Abit and Epox confirm Nforce 3/4 problem

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crazyeddie

Senior member
Dec 23, 2004
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The Inquirer's Article

The Inquirer posted this news story today discussing "issues" between Nforce 3/4 boards and the latest Athlon processors:

"EPOX AND ABIT confirmed our previous news where we reported that Nforce 3 and 4 have some problems with Athlon revision E CPUs. These companies also confirmed that it can be fixed at the BIOS level so it won't be such a great deal. You can check our previous article here.
Nvidia got back to us again and said that Athlon 64 rev E has been tested by Nvidia engineering, AMD test labs and Nvidia key motherboard partners and mysteriously none of them managed to find any problems with any Nforce 3 or Nforce 4 motherboards. There is a problem, but at least a BIOS re-jig will fix it.

Epox and Abit both said that each firm had problems with their Nforce 3 and 4 boards but that they were able to solve them at the BIOS level. Epox already has a new BIOS for some of its boards while Abit solved the problems for NF8 board and its BIOS engineers are still working hard to solve the problems for its other boards.

We also got the confirmation that the problem comes from AMD's side of the table, and that it changed thermal regulation stuff inside of those new CPUs. We've asked AMD to comment on this matter as well.

Nvidia flamed us since we hadn't triple checked at the time of our first article, but it transpires that we were right all along. Luckily the problem can be fixed and most of the boards will get their new and shiny BIOSes before Athlon 64 rev E hits the market in early April. µ"
 
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Quadriflax

Member
Jan 12, 2005
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I'm getting ready to build a new rig in the next month or so with an MSI Neo4-F board and a 3200+ A64 processor. Would this be reason to get the CPU now, to avoid the revision E chips and to make sure I don't have to wait for a BIOS update? Or is it safe to wait it out?
 
C

crazyeddie

Senior member
Dec 23, 2004
201
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0
The Inquirer's Previous Article

"WE HAD A CHANCE to talk to Nvidia about our article where we mentioned that Nforce 3 and Nforce 4 might have problems with the new Revision E Athlons but Nvidia categorically denied the issue. You can check that story, here.
Nvidia said that it tried Revision E CPUs and that it hasn't got any problems at all.

We were pointed to one thread at a support forum where DFI said that it can solve those problems with a new BIOS and that the company has already played with 3000+ revision E Athlon.

We will ask other motherboard manufacturers about the putative problem, but I guess the only way to know it is to plug one in and see if it works. µ"
 
C

crazyeddie

Senior member
Dec 23, 2004
201
0
0
The Inquirer's original article

"PROBLEMS APPEAR to be affecting Athlon 64 revision E chips on some Nforce 3 and Nforce 4 motherboards. Symptoms include motherboard shut down and failure to boot, according to reports here from CeBIT.
Revision E chips from AMD are just released and brings stuff like SSE3 support inside a 90 nanometre die. AMD on the other hand didn't make a big noise about its announcement.

We learned that if you have this Athlon and already have Nforce 3 or Nforce 4 board that there is a big chance that you may encounter problems. We are told that AMD changed its thermal regulation protection and that's what makes it incompatible with at least some of the Nforce 3 and Nforce 4 boards out there.

In order to solve these problems, new motherboards might be necessary and there doesn't appear to be an instant fix. We are attempting to gather more details here in Hannover. µ"
 
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