680i support

[D007]

I don't know about the rest of you but this dang chipset has been giving me headaches.. I am hoping we might be able to share info and find out what works best with this hunk of junk..

( I am on the evga 680i sli)

My problem lays here.. VOLTS!!..lol.. I hear people talking about running 3.6 ghz on 1.5v and so forth.. well if i tried to do that my system would like not even boot. to get 3.6 i would have to go above 1.6v.. which seems ridiculous to me.. not just that to be honest, I have corrupted data issues way to often and just had my first memory failure last night. things just keep getting better lol.. evga hasn't fixed anything worth mentioning. what they have done is say "we are looking into it" for the past 5 months.. their solution so far has been to tell you to disable settings and not use this or try that..lol.. the p26 bios update left motherboards unuseable after it was installed on many of them.. and these are supposed to be fixes? lol.. wow.. can it get worse? I hope not, but I'm not holding my breath, I'm expecting a complete and total crash anyday now.. At least then when it happens it wont bug me as bad. I still get one beep on boot up too and i can't find any information about having one beep on boot up anywhere and i have looked. That didn't happen when I first installed the board but it has happened ever since after the 1st week.. it's really annoying to start up to the sound of "hey somethings wrong with me and i dont know what" "BEEP"... "let's just keep going and hope for the best".. I swear i think i can hear my mobo screaming in pain lol.. I have a new nick name for it.. "Frankenstein"

but as for the volts...am i doing something wrong? should i be overclocking my memory to go above 800 ddr? would that help? if i up my memory voltage would that help stabilise me during memtest?
if i try to run memtest at voltages people are saying they can run at ( some people anyway ) the system just shuts down.. i have been assuming it is simply because there is not enough voltage to the fsb.. but could it be not enough voltage to the memory or because i havent raised my memory to sync up with the fsb? is that something that is necessary for stability? can I run 750 mhz memory and 3.6 ghz? would that cause instability? i figured a lowered memory would make it easier on the fsb.. am i wrong?

I have changed my timings but they make such a minimal impact in regards to me booting or not when their set at basic levels.. i run 5-5-5-18 to be reserved on it while i oc. My memory is only set for like 1.8 v but i hear it oc's well.. it's nothing special but i cant complain, it seems to be doing it's job.. but could it be the memory causing me to not be able to oc better?

any info would be helpful but please lets keep this page professional, no opinions and garbage clutter, just cold hard facts that have been tested and tried and true.. if you find someone in here to help u out just send private messages please..

well I hope we get something out of this.. i don't know about you all but this mobo has been giving me migranes.. im getting really tired of rebooting and reinstalling windows and reformatting.. yea, it's that bad..:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[Namslas90]

Several problems with that chipset, check this link;

http://digg.com/hardware/NVIDIA_nForce_680i_Chipset_Problems

[D007]

Yea I have been running into a few.. I have had serious issues with corrupted data and so forth.. I got sick of it last night and wrote evga a complaint letter after registering my products with them.. here is the letter i wrote them..

__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________

Complaint:
I bought your evga 680i sli mobo and it has caused me nothing but
trouble.. is this something I can look forward to from evga or should i
spend my next 2 grand i get on asus parts?

I bought your geforce 8800 video card (((which has performed very
well))) and your 680i mobo and the mobo has caused me constant grief..
it overclocks like garbage.. i need to run nearly 1.6 volts just to hit
3.4 ghz on a pentuim dual core conroe.. thats garbage.. i should be able
to get that at like 1.4 -1.5 volts max..

the bios updated fixed virtually nothing, i keep having crashes and
unexplained boot downs. your sata ports are misnumbered and your
multipliers are incorrect.. how much more gehtto can this be? is this
typical of evga products? this is the first time i bought from evga and
if this isnt fixed soon it will be the last.. and i dont buy half grade
gear for cheap prices..

I hope you guys are working on fixing these hardware and software issues
because this 680i is the biggest joke on the market right now.. i wish i
was kidding and you wish I was kidding but we both know I'm not..

I'm about to throw this piece of junk against the wall.. it'd be worth
the 220 bucks i spent on it just to have the pleasure of watching it
break into a million pieces. the mcp spp runs extremely hot by the way
and defaults to what ntune states is a critical voltage level... yea
that cant be good..

all in all I am just very disappointed. I bought something I thought was
top of the line and it turns out it's the bottom of the barrel for top
of the line prices..

But on the same note i understand new technology has it's quirks. but
you guys have had a long time now to fix these issues or issue some kind
of recall on them and nothing has been fixed as far as i can see.. this
thing is supposed to be a beast.. but it is being put to complete shame
right now in every review i read. if thats the kind of name evga wants
then I am sorry..

It took me like a solid day just to find out how to update my bios with
evga.. links were old or not valid or out of order..

all I can say is if it's fixed you keep a customer, if it's not, well
you loose one.. but not some kid who spends 50 bucks.. a man who spends
thousands. im sure gigabyte and asus wouldnt mind a new customer,
especially with that nice new striker on the market that absolutley puts
this 680i to shame..

a whole month i have been trying to work with this mobo and for a whole
month i have had to reofrmat my hard drive
(( and it's linked in raid 0 array so it takes me a very long time to
reformat)).... I have had to wipe and reformat my hd's about 5 times
this month.. no im not kidding.. this is totally ridiculous.. please
fix the problems already.. make this board what it was "supposed" to
be..

this board is definitely vista ready lol.. it's just as much garbage as
vista, im sure theyll get along very well.. i have vista, maybe my evga
items should join vista in the box of "things never to use again"?



and their response was:
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________

We apologize for this particular issue. I will forward your information
to on of our techs to try to help you resolve this issue. If you have
any additional questions, please contact us at
http://evga.com/support/getSupport/.



__________________________________________________ ___________________________
__________________________________________________ ___________________________

Funny they kinds of seem like their trying to make it sound like im the only one having the problem lol.. "This particular issue?" lol.. this board is riddled with "particular issues".. don't buy one unlesss they fix it.

[D007]

oh lmao.. i just realised they mispelled "ONE" lmfao... great and these are the people who made my mobo, oh yea, i have faith they can fix it..lol... can you taste the sarcasm?

[newtekie1]

You know eVGA doesn't actually make the motherboard, right? They are reference boards that eVGA just slaps their stickers on. So the problems aren't totally their fault, but if I was them I wouldn't sell a product that is so plagued with problems, so in that respect it is their fault. Apparently there is a new revision of the board(not BIOS, the actual board) that fixes a lot of the problems people are having.

D007, it sounds more like the problems you are having with your overclock is the processor simply can't do 3.6GHz at the voltage and temperature you want, that isn't a fault of the motherboard. Also, make sure you have the chipset fan installed, do not even attempt to overclock without that in place, the chipset just gets too hot and begins to get flakey.

Getting to 3.6GHz with a E6400 isn't easy on any board. Going much past the 400MHz FSB barrier can be a pain, you really have to know what you are doing. Once you get there it isn't a matter of just upping the CPU voltage to maintain stability. Usually the chipset voltage needs to be raise, the memory needs to be watched especially if you are running it 1:1, there are a bunch of things you need to look at when going that high. Remember, the motherboard was really only rated to go upto 333MHz, any higher than that is pushing it father than it was ever really meant to go.

The CPU requiring a large amount of voltage to stay stable is no fault of the motherboard, and CPU getting super hot under that voltage is also not a fault of the motherboard. I guarantee you that the people hitting 3.6GHz on E6400s are not using stock cooling. The stock cooling is fine for up to around 3GHz, but anything past that is pushing it, IMO.

[D007]

You know eVGA doesn't actually make the motherboard, right? They are reference boards that eVGA just slaps their stickers on. So the problems aren't totally their fault, but if I was them I wouldn't sell a product that is so plagued with problems, so in that respect it is their fault. Apparently there is a new revision of the board(not BIOS, the actual board) that fixes a lot of the problems people are having.

D007, it sounds more like the problems you are having with your overclock is the processor simply can't do 3.6GHz at the voltage and temperature you want, that isn't a fault of the motherboard. Also, make sure you have the chipset fan installed, do not even attempt to overclock without that in place, the chipset just gets too hot and begins to get flakey.

Getting to 3.6GHz with a E6400 isn't easy on any board. Going much past the 400MHz FSB barrier can be a pain, you really have to know what you are doing. Once you get there it isn't a matter of just upping the CPU voltage to maintain stability. Usually the chipset voltage needs to be raise, the memory needs to be watched especially if you are running it 1:1, there are a bunch of things you need to look at when going that high. Remember, the motherboard was really only rated to go upto 333MHz, any higher than that is pushing it father than it was ever really meant to go.

The CPU requiring a large amount of voltage to stay stable is no fault of the motherboard, and CPU getting super hot under that voltage is also not a fault of the motherboard. I guarantee you that the people hitting 3.6GHz on E6400s are not using stock cooling. The stock cooling is fine for up to around 3GHz, but anything past that is pushing it, IMO.



thats the first good response i think I've had yet...lol.. I just started learning overclocking a month ago.. I am no dunce by any means and am very capable of doing it, but seeing people running this high fsb while im stuck at a 3.2 was getting to me.. well that and an insurmountable amount of corrupted data and hard drive reformats lol.. I know that ones not my fault anyway..:laugh: the mcp spp runs at critical voltage on this mobo on default settings.. is that even safe? my voltage setting are within safe limits for the cpu but I agree I need better cooling.. can you recommend the best paste out there so I can reset my cpu.. i didnt like the paste that came on it. im buying water cooling this friday if i can afford it.. maybe a recommendation for that? im still kind of new to this but not for long :D.. i just want to know im going to buy a good water cooling product that can handle expansion to quad if necessary and handle high temps well. I intend on pretty much maxing things i can max within tolerable safe limits.

[newtekie1]

Well I can tell you right now, the corrupt data is probably caused by something being unstable during overclocking, even on my P5B I have that problem if I push it too far. It has even gone as far as corrupting the BIOS(which I didn't even know was possible).

There is a thread around here somewhere that lists the best pastes, I think Coollab's Liquid Metel was pretty high on the list, but also pretty distructive if you get it around aluminum. Personally I stick with the trusty Arctic Silver 5, it isn't the best out there anymore, but it has never let me down.
*EDIT: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=26300

As for water cooling, I haven't been in the water cooling game for about 2 years, so I am sure it has all changed. I found it was simply too troublesome to deal with, so I went back to air. Though I am sure the best option is still to not buy a pre-made kit, or buy one from someplace like DangerDen which really just takes their individual parts and configures a kit for you from them. The other pre-made kits from places like Thermaltake generally don't perform as well as a similarly priced custom system.

[D007]

Well I can tell you right now, the corrupt data is probably caused by something being unstable during overclocking, even on my P5B I have that problem if I push it too far. It has even gone as far as corrupting the BIOS(which I didn't even know was possible).

There is a thread around here somewhere that lists the best pastes, I think Coollab's Liquid Metel was pretty high on the list, but also pretty distructive if you get it around aluminum. Personally I stick with the trusty Arctic Silver 5, it isn't the best out there anymore, but it has never let me down.
*EDIT: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=26300

As for water cooling, I haven't been in the water cooling game for about 2 years, so I am sure it has all changed. I found it was simply too troublesome to deal with, so I went back to air. Though I am sure the best option is still to not buy a pre-made kit, or buy one from someplace like DangerDen which really just takes their individual parts and configures a kit for you from them. The other pre-made kits from places like Thermaltake generally don't perform as well as a similarly priced custom system.



cools thats plenty of info for me.. now i just need to find some adviseable liquid cooling solutions.. fans just dont seem able to cut it.. this is wherre I fail lol.. i knwo nothing of liquid cooling at all.. so this should be an adventure..thanks for the help newt, it is very much appreciated :D