CPU/Mobo Intel DG965WHMKR Motherboard

S

supershailz

Disciple
I don't know whether anybodys used this board. Has lots of glitches, but once it starts smoothly its a damn good board.

Check out the link.
Intel® Desktop Board DG965WH Overview
DG965WH_lg.jpg

If anybody's using the board and is stuck with the problem feel free to ask..:D
 
I have one, and sorry to burst your bubble, but it's a pretty sucky board.

The onboard graphics needs a special card ('sold separately') to get the DVI and TV-out, and it's unusable for games without an add-on card. I would expect a 'media series' board to at least provide additional video outputs, at least a TV-out. I'm not sure what market they were aiming for when they released this.

There are new BIOS updates every four or five days. It's not particularly stable either, and particularly high system latency means it will always suck at benchmarks. I think one should pass it up and wait till the guys at Intel get it right.

The board has a serious cold boot issue, which is somewhat tackled by the 1612 BIOS, but not completely cured.

The IDE connector is right at the bottom of the board, meaning you are out of luck with connecting more than one optical drive, specially in a tall case.

I should have gone with my gut and picked up an Asus, but insanity prevailed and I'm stuck with this useless POS board, that is not supported by clockgen, MBM, speedfan, or even the Intel Active monitor. It took a BIOS update and a pretty large download to be able to read my temps in Windows through IDU.

The only bright spot I see in the board is the audio solution, for an integrated solution it sounds pretty good, the DD Live! is a great future-proof feature, and the drivers are rock-solid.

And, apart from the really poor IDE connector position, the way the slots are laid out means you will always have at least two PCI and two PCI express connectors available, even if you use a dual-slot cooler graphics card. You have to remove the card to insert RAM, but that isn't too bad a compromise.

Another good thing is the attention paid to PCI implementation, the older 925 and 955 chipsets had problems with pro-audio cards, this one seems butter smooth down to 1ms latencies, so I'm assuming the PCI bus is well-implemented.

This is probably a good board for peeps who need something that just runs, and doesn't need too much maintenance. After the guys at Intel ensure it starts every time the power button is pressed. Which doesn't always happen.

BTW, anyone WTB it??? This is pretty much the last time I buy an Intel board.
 
Once upon a time back in the days of the Pentium 2's Intel "Original" boards were considered to be the best and they were at the time. Even now many people get the Intel boards with the same sentiments.

In the recent offerings only the 975XBX and derivatives seem to be good. Rest of the Intel originals cannot match the price, features and stability offered by other brands like Asus, MSI etc. Only the hardcore Intel "Original" fans will go for these medium budget Intel boards.
 
The reason I got it was actually the feature/price ratio. This is the first time I've ever used an Intel PC for myself, I've always been an AMD loyalist. When the K6-2 was out, I used it because it was 70% of the price of the PII and I had just started working. Then it was the Athlons because they beat the living crap out the PIII and the early P4s, then the A64 because it knocked the later P4s silly. So, I'm not really a loyalist, far from it, and so far I'm pretty underwhelmed at the Intel experience.

This board gets dumped into my HTPC with a 4300 when it's out, and then it's time for a move to nVidia chipsets, probably. I've always had good luck with them, both the nF2 and nF3 Pro (gave nf4/5 a miss due to the PCI problems which happened on both the nVidia and the Intel chipsets).

No P5B deluxe for me, though, want to wait till the 4300 is out and then figure out a good upgrade strategy, or whether I continue to put up with it till AMD has a decent enough competitor to the C2D. And that may not be too far away.
 
I've always found that Intel builds the most stable motherboards - it's not feature-rich but it's rock solid stable.
 
The first and last Intel "original" board I ever purchased was an 845 board to be used for a P4. Its not a cheap Micro ATX board with every thing integrated, rather a full ATX board with some decent feature set. worked fine for 1.5 years, then I gave the machine to my sister as she needed a decent machine for doing her project work. one fine day, it stopped working. Half the caps on the board have blown. got all the blown caps replaced. worked for 2 months, then one day each one of the rest of the original caps blew. got them replaced. the third day after that, the first lot of caps blew again. Again got all of them replaced, worked fine for some months, then it again stopped working. It was a very frusturating and agonizing experience for my sister.

Its not a problem with the PSU either. Though it was a cheap one, it was still decent enough too handle the machine and it was running off a powersafe UPS.

I had purchased a decent number boards personally from brands like Mercury (Kobian), Amaze PC, MSI and worked with other boards through friends, but never has a board ever blown off like. All the old boards I have are still in top working condition. even my first one based on the VIA chipset (dont remember the brand) is 10 years old and still runs my Pentium MMX 166 MHz and 32 MB EDO RAM without a hitch.

Even some friends who had brought "original" Intel boards after the 810 chipset era had run into problems after a while. Some Intel boards can be very stable as I had seen some take a lot of beating at the college, but still its a gamble when you go for a Intel "Original" board.
 
RiO said:
I've always found that Intel builds the most stable motherboards - it's not feature-rich but it's rock solid stable.
Click to expand...
umm, maybe that's a generalisation, because the one I got isn't anywhere near what I would call stable.

Again this may be just one lemon, and maybe it will get better with BIOS updates - this is the only board I have ever owned that needed BIOS updates to just get some basic features up and running, and from Day1 it's never been too stable either. So the myth of 'Intel Orginal is stable' remains, for me at least, a myth.
 
Yup, I guess you have a bad board because I built a budget C2D rig for a friend and picked the DG965RY, no issues whatsoever. I wouldn't recommend Intel boards if you plan to bench/overclock though, unless of course it's the XBX.
 
sangram said:
I should have gone with my gut and picked up an Asus, but insanity prevailed and I'm stuck with this useless POS board, that is not supported by clockgen, MBM, speedfan, or even the Intel Active monitor. It took a BIOS update and a pretty large download to be able to read my temps in Windows through IDU.
Click to expand...

Hey sangram, i have DG965RY board. I have the same problem that Speedfan and other softwares don't show the temps. Will it be resolved if i do the latest BIOS update or do i need anything else?
 
I still beleive GeForce 6150 coupled with nForce 430 is still the best option available today for Integrated Video Solutions in Motherboards, much better than Intel 965G Express Chipset with ViiV Technoology, what you guys have to say about it???
 
I had to download the Intel Desktop Utilities package from the Intel website, and flash my BIOS to get the temps to read.

These new Intel mobos use sensors that are not supported (yet) by most software utilities. I've written to alfredo to include it in speedfan, I'm not sure of the status on that. Once he includes it you should be able to get temps off speedfan as well.
 
with the new flash updates. most of the softwares read the temps. i tried with everest and it works fine.

anyway i liked the board and its really stable. no probs so far.
 
You are totally true about all the the stuff u have described. I just wanted to share the experiences with this board because practically this is the only board available in India for 8k and has some plus features like Raid support, Dolby digital live and firewire as well. Its pretty stable for me.
Some plus points for me:-
Sound is pretty good.
Raid benchmarks are better than ASUS P5WDH Deluxe with same config.
Has firewire port coz I use that a lot for my video editing.
Not a single cold boot or restart problem.
Price is cheaper than other boards with raid support.

Downside.
If u have only sata dvd writer on Ich8r then only bootable cds will work, no bootable dvds will work:mad:
Very choosy abt the memories.

Btw m using Vista Ultimate for almost a week. No problems whatsoever. I guess the board is here to stay in Indiafor price conscious buyers until Asus/Msi/Gigabyte stars cheaper boards with raid solution atleast.

Let the discussion continue.:hap5:
 
I have the DG965wh... it was a stable board until i bought my G.Skill 800 2X1 Gb which were supposed to run at 4-4-4-12 timings, it ran fine at 5-5-5-15(default) on my system, and when i tried to tweak the bios, it would just not boot :mad:, just wondering if anyone knows of any stable ways i can tweak up the timings?
 
No dont try it. It will make ur machine unstable as u said. It doesnt allow tweaking of memory settings. Only chance is by using intel system integrator tool kit. But its best to use it at stock speeds.
 
relaxedcrazyman said:
I have the DG965wh... it was a stable board until i bought my G.Skill 800 2X1 Gb which were supposed to run at 4-4-4-12 timings, it ran fine at 5-5-5-15(default) on my system, and when i tried to tweak the bios, it would just not boot :mad:, just wondering if anyone knows of any stable ways i can tweak up the timings?
Click to expand...

I got a transcend 1Gb @ 533 with the same board and it works at 4-4-4-12.;)

Also I too have no issues with board stability. Been using it since last two months. The Only prob i m facing is that board is not detecting my CPU fan RPM. (Dont worry CPU fan is rotating).:S

And guys do not forget to flash the BIOS once you buy this board. My Baord was reading CPU temp -25 degC before I flashed the bios.:hap2:

Another point My baord had a DMA mode issue with Samsung DVD ROM drive. Could not solve it:mad: . I Upgraded it to Sony DVD writer DRU830A. Now its working @ Ultra DMA Mode 4.:D
The point - Stay away from Samsung Optical drives with this board.:cool2:
 
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