Faulty board??

[MattMurray]

Hello all, I hope someone can help with my problem.

 

I have a just got a DFI nF3 board and have had problems from the start. Initially with 2 brand new 300Gb SATA drives I couldn't install with RAID 0 and after updating Maxtor firmware, the drives were shown but then both mysteriously went faulty (both on return with Maxtor) and even faulted on second computer under testing.

 

So, I figured that I would leave the RAM on test for a week or so. To my dismay, the Memtest in the BIOS won't run, it comes up with a blue screen with CPU details on and odd flashing characters and then restarts. I have tried all three sticks in separate slots and even tried a different Corsair RAM with the same effect. This is after re-flashing the BIOS and leaving without the power, battery and jumper off all weekend. I also tried a different video card (a 1mb PCI card) and that still had no effect.

 

There is no other hardware than the PSU, CPU, board and 1 stick of RAM.

 

Any ideas, or shall I send the board back?

 

I've been without my computer for 10 days now and I am very puzzled. Any help appreciated!

[THunDA]

500W Generic PSU

It would help to know the exact model and specs of this psu.. Im not saying this is the problem for sure but DFI boards dont usually like anything generic..

[MattMurray]

It is a brand called Magna and it is 500W. It had always been fine so far and it has been running 5 hard drives, board, DVDRW, FDD, tape drive etc etc. Could it really not drive just motherboard, RAM and CPU?

[john63]

You've probably got off to a bad start by using Kingston RAM and Maxtor HDDs, further complicated by the fact that the HDDs are in RAID 0. Also using all 3 ram slots at once isn't a good idea.

[MattMurray]

Hello John63, I looked on the DFI Site and the RAM I have is specifically mentioned (albiet with an unexplained blue text and *) here: http://us.dfi.com.tw/Support/mb_faq_us1.js...TYPE=US&SITE=US

 

The Maxtor drives are on return, and when I have them back I will check the firmware again.

 

I still have the problem even with 1 DIMM though. I will look at buying another PSU today though but this is becoming an expensive board to install!

[MattMurray]

I have now purchased an FSP Sparkle FX600-GLN Epsilon 600W PSU to see if that helps. Any other advice?

[john63]

Wish you luck

 

You have been one of the unlucky ones...

[Capt Proton]

Your Memtest problem may be because you have the USB Mouse/Keyboard enabled in the BIOS. I have read several times that having them enabled can cause problems with that. I have always used Memtest from a bootable CD without issue.

[MattMurray]

Thankyou Capt Proton, that has worked a treat. At least now I can test the RAM whilst I wait for the hard drives to return! You've just saved me about £180 in new RAM. Thankyou again!

 

Another question though.... I have 5 drives and they are all Maxtor. Am I going to have a problem with this, even if the drive BIOS is flashed to a newer version? If I will have problems, I am going to send this board back and get something else. I can't afford to replace these new drives as well!

[MattMurray]

Do I just get rid of this board and get something else? I have had my replacement 320Gb from Maxtor and the board has broken this one as well, same error. It started to install XP (at an incredibly slow rate) and then blam, it stopped and now my drive is buggered.

 

Shall I send it back under warranty or give up altogether. I can't believe it is incompatible with my RAM, PSU and hard drives, it has to be faulty doesn't it? I can't afford much more time on this, and I am not going to throw any more money at it.

 

It has a new PSU, but I am not going to replace anything else, I can't afford it.

 

HELP!!

[Nil Einne]

Are you sure your drive is buggered i.e. on another stable computer it has low level errors (meaning not file system/array errors). I find it a bit bizzarre that your mobo would actually kill your HDD. Partition maybe but actually damage the disk?

 

AFAIK, 3 sticks of RAM can be a bit problematic probably even more so with a Newcastle (compared to a Venice based A64 or Sempron). I would suggest you stick to 2 or even 1 stick until you get it stable. N.B. An infinite number of hours of memtest is not a guarantee of memory stability

[MattMurray]

Thanks for the reply Nil Einne, I have taken the DFI board out and put in a Gigabyte board that I had sitting about and put the drive back in. The only way out was drive killer from the Tmod CD to completely zero write the drive. Now, I can install Windows on the Gigabyte, but as soon as I put it in the DFI with only 1 stick of RAM, it comes up with a "dda86963" error in the Maxtor tools. Back in the Gigabyte, blank it and it is OK again. I have tried different channels, different RAM and this is a brand new 320Gb drive (set to 1.5gb on jumper). Any clues in my ramblings? Your help is definitely appreciated, the air was getting blue in here on Saturday!