DFI Lanparty 680i

does anyone have this motherboard?
im building a system for a friend and this thing is giving me all kinds of crap...
specs are as follows:
lian li pc60-b plus
corsair hx620
dfi mobo
q6600 g0 + thermalright Ultima 90
4x1gb g.skill pc6400
2x8800 GT 512mb
2x250gb seagate barracudas (RAID0)
lg dvd dual layer burner

symptoms:
cannot install vista 32 bit or 64 bit, blue screens on the raid driver loading
cannot install xp 32 bit, blue screens during the configuration of the setup (after its already formatted the partition, loaded the drivers, and rebooted)
memtest fails if all 4 sticks of ram are in it, but goes on fine with only a pair at a time(doesnt matter which pair, both pair pass, but not both pair at the same time)

is this just a crap motherboard?
waste of 250 bones? should i RMA it through newegg and get the p5n32-sli or the abit 680 sli board?
if i had known that the new 780's were coming so soon, i would have told him to wait another week on it, but i have been jacking with this thing for over a week now.


any ideas?

Sounds like a bad board to me. Is there a way you can flash the BIOS? Could be a bad BIOS too.

i would rather RMA it than brick the BIOS....780 is looking to be more tempting anyway

Have you tried the other components in another rig too? I mean the board seems to be the issue but if you are going to RMA the board you should probably make sure everything else is ship shape too.

everything else seems fine. i have even taken it down to the simplest set up and tried to do an install on a single harddrive. i just dont get paid enough to spend this much time on it, and i would like to just move on and finish the build

I personally have no experience with Nvdia chipsets, but I see alot of complaints about the RAID functions on them. I see you have tried with the single HDD and all, but might be something to consider if RAID is important for the final build.

Had the RAID driver problem myself. Here's your solution if it fits your problem:

http://www.msfn.org/board/Integration-NVIDIA-nForce-Raid-and-SATA-drivers-t51140.html&p=356029

You need to slipstream the proper RAID drivers onto a new WinXP install (not quite sure about Vista).

jimmsch said:

I personally have no experience with Nvdia chipsets, but I see alot of complaints about the RAID functions on them. I see you have tried with the single HDD and all, but might be something to consider if RAID is important for the final build.

Click to expand...

even with the single drive setup it bluescreens while trying to load the sata drivers (the OS cant even see the drive without the sata drivers)
i have never had any previous issues with nvraid before(my DFI Lanparty UT-D/opty 175 setup), and i currently have nvraid setup on my HTPC.
this appears that the motherboard does not like raid OR having all 4 memory slots full

Sederien said:

Had the RAID driver problem myself. Here's your solution if it fits your problem:

http://www.msfn.org/board/Integration-NVIDIA-nForce-Raid-and-SATA-drivers-t51140.html&p=356029

You need to slipstream the proper RAID drivers onto a new WinXP install (not quite sure about Vista).

Click to expand...

i read the first link, but my friend is not looking for xp(i know, hes crazy)
i tried those drivers first for the SATA portion as well as the raid setup...nothing but bluescreens.

i have never had this much trouble with a build before.