What would you change about the DFI nF4 mobo's

[pgamble]

Asus manual is ok but doesn't cover any detail.

Gigabyte manual is in broken English and is frankly useless. Doesn't explain anything in BIOS.

Although I would agree, it would be nice at this price to have a hardcopy of the manual, the DFI full manual (which I read before buying the board) is superb and one of the real reasons why I purchased the board.

 

The DFI board (for my Lian-Li case) is the best fit of Asus and Gigabyte. Virtually no cables cross the motherboard and all the case cables reach the motherboard headers. With the Asus and Gigabyte boards I can't get to some like firewire without extensions.

 

Irritations for me :

 

Karajan unit fit .... gets in the way of capacitor

 

SLI slots would be better separated like Asus - but I'm not planning to use SLI anyway.

 

Chipset fan .... once I'd got a board with it correctly fitted - i.e. it didn't clash with the gfx card .... it is by far and away the quietest of Asus and Gigabyte. I agree it is crazy to have it under the gfx card .... asking for trouble but it doesn't appear to cause problems.

 

General tolerance for other hardware .... in all my years in IT I've never experienced anything like it. It isn't just down to cost, it's really more to do with luck, particularly with memory.

 

Now I'm working, I'm quiet happy to say, the DFI board is (for me) leagues ahead of the A8N SLI Deluxe or Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9.

 

Paul.

[Viper6]

1) Support for running my OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum Rev 2 at stock settings without having to manually set them! Stupid DFI. My motherboard settings are all on Auto and my timings are 2-3-2-5 even though the SPD says 2-2-2-5.

 

2) Better onboard sound module like the MSI board which has creative soundblaster live 5.1

[ViperJohn]

1) Support for running my OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum Rev 2 at stock settings without having to manually set them! Stupid DFI. My motherboard settings are all on Auto and my timings are 2-3-2-5 even though the SPD says 2-2-2-5.

 

2) Better onboard sound module like the MSI board which has creative soundblaster live 5.1

 

Nothing stupid about DFI and there settings. TCCD memory is not the only memory that will

go into the slots. You OCZ will run just fine at 200FSB with the default settings as will most

other memory. That is the point of the defaults. You want the MB to power up and boot the

first time with any combination of CPU and memory (doesn't always work though lol).

 

If you want to OC higher then you have to get your hands dirty and make the appropriate

adjustment to bios and that is up to the end user...in this case you.

 

Viper

[rise4310]

aside from the MANUAL i wish all mobo makers would do something better than the gawddamn fron panel connectors. what a pita. seems like some freakin extension would be easy enuff instead of trying to work in that cramped area.

 

can ya tell i just took it apart in a desperate, and futile, attempt to provide more cooling for the chipset?

[Viper6]

Nothing stupid about DFI and there settings. TCCD memory is not the only memory that will

go into the slots. You OCZ will run just fine at 200FSB with the default settings as will most

other memory. That is the point of the defaults. You want the MB to power up and boot the

first time with any combination of CPU and memory (doesn't always work though lol).

 

If you want to OC higher then you have to get your hands dirty and make the appropriate

adjustment to bios and that is up to the end user...in this case you.

 

Viper

 

But the thing is its not the default settings! 2-2-2-5 is the default settings yet while it is set on auto it only picks it up at 2-3-2-5.

 

Even the SPD is 2-2-2-5 (i checked in CPU-Z) so doesn't the board get the settings from there? Can't DFI make it so it does? Isn't that how its supposed to work?

[ViperJohn]

But the thing is its not the default settings! 2-2-2-5 is the default settings yet while it is set on auto it only picks it up at 2-3-2-5.

 

Even the SPD is 2-2-2-5 (i checked in CPU-Z) so doesn't the board get the settings from there? Can't DFI make it so it does? Isn't that how its supposed to work?

 

You are making a hugh assumption that CPUz is correct on the SPD settings but even if they

are the MB is setting the timings to give the best possible chance at a first power up post

and boot. If you know enough to get into bios setup (which the average user does not or

even what "bios" is for that matter) then you know enough to manually change the timings.

 

You are picking a very low priority and pointless "nit" here.

 

Viper

 

 

Viper

[zoomee]

chipset fan - otherwise nearly perfect - oh - yeah - soundstorm woudda been nice too.....