Just built a system around a DFI LANParty NF4 Ultra board

[Bateluer]

This one

For some reason, its seeing a 160GB Seagate PATA drive as about a 130GB drive when you boot from the Win2k CD. And when you attempt to format it, using NTFS, it takes an obscene amount of time. In fact, its been formatting for over 2 hours now and barely passed the half way point.

Given the plethora of options in the BIOS, and my sleep deprived state, its likely that I probably missed an IDE setting somewhere thats causing the slow performance, but I at a loss to explain the mis-reported drive size. I understand there are 'barriers' in space that require 'work arounds' to bypass, but I installed the same drive in this system the previous night, and it works like a champ. Very speedy, stable, correct size.

What should I be looking at in the BIOS to correct this issue, or could the HDD itself be damaged? Ideally, I would remove the suspect hdd and install it in a known good system, such as this machine, but my case is full and would take a lot of time to fandaggle devices around to get the suspect drive in to ops check it.

Discuss.

 

[Painman]

n/m, you're using 2K

Find out if the latest 2K service pack had updated disk support, then slipstream it into your current 2K setup disc contents.

 

[Bateluer]

Same behaviour was seen on an 80GB WD drive as well. Just an update.

 

[Bateluer]

I've about had it with this board. Getting blue screens during, Win2k and XP installations on both a 160GB Seagate drive and an 80GB WD drive. Worthless POS.

In hindsight, I should have gone with my gut and got an Asus board. Never have problems with Asus boards.

The good news, I was considering a DFI Lanparty board for my A64 X2 system. I now know that I should stick with Asus.

 

[SNM]

Either your board's broken or you did something wrong. I haven't gotten any BSODs with mine for the 2 weeks I've been fiddling with it.

 

[CheesePoofs]

have you flashed to the most recent bios?

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
have you flashed to the most recent bios?

We'll be trying that next. DFI's Bios utilities are kinda lackluster as well, IMO. I had to DL the BIN image instead of their 'DFI' auto extractor in order to make a bootable CD.

At the moment, its in a Win2k installation, the most its gotten thus far with out a BSOD.

I left all BIOS options as AUTO or Default, expect for the splash screen, which I disabled to see the POST information. In addition, we had to disable the CPU Internal cache and SSE/SSE2 instructions to get this far without a blue screen.

System specs are below

DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra
A64 3200 Venice
1GB Corsair ValueSelect DDR400 (always had auto/default settings in BIOS for RAM)
Seagate Barracude 7200.7 160GB or WD Caviar SE 80GB (used both for T/S purposes)
PCI FX5500 (Roommate ran out of money this pay cycle to buy a better card.)
Liteon DVD ROM

Edit - Finally got Win2k installed successfully. Only way to do it was to disable the CPU cache(internal and external option in the bios) and system bios shadowing, resulting in extremely slow performance.

We successfully installed the Nvidia system drivers from the DFI CD, and connected to the internet to DL DFI's latest BIOS. After flashing to the latest version, dated 10 Mar 05, I turned on the CPU cache and shadowing back on. Right after the GUI Win2k load screen reaches the end of its progress bar, the system reboots.

Any other ideas?

 

[slash196]

Here's my gut feeling: Its your RAM. Corsair ValueSelect doesn't play nice with the DFI boards. Return it and get some new ram (like the stuff in my sig). I'd be willing to bet it solves your problems. I had very similar problems with that setup, new RAM fixed it perfectly.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: slash196
Here's my gut feeling: Its your RAM. Corsair ValueSelect doesn't play nice with the DFI boards. Return it and get some new ram (like the stuff in my sig). I'd be willing to bet it solves your problems. I had very similar problems with that setup, new RAM fixed it perfectly.

Odd. I've used Corsair ValueSelect 512x2 modules in 3 systems without issues. I'll keep it in mind.

 

[Megatomic]

I have that same Geil RAM, it's decent enough stuff.

 

[rise]

slash is right, the corsair VS is notorious on the dfi nf4's for acting up. seems one of the keys is to hit it with some extra volts, like 2.9 but it also might help to add a bit of vcore, even at stock speed.

 

[Bateluer]

We got it into a useable state now, but still delivers BSODs randomly at restarting. I'll try bumping up the ram voltage a bit, think its at 2.6 right now.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Originally posted by: rise4310
slash is right, the corsair VS is notorious on the dfi nf4's for acting up. seems one of the keys is to hit it with some extra volts, like 2.9 but it also might help to add a bit of vcore, even at stock speed.

actually, I've got corsair VS running in my ultra-d. And its OC'd to 201 mhz :Q

Maybe I'm just lucky though. Running with the 3/10 bios, though, which could be why it works with me and not with him.

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs

actually, I've got corsair VS running in my ultra-d. And its OC'd to 201 mhz :Q

Maybe I'm just lucky though. Running with the 3/10 bios, though, which could be why it works with me and not with him.

lol. actually there is a entry in the 939 oc database where someone has it running 250x10 1:1. here ya go, post 5

i think thats the best i've ever seen with it on the dfi nf4s.

 

[madogvt]

FWIW i've been running Corsair VS on my DFI Ultra D for two weeks with no problems. Everything is stock and I've run Memtrest86 overnight with no errors. I have a Venice 3200 and I'm using the 3/10 bios. Must be lucky.....

 

[rise]

out of curiousity, cheese and mad, what are your volts? auto?

 

[CheesePoofs]

According to ntune mine are 2.6, but mbm5 says 2.7. I don't have smartguardian installed, so I can't check for sure. My guess is that they are running at 2.7, but I'll try and check that for tomorrow because I don't remember what I set it to.

 

[slash196]

Try the new BIOS, if that doesn't help, it's gotta be the RAM. I'm sure the RAM works fine, but not on a DFI board. If new BIOS doesn't help, get some new ram.

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
According to ntune mine are 1.6, but mbm5 says 1.7. I don't have smartguardian installed, so I can't check for sure. My guess is that they are running at 1.7, but I'll try and check that for tomorrow because I don't remember what I set it to.

you mean 2.6/2.7 cheese? or is that your vcore? also would you mind seeing what bios reads on your next boot?

 

[CheesePoofs]

Originally posted by: rise4310

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
According to ntune mine are 1.6, but mbm5 says 1.7. I don't have smartguardian installed, so I can't check for sure. My guess is that they are running at 1.7, but I'll try and check that for tomorrow because I don't remember what I set it to.

you mean 2.6/2.7 cheese? or is that your vcore? also would you mind seeing what bios reads on your next boot?

its 2.6/2.7. I'll edit that now. I'm going to reboot right now and find out what it really is.

EDIT: its 2.7v. I'm pretty sure it ran fine at 2.6, but I upped it to 2.7 because of my 1mhz OC.

 

[rise]

cool, thanks man.

 

[madogvt]

Originally posted by: rise4310
out of curiousity, cheese and mad, what are your volts? auto?

Whoops, just saw you asked this. I'm at 2.6v in the bios and MBM5 says 2.64.

 

[i1o0i]

dude.. upgrade to windows xp.. windows 2000 is old school

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: madogvt

Originally posted by: rise4310
out of curiousity, cheese and mad, what are your volts? auto?

Whoops, just saw you asked this. I'm at 2.6v in the bios and MBM5 says 2.64.

thanks man

 

[bdoople]

Originally posted by: i1o0i
dude.. upgrade to windows xp.. windows 2000 is old school

n00b