jhbodle

You, sir, are an absolute legend! That worked a treat. Is there any BIOS fix available for this yet? Every time I power down my PC I have to wait at least an hour to boot it again or else the same thing happens.

Hey all, I've had my DFI board for about 6 months now, but today I tried to switch the PC on and was greeted with a blank screen and a steady long beeping sound alternating on and off once every 2 seconds. That indicates a memory error, but I removed both sticks of RAM and tried them in my old Abit NF7-S and they worked fine. The memory that was in the NF7-S did not work on the DFI either. I have tried moving the RAM from the orange to the yellow slots, clearing the CMOS using the jumper, using the Safe Boot jumper - nothing works. Is there anything I can do - or is this board dead? How do I go about getting an RMA from the UK?

I think it is the BIOS. The Vapochill has always been fine because its only a baby one that doesn't get that cold. Trouble is, what BIOS is the best one to roll back to? Am I gonna have to move my memory back to the Orange slots (they are in the yellow ones at the moment)? The reason I like my current BIOS so much is because it's the only one that doesn't give me errors in MemTest86 near 250MHz (after a LOT of tweaking). One other thing I guess I should mention is that the PC does seem to freeze after about a day of use - the VGA signal will suddenly be lost and it no longer responds. I still haven't got to the bottom of that one yet - all temps and voltages seem to be OK, and it happens even with the CPU at 1250MHz and the RAM at 200. Somethings up...

My board is finally running pretty well apart from one problem. If I shut down the PC and then try to switch it on a few minutes later the PC will not boot. I get no VGA, just a series of long beeps (which according to my Big Book of Bios Beeps for Boys is a 'no memory present' error). If I leave the PC for an hour or more and try switching it on again it then works. Removing the power cord from the PSU does not accelerate how quickly I can turn it on after switching it off. ANything less than around 50mins is no go. I think this started happening after I upgraded the BIOS to 702bt - which is a shame cos it solves my other problems (typical!). Should I flash back to another BIOS (which one?) or is there another solution? Hardware: DFI NF4-SLI-D, Athlon 3500+ Winchester (stock), OCZ VX PC4000 2x512Mb @ 200MHz 2-2-2-8 3.2v, Vapochill SE, PC Power & Cooling 520SLI Deluxe, 2x Leadtek GeForce6 6800GTs in SLI

Thanks for the info! Unfortunately as you can see from my new sig I gave up with the Ballistix and bought some OCZ VX PC4000 RAM. System is now fully memtest stable - it seems strange to not see any errors on the memtest screen! The day I ordered the new RAM, the new 310 BIOS came out! Oh well - it reduced the errors but did not eliminate them anyway...

My Vapochill SE is running on my 3500+ Winchester with no problems...

I know that almost everyone with a DFI nf4 board is gonna be overclocking (and I'm no exception). When I overclock though, Cool n Quiet scales down the CPU frequency properly but keeps the VCore at the setting in the BIOS (1.55v in my case). Is there any way to lower the voltage when the CPU is not stressed when using Cool n Quiet?

Hmm, you could be right. Actually, now I've finally got the memory stable at stock speeds, I can start to overclock it and see how high it will go. My aim is 233MHZ 2.5-2-2-7 cos I got that easily on my old Asus board.

That's right. Just one problem though - his settings don't work for me, or some other people either. He's also running looser timings.

Sorry mate, only just saw this! I used the original heatsinks - all I had to do to make them fit is remove the black plastic shroud from each card. It's a tight fit, but it works! By the way guys, check out this thread I just made for a possible solution to the Ballistix problems: http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6719

After a LOT of testing and configuration, I think i've found a way to get Crucial Ballistix RAM to work with DFI boards without issue. Until a BIOS is released that makes Crucial Ballistix RAM more compatible, this is the best option. The results speak for themselves: 2x Crucial Ballistix 512MB PC3200@ 2-2-2-6, 2.7v on DFI Lanparty UT nF4 SLI-D MemTest stable and Windows Memory Diagnostic stable! Use the exact settings below and let me know if they work for you. - Flash to BIOS 201 and clear CMOS settings - Install Crucial Ballistix in YELLOW MEMORY SLOTS - Plug power cables into BOTH the Molex and Floppy power connectors on the motherboard Power up the machine and enter the BIOS. Set your CPU to run at stock speeds and stock HTT speeds, then enter the settings below. Anything I don't specify, leave at default or tune at will. * STANDARD CMOS FEATURES: - Halt On: No Errors * ADVANCED CHIPSET FEATURES: Everything DISABLED except: - SSE/SSE2 Instructions: Enabled MAC PHY IEEE Test: BypassSET * GENIE BIOS SETTING: - FSB Bus Frequency: 200 - LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio: 4.0 - LDT Bus Transfer Width: down 16 up 16 - CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio: [your CPU's default multiplier] - PCI eXpress Frequency: 101MHz [possibly 105MHz for ATI cards] - K8 Cool n Quiet Support: Auto - Cool n Quiet MAX FID: Auto - CPU VID Startup Value: 1.425v [for 90nm CPUs only - experiment with 130nm] - CPU VID Control: 1.425v [as above] - CPU VID Special Control: Above VID * 110% - LDT Voltage Control: 1.40v - Chip Set Voltage Control: 1.80v - DRAM Voltage Control: 2.70v [higher causes errors on my setup] * DRAM CONFIGURATION: - DRAM Frequency Set: 200 (DRAM/FSB:1/01) - Command Per Clock: Enable - CAS Latency Control: 2.0 - RAS to CAS Delay: 2 - Min RAS active time: 6 - Row Precharge time: 2 - Row Cycle Time: 7 - Row Refresh Cyc Time: 14 - Row to Row Delay: 5 - Write Recovery Time: 3 - Write to Read Delay: 2 - Read to Write Delay: 5 - Refresh Period: 3120 - Write CAS Latency: 5 - DRAM Bank Interleave: Disabled - DQS Skew Control: Increase Skew - DQS Skew Value: 0 - DQS Skew Control: Level 6 - DRAM Data Drive Strength: Level 4 - Max Async Latency: 7.0 - Read Preamble Time: 5.0 - IdleCycle Limit: 256 Clocks - Dynamic Counter: Disable - R/W Queue Bypass: 16x - Bypass Max: 7x - 32 Byte Granularity: Disable (8 Bursts) Let me know if it works for you! I will keep updating this thread with more aggressive timings as I find them - watch this space!

Thanks for trying RGone. Could you (or Angry Games) let the DFI BIOS programmers know about this issue (apparently others seem to be having it too) or are you certain that the BIOS is not the problem? I only ask because the only thing I have changed is the Asus motherboard, which means: -The RAM is OK -The CPU is OK -The nForce4 chipset can handle Ballistix OK This can only leave the DFI BIOS, right? Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong...

I was just trying lots of different settings trying to experiment. I have attached a screenshot I have just run using the exact settings you suggested in this thread. Errors in tests 3,4,5,6 and 7. Let me know what you think.

Me too! The plot thickens. BIOS 201 seems to give slightly more errors than 218 but the memtest screen I have attached shows a strange phenomenon. Note how the screen shows that memtest is on test number 4. Now here's the weird part: the red line showing errors in test 2 is still incrementing upwards even thorough tests 3 and 4. This didn't happen on BIOS 218 (and this is the first time its happened on 201 too). Maybe it's because I had to put a copy of Memtest 1.51 on a floppy and boot from that with the 201 BIOS as 218 had it built in. Either way, I don't have a clue how I can get memtest and my DFI board to like my Ballistix RAM.

OK I couldn't wait until tomorrow! I flashed the BIOS to the 201 version and ran your suggested settings again - still got errors. Lowered the FSB to 245MHz (which was fine on the Asus) and still got errors. Errors (as always) were reported on both sticks of RAM. The most troublesome tests seem to be 4, 5 and 6.