RMAing my NF7-S v2?

[Actaeon]

Current Rig stats:
AthlonXP 2500+ @ 2500+
NF7-S v2
1024mb rebadged TwinMOS PC3200 Winbond BH-5 Chips
Maxtor 80 gig
Maxtor 25.4 gig
GF3Ti200
Antec Truepower 430

I'm thinking of RMAing my NF7-S v2 . I got the board a week ago, so its definatly still under warantee.

Its being a really big pain in the ass. I can't get it to detect more than 2 drives. If I try and plug in a 3rd drive, only 1 appears. So I only have 2 HDs, and no CD-Roms. I had to disable my smaller 25.4gb HD to get the Motherboard to detect my CD-ROM so I could install Windows, and the Network driver, so I could download the newer drives from Nvidias site. Other than that, I have to disable my slave drive, plug my CDRom back in, in order to install things. I've switched the IDE cables around, moving everything from slave to master from secondary to primary, nothing worked. I tried two other drives. One was detected, but it wouldn't eject the CD tray, and the other wasn't detected at all. I'm positive its the motherboard thats the problem. The CD-ROM, HDDs worked in my Epox 8k5a2 with no problems at all. Board uses the latest BIOS 18. It also didn't seem to recognize my SCSI CD-ROM as well. Didn't detect my floppy drive either.

After I was done messing with that, trying to get my computer to boot. It tried to boot from a network, and then it asked me to put in a bootdisk. Not sure what bootdisk for which software, but even if I did know, I didn't have the ability to do so, as I couldn't install a CD Rom without missing a HD of mine. After messing around in BIOS, disabling several things here and there, reseating all my IDE cables, I managed to get it to boot.

My board also seems to spontanously restart every once and a while. I was running my motherboard @ 200mhz FSB (it is rated to go that high, as it supports CPU's of that speed), and it just restarts out of no where. I'm 100% positive it is not my memory. Could be the processor, but even then, I put the voltage pretty high up on the CPU, and it'd still restart. It would Prime95 just fine, then just restart out of no where. I assume that means there were no data curruption with the CPU, so the motherboard must be responsible for the instablity. I know the overclocking voided my warantee on the CPU, but my overclock was in spec with the Nforce2 Ultra 400 specs. As a matter of fact, it even gives me the default option to run a 2500+ (166mhz) or a 3200+(200mhz) on my board from the get-go. I decided to return the CPU to default speeds, but have no had enough usage on the computer yet to see if it restarts or not.

Temps are good as well, 41C under full load.

Think I have a bad board?

And one question, in order to get better cooling on the northbridge, I replaced the generic stuff with some AS3. I'm confident that isn't the cause of my motherboard's problems. What should I do about this regarding an RMA? Leave it on there? Replace it with Generic stuff?

My board is in no way voltmodded or any other physical modifications. I only changed the generic paste to cool the northbridge now.

So in conclusion my board...

Board doesn't detect more than 2 drives of any type...
Weird boot sequence which required me to trouble shoot via BIOs and reseat IDE channels
Instable at 200mhz FSB, positive its not the CPU, memory, or PSU.

I've never RMAed something before, but I'm regretting my upgrade, too much crap to do with it. I've heard these are really good boards, and I still do believe it. I just managed to get a bad motherboard. Any tips at all for RMAing this thing? Think I got a valid "case"?

Thanks for any help
Jonathan

 

[beatle]

My NF7-S would reboot randomly for no apparent reason. My temps were also normal (around 55 full load). I also ran 2x512 megs of TwinMos/Winbond PC3200 w/BH-5 chips. Even at relaxed timings and a LOWER than stock clock speed on my cpu (200x9), I could not run 200mhz fsb. I am now running @ 198x11, 2-2-2-6 stable. I also need a fair amount of voltage to the chipset and memory to do this. I'm not entirely pleased, but I've already modified my board and I cannot RMA it now.

Make sure you're getting adequate contact between the northbridge hs/fan and the nb itself. It is slightly concave and a normal thin layer (like you'd use on a cpu) isn't usually enough. Clean your nb hs/fan off and touch it to the nb's greasy top. If you pick up the nb and it has grease covering it, you're ok. If not, apply additional grease.

Your PSU could be problematic (yes, even an Antec!) if you said you could not eject the cdrom. Can you eject it without the ide cable connected?

 

[Actaeon]

Thanks... that sucks your motherboard can't hit 200mhz FSB stable. Perhaps we got bad boards or something. At any rate, they accepted my RMA. I'll be sending in the board soon, hopefully everything works out.

Anyway, what should I do about the paste on my Northbridge? Is it okay to leave the AS3 there? Or should I remove it and put some generic goop on it? Could they refuse the RMA because of the extra cooling I've put on?

 

[beatle]

I suppose they could technically refuse it since you've modified it. To be safe, you could put some white paste on it. Make sure you do a really crappy job, like they did on my northbridge. :disgust:

 

[Actaeon]

Originally posted by: beatle
I suppose they could technically refuse it since you've modified it. To be safe, you could put some white paste on it. Make sure you do a really crappy job, like they did on my northbridge. :disgust:

Thanks, will change it before I send it out...