Chaintech VNF3-250 impressions and questions

I just recently took the plunge to socket 754 with a Chaintech VNF3-250 value motherboard and a A64 3000+. Everything seems to be running fine with a few caveats.

1. The CPU temp sensor is way off. It reads 10C when I boot and then just kind of wanders all over the place during use. Anyone know if there is a resolution to this issue, or do I have to wait for a bios update like the ZNF3-250 folks did?

2. Are there any known issues with this board and certain PCI devices? I ask because I had problems with corrupted audio with my Audigy2 ZS and my generic 56K modem was having random disconnects under Windows 2000. Upgrading to XP seems to have solved the problems....but I'm still worried that it could be a deeper problem.


Now some impressions:

The board costed $75. For that money I would say it looks to be a great board. I also got a Retail A643000+ for $150, the only model that I could guarantee would be a CG stepping from Newegg at the time I ordered.

It does not give access to the CPU multiplier but does let you fiddle with FSB, HT, and voltage for the CPU, vdd, chipset, and agp bus. It seems to overvolt approximately +.5 volts (assuming that reading is accurate, I have no way of testing) So far with the stock retail heatsink and AS Ceramique I've been able to run it at 250x10 for ~2500mhz with no troubles with cpu voltage set to 1.55 in the bios (1.61 reported) - it passes Prime95 testing and I played Doom3 for about an hour. I'm a little wary of running at those speeds though until I can get some more accurate temp readings so I've dropped it back to stock for the moment. The heatsink was getting quite hot.

If you're looking for a cheap way to jump into the 64-bit world then I would recommend this board so far - it isn't feature rich but so has yielded good overclocks and performance. It games much faster than my old Barton 2500+@ 2.4Ghz and I was very impressed that it scaled up to 2.5 so easily.

there are some beta bios available that give you the mutli option and corrects the temp reading.

ive had some fairly incredible results with my vnf3-250 just dove into amd for first time like 2 weeks ago and at first was fairly unimpressed with this mobo. after dling the beta bios for it that was released on 7-24 (if i remember correctly) ive been able to pull of a fairly satisfying oc with it

also ive heard it helps to set your agp to 67 instead of 66 because this supposedly activates the pci/agp lock i havent had any problems either way though but ive heard that on more than one thread while trolling around.

I've had this board for several weeks now and absolutely love it. I've always been an Asus or Abit guy, more Abit then Asus. I was a little reserved when I ordered the VNF3-250, thinking that like my experiences with Gibabyte and DFI mobos, I will probably return it in no time. But so far, I'm quite impressed. The board overclocks very well and is quite stable. My board over volts about .8 volts, which is fine with me. And the temp reading seems accurate. Considering I"m running on their first revision BIOS, that's pretty impressive. Only problem I have so far is that if I set the FSB too high or memory speed too high and the PC doesn't boot, resetting the CMOS won't help. For some reason, I need to remove my AGP card, put in a PCI video card then it will boot. Once boot, I can go into the BIOS and set things to default and the AGP card works again. So I keep a PCI video card handy.

I just got this motherboard yesterday.can someone tell me where to dl the latest beta bios for this mobo?I just cheecked their website and it only has the 1.0 ver. (3/x/04) and how can I flash the new version of bios in? Do I need a program to flash it?

Also spazzmattah what's the fsb you had when you get the boot error

CordialSpam said:

Also spazzmattah what's the fsb you had when you get the boot error

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When I set the FSB to 300 and RAM to 133 I get a no post. This could either be my CPU refuses to bot at that speed (300x9=2.7 GHz) or my motherboard doesn't like that high of an FSB.

I also tried FSB of 250 and RAM at 200, wich means trying to run my memory at 250, it also does a no post.

So sweet spot is FSB of 285 and RAM at 166.

I have another question..I see on your sig you replaced the HSF with tornado 80mm fan on the stock HS..does it works well? How much temperature does it dropped from the stock fan vs the tornado?? I think I'm about getting one...is it easy to intsall?

CordialSpam said:

I have another question..I see on your sig you replaced the HSF with tornado 80mm fan on the stock HS..does it works well? How much temperature does it dropped from the stock fan vs the tornado?? I think I'm about getting one...is it easy to intsall?

Click to expand...

I did not even try the retail fan. I removed it right away and installed my Tornado on it. I probably won't be able to run the CPU at more then 2.3 Ghz with the retail fan. The Tornada pushes A LOT of air and cools the heatsink really well. Just a side note, these Athlon 64 seems to heat up significantly at higher voltages. I can run my CPU at 2560 Mhz at 1.55 volts, but it's quite unstable with Prime 95. At 1.55 volts and 2560 Mhz my idle temp was 34 degrees as oppose to 41 degrees at 1.65 volts. So if you plan on bumping the voltage up to obtain stability, plan on cooling the sucker well.

To answer your question about installing the Tornado, it was simple for me. What I did was I tied the fan to the heatsink using some very tiny speaker wires. The wires I used were from an old sound card wire that I had laying around, you know the wire that connects your CD ROM to your sound card. Inside the main wire there are 2 small wires. I used those small wires. The retail heatsink have 4 holes that line up nicely with the 4 holes of the Tornadao. The fan is on there pretty well, I can't see it coming off. But let me tell you that it gets very loud. I have my PC on the other side of the wall, routing all the necessary cables through a hole, so it's rather quiet. Here's the pic.

Thanks for all these infos..I will be getting that fan to replace my retail fan soon

I was having the same problem with the cpu temps being way off and i was using the 8/3/04 bios. I contacted tech support and they sent me an older version which fixxed the temp problem but it doesnt have some of the features the newer version has. But im glad i got it cause my temps were at 48c, much higher than i thought they would be.

I just flashed in the 7/29 bios with WinFlash...everything seems to work well and my temp is at 51c idel with stock cooling and no OC at all...and I cannot seem to find the place to ajust multiplier and fsb:memory ratio..anyone have this problem??? Also my memory is this displayed as 166mhz instaead of 200 at default

spazzmattah said:

Only problem I have so far is that if I set the FSB too high or memory speed too high and the PC doesn't boot, resetting the CMOS won't help. For some reason, I need to remove my AGP card, put in a PCI video card then it will boot. Once boot, I can go into the BIOS and set things to default and the AGP card works again. So I keep a PCI video card handy.

Click to expand...

Just out of curiousity, have you tried just holding in the power button for 5-10 seconds to fully discharge the motherboard? I've had that fix some similar problems in the past where even a CMOS reset failed.

My VNF3-250 has also started showing an interesting quirk. It's very picky about just how well seated my PCI cards are - if they're in too tight it refuses to boot. So I have all my cards seated with the screws about half a turn loose. It's an odd problem that I've never seen in another motherboard....but whatever.

Could someone post a link to this beta bios with proper temp readouts and access to multipliers? The Chaintech US website lists only the initial release bios dated 8/4 (I believe that's the date).

Baalthazaar said:

Just out of curiousity, have you tried just holding in the power button for 5-10 seconds to fully discharge the motherboard? I've had that fix some similar problems in the past where even a CMOS reset failed.

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No, I didn't try that. But I did unplug the power cord from the power supply for over an hour. Wouldn't that discharget the motherboard too?

CordialSpam said:

I just flashed in the 7/29 bios with WinFlash...everything seems to work well and my temp is at 51c idel with stock cooling and no OC at all...and I cannot seem to find the place to ajust multiplier and fsb:memory ratio..anyone have this problem??? Also my memory is this displayed as 166mhz instaead of 200 at default

Click to expand...

The 7/29 bios is the best to use it got rid of any bugs the board hs. The board is excellent and honestly imho you can not beat it for cost. Sure it is not GB but its performance with a 3000 on it is excellent.

I ran my 3000 CG at .24 very easily with a Zalman 7000. I have since sold it to move to S939, I picked up a AV8 Deluxe Wifi for $80 US a smoking deal but now I bought another VNF3 250 and am looking for a chip to tide me over till 3500 prices drop.

The board is that good why bother trying out another brand. Funny thing is I will be able to just plug my 2 raptors in without a form,at soooo nice

CK

I have another question..this board does not have PCI locks right? How does the PCI frequency speed works? same as AGP or it raises if I raise the fsb? Also spazzmattah what was your full load temp oced to around 2500mhz with that tornado on?

CordialSpam said:

I have another question..this board does not have PCI locks right? How does the PCI frequency speed works? same as AGP or it raises if I raise the fsb? Also spazzmattah what was your full load temp oced to around 2500mhz with that tornado on?

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pci must lock with agp if not people wouldnt come near getting the oc theyve been getting with this board.

in my experience if you up the buss on the pci a few mhz you throw everything on pci/ide out of wack ie sound card problems/hdd not booting

hawtrawkr said:

pci must lock with agp if not people wouldnt come near getting the oc theyve been getting with this board.

in my experience if you up the buss on the pci a few mhz you throw everything on pci/ide out of wack ie sound card problems/hdd not booting

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Yep, it has to be locked. I can't find any PCI ratio options in the BIOS to confirm, but there's no way I can run the FSB at 285 without PCI lock.

CordialSpam said:

Also spazzmattah what was your full load temp oced to around 2500mhz with that tornado on?

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Between 47-49 whiling priming.

spazzmattah said:

Yep, it has to be locked. I can't find any PCI ratio options in the BIOS to confirm, but there's no way I can run the FSB at 285 without PCI lock.



Between 47-49 whiling priming.

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those are my max priming temps too im still not 100% faithful in this boards temp readings though reason being is ive had a zalman7000cu my watercooling setup and retail hsf and SUPRISE the max temps on all 3 of those cooling solutions is 48-49c not sure just how feasable that is ive even gone so far as to reseat the zalman and the retail hsf multiple times and even after letting the thermalpaste set temps still max out @ 49c

still the beta bios are a huge improvment over the one these boards ship with.

hawtrawkr said:

ive had a zalman7000cu my watercooling setup and retail hsf and SUPRISE the max temps on all 3 of those cooling solutions is 48-49c

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That doesn't make sense, something's not right. Anyway, regardless of what the actual temp is, my system seems solid. It runs Memtest 86 for 8 hours and Prime 95 for over 22 hours until I stopped it, with 0 errors and 0 warnings.

I am thinking about getting the Venus 12 cooler for my system. Do you think itll make a big difference between venus 12 and the stock HS with tornado on? and I am getting 54 witih NO OC at full load during prime test..don't know what's the problem here..

EDIT: NVM I'm hitting 58!! C at stock! and full load during prime test..really don't know what is wrong..prob the temperature reading is wrong..

CordialSpam said:

I am thinking about getting the Venus 12 cooler for my system. Do you think itll make a big difference between venus 12 and the stock HS with tornado on? and I am getting 54 witih NO OC at full load during prime test..don't know what's the problem here..

EDIT: NVM I'm hitting 58!! C at stock! and full load during prime test..really don't know what is wrong..prob the temperature reading is wrong..

Click to expand...

The stock heatsink is pretty good. But the fan sucks. If you put a Tornado on it, I think it would almost be as good as the Venus 12. But I'll warn you again, it is very loud and there's no way to adjust the speed without modding. So I probably would go with the Venus 12 since its fan looks to be quieter, and the heatsink is better quality. But it's your call whether you want to spend more $. As for your temps, that seems too high for stock speed. How good is your case airflow?