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NVIDIA nForce 680i Solutions

from this from HardOCP:

"Shooting from the hip on this, and I am no driver engineer, but this sounds like a hardware problem to me. I hate to say it, but there seems to be a chipset problem here that is not apparent in every piece of silicon. I hope I am wrong and it is just a driver issue that can be fixed through a new driver drop, but I am not hopeful of this."

to now, from NVIDIA:

"The problem that some users were experiencing related to signal timings on the motherboard."

Does it really seem logical that all of this can be attributed to signal timings and not a deeper issue..and does the BIOS "fix" it without crippling other settings within the BIOS (reports of some features of the BIOS being dimmed out after the P23 flash)?

I'll be the first to admit, some of this is well beyond where I would normally delve...but after spending a good bit of cash on an upgrade to this board, even though I'm not currently having problems I don't want it to come back and bite me somewhere down the road.
 
Diseaseboy said:
Now if we can only get NVIDIA to give us an answer to the poor 8800 drivers too.........
Click to expand...

I'd like that too. I've had plenty of issues with the 8800GTX drivers. Starting with the sound issues when SLI is enabled. I've experienced this on three motherboards, and 4 different sound devices. (3 onboard and 1 X-Fi.)
 
I believe EVGA addressed the SLI sound issue with their P21 bios - at least everyone that reported the problem with that motherboard said it was fixed. I have not heard of a fix with the ASUS boards.
 
Arioch said:
I believe EVGA addressed the SLI sound issue with their P21 bios - at least everyone that reported the problem with that motherboard said it was fixed. I have not heard of a fix with the ASUS boards.
Click to expand...

Not quite. I had an eVGA 680i board with the sound crackling issue on both the onboard sound and a Creative X-Fi. I flashed the BIOS to P21 and there was some improvement with one or two games, but the problem was NOT solved.
 
Dan_D said:
Not quite. I had an eVGA 680i board with the sound crackling issue on both the onboard sound and a Creative X-Fi. I flashed the BIOS to P21 and there was some improvement with one or two games, but the problem was NOT solved.
Click to expand...
This, again, is where I think there has got to be some unknown factor (3rd party application, bad hardware component, etc.) I'm getting no sound crackling. . . and most everyone who flashed via floppy and cleared the CMOS had their issue fixed on the 680i. Are there others reporting sound issues on the Striker Extreme?

Edit: I once thought I had crackling a few years ago. Tried everything. Then wiggled the wires going into my Klipsch speakers. . . and that was the cause! :D
 
Hurin said:
This, again, is where I think there has got to be some unknown factor (3rd party application, bad hardware component, etc.) I'm getting no sound crackling. . . and most everyone who flashed via floppy and cleared the CMOS had their issue fixed on the 680i. Are there others reporting sound issues on the Striker Extreme?

Edit: I once thought I had crackling a few years ago. Tried everything. Then wiggled the wires going into my Klipsch speakers. . . and that was the cause! :D
Click to expand...

Good point. I'll try my headphones next time.

I don't know if others are reporting issues with sound on the Striker, I have heard of people having the issue with G80 SLI setups on 680i motherboards when SLI is enabled in the drivers.

I agree that there may be some kind of hardware issue with some of the boards. I think mine were defective, and still do.
 
Hey [H] keep up the good work I have enjoyed the info. I myself have put of buying till January in the hopes I can just plop in a board boot up and enjoy in other words the bugs will be fixed and all will be saying how sweet it is. So till then bring on the info and great job with the help and info. :D
 
Thanks Dan and Kyle for keeping us updated on 680i. I can't find a better site that keep tracking on 680i chipset.

I'm gona go with the Striker. But I read somewhere on the web Asus is going to release another version of the Striker to address the FSB OC issue. Does anyone know if it's ture?
 
HONG KONGer said:
Thanks Dan and Kyle for keeping us updated on 680i. I can't find a better site that keep tracking on 680i chipset.

I'm gona go with the Striker. But I read somewhere on the web Asus is going to release another version of the Striker to address the FSB OC issue. Does anyone know if it's ture?
Click to expand...

Do you remember the link? I backed of on the Striker because of the high price and little OC.
 
HONG KONGer said:
Thanks Dan and Kyle for keeping us updated on 680i. I can't find a better site that keep tracking on 680i chipset.

I'm gona go with the Striker. But I read somewhere on the web Asus is going to release another version of the Striker to address the FSB OC issue. Does anyone know if it's ture?
Click to expand...

I've heard nothing about that so I don't know if it is true or not. I don't think the overclocking problems with the Striker Extreme are unsolvable with BIOS updates. On my board the BIOS update gave me huge improvements with overclocking. Since most boards do 430-480MHz, and some do actually break 500MHz FSB, I'd say that ASUS has a great board on their hands. If they want more people to buy them, they'll have to do something about the price, not it's overclocking capabilities. 430MHz or 480MHz, would be more than sufficient for most people. Anyone with a E6600 or better will likely run into the limits of their CPU before getting FSB speeds higher than those typically reached by the Striker.
 
So far the only problem I have had with the EVGA board is it will not run my Corsair 8500 C5 at 1066 MHz. Won't even get passed POST screen. Talked to EVGA techs many times and we tried every setting in Bios but no luck so they are cross shipping me another board. I only hope I'm not exchanging one problem for another. I'm going to wait and see which board works better before I send back the one in my machine now. On a side note I just installed two 8800GTXs. At first I thought they were to long for my Gigabyte Aurora case but I squeezed them in with quarter inch to spare! Oblivion looks so great and scored 14336 on 3dmark 06. Not that 15000 that you got Dan but close.
 
fentzinator said:
So far the only problem I have had with the EVGA board is it will not run my Corsair 8500 C5 at 1066 MHz. Won't even get passed POST screen. Talked to EVGA techs many times and we tried every setting in Bios but no luck so they are cross shipping me another board. I only hope I'm not exchanging one problem for another. I'm going to wait and see which board works better before I send back the one in my machine now. On a side note I just installed two 8800GTXs. At first I thought they were to long for my Gigabyte Aurora case but I squeezed them in with quarter inch to spare! Oblivion looks so great and scored 14336 on 3dmark 06. Not that 15000 that you got Dan but close.
Click to expand...

I only got that score by overclocking my CPU to 3.5GHz. If you can hit that, you should be able to do 15k on stock 8800GTX's in SLI.
 
I'm one of the lucky few with zero problems on my board. I flashed to P21 just to stay current but will wait until the final release of the P23 before flashing again.

Only "problem" I have is not being able to keep a stable OC at 12x multiplier for 3200 on my Kentsfield. My system is rock solid at 11x (2934) and 1066 FSB & Memory bus but when I go to 12x, one of the cores fail after about 20 mins torture test using Prime95. Then again, that's not really a problem to me so yay!

So far so good for me. I'm hoping it stays that way.
 
ASUS makes some of the best mobos in the world, but until they fix their web site so a 25mb download doesn't take over 2 hours and the tech support improves from the worst in the world (for end users) I just can't ever buy another one. Hope they fix this but its been this way for years so I just don't know!
 
jrweis said:
ASUS makes some of the best mobos in the world, but until they fix their web site so a 25mb download doesn't take over 2 hours and the tech support improves from the worst in the world (for end users) I just can't ever buy another one. Hope they fix this but its been this way for years so I just don't know!
Click to expand...

I've never experienced the problems of which you speak.
 
I have posted this once before and recieved no responses, so I hope I dont get flamed for posting it here, as this seems a good place. when I first got my evga nvidia680i board and an intel e6600 I read that it was really easy to OC it to 3ghz rather than the stock 2.4. I read that all I needed to do was change a voltage to 1.45 and an fsb to 1333 (I'm guessing, I dont remember exactly). Anyway, it worked like a charm, my cpu was then running at 3.0ghz and was not running hot or anything like that because I did get a new fan for it (zalman). It wasnt until I turned the computer off and on a number of times(just due to regualr usage, not excessively) that a problem started. The bios had changed completely, it wasnt able to find my hard drive or any of my usb components. I was able to flash the cmos and reset the bios to find everything, but then it would take half an hour for windows to boot up, and when it did it wasnt long before my usb would stop working again. I then reformatted, cleared the cmos, and reinstalled windows and everything worked fine again. That happened more than once because I wasnt sure what it was causing the problem at first. Now I know it was the overclocking, butI dont know why. Do I need to change something else in the bios if I want to overclock, or am I doomed to a life of stock settings. somebody please help me out. Thank you for your time.
 
Yeah, final P23 BIOS is out. But I'll be damned if I'll run it via Windows as the instructions state. It seems that their last few BIOS updates were best executed via DOS. . . so why this is "Windows only" is beyond me.

I'll wait for the DOS version which (I would hope) will be along shortly. Besides, I'm not having SATA issues (though the update also speaks of general stability improvements!).

Edit: eVGA site is now "down for maintenance."
 
I just didn't post the link...and I didn't seem to have any problems with the Windows executable. Your mileage may vary.
 
I just wanted to ask that anybody that may have an answer for me regarding my problem with my motherboard please read the last post on page 3. I had just posted it and then it moved on to page four, so I was afraid not enough people would get to see it and subsequently help me out. Thanks for your time.
 
Hey Everyone,

The Windows Flashing Utility does more than just flash the BIOS, it will also let you know if your BIOS has been flashed completely and will also let you know if you are already up to day.

The utility will flash the BIOS then shutdown your system, there is no need to clear the CMOS as your settings will be held and the BIOS will have been updated.

This hotfix only updates the BIOS and does not update any of your Motherboard drivers.

http://www.evga.com/support/680i/

Thank you,
Joe Darwin
 
mabemjolnir said:
I have posted this once before and recieved no responses, so I hope I dont get flamed for posting it here, as this seems a good place. when I first got my evga nvidia680i board and an intel e6600 I read that it was really easy to OC it to 3ghz rather than the stock 2.4. I read that all I needed to do was change a voltage to 1.45 and an fsb to 1333 (I'm guessing, I dont remember exactly). Anyway, it worked like a charm, my cpu was then running at 3.0ghz and was not running hot or anything like that because I did get a new fan for it (zalman). It wasnt until I turned the computer off and on a number of times(just due to regualr usage, not excessively) that a problem started. The bios had changed completely, it wasnt able to find my hard drive or any of my usb components. I was able to flash the cmos and reset the bios to find everything, but then it would take half an hour for windows to boot up, and when it did it wasnt long before my usb would stop working again. I then reformatted, cleared the cmos, and reinstalled windows and everything worked fine again. That happened more than once because I wasnt sure what it was causing the problem at first. Now I know it was the overclocking, butI dont know why. Do I need to change something else in the bios if I want to overclock, or am I doomed to a life of stock settings. somebody please help me out. Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...
Well, first, I'd definitely try the newer BIOSes. But, regarding OCing this board. . .

Make sure you have the voltage for the SCP tweaked. I had to raise mine to get any type of stability.

There's actually a pretty decent NVIDIA document out there on how to overclock the 680i. Decent only because it covers the recommended voltages. :D

Link to Guide
 
I have a ASUS P5N32-E SLI and i am experiencing very similar problems as the evga users do_Of course there might be other issues but i cannot install xp ,sooner or later the pc hangs when a hardrive is connected and at the asus forum several others have sata/raid issues that mirror mine.Nvidia says ours boards are not affcted yet its happening .i upgraded to asus latest bios wich does not adress this problem specifically so it didnt help.Just wondering what you guys think,can nvidia be mistaken ,can this be the same thing or is it just a coincidense ?

Tried several disks but if i get as far as installing xp it wont complete,hangs in the first minute or so and bluescreens with disk errors or cant create product folders,other times it just locks solid.ASUS support wasn't of much help either,they said reset default values in bios then use optimal settings,then use the latest chipset driver(wich i found very odd since i explained at length that the os wouldnt install,i found it somewhat problematic installing chipsetdrivers then)Any insight into this would be greatly appricciated,if there can be a connection between this and the evga problems or if its something else that can cause it,According to corsair my ram is compatiblle with this board,every other component besides the cpu are tried and tested in a older intel dual core 3.2 ghz machine.

Speccs:
Core 2 duo 6600
Asus P5N32-E SLI
BFG 8800gtx
Corsair vs2gbkit533d2
Seagate 320 gb sata 2
Tagan easycon xl 600w
 
Not to go OT, but I just read a review over at anandtech for the ASUS P5N-E SLI, 650i based motherboard, and noticed that NVIDIA's chipset lags Intel in HD performance.
In our Nero Recode test we consistently found the performance of the 680i/650i to be lacking due to disk access issues. The conversion process would consistently slow down while the disk was being accessed. The quality of the video conversion was not affected but it appears under heavy CPU usage that disk performance suffers at this time with both NVIDIA chipsets.
Click to expand...
HD performance issues can be seen in the HD benchmarks as well. Has anybody measured HD performance before and after the BETA BIOS update to see if the performance has been improved as well?
 
hmm I am not updated on the issues with the 680i chipset

All the problems people have experienced with the evga 680i board, did it prove to be software, or harware problems?

I want to buy an evga 680i MB soon, and if its only a software issue then soon all will be fixed

But if it is hardware problem, I will wait until good boards are out

software or hardware problems?
 
stalker said:
hmm I am not updated on the issues with the 680i chipset

All the problems people have experienced with the evga 680i board, did it prove to be software, or harware problems?

I want to buy an evga 680i MB soon, and if its only a software issue then soon all will be fixed

But if it is hardware problem, I will wait until good boards are out

software or hardware problems?
Click to expand...

Hard to say, I believe my board was truly defective but it's hard to say. Some people report that P23 fixes their issues and some report that it does not. It doesn't appear to be a chipset issue as the ASUS 680i boards are unaffected by this.
 
Just as another bit of input, I recently put together a new system with an E6600, eVGA 680i mobo and an eVGA 8800 GTX with Ballistix PC8000 RAM.

Upon trying to install XP SP2, it hung at installing devices (or rather kept running but would never proceed). I fixed this by bumping the RAM voltage up to Crucial's recommended 2.2v (even though it was still at default [800 MHz] clocks).

After the Windows install, I immediatly did the P23 BIOS update then did all driver installs after a reboot. Overclocked to 3.5 GHz, RAM at 1200 MHz, and all is well. Haven't had any problems that wern't my own fault. System has been great.
 
I have an evga 680i and have absolutley not experienced any of the problems claimed by others. Mine runs rock solid, overclocked to hell too, and doesn't give any problems and rock stable.

I'm going to assume there are incompatibility or bad batches out there. Perhaps it's a bad batch with the bios version in question? Who knows.
 
Ockie did you update the bios to the P23 or dont have problems with the current bios?
 
Can some please guide to the overclocking othis board. I mean BIOS setting for best overclocking. I have E6300 & 8800GTS
 
annaconda said:
Can some please guide to the overclocking othis board. I mean BIOS setting for best overclocking. I have E6300 & 8800GTS
Click to expand...

The problem with that is that all the 680i boards are a little different. What works for the ASUS board doesn't necessarily work well for the eVGA or the BFG. Also individual experiences seem to have varied quite a bit from one board to the next.

I have what ASUS recommends for the Striker Extreme, and Kyle's optimal settings were different from ASUS' documentation and my experiences were different than Kyle's and ASUS's documentation.

Also what I found workable on the eVGA 680i wasn't the same as what was for the Striker Extreme. Simply put, there seems to be alot of trial and error needed on these boards.
 
annaconda said:
Can some please guide to the overclocking othis board. I mean BIOS setting for best overclocking. I have E6300 & 8800GTS
Click to expand...
There's actually a pretty decent NVIDIA document out there on how to overclock the 680i. Decent only because it covers the recommended voltages. :D

Link to Guide
 
Regarding SATA issues: Has anyone experienced, tested, (or read about) RAID speed bottlenecks with the new 680i board? Toms_Hardware article (on Jan 3, 2007) tested nforce 6 MCP vs. ICH7 vs. ICH8 and found RAID 0 disappointing - http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/03/the_southbridge_battle/
Quoting: For some reason, RAID 0 performance with four hard drives was disappointing. While the two Intel Southbridges reached 300 MB/s read and 280 MB/s write transfer rates, the Nvidia solution was stuck at 115 MB/s max.​
They seemed loathe to be overly critical to Nvidia, even though many other tests (such USB attached drive performance) lagged behind the Intel platform. (More discussion ensuing in their forums too.) I am contemplating my first ever "enthusiast" class system, planning Intel Quad Core, and thus the performance AND reliability of motherboard is paramount.

Any thoughts, experiences, or feeback? Thanks. (my first posting here btw.)
 
Ockie said:
I have an evga 680i and have absolutley not experienced any of the problems claimed by others. Mine runs rock solid, overclocked to hell too, and doesn't give any problems and rock stable.

I'm going to assume there are incompatibility or bad batches out there. Perhaps it's a bad batch with the bios version in question? Who knows.
Click to expand...

same here. oc to 3.6 but backed off just to know i have some reserve
 
I thought my board was rock-solid until now, but now it has begun giving me random C1 (memory) errors, random freezes and random reboots. I have double-checked every single component - it's the freaking board. I've had it with the 680i and am going to buy an Intel based board this week.
 
firewars said:
I thought my board was rock-solid until now, but now it has begun giving me random C1 (memory) errors, random freezes and random reboots. I have double-checked every single component - it's the freaking board. I've had it with the 680i and am going to buy an Intel based board this week.
Click to expand...

One thing I noticed on my Striker is that sometimes on bootup or on a reboot it will alter my memory settings while SLI Ready Memory is enabled. Sometimes it gives me 4,4,3,14 1T@800MHz, and sometimes it gives me 4,4,4,15, 2T@889MHz. When I turn off SLI Ready memory feature it gives me 5,5,5,15 1T.

Last night the system locked up playing UT2004 of all things. I flashed to BIOS 0701 and disabled SLI Ready memory and my overclocking settings and put it back to defaults and locked everything in at stock speeds to be retested. I need to re-install my OS, as I am still using the old Windows installation from my eVGA 680i, but I haven't felt like it. I hadn't had any real problems up until now.

I'd like to point out that I have never had a lockup with an Intel chipset based P5W DH in over two months that I used it. This Striker board is the most touchy about settings I've ever worked with. (Excluding my eVGA 680i's)
 
Sorry to hear that. I have lost all my faith in the 680i chipset as no board out there that uses it seems to be flawless. I ordered by P5B Deluxe today and can't wait for it to arrive and replace this piece of crap eVGA board.
 
Dan_D said:
One thing I noticed on my Striker is that sometimes on bootup or on a reboot it will alter my memory settings while SLI Ready Memory is enabled. Sometimes it gives me 4,4,3,14 1T@800MHz, and sometimes it gives me 4,4,4,15, 2T@889MHz. When I turn off SLI Ready memory feature it gives me 5,5,5,15 1T.
Click to expand...

I was getting a similar thing with my EVGA board. It's currently dead in the water so I can't comment on the problem now. It was fairly regular if, apparently, random though.
 
pollaxe said:
I was getting a similar thing with my EVGA board. It's currently dead in the water so I can't comment on the problem now. It was fairly regular if, apparently, random though.
Click to expand...

Yeah it does seem to happen randomly. Which is why I have disabled the SLI memory setting. What ram were you using on your board?
 
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