Strange Problem with DFI Motherboard... Please Help

[Shane]

Ok, first of all my hardware config:

Q6600 @ 3 GHZ (tried returning all overclocked components to stock speeds and voltages, no difference)

8GB Corsair XMS-2 PC6400 DDRII Memory

Various hard drives (2x Seagate 7200.12 500 GB, 1x Samsung F1 HD103UJ 1TB, 1x Samsung HD753LG 750GB, 1x Maxtor 6L200SO 200GB, 1x WD IDE Drive 250 GB)

Pioneer SATA DVD-RW Drive

Pioneer IDE DVD-RW drive

Thermaltake Kandalf LCS Silver case

HP L2151WS Monitor 1920x1080 @ 60HZ

DFI Lanparty UT-X48-T2R motherboard running bios X48CDC24

HiS ATI 5770 1GB Graphics Card

And now onto the issue:

My computer started acting up, so I attempted to restart it, upon shutting it down it would no longer POST (the error code lights on the board don't even light up, so I couldn't diagnose a fault that way). After much fiddling about I discovered that I had a strange fault with my motherboard. For reference here is a photo of it's layout:

The 3PCI-E slots nearest to the CPU socket are an x16 slot, the standard x1 slot, and another x16 slot. The bottom of the board is an older x4 PCI-E slot

For some unknown reason, when I put my graphics card into the uppermost (closest to the CPU socket) of the X16 slots, my board will not even post... not even to the point of displaying diagnostic error codes.

When I put the card in to the slot below the x1 slot, the board will post, but will sound 3 beeps on diagnostic code #26 (VGA Error)

The only way that the card will work fully is in the x4 slot at the bottom of the board.

This problem actually happened before, with my older ATI 4850 card, I made the assumption that I had fried the card, and brought a 5770, and as that particular card worked straight away I had no reason to doubt that assumption, however I tried the 4850 in the x4 slot on a whim and it also works, which means this problem went away for a while and came back which is very puzzling.

As neither graphics card is faulty, and as the board still seems to work properly if you have either of the cards in the X4 slot I am working on the assumption that it is not a hardware fault. I have poked around in the BIOS and only found one setting, to change the functionality of the x4 slot, but I couldn't find anything else. And as I had not made a BIOS configuration change before the problem started happening with either the 4850 or the 5770 I am absolutely stumped, I cannot figure out what could be causing this problem, so if anyone could offer me any suggestions I would be grateful. Thanks

Edited July 11, 2011 by Shane

[allen2]

At first sight, this whole problem might be coming from the power supply. If you have a spare one with more wattage power, you should try it or remove all drives (hdd, dvd-rw) and all memory stick you can.

[Shane]

My old PSU was a 570 W Psu, that faults started coming back even after I put a 650W PSU in. The 5770 isn't a high draw card, and powering the sytem on shouldn't tax the PSU that hard, I am not convinced it is the problem, especially considering the card was working in those slots before, with the same PSU

[Tripredacus]

I'm not 100% on how PCI-E works, and I've certainly confused myself trying to figure it out before... so this might not be relevant.

First thing I'm noticing that you are using a PCI-E 2.1 card. Your board has 2 PCI-E v2.0 x16 slots and a PCI-E v1.1 x4 slot.

Also another thing I can't figure out (but still may be power related) is why this X48 board has DDR2 memory in it. The X48 Express Chipset Datasheet makes NO mention of DDR2 in it anywhere.

[Shane]

I'm not 100% on how PCI-E works, and I've certainly confused myself trying to figure it out before... so this might not be relevant.

First thing I'm noticing that you are using a PCI-E 2.1 card. Your board has 2 PCI-E v2.0 x16 slots and a PCI-E v1.1 x4 slot.

Also another thing I can't figure out (but still may be power related) is why this X48 board has DDR2 memory in it. The X48 Express Chipset Datasheet makes NO mention of DDR2 in it anywhere.

Yeah, I know X48 was designed as a DDR3 chipset but I think DFI adapted it for use with DDR2 in this particular board. There are no DDR3 slots on this board.

Also, would it being PCI-E 2.1 make much of a difference? I'm pretty sure the older 4850 wasn't V 2.1 and this problem happened on that card as well, but then I am not 100% on that

[allen2]

I really don't see the point of asking for assistance if you refuse to try or to even think trying others suggestions.

Usually, when you have a problem, you try to remove everything from the most suspicious part and try replacing it and/or try it elsewhere.

If you're sure the motherboard is faulty, ask for a replacement as it should still be under warranty.

[Tripredacus]

I've seen other DDR3 chipsets retrofitted for DDR2, but that always confused me. Anyways, it seems there isn't a problem using a v2.1 card in a v2.0 slot, or even a v1.1 slot.

But let's get down to the fact at hand. You had a working config and "suddenly" is acting up. I can think of two reasons for this:

1. Your config isn't supported. I'll take a look and see if your manufacturer has some detailed info like Intel does.

2. There has been degredation on the actual electronics. I'm specifically thinking of caps, as they are the easiest to spot. Most everything else is a lot harder... Since you were overclocking the CPU, this could be directly related. Don't always believe that heat is the only negative side-effect of overclocking.

[Shane]

I've seen other DDR3 chipsets retrofitted for DDR2, but that always confused me. Anyways, it seems there isn't a problem using a v2.1 card in a v2.0 slot, or even a v1.1 slot.

But let's get down to the fact at hand. You had a working config and "suddenly" is acting up. I can think of two reasons for this:

1. Your config isn't supported. I'll take a look and see if your manufacturer has some detailed info like Intel does.

2. There has been degredation on the actual electronics. I'm specifically thinking of caps, as they are the easiest to spot. Most everything else is a lot harder... Since you were overclocking the CPU, this could be directly related. Don't always believe that heat is the only negative side-effect of overclocking.

I'm not familiar with Caps, how do I go about looking for them?

As for config, if that was an issue wouldn't it have always been a problem rather than something that went away with my old card, then came back randomly after a couple of monts of normal operation? From what I can gather my board has a Crossfire chipset so surely it shouldn't have a problem with ATI graphics cards? I guess it does predate the 5770 but the 4850 has the same error. The BIOS I have is the newest available but it's from 2008, I don't know if that has any relevance or not?

I really don't see the point of asking for assistance if you refuse to try or to even think trying others suggestions.

Usually, when you have a problem, you try to remove everything from the most suspicious part and try replacing it and/or try it elsewhere.

If you're sure the motherboard is faulty, ask for a replacement as it should still be under warranty.

I am prepared to try things that I believe are relevant, but I have had 3 different PSU's in this computer and it occured under all of them, and the PSU I currently have is brand new, which is why I don't believe the PSU is the cause. My calculations suggest that a 650W PSU should deal with my setup comfortbly. I have however tried unplugging the power to my hard disks and that made no difference. As for the board, unfortunately it's about 3 months out of warranty, the warranty on it was only a year so unfortunately I can't request a replacement.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Shane

[allen2]

When i was speaking of drives, that was about the hdd and the dvd-rw.

Did you tried a clear cmos ?

Did you connect the 12V 6 pins to the HD5770 (i suppose you did it) ?

Just for info the power consumption of recent VGA adapter.

Edited July 12, 2011 by allen2

[Shane]

When i was speaking of drives, that was about the hdd and the dvd-rw.

Did you tried a clear cmos ?

Did you connect the 12V 6 pins to the HD5770 (i suppose you did it) ?

Just for info the power consumption of recent VGA adapter.

Ok, I will address your points one by one

Firstly, I have tried unplugging all of my drives. The rewriters and the hard disks. One by one, and all at the same time, and it made no difference

Secondly, yes I cleared the CMOS, again made no difference.

Thirdly... I see the card even under the highest load possible, from a stress test only consumed about 107 watts. To be safe, I just did a calculation with this site (taking my overclock and liquid cooling components into account):

http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

And it listed my recommended PSU requirement as 475W, so I presume 650 should be more than enough

I do appreciate the help and I apologise if I seem overly dismissive.

[allen2]

I got a lot more with the psu calculator with the overclocking about 850W.

No you need to find another pci-express x8 or more device to test your pci-e x16 slots but perhaps the some capacitor died and now they are not powered correctly anymore. Raid controllers may be used if you have one.

What does the motherboard do whitout vga (it should beep) and does the same happen when the vga card is connected to a pci-e x16 ?

[Shane]

I got a lot more with the psu calculator with the overclocking about 850W.

No you need to find another pci-express x8 or more device to test your pci-e x16 slots but perhaps the some capacitor died and now they are not powered correctly anymore. Raid controllers may be used if you have one.

What does the motherboard do whitout vga (it should beep) and does the same happen when the vga card is connected to a pci-e x16 ?

I have tested the slots with both of my graphics cards, and both give me the same error, I don't even think anything other than graphics cards goes into the x16 slots does it? If there are other devices that go into them, I am afraid I have no other devices I can put in, I don't have anything to put into the x1 slot either, unfortunately.

Also, what values exactly did you put into the PSU calculator? because I put the values that I am using (3 GHZ at 1.35 volts). I can't imagine how the value could possibly be that high, but I believe you may have entered something wrong. I just redid the calculation to factor in 100% load, and 20% capacitor degradation (which is only likely to apply after 3+ years) and it recommended me at 621W, which is still less than I actually have, I have looked at this from as many angles as I can, and I am sure the problem cannot be the PSU. And the card's power draw would not actually be that much lower with an x4 slot than an x16 anyway. Here's a screenshot I took so you can see what options I selected in the calculator (I had to guess with the cooling kit, as it came with the case and afaik doesn't have its own brand name, but I don't think the difference would be large enough to make an effect):

http://www.diigo.com/item/image/1ibsc/iwx8

As for the other question you asked me.

If I put the card in slot #1 (nearest the CPU), it does absolutely nothing, no POST at all, the diagnostic LED's don't even turn on.

If I put it in slot #3 (middle slot) the system posts properly, but when the diagnostic LED's hit number 26 there are 3 short beeps (diagnostic code 26 indicates VGA error), after which the board continues to post and correctly loads (Diagnostic code FF, indicates correct boot) but VGA doesn't initialise

And in slot #5 it posts normally.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Shane

[allen2]

Indeed, you don't find many pci-e x16 cards except VGA cards. As i said before some raid controllers are pci-e x8 and could be used to see if the slot does not work at all. Of course not everyone has one to test.

I didn't see the bios you listed on dfi website and as i saw moded bios for this board, does it is a modded bios ?

Also did you tried the safe boot method described on page 38 of the manual ?

[Shane]

Indeed, you don't find many pci-e x16 cards except VGA cards. As i said before some raid controllers are pci-e x8 and could be used to see if the slot does not work at all. Of course not everyone has one to test.

I didn't see the bios you listed on dfi website and as i saw moded bios for this board, does it is a modded bios ?

Also did you tried the safe boot method described on page 38 of the manual ?

The only other card I have is a PCI 4 port USB card, so unfortunately I can't test that theory out.

I am not 100% sure why, but before DFI pulled it, they had 2 different download pages, the one that I got the BIOS I am using no longer exists. I have no idea why it's not listed on that site.

And the BIOS file I am using is modded, but none of the BIOS instructions themselves have been altered, just has a newer Option ROM for the AHCI component of the Intel ICH9R onboard RAID controller, and a newer ROM for the onboard JMicron JMB363 controller. However I thought myself that may have been the problem so I tried flashing back to an older bios (X48CD725) and clearing / resetting CMOS to default, however that didn't seem to make any difference. I haven't tried any of the other BIOS files, because I figured that if the problem persisted across a couple of different ones that it's probably not the BIOS. I could retry flashing the initial release if you think it may make some difference?

And yes, I have tried the safe boot method by switching the safe boot jumper, again though it didn't make any difference. (I presume that's what you meant anyway, I think you may have downloaded a different version of the manual to me, I have the European version, and page 38 of my manual is where the French section starts )

Edited July 13, 2011 by Shane

[allen2]

As i don't have enough electronic knowledge, i'll let other members help you. I think some capacitors died (they're often redudants on high end boards) and then 2nd pci-e x16 slot isn't powered enough, the first slot is most likely also damaged and setting a card there is probably doing a shortcircuit (and then not powering the board at all).

I would replace the board asap as it might fry some other part but again perhaps someone with enough electronic knowledge can help.