Official DFI NF4Ultra-D/SLi owners thread.

Indy500 · 14 May 2005 at 01:42

ricco said:
Just flashed to BIOS 510-3beta , and found the following:

1: New memory config option, Dram Response Time - Fast/Normal

2: Memory Bandwidth increase (at same FSB/timings). For me equaled about 120MB/s, confirmed by a 0.4s decrease in SuperPI time.

3: Showing AMD X2 support (shows CPU 1 on POST screen).

So far it seems a little faster and no decrease in stability for me

Nice!

[timko] · 14 May 2005 at 08:36

Here's some info ripped straight from DFI-Street regarding these new beta BIOSes...

DFI-Street said:
Posted by RGone in the 5/09 Beta thread

-1 uses 3.26 ram table
-2 uses 3.16 ram table
-3 uses 3.10 ram table

That is correct from a msnm conversation with Oskar.

Ok a couple of other points you might want to know and consider.

3/10 ram table limits you to 'two' stick dual channel to Orange slots still.

Since the 3/16/05 bios sticks could go into Yellow or Orange slots and NOT have warning to place sticks in Orange slots. This means bios with ram tables 3/16 and 3/26 can have two stick dual channel in either Yellow or Orange slots.

Now knowing that you should be able to take advantage of this feature for "however much" you find it worth.
Yellow slots 1 and 3 are supposed better suited for HI voltage and therefore UTT/BH-5 types of memory.
Orange slots 2 and 4 are supposed better suited for normal lower voltages and therefore TCCD/TCCC/TCC5 types of memory.

Ok I had moved to the 4/14-2 series of bios about 12 days ago because I need to see what users are seeing. No matter that my FAVORITE is 3/16/05. Now you can take that sentence above and change "is" to *was*. This ******* bios ROKS as good as the 3/16/05 bios did. Yes using 509-2 is using 3/16 ram table and this mother is righteous for me.

Hear me carefully. Was playing with some wonky TCCC that was doing 240x11 pretty fair but would not boot even 244x11. Now boots 245x11 but not fully stable. That tells me the bios is MORE forgiving.

Another feature I find of this bios with "E" stepping cpus is that during bootup the boot process "holds" slightly at the welcome screen now and pounds the hale out of the Nvidia LAN before jumping into windows and NOW when it hops on into windows there is no more waiting for LAN to get IP address and NO warning displayed that there has been a "missed" connection to LAN.

So in general this bios has so far for me "presented" a much "cleaner" move towards a full boot of windows with the result that when in windows and expecting to be ready to "DO" business> NOW YOU CAN.

EDIT: for more information about bios characteristics. IMHO, this bios is 3 times as fast now in loading webpages than the previous 4/14-2 version. And remember all I have changed is the bios. I put settings back to the same as used with 4/14-2 and this thing just ROKS more.

MORE EDIT: Further down in the bios is a 'new' setting between Max Asynch Latency and Read Preamble called DRAM RESPONSE TIME = Normal or Fast. It is quiet possible that this bios will work better for those of you with marginal memory > read possible some of the wonky 'value' stuff. Some of you users that replaced the wonk with sure nuff ram > give the bios a try in 'normal' not fast and see if the average ram does not do better and report back. RGone...Again...

RGone...

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11617

FreeStream · 14 May 2005 at 09:16

Flashed with 10-5-2005, it is much quicker than 14-4-2005 is at booting, Sandraing now to see any other differences!

Concorde

FreeStream · 14 May 2005 at 09:35

CPU speed has slightly increased over 4-14, however memory bandwidth has dropped by 100-200mb/s

14-4-2005

10-5-2005

Quicker boot times, will clock later!

Concorde

Saftlad · 14 May 2005 at 09:37

Did you change the new memory setting from normal to fast.

FreeStream · 14 May 2005 at 09:41

Yes, I did, all the other settings are back to how there were on the 14-4-2005 BIOS.

I gained 50mb/s from 'Normal' to 'fast' but it still isnt as fast as the 14-4-2005.

My Network IP Search problem has gone, and startup time is 4 secs quicker!

Concorde

smids · 14 May 2005 at 11:24

Well here is some weirdness. I was running 11x250 stable last night before the flash, then after flashing to 510-3, that was no longer stable. So I switched to the previous unstable 10x275, which of course is now stable. And thanks to [timko] I'm running at 2.5-3-3-6 @275

[timko] · 14 May 2005 at 12:01

smids said:
And thanks to [timko] I'm running at 2.5-3-3-6 @275

I'm only as good as the OCing guides that I read and pass on

Now how about dropping the multiplier and getting yourself some 300Mhz action?

smids · 14 May 2005 at 13:26

Hmm....if I did 300mhz, I would be stuck on either 2700mhz or 3ghz. I don't think I can get 3ghz on this chip on water. For now 275mhz is fine

It did however take 2.9V to get the memory stable at this, but I have an 80mm fan pointing at the PWN IC and therefore some cool air blowing over the RAM too. The PWN IC now only reaches 45C full load rather than the 57C it used to.

ricco · 14 May 2005 at 13:34

Smids,

you might make 9x325 with memory at 183 setting should get as near as .

monkeygabriel · 14 May 2005 at 13:49

going to give my vx another blast with the newer BIOS. so which one then -2 is best?

smids · 14 May 2005 at 13:50

For VX, yes -2 is the best.

Scoobie Dave · 14 May 2005 at 13:59

Concorde Rules said:
Finally got 2.5-3-3-6 @ 280FSB but its with 2.9V would that be okey for long term use with TCCD? It has a fan over it and a Xp-120 with 120mm.

Concorde

Any chance you could post down your bios settings?

Jimbo Mahoney · 14 May 2005 at 14:30

Has anyone else had this problem where I can boot into 2000 Pro and benchmark 3DMark @ 9 x 324 (2.91 Ghz), but winXP won't start (the board reboots) with a CPU Speed of more than 2.4 Ghz?

monkeygabriel · 14 May 2005 at 16:24

ok did a bit of fiddling.as was said in the DFI post about the yellow slots better for VX.well i put my 2 vx in there and flashed to 510-2.rebooted. now at 10x multi i set HTT to 250 and into memtest.test5&8 just fine.so upped the HTT to [email protected](I had already had these stable previously at that speed and voltgae. into memtest and errors everywhere even on test #2!EEEK I thought. so back to 250 and tried 11 multi, gets to DMI pool after post then reboots.no matter what timings same thing.so i though the 510-2 is carp. so flashed to 509-2 same thing again. had a think about it and then put DIMMS back into orange slots and guess what.passing at 255 as expected and booting fine with 11x.

so basically dont use yellow slots at all as they make the 11x unusable or at best unstable and also lower clocks severely!

so then I messed about and basically put all the timings as low as they would go and I can get stable at 3.5V at 268MHz which is 4MHz better than i could with 414-2 BIOS.
will play around more and try the 510-2 again later now that I know the yellow slots are a waste of time for o/c.

but atm this 509-2 BIOS looks really good as was able to be stable even with Trp,Twr,Twtr and Trtw on their lowest settings at 4MHz higher than before.
sandra gave 7259 MB/s bandwidth.

Wingz · 14 May 2005 at 16:37

the yellow slots was a no go for my VX ram as well.

monkeygabriel · 14 May 2005 at 16:38

Wingz said:
the yellow slots was a no go for my VX ram as well.

have you tried the 509-2 and 510-2 yet?the 509-2 certainly adds a few precious MHz and allows tighter timings.

Jimbo Mahoney · 14 May 2005 at 17:04

Jimbo Mahoney said:
Has anyone else had this problem where I can boot into 2000 Pro and benchmark 3DMark @ 9 x 324 (2.91 Ghz), but winXP won't start (the board reboots) with a CPU Speed of more than 2.4 Ghz?

OK, I can boot into Safe Mode @ 2.916 Ghz (same as Win2k), but no other mode of XP works. It just reboots before even showing the Windows XP logo!

EDIT - BIOS 310 is no different.

ricco · 14 May 2005 at 17:39

Jimbo Mahoney said:
OK, I can boot into Safe Mode @ 2.916 Ghz (same as Win2k), but no other mode of XP works. It just reboots before even showing the Windows XP logo!

EDIT - BIOS 310 is no different.

Too much with your Overclock, probably.

back it off a little and see where you can run stable.

Jimbo Mahoney · 14 May 2005 at 17:41

ricco said:
Too much with your Overclock, probably.

back it off a little and see where you can run stable.

9 x 270 (2.43 Ghz) is highest I can get into XP properly.

9 x 280 boots XP but hangs before it shows the desktop.

WTF?

In 2k I can get 9 x 324 (2.916 Ghz) and that's Prime (blend) stable for just over 3 hours!

Just seems REALLY weird to me.