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View Full Version : Chaintech VNF3 250 (and beta bios VN120507)



piddock
09-04-2004, 06:35 PM
Hi

Got my Chaintech VNF3 250 and a 2800 CPU. Couldn't resist at the price and after reading the review by AndyT on bleedinedge.com :)

It worked as expected and the sound is OK - I need more listening time before I decide if I should buy a Audigy2 for it.

Flashed the BIOS with VN120507 from Tony (Bigtoe's BIOS bin). And on reboot it hangs after memory test. Reset the BIOS (jumper JP1) and it boots OK. But it will always hang after memory test (and not boot) when I have USB mouse enabled in BIOS. It seems that everything else works.

Luckily I could just swap my mouse with my daughter's PS2 mouse and I'll try the USB mouse again when there is a new BIOS available.

I just realised I can actually see the difference in the smoothness by just dragging the mouse pointer across the desktop - the higher sample rate of the USB port makes the mouse movement smoother. Lately it seems that it's easier to see improvements in performance in better hardware by using it for a while and then trying to go back to what you had. (The performance loss seems more noticeable than the performance gain was).

At least I can check my CPU temps now - 38C, standard heatsink, standard clocks ,idle - 19C in the room. I haven't tried any overclock yet. I don't expect a lot from my Hynix budget-priced RAM, although it works fine at CAS2 on the 200fsb (7,3,3,2) :)

piddock
09-09-2004, 03:28 PM
Flashed with BIOS VN120729 and I can use my USB mouse again. It also fixed another small problem where BIOS would report 'keyboard locked out, please press F1...' before proceeding to boot.

Sold the Hynix RAM without really testing it (someone just happened to say he was going to buy some RAM).

Setup is now:
250 x 9 = 2250MHz @ 1.7V, 40 deg C, standard heatsink & fan
HT x 3
Samsung DDR400 512MB RAM 2.5 3 3 10 locked at 166 = 416MHz no heatsinks, should be able to go faster in a week or two, judging from previous experience (timings and/or FSB should improve).
NVidia fx5900 at 480/920 thanks X-Micro (2.2ns RAM) standard cooler.
2 x Maxtor 80GB SATA

3DMark2001 = 18520
3DMark03 = 6349

For what it cost, it's great, but the 3000+ may have been giving me 2500MHz already (250x10).


I'm happy :)