Props to motherboardpro

[Thrax]

OMG SHILL. I said it first. Now, for the srs business.

I ordered a DFI LanParty DK P35-T2R/S from www.motherboardpro.com on 12/28. It arrived on 1/4 from the kind and sluggish friends at FedEx. On 1/7, I finally had the time to install it in my system. Upon installation, the motherboard would not POST. I removed the PC from the case and ran it on some cardboard to no avail. I made a cardboard shim and insulated the backplate to my Thermalright Ultra-120 to verify that there were no ground-faults on solder points on the back of the PCB.

Subsequently I drove 153 miles to Chez RyderOCZ in Kalamazoo to test alternative parts. Ryder thought that the +5VSB voltage on my PSU at 2.5v was a little low to start the DFI board. DFIs are notoriously fickle about boot voltages. We plugged in a 700w OCZ-branded PCP&C supply on the EPS12v, which has all the bells and whistles: 24pin ATX, 8pin AUX connector, etcetera. About 100w more powerful than my own PSU. There was an electric snapping noise when we attempted to initiate POST, and finally <i>sparks ejected</i> from two MOSFETs around the socket.

I contacted mobopro today about an RMA, I told them a shortened version of my story here, and inquired if they could cross ship. Not more than 30 minutes later they got back with me! Here's the transcript:

Robert, yes we can do a cross- ship but unfortunately us and DFI are out of stock on this board until the 21st. So you can wait until then, and you probably would not have to even do a cross ship as DFI could just ship out a new board in the 21st or we can send it to them and have it repaired. We would recommend waiting for a new one. Please let us know how you would like to continue.

Firstly, I want to strongly thank you for the quick response time. I'll be telling a lot of people about the service I've received here.

Secondly, I'd prefer to have the board replaced outright. Exploding MOSFETs don't give me much confidence in the rest of the board! How do we proceed from here?

Robert-

We are a bit backed up on RMA’s here, but we are coming in this weekend to hopefully catch up some. You will receive an RMA number probably Monday. You will have plenty of time to get it in for the replacement. We will get back in touch with you shortly.

Thank you!

I just wanted to post here and let everyone know what quality service I've received from them. I appreciate their honesty about RMA timelines, the fact that they were willing to cross-ship, and their promptness. This company joins newegg in my list of favorites. :)

[Leonardo]

Thanks for the info. Please keep us updated. The fact that they responded so quickly and politely leads me to believe their follow up will be very good.

[muddocktor]

I just knew you were a ****ing shill in disguise, Thrax! ;D;D

Hopefully they (DFI and mobopro) get your replacement board to you fast.

I'm going to be messing with Gigabytes for a while myself. I have an X38 DQ6 waiting for me at the house for my main rig.

[Thrax]

Ryder and I were playing with a DS4, which is supposed to be BIOS-identical and PCB-similar. It was a bit finicky, but it's brand new and would do 500x7 w/ 2GB of RAM. Was being a PITA with 4GB, but we were confident that it could do it with tweaking and another BIOS revision.

[Thelemech]

Ah now I see why ye have no motherboard! Sorry to hear about this, I know you have been wanting this board for awhile. Hopefully every thing works out and they send your replacement in the same kind of timely quality of their responses to the problem.
Cheers.

[muddocktor]

That's encouraging to hear about the Gigabytes, Thrax. BTW, what happened to your Asus board you've been running? Did it emit magic smoke or something?

EDIT: I also have an E6750 coming in and also have a P35 DS3R and P35 DS3L to mess with too. And I plan to de-lid an E4400 as an experiment too. That's why I got the E6750; I figure I stand at best a 50/50 chance of killing the E4400 if the IHS is soldered to the processor slug.

[Leonardo]

Mudd, I believe Lemonlime performed an IHS decapitation and documented it here. Do a search. His thread had pictures if I remember correctly.

[Thrax]

That's encouraging to hear about the Gigabytes, Thrax. BTW, what happened to your Asus board you've been running? Did it emit magic smoke or something?

EDIT: I also have an E6750 coming in and also have a P35 DS3R and P35 DS3L to mess with too. And I plan to de-lid an E4400 as an experiment too. That's why I got the E6750; I figure I stand at best a 50/50 chance of killing the E4400 if the IHS is soldered to the processor slug.

The asus board had the pushpins of the NB heatsink snap in half during normal removal. Then I pretty much had to break the board to get the thermalright Ultra-120 backplate off of the ****ing thing.

NEVER USE THE ADHESIVE if you plan to migrate that heatsink. I paid the price. :( It was $80 I could've had, down the drain.

Also, the IHS isn't soldered, but it uses a VERY STRONG adhesive.

[NiGHTS]

NEVER USE THE ADHESIVE if you plan to migrate that heatsink. I paid the price. :( It was $80 I could've had, down the drain.

****.

[RyderOCZ]

The Carnage:

http://www.ryderocz.info/misc/mosfet1.jpg

[Thrax]

FAIL. :((((

[muddocktor]

Man, that really sucks, Thrax. :(

Leo, I've delidded an AMD proc before, no problems. But an Intel proc is another proposition altogether. Ever since Intel stated producing the Gallantin core Northwoods, through all the Presshots and Netburst DC stuff and into the Core based procs, Intel has been using a different process to attach the IHS to the slug than AMD. Since Netburst was such a heat producer, Intel had to come up with a more efficient heat transfer mechanism than normal TIM material such as AMD uses. So they use some kind of low heat solder-type substance as a TIM that actually bonds the processor slug to the IHS.

Now I've read that at least some of the E4xxx series C2D procs have gone back to using a more conventional TIM, but I can't verify this. So I have to go on the assumption that it is the solder-type TIM application on my E4400 until proven different. I plan to carefully razorblade around the edges of the IHS and then if it doesn't pop right off I will carefully use a propane torch to the IHS and see if it pops off.

I have noticed that it seems my E4400 runs hotter than the rest of my Core based processors though, so it is possible that my E4400 is actually using the older more conventional TIM material.

[Snarkasm]

What's the upside to removing the IHS?

[Leonardo]

The advantage to removing the IHS is that there can be more direct heat transfer from the CPU core(s) to the heatsink base. The IHS and thermal compound between the IHS and core is another layer of material that reduces cooling efficiency.

[Snarkasm]

But don't the chips stick up off of the PCB, so you have exposed surface area that the HS can't touch? Or is the whole top perfectly flat underneath the IHS?

[Thrax]

The HS only needs to touch the cores. That's all the IHS touches currently. When you delid a Core2, you also need to remove the LGA775 retention bracket and use your heatsink to hold the chip in the socket.

[Snarkasm]

I see.... thanks, guys.

[Thrax]

The saga's update:

I received a DFI RMA number from motherboardpro on the 14th of January. I shipped the motherboard out on the 15th, and haven't heard anything from DFI since. I sent a mildly annoyed email to motherboardpro today, and they responded to me in less than 10 minutes!

So, we've learned that DFI is terrible, and motherboard pro is awesome. :bigggrin:

//EDIT: UPS - 1Z664FX70344980100. It's about damn time.