Introduction
HardOCP has been one of the biggest fans of the new nForce 680i chipset that you could find...until a couple of weeks ago when it became apparent to us that the data corruptions issues that were being talked about in the community were not some small isolated incidents. The fact of the matter is that I personally get email that refers to every product we have ever mentioned “sucking” in one way or another so we do our best to not jump the gun when we start seeing problems with a specific product. But when our own Daniel Dobrowolski, motherboard editor here at [H], started having severe issues, we knew something was wrong.
nForce 680i Problems & Answers
Cutting to the chase, NVIDIA released a BETA BIOS, the P23, this last weekend that is supposed to fix these data corruption issues. Here is what they had to say:
We posted a BETA BIOS last night which we believe resolves the SATA problem. eVGA team and others are working with customers since last night to have users validate the fix.
So we have been keeping our ear to the ground on this for the last 48 hours and this BIOS does in fact seem to fix some people's data issues. Some people have been installing the new BIOS without any immediate issues being solved, but I think the issue might lay at the feet of the end user. The ugly part of this easy BIOS update is the fact if you already corrupted data on your hard drive, this BIOS update is not going to fix that. So you will of course need to install a fresh operating system as well as reinstall all of your applications.
Please leave feedback about your P23 BIOS experiences in this forum thread.
Drew Henry Interview
Drew Henry, General Manager of MCP Business at NVIDIA, took time to answer some pointed questions that will hopefully give you the solid answers you need in reference to the nForce 680i problems.
Q: Concerning the 680i issues, what EXACTLY is the problem? BIOS, driver, MCP/chipset, or other hardware? Or combination thereof?
A: The problem that some users were experiencing related to signal timings on the motherboard. The new BIOS (P32) corrects this.
Q: Is the fix a workaround that compromises other technology on the motherboard?
A: Absolutely not. We should have caught this in our internal QA process. Unfortunately, we didn't, and we have adjusted internal processes to make sure that this does not happen again. As the manufacturer of these products, we need to be absolutely certain that the quality of the product that is brought to market is top-notch and that the experience that consumers will be receiving is nothing but positive.
Q: Are there “bad” 680i MCPs/chipsets out there?
A: No. This is not a MCP issue. It's really a board issue, and in this case, only with the motherboards that were designed and manufactured by NVIDIA. In fact, boards built by other manufacturers that use the same MCPs, including the ASUS Striker Extreme, ASUS P5N32-E SLI, and the ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboards, are not affected. When you hear of customer issues, your first thought is "how widespread is this," but it was pretty clear early on that it related only to the boards that we designed and manufactured. Talk about embarrassing!
Q: Why would the issue impact one board and not another on the same exact hardware/software install?
A: There are statistical variations in electrical characteristics between boards, which in some cases, can mask the underlying issue. The BIOS adjusts timing in a way that avoids this condition.
Q: Is this P23 BIOS going to cure all 680i users' SATA problems?
A: We believe so. We are releasing a BETA BIOS version so that customers can use it. We are completing our testing and will release a final version soon.
Q: So what do you have to say customers that have had to endure this frustrating set of events?
A: We are sorry they had to go through it. We've spent all of this time, money and engineering resources to make the best possible platform for Intel CPUs, and then just as our customers and partners are experiencing awesome success with the new NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI motherboard, this happens. The bottom line is that our QA process missed this condition. Once we identified the problem it became our top priority to solve it. The information provided by the forum members proved to be very valuable. They were really instrumental in helping us identify this issue and provide a solution.
The Bottom Line
Hopefully NVIDIA has solved this 680i data corruption issue that a small but vocal percentage of 680i users were experiencing. If fixing it was as “easy” as a BIOS fix, (P23 BIOS) we have to say NVIDIA dodged a bullet although they will of course have to absorb some collateral damage. This misstep by NVIDIA surely taints the nForce 680i to some extent, but that will fade if the product stays on track and exhibits the quality traits we have witnessed in our testing. My personal experiences with the nForce 680i have been stellar to say the least. I think knowing that NVIDIA has been done their best to stay on top of this, working 24/7 until they had a fix, says something about the support behind their products. We have seen chipset issues in the past from other companies that have never even responded to the issues, much less corrected them.
Thanks to Drew Henry and his team for solving these problems as well as taking time to personally answer our questions and keeping our readers informed. Kudos to Drew!
