EVGA 750i FTW Impressions

[deepchild]

An update on the 750i FTW:

The board itself seems very nice. I love the layout and the on-board cooling is solid. The northbridge fan is a bit loud, although you can force it down to 30% RPM in BIOS which helps a good bit.

There have been a few problems with the install though. Firstly the manual page 15 references the internal USB header, but has the incorrect location pointed out. The location it directs you to is actually the firewire header. Plugging in the front USB ports to this header results in frying anything that you plug in to the port. I lost a pen drive this way, but I've read that others have lost IPods etc. A diagram of the entire mobo on an earlier page (5 or so) shows the correct location, which is just above the CMOS battery.

The second problem that I've experienced involves BSODs when loading windows to the desktop. It was only intermittent at first, but has steadily gotten worse, so much so that I've been unable to reinstall windows as it bombs out on the first system reboot and can't complete the setup.

The EVGA forums pointed me to a possible solution which involves grabbing an updated nforce SATA driver (for the 790 boards) and installing that. Since I can't even load windows, I've got to hope that I can pull the driver .sys file off of a usb drive (the one that still works) so I can direct the vista setup to use that SATA driver for the install.

It seems like a really nice board, but unfortunately some early teething problems have made setup a frustrating experience for some. Such is the price of non-reference hardware I suppose.

Further updates to come as things hopefully get worked out.

 

[evongugg]

Do you have AHCI enable in the bios?
You should disable it when you install Windows. Then install the drivers, reboot and enable AHCI. Or you can leave it disabled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface

 

[deepchild]

Interesting. I'll be sure to check this out when I get a chance. Thanks for the tip

 

[deepchild]

As it turns out, I'd gotten a defective memory module. I pulled one out and ran on just 2gb, and the system is rock solid. That being the case, this mobo certainly meets my expectations. I'll have to wait for my replacement modules to arrive before I can really test the performance, but so far so very very good.

 

[pcgamer12]

nice! i should have gotten one, did u check if the ram is on the supported memory list for that mobo? my case is too small to run 2 x 8800gts, cooling constraints and i like my computer quiet. 2 would make me run my case fans faster. on low right now and silent as heck! i got an GA-P35-DS3L instead.

 

[MadBadger]

deepchild - You may not have a defective memory module as you suspected. I thought that I had read in the newegg revews that some 750i mobos have issues with Vista and more than 3GB or RAM on install. People only installed 2GB, installed Vista fix at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777 and then reinstall the remaining RAM. Interestingly enough, I saw this in a review for the P5N-D and not the 750i FTW. If you're still having issues, you may want to give this a try.

I'm considering getting the 750i FTW for my new SLI rig. How's the BIOS and everything else on it?

 

[Shaihalud9]

An update on the 750i FTW:

The board itself seems very nice. I love the layout and the on-board cooling is solid. The northbridge fan is a bit loud, although you can force it down to 30% RPM in BIOS which helps a good bit.

There have been a few problems with the install though. Firstly the manual page 15 references the internal USB header, but has the incorrect location pointed out. The location it directs you to is actually the firewire header. Plugging in the front USB ports to this header results in frying anything that you plug in to the port. I lost a pen drive this way, but I've read that others have lost IPods etc. A diagram of the entire mobo on an earlier page (5 or so) shows the correct location, which is just above the CMOS battery.

The second problem that I've experienced involves BSODs when loading windows to the desktop. It was only intermittent at first, but has steadily gotten worse, so much so that I've been unable to reinstall windows as it bombs out on the first system reboot and can't complete the setup.

The EVGA forums pointed me to a possible solution which involves grabbing an updated nforce SATA driver (for the 790 boards) and installing that. Since I can't even load windows, I've got to hope that I can pull the driver .sys file off of a usb drive (the one that still works) so I can direct the vista setup to use that SATA driver for the install.

It seems like a really nice board, but unfortunately some early teething problems have made setup a frustrating experience for some. Such is the price of non-reference hardware I suppose.

Further updates to come as things hopefully get worked out.

Ive got a DFI Infinity NF570 mobo, and I get occasional BSODs with windows telling me the nForce SATA controller is to blame.. Ive updated the SATA driver, but still get 'em.


Ugh.. with the new E7200 out.. Im tempted to rip out my 5000+BE and buy a 750i and the E7200 and pump it up to 3.8ghz... with my 9800GTX... vroooommm..

 

[Surfer_Gurl]

Hi, all. I've read info here from time to time, but never had anything worthwhile to say, so just registered. I just built my first computer, with an EVGA 750i. So easy to post with the LED display (I can't for the life of me remember what these alphanumeric LEDs are called).
All is well, except my AVerMedia A180 TV tuner isn't recognized. The manufacturer says to make sure I DL the current drivers, but a user at evga.com forum says never DL from EVGA, use nVIDIA, and
1. Flash with the latest BIOS
2. Download the 790i Ultra RAID driver from www.nvidia.com (for WINXP installation)
3. Download the rest of the 750i drivers software from www.nvidia.com
4. Make sure all CPU cores are enabled in BIOS
5. Make sure ACPI is enabled and MCP version is 1.4 in BIOS
6. Make sure Mac LAN is enabled/AUTO in BIOS
7. Now you can install window

Did I screw up? Thanks for your advise. This is one of the three places I look to for help.

 

[Surfer_Gurl]

An update on the 750i FTW:

There have been a few problems with the install though. Firstly the manual page 15 references the internal USB header, but has the incorrect location pointed out. The location it directs you to is actually the firewire header. Plugging in the front USB ports to this header results in frying anything that you plug in to the port. I lost a pen drive this way, but I've read that others have lost IPods etc. A diagram of the entire mobo on an earlier page (5 or so) shows the correct location, which is just above the CMOS battery.

My manual refers to these headers on page 16, and refers to the 1394a header among the card slots, and the USB ub the same place, as you said. Luckily, I've only used the USB ports, and seem to work OK... where should these cables be plugged in?
EDIT: Nevermind, I re-read the post, and saw the part I hadn't seen in the first read that refers to the proper header. Teach me to read too quickly.

 

[mvp7747]

Ive got a DFI Infinity NF570 mobo, and I get occasional BSODs with windows telling me the nForce SATA controller is to blame.. Ive updated the SATA driver, but still get 'em.


Ugh.. with the new E7200 out.. Im tempted to rip out my 5000+BE and buy a 750i and the E7200 and pump it up to 3.8ghz... with my 9800GTX... vroooommm..

Hey i have had this same problem as well with my MSI P6N mobo 650i
i got this motherboard open box which i feel has been a mistake and i am thinking of replacing it with the 750i FTW
my other BSOD's besides the SATA drive have been bad_pool_header and page_in_nonpaged_area
will replacing my motherboard most likely fix this problem?
i have already tried using a graphics card other than my 8600 GTS and that did not fix the problem
i have Vista Home Premium 32 bit
E4300 1.8 ghz overclocked to fsb 1066 2.4 ghz
3 gb dual channel ocz gold ram

 

[JERRYCLInton]

dont blame you have the same problem right now same motherboard same problem and burned out my unify logitech receiver and I play magical ram slots to boot half the time it tries to boot off hard drive. it will boot off network but thats it it will ignore the hard drive completely, happened one day out of the blue just have these problems, not hard drive and have the manual shooting towards bios is a POS seeing all my hardware works in my other computers, p.s. not the first motherboard, my warranty first one had same problem pisses me off cause I reverted from a quad to a duo you can tell the difference, and for windows vista I havent used that in 2 years, I will never revert back to that my other option is to find a stabler bios cause this ones crappy, I hate playing magical move the hardware tell it turns on

 

[JERRYCLInton]

Hi, all. I've read info here from time to time, but never had anything worthwhile to say, so just registered. I just built my first computer, with an EVGA 750i. So easy to post with the LED display (I can't for the life of me remember what these alphanumeric LEDs are called).
All is well, except my AVerMedia A180 TV tuner isn't recognized. The manufacturer says to make sure I DL the current drivers, but a user at evga.com forum says never DL from EVGA, use nVIDIA, and
1. Flash with the latest BIOS
2. Download the 790i Ultra RAID driver from www.nvidia.com (for WINXP installation)
3. Download the rest of the 750i drivers software from www.nvidia.com
4. Make sure all CPU cores are enabled in BIOS
5. Make sure ACPI is enabled and MCP version is 1.4 in BIOS
6. Make sure Mac LAN is enabled/AUTO in BIOS
7. Now you can install window

Did I screw up? Thanks for your advise. This is one of the three places I look to for help.

Also not for this, done that still POS, eventually goes 2 the point of no return, could be a resistor or capacitors are crap dont know had that happen on one mother bored but it seems bios based on this one, maybe Ill manual bios boot dos for a hack bios dont know seems like a waste of time