Nforce 2 Chipset Run around! Plz Help!

Foosanator · Jun 12, 2004, 04:03 AM

Ok Guys… I am about at the end of the line with the NF2 Chipset. I am going to try and keep this short but it’s a pretty long story. It starts out with my purchase of an Asus A7N8X board. From the start I had troubles getting the 2 matched sticks of Geil 3200 to work in DC. I rma’d the sticks to Geil and they sent me another matched set. This set failed as well. I then purchased a matched set of OCZ 3200. These failed as well. At this point I thought it might be the board itself. I tried to flash to the newest BIOS (the second flash I did on this board as I flashed to a newer version when having troubles with the Geil). The flash failed and the bios was corrupt. I then rma’d the board back to New Egg (which rocks!!). I decided to dump the Asus board and bought a DFI board which had great reviews. I received the DFI board and had the same damn problems with the DC!! Neither the OCZ or Geil ram would work in DC without several errors in MemTest. After surfing the forums for a good amount of time I heard that turning CPC off might help my problems as the OCZ was double sided (and I gave up on the Geil). I tried to flash to the 1-31-04 bios and low and behold it fails. I then decide to invest in a BIOS Savior and another bios from Badflash.com. I also decided to pick up a matched set of Muskin Level 1 pc3500. The parts got to my house and I installed the Savior and new bios and BLAM the [Eartha Kitt] still doesn’t work. Even with the new Mushkin ram and CPC disabled MemTest actually freezes at about 15 min of wall time in DC or SC. I am going to run some further tests in both configs with the OCZ and Mushkin. I am really tired of spending an immense amout of time and throwing a ton of money at this machine.

My system specs are as follows.

Amd XP3200
480 Watt Thermal Take power supply
ATI 9800 pro
DFI LanParty Ultra B
Bios Savior
All Voltages are WELL within Spec.
All Temps are also Well Below Spec.

Any Ideas or Suggestions would be greatly Appreciated! I am about to switch over the the dark side (intel).

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jun 12, 2004, 05:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Foosanator
Ok Guys… I am about at the end of the line with the NF2 Chipset. I am going to try and keep this short but it’s a pretty long story. It starts out with my purchase of an Asus A7N8X board. From the start I had troubles getting the 2 matched sticks of Geil 3200 to work in DC. I rma’d the sticks to Geil and they sent me another matched set. This set failed as well. I then purchased a matched set of OCZ 3200. These failed as well. At this point I thought it might be the board itself. I tried to flash to the newest BIOS (the second flash I did on this board as I flashed to a newer version when having troubles with the Geil). The flash failed and the bios was corrupt. I then rma’d the board back to New Egg (which rocks!!). I decided to dump the Asus board and bought a DFI board which had great reviews. I received the DFI board and had the same damn problems with the DC!! Neither the OCZ or Geil ram would work in DC without several errors in MemTest. After surfing the forums for a good amount of time I heard that turning CPC off might help my problems as the OCZ was double sided (and I gave up on the Geil). I tried to flash to the 1-31-04 bios and low and behold it fails. I then decide to invest in a BIOS Savior and another bios from Badflash.com. I also decided to pick up a matched set of Muskin Level 1 pc3500. The parts got to my house and I installed the Savior and new bios and BLAM the [Eartha Kitt] still doesn’t work. Even with the new Mushkin ram and CPC disabled MemTest actually freezes at about 15 min of wall time in DC or SC. I am going to run some further tests in both configs with the OCZ and Mushkin. I am really tired of spending an immense amout of time and throwing a ton of money at this machine.

My system specs are as follows.

Amd XP3200
480 Watt Thermal Take power supply
ATI 9800 pro
DFI LanParty Ultra B
Bios Savior
All Voltages are WELL within Spec.
All Temps are also Well Below Spec.

Any Ideas or Suggestions would be greatly Appreciated! I am about to switch over the the dark side (intel).

BTW: I don’t use memtest I use doc memory www.simtester.com for memory testing.

Your bios being corrupt sound like your either getting corrupt downloads, using the wrong bios, or using bad floppies to flash with. (floppies suck)

(I'm running a set of Geil pc 3500 in Duel channel as we speak on an nForce 2, a7n8x)

Quote:

Athlon XP 3200 @ 2.5 Gig
Radeon 9700 pro @ 350/648
1 Gig of Ocz 3200 @ 420fsb

Your o/c might account for your errors. Have you tried backing it down/ easeing back on your timeings?

Quote:

All Voltages are WELL within Spec.
All Temps are also Well Below Spec.

Well for reference for our more novice users who mabe reading this within 5% +/- for Voltage tested with a DVM, and under 50C at full load is considered within Spec.

Bicka · Jun 12, 2004, 05:44 AM

Well I know Asus a7n8x board are a bit stringent on what ram can be used DC as I own one myself

http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A7N8X

At the bottom is a list of supported ram, probably old news I'm sure but maybe's the DFI board has the same strict brands?

dipstick · Jun 13, 2004, 01:40 PM

Is that cpu unlocked? I'm asking because if it is you should drop the multi to eliminate any cpu OC and test just the OCed fsb and mem. It's hard to find out what is giving you probs when you're OCing everything at once. Also what fsb are you running? The Asus boards are not known as the best OCers much past 210fsb. Have you tried running in single channel mode?

*AndyOCZ* · Jun 13, 2004, 11:44 PM

Hi Foosanator,

Sorry to hear of your NF2 struggles. What the motherboard companies don't say, is that the NF2 chipset is really meant for 2 x 256mb operation. The chipset is about 3 years old now and has only had relatively minor revisions. 1gb of RAM can work, it's just a much higher load on the memory controller. If you post what memory timings you have been struggling with on the OCZ PC3200, I will try and help. We also have official OCZ support forums over at www.bleedingedge.com . You can find info there, email, PM or post here and we will give all the help we can.

The 5/5 beta bios has been the one we have had the most luck with on the DFI. I always use AWDFLASH on a DOS boot disk to flash. Use "AWDFLASH biosname.bin /cc /wb" from the A: prompt. It will automatically load the bios and no input is needed until it asks to "Save Bios?". /cc = clear cmos, /wb = with boot block. Load bios defaults and reboot after flashing. DO NOT use old CMOS reloaded settings. Clear all of them out by loading new settings. This will save more bios corruption from happening.

Please include the OCZ part number of your modules for help. Thanks

Foosanator · Jun 15, 2004, 11:21 PM

Shoot...
I havent updated my sig in quite a while. I was able to run those speeds on my asus for about a month before the bios just corrupted in the middle of a game of ut04. I am running stock settings on the DFI board as I want to get it to work as designed before I tweak it. I am at work right now so I dont have the #'s off of my OCZ. I will get back to you with that. I am going to rma the DFI back to New Egg. I find it hard to belive that 3 sets of memory wont run in DC on it. So far I have had the Best luck with OCZ as far as DC / Overclocking. I was actually able to get it to work in the past!! I was trying to update the DFI Bios to a "unsupported beta" thats why it probably corrupted. I bought that bios savior and after several failed flashes I was able to flash to the 2nd newest alpha. I still get the same results. This is the most trouble that I have ever had with building a system, and I have built more computers than I have fingers and toes! Thank you guys for the replies!

This is the system I am troubleshooting.
My system specs are as follows.

Amd XP3200
480 Watt Thermal Take power supply
ATI 9800 pro
DFI LanParty Ultra B
Bios Savior
All Voltages are WELL within Spec.
All Temps are also Well Below Spec.

*AndyOCZ* · Jun 16, 2004, 02:13 AM

Foosanator,

I am a self proclaimed expert on the DFI NF2 boards. Having owned all 3 releases and reviewed the NFIIB, along with all the additional testing for OCZ qualifies me prety well. Amy issues or setup info I can help you with, let me know.

Foosanator · Jul 9, 2004, 08:24 PM

Well here is the scoop... I rma'd the board and recieved a new one. (newegg rocks!) and I will be damned if the same thing happened with the new one. MemTest locks up at 57% each time. No matter what ram stick is in which bank. So now i am thinkin that its the processor. I orderd a new 3200 and it came in yesterday. I installed it and the same damn problem. This is the third copy of memtest I have made as well. First on cd 2nd on floppy third on another floppy. I have no clue what to do next!!! Please help!!!

Foosanator · Jul 9, 2004, 08:43 PM

FYI...
The board is a REV A

[color=black]/vpmEdit: removed the quoting, to prevent confusion[/color]

*AndyOCZ* · Jul 10, 2004, 11:52 PM

Hi, lets get you an RMA on the memory. They can test some for you and make sure the replacement will work. Then the memory has been eliminated as possibilty. I will email you with details.

*AndyOCZ* · Jul 13, 2004, 01:47 AM

Hi Foosanator,

Please email me in my signature so that I can send you RMA details. The email you sent has a Driverheaven email address that won't reach you.

Jun 12, 2004, 04:03 AM	#1
Foosanator DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 41 Rep Power: 0	Nforce 2 Chipset Run around! Plz Help! Ok Guys… I am about at the end of the line with the NF2 Chipset. I am going to try and keep this short but it’s a pretty long story. It starts out with my purchase of an Asus A7N8X board. From the start I had troubles getting the 2 matched sticks of Geil 3200 to work in DC. I rma’d the sticks to Geil and they sent me another matched set. This set failed as well. I then purchased a matched set of OCZ 3200. These failed as well. At this point I thought it might be the board itself. I tried to flash to the newest BIOS (the second flash I did on this board as I flashed to a newer version when having troubles with the Geil). The flash failed and the bios was corrupt. I then rma’d the board back to New Egg (which rocks!!). I decided to dump the Asus board and bought a DFI board which had great reviews. I received the DFI board and had the same damn problems with the DC!! Neither the OCZ or Geil ram would work in DC without several errors in MemTest. After surfing the forums for a good amount of time I heard that turning CPC off might help my problems as the OCZ was double sided (and I gave up on the Geil). I tried to flash to the 1-31-04 bios and low and behold it fails. I then decide to invest in a BIOS Savior and another bios from Badflash.com. I also decided to pick up a matched set of Muskin Level 1 pc3500. The parts got to my house and I installed the Savior and new bios and BLAM the [Eartha Kitt] still doesn’t work. Even with the new Mushkin ram and CPC disabled MemTest actually freezes at about 15 min of wall time in DC or SC. I am going to run some further tests in both configs with the OCZ and Mushkin. I am really tired of spending an immense amout of time and throwing a ton of money at this machine. My system specs are as follows. Amd XP3200 480 Watt Thermal Take power supply ATI 9800 pro DFI LanParty Ultra B Bios Savior All Voltages are WELL within Spec. All Temps are also Well Below Spec. Any Ideas or Suggestions would be greatly Appreciated! I am about to switch over the the dark side (intel). __________________ AMD/ATI FTW!!!

Jun 13, 2004, 11:44 PM	#5
AndyOCZ OCZ Technology Guru Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: So. California, USA Posts: 58 Rep Power: 0	Hi Foosanator, Sorry to hear of your NF2 struggles. What the motherboard companies don't say, is that the NF2 chipset is really meant for 2 x 256mb operation. The chipset is about 3 years old now and has only had relatively minor revisions. 1gb of RAM can work, it's just a much higher load on the memory controller. If you post what memory timings you have been struggling with on the OCZ PC3200, I will try and help. We also have official OCZ support forums over at www.bleedingedge.com . You can find info there, email, PM or post here and we will give all the help we can. The 5/5 beta bios has been the one we have had the most luck with on the DFI. I always use AWDFLASH on a DOS boot disk to flash. Use "AWDFLASH biosname.bin /cc /wb" from the A: prompt. It will automatically load the bios and no input is needed until it asks to "Save Bios?". /cc = clear cmos, /wb = with boot block. Load bios defaults and reboot after flashing. DO NOT use old CMOS reloaded settings. Clear all of them out by loading new settings. This will save more bios corruption from happening. Please include the OCZ part number of your modules for help. Thanks __________________ If I can help with an OCZ product or if you need some advice, PM or EMAIL ME. Last edited by AndyOCZ; Jun 13, 2004 at 11:54 PM.

Jun 15, 2004, 11:21 PM	Thread Starter #6
Foosanator DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 41 Rep Power: 0	Shoot... I havent updated my sig in quite a while. I was able to run those speeds on my asus for about a month before the bios just corrupted in the middle of a game of ut04. I am running stock settings on the DFI board as I want to get it to work as designed before I tweak it. I am at work right now so I dont have the #'s off of my OCZ. I will get back to you with that. I am going to rma the DFI back to New Egg. I find it hard to belive that 3 sets of memory wont run in DC on it. So far I have had the Best luck with OCZ as far as DC / Overclocking. I was actually able to get it to work in the past!! I was trying to update the DFI Bios to a "unsupported beta" thats why it probably corrupted. I bought that bios savior and after several failed flashes I was able to flash to the 2nd newest alpha. I still get the same results. This is the most trouble that I have ever had with building a system, and I have built more computers than I have fingers and toes! Thank you guys for the replies! This is the system I am troubleshooting. My system specs are as follows. Amd XP3200 480 Watt Thermal Take power supply ATI 9800 pro DFI LanParty Ultra B Bios Savior All Voltages are WELL within Spec. All Temps are also Well Below Spec. Last edited by Foosanator; Jun 15, 2004 at 11:28 PM.

Jun 16, 2004, 02:13 AM	#7
AndyOCZ OCZ Technology Guru Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: So. California, USA Posts: 58 Rep Power: 0	Foosanator, I am a self proclaimed expert on the DFI NF2 boards. Having owned all 3 releases and reviewed the NFIIB, along with all the additional testing for OCZ qualifies me prety well. Amy issues or setup info I can help you with, let me know. __________________ If I can help with an OCZ product or if you need some advice, PM or EMAIL ME.

Jul 9, 2004, 08:24 PM	Thread Starter #8
Foosanator DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 41 Rep Power: 0	Well here is the scoop... I rma'd the board and recieved a new one. (newegg rocks!) and I will be damned if the same thing happened with the new one. MemTest locks up at 57% each time. No matter what ram stick is in which bank. So now i am thinkin that its the processor. I orderd a new 3200 and it came in yesterday. I installed it and the same damn problem. This is the third copy of memtest I have made as well. First on cd 2nd on floppy third on another floppy. I have no clue what to do next!!! Please help!!! __________________ AMD/ATI FTW!!!

Jun 12, 2004, 05:44 AM	#3
Bicka DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 670 Rep Power: 0	Well I know Asus a7n8x board are a bit stringent on what ram can be used DC as I own one myself http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A7N8X At the bottom is a list of supported ram, probably old news I'm sure but maybe's the DFI board has the same strict brands?

Jun 13, 2004, 01:40 PM	#4
dipstick HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: USA Posts: 3,609 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	Is that cpu unlocked? I'm asking because if it is you should drop the multi to eliminate any cpu OC and test just the OCed fsb and mem. It's hard to find out what is giving you probs when you're OCing everything at once. Also what fsb are you running? The Asus boards are not known as the best OCers much past 210fsb. Have you tried running in single channel mode?

Jul 9, 2004, 08:43 PM	Thread Starter #9
Foosanator DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 41 Rep Power: 0	FYI... The board is a REV A [color=black]/vpmEdit: removed the quoting, to prevent confusion[/color] __________________ AMD/ATI FTW!!! Last edited by Vampyromaniac; Jul 10, 2004 at 07:20 AM.

Jul 10, 2004, 11:52 PM	#10
AndyOCZ OCZ Technology Guru Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: So. California, USA Posts: 58 Rep Power: 0	Hi, lets get you an RMA on the memory. They can test some for you and make sure the replacement will work. Then the memory has been eliminated as possibilty. I will email you with details. __________________ If I can help with an OCZ product or if you need some advice, PM or EMAIL ME.

Jul 13, 2004, 01:47 AM	#11
AndyOCZ OCZ Technology Guru Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: So. California, USA Posts: 58 Rep Power: 0	Hi Foosanator, Please email me in my signature so that I can send you RMA details. The email you sent has a Driverheaven email address that won't reach you. __________________ If I can help with an OCZ product or if you need some advice, PM or EMAIL ME.