DFI NF4 Thread

[xgman]

Originally Posted by hackysak

Sierra please let me know how it goes with the ultra-d..

I got one and I continue to have a hell of a time overclocking.. It will sometimes allow me to overclock it.. Most of the time, however, it hangs just before it gets to booting.. This has been extremely frustrating.. I thought maybe the PS, but I replaced that with a 24-pin and I'm still having the same issue..

What's strange is I can make a change in the bios.. It won't boot. I change the paramater(s) back and it still will not boot.. I usually need set the settings back to defaults before it will boot again.

I thought this was some good advice:


"Originally Posted by mdzcpa
In my experience, the Gskill LE absolutely LOVES the DFI NF4 boards. I have 4 DFI NF4 installations under my belt, and each one is running at, near, or above 300htt with Gskill LE.

The key to the DFI board is to use everything DFI provides for! I can't tell you how often I see "DFI performance" threads where folks insist on pulling up short on the details.

These are my DFI Rules:

Use BOTH mobo power connectors (both the 4 pin molex, and 4 pin floppy) Use them whether or not you are running SLI.

Use ONLY a very high quality 24 pin PSU.

Put a fan over the RAM at voltages at or above 3v. Don't worry about if the RAM "feels" hot or cold. Just put the fan there.

Use the Optimised Defaults to start. Tweak very slowly and don't change too much.

Add voltage ONLY when necessary. I'm hitting 300htt on 4 DFI mobos without upping chipset voltage at all. Only Vcore and Vdimm increases were needed. "

[CrowdAds]

[xgman]

Originally Posted by johnrr6

Extra FDD and HDD connectors on the board

The manual says to use them if you are using a second card for stability.

If I just use my x850 XT PE would there be any benifit to using those ports.

Greater stability/higher overclocks???

use at least the big 4 pin molex one regardless.

[xgman]

Originally Posted by maxxshwagg

you've got me a little worried. i also have the g.skill. and i've read about tccd problem everywhere. starting to wonder if i should start looking for some BH-5 somewhere. its not so easy to find now....any idea where i can pick up a couple of 512 sticks...

I may be in the minortity, but I am convinced that there is no such TCCD problem. I think it is a variety of associated issues, but not necessarily tccd itself, although it may be that on the DFI, you need a error freee set of tccd period. That said, I think the problem is user error #1, then Power Supply #2 and then iffy sticks #3. I have seen plenty of trouble free tccd setups reported in the HTT300+ range including my own.

This board is far more complicated to set up than what most people are used to.

[xgman]

Originally Posted by Blue078

With the 0209 BIOS the SLI-DR works good to 295htt with OCZ Plat Rev2, and 310htt with PQI3200 Turbo {DBU}. So I cant see why it wouldnt work with GSkill, unless the stick wernt up to the task.

For above 280Mhz timings of 2.5-4-7-3 are needed

Exactly, and don't forget the all important set 3X manually LDT!

[xgman]

Originally Posted by cromozone

using 2 x 512MB sticks. The same FX-55 doesn't seem to like TCCD much, but the TCCD works fine with a 3200+ Winchester I tested. Madness!

Again my FX55 runs on water at 3 ghz at 300HTT 1-1 at Blue's timings above, so ??

[Blue078]

Originally Posted by xgman

Exactly, and don't forget the all important set 3X manually LDT!

I personaly have better luck with HT set to auto ??? with the 0209 BIOS.

[Sierra_abx]

Originally Posted by xgman

I may be in the minortity, but I am convinced that there is no such TCCD problem. I think it is a variety of associated issues, but not necessarily tccd itself, although it may be that on the DFI, you need a error freee set of tccd period. That said, I think the problem is user error #1, then Power Supply #2 and then iffy sticks #3. I have seen plenty of trouble free tccd setups reported in the HTT300+ range including my own.

This board is far more complicated to set up than what most people are used to.

Sorry but I will have to disagree with you on this point. I think the CPU's memory controller plays a very important role. I recall all the problems you had with other A64 boards. Was that user error? PSU? Bad board? Iffy sticks? Also remember that people often fudge when it comes to the truth. Do you believe everyone who comes on a forum and says, oh I never ever have had a problem setting up a system?

Sometimes user error is to blame. But I think that's too easy an explanation. And it really doesn't help the person who's having problems. One of the reasons that forums exist is for users to help one another.

[cromozone]

Originally Posted by Sierra

Sorry but I will have to disagree with you on this point. I think the CPU's memory controller plays a very important role. I recall all the problems you had with other A64 boards. Was that user error? PSU? Bad board? Iffy sticks? Also remember that people often fudge when it comes to the truth. Do you believe everyone who comes on a forum and says, oh I never ever have had a problem setting up a system?

Sometimes user error is to blame. But I think that's too easy an explanation. And it really doesn't help the person who's having problems. One of the reasons that forums exist is for users to help one another.

I completely agree with you sierra, the CPU memory controller makes a huge difference. I can guarantee you that if I gave you the 3500+ Newcastle I was testing with that you wouldn't be able to get your lovely BH-5 to do zip, and yet you have some stunning results with your FX-55 But that's just my oppinion and my experiences...

[Blue078]

Yep mem controller and some times BIOS verson.

With the 0125/0201 BIOS I could not get my TCCD's to work past 260 with any kinda of stability. after flashing to the 0209 BIOS same TCCD stick work flawless ly at 285 and on less volts.

I guess the 0209 BIOS made the user smarter

[Sierra_abx]

Originally Posted by Blue078

I guess the 0209 BIOS made the user smarter

Yes, the BIOS can make a big difference.

Even the mighty OPPAINTER has had problems with boards. So does that mean he doesn't know what he's doing? Of course not. Sometimes, it's just a matter of thinking things through. Other times, it's just a case of bad hardware. But I think most of us try to learn from our experiences. The people who think they're perfect are often the most delusional.

[johnrr6]

Originally Posted by xgman

"Originally Posted by mdzcpa

Use BOTH mobo power connectors (both the 4 pin molex, and 4 pin floppy) Use them whether or not you are running SLI.

Use ONLY a very high quality 24 pin PSU."

Sierra-----mdzcpa and xgman both think that those extra power ports are important to stability-----which answers my question perfectly.....

Did you use both those extra power ports for your x850 XT PE???

Would it be worthwhile to put this into your "Tips" section on the first post?

John

[Sierra_abx]

I've used the extra power ports. Doesn't make any difference on my system. But I'm using only one graphics card. And the extra power is not going to help you anyway with RAM. The TCCD sticks I have do not work very well. Maybe it's bad RAM. Maybe it's user error. LOL. But it doesn't bother me a whole lot because I can run BH-5 or OCZ VX with ease on the DFI board as well as on the MSI Neo2. For benching, which is one of my hobbies, 2.5-4-3-7 timings are just not going to cut it. Yeah, you see guys with great scores in 03 or 05. But is that because of the RAM, or because they are running two expensive graphics cards in SLI configuration? Those timings may be fine for other things. It's just not for me.

You'll also notice that the people running TCCD rarely post scores in 3DMark01 which usually requires a lot of CPU power and tight memory timings. If you look at the top scores in that bench, almost all were done with BH-5.

[xgman]

Originally Posted by Sierra

Sorry but I will have to disagree with you on this point. I think the CPU's memory controller plays a very important role. I recall all the problems you had with other A64 boards. Was that user error? PSU? Bad board? Iffy sticks? Also remember that people often fudge when it comes to the truth. Do you believe everyone who comes on a forum and says, oh I never ever have had a problem setting up a system?

Sometimes user error is to blame. But I think that's too easy an explanation. And it really doesn't help the person who's having problems. One of the reasons that forums exist is for users to help one another.

OK, I admit that I may have been a little over zealous on some of my past "experiments" , and that yes a mem controller can be a big help or big roadblock, but I have seen enough success tccd stories that lead me to believe it is not a TCCD problem as such, but maybe a combination of things incl. maybe the tccd themselves. One thing is for sure, the DFI NF4 is a little more finicky (well maybe alot more) than what we have seen lately, but then again so is a race car.

[Sierra_abx]

All I can say is that I tried three pairs of TCCD, including one set that came from the TCCD guru himself, OPB. None of them worked well in either my Neo2 or the DFI board. I even tried some of his suggested settings, but it didn't help. If I couldn't get any RAM to work, then I would know it'd be time to buy a Dell. But BH-5 works fine, so I'm a happy camper.

[xgman]

Originally Posted by Sierra

Yes, the BIOS can make a big difference.

Even the mighty OPPAINTER has had problems with boards. So does that mean he doesn't know what he's doing? Of course not. Sometimes, it's just a matter of thinking things through. Other times, it's just a case of bad hardware. But I think most of us try to learn from our experiences. The people who think they're perfect are often the most delusional.

Look I think anyone can see that there is a very large number of people having problems of one sort of another with the NF4 platform. It just happens that overclockers by far are prefering the DFI at this point. Lots of new stuff at one time. Vid card, MD, chipset, Power Supply. Stuff is bound to get complicated. I guess I was lucky this time around.