techs have experienced it too).

 

here's the problem that YOU don't seem to understand.

 

I do not have this problem with the 10+ Expert boards that have been through my hands.

 

Looks like Rgone has not had the problem either.

 

Neither have majority of the users who have the Expert board.

 

That leaves YOU and YOUR board that is the problem, and if that is the case, how can WE determine what the problem is if WE do not have a board with these problems?

 

This is why we ask YOU to send YOUR components so WE can test them for YOU.

 

make sense?

 

What bothers me most about reading through all the Expert discussions on this forum is that no one will really admit to the Expert's flaws. Sure it is a wonderful board...but only "if" one can get it to boot. Am I setting my expectations too high? ..No, I don't think so seeing as this is one of the more expensive selections out there. I understand DFI has never been plug-and-go, and that's what makes their boards so much more fun to work with...but when you have ONE board that gives the SAME problem to HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of advanced PC users who understand hardware and troubleshooting, it's obvious that either the board's design was a failure...or it is extremely limited in compatibility.

 

*sigh*

 

do I have to really go into the same explanation of this again?

 

You'll see that when you show up at a support forum, you see only problems, because a support forum is only for problems.

 

You then decide, without any facts, only seeing posts at a forum that is designed only for helping customers through problems, that you know for a fact that everyone or majority is having a problem, and OMG the board is defective and should be recalled etc etc.

 

I've explained this at least 100 times, but it seems that I always have to explain it again and again.

 

That said, I appreciate the offer for personally testing my parts...but regarding my earlier post about quickly pressing/releasing the power button...well, that method has failed on me as I've experienced 4 unsuccessful boots again. I am simply going to exchange this one with Newegg for another one and I'll post back when the new one gets here.

 

[EDIT]

Forgot to mention that my board's revision is AA0.

 

didn't you mention earlier that simply RMA'ing the board would just get you another board that would give you the same problems?

 

here, let me refresh your memory on what YOU said:

 

I will not RMA this board for I have a strong feeling the issue will not be fixed with a new Expert (since others have already RMA'd 2-3 times to no success). I will keep the Expert for the next month or two and await any new BIOS updates which I "hope" will address incorrect temp sensor and cold-boot issues. I guess I'll just continue to power up my system by quickly tapping the power button (which is really ridiculous I think...but hey it has not failed on 30 boots yet with this method). If no BIOS updates can fix the issue, I will sell the Expert for an SLI-DR "non-Expert".

 

so now you are saying that instead of taking me up on the offer of letting me or DFI (and DFI's engineers in Taiwan) take a look at the board so we can possibly solve your problem, you will instead just RMA the board knowing that a replacement board will not fix your problem...or am I mistaken?

[cjoe7]

Anybody using a OCZ Powerstream configure your rails in BIOS. The green lights say yes but expert says "no boot".

The common voltages used on non-expert NF4 (LDT=1.4V & Chipset=1.7V) will not nessarily work and can lead to major instabilites. Same goes for memory.

If you have probelms booting with high Vcore use 1.5V or less then use the voltage multiplier to increase the juice.

If you don't have BH5/Ch5 chances are you will be fighting for memory stability (In my case at stock speeds and volts) Get your memory stable at stock before the OC or you will be wasting your time.

 

I don't trust the bios to configure my Powerstream. I used a digital voltmeter to monitor during boot, idle and load. My OCZ 600 is rock solid even when all 9HDs are running. My system boots and runs without issue. Check out my sig.

 

I've tested the gamut of LDT and Chipset voltages during OC tuning. LDT and Chipset voltage changes provided no major improvements nor detrimental effects. My OC was minimally affected (maybe +/- 5Mhz HTT). I'm at LDT=1.3V and Chip=1.6V.

 

I've tested BH5/CH5 (Mushkin, OCZ, GSkill) -> 260Mhz @3.4V, UCC (GSkill) -> 275Mhz @ 2.6V and TCCD (GSkill) -> 310Mhz @ 2.7V all at 1:1. The Expert seems to work very well with all my different memories. The trick is finding the right TREF and Drive Strength/Latency for the CPU/memory combination especially Opterons.

 

I definately feel for everyone who is having problems with their Expert. I've been really lucky and haven't experienced any significant issues. Setup was really easy and tuning my OC took about a 3-4 days per different set of memory.

 

Before my OCZ 600 arrived, I ran the Expert for two weeks on an Antec Neo480 with the 4Pin power lead instead of the 8Pin lead. With WC'ing and 4HDs, my system was rock stable experienced no issues. Although many have dismissed the Neo480 as crap, I tested it with a voltmeter and it too produced very stable current during boot, idle and load. I would still recommend this PSU for DFI NF4 non SLI builds.

 

Coolmonk: I have only encountered two issues:

- (semi-major) under reporting of the CPU temp.

- (minor) HD boot bios menu only supports 7 entries.

 

Like Angry says most users probably don't experience many issues.

 

 

cjoe

[Aynjell]

NO you CANNOT USE ANY BIOS BUT THE BIOS INTENDED FOR YOUR BOARD

 

not sure why you guys sitll ask these questions

 

 

 

coolmonk: you can send me your board, memory, and cpu (or at least board/memory) and let me take a look at it and see if I can determine any problem or solution

 

Because there are several hardware types that can be crossflashed for gain... good example is the video card. Reason I asked about the venus is it is basically jus' an eXpert with better capacitors. Or so say the ads.

[RGone]

There is only one flaw in that thinking about Venus board. Suppose in general it is only X change but it is overlooked that Y was impliemented as well. That is the flaw in that for sure.

 

RGone...

 

Because there are several hardware types that can be crossflashed for gain... good example is the video card. Reason I asked about the venus is it is basically jus' an eXpert with better capacitors. Or so say the ads.

[Zizzman]

OK AG, that's it. I just have to say something about your dismissive attitude about the problems people are having with this board. I have RMA'd four Expert motherboards in the last 2 months, 3 with the dual channel RAM problem and one with the cold boot problem. My current Expert mb has the cold boot problem but I am also hoping for a bios fix (soon I hope). I have used various combinations of RAM and all components worked without problems with my two Asus boards (A8N-SLI Premium and A8N32-SLI).

 

I understand that we are going to see lots of problems problems in a support forum, but you keep challenging posts referring to various problems as if we have our heads up our buts. At the very least these boards are extremely picky or at worst, have engineering problems.

 

I HAVE THE COLD BOOT ISSUE. When I shut down, the system powers off then the fans spin (and leds come on) for a split second. Then when I go to boot- nothing. At that point I have to turn my power supply off, wait for about 10 seconds and then turn it back on. System boots normally after doing that (until I shut down again).

 

That said, I love what you can do with this mb. My setup is rock solid now other than the inconvenience of having to turn the PSU switch on & off.