"Official" DFI nF4 Ultra-D / SLI-DR Thread

[Demo24]

yeah Ill work on that tomorrow. I plan to run them at more like 2-2-2-7 considering Anand recommended that

 

[Tripp17]

I love this board to death! Im finally able to overclock the way i want and performance is to die for. I had the Asus A8N-SLI and couldnt get past 245 fsb.....well, no more. Ive gotten my memory to 300(ddr600) 1T with a 1:1 ratio and my processor is at 3 gigahertz....need i say more? To keep it "modest" ive brought my memory for everyday use at 550ddr at 1T w/ 1:1 ratio......lol. Best board ever, and it cuns ALOT cooler too.

 

[Demo24]

thing that bugs me is the heatsink fan for the Nf4 chipset. Mine seems to want to run in the mid 40c range. Puts out a lot of heat to. Put your hand near the bottom right of the board and its noticably warmer than the rest

 

[PascalT]

got it up andrunning

had problems with a stick of ram tho..

windows wont detect my sata drive..iinstalled the DFI drivers...any ideas?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Ok, got the Ultra-D board and everything up and running.

Before I put the board in I went ahead and took the chipset fan off and tried the mod. Now I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but all that needs to be done is take a pencil and make a line connecting the two little things (for lack of better word) that aren't connected like the other two pairs? If that is correct then I did it. I scraped off the the thermal pad that was on the heatsink/fan of the chipset and put a dab of AS5 on as I was getting 40C temps for it. Well it didn't change much (sits about 38C now. As for if the mod worked, I don't know. Everything I've tried thus far to find out if its recognizing the chipset as the SLI one is a no go, er I mean, I can't tell. CPU-Z, 3DMark, PCMark all just say its an nF4 chipset but doesn't designate it as an Ultra or an SLI, so I have no clue if its working. Perhaps I need the newer drivers for it.

Also, an odd thing, when using CPU-Z, when I click on the memory tab, it locks up and has to close. I was curious if anybody knows if the TCCD chips are having some compatibility issues with the board? I have the Mushkin Level II Black DDR550 which should be using the TCCD chips.

I'm playing with the overclocking now, so I'll report on what I can manage. I'm confident temps won't be a problem, as my 3000+ idles at about 25C and gets down to 23 often. I haven't seen it get to 30 even under load. Right now SmartGuardian is reporting 24-25 CPU, 30-31 PWM IC, and 38C Chipset.

Hmm, tried checking out DFI's website to see if there was an updated BIOS but I can't get to it. Is anybody else having this problem and is the site down? Curious as we've just today put our Linksys router with hardware firewall into our network and I think that it might be blocking it, but thought I'd check.

For reference, here's what I've got:

Ultra-D
3000+
Mushkin LvlII Black DDR550 (should be TCCD chips)
Antec Neopower 480W
Either X850XT PE or 6800GT
Seagate SATA II drive

 

[ryant]

SLightly disappointed with the board, prolly not its fault - running with the 20pin has been a problem for my RAM.

I replaced the generic stuff with some KingMAX ram and it still didnt work, so i upped the voltages - took it to 3V before i could get the system to run stable.

 

[dornick]

Question: Is a 24 pin PS, which everyone seems to be recommending for the SLI-D, needed for the Ultra version? What sort of amperage should I be looking for for a single high-powered GPU?

 

[shira]

Newegg just dropped the price on the Ultra-D to $149 shipped.



$149 Ultra-D

 

[Demo24]

Originally posted by: dornick
Question: Is a 24 pin PS, which everyone seems to be recommending for the SLI-D, needed for the Ultra version? What sort of amperage should I be looking for for a single high-powered GPU?

its the same board just doesnt have the SLI connector for the video cards. and of course the SLI chip is replaced by a ultra

 

[mooncancook]

Originally posted by: Teetu
the price of this board seems to be stabilizing quickly, at least compared to the asus.

I was wondering if anyone had this installed on a super lanboy. I was concerned whether or not the karajan module is able to fit under the 120mm fan (I know the centurion had issues).

It fits nicely. But the font audio port wires are not long enough to reach the karajan module

 

[Sea Shadow]

Originally posted by: PascalT
Word from up here in Canada is that DFI keeps delaying the supplies for unknown reasons. NCIX tho still has them in stock, and jacked up the price 6.00. I smell fish.

Odd mine arrived from NCIX last week, and in perfect condition.

 

[PascalT]

Yep, that's the D version, the DR version is in MASSIVE backorders right now..

btw, anyone had issues with their ram with this board?I am using 2x512mb sticks from Samsung, pc2700, and i can't use 2 or my system is unstable. i get blue screens..

 

[Demo24]

Originally posted by: PascalT
Yep, that's the D version, the DR version is in MASSIVE backorders right now..

btw, anyone had issues with their ram with this board?I am using 2x512mb sticks from Samsung, pc2700, and i can't use 2 or my system is unstable. i get blue screens..

might want to go into BIOS and load optimised defualts or change some memory settings.

 

[HannibalTheCannibal]

Originally posted by: vanvock

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: AthlonAlien
I couldn't resist and ordered 1 fro NewEgg just a few minutes ago

Considering the three cases I've heard of that indicate that the DFI arrangment of components within the package is less than optimal, and the on-board power and reset switches can get mashed, could you report back one way or another and let us know what shape your board is? Maybe DFI should be notified if this is a common occurrence.

Got mine from ZZF, no damage. Didn't see a memory forum so I'll ask this here. I've got Corsair TwinX, which is listed as CAS2 but then I found out that is on Intel systems & it's listed as 2.5 on AMD (That's as tested on an NF2 board). Has anyone tried this memory yet? Any chance it will do CL2 on the NF4? On the modules is CMX512-3200C2 XMS3202v5.1 How can I find out if they are TCCD or other without pulling the heatspreaders?

I had a set of the C2 corsairs, they were horrible performers. did 420 at 3-6-6-9, with 2.8V.
I RMAd them and spent extra money for the XLPT Corsair PC3200 (2x512) TCCD chips, these are at 440 right now with 2.7V and at 2.5-3-3-11 very stable. I outscored my previous pcmark04, 3dmark03, and 3dmark05 scores.

 

[imported_doc007]

For the record I'm runing the Ultra-D with a Antch 380 Trupower (20 pin) PSU and it works fine. I don't think I'll try to overclock (or not much) with it though till I get a 24 pin with more powere.

 

[Teknet]

Whilst I'm patiently waiting for an SLI-DR board to become available, I've been trying to figure out which memory to get. I've been contemplating the Corsair XMS TWINX1024-3200XL because of the 2-2-2-5 timings. Has anyone used this memory on their board yet? If so...how well does it work? Thanks!!!

 

[khurios2000]

does the Ultra-D support RAID 0 with 3 disks?
anybody knows?

 

[imported_mxracer]

I found this on DFI's site, "recommended memories for NF4 boards". Hope this helps, at least as a starting point for some of us who havent decided on ram yet.

http://www.dfi.com.tw/Support/mb_faq_us1.jsp?FAQ_ID=3577&PAGE_TYPE=US&SITE=NA

 

[PascalT]

For those who wonder, the onboard sound on the DFI is pretty sweet. Compared to my SB Live, I'd take the onboard one. It just sounds clearer to me. Not to mention the controls are very nice and easy to use/access.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Thats good to know ... i can finally chuck my soundblaster live (it hates my mic) .

 

[Waylay00]

Would Crucial Ballistix PC4000 Tracer be good for the DFI NF4 boards?

 

[Demo24]

Originally posted by: Waylay00
Would Crucial Ballistix PC4000 Tracer be good for the DFI NF4 boards?

im useing the non tracer stuff. working fine for me. Though im so overwhelmed by the BIOS options I dont know what to change to get it optimised

 

[PascalT]

I agree. I'm not a pro by any means but I use to think I had a clue.. lol. there's ALOT of settings.

 

[ryant]

Originally posted by: PascalT
Yep, that's the D version, the DR version is in MASSIVE backorders right now..

btw, anyone had issues with their ram with this board?I am using 2x512mb sticks from Samsung, pc2700, and i can't use 2 or my system is unstable. i get blue screens..

Yeah I worked it out the hard way... cant use any of that generic crap on this board. Youll need to up the voltages quite a bit more than normal to get any sense outa the RAM.

Mobo default = 2.6, KingMAX specs = 2.7 MAX, Current RAM voltage = 3V.

Quite common, especially if you using 20pin. After that its damn smooth though =).

 

[darkswordsman17]

Yeah, this board has so many things to adjust its just crazy (why do we need a jumper to adjust the voltage to the PS/2 ports?), but hey, it gets me to learn new stuff so its all good.

I haven't messed with timings at all and for the RAM all I've adjusted has been voltage and ratio.

Right now I'm running 1:1 with my RAM at DDR550 (275) which with the 3000+'s x9 multiplier is 2.475 Ghz. I've been testing out different settings and might have been able to reach this with the stock CPU voltage (1.4), but right now its at 1.45. The RAM is at 2.7.

I tried tinkering to get up to 2.7, but couldn't get it to go. It was even unstable at 2.65 or so. I think I was able to get stable at 2.55. I need to find the sweet spot for my RAM as for timings and voltage. Hopefully maybe I'll be able to get my RAM to DDR600 and keep it 1:1 and get to 2.7. I'm not sure which is holding me back, that the RAM is becoming unstable or the CPU is.

Any tips for the best way to isolate and find out?

Temps aren't a problem as I had predicted, still idles about 25C and loads up to about 33-35.