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ECS NFORCE3-A motherboard mini review

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That's with this ECS board? Strange. what RAM and CPU? What's the wording on the warning message?
 
This was the Sempron 2800/ECS nForce3 bundle from Outpost.com, running Patriot DDR400 ram.

Warning message states:

Warning! Now System is in Safe Mode
Please re-setting CPU Frequency in the CMOS setup

Link to screenshot
 
What power supply are you using and do you have the 4 pin 12v connector plugged into the motherboard? What temperature for CPU is the BIOS reporting? Try unhooking your peripherals (including the improper HDD cable you're using 😉 ). With extra stuff unhooked, clear CMOS with jumper and then try again. Also, make sure the AGP frequency is locked (I think should be by default, don't remember and no longer have the board to check).
 
Also have the Sempron 3100 (130nm) and this MB. The hard drive throughput is a little slow. I normally get an imaging speed of about 1000MB/minute in DOS with a 939 board. This one is cranking around 400MB/minute. It also delays WXP boot at the WXP splash screen by about an additional 50 seconds. Not sure if this is a driver issue. Have 1GB of DDR400. There should not be that much performance drop between 754 and 939 boards.

I did not load the NF3 IDE driver. I also see two primary and secondary IDE channels in device manager. LAN and audio drivers are working okay.

Would appreciate any input from others with this system.
 
Originally posted by: furballi
I also see two primary and secondary IDE channels in device manager.
Click to expand...

That's strange. Was Windows installed on another motherboard and then the HDD transferred to this one?
 
Solved the delay boot at the WXP splash screen. Optical drive was connected to secondary Master connector but the jumper was set to slave mode. Changing the jumper on optical drive to MASTER fixed this hang up.

WXP Pro SP1 was installed in a clean active primary C partition. I removed all IDE channels in DEVICE MANAGER and rebooted PC. WXP reinstalled the same drivers. Strange. If I installed the NF3 IDE drivers, then these things went aways. The read/write speed of the HDD in windows is about the same as a 939 board. However, the imaging speed in DOS is about 1/2 that of a 939 board (400MB/min vs. 1000MB/min when creating image file). Don't believe this is caused by the single channel memory. I have two 512MB DDR400 sticks.

Could someone with the same combo without the NF3 drivers double check their IDE configurations?

Reloaded WXP again from scratch. Same double take with the IDE channels.

Board came with BIOS 1.0f so no need to update. The board does not detect fan speed below 1300 rpm. I'm using the Zalman 7700 Cu at the lowest fan speed. Also have two 120 x 38 mm medium speed Panaflos with two Zalman Fanmate 2 in an Antec SLK3000B case. System is whisper quiet. Idle is around 37C at 25C room temperature.

Overclocked results:

CPU...1.47 VDC (+1.7%)
RAM...2.5-3-3-8, 1T at 166MHz (5:6 memory divider)
FSB...250MHz
HT...3x


 
the nf3 ide drivers worked for you? congrats!

it locked my up machine (sempron 3100, winxp sp2). i had to reimage.
 
Hello all just got my 3100+ sempy and ecs nforce3-a today up and running.
NO problems with the drivers. I downloaded the newest from ecs and chucked the cd.
Everything works without a problem.(including the ethernet and ide)
The only problem i had was the bottom of the mobo was grounding against the case
10 minutes of frustration later (and a piece of an anit-static bag) and i was in action.

core speed 2249.7 mhz
multiplier x9.0
fsb 250.0mhz
HT x4

cpu-z reads this

MMX(+) 3DNOW!(+) SSE SSE2 x86-64

paris core

im running at 1.456 v ram @ 1T 409MHz

im using the heatsink that Zap recomended (thanks zap) the factory heatsink
that comes with a 4400+ x2

one question how do i measuse the temp of the board. mbm5 does not like it ?
 
Originally posted by: Zap
What power supply are you using and do you have the 4 pin 12v connector plugged into the motherboard? What temperature for CPU is the BIOS reporting? Try unhooking your peripherals (including the improper HDD cable you're using 😉 ). With extra stuff unhooked, clear CMOS with jumper and then try again. Also, make sure the AGP frequency is locked (I think should be by default, don't remember and no longer have the board to check).
Click to expand...

Power supply is a 4 year old Antec 300W. Everything is plugged in correctly and in working order, voltages are within range, CPU temp is around 35C. I haven't fiddled with the AGP clock, it is defaulted to 66MHz. The 40-pin IDE cable shouldn't matter since it's connected to DVD/CDRW drives, but I swapped in an 80-pin anyways -- still no-go.

I don't know if it makes a difference, but Everest reports my Sempron having a Winchester core, which the folks at AMDboards say is somewhat rare.
 
For Palermo cores, the D0 steppings of Semprons were based on Winchester while E3/E6 are based on newer Venice. My D0 doesn't overclock as well as some people have gotten on their E3/E6 - just got in an E3 core 3300+ from Monarch yesterday, hope to be able to try it out today.

Gosh, I'm actually at a loss right now... unless there's something wrong with one of your parts, nothing should be holding you back that much for the 1.6GHz CPU to barely make 1.8GHz.

Can you try Clockgen to see if it's a BIOS glitch? Just set BIOS to Mem 166 HT 3x and then see if you can hit 240MHz using Clockgen.
 
I get that warning and ignore it because when windows loads clockgen bounces it right back up to 288fsb. It isn't always there, but it is kind of annoying...
 
Have two sticks of Kingston DDR400 ValueRAM. Each stick will run just fine at 2.5-3-3-7, 1T in DIMM1 only. If I add a second stick to DIMM2 or run one stick in DIMM2, the PC will not pass PRIME95's BLEND mode without running in 2T.

The Kingston ValueRAMs are set at 2.5-3-3-8-2T, 5:6 memory divider (221 MHz effective RAM speed), 265MHz FSB with CPU at 1.452 VDC. The Super Pi time was 40.8 sec (38.8 sec with 1T timing).

If I bump the 3100 Sempron CPU Vcore to 1.502 VDC, then I can hit 271MHz FSB with 39.8 sec Super Pi (37.8 with 1T timing). This is the upper limit of my RAM at 5:6 memory divider.

Note that this 3100 Sempron does not support Cool n Quiet. It has 256 cache with single channel memory. I'd say this combo is 5 to 15% slower than the more expensive 939 Athlon 64 platform (same clock speed).
 
Finally got around to setup a HTPC system based on this MB with sempron 3100+ combo.
I put a stock HSF that came with my x2 3800+ cpu. The fan is a bit loud, but it will do for now.

The biggest pain was having to get an IDE cable to reach the DVD-drives from the connector header at the bottom of MB.
Otherwise nothing fancy about the setup. I do like the passive cooling on the chipset.

I mildly overclocked it to 240 (2160) everything else is default (memory is 5:6 as you would expect)
I need to finish setting up MCE 2005 with a HDTV tuner.
 
Picked a Sepron 3100 * ECS NF3a combo up at Fry's Retail Store for 89.99, and 1 gig kit of Corsair Value ram cas 2.5 for $49 after rebate, and a beutiful demo cast for half price at $39.99, and a Radeon 7000 for $19 after rebate (for my Mom's web/mail rig).

The chip is a Palermo Core (64 bit) oc'd no problem to 250 fsb for 2250, 1t, stock volts, ram at 166 divider (running at 204, 2.5,3,3,8) HTT is at 3x.

This is for my wife's computer. I already had 2 60 gig HDs and a raid card for raid 0, floppy, and DVD drive. I had the original unused heatsink from my X2 (since I use a big typoon on it). I was able to plug that stripped raid set into the mobo, boot into safe mode, remove a few things from device manager, reboot, load drivers and works flawlessly without a Windows Reinstall.

I upgraded my Mom's computer from a P3 800 to my wife's old components (which were mine a long time ago) Barton 2500, NF2 mobo, and 512 meg of ram.

So two computer upgrades, total cost after rebates: $215.

 
Good job on the upgrades. You seriously got a Palermo? :thumbsup:

Rebates :thumbsdown: I'm fighting over a few right now. One was denied because "no UPC" when the rebate for explicitly states to cut out the "proof of purchase" and even included a sample picture of one, which does not have a UPC. Three others claim to have not received them. Those @#@#% crooks!
 
Originally posted by: swetmore
The chip is a Palermo Core (64 bit) oc'd no problem to 250 fsb for 2250, 1t, stock volts, ram at 166 divider (running at 204, 2.5,3,3,8) HTT is at 3x.
Click to expand...

Maybe Fry's/Outpost finally ran out of Paris stock.

Your upgrades are remarkably similar to mine. My wife's P3 800 was replaced with a XP-M 2500 with NF2 MB.

I am setting up the old P3 800 system to be my Tivo hacking station.
 
Originally posted by: Zap
Good job on the upgrades. You seriously got a Palermo? :thumbsup:

Rebates :thumbsdown: I'm fighting over a few right now. One was denied because "no UPC" when the rebate for explicitly states to cut out the "proof of purchase" and even included a sample picture of one, which does not have a UPC. Three others claim to have not received them. Those @#@#% crooks!
Click to expand...

werd, i hate F*%!*&ing rebates!!

i got a sempron 2800+ retail box combo w/ this board for $79. not too bad i guess... is there a new bios that lets you go past 250fsb?
 
Saw bechmark of an overclocked 2800 running at 2700MHz speed. It's about the same is the 3100 running at 2400Mhz with 5:6 memory divider and 2.5-3-3-5-1T timing.
 
Originally posted by: furballi
Saw bechmark of an overclocked 2800 running at 2700MHz speed. It's about the same is the 3100 running at 2400Mhz with 5:6 memory divider and 2.5-3-3-5-1T timing.
Click to expand...

really? 300mhz difference? the 2800+ would be 8 x 337, and the 3100+ would be 9 x 267. something fishy here..
 
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