DFI mobo is ticking me off

D

Daravon

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
82
Help. I just built my first PC.

When I start my PC up it about half the time says DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISC AND PRESS ENTER.

This despite the fact that there is no disk in the drive, and I have the BIOS boot order set as

1. Hard drive
2. Disabled
3. Disabled
.
.
I have to go into the BIOS, to standard CMOS features, and channel 2 IDE (it's a SATA drive) and press auto-detect. Then save the settings and restart.

On top of that, my USB 2.0 ports don't work. Windows says 'you must install a USB host controller on this computer'

That an the ATI catalyst program that came with it, crashes on startup. I don't know what it's supposed to do anyway, but it says it fails to initialize properly, every time I boot.

It's a DFI RS482
 
I will never buy another DFI product. They are absolutely horrible build quality. Can you believe that the Expert doesn't even allow high end PSUs? In order for it to boot you have to use a low quality 500w PSU. Sure the motherboard is designed for wide cards like the 7900GTX 512 but there is absolutely 0 chance of being able to run a system like this since of the glaring design flaw that doesn't allow high end PSU's.. I will NEVER buy another DFI product again.
 
your luck is better than mine

i went through 12 failed installations of windows xp

then i flashed the bios to a beta bios , upon reboot it wouldnt post .

shut down system and restarted , smelled something like electronics burning. sent it back for rma

hope this next board will do better

i am sad


Jen
 
lads have you both tried installing the latest bios. my mate was having the exact same post problems with the insert system disc thing so we updated the bios and know it runs fine.

and about the psu problem my mates runnin his off a 660w enermax so i cant see the problem there. ill try to get him to post some more info on the problems he had to see if it helps

PS looked into the psu problem have a look at the dfi street forum. seems certain psus are experiancing problem however dfi says they will mod the board to overcome this as they have a specific remody for these problems
 
Is he using a lanparty board paddy? I'm not taking any chances, after the way DFI customer support treated me I'm sending it back and getting an ASUS. They moved my thread to a section of the forum nobody reads and locked the thread I created specifically about it. Then one of the mods went off on a huge rant saying I was claiming to be an expert of electonics when in fact I was just concerned of my $200 investment into his board not working properly.


(BTW the cold boot issue happens only with higher quality new PSU with high voltage, so there is a chance your friends enermax might be an older model or something) the problem seems incredibly widespread though.
 
whatever. dont make it sound like all DFI are bad. I had 939 inifnity nf4 before and it was rock solid. As is my current matx RS482.
 
what kind of specs you running... PSU or Memory problems could cause this...

what kinda memory are you using?

are you OC'in?
 
PSU
RAM

No overclockage that I know of...I didn't change anything.

How does one go about updating a BIOS? Any ideas about the USB2.0 issue? Sucks because my external HDD is USB2.0.
 
No. But I do have an external HDD and data transfer with USB1 is pretty much a waste of time.
 
Daravon said:
PSU
RAM

No overclockage that I know of...I didn't change anything.

How does one go about updating a BIOS? Any ideas about the USB2.0 issue? Sucks because my external HDD is USB2.0.
Click to expand...


At their site, they will have a new bios for you to download and put on a bootable floppy. You then follow the included directions to flash it.
 
peacetilence said:
Is he using a lanparty board paddy? I'm not taking any chances, after the way DFI customer support treated me I'm sending it back and getting an ASUS. They moved my thread to a section of the forum nobody reads and locked the thread I created specifically about it. Then one of the mods went off on a huge rant saying I was claiming to be an expert of electonics when in fact I was just concerned of my $200 investment into his board not working properly.


(BTW the cold boot issue happens only with higher quality new PSU with high voltage, so there is a chance your friends enermax might be an older model or something) the problem seems incredibly widespread though.
Click to expand...

i told you about those guys on another thread. "there are no broken dfi boards. only user error, or your ram/psu/vid suck." if you insist that the board is broken, they will lock your thread, then they will find you and kill you.
for the op. try xtremesys.org forums, the amd forum in particular.95% of those guys are using dfi.
wish i could help, but my dfi boards have all worked flawlessly.
"peacetilence" - have seen your anti dfi posts and threads everywhere. get a refund on your board and move on. i'm pretty sure that if that thing you claim "dfi admits that the expert wont work with high end power supplies" were true in more than a couple cases, this board would not be for sale. and selling out, at a high price to boot. get an asus, and after dfi gets over its mourning over losing you as a customer, you will both be ok.
 
Daravon, have you installed windows yet to that hard drive? If not, change the boot order to:

1. CD
2. Hard Drive
3. Disabled

Then install from your windows cd, let install go through completely (it will restart you computer), and then when it prompts you to "press any key to boot from cd" don't press anything. You'll now boot into windows.

I've never seen that motherboard, but it looks be be pretty nice. I especially like the onboard video having vga, dvi, and component/svideo out. I do worry about the quality of that power supply... If you're not throwing anything highend in it you'll probably be ok though.

I'm not really sure why you guys are ragging on DFI... My current Ultra-D is the greatest motherboard I've ever owned and love it dearly. Even though people claim to have troubles with certain brands or types of ram (i.e. Corsair) I've ran both Corsair and G.Skill on it with no problems at all. Actually I like it so much that I just ordered a new SLI-DR Expert for my new machine, and I really hope I don't run into the problems you guys are having with it.
 
Yes, I have already installed Windows. Right now it's only mildly irritating. What is bothering my though, is the ATI program crashing every startup and the fact that I have no USB2 ports. I'm going to dispatch a tech support email as soon as I can be bothered. I hear you on the features...it's really perfect for me.
 
ATI catalyst control center crashing?

Sounds to me like a .net issue. Just a guess. My neighbor had the same issue when he upgraded to the new catalyst drivers. He didnt have .net, so it reverted to the old control panel for displays, and he had to blow out the whole OS to get the driver to disappear. (drivercleaner didnt work, tried 2 different ones, one by ATI, other by driverhaven)
 
Do you have service pack 2 installed? The new drivers require/suggest that you have it.

I would try the .net first though.
 
peacetilence said:
I will never buy another DFI product. They are absolutely horrible build quality. Can you believe that the Expert doesn't even allow high end PSUs? In order for it to boot you have to use a low quality 500w PSU. Sure the motherboard is designed for wide cards like the 7900GTX 512 but there is absolutely 0 chance of being able to run a system like this since of the glaring design flaw that doesn't allow high end PSU's.. I will NEVER buy another DFI product again.
Click to expand...

Where did you find that info??
 
DangerIsGo said:
Where did you find that info??
Click to expand...

Could it be anything like what's discussed in this extremetech article?

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1932957,00.asp

Basically it's discussing how certain "high end" power supplies are constructed in such a way that will not allow enough current to be drawn on the 12v rails unless a balancing load is applied on the 5v. It's a way for the psus to be more efficient which just so happens to keep high end systems from being stable when only barebone essentials are used (like just one hard drive).

That may not be what's going on, but it sounds an aweful lot like it.
 
GO to DFI Street and download TMods BIOS CD, should help you there. With the USB, go into Device manager and update drivers, that should fix it. DFI boards are good, but picky. I had trouble with mine, but it is rock solid now.
 
Nah the issue I was talking about is different. There are a high percentage of DFI motherboards that don't get along with newer high power (600W+) powersupplies because they try to draw too much power from the 5v line. So instead of the PSU booting up the pc as normal the PC just shuts off half a second after the power is pressed, DFI's response to the issue is basically "Oh, nothings wrong. Everythings fine, we don't know what you're talking about. Oh P.S. if you send us your motherboard we will mod it for $15 to fix the specific issue with power supplies that we don't know is wrong" They also blame the PSU companies instead of own up to the problem.

The issue doesn't actually effect me and I overreacted a bit. After getting both my cards in SLI and reasonably stable (the latest BIOS causes SLI to lock up in games, the 11/02 one seems to fix it) With an Antec 550w (the extremetech article says it isn't stable in SLI but I got it to work using a dedicated PCI-E line and one off the 12v molex). I am happy with my build now. I didn't like the way DFI went about with their customer support, hence my reaction.
 
iSkylla said:
GO to DFI Street and download TMods BIOS CD, should help you there. With the USB, go into Device manager and update drivers, that should fix it. DFI boards are good, but picky. I had trouble with mine, but it is rock solid now.
Click to expand...

After you've installed service pack 1 (or 2, can't remember), go into device manager (right click My Computer, click the hardware tab, then click device manager), click the tab for the USB controllers and update the drivers on the host controllers. Let Windows choose the best one(s) and you should have USB 2.0 functionality.

Just a bit more info, just in case :)

I had the same issue with my ATi Catalyst CC by not having the latest.Net and SP2 installed, so that might be the problem.
 
after reading about these dfi boards for a year now and having built a 939 system on the asus a8n-e and having a wonderful system i figured id like to try one of the dfi boards.the ultra d was going to be the one.then expert came out and i figured newer model maybe better ram compatability,4 phase power regulation,so i go for the expert and use my 3200 venice.now im an experienced tech,make my living building computers,A+ certified ,network and hardware certified,so im not a dumb ass with computers.well the nightmare begins.took me a week just to get it to boot,3 diferent types of ram,finally i get windows loaded,runs great for 2 weeks at default settings,no o/clocking at all.i was just happy to have it run stable at stock settings for a while.come home one evenind and hit the power switch and nothing happens.so i start troubleshooting.power supply cks good,leds come on but stop at cpu detect.well guess what the board took out the cpu on a start up.now i find out that this is ia bug with the expert,even if your not o/clocking.ther are quite a few of us out here that this has happened to.so i rma the board and of course dfi wont compensate for the cpu,just replace the board.i am so pissed.i get the board back a new one in the retail box that has been qc checked.im sure as hell not going to try it again,so i sell the board to recover enough money to buy another 3200 venice to put back in my asus setup.well now im back to my wonderful a8n-e that does everything well,should have never gone with dfi in the first place.why if a series of boards are so great do you have to have a certain power supply,a certain type and brand of ram,clearing cmos requires a 24hr power down at times,takes days to get them to boot sometimes.kills cpu's on startup,and a host of other problems,just read the dfi street forums and read extremesystemsforums for more problems than anyone can imagine.im stupid for even trying on of these boards.ive been building computers for 8 years and i have never seen a host of problems like these dfi's have.there has to be no quality control.never again will i use one of there boards in any build i do.i talk people out of them when they ask me about building them a setup with the dfi boards.dfi has to know that they have a mess on there hands and im suprised that a lawyer on these forums hasnt started a lawsuit against dfi for knowingly putting out this garbage.there attitude is that it got to be user error because its not us.there are too many good computer techs that this is happening to for it to be noobies setting them up.so good by dfi,ill dance on your grave and ill sign any paperwork for a class action lawsuit against your lousy company and i personally like to smack that attitude off your face that its all of us techs that dont know how to set up a board.BS.ive never had a board in 8 years of building computers take out a cpu at default settings on a startup.my asus system runs great and always has,and in the future ill buy asus,abit,msi,gigabyte,biostar,asrock,jetway,any brand but dfi.im trying to see if amd will warrantee my cpu but its really not there fault but i told them the truth about what happened and we will see if they will help me out.there a first class company so they just mite......just my 2 cents........
 
yea dfi tech support (dfi street) is snotty as hell. i too am certified a+, mcse and network+. when i first had probs with my ultra -d i fought it out with dfi street, then fixed the prob on my own when i swapped out my psu. whoops. then again when my system would hang at the xp splash screen. rma'd my board, but it turned out to be a bad hd. whoops. now my (modded) board runs perfectly, has been running perfectly longer than any board i have used since the asus p2b. i have no plans to upgrade this board until i switch sockets sometime in the future. dfi can make a fine board, but you are pretty much on your own after you buy one. my board has been running at low vcore and high vdimm (5v jumper) for 8 months now and has not "killed" any hardware. i would, and have bought more of the same. cant speak for expert, tho.
 
I don't know why you guys are having bad luck and always saying DFI sucks, but I have always had good results, and I have always solved problems by flashing the BIOS and install the drivers that came WITH IT. DFI seems to be the only set of mobos (wether it be UD, SLi-DR Pro anyone NF4) I can get real good OCs out of and are really great quality.
Don't try and make DFI sound bad, cause they do rock the sox, sometimes some of you happen to just get one of the bad ones, because not all of them are perfect, there will be a problem sometimes. That thing that one guy said about running non-high end PSUs on the Expert sounds like BS, cause the last expert I had used the PC P&C 850w and had 0 problems, and unlike the Asus board I had before, I had to replace twice because it couldn't handle the OC I wanted like the DFI did (Venice 3800+ OC to 2.85GHz, Asus failed to keep it stable but the DFI handled it like a Sunday afternoon drive). Unfortunately I had to sell that compy :( (money makes the world go around).
And of course, newer mobos that get thrown on the market you can expect to find bugs and problems with it, thats why I normally watch the products reveiws on the market and forums to see what is fixed before I go and buy it. It happens with all makes.
You know it though, DFI pwns the face. They can just be a bit picky sometimes.
here is my old setup btw if any of you remember:

AMD Athlon64 Venice 3800+ OC'd @ 2.85GHz
DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR Expert (DFI replaced 2 Asus A8N (one bad, other could only stay stable @ 2.6GHz)
2048 MB (1GB Corsair XMS + 1GB G.Skill (1 Corsair stick went bad)
eVGA 7800GTX
120GB Seagate + 2 74GB 10k WD Raptors Raid-0 + 80GB Maxtor
Audigy 7.1 Pro
PC Power and Cooling 850W
Cooled with water
Sold this to someone for $3100, He says it still runs perfectly fine....
 
It's not your average motherboard and definately shouldn't be your first, this is an expert board mainly for enthusiasts, i bought DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D then modded it to an SLi-D and i couldn't ask for a better board, runs great and overclocks well.
 
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