Dead nforce2 Shuttle?

[Oakey]

I installed Vista on my nf2 Shuttle (Mobile XP2500+, 1Gb Corsair RAM, Radeon 9200) and it was fine... for a while. today it just kept crashing over and over, BSOD's, random reboots, lock ups, etc.

I thought maybe the BIOs needed tweaking so set it to 200x10, Ram @ 3-4-4-8 (as it is), CPU @ 1.6v and Ram @ 2.7v. Saved settings and rebooted. Black screen. Powered off and back on, it powers up, fans are spinning, etc but there are no LED's lit up on the front, no warning beeps, etc, etc.

Tried resetting CMOS and it did nothing.

Faulty motherboard or dead CPU?

[dave87]

Try removing the bios battery over night, then try it again in the morning. Usually works with my XC Cube (AOpen equivalent to a shuttle, just a hell of a lot less picky....)

[Agent]

IIRC there was some serious issues with NF2 shuttles + RAM voltage. They had a habit of frying themselves if taken out of spec

[Oakey]

Hmm, well I used to run the same RAM at about 2.9v on my old Abit NF2 system, 2.7v was the highest the shuttle allowed and I have a feeling that may have been the default voltage for the RAM anyway.

[MadduckUK]

if thats an sn45g shuttle then Agent is correct. upping vdimm kills them. shuttle released a bios upgrade to diable voltage tweaking to get around the problem.


see here SFFTECH FORUM POST

[Oakey]

Well that's just great. So my PC is fried because of Shuttles incompetence to create a fully functioning product?

Where do I stand on this? It was bought in November 2004 so it's clearly out of warranty, however as this is a design fault down to Shuttle, I feel a little cheated and that I should still be compensated.

It was bought from CPUCity who look like they recently went out of business so maybe I could exploit that fact and try and get it RMA'd to Shuttle?

However, I bought it on my credit card so can I complain to my card company that I've bought a faulty product, etc and get a chargeback (even this late in the game)?

[Agent]

Talk to shuttle first - i had to use their RMA service about 6 months back (and im currently going through it again), and they delt with it excellently.

[MadduckUK]

Shuttles incompetence to create a fully functioning product?

well to be fair its been fully functioning since you got it, right?

[Oakey]

well to be fair its been fully functioning since you got it, right?

Yes, right up until I hit the sneakily disguised "Self Destruct" option.

Seriously, that's a huge design flaw and at the very least you'd expect a recall. If a product has a major fault, they're usually recalled. Not everyone who buys a SN45G can be expected to know about this and they're not likely to discover it until AFTER the fact. At the very least I'd expect the retailer (CPUCity, assuming they even knew)) to have included a warning about this.

I only used it as a Media PC, therefore music, etc so have never had any need to adjust the stock settings. If I'd intended to overclock it then I may have learnt about this the hard way at the beginning. It's only recently that I started getting quite a few BSOD's so decided to up the vdimm a little. And much to my astonihment discover that adjusting those options from anything but 'Auto' (iirc the options were only 2.7v and 2.9v, both within the RAMs limits) kills the system dead.

That's like buying a car, as a non smoker, then 18 months later plugging a device into the cigerette lighter and having the engine blow up.

[Oakey]

Oops, double post

[Ady168uk]

hey oakey any luck with the rma with shuttle, my friends sn45g v2 did the exact same thing, was running fine for like 2 years then he played around with the vdimm, now its totally dead. Got it sitting here at my place if an RMA is possible I'll try and get it replaced but its way outta warranty by now I think.

[Apex]

Shuttle can be a pain some times......

The SN45G5 V1 work fine with the volts upped

The SN45G V2 don't and so shuttle released a new bios to disable the volt tweak

The SN45G5 V3 had this turned off my default.....

btw try searching for any support info for v2 and you will be lucky to find any thing.

Oakey, tbh you do't have a leg to stand on, shuttle do warn you that running out side the standard votlages will void any warantee, end of the day you had a fiddle and you broke it, be this a fault of shuttle or not, you went outside the default 2.5v for which the system was set for....

Drew

[hibby]

The SN45G5 V1 work fine with the volts upped

I'm not so sure... I killed mine this way a couple of months after getting it, and I seem to remember mine being a V1. Could be wrong though.

Fortunately it was within warranty and I successfully RMA'd it.