Am I just lucky or smart?

[Guest Spartacus]

Lordy you think people expect to be "served" now...Wait till someone pitches in a couple bucks It has it's pros and cons and god knows I'd love to never see another "what memory should I get" post or "is this 400w psu okay?"... I've only been here since April and I don't know how you guys can stand it some days...

 

 

Yep, good point.

 

I think there would have to be an "I agree..." kind of a checkbox that the fee is actually for access to the board and not for "support". Even if the fee was ony $5/yr or whatever I think it would work well to solve the issues that AG is wrestling with.

[Freezer26]

Yep, good point.

 

I think there would have to be an "I agree..." kind of a checkbox that the fee is actually for access to the board and not for "support". Even if the fee was ony $5/yr or whatever I think it would work well to solve the issues that AG is wrestling with.

 

 

/agreed

 

Very nice suggestion. Make it a $100 bucks, even better. I bet there wouldn't be half as many (insert favorite word here) people showing up here. Bravo for the man in the orange suit!! LoL

 

-Freez

[Angry_Games]

there will never be any subscription fee here

 

there will never be any advertising that detracts from the overall function of the site (ie: go to pcper, anandtech, hardocp, tomshardware etc and see the advertising that covers up most of the page giving you very little room to read anything...very distracting stuff and it makes the pages take forever to load).

 

Newegg, svc.com, are the only vendor/retailers I will accept advertising with. They are the only ones I have spent enough money with to know what kind of people they are and how good they are with their customer service and return policies.

 

Any mfg can get a banner like ocz/danger den has if they do product exchange with us so we can validate their product on our boards and they must also provide either direct support to me and rgone so we can support the customer, or provide direct support with a tech here or their own forum.

 

OCZ and DangerDen do both (product exchange + mutual customer support). Buffalo does to, and Crucial is getting onboard, as is Centon memory. Corsair and any other company is more than welcome...if anyone doubts the power of the Street, they can ask OCZ about setting a new sales record last month (i wont claim it was all DFI-Street, but I will claim that we had a big hand in it, as other companies like Fortron have found out when we helped newegg sell out of their Bluestorms and 530w 20pins more than a few times within a span of a week or two).

 

As I've said, I don't mind paying for this site out of my own pocket...that is not what I classy lady about. What i classy lady about is that I am paying for it and it's going to hell in a handbasket and I don't see the point of paying for such a thing...but if we can turn it around then I will not worry about paying for it, and it wont become a giant nightmare part of my life like it is now.

 

But asking users for money...thats just asking for trouble. I talked to ExRoadie on the phone about it tonight as he had mentioned paypal for donations...and I told him the honest truth...those who donate, no matter how good of members they are, no matter how good of friends with me and Rgone they are, you don't really know them as well as you think and the first time they suggested something or wanted to do something and you told them no...the whole bs would begin about how 'i donated money to this place and i should have a say in this or that'.

 

And then we talked about how everyone would claim 'oh no no no i would never do that' but we all know the truth of it. Even Roadie himself had to admit...say he donated $100 to the place and wanted a suggestion of his given priority and I didn't want to...it would be a bad set of feelings between him and I no matter that we are great online buddies and he's a moderator. That is just how it happens.

 

One of the rules in life i was taught was:

 

dont loan money to your family or friends, and don't sell your car to a friend or buy a car from a friend.

 

And I have to say from personal experience, its 100% true, every bit of it.

 

as for paid support...we just aren't interested in that. We've tossed around the idea for "Platinum" support levels or some such junk like that...but I don't believe in that.

 

You already paid once. If you paid extra for an extended warranty/return period, then you paid twice. Why should you pay yet again on top of that?

 

 

 

If you want just plain old vanilla support...you can contact DFI.

 

If you want what we think of as premium support with extras, then you come to the Street. Problem is, the Street is going to be a lot stricter about a lot of things pretty soon, and that is going to turn some people off to the Street and send them back to vanilla support.

 

But that is ok by me, that is basically weeding out the users who cant be bothered to read a few rules and follow a few rules and steps to get started, and then be open to learning as much about their product as possible.

 

Did you know that when you buy a Ferrari, you go to Italy for a week or two weeks or something and they teach you everything you could possibly learn about your car and how to drive it, take care of it, etc? (my boss Jacky told me this since he apparently bought a Ferrari or was going to buy one lol)

 

Maybe Ferrari owners or guys in Italy or car buffs can tell me if this is true or not...but even if it is not true...it has a great concept.

 

Buy a DFI board, show up at the street, hang out for 4-8 weeks and learn as much as you possibly can about your board (from us and from other experienced DFI users) and then you can go on about your way...but you will know your board inside and out, and the things we teach you will not only benefit you for your DFI boards, but it will be good skills and experience to use towards any other do-it-yourself x86 computer that you might build in the future or already have built

 

sounds utopian I know...but I'm tenacious enough to see it through....

[Guest Spartacus]

Thanks AG.

 

Yeah, I agree going to a fee structure (although it would fix some things), would add a new layer of complication and that's not what you're after. I also respect that you're not looking to ding DFI customers for another fee. That speaks volumes right there.

 

Even though this is a support forum, like many of the guys around here, I enjoy stopping by because of my interest in leading edge computer technology (both professionally and as a hobby in my case). Many of the problems and solutions I see apply in a general way to other computer products as well as DFI's.

 

I'd hate to see the day you are finally driven to insanity and you steam-roll the place.

[malinois1]

AG I for one would like to see some changes as you mentioned :nod: . Here is my pet peeve that I see happening here. I will give an example...I am sure you will remember.

 

Someone was asking why they could'nt see CPC with their SD CPU and was using 310bios. I informed them that 510 was needed to fully support SD and Ven core CPU's. Then someone else said I was wrong . Then to top it off the user asking for help says I am wrong and points to dfi.tw site saying 310 supports said cpu. Then you come in and say 510 or later and it gets into a whole . contest.

 

You may ask, Mal "what are you getting at?" I think it is totally disrespectful when you (AG or Rgone specifically) give someone a correct answer to fix their problem and some noob comes right behind you and says you are wrong. This causes a conflict and confusion for the other noob (for lack of a better word not meant to be derogatory) asking the said question.

 

Then there are the people that come and ask a question and you give them a correct answer then they argue you are wrong OR question the advise you just gave them. I say this is also fundementally wrong and should not be tolerated. If that said person already knows every damn thing and is an expert why come here and ask the question.

 

Bottom line? This is how I think it should work. This is a support forum for DFI paid for by you a DFI employee. When you are working with someone with a problem nobody should come in that thread and give conflicting advise. Help you if you are not around yes...argue that you are wrong...Hale NO. This should not be tolerated PERIOD. Now I am not talking about lets say mem advise should I get TCCD or New BH-5 gold stuff, because that is a personnal choice and both work well it all come down to what you are looking for. I am talking about resolving problems that a user id having with a mobo. I do however recognise that you and RG can't reply to every dang post and help from members is encouraged but when you step in to help others need to back off and let you do your job and certainly not give conflicting advise. Now it would be OK to add or clarify

 

OK I am done. I hope you take my ideas into concideration. I really think it would help the Chaos I have been seeing around here as of late. Anyway just my 2 cents. We don't need to stop this great forum because of a few bad weed!!! It may be time for weed removal though

[okayfine]

OKFINE did you try and good ram in the DFI? That is VALUE RAM!!!!!!!!!! It isnt even rated for cas 2.5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lets just put diesel in that Porch why dont we.

So it is automatically the board's fault that you couldnt get it to post? This is typical. I guarantee there is nothing wrong with the motherboard, and I'd bet some money that the replacement you get is going to do the exact same thing...but somehow in your mind it will still be DFI's fault which will hopefully motivate you to purchase a different brand which will make you much happier which is good for all of us, especially you since it is your money.

Just an update on my own experience.

 

1. I bought a DFI Ultra NF4 board about three weeks ago.

2. Tried it with the components listed in my signature, and also with other components, some better, some worse, such as PC4000 TCCD memory, other CPU's and PSU's, and video cards. All components were tested and verified to be in perfect working order.

3. The DFI board would not post. I got 3 LED's.

4. Sent the motherboard back, and got a replacement a few days ago.

5. Will post, only if I put the video card in the second slot. Tried ATI and nVidia, made no difference.

6. If I put two PCIe video cards, will not post.

7. With 1 video card in the second slot, I got the RAM - 2 sticks of 1 Gig RAM - stable to 260 MHz at 3-4-4-8.

8. Installed XP, and Win 2003, and Linux without difficulty.

9. NV LAN does not work whatsoever. Didn't install the NV firewall or anything like that. The Marvell LAN is working fine.

 

Couple comments/thoughts

1. There is a strong tendency to automatically assume that someone is a newbie if they can't get the DFI board to work. Surely, there are inexperienced people out there looking for help, but they are relatively easy to spot.

2. Many people thought that the RAM I had listed was value RAM, and that you can't just stick any RAM in a DFI - the ferrari of motherboards - even though the RAM works perfectly fine with other motherboards. Many were in fact proud of this fact, which to this day, I cannot quite understand.

3. My RAM turned out to handle 260 MHz in the replacement DFI. (I had it up to 240 MHz in my ASUS, just for comparison).

4. Conclusions :

 

A. My first DFI was a dead board.

B. My replacement still has problems - only the bottom PCIe slot is working, and NV Lan doesn't work.

C. DFI overclocks well, but like I said before, I think there are some serious quality control issues.

[StephenC]

First, I make no assumption of the experience level of members posting here. The first thing I try to do is determine what the user has and what he had tried. And then try to make suggestions as to how to resolve or troubleshoot their issue. We also try to pull from experience what works or does not work with these motherboards. I am not a DFI employee nor or most of us who hang around this forum. My only reason for being here is to try to help other members. That's it. I get no pay or compensation for what I do here. Maybe a thank you from time to time by a member I helped. But most just move on. Which is ok.