EVGA Classified Issues

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Run into an odd problem with our EVGA Classified board we are testing. I have two processors here that will not work in our board. Neither will POST, leaving us with an "FF" on the error code. I have tried four other processors that work fine. Oddly, the retail 920 worked fine at first (unlike the 965 ES that never POSTed once) and then stopped while Morry was setting up subsequent testing on the board. The board has never been overclocked at this point as we have not made it that far in testing. The only abuse it has seen has been our incubator, but it showed the No-POST characteristics before that. I will have two more retail 920 processors back in the office tonight that I am going to test with.

Have any of you had an experience such as this or seen anyone else that has?

We have of course been in contact with EVGA on this, but they seem as boggled as we are. They did send another tested board this morning that shows the same issue with these specific CPUs. We are sending EVGA back the board and our retail processor that will not POST today.

The top two processors will not POST, the four at the bottom work just fine.
EVGA-Classified-NoPostCPUs.jpg
 
I know this won't help much, but there was a guy on the EVGA forums that had a similar problem.
I think he RMA'd a couple of Classified boards, thinking it was the board (and who wouldn't) before he figured out it was the CPU instead.....swapped it out and was gtg.
If I can run down the thread I'll post it.

I have used my retail 920 (C0),purchased pretty close to retail release, in both my X58 plain and my Classified(NF200) without a problem.
 
Very very strange.
I'm assuming you've tried the CPUs in other mobos and they work just fine?

Glad to hear that we are going to see a classified review. Hope we'll see some insane overclocking in that review.
 
vengence said:
There are three dims in the pic if you look closely.;)
Click to expand...

So? That doesn't tell what configurations have been used. From what I can see, all of them are the same type. I had a non POST issue before and it was linked to the RAM, it would boot with only one stick until I set the timings and clock speed manually in BIOS.
 
alg7_munif said:
So? That doesn't tell what configurations have been used. From what I can see, all of them are the same type. I had a non POST issue before and it was linked to the RAM, it would boot with only one stick until I set the timings and clock speed manually in BIOS.
Click to expand...

I think these guys are smart enough to know all the "tricks".
Regardless, there are 4 other CPUs that worked flawlessly.......of the same type.

Next, what does the PSU have to do with anything.......yes, there are some PSUs that the Classified doesn't "like"...........but that seems to be all or nothing, not hit and miss.

My only question, did the two "failed" CPUs work in another X58 system??
 
magoo said:
I think these guys are smart enough to know all the "tricks".
Regardless, there are 4 other CPUs that worked flawlessly.......of the same type.

Next, what does the PSU have to do with anything.......yes, there are some PSUs that the Classified doesn't "like"...........but that seems to be all or nothing, not hit and miss.
Click to expand...

If there is inconsistency with the board and the processors, then i would be led to believe that there is a possibility its either a bios issue or may have something to do with the PSU. Not all of the PSUs that have issues with the classified are necessarily all or nothing. Some do cause irregularities as opposed just turning on and off. When troubleshooting an issue that is inconsistent, you need to find the consistent variable and isolate it and verify whether or not it is causing the problem. Thats why i as asking if they tried different PSUs.
 
magoo said:
I think these guys are smart enough to know all the "tricks".
Regardless, there are 4 other CPUs that worked flawlessly.......of the same type.

Next, what does the PSU have to do with anything.......yes, there are some PSUs that the Classified doesn't "like"...........but that seems to be all or nothing, not hit and miss.
Click to expand...

They are smart enough but sometimes people could miss simple things. They said that they have tried different CPUs and two mobos, so if they use the same RAM, it could be the source too. That's why I've asked whether they tried with different RAM configurations or not.
 
alg7_munif said:
So? That doesn't tell what configurations have been used. From what I can see, all of them are the same type. I had a non POST issue before and it was linked to the RAM, it would boot with only one stick until I set the timings and clock speed manually in BIOS.
Click to expand...

No need to get defensive, I was simply pointing out that they were using more than one stick, as your post read singular. I agree ram is possible. I find it odd that it would work fine with one 965 ES and not with a second 965 ES consistently if it was a ram problem.

At this point I'm pretty sure I'd swap out everything else if I could, and knowing [H]ard, they generally have the extra hardware on hand to do it.
 
magoo said:
I know this won't help much, but there was a guy on the EVGA forums that had a similar problem.
I think he RMA'd a couple of Classified boards, thinking it was the board (and who wouldn't) before he figured out it was the CPU instead.....swapped it out and was gtg.
If I can run down the thread I'll post it.

I have used my retail 920 (C0),purchased pretty close to retail release, in both my X58 plain and my Classified(NF200) without a problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, we are trying to figure out why a retail CPU would not work....

alg7_munif said:
Tried with another RAM stick or just one stick?
Click to expand...

Using triple channel standard setup with the RAM shown.

vengence said:
Very very strange.
I'm assuming you've tried the CPUs in other mobos and they work just fine?
Click to expand...

Yes they do work perfectly in other boards, and keep in mind that our retail 920 WAS working fine with this setup, then went south. Our 965ES would never POST in our setup.

TehQuick said:
Tried two 920 cpus on my classified, both worked fine.
Click to expand...

Roger that.

RussianHAXOR said:
What PSU are you using on this system?
Click to expand...

Thermaltake Toughpower 1200w.

magoo said:
I think these guys are smart enough to know all the "tricks".
Regardless, there are 4 other CPUs that worked flawlessly.......of the same type.

Next, what does the PSU have to do with anything.......yes, there are some PSUs that the Classified doesn't "like"...........but that seems to be all or nothing, not hit and miss.

My only question, did the two "failed" CPUs work in another X58 system??
Click to expand...

Yes, these CPUs work flawlessly in other X58 systems.
 
Have you tried clearing the bios immediatly before you install these CPUs?
 
vengence said:
Have you tried clearing the bios immediatly before you install these CPUs?
Click to expand...

Yeah....tried that multiple times. Tried pulling the battery 15min to overnight with PSU disconnected. Tried without battery installed.
 
There seem to be a lot of FF issues with the regular EVGA X58 and the Classified X58 boards. I have come to the conclusion that these boards are very tempermental with anything that is alittle bit off.
I would be curious if you took the 2 i7 920 CPUs that dont work in the EVGA X58 board and try them in another board such as Gigabyte or Asus. I bet they will work. The reason I say this is because I am one of the people on the EVGA board who had this FF problem and this is my story:

My first EVGA X58 board runs fine after a couple of RMAs.
I decided I would build another one to replace my Gigabyte X58.
Someone on the EVGA was selling his regular EVGA X58 from a working system. I bought it took all of my working components off my Gigabyte X58 and installed them on the EVGA X58. All I got was instant FF. I tried everything and never got past the FF. At the end someone told me to remove everything including the CPU and try it with just the PSU and I still got instant FF which according to them means the board is bad.

So I contacted the seller and he was planning on taking it back so he could RMA it back to EVGA. He then put it back in his system and of course it worked fine just like before for him. I put all of the components that I removed from the EVGA X58 board and put them back on my Gigabyte X58 board and it worked fine and still runs without any problems.

So how do you explain that? How can I fault the CPU or any other components as being faulty it they work in another motherboard?
The really scary thing with this problem is that I have read about some people having the FF problem after the EVGA X58 board has been running for a few months.

Anyway I am glad that Kyle Bennett has gotten wind of this problem and maybe will find out the cause.
 
solaris54 said:
There seem to be a lot of FF issues with the regular EVGA X58 and the Classified X58 boards. I have come to the conclusion that these boards are very tempermental with anything that is alittle bit off.
I would be curious if you took the 2 i7 920 CPUs that dont work in the EVGA X58 board and try them in another board such as Gigabyte or Asus. I bet they will work. The reason I say this is because I am one of the people on the EVGA board who had this FF problem and this is my story:
Click to expand...

Yes, as noted, these CPUs work fine in other X58 motherboards.

Just for giggles I put the 965 ES in our ASUS Rampage II GENE board....worked fine. My retail 920 processor is on its way to EVGA now so they can see first hand with the processor if they can reproduce the issue.
 
vengence said:
:( Your not using cheese as a thermal paste again are you?

I guess swap RAM? Might do a sanity check and see if the CPU is good in a different mobo.

I've been hearing reports similar to what solaris said.
Click to expand...

No cheese! ;)

Morry duplicated issues with totally different setup. So yes, swapped, one stick, two sticks, three sticks, different sticks, wiggled the sticks, blew on them, petted the RAM nicely.

Can you guys link me to the other issues you are seeing that are similar please? Thanks.
 
Solaris hit it right on the mark............

for some reason, some of these EVGA boards just have bad juju.:eek:

Believe me, when I got my step-up Classified board, I held my breath when I hit the power button.
 
magoo said:
Solaris hit it right on the mark............

for some reason, some of these EVGA boards just have bad juju.:eek:

Believe me, when I got my step-up Classified board, I held my breath when I hit the power button.
Click to expand...


Well, I have two here that did the exact same thing, so I don't think this is an issue with just some boards, but rather the configuration or specific CPUs being used.
 
magoo said:
Solaris hit it right on the mark............

for some reason, some of these EVGA boards just have bad juju.:eek:

Believe me, when I got my step-up Classified board, I held my breath when I hit the power button.
Click to expand...

I dunno, I think my classified is magical :D I had one GTX285 which would refuse to work in anything but slot 1 on the classified lol (I've tried another p45 mobo, and slots 2 and 3 on classified, it would work only in 1 :confused:), although it was not entirely stable either (frequent "nvidia driver stopped" error and crashes in games)
 
TehQuick said:
I dunno, I think my classified is magical :D I had one GTX285 which would refuse to work in anything but slot 1 on the classified lol (I've tried another p45 mobo, and slots 2 and 3 on classified, it would work only in 1 :confused:), although it was not entirely stable either (frequent "nvidia driver stopped" error and crashes in games)
Click to expand...

Honestly, I really like my Classified board.
That said, I've been doing alot of changing and rearranging with watercooling blocks, and I sort of cringe everytime I hit the power button after working on the board......

I still think the mojo on these boards can go south if you don't say nice things to them everyday.
 
Just went through the same thing with a 920 D0, they cross shipped a board to me and the 2nd board posted just fine with the CPU.
 
Sounds like a BIOS revision thing...not that it helps much without a revision that fixes it.
 
Lvcoyote said:
Just went through the same thing with a 920 D0, they cross shipped a board to me and the 2nd board posted just fine with the CPU.
Click to expand...

So the bottomline is that you cant blame the CPU for these FF issues. It has to be the motherboard.
 
TehQuick said:
Well, if 2 out of 6 cpus don't work in your mobo, do you blame the mobo?
Click to expand...

Its easier. ;) :p

Honestly, i don't think its necessarily directly the mobo. I think there's some kind of an interaction that isnt working out. But i could be wrong.
 
Kyle, this may be stupid, but is there any consistency with the 2 cpu's that don't work, and plants they were manufactured in? And the same for the 4 that do.
 
Also what I find really bizarre are the people who have had this board up and running for a couple of months and then get the FF problem and have not made any changes.
 
RADEoN said:
Kyle, this may be stupid, but is there any consistency with the 2 cpu's that don't work, and plants they were manufactured in? And the same for the 4 that do.
Click to expand...

One is an ES and the other is retail, so we do not have the ability to track that.

solaris54 said:
Also what I find really bizarre are the people who have had this board up and running for a couple of months and then get the FF problem and have not made any changes.
Click to expand...

Our 920 worked at first then it went south on us....so I don't doubt what you are saying.
 
If you search evga support forums there's quite a few reports of FF issue. IIRC one folk reported 3x or 4x EVGA Classified boards in a row had FF issue. which model board 759, 760 or 761 ?
 
Got in two more retail 920s, both C0 steppings. One would work fine, the other, no go; FF.
 
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