N2Gaming

Thanks, I plan on it. I have been having all kinds of arguments w/the ladie in my house about what uses more electricity and where all our money is going. It's just to bad I can't hook it up to the HVAC unit in the house she would flip or make that I would flip out. I had a $250.00 PG&E bill 2 summers ago because the HVAC had a freon leak and the pump stayed on all day and night while I was on the road transporting cars. That's because the lady of the house was/is not the kind of person to notice the ac not cooling the house or turning off. She is the same way w/vacuum cleaners. When the filter gets full the engine whines more and she never picks up on that. This is by all means not a bash woman rant but mearly a vent for the one I live with.

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thlnk3r

I wonder if a lot of those Lanparty boards were the same just with things disabled/gimped. Sounds very familiar with the Denmark vs Toledo cores

N2Gaming, you'd be surprised on how much power is used when devices/appliances are turned "off". I started unplugged items around my house that I hardly use.

Good luck

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N2Gaming

That was a good read. I wish I knew about that when I purchased my NIB NF4 SLI DR. I could have save almost $100.

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txtmstrjoe

A comment about the DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultras and SLI-modding: This technique of getting SLI on the cheap was only really applicable to the very early revisions of the nF4 Ultras.

Unsurprisingly, nVidia was terribly unhappy with this mod (since it would obviously eat into profits from "legit" SLI chipsets/motherboards), so they demanded that DFI re-engineer their nF4 Ultras to make the SLI mod subsequently impossible. DFI complied, of course. Moreover, nVidia also re-engineered their driver packages to make future SLI-mods all but impossible to implement on boards with the nF4 Ultra chipsets.

(Of course, as far as I know only DFI ever manufactured an nF4 Ultra motherboard with dual PCI-E graphics slots. This lends some credence to thlnk3r's theory that the nF4 Ultra and the SLI-capable chipsets might all be based on one "super-chipset," but with certain options deleted/deactivated for use on lower-tier products.)

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“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.”—Lao Tzu (thanks to Blitz6804)

Today's "thlnk3r's thoughts": "You may fire when ready."

BlackOmega

Good to know. I was wondering why it had one if it indeed is not an SLI board. After looking at that article some, I just had a moment. I forgot to pay attention to what the NB label was. I believe it just said it was a NF4Ultra.
I don't have time right now to read the whole thing, but did it say that even if you enable it, does it go x8/x8 or does it stay x16/x2?

Looking at the manual it appears that DFI made 3 boards with the NF4 ultra chipset, that I can find in the manual so far. There was one that was not the Ultra or SLI chipset.
Some of the boards that are capable of SLI but are not equipped are the Ultra-D, Ultra-DR, Ultra DxG. The DxG stands for dual express graphics. You were able to run 4 monitors at once supposedly. The DxG is the one I got off of fleabay that hit that astounding 400MHz reference clock.


I thought you had an expert board? The experts are pretty different than the Ultra-DR/SLI-DR. They had a lot more features not to mention the Sil3114 controller and an extra 4 SATA ports, a debug LED and such.

EDIT: I think they might've given up on the driver aspect of it. IIRC, even with my A8N32, they all used the same 15.23 nforce driver.
And as far as I know, all DFI did was put epoxy over the pins that you join together. Which I actually find kind of funny because that just makes it easier to find which ones you need to join. I've found a couple of articles that show the writer removing the epoxy with a scalpel, exacto or some other fine sharp instrument.

I think that thinker is right on the money. Its cheaper overall to make 1 chip and just cut certain connecting bridges to deactivate features. Rather than make several dies. It's the same way with automotive stuff. I spoke with an engineer from Ford and asked him why Ford doesn't change a certain little part, like the angle of a bend in a metal line. He told me that to even change the bend one degree would cost millions of dollars. That's why you'll see the same engine in a lot of different cars. Or other manufacturers engines in our domestics like the Mercury Villager using a Nissan 3.0 motor.

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SuppA-SnipA

dont know what happened before, i thought i linked the correct image, but heres the cpuz

blitz6804

SuppA-SnipA: Welcome aboard! I will add you and Loony to the off-site. Eventually. Sorry about the delay Loony, been very busy.

txtmstrjoe: Later revisions of the Ultra-D had epoxy put over the junction that would need to be removed before modding. Later revisions of the nF4 Ultra chipset had internal components removed to prevent this mod from working.

BlackOmega: If you use a really old driver version (GeForce 70.xx or earlier) you can enable SLI natively on the Ultra-D at 16x/2x. Newer drivers will not SLI enable. Doing the pencil mod, the computer thinks you have an nForce4-SLI board and will run at 8x/8x regardless of the driver version.

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¤ I have no idea what it will 3DMark at 3510 MHz. ¤
¤ Upgrade budget: ■■■■■■■■■■ ($0 / ∞) ¤
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N2Gaming

NOW here's the million dollar question: What was the Revion code on the DFI mobo & date of the newer revisions for the NF4 Ultra chipset? This is a majical way to make sure you get a cheaper sli capable mobo. Heck I got a SLI DR for $18.00 because the guy could not get the system working correctly. So Needless to say I have a backup mobo for my daly driver system should it get fubard some how.

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blitz6804

I believe all Ultra-Ds, easily mod-able, moderately mod-able, and not mod-able, are all listed as revision 1.0. Do not quote me on that though.

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¤ The Loricatus Draco life thread. Now awaiting an HD 5970! ¤
¤ I have no idea what it will 3DMark at 3510 MHz. ¤
¤ Upgrade budget: ■■■■■■■■■■ ($0 / ∞) ¤
¤ B.S. in Chem., Cum Laude, Minors in Maths and Crim. Justice, J.D. {Pending} ¤
¤ Almost all PC parts come with manuals. Ask me to find yours! ¤
¤ Want a real socket? Get Socket 939! ¤
¤ Today Txtmstrjoe presents: "[Steppings] merely indicate possible outcomes due to the law of averages being in your favor." ¤
¤ ... ¤

N2Gaming

As far as I know the only difference from the expert mobo and the SLI-DR is the absence os the sli jumpers on the mobo and the enhanced overclocking abilities due to hardware/componant changes for smoother power delivery. I still have all 8 SATA ports on my SLI-DR the 4 debug lights and I got extra's that most other mobo's did not. like the Black Lanparty cary case and the FrontX...

Edit: I do have 3 expert mobo's that are POS garbage & on of which is a Venus. Well I can't say that entirely about the expert mobo's that I have. It's just that I have not been able to test all of them yet. One of them works but no sound, PCI and some of the usb ports are dead on the mobo. That is what I can tell you so far from all the testing that I have done w/it. NO that testing was not the Venus before you ask. I still have not touched the Venus. I don't know if that means I have a bad componant somewheres on the mobo or a bad southbridge.

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