My Foxconn A7DA-S has lost it's mind...

[Mellon Head]

My adventure with the board from hell continues:

I upgraded to Win 7 in October, and things were pretty sunny for a while. I had to dial back my overclock to stock on my Phenom II 920 because Vista just didn't seem to run right. XP ran fine at 3.5 GHz. Go figure.

Since I was running at 2.8 for a while, everything was working okay with Seven, but suddenly my temps froze up. Usually before, it was just the Tcase CPU temp, not the NB and system temps as well. And that only happened when I was OCing. If I reflashed the BIOS, the Tcase temp would come back as long as I ran at stock speed.

Last week, when the temps messed up, I reflashed and it did no good. Two days later I lost all of my HD temps in Speedfan, but I can still see them in HWMonitor. I still have a normal core temperature, so I thought "screw it" and jacked up the FSB.

I now have a stable OC of 3.3 GHz with a max core temp of about 52C. The system temps read at boot up and will show a static value. A reboot after a few hours will show a higher CPU temp when the system comes back, but it won't update. But I know the temp is being read because I used an IR thermometer to compare, and the case temp is pretty much what Speedfan tells me. It just won't update.

Anybody have any ideas?

EDIT: The current BIOS version is the latest from Foxconn: P09

 

[trents]

Have you looked at the coustomer reviews for this board on NewEgg? You might compare the problems you are having with what others report and then make a decision about an RMA.

 

[Mellon Head]

Have you looked at the coustomer reviews for this board on NewEgg? You might compare the problems you are having with what others report and then make a decision about an RMA.

Hey trents. I haven't looked at the reviews yet, but I think I will. It's too late for a Newegg RMA at this point, and I don't trust Foxconn to actually help if I return it to them. They'll just say it's supposed to work that way, like they did with the well known temp problem in the first place. It took months of nagging by users to get them to fix that, so I'm just not too hopeful.

I think I'll just consider this a lesson learned, bite the bullet, and buy a new ASUS or Gigabyte board. And next time I'm not going to read reviews to make my decision. I'm going to read user reviews and comments from here and Newegg.

I'm pretty sure that Foxconn must mean "Horrific nightmare" in some foreign language.

 

[trents]

I've had problems with Gigabyte support as well, being in denial about problems with one of their boards that I owned. I tried to tell them it was the bios but I never got anywhere with them. I finally took the board out of service and replaced it with an ASRock. A few days ago I tested the Gigabyte board again after they finally started putting out some better bioses. I updated the bios and it works great now. I've heard horror stories of just about all of the board manufacturer tech support teams. I'm not sure one brand is better than the other in that regard and they all seem to turn out some lemons.

 

[Mellon Head]

Thanks for the advice, trents. What do you think about these two?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131618

This ones available locally for me, at roughly the same price delivered.

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=EbXqq06yxpJwlABf

I dunno, I've heard good things about ASUS. We've used them for builds at work and they don't seem to break, but none of the guys are really into performance or anything. I don't really care about the integrated graphics, because I have a decent card. Am I better off with the SB710 chipset? I'm leaning that way because it's a little newer and it looks like it will definitely run my RAM at 1066...

 

[trents]

The layout and design of the two boards is practically identical. Both support 140W CPUs which tells me the electronics on both are stout. Both have the ability to support the fastest DDR2 ram available, at least if you can trust the advertising. The real difference between the two is in the chipsets. The one on NewEgg has a better SB chipset (710 with ACC) that will enable you to possibly unlock Phenom 2 CPUs with locked cores. Since you are already using a P2 quad core then that is not an issue. The other board has a 780 NB chipset which gives you a little better onboard video/graphics power. Since you are using a discrete video card that is not an issue either. Use the Gomer Pile method of deciding. Designate your first finger to respresent one board and your middle finger to represent the other board. Wack them against the edge of a desk and buy the board represented by the finger that hurts the most. Seriously, you may have a good point about the one with the 710 chipset offering better support for 1066 ram. I don't know that for sure as I haven't read any input. I would be more inclined to say, "Yeah, that's probably right," if it were a 750SB instead of a 710SB. The 710 may be no stronger than the 700SB but just have ACC. I dunno.

The thing that bothers me about both boards is lack of customer review input. Only 3 buyer reviews on NewEgg. They are new products and you might want to look at something with more of a track record. Just something to think about.

 

[Mellon Head]

Good points. I found the actual technical manual for the SB710 from AMD, and I'm busy reading it to see just what the relative strengths and weaknesses of it are compared to the 750. From what I can tell so far, both are quite similar in operation. The big difference seems to be in the graphics lanes, with the 710 only having one, which negates Crossfire. It's still x16, though...

I don't really need Crossfire. My thought on the 710 vs the 780 is that two are roughly similar in price locally, and skipping the graphics extras that I don't need allows the manufacturer to put a little more into the build. I definitely need ACC, so I think the SB710 might be the way to go. Now, I just need to find a manufacturer.

My company has done well with ASUS boards, which is why I'm leaning that way, and the local shop we buy from has a fantastic hot swap warranty, but Gigabyte makes some nice ones too, so I dunno. Whatever I buy, it sure won't be a Foxconn again.

 

[trents]

I've read on this forum a number of times that ACC doesn't benefit overclocking with the Phenom 2s. Supposedly, that function was built into the Phenom 2s themselves. The Phenom 1s were able to overclock higher with ACC capable boards, however. But then there's the other issue of unlocking cores.

 

[Mellon Head]

I've read on this forum a number of times that ACC doesn't benefit overclocking with the Phenom 2s. Supposedly, that function was built into the Phenom 2s themselves. The Phenom 1s were able to overclock higher with ACC capable boards, however. But then there's the other issue of unlocking cores.

I've heard that too, but my Phenom 2 does work a little better with ACC turned on, it seems, but that could just be the flaky motherboard I have. I'm not like an insane OC'er. I'm pretty happy with the 16% I have over stock right now. It's rock solid at 3.3. With a better board, I might be able to get to a good, stable 3.4, which has been my goal all along.

The Foxconn just starts to act weird at anything above 3.3, and Windows starts to do funny things. I can run Prime and OCCT all day with no problems, but Windows just seems to get a mind of it's own, and the BIOS gets overwritten in places. Nothing serious, but it's like "What happened to my HD audio? Hey my HDMI ports stopped working again. Where did drive F: go now? Time to reflash..."

Her Majesty says I can't have a 965BE, so I have to get there the hard way.

 

[trents]

This one looks good to me: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...001314 107191003 1070947010&name=AM3/AM2+/AM2