DFI NF2 Ultra-AL, not lanparty, good?

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

well it seems like i'm not getting the 8rda3+ after all, newegg doesn't sell the 8rda+ anymore and offered me a refund, this DFI is here to stay

anyway Travis, i was wondering if the fault could be in my power supply, when i overclock the cpu voltage dips down quite a bit when i use prime95, it failed a 24-hour prime95 run at 1.85v and 2100mhz, i'm running 1.9v now, it now runs between 1.84-1.89 according to the sensor, with the set 1.85v at load it ran from 1.82-1.86

with the switching power off in the back causing the problem with the overclock and sometimes having to unplug the board from the power supply and plugging it back in, it makes me wonder if the power supply isn't sufficient for my overclock, i'm using a 433w Enermax EG465AX-VE(W) FCA, i have an Antec TruePower 380S (Silent Version with bigger heatsinks and only one fan) sitting in the closet which has 3% regulation instead of 5% on the Enermax, i can switch them when thanksgiving comes around when i go home to get the antec

tell me what you think, thanks

-Ray

 

[Angry_Games]

see if you can find anyone with a 'multimeter' to test your current psu...but the Enermax ones are generally very good...this isn't to say that it couldn't possibly be the problem, far from it, as we all know good expensive stuff can fail or be faulty just as much as cheapo stuff =)

I'd definitely try the other PSU, but try to watch them closely as to what each is giving out power-wise during normal and load operations.

and good deal, I can call you Ray instead of trying to type that tag of yours out hehehe.

most of these DFI boards do seem a little low in the power areas though...its not so much a fault as just a 'thing' that they seem to have =/ I'll keep bugging for a beta/performance bios for the Ultra-AL for ya =)

T

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

yah, call me Ray

so it's been a few days, wanted to see what's new, any word on a new bios and the testing/review for the overclocking capabilities of the ultra-al?

 

[Angry_Games]

oh ya, good call bro. I just sold the Ultra-AL to a very good customer who will let me come play with it at his house heh.

But while I have it here...its got this in it:

Barton XP2500 AQDEA
GEIL blue shield 1x512 PC3200 DDR 6-3-3-2.5 (the 'on-sale' stuff at newegg all the time lol...its not supposed to work in the NF2 boards!)
WD800 SE hdd (8MB cache)
Sapphire Radeon 9600Pro
onboard audio for now
SK-7 + Thermaltake Smartfan1
Sony DRU-510A DVD burner
DVD-ROM
Nicely modded Maxtop case (awesome airflow!)

CPU - 200x11 @ 2200Mhz 1.675v (cuz the board undervolts a lil...booted up first time to this speed, and loaded XP + everything else!)

RAM - still at stock 6-3-3-2.5, 2.7v, single stick only at this time

Chipset - 1.8v

AGP - 1.6v

knowing that it will do 2200Mhz right out of the gate is impressive. It feels as fast as my DFI NF2 LanParty board...which this basically is without hte pretties heh.

One thing I am trying to get to the bottom of:

NVidia lists the Ultra-AL on their SoundStorm Certification page, and lists it as having the MCP-T southbridge.

My Ultra-AL is clearly marked MCP, but board utilities like CPU-Z show it as being the MCP-T!

Upon seeing this, I turned on onboard sound, as Soundstorm NF2 audio is nearly unbeatable in quality (as good if not better than my Audigy). Unfortunately, it wont take the SS utils, in fact the cdrom only has Realtek 6-channel audio drivers, no SoundStorm!

Strange eh?

ive been too long without sleep. More in about 8 hours when I wake up

Travis (just ordered me some Buffalo PC4200 also btw!)

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

very nice, very nice

2 things i don't understand here:

why give the ram 2.7v when it's supposed to run at 200fsb 2.5-3-3-6 at 2.5v?

and why give the chipset 1.8v at only 200fsb? i thought 1.6v would be sufficient for 200fsb and i'm also thinking that the northbridge will overheat with so much voltage on the chipset since it only has a passive aluminum heatsink on it

my southbridge is marked MCP too, not MCP-T, i didn't have to install drivers when i installed it because i already had the nforce2 drivers installed from the 8rda+ which had soundstorm, my 3dmark03 no longer runs the sound tests because they're not supported, i ran them with the 8rda+ which definitely has soundstorm and the MCP-T southbridge, i'm guessing nvidia made a mistake there and cpu-z as well, it would be nice if it were a MCP-T southbridge...and if there was someway to get it to work as one

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

hey Travis, got a problem here, my Ultra-AL won't stop beeping! since i put 1.9v on the cpu, it hasn't stopped beeping every few minutes, i had to pull the motherboard speaker out!!! everything is stable tho, i had errors in prime95 with the 2.1ghz at 1.85v, none with 1.9v

help meh, please

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

i just changed the voltage of my cpu by 3.0v and it worked flawlessly, i guess the mobo just needed a "burn-in"

still haven't plugged the mobo speaker in , doesn't really matter anymore i guess, i enjoy the no beep startup

*EDIT* hmm, and i just turned off the power supply while tweaking inside the computer, booted up fine and very fast, that problem went away too...

 

[Angry_Games]

oops sorry Ray, been a nasty busy week for me. I remember my old A7V board used to just beep and beep and beep and never would fail or anything though. Drove me crazy until i unplugged the damn speaker too lol.

When i moved it to another rig about 2 years later, it wasn't beeping anymore

some parts might need a good burn-in to run at extreme speeds I suppose. No experience on my end with that but others swear by it =)

oops company showed up, ill post later =)

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

yeah, the problem with the voltages started when i first got the board, i've been using prime95 almost nonstop for the past 2 weeks or so, i guess that burned it in, i also could not run the ram too well before but now it's fine (pc3200 couldn't run 133fsb @ 2-2-2 @ 2.8v without memtest errors, now it can run 133fsb @ 2-2-2 @ 2.5v without memtest errors) i'm pretty sure it was just the mobo needing a burn-in (or the voltage added to the agp and changed ram timings helped), i'm glad everything is fine with the mobo and i don't need an RMA...phew!

i think i prefer the mobo speaker out now,

 

[Angry_Games]

i didnt have to burn my Ultra-AL in, but i am a firm believer that some boards need it. The I875A for example we needed to run the hell out of it for about a week before it would do what we wanted =)

glad to hear its doing great...i got a magical xp1700 dlt3c/jiuhb, PC4200 buffalo, radeon 9800non-pro, and getting a Raptor drive to toss into the NF2 LanParty this week sometime hehe. Booyah. I will get another chance to really crank the Ultra-AL up sometime this week also =)

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

my friend bought an Ultra-AL too and he cranked 220fsb using crucial pc3200 and over 2400mhz out of his 2400+, all this right out of the box and never had any problems

i guess i got a temperamental one

now that all my stuff is burned in, i might be able to test the capabilities of this board and this mushkin blue pc3200 over the weekend, but before then...so much work to do...

i look forward to seeing your results

-Ray

 

[Shroomer]

Can you run that Buffalo 4200 in as many NF2 rigs as you can to test the stability. I've heard the Hynix chips cause problems in NF2 boards. I'm looking into the NF2-AL in particular and that RAM has a very attractive price point.

 

[Angry_Games]

not a problem, ill try to get the Buffalo into as many machines as I can...could only afford 2x256 lol