DFI SLI Problems

[CYcolone]

Well, recently I've been having troubles with my Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe with an unstable motherboard that restarts itself every 10 minutes when I try to play a game, and the secondary IDE channel doesn't work. So I contacted Asus and found that they wouldn't take my RMA due to the fact that I installed a Zalman heatsink replacing their northbridge fan. So I decided to order a DFI SLI board and just trash the Asus. I got it last night and spent several hours installing it only to find that it was DOA. I've tried remounting the board several times, multiple power supplies, both and each of my video cards, and have tried different RAM to see if my inability to find a working motherboard for my system could be contributed to something else. The only thing I didn't try was the processor, which is because I don't have any other Socket 939 processors. So I put my A8N-SLI back in, and got it back running to the way it was before. So I guess my question is, do you think it's the motherboard or the processor?

Btw, the problem with the board was that I would boot it up and the diagnistic lights would come on 1 by 1 claiming it finds the processor, ram, and video, but the final light would never come on which means 'System Boot'. The power light on the case would blink off and on. Then after 3 seconds or so, the diagnistic lights would go off 1 by 1 and all the fans on the board would stop then I'd have to cut the power to turn it off.

Specs:
AMD 64 3200+ @ 2.4GHz
DFI nForce4 UT SLI-DR
1GB DDR400 UL Kingston HyperX
2xMSI GeForce 6600GT@550/1050
OCZ 450W ModStream

 

[imported_llama]

RMA it to DFI, sounds like a board thing

 

[CYcolone]

Should I RMA through DFI or ZipZoomFly? Which would be fastest?

 

[cbehnken]

NO it may not be bad! What slots do you have your ram in?

If you have single channel (1 stick) you MUST put it in slot 2! If you have 2 sticks you must put it in slot 2 and 4 otherwise you won't post.

 

[CYcolone]

Well, wow, thanks. I read through the manual on everything and didn't see it say that anywhere. Although, when it powers up the diagnistic lights claim that it finds the ram which makes me think it may be something more than that. Either way, I'll have to try that tonight. Thanks a lot cbehnken.

 

[Demo24]

if your down to one light then its alive. its a matter of coaxing it to boot

 

[CYcolone]

Another weird detail is that when I have 1 stick of RAM it, it will get up to 4/5 lights then make long beeps at me. If I have 2 sticks in Dual Channel, then it does what I described above. Anyone else have any ideas, or is this a bad board?

 

[Demo24]

yeah thats a memory beep. try clearing Cmos for at least a min then boot it again. this is with one stick in slot 2.

oh and try booting with just one video card

 

[CYcolone]

Well, finally made an improvement. Although, not entirely sure what I did, but it's finally posting and outputing to the monitor. However, it does not detect my IDE hdd but will detect my NEC DVD-RW if I go in and tell it to look for it. My WD Raptor is detected right off the bat, however the board labels it as 'NoneWD740GD_FLA01'. I tried Clearing CMOS and reloading 'Optimal Settings' and that didn't work. I would be able to live with this, but every time I try to boot and not enter BIOS setup, it will stop after the Silicon Raid utility comes up and do nothing at that point, no message telling me DISK BOOT FAILURE or anything. I thought that maybe updating the BIOS would do something for the issues, but I can't get it to boot period, floppy or hdd. Anyone have any ideas? This seems kind of weird considering it's almost similar to my issues with the Asus where I had troubles detecting anything on the Secondary IDE channel. The only thing I haven't tested would be the processor. Could it be the source of my issues with these two boards?

 

[CYcolone]

bump

 

[CYcolone]

How would you guys suggest I go about figuring out if it's the motherboard or processor that's causing my problems? Should I take it somewhere and have it tested (keep in mind, this is Wichita, KS, and there aren't too many qualified places to take it other than Best Buy whom I despise)? Should I buy another processor and return it paying the 15% restocking fee? I just want to get this system that I've put a lot of money and time into, to work like it should. >_<

 

[Demo24]

well if you got into BIOS then your CPU is fine. ever think that a)your ide hard drive is bad b)the cable is bad?

and load optimised defaults in BIOS

 

[Solema]

The first step in troubleshooting boot issues is to always remove every non-essential component from the boot process.

Remove/unplug:
PCI cards
Hard drives
Optical Drives

If you can reliably boot to the BIOS with just the RAM installed, then move to step two:

Plug one drive in at a time and try to boot.

Process of elimination should help you solve this problem.

 

[CYcolone]

Well here's an update on my issue. After finding out that my OCZ Basic Series (256x2) DDR400 worked in my DFI SLI board, and my Kingston HyperX (512x2) DDR400 didn't, I assumed I was having RAM issues, or the board just didn't like the HyperX. So I orded some OCZ Gold Series VX (512x2) from Newegg. I got the RAM today and found out that the board won't boot with the OCZ Gold or HyperX in any configuration. I called DFI support and they walked me through the standard reloading of optimized settings and updating the BIOS, and still nothing. I tried the OCZ Gold and HyperX in a P4 DDR333 system, and all 4 sticks worked without errors in Memtest86. So, should I RMA this board?

 

[MajorPayne]

Originally posted by: CYcolone
Well here's an update on my issue. After finding out that my OCZ Basic Series (256x2) DDR400 worked in my DFI SLI board, and my Kingston HyperX (512x2) DDR400 didn't, I assumed I was having RAM issues, or the board just didn't like the HyperX. So I orded some OCZ Gold Series VX (512x2) from Newegg. I got the RAM today and found out that the board won't boot with the OCZ Gold or HyperX in any configuration. I called DFI support and they walked me through the standard reloading of optimized settings and updating the BIOS, and still nothing. I tried the OCZ Gold and HyperX in a P4 DDR333 system, and all 4 sticks worked without errors in Memtest86. So, should I RMA this board?

Well, I hate to ask what may be 2 stupid questions, but here goes.... 1) Have you made SURE to plug ALL of the extra power connections on this board in (both the extra molex power connection, and the extra floppy driver power connection? This board requires both to be stable, so if you missed one (or both), then this could be the cause of your issues. 2) Have you checked that your board is not set to overvolt the RAM? I ask because I own a DFI-SLI board as well, and when I got mine, it already had the jumpers set to go up to 4V on the RAM (which this board is more than capable of doing), and it was set to give over 3V (I think it was set to 3.5V) to my RAM in BIOS!!! I was lucky to catch this quickly (and have good RAM), but most RAM will not work or be ruined at this voltage. I suspect that the board was returned by someone else before who thought the board died, when in fact they killed thier RAM. Whoever took the board checked it out, and then re-sold it, since the board was not the problem.

So check both of these, and see if you are having either probem. Otherwise, it may indeed be an issue with the board, since I have Kingston HyperX in my DFI-SLI board (one of the RAM's that will not work for you), and it works great for me! I am not having drive detection errors either, and I have 1 IDE hard drive, 2 IDE optical drives, and 3 SATA drives (2 in RAID0, the other not in RAID). The 2 RAID drives are identical Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM 8mb cache drives, and the non-RAID drive is a Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM 8mb cache drive.

 

[lsman]

I am on the same thing....
HyperX ram (ak2/1G)512X2...
put on 2, 4 slots will not post.
Put one ram (not the other, the other will only post) on slot 2 and it post, can go into BIOS, load optimun setting and it will ....beep...beep...beep.....

put a Cosair (2.5v) value select..... install winxp all the way....
put in the new OCZ VX value.... boot up fine no problem.