Hello,

         I've solved my problem myself actually that was only a virus attack.                   

I would RMA the board so Intel can take a look at it.  It's the same problem no matter what type of products are on it.  Plus, it'll ensure you have a newly replaced board to use should a fix comes about in the future, such as a BIOS revision.  As far as refunds, no.  I've read they won't refund nor replace it with a different model, but they'll keep sending you the same board over & over until they decide you've abused their RMA policy.  Mine was purchased from ZipZoomFly.com.  I hadn't tried to return it to them, but I'm sure they won't accept it now since it's been 4 months.

I received my RMA replacement motherboard a week ago from Intel, but I'm afraid of putting it back together since no solution has been found.  The board they sent me is in a brand new Intel Box with a sticker that says INDS Support Stock/Date Transferred: 02/24/2009.  I haven't even opened it yet so I'm not even sure if it's in one piece because it was poorly wrapped in a regular brown box that was half-*** taped together.  It looked like a 2 year old taped it shut leaving the box partially open and the bubble wrap wasn't even around it nor used enough of it.

Once they figure out the problem, I "might" decide put it together with other parts at some point... but I'd have to purchase more parts.  I'd sell it... but I probably couldn't get a buyer even if I paid them to take it off my hands.  For now, it sits on my desk just for "looks".

The only extra input I can give is evidence of what I found underneath the board before sending it back to Intel.  I saw brown rosin residue where the 2 heatsinks & CPU are located showing it got really hot at some point.  If heat was the source of the problem, then purchasing extra chipset fans & not using the stock cooler that came with the CPU are recommended as a precaution.

But... if you put fans on the chipsets, you may run into the inability to use "dual" high-end video cards (such as the large cards that take up almost 10inches of space) because the 1st PCI-E 16x slot will be blocked off by the fan.  Kudos for having 20/20 hindsight in the engineering department.

As for my solution, I'm waiting on an EVGA nForce 790i SLI-Ready: 132-CK-NF79-TR motherboard to come in from TigerDirect only because I originally wanted a gaming system.  It's the only board that will run with the parts I have within my price range & gives me an option to add extra GTS 250 SLI video cards should I decide to run duals or triples in the future.  If you noticed, there's no bridge adapter with the DP45SG board so I'm not even sure if running dual video cards would be safe.

I'm also going to use a Noctua NH-C12P CPU Cooler since the original stock fan with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz Yorkfield CPU is inadequate.  The NH-C12P has a high quality rating & it sits low profile so it will fit in any desktop/mid-tower case.  It also uses screws with brackets to hold the heatsink down onto the CPU, not "craptastic-plastic push pins" that you twist & lock into the motherboard.  I wonder what moron patented those twist-lock pins & I wonder who suggested to supply it with Intels CPUs?  Don't they know the twist/push pins spreads the thermal compound unevenly when trying to install it?  How many times does it take for companies to realize they lose business over poor quality decisions?

Well... I'm tired of troubleshooting this board & not getting paid for it.  I've already wasted 1.5 months & I feel sorry for those who had to depend on this board to run their businesses or needed it for school without an immediate solution.

Anyway... I wish everyone a swift recovery to this troublesome situation we've all run into.

But... if you put fans on the chipsets, you may run into the inability to use "dual" high-end video cards (+such as the large cards that take up almost 10inches of space+) because the 1st PCI-E 16x slot will be blocked off by the fan.  Kudos for having 20/20 hindsight in the engineering department. [reply] This board is supposed to be used with passive hsf on the ICH heatsink; and the customer's suggestion to add a fan is unncessary. Most Crossfire* cards from ATI* (that's really hot that is) will not compound the heat on the ICH as the graphics cards usually suck air from around the ICH and exhaust it to the outer chassis. Other manufacturers also do not put fans on ICH usually and they'd use heatpipes to connect to MCH and the PWM further up north the board. However, this heatpipe solution is much more expensive and therefore was out of the Intel® Desktop Board DP45SG's price point. I've input this heatpipe solution to engineering during NPI stage but as I mentioned above, the board price doesn't allow this feature to be added.

As for my solution, I'm waiting on an *EVGA nForce 790i SLI-Ready: 132-CK-NF79-TR* motherboard to come in from TigerDirect only because I originally wanted a +gaming+ system.  It's the only board that will run with the parts I have within my price range & gives me an option to add extra GTS 250 SLI video cards should I decide to run duals or triples in the future.  If you noticed, there's no bridge adapter with the DP45SG board so I'm not even sure if running dual video cards would be safe. [reply] The Intel® Desktop Board DP45SG works with Crossfire* only solution; it would not work with SLI. Basically we haven't been able to purchase licence from nVidia* to have SLI running on this board. I'm also pretty sure the EVGA board is much more expensice than the Intel® Desktop Board DP45SG.

John S.
Intel Customer Support
*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Message was edited by: JohnS

Hello,

          If you don't mind can i ask you a some questions as Intel has mentioned about fan headers which are designed on the board to add fans to front and rear side of the chassis will it work with the any solution that you may suggest.And tell me how much heat pipelines would cost.For instance may be i'm able to get some conclusion.I'm using Intel boards since four years and i also done many intensive jobs but computer did not overheat in reaction of that i've also observed the built in heatsink solution in my 8800GT Nvidia card may work.

Hello,

          If you people don't mind can i suggest you one thing to all of you at this thread.Why don't you use liquid cooling system only if you having heating problems i'm not sure that it would work in DP45SG or not but still check if it works.I hope you people will not discourage this idea.

I think its great that at least someone has the board working properly.

As for mine, I am no longer having problems with my DP45SG either. Mine is screwed to the wall along with all the other motherboards over the years that have been lemons that the Manufacturer wouldn't take responsibility for. Of the 60 or so boards there, this is only the second intel.

I was having problems trying to get Windows XP Pro SP 2 to load and made a post. One of the responses told me to check my bios for the hard drive setup, the following is my response after changing out the hard drive. But please read on after that response because I have a new set of problems now and maybe you can help.

RESPONSE-I checked and double checked the settings in my bios, it was set to Native and IDE. I think the problem may have been that the hard drive had been set up in a raid in a different build that was dismantled. I purchased a new hard drive and was able to set windows XP SP2 up on it, however it the install aborted in the middle though I was able to recover it.

After install the system was very unstable. As I installed drivers & programs it got worse and worse. When I would do a reboot I would get an error message and instructed to use the install disk and the R option at the first screen. I found if I did that all I needed to do was go into the R option, choose the installation, enter my admin password, and then type exit without actually doing any repairs. The machine would then reboot into windows.

After a few of those reboots the keyboard stopped working, it worked fine in the bios start up but as soon as windows loaded it wouldn't work anymore. After pouring over the community messages with no luck I decided to do a fresh reinstall of windows.

This time windows installed without a hitch, but things still seem like they could get a little flaky. Everything is working again, but it just doesn't seem stable. I updated the bios, the chipset, and the Lan driver. I attempted to update the sound driver but was instructed that my system didn't have the correct hardware. The sound is working but I don't have the monitor/program for some reason this time.

During one of the reboots for a driver I installed I caught a quick glimsp of the blue screen as the computer was shuting down. I fully expected it to not reboot, but it did. Once during a reboot it started into windows and then did an auto-reboot, however it did boot into windows this time too. So this is why I'm saying things still could be kind of flaky.

I've read a couple things about disabling S.M.A.R.T. on the boards here saying it can cause problems with a large sata drive, know anything about that?

Any suggestions that might make my system more reliable/stable? here is my configuration

Intel motherboard DP45SG

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Processor

Ultra LSP650-Watt Power supply

Corsair XMS3 DHX 2048 Dual Channel PC10600 DDR3 1333MHz Memory (2x1024MB) I have 4 of these giving me 4 gig

Seagate SATA 3.5" Barracuda 1TB 3Gb/s  32MB Cache 7200 RPM

Sparkle GeForce 9600 GT video card 1024MB DDR3, PCI Express 2.0 x 16

Sony DRU-V200S/BR DVD Rewritable, SATA - 20x

Logitech USB Mouse & Keyboard

THE FOLLOWING WAS HIS RESPONSE TO THAT POST:

I read Ultra are not the best of PSU for a stable setup....

Increase the RAM Voltage.

Have the 4 pin molex (by the PCI-e slot) plugged in by your PSU.

Hope that helps make it more stable.

THEN I RESPONDED BACK TO HIM WITH:

I will try your 2 suggestions first and then replace the power supply if I'm still having problems. Any suggestions on a better power supply?

I'm relatively new at this (actually I'm working with young Native Americans teaching them video & photography skills in a non-profit situation & that is why I'm trying to build & make this computer work on my own because there is no money to just go out and purchase one) Anyway...

Can you explain to me how to increase the RAM voltage? I'm guessing it's through the bios, but I'm not sure how to do it.

When you say, "Have the 4 pin molex (by the PCI-e slot) plugged in by your PSU."are you saying to have it plugged in on the shortest cable coming from the PSU?

*NOTE* I noticed that in the BIOS that it is recognizing the 4 Gb of RAM I have installed, but on my computer properties in windows it is only recognizing 3.24 Gb. Does that mean anything to you?

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I have not recieved a response back from my last post. Can you help or do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

Hi,

Well part of the stability issues spawned because my ram was not installed in the proper channels. At first, my ram was installed in the black ports and not the blue, and then later in two slots blue/black right next to each other because my wiring was crazy. I found that every time I loaded something that required the somewhat moderate to intensive ram to be accessed, it would lock up. I ran the computer with one stick in channel 0 (blue) with the ram's factory timings/voltages and it worked fine so I added the other into channel 0 (2 blue). Keep in mind that my ram sticks are MATCHED pairs, so they run at the same frequencies, have the same timings, and same voltages. I'm only running 2x2GB totalling 4GB and it's running fine. Ram is runnng at 32 degrees which is optimal. When I filled all ram slots totalling 8GB I noticed a few stability issues. Running at 4GB is fine so I returned the other set of ram. Seems in my experience that the black ram slots don't like ram.

That was one of the reasons among a few others that I had stability issues. Another was CPU cooling; Intel's stock CPU wasn't doing such a good job keeping my Quad Core cooled. Many times if it hits a certain temp, the computer would lock up or power-off to prevent the CPU from frying. I went out and replaced the cooler, plus got some really high end thermal compound to match it and it fixed the heat issue.

These are 2 main issues I had to deal with in regards to this board, but once I got it all sorted things worked fine. One other thing to note is, Intel's CPU cooler is supported by 4 plastic push screws that snap into place but I feel this isn't very secure and is a pain to get balanced. If the cooler is off just a tiny millimeter, that would lead to a load of heat issues.