NF4 - Some Help Getting Up & Running (Or Faster?)

[red930]

The official ATX 12V 2.x spec calls for several enhancments. The most important spec is split 12V rails. This allows for better power distribution to the areas that need it.

 

It seems that several of the suspect units are reworked old style power supplies.

 

The split rails provide two distinct 12V sources to the ATX 24pin connector and the other connections. Manufacturers are simply rewiring the units and sending a single rail to the entire array of connectors.

 

On a hunch I started looking at some of the problem posts and saw a lot of PSUs that I didn't recognize. I found several of them that are mislabled as meeting the specs when they really don't.

 

tom's hardware guide has a nice primer on the ATX 12V 2.x specification.

link goodness...

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20041223/index.html

 

Official ATX specifications

link goodness...

http://www.formfactors.org/developer%5Cspe...%20PSDG2.01.pdf

 

Take a look at Table 8. It clearly shows two 12V rails. If a PSU doesn't have two 12V rails it is not up to spec no matter what the documentation or PSU label says.

 

Section 4.5.1 shows the 12V1DC rail as being the Yellow conductor in the ATX 24pin connector.

 

Section 4.5.2 shows the 12V2DC rail as being the Yellow/Black Stripe conductor in the 12V 4pin connector.

 

Manufacturers sometimes substitue White for the Yellow/Black Stripe conductor which is allowed.

 

The SATA connector should have the 3.3V Orange conductor included. If there is only Red, Yellow and Black conductors, the SATA power is not up to spec.

 

The PCI-Express connector will have the 12V1DC rail Yellow conductor in the 6pin connector.

[Angry_Games]

to find out what chips are on your OCZ modules, send a pm to either OCZTony or AndyOCZ

[graham_h]

board is being RMA'd for the latest revision SLI-DR.. hopefully the problem will be solved.

[Hooligan]

a15. Bank Interleave= DISABLED You want mediocre memory to run don't you? Then disable it and see how much better the thing will clock and do business right now.

 

RGone...Again...

 

What if I _dont_ have mediocre memory? PC3200 Corsair XMS Pro XL 2x512MB sticks. Does that mean that I *should* enable bank interleave?

[xavicl]

why do you put idle cycle to 256 ? will be better 8,16, or 32 no?

[G.N.U.Fragman]

another problem for some: USB devices makes the board hang at boot-up

 

solved by: reading manual, finding the 3 USB jumpers. set them to pin 2-3 instead of pin 1-2 (5v->5vSB) a lot have solved it this way, dont know why.

[webbyboy]

I've a very weird problem here, I've just gotten another 3200+ cpu and this batch of it can go beyond 2.5ghz(research from the various forums). But the problem is It refused to work with 10x multiplier with 230HTT and above. But when i removed one of my tccd rams, now running single channel, i'm able to go 235HTT. I'm able to use 265HTT if i set it to 9x multiplier with dual channel.

 

Ram: PDP Systems Patriot XBLK TCCD rams

 

Below is the summary of problems.

 

1. Will not go beyond 230HTT with 10x multiplier(Dual Channel)

2. Able to go beyond 230HTT, tested at 235 x 10 multiplier(Single Channel) (Previously tested with dual channel, it will BSOD when entering windows)

3. Able to work with 9x multiplier with max 265HTT (1:1memclock Dual Channel)

4. Tested with 2/09, 2/17 BIOS.

5. Settings in bios with dual channel and single channel are the same.

 

So what could be the problem? the bios? the motherboard? the memory?

[G.N.U.Fragman]

OCZ pc4200EL

that should be hynix ..those germans havn't gotten my gfx yet so haven't tested those.

[soundx98]

The official ATX 12V 2.x spec calls for several enhancments. The most important spec is split 12V rails. This allows for better power distribution to the areas that need it.

 

It seems that several of the suspect units are reworked old style power supplies.

 

The split rails provide two distinct 12V sources to the ATX 24pin connector and the other connections. Manufacturers are simply rewiring the units and sending a single rail to the entire array of connectors.

 

On a hunch I started looking at some of the problem posts and saw a lot of PSUs that I didn't recognize. I found several of them that are mislabled as meeting the specs when they really don't.

 

tom's hardware guide has a nice primer on the ATX 12V 2.x specification.

link goodness...

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20041223/index.html

 

Official ATX specifications

link goodness...

http://www.formfactors.org/developer%5Cspe...%20PSDG2.01.pdf

 

Take a look at Table 8. It clearly shows two 12V rails. If a PSU doesn't have two 12V rails it is not up to spec no matter what the documentation or PSU label says.

 

Section 4.5.1 shows the 12V1DC rail as being the Yellow conductor in the ATX 24pin connector.

 

Section 4.5.2 shows the 12V2DC rail as being the Yellow/Black Stripe conductor in the 12V 4pin connector.

 

Manufacturers sometimes substitue White for the Yellow/Black Stripe conductor which is allowed.

 

The SATA connector should have the 3.3V Orange conductor included. If there is only Red, Yellow and Black conductors, the SATA power is not up to spec.

 

The PCI-Express connector will have the 12V1DC rail Yellow conductor in the 6pin connector.

 

I'm quoting this post again cause it's so dang good. Nice Work ExRoadie.

Even printed it out for my soundx98 "book 0' stuff I don't want to forget".

[red930]

I'm quoting this post again cause it's so dang good. Nice Work ExRoadie.

Even printed it out for my soundx98 "book 0' stuff I don't want to forget".

You are a very kind gentleman sir. Thank you.

[the_blaze_]

Oddly enough i just tried rgones setup but i didnt mess with my dram config, just changed everything in the main bios menu and the genie bios menu. I finally got my windows installed on default bios, thanks a TON to rgone, you da man!

 

edit, but did need to use rgones dram settings to get my dual channel of and running

[RGone]

Posted here from another thread...

 

Yep, I have done a lot of testing with the board and beat up the board and 3 or 4 sticks of memory are history over time. But the board hangs tough.

 

Just got back from DFI in CA and when out there I talked about and to some of the other techs out there and came home and just did some more playing.

 

Deeyam Winchesters are fickle sumbeeches for sure. I have tried every bios out and thought (thought) I really saw little difference. But there are subtle differences in each bios that the user himself must uncover.

 

After premilinary testing of the board I found that my Winchester 3500+ had taken a turn for the worse. And also pro-crastinating in reloading the O/s as I did not really think I had beat it up too badly. Think again. HEhehehehehe. I finally decide to reload.

 

So I came home and wanted to see what in hale was the problem with folks and adding hard drives to Sata devices and as I was running Sata Raid, I decided to just hookup the new 200gig Maxtor drive that came in the mail today. Contrary to my normal process I INTENDED to intialize and format from within windows like a lot users do. BUT here I think they do not READ the prompts well. I looked at it 4 times before I chose MY options. And ONLY initialized the drive and did not do anything else. THere was another choice and I ingnored it. Then I went back and said to partition the drive and it choose a size and it gave no option to format. Went back and went thru choose partition size and again and THIS TIME it gives all options for formatting. Did this over and over and there is a windows hiccup at this point that does it everytime with SP2, but doing the partition choice twice and then going on to format allows the drive to be formatted to FAT32 like I wanted and to choose cluster size. All from within windows. Boot out and make sure that my RAID is still the first Hard Drive option and right back into windoors without any silliness.

 

Then I moved everything I wanted to keep out of my two raid partitions and booted out and SHUTDOWN and removed my 200gig PATA drive from the comptuer config. PM8.0 and formatted my two RAID partitions and with WinXP/SP2 in the CdRom, I booted back up and turned off all BS not used including Sound and LANs and well just all the BS not needed for install. I would put them back after install. Set 240X11 for 2640mhz which my 3500+ has hated since the days of beta test of NF4 boards. And with bios 2/01 in place proceeded to install WinXP/SP2 with it overclocked to hale and back using MY settings.

 

Loaded XP like a bandit to the RAID array using F6 to load 2 drivers for RAID. Loaded System drivers from the mobo CD and then rebooted and turned on everything in Bios I would use like Sound, Lans, Etc. Then went back and AGAIN Loaded drivers from mobo CD and this time loaded the Marvel Lan as well and SW/IDE drivers and here I am motoring along on bios 02/01 @245X11=2695mhz without a bobble so far.

 

After I loaded Sound and LAN I would not use> I rebooted went into bios and turned the LAN not in use OFF again and windoors motors on without showing or needing that LAN. Now to swap LANs for testing just turn one off and other on and drivers already there. Not a big deal.

 

Attention, plain attention to details and posted helps is all I did. Running 2X512 of Corsair XMS Expert with my settings and running the cpu at speeds I felt it would never do again as it had not, but now does. Hehehehehee.

 

Unhooked my new 200gig PATA driver during install of windoors like I said and as soon as had windoors loaded I just hooked it back up and checked as said to make sure sCsI array was still first boot hard drive and windoors stuck the 200gig drive right 'after' the CD drive BECAUSE I had initialized the drive from within windoors before re-install of windoors and initialized as LOGICAL not PRIMARY. Attention to details.

 

Sadly doing all the things like lettting windows intialize and format my new 200gig hard drive BUT me doing it like I 'know' it needs to be done and by paying attention to what windoors says it is going to do and making windoors do WHAT it needs to do > well hale it just works again. I thought I might see something strange like some seem to see> but nO it just works when I do it like I know it should be done.

 

That about sums up my latest tuning and doodling and trying to find a problem. I reloaded and in fact found myself faster still with a cpu that since beta days has been one fickle Winchester HO.

 

RGone...

:spam: