Venice won't work with NF3/4 boards??!!

[Swatdog]

I took the liberty of writing a few of the major board companies including Gigabyte, DFI, and ASUS. So lets see what they say in return.

 

[Swatdog]

Good news! Gigabyte wrote back to me! Heres the email I wrote to them:

Hello,
I'm writing in regards to the compatibility issue with the NVIDIA
nForce 3/4 motherboards that has arose due to the soon-to-be released
AMD Athlon 64/64 FX Revision E (E0) CPUs (Venice & San Diego cores).
AMD has stated that the CPUs will be compatible with current nForce
chipsets ONLY if a BIOS update has been released. In case you're
interested, here's the article from X-bit Labs (www.xbitlabs.com):

"Representatives for Advanced Micro Devices confirmed on Wednesday
that to support AMD Athlon 64 processors revision E will need a BIOS
update. The company did not reckon any other obstacles to support the
upcoming central processing units that support SSE3 technology among
other advantages.

"Mainboards need fresh BIOS revisions to support the new revisions of
AMD Athlon processors. The new rev parts are 90nm, with SSE3 support,
and a few tweaks to the memory controller and a different OPN," AMD's
spokesman Damon Muzny told X-bit labs.

A web-site last week published a number of news-stories in regards
compatibility of the AMD Athlon 64 revision E0 with different
mainboards shipping today, particularly those based on popular NVIDIA
nForce3 and 4 chipsets. NVIDIA, who said there were no compatibility
issues between its chipsets and AMD's new processors, pointed out that
"a couple" of mainboard makers – ABIT and EPoX products included – did
not follow AMD requirements, but were still able to tackle
compatibility, at least on some of their mainboards, issue with BIOS
update.

"If a board hasn't had its BIOS updated, it won't support the AMD
Athlon 64 rev. E part. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Some
mainboards are just behind with BIOS support. And some mainboards are
ahead of the game and have already updated their BIOS," Mr. Muzny
added.

"There are no issues with AMD chips or NVIDIA's chipsets. Some
mainboards need a new BIOS [version] to support the new processors,"
AMD's official said.

AMD Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX processors revision E0 are those based
on AMD's cores code-named Venice and San Diego respectively. The
desktop AMD64 processors with E0 revision are expected to feature SSE3
technology in addition to several performance improvements and bug
fixes over those found in previous revisions of AMD Athlon 64
processors made using 90nm process technology.

"The mainboards that haven't already implemented support for the new
rev of chips do [require BIOS update]. Many boards already have BIOS
support, but there is no information which ones," Mr. Muzny said.

Mainboards from EPoX and ABIT are claimed not to support AMD Athlon 64
revision E processors, but EPoX has notified X-bit labs it had tackled
the issue. ABIT decided not to respond on the matter."

There have been massive amounts of speculation about your motherboards in terms of whether your current BIOS versions that are being shipped with the
motherboards will support the revision E CPUs without having to update
the BIOS before hand.

It would be greatly appreciated if this would be explained to us from
you, so we can clear up this mess once and for all.

Thank you for your time!
Sincerely,

-C. Hoffmann
[email protected]

GIGABYTE Reply:

Hello,

All Gigabyte Athlon64 boards with a BIOS release date of Jan 2005 will support the new Rev E Athlon64 processor. Current boards available from retailers, may or may not need updating.

DFI Reply:
Nothing as of yet...

ASUS Reply:
Nothing as of yet...

----

So basically, regarding Gigabyte, if you have a motherboard from them with a BIOS version that dates BEFORE Jan '04, then your motherboard will not support Rev. E CPUs. On the other hand, if you have updated your BIOS to the LATEST version, then Gigabyte users are okay. Also, if retailers have a large supply of Gigabyte boards that dates back before Jan '04 and are still selling them (IE: have not reordered from Gigabyte since Jan '04) then chances are that your board will NOT support Rev. E.

I'll keep you posted on replies from DFI and ASUS.

 

[Overclocker550]

well I have the F6 revision bios, when was that made? Is there a F7 bios?

 

[OC Detective]

Well it would not be too difficult to check out what is the latest bios on their website now would it.

 

[Swatdog]

well I have the F6 revision bios, when was that made? Is there a F7 bios?

Go here to find out.

 

[g0dM@n]

I hate gigabyte right now. Their K8NF-9 NF4 that I built for my friend is NOTHING but problems. I tried different RAM, different PSU, and different hard drives on it, and even though it's p95 and memtest stable it gets a lotta errors with proggies in Windows. It even BSOD and reboots often.

I'm RMAing that piece of crap board. I've never had so much problems with a board before like the K8NF-9. Sorry, I had to say that b/c you guys were commenting on Gigabyte's response. I hate them right now for wasting 20+ hrs of my time to diagnose their idiot board.

 

[situman]

Was it overclocked? Its most likely the CPU thats the limit. I remembered a 3.0C that I had, prime9 and whatevers stable but as soon as I leave it alone, it bsods or reboots. I asked around to see wat the issue is, people told me to just keep a load on the cpu since thats the only time it wouldnt crash

 

[Gnerma]

Every company makes a bad board now and then.

 

[rseven]

Every company makes a bad board now and then.

Yes, this is true, but some companies do it more than others. Consumer Reports does some great stats on frequency of repairs on cars and TV's. We could surly use that approach in mobos. Then consumers would know what brands to watch out for. We could generate a lot of stats like that right here at this forum

 

[Gnerma]

Yes, this is true, but some companies do it more than others. Consumer Reports does some great stats on frequency of repairs on cars and TV's. We could surly use that approach in mobos. Then consumers would know what brands to watch out for. We could generate a lot of stats like that right here at this forum

Can you prove that? Not until your project finds critical mass. It sounds great btw, thanks for volunteering to head it up.

Anyway, although I understand that people get angry and frustrated I can only roll my eyes when I see somebody hopping mad and spewing fire all over my screen when they get a bad part. Swearing off the company, calling all their products crap, telling everybody to stay away from them forever etc. It's just part of hardware. You have to deal with it and move on and it behooves you to do it without losing too much hair or breaking anything.

 

[g0dM@n]

Don't get the wrong impression. I'm just frustrated. I actually like buying Gigabyte video cards tbh. I'm not going to stop doing that, but man I've seen reports about this K8NF-9 screwing up with others.

I'm just upset. That is normal. I don't hate the company forever, and it won't keep me from buying Gigabyte again. It's just going to keep me away from that specific motherboard that's just crap.

Btw, Situman (or whoever else)... the board I'm talking about is 100% stock EVERYTHING. No extra cooling, no mods, no overclock... I hope that says enough.

 

[Swatdog]

Don't get the wrong impression. I'm just frustrated. I actually like buying Gigabyte video cards tbh. I'm not going to stop doing that, but man I've seen reports about this K8NF-9 screwing up with others.

I'm just upset. That is normal. I don't hate the company forever, and it won't keep me from buying Gigabyte again. It's just going to keep me away from that specific motherboard that's just crap.

Btw, Situman (or whoever else)... the board I'm talking about is 100% stock EVERYTHING. No extra cooling, no mods, no overclock... I hope that says enough.

Could it be a BIOS issue? When was the last time they updated it?

 

[g0dM@n]

There are two updated BIOSes for that board, the F1 and F2. Mine came with the F2, and also I even reflashed it to the F2 via floppy and still no go. I tried IDE instead of the SATA, and I also tried different RAM. I even did full formats a few times, and all this was tried on WinXP SP2 Pro, and finally I tried WinXP Pro SP1 (thinking that SP2 was buggie with the A64).

I thought it was the PSU finally and so I put in a Thermaltak 420 with the 24pin adapter... no luck.

Trust me, I spent a LOT of time on this.

 

[dropadrop]

Seems there might be some truth behind this rumour after all... I guess it's still too early to jump the gun, but shuttle is warning that the current SN95G5 revisions might not be able to run the venice even after a bios update because:

The FN95 motherboard has a built-in thermal protection that conflicts with the sample versions of the Venice and San Diego.

Let's hope they figure out a way to get around this...