680i Replacement

gs274

gs274

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 5, 2005
Messages
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So, after almost 6 months of fighting with it...i'm ditching both my evga 680i board (been replaced...hmmmm 8 times now) and both of my 8800gtx. Who knows if the random BSOD or system hangs are caused by one or the other...that's why they all are going.

The question is...if i'm planning on now doing a Crossfire setup with the upcoming R600's what would be the board to use in the interim. I'll run a single GTX but will switch over to the R600...(x2900xtx) as soon as it releases...maybe 2 of them.

Yes, I know that the new intel chipsets are on the way, and whatever board I get now will be replaced at that time. Cost is NOT an consideration, I'm considering both the Badaxe2 and the Abit AW9D-MAX...my sig shows what I'll be putting on the board aside from the vid cards...and of course the PSU will go to a PCP&C whatever to supply the crossfire setup.
 
What was the BSOD message?

If you have gone through that many Mobos, it sounds like a software problem to me.

Did you uninstall / not install Nvidia's Network Access Manager?
 
Did you every try BIOS' above version P23? It was mentioned in your sig which is why I asked.
 
as far as the BSOD...they have been anything from memory errors to the awesome nv4disp.dll error...never used the nvidia network drivers they are a POS. Always been hardware issues...I have had the honor of suffering from every problem these boards have had. Latest has been a dead 2nd PCIe slot...previous board at 2 sets of ram etc, etc...It's been fun but as I've been doing Tier 1 class tech support for the past 7 years...it got old real quick. Too bad I've never had a chance to build a crossfire system so, I have no experiece or working knowledge of the setup.

I've got a replacement board on the way, as soon as it arrives it's going up for sale somewhere.

I'm leaning towards the intel board as well, too bad the OCZ guys all point out how it can be a little flakey, and recommend an MSI board.
 
You held out longer than I did. I lasted five months. My eVGA burned out four sets of RAM with NO overclocking or overvolting. I went through two boards. Eventually it was just the same BSOD errors you were having in both Vista and XP. I got tired of fighting with it. I now own a D975XBX2 and haven't looked back. I had to ditch one of my 8800 GTX cards but at least I'm rock solid stable now.
 
There is no board with Core 2 Duo / dual 16x Crossfire / DDR2-1066 support, which is causing me grief preparing for my R600 setup. You have to drop at least one element - RD600 gives DDR2-1066 support and is C2D, but only dual 8x Crossfire, Intel boards are the same and mostly lack DD2-1066 as well, 680i is dual 16x C2D but SLi only, not CF, and RD580 gives dual 16x Crossfire but only DDR2-800 and AMD chips are supported.
 
Yep, I realize that there is no good solution for my setup with 16x crossfire, I figure I'll limp along with a single card in x16 or cf in x8 until a solution comes around. I'm betting on intel releasing something pretty soon that will take care of it. Of course, AMD buying ATI didn't help matters much, and may have just totally screwed Intel enthusiasts.
 
Ever try an ASUS 680i board????? Mine is slick.

Cant add a thing as far as Crossfire, never had one, probably never will.
 
ehhhh...680 is 680 imo...not to mention Asus has the crappiest customer service/warranty support on the planet. Course, that's just my years of experience with them talking.
 
Dan_D said:
I'd go with the Intel D975XBX2.
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i would wait on the d975xbx2, intel site says it will take the new chips. but i would wait and see if is going to happen, they have the habit of saying at the last minute that you are going to need a new mobo or a newer "revision"... can't trust intel.
 
gs274 said:
ehhhh...680 is 680 imo...not to mention Asus has the crappiest customer service/warranty support on the planet. Course, that's just my years of experience with them talking.
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Ive never had any problems......yes their website is stinky.....but if they're so bad, why are they one of the top manufacturers of MBs on the planet???

The evga 680i stunk for a long while, while the ASUS P5N32-E SLI was/is an excellent board.:D
 
Ive never had any problems......yes their website is stinky.....but if they're so bad, why are they one of the top manufacturers of MBs on the planet???
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Won't disagree that they are one of the top mobo mfg's, just means that most of the other mobo mfg's support deptartments suck even worse hehe. We have used asus branded/rebranded boards in our base retail machines at my shop for years now..when they work they work great, when they don't work...they go back to the wholesaler, we don't want to try and fight through a rma with asus. They take forever and you usually get the board back with something else broke or the original problem still not resolved.

I personally think that the evga support department sucks as well, but, they don't question a rma if you just tell them to rma it and they do cross-ship. Main problem imho at the moment is this, is the problem the 680 chipset or the 8800 chipset...nobody seems to have much luck making them play nice together in a high end configuration for any period of time.

As for the badaxe 2...i sure wish intel would put out some kind of timeframe on the new chips and chipsets...that would help greatly.
 
One of the big issues I have found with the 680i chipset is the fact that it seems to have been built around Vista.

I have fixed three of these boards for some friends and I learned right after I got my board was if you install Vista the only two things you need to do after that is, install the latest video drivers and go to realtech and get the latest HD audio drivers, period.

With the 680i and Vista you don’t need or really want to install the nforce drivers, in fact nVidia has dedicated a whole page to that issue alone.

I’ve had my eVGA board since before Christmas and at first I was as unhappy as you, now that I have learned a lot more about the board, nVidia and Vista I’ve been a very happy camper.

As far as eVGA’s support goes, nobody does it better. Then are now replacing 7900 series video cards that no one even knew were not working right. Who else would do that?

I’m not trying to demean your problems at all, but 8 bad motherboards, what are the odds?

Luck in your quest:)
 
so vista and 680i are a good combo
soo also ur tellin me uve never updaed ur video card drivers
 
A 680i based motherboard can be perfectly stable. You just have to have all the right components and drivers. I wouldn't say Vista is a magic bullet to having a stable 680i system, because it isn't. I've worked on perfectly stable XP systems that had 680i motherboards in them.
 
Luck of the draw then? :)
I'm asking because when i upgrade i'm planning to go to a evga 680i and i just want to be safe knowing that it should work. with my vista system.
 
I dunno.. I can't see how so many of these boards could have the same problem for the same users.

Hard to say if its user error, incompatible hardware, or just horrible luck.

My board is running great for me, even undervolted and overclocked.

Oh, and XP 32 Pro.
 
kamxam said:
Luck of the draw then? :)
I'm asking because when i upgrade i'm planning to go to a evga 680i and i just want to be safe knowing that it should work. with my vista system.
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It should work. I have built quite a few systems using eVGA 6860i boards and I haven't had any problems with them.

I did have issues with the first run of eVGA boards, but after they came out with BIOS P23 all the boards I've used that came with that BIOS pre-installed all worked flawlessly.
 
Just a question because we are talking about the 680i.

How about OC'ing the quad core and the FSB? At first I heard that OC'ing the quad with the 680i caused issues. Now EVGA had a fix for them, but does the Striker have the same problem? Or the other 680i boards?

Also I've read somewhere (can't remember where) that you OC the Asus Striker to above 400MHz the mobo does things to the memory. So you can reach a high FSB but it's actually getting slower?

Can you give some feedback on those two points? I'm really curious about this all.
 
why not a 680i LT? I haven't read any problems with those boards yet, even on evga's message boards which are rife with complaints about the 680i.
 
Kibosh said:
Just a question because we are talking about the 680i.

How about OC'ing the quad core and the FSB? At first I heard that OC'ing the quad with the 680i caused issues. Now EVGA had a fix for them, but does the Striker have the same problem? Or the other 680i boards?

Also I've read somewhere (can't remember where) that you OC the Asus Striker to above 400MHz the mobo does things to the memory. So you can reach a high FSB but it's actually getting slower?

Can you give some feedback on those two points? I'm really curious about this all.
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The latest revision of the eVGA 680 solved the quad problems and the MB is very stable. They RMA'ed my AR for the A1 in less than a week without cross shipping. I was running XP64 and switched to Vista 64 and I have no issues with the MB. I too find having 8 MB's a bit suspect~no flaming, just questioning?
 
Thanks for all the great advice...HAHA after the first couple replies, this became a less than helpful thread. Picked up a badaxe 2 though.

Yeah, the majority of responses are probably right, the few of us who went whole hog and top of the line at the beginning apparently didn't know what we were doing and the vast threads in the support forums are full of people like me...it's all user error! Geez somone lock this thread, it's done.
 
I had issues on my Abit IN9 32x-max 680i board when I dropped in my quadcore on Windows XP.. I switched to an XFX 680i LT motherboard and Vista Ultimate x64 and NO MORE PROBLEMS! I suspect that my XFX board is EXACTLY like the eVGA 680i LT motherboard!
 
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