NF4 Ultra-D and SeaSonic S12 600W

[herb]

Hello,

 

I finally got my system below running with PSU Tagan 420W which I fortunatly had available.

 

Before I bought the hardware I did some research (not enough as it happened) and came to the conclusion that a Seasonic S12 600W PSU would be a good choice. Quit and powerfull. I have still in fresh memory the troubles I had with a too weak PSU when I put together my MSI Neo2 system a year ago. So I bought the Seasonic because of good reviews at Tom's Hardware and recommendations at this forum: "Recommended! - NF4 Ultra/SLI Mobos:PowerSupplies".

 

It did however not work at all. I tried for two days, out of chassi and in chassi. Then I gave it up. Put the DFI mainboard back in the box and put all the other hardware (in sig), except for the Asus 6600GT (PCI Exp x16), including Seasonic S12 600W together on a MSI Neo2-FX. To verify the bits and pieces. System worked like a clock directly all the way to a SuperPi test. Memory allready tested on another box.

 

Then I took a closer look in this forum regarding DFI LP NF4 Ultra-D and Seasonic S12 only to find that I'm not the first with these problems. It seems to be well known that there has been issues with this specific combination.

 

Therefor I think it is not entirely fair to put it under "Recommended! - NF4 Ultra/SLI Mobos:PowerSupplies" without a comment.

 

Anyway. System seems to work allright now! I'm looking forward to explore this mainboard. And a big Thank You to the people behind all the great guides in this forum.

 

Regards

herb

[Angry_Games]

there were issues with Seasonic's S12 psu series but Seasonic fixed the problems with a new revision and there are no more problems. You might have an older revision of the S12

 

(I too had two S12 600's and they would boot the Ultra-D/SLI-DR once, and then after that, it would have to sit with power completely off for 24 hours before it would boot again...after we worked with Seasonic, their new revision psu's have successfully booted all DFI motherboards, which is why they are highly recommended)

[herb]

My revision is stated as A2 after the serial No. and V2.0 on the face of the box.

 

I had more or less the same experience as you describe. It booted the very first time, out of the chassi and once more the next day before I gave up.

[Angry_Games]

well, the secondary answer that we had in a big giant thread was that if your Seasonic gave you these problems, even on a second revision, just keep sending the psu back to Seasonic and they would replace it until you got a psu that worked correctly. (hopefully that is what you did!)

 

it sounds like a pain in the butt, and it was for some, but there's rarely a Seasonic psu issue anymore thankfully as Seasonic did their part very well in making sure customers had a good psu that worked with our board

[herb]

That is what i will do. Thanks for a quick response by the way!

[yu130960]

I was worried as well after reading that monster thread that AG referred to, although I can say (knock on wood) that I have not had a single issue with the PSU and am loving it.

[Angry_Games]

my S12 600 is powering the second rig in my sig (the Main Workstation...I suppose I should get off my duff and fix my sig to reflect it instead of the Skyhawk eh?)

[herb]

I wonder . . . could it be that the Seasonic will work now, after setting up BIOS according to RGone's instructions. I do not fully understand what the problem is/was. The Seasonic is rev. A2 after all.

[herb]

After reading the Seasonic "giant thread" I do not get the impression the Seasonic issues are solved.

 

Therefor I don't think it is fair to recommend the Seasonic S12 600w PSU. Be it rev. A2 or not.

[yu130960]

I already had this PSU before I got the DFI. Ironically, I had to swap an ASUS A8N-E 'cause it wouldn't run my memory and then later found out that the memory was the culprit. In any event, I ordered the DFI knowing of the possible problems and took AG word on the fact that he had no problems with the A2 on DFI boards. And everything works as advertised.

 

The only thing that can help you is trial and error. I have already returned a motherboard and ram trying to iron out the bugs in my most recent build. Just make sure that when you buy things that you have some sort of return possibility in the case that things don't play well. That is the lesson that I learned and I am still shopping for memory, so I am fully prepared to have another battle, but at least now I am happy that things are stable otherwise, so I know it will be the memory.

[Angry_Games]

After reading the Seasonic "giant thread" I do not get the impression the Seasonic issues are solved.

 

Therefor I don't think it is fair to recommend the Seasonic S12 600w PSU. Be it rev. A2 or not.

your opinion is noted but as I've already told you, the Seasonic is definitely a recommended psu as they work.

 

And as I told you, if yours does not work, you need to contact Seasonic and they will take care of replacing it for you.

 

we are not going to change our recommendations when the overwhelming majority of Seasonic owners are very satisfied and there might be a couple of users who are not (if that were the case, we could not recommend OCZ, PCP&C, Fortron, Enermax psu's, OCZ, Mushkin, GEIL, Gskill, Corsair, etc RAM, we couldn't recommend anything at all not even DFI motherboards)

[IncredibleHat]

I was pointed to this thread from another... because I have a s12, and apparently I encounted a few 'cold boots' when I was trying to OC my ram.

 

Personally, the machine runs fine if I DON'T OC my (crappy) G.Skill ram above 255. So I do not know if my cold boots are a cause of the PSU, or just something with the ram *shrug*.

 

Basically, I have never had to leave it off for 24 hours to get it to boot again. Whenever the machine would black out on restart after a RAM timings/settings adjustment, I just clear CMOS and everything would come back. I had been using this machine at stock for a week before I took it all apart to do some case modding, and then put it all back together and begun the CPU OCing. During CPU OCing the only problems I encountered were non-windows-boot issues, and super pi BSODs. Upping the vcore fixed those problems.

 

So, personally I do not believe my PSU is really 'bad'... however I still bring up the question: Should I be considering RMA'ing this because I HAVE had cold boots during OCing the RAM?

 

My PSU is: Rev A2, bought on Feb 11th from newegg.