Evga 680i problems.

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^eMpTy^

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Jul 21, 2004
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So I just upgraded to a Q6600 and an Evga 680i SLi motherboard. I'm getting random bsods (page faults, stop errors, etc) which suggest bad memory, but multiple loops through memtest show no problems.

After looking around the web a bit I'm realizing that nearly everyone is having problems with this board...so I was hoping that maybe there were some tricks I could try to make it stable...

Anybody have any ideas?

EDIT: A second thought occurred to me. I have 6 SATA drives, an 8800GT, and a Q6600...am I overloading my Nexus 500W P/S?
 
^eMpTy^ said:
So I just upgraded to a Q6600 and an Evga 680i SLi motherboard. I'm getting random bsods (page faults, stop errors, etc) which suggest bad memory, but multiple loops through memtest show no problems.

After looking around the web a bit I'm realizing that nearly everyone is having problems with this board...so I was hoping that maybe there were some tricks I could try to make it stable...

Anybody have any ideas?

EDIT: A second thought occurred to me. I have 6 SATA drives, an 8800GT, and a Q6600...am I overloading my Nexus 500W P/S?
Click to expand...

If we can get it working, thats a pretty awsome comp, congrats...

a whole bunch of people have been having this problem but I think its a little much to say everyones been having it. I think it'd be best to raid the EVGA forums.

but if its happening randomly its probably not the Power Supply's rating (not ruling out a faulty PSU tho, but thats unlikely).

I gotta go but I'll try to think up some possibilities for you before I get back.
 
I had an EVGA 680i that killed three sets of Corsair RAM before I got rid of it. Ran everything stock. No overclocking. I'll stick with Intel chipsets from now on.
 
Kinda basic, but do you have the latest BIOS?

I never had a quad on my EVGA 680i, but it was an awesome board for me, took my E4300 to 3.2GHz+ and 3.0GHz on stock volts, and it never ate my RAM...
 
I had this very same board and it ate three sets of ram. I was able to oc my e6600 to 3.4 stable but by the third set of eaten ram I decided to give up on the 680 series and go with the new p35 chipset.

Anyways are you running everything stock?
 
My eVGA 680i runs beautifully..after I got rid of a bad stick of RAM.

I had lots of problems when I first built the machine, but I fixed it.

I had 4 sticks of 2GB and after much swapping and testing I found I had a bad stick.

Memtest86 showed no problems AT ALL, but Prime95 failed every time with one of the sticks in the system. I've gotten a new set of RAM and all works perfectly.
 
jaded25 said:
I had this very same board and it ate three sets of ram. I was able to oc my e6600 to 3.4 stable but by the third set of eaten ram I decided to give up on the 680 series and go with the new p35 chipset.

Anyways are you running everything stock?
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that sounds either like a defective unit or a crappy PSU.

Alot of complaints like yours are really about the PSU but get forwareded to the chipset simply because its the middle man.

I wuv my 680i. 3.5Ghz on an E6300 on air?
 
Everything is running at stock frequencies. I have 2 gigs of Corsair XMS2 which is rated to run 4-4-4-12 but is currently at the default 5-5-5-18 till I figure out the stability problems. I just updated to the P31 bios from the P30 and that didn't help. I have the latest nforce drivers (15.08) and the latest vista patches. It's the 32 bit version of vista if that makes a difference.

I'm considering just buying new memory since I'd like to do 1066 anyways, but it'd be silly to replace what I have if that's not the source of the problem. Considering this memory has worked absolutely perfectly since the day I bought it nearly a year ago, I hesitate to think that it just suddenly failed when I installed the motherboard.

Is this board particularly finicky with memory?
 
I'm also noticing that the board makes a high pitched squeal when under load. I've read in several places that this is an indication of crappy power handling. Obviously, I'm not a big fan of paying $250 for a motherboard that squeals.

Is this board worth RMA'ing? If not, what should I spend the $250 on?

Is there another 680i worth trying? Should I switch to an intel chipset?
 
MrWizard6600 said:
that sounds either like a defective unit or a crappy PSU.

Alot of complaints like yours are really about the PSU but get forwareded to the chipset simply because its the middle man.

I wuv my 680i. 3.5Ghz on an E6300 on air?
Click to expand...
I have a corsair 620watt psu and its working fine so it wasn't the psu.

@^empty^ if I was you I'd switch to the intel chipset but thats just my opinion based on my experience with the 680i.
 
The squealing could easily be from the graphics card, do you have an NV card? I also wouldn't tempt fate with that psu.
 
Sphere said:
The squealing could easily be from the graphics card, do you have an NV card? I also wouldn't tempt fate with that psu.
Click to expand...

The squealing only started with the motherboard. I had the 8800gt installed previously with no squealing.

What do you mean you wouldn't temp fate? By my calculations, 500W should be plenty of power for this system.
 
If you want to make sure the PSU isn't the issue, either put a multimeter on it or pull 5 of the SATA drives and run it through some tests.

I've heard the MB is finicky when using 4 ram modules instead of 2.

My MB also squeals when I OC my Q6600 to 3Ghz and load it 100%, but my AMD-based ASUS boards did the same thing with totally different hardware.
 
500W could be not even close to whats needed, 500W could be more then twice whats needed.

I once had a cheapo unit that was rated for 55A on the 5V rail :rolleyes:. They only say that because they know no one will ever try to test it that high. I'm sure it would have failed after 30A.

whats the PSU's make and model? The squeal is quite possibly a voltage alarm, mind you it might also be the shittay Nforce chipset cooler fan (which caused a really weird squealing in my machine until I put a gasket between the fan shroud and the aluminum fins).
 
I'm running the same MB with a Corsair 620 PSU, 4 sticks of 2GB Gskill (8GB total), an eVGA 8800 Ultra, 4 SATA drives, SB X-Fi Platinum...NO stability problems whatsoever.

Prime95 can run 24 hours without a hitch.

You've definitely got a hardware issue somewhere.
 
I can't get prime95 to run for more than a half hour or so before the system becomes unstable. So I'm ready to ditch the 680i for an intel chipset.

What's the best board out there for around $250?
 
Hmmm, have you tried another PSU? Because that PSU doesnt sound like it should be running your system in a very stable manner with so many HDD spinning and a Quadcore CPU.

Can you give me FULL System specs?:D
 
Judging by the fact that your PSU seems to be supplying a pretty low amperage as well as wattage i would say getting another PSU would be a good idea to try out before sending the board back. Simply because you are running so many Harddrives and a Quadcore.
 
According to here: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine I should only need around 420W at 100% load on everything.

The power supply should be relatively high quality so I really don't think that's the source of the problem. Especially given how many other people are having the same problem with this board.
 
Sphere said:
That's precisely why I had suspicions on his psu.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I didn't really notice the amp ratings were conspicuously low. I've turned off all the extra hard drives and I'm running prime95 to see what happens.

Also, I've had the most problems when I run the memory intensive torture test on prime95. When I do that, even with only one instance, the system bogs down pretty badly. However, 4 instances of the cpu intensive options runs quite nicely, the system is still currently quite responsive.

What's the best way to go about testing system stability? At this point, I'm not even sure what I'm seeing anymore. I feel like I might be mistaking a series of random, unrelated, perceived instabilities for a real problem when none actually exists.

Do you guys typically run the memory intensive mode on prime95? Does the system become unresponsive when you do? (i.e. my 2 gigs of ram fills up and the UI is really slow to respond to anything with the mouse periodically freezing)
 
^eMpTy^ said:
According to here: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine I should only need around 420W at 100% load on everything.

The power supply should be relatively high quality so I really don't think that's the source of the problem. Especially given how many other people are having the same problem with this board.
Click to expand...


Interesting... My calculations from that link came up with a 684watt power supply requirment and I have three less drives than you.

You do need a better and larger power supply.

btw: I RMA'd my 680i board twice before getting a Maximus SE board.
 
Ok, so. I had an idea that maybe I was imagining the instability. Before I updated the bios, I was getting bsod's. After, I was just getting game crashes...or so I thought. As it turns out, the Crysis time demo crashes in windows vista after the 4th loop and it has nothing to do with my system being unstable.

So now, I'm typing this while running 4 instances of Prime95 and rthdribl at 1600x1200. Both the CPU and GPU are pegged and have been for the past hour. And this is with the Q6600 running at 3.1GHz...:)

Translation: my system now appears to be solid as a rock.

If only I could get rid of this damned squeaking noise from the motherboard, I'd be in heaven...
 
I just got a eVGA 860i SE to replace a P5B Deluxe that was giving me problems. I'm getting that same squeaking noise when under load (running Orthos) and it is driving me crazy. I know it's the motherboard and not any of my components because they were all working perfectly on my P5B.
 
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