Frustration with DFI Lanparty PRO875 & BIOS

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
I

iblumberg

Junior Member
May 11, 2003
12
0
0
I have the DFI Lanparty PRO875 motherboard and overall I like it quite a bit. It has lots of nice features including the RAID 1.5 support that I'm using. However, it appears that DFI just can't get its act together on the BIOS. The initial BIOS had a problem reporting the CPU temperature too low. The next version (5/16) went too far the other way and reported the temperature too high. It also caused some problems with the built in sound support (after some flashes, the OS couldn't find the C-Media sound hardware). Then the current version of the BIOS (5/30) fixed the temperature and sound hardware problem but caused some new hassles.

First, flashing that BIOS caused the RAID 1.5 system drive to cause BSOD on boot. After hours of reformatting, restoring, etc., that is now fixed. Second, the BIOS still reports the wrong CPU temperature after a standby and wake up. Third, the front side bus speed setting in the BIOS now has no effect. Set it to any value you want up to 255 and the bus still runs at the default for your CPU (i.e., if you have a 533 MHz CPU, the bus stays at 133 MHz no matter what you set it to in the BIOS).

I reported the problems with the 5/16 BIOS to DFI via e-mail and never got a response. I just reported the problems in the 5/30 BIOS and I don't hold out much hope of a response there either. I just hope DFI can finally deliver a fully working BIOS. I know a number of other MB companies are also having BIOS issues with 875 MBs, but this seems like some very simple and basic stuff that DFI keeps getting wrong.

Just thought folks might want to know,
Ira
 
Iron Woode

Iron Woode

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 10, 1999
31,268
12,784
136
Originally posted by: iblumberg
I have the DFI Lanparty PRO875 motherboard and overall I like it quite a bit. It has lots of nice features including the RAID 1.5 support that I'm using. However, it appears that DFI just can't get its act together on the BIOS. The initial BIOS had a problem reporting the CPU temperature too low. The next version (5/16) went too far the other way and reported the temperature too high. It also caused some problems with the built in sound support (after some flashes, the OS couldn't find the C-Media sound hardware). Then the current version of the BIOS (5/30) fixed the temperature and sound hardware problem but caused some new hassles.

First, flashing that BIOS caused the RAID 1.5 system drive to cause BSOD on boot. After hours of reformatting, restoring, etc., that is now fixed. Second, the BIOS still reports the wrong CPU temperature after a standby and wake up. Third, the front side bus speed setting in the BIOS now has no effect. Set it to any value you want up to 255 and the bus still runs at the default for your CPU (i.e., if you have a 533 MHz CPU, the bus stays at 133 MHz no matter what you set it to in the BIOS).

I reported the problems with the 5/16 BIOS to DFI via e-mail and never got a response. I just reported the problems in the 5/30 BIOS and I don't hold out much hope of a response there either. I just hope DFI can finally deliver a fully working BIOS. I know a number of other MB companies are also having BIOS issues with 875 MBs, but this seems like some very simple and basic stuff that DFI keeps getting wrong.

Just thought folks might want to know,
Ira
Click to expand...
Give DFI some time to look into your situation. They are known for fairly quick replies to BIOS issues. The board is new so there are bound to be some issues.

I use a AD77 Infinity (KT400) that is loaded with features but but had 3 BIOS issues. They were quick with posting Beta BIOS's and final BIOS's fixed the issues up nicely.
 
M

Mangler

Senior member
Jun 10, 2002
633
0
0
I know LegitReviews.com was having many BIOS issues with the DFI 875Pro also. Linky

As for the DFI LanParty Pro875 we initially could not overclock the board past 215MHz FSB, but after a handful of daily BIOS updates we could get it up to 245MHz FSB. DFI is working on improving and updating their BIOS to correct some issues that have been found when overclocking, but for this review we went ahead and published it using an unreleased BIOS. Your mileage may very from our results due to this, but we are hopeful that DFI will be able to correct these issues quickly.
Click to expand...

They had the board before it was released and for the 4 weeks they had it they never got a "perfect" working bios!
 
N

nickk

Junior Member
Jun 10, 2003
1
0
0
TROLLing, huh? Ignore the troll please.

Anyone who did a little bit of research on your name can clearly tell that it's your site which has all those crappy articles. Stop using this forum to drive artificial traffic to your site! The forum is meant to be a place to help people solve problems, not a means to cash in on biased opinions.

 
T

Tab

Lifer
Sep 15, 2002
12,145
0
76
Originally posted by: nickk
TROLLing, huh? Ignore the troll please.

Anyone who did a little bit of research on your name can clearly tell that it's your site which has all those crappy articles. Stop using this forum to drive artificial traffic to your site! The forum is meant to be a place to help people solve problems, not a means to cash in on biased opinions.
Click to expand...

Yea, your name perhaps. He has a legitmate problem you phucking idiot. Go jump off a goddamn phucking bridge dicksmack. You need to stop talking out your ass.
 
First

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
136
Wow you guys are having some very odd problems, this board was a joy to work with. High temperature readings is nothing new, it happens with a lot of boards. Just use a Windows monitoring utility, you should never take the BIOS readings too seriously. This is not really an "issue" anyway, unless your system's stability is compromised of course.

Anyway, the 5/16 BIOS was easily able to get to 282MHz FSB with a 3:2 memory ratio. This is a great board with great features. Watch for the review later this week, along with the 25-way roundup.
 
I

iblumberg

Junior Member
May 11, 2003
12
0
0
Evan,

I agree with you in general that this is a very nice board and it has been very reliable. However, I have been frustrated by the small issues with the BIOS. Each time the BIOS changes, so do the temperature readings from the supplied monitoring programs (run in windows). Also, as I noted, the 5/30 BIOS which seems to have fixed this mostly broke the ability to change the FSB speed.

In addition, I discovered that going to the 5/30 BIOS changed some aspect of the RAID controller requiring a driver reload. Unfortunately, this produces a chicken and egg problem if your bootable drives are on the RAID controller. Windows won't load without the new driver, but there is no way to load the new driver until Windows boots. The only solution is to move a boot drive to the non-RAID controller, boot, load the new driver and then move the drive back to the RAID controller and re-build your mirrored volumes. A bit of a production for a simple BIOS upgrade.

All in all, I'd just like DFI to fix all these little problems so that using the board is less of hassle.

Ira
 
T

tommyz2kool

Member
Jul 18, 2002
34
0
0
I finally ended up getting rid of my pro875 board. I really liked the DFI and has the best feature set and layout of all the 875 boards, but it was too unstable. I actually tested 2 boards, and both of them were unstable. the first one eventually died because of a beta bios that dfi sent me would not let me get to the post screen using an 800fsb cpu. apparently there was a bug in the 3:2 ratio that kills boards if you use it. the second board I flashed using the latest official bios, and I would get all kinds of weird things happening like at fsb250, all the memory slots except one would not work if you used a single stick of ram. they would work fine with 2 sticks of ram, but not one.

eventually I returned the board for an asus p4c800, which is totally stable. I have to give DFI credit for their awesome customer support. they answered every email very quickly. too bad their bios needs work.
 
Vonkhan

Vonkhan

Diamond Member
Feb 27, 2003
8,198
0
71
They're watchin' us ... :Q

just as well, gonna get me a LanParty board ... i was a moth in my previous life - I get attracted to bright glowy lights!
 
N

NordicNINE

Platinum Member
Nov 21, 2000
2,072
26
91
www.heatware.com
The features and FSB overclocking sound good, but I'm not sure if I like the bright UV reactive orange slots.

My case has blue lights and LED fans and I don't think it would look good in there.

I ordered a D865PERLK and 3.0 deal from an Intel Conference I went to since I like the deal and I want a board with CSA, but now they're not shipping until the end of the month, so I'm thinking of just getting a good overclocking board and a 2.4C now.
 
T

tomwid

Junior Member
May 8, 2003
6
0
0
This is probably the LAST board I buy from DFI. There is no excuse for these bios problems. The board has been out long enough for them to figure things out. The last straw is a locked FSB! WTF IS THAT BS? After I updated my bios via their crappy radar utility, Windoze refused to boot. What a crock of sh*t.

Goodbye DFI...
 
I

Insane3D

Elite Member
May 24, 2000
19,446
0
0
I

iblumberg

Junior Member
May 11, 2003
12
0
0
With the latest BIOS, all the little bugs do seem fixed and the FSB is no longer locked out. I didn't even have to re-load my RAID driver with this new BIOS.

I'm happy now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom