Problems with my 680i :(

[sreese]

I bought a 680i mobo about 2 weeks ago and it's been nothing but problems :( I should have looked into some of the forums first but oh well. Every time the computer reboots, the diplay stops working for some reason. I can leave everything at default settings, hit f10 to save and restart, display stops working. I've pulled the vid card and tried in another computer, it works fine. Tried 1 ram at a time, each time on reboot it stops displaying. I have opened a ticket and it's being looked into but so far he has told me to try things that I have already tried and explained in my posts that I have already tried. It's frustrating but at least he hasn't given up on me yet, and I understand I work in an IT department myself and I know the process. I am confident that it will get taken care of but It's just frustrating when I was really hoping to get it up and running and be playing again fast when my old computer died. Anyone have any other suggestions to try out?

Heres my computer specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3Ghz 6MB 1333FSB CPU
XFX nVidia 680I LT
OCZ SLI 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz (2x1024MB)
EVGA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB PCIe w/Dual Link DVI
2x 120G Maxtor hdd's from old computer
Ultra Aluminus Mid Tower Black with 500w V-Series PSU

Any Help would be appreciated guys, thanks!

[XFX Tech]

If you lose display every time you restart my first guess would be memory. There may be settings that get loaded in to BIOS that cause it not to finish POST. When that happens if you hard off and then come back on it loads relaxed settings to be able to get back on. Have you tried relaxing your memory timings way back to like 6-6-6-18 2T at 2.1v and running at 800mhz. I wouldn't start playing with the Advanced Timings.

[sreese]

I have never tried to mess with the timings yet although I have increased the Volts to 2.1 before as I've seen suggested through some of these forums, but my xfx tech said that was high and just to let it at default settings. But at this point I'll try anything. Thanks for the fast response and I'll give an update as soon as I get one.

[sreese]

Awesome! I set the Timings back and it will actually let me boot! It blue screens then but that's because It's my old Hdd's from my old computer which i was hoping to be able to pull some files off before i formatted but it looks like I'll have to format. Ok, knowing that my Memory is what's giving me problems, what memory would you suggest for this this motherboard to avoid this issues in the future? I really don't want to have to hold the memory back too much to get it to work because I would like to OC this PC eventually.

Oh and P.S. Another question, Is there anywhere on this Motherboard to plug in a case speaker for the beep codes and such? because I really just can't find one...

[XFX Tech]

2.1v is pretty normal for DDR2 800Mhz memory. Some chips like lower volts. It is usually good until close to 1000Mhz when voltage starts to take a sharp swing up. I don't think 2.1v would hurt any 800Mhz memory. When you go in to FSB and Memory Config in BIOS try turning off SLI Ready Memory and setting those timings to see if the problem with restarting keeps happening. Can you PM me your ticket number?

[XFX Tech]

The 680iLT doesn't have a case speaker header. I would try going back down on the timings to see where it works at. Try 5-5-5-15 2T. That is very common and shouldn't be too hard on the memory. The difference between CAS5 and anything below that is not really going to be noticeable in real world applications. If you want different memory I personally prefer Corsair's Dominator line, that is just personal, but you usually pay a pretty penny for those sticks. The sticks you have are probably fine and may have just been binned a little too aggressive for the settings in the EPP chip.

[sreese]

Just a quick update, Everything is working great thanks to your help! I really appreciate it and the speedy responses. Installed XP last night and all is well. Temps run a little high right now but thats with stock cpu cooler, have a new one ordered and on its ways. One odd thing I did notice, If I enable raid in the bios, and enable all of the SATA slots for raid, the board will no longer detect ANY of the SATA hdd's. It's not too big of a problem because I learned my lesson and will never install an OS on a stripe raid again since I lost all my files, but incase i wanted to turn this thing into a server someday and setup a Raid 1 or 5. I'll need to be able to use those...any ideas?