Asus Rampage problems....

Zdb

Zdb

Zdb

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11 Jul 2004
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60
Chaps,

I've recently acquired a X48 Asus Rampage Forumla, Q9450, and OCZ Reaper 1066Mhz, to join my 8800GTX in the LianLi case 1kw PSU.. I think i've got a setup problem, more than a broken MBoard. Basically, I built from scratch, OS etc. If I run the Mem at 800 all appears well - until I do something 3d... then nvkdlm.exe (nvidia driver) error. If I push the memory up to 1066, its dies on entering Vista every time Win32k.sys. Initially I thought nvidia Driver issue, tried one thing after another, nothing. Same old crashing in CoD4 (either hangs, Cod4 crashes, graphics corruption, or BSoD).

Well - i was so convinced by threads elsewhere that it was a compatibility issue with my old 8800GTX - bought a new 4870, stuff Nvidia. Guess what - games play for a few seconds and boom - off they go. Oh dear.......

I've tried change DRAM/CPU voltage up from others issues with this board, leaving everything at default, tweaking, etc. No joy. Only thing is the NB and SB massively hot - 52 / 54 after 30 minutes.... CPU is 23 constantly. The NB adn SB are hot to touch - memory seems steady at 37/38. I've used Thermalright U120 w/ Nocuna fan. Case is cool - I've added more fans previously and generally the box is cool.

Anyone used the ASUS Rampage Formula / Q9450 / OCZ 1066Mhz memory and willing to share their setup? I'm at the point i think possible the board might end up having to go back to OcUK if I cant get it going.

This has been a nightmare so far...
 
Is the 9450 at stock speeds or clocked?

I have not used the ocz ram with the rampage board as I tend to stick with corsair or gskill for asus based boards. There use to be at one stage although I don;t know if it still exists now that asus and ocz ram don't play nicely together.

Having said that I have only ever used 3 brands with asus boards in the time I have has asus boards. I think if you posted in the memory forums you may be able to shed some light on it.

When I bought my rampage with my two other friends we all went with gskill ram as it was pretty much known to work with a majority of boards.

The NB temp is fine.

can you give me the timings of your ram and voltage and what divider you are using?

I am not sure if I can help as even though I have OCZ ram it not for the rampage board although I use to have the exact same setup bar the memory.

What bios version are you running? cpu volts? if you can give me those figures then hopefully I may be able to help but if not I am sure someone here can.
 
Cheers for the reply....
M/Board on 0308 BIOS
Voltages - assuming PC Probe2 is accurate....
+12 - 12.38
+5 - 4.92
+3.3 - 3.30
vcore - 1.02
dram - 1.94
SB - 1.07
SB2 - 1.55
FSBT - 1.18

NB/SB Temps - 56 C

Memory - from CPU-Z
DRAM F - 400.8Mhz
FSB:DRAM - 5:6
5-5-5-15-2T

Interestingly - as I dig through, it appears the CPU is running at 2004.00Mhz, with a multiplier of x6 (Bus 334Mhz). Now most app's are replying back with 2.66 - but both WMI and CPU-Z are reporting 2Ghz... which is looking more like a config issue. time for a poke about tho'

As you can tell - Its been a while since I built a new box, last one was Dual Opteron's on a Tyan S2895 so I'm a tad rusty! :-)
 
Okay quickly glancing at that it seems speedstep is enabled. HEnce why your setup is running at 2.0ghz.

What speedstep does is lower the multiplier and voltage to the cpu when it is idling. I would suggest disabling this feature and manually setting *** voltage and other bits.

If you are not sure then I can go through it step by step with you and hopefully other members can help.

I use the 0219 bios. I am not sure if the 0308 is any better or worse as seeming the board ran fine I found no reason to flash to 0308. I think has been superceded though.
 
speedstep was enabled. I've whipped that off....

I'm definitely not sure at this stage - what should the vcore and dram voltage's be? I've checked OCZ website - and its rated to 2.2v. My understanding was that you pushed this up the further you oc'd so I'd left alone. vcore - I've no idea what this should be - I'd set it to auto, and its came out at 1.04/1.14 - annoyingly i've not found what the stock voltage should be - just what voltages are when its being oc'd...

I'm not interested in Oc'ing for now - I can play once i've got a stable base to work from. tbh - after this, i think i'll leave it well alone once its working - my oc'ing days are behind me
 
I just got this board and love it. It's let me clock my Q6600 to 3.75GHz :cool:

Turn off auto for RAM voltage and dump it on 2.2v. Default is normally 1.8v on boards.

Then dump the CPU on 1.3v. I think for your CPU the stock is something like 1.275v or around that.
If you still have problems increase it to 1.4v just to make sure it's not the CPU voltage.

It will be fine at that voltage. Also enable Loadline Calibration in the BIOS (somewhere around the CPU voltage part). It makes the mobo supply more accurate cleaner CPU voltage with less ripples. It's let me clock my Q6600 to 3.75GHz with less voltage than it needed to run at 3.5GHz on my last board.

You NB and SB are quite hot, but i wouldn't say in the dangfer zone. Mine is around 35c but i have a fan blowing directly on the boards heatsinks.
 
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MR.B said:
Also enable Loadline Calibration in the BIOS (somewhere around the CPU voltage part). It makes the mobo supply more accurate cleaner CPU voltage with less ripples. It's let me clock my Q6600 to 3.75GHz with less voltage than it needed to run at 3.5GHz on my last board.
Click to expand...

1 dont enable loadline calibration , you have a 45nm cpu , it causes problems with 45nm cpu's , fine with 65nm

2 what is the boot strap set at , i suggest 333Mhz

3 i got ocz memory in my rampage, put 2.1v through it and set the frequency as near to 1000Mhz as you can.

4 set the NB voltage to 1.4v if you have 2 sticks of ram , take it a little higher if you have 4 , also if you have 2 sticks use the blue slots.

4 if you are still using the ati card set pcie frequency to 105Mhz

5 manualy set the ram timings to 5 , 5 , 5 , 15 2T , leave all the rest on auto.

I also have Ai clock twister set to light in my bios.

This is how my bios is set up and the board is rock solid stable running a q6600 at 3.5Ghz 24/7 , the NB and SB temps are higher than normal boards as they are passively cooled and higher temps dont affect the board so dont worry too much about them. ;)

if you want any more pointers just let me know ;)
 
Guys, thanks for that....

So - I've taken both of your advice on board....
I've set the following
CPU Ratio - 333
FSB Freq - 333
DRAM Frequency - DDR2-1066Mhz
5-5-5-15, 2N
CPU Voltage 1.30625
DRAM 2.10v

I actually had most of this set after tinkering this evening. I got one really weird crash during CoD4 - and a few blips, but its more stable. Temps go thru the roof if i even try and oc - i had the NB at 69c at one point.... got serious issues with airflow obviously. The LianLi v2110 case i use, has never had problems before - the NB heat is worrying me. I fitted a 70mm Scythe case fan to the CD-bays at the front, and the 70mm case extraction fan at the back... 70mm noctua on top of the u120, and i've got the LianLi fanless extraction unit running from above the NB (but I always thought this was kind of useless anyway).... jeez, I knew I should have done a degree in Thermal Dynamics instead of Psychology ;-)

Cheers for the help - I'll post how I get on...
 
ZDB>These were the volt settings I used when I use to have a Q9450.

I set it at 1.2v in bios for stock speeds. 1.25v for 3.4ghz and 1.31 for 3.6ghz. Obviously when you boot into windows it will be less.

For the record I had loadline calibration on. I would take these guys advice and switch it off even though I had no problems myself with it.

I use 1.35v for my voltage set for the northbridge.

I don't use pc probe myself. For NB temps I usually go into bios and take a look there from time to time. it under hardware monitoring if I remember correctly.

I set my PCI frequency to 110. This has seem to have worked fine with either the ati card or nvidia card I tried with this board.



If you are using 70mm fans then that will not provide enough airflow. Or at least not enough to lower the temps of something like a rampage northbridge. Also isn't that noisy like hell? I wasn;t aware their were 70mm fans shows how long I have been out of the loop. Or are you measuring from the central point to the outer circumference of the blades? Are you using the stock lian li fans that came with your case?

If you need fans then look towards 120mm fans. There are all makes and different speed fans. The most that get recommended here is yate loons, scythe, noctua, sharkoons and one and two others.

Okay you say you are using the u120 which is what I use and you say you use the fan on top of it. By any chance do you have the heatsink orientated upwards or downwards? If you had the u120 pointing downwards with *** fan blowing the heat from the q9450 then it would be towards the northbridge and increase it temps. Could you take a picture and post it up so we can take a look at it?

Hopefully you should get better results with peeps voltages who posted and find one that works well for your setup. Good luck!
 
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Did you get it working Zdb?

Only i've just tried my Q9450 in this board, and also have OCZ ReaperX memory. So pretty similar setups.

I've had no problems and i've got the CPU to 3.8GHz. NICE.

When i stuck the CPU in, before i even changed anything in the BIOS, i had no problems. All worked fine on default.

You could have some faulty memory. I've build over 100 PC's and with things like this, 8 times out of 10 it's the memory.
 
I took your advice on the memory. I blasted both modules with memtest for a few days. One of the modules is showing errors, the other is rock solid.

When I fire the one that passed the tests in on its own, its stable at 800Mhz, no problems. As soon as I put it at 1066, BSoD every time I boot into windows, even in safe mode. drop it back to 800, everything is fine.

no probs on heat. voltages, ram at 2.2v, nb 1.36, vcore 1.2. all seems stable with the one 2gb stick out, until of course i push it to 1066.

on the fans, I've 2x 70mm, in the PSU/HDD compartment, for extraction, I've 1x 120mm at the front to chuck air over the disks. In the mainboard area, I've a front 120mm noctua in the cd-rom area pushing are over the motherboard, a back 120mm pulling, and another 120mm on the u120. a lot of fans, but the noctua's i've found to be relatively quiet. Although, the noise of the 4870 when it fires up is like a jump-jet harrier...
 
The OCZ ram is fine with the Asus Board, been rock steady so far.

It tends to overvolt the ram slightly so set mine to 2v

It sounds like one of your sticks is faulty. Return it mate
 
Should I be able to run a single 2Gb module at 1066Mhz? 2.2/2.1v?

When I do (on the one that memtests fine at 800 and 1066), I get instant blue-screens. Is there anything else needing adjusted? Just - If I buy RAM at 1066, but can only use it at 800, whats the point?
 
Flash your bios to 0403 mate. its definalty the most stable bios for 1066 ram!!

I couldn't get my maximus formula to work properly with 1066 until i put the rampage 0403 bios on it!!
 
I've tried it at 0403 - no joy, exactly the same.

I run memtest on the one good module, no problems. Boot Vista, it crashes with a BSoD every time!

I've not RMA'd the one dodgy memory module yet, just in case its a Motherboard issue. I'm almost tempted to go and buy some other 1066 memory to prove it...
 
Hmm Zdb,

I feel for you bro as I know what its like when all you want is a stable system. I have pretty much the same setup as you except for processor. Not to mention that I have not had it as bad as you. If it were me I'd start to contemplate RMA on either the memory or the board.
 
It's almost definitely the RAM, trust me i've been through this many times. Just return it, stop messing around, and get some different RAM :p surprised you aint already.

I now have 8GB G.Skill running at 1139MHz on this board, it handles high memory speeds very well.
 
i have 4Gb Kingston HyperX 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-9200C5 1150MHz
and dont know where to start overclocking and have problems with the raid controler failing on boot up
 
I have always wondered why Asus boards seem to be kinda picky of ram manfacturers.

When I had the old 939 setup it was similar. I had an asus a8n sli and an a8n32-sli and they only seemed to like corsair or mushkin.

But more specifically it seems to favour corsair heavily. I didn't think it still existed with c2d setups. I just got the g.skills as they were cheap and cheerful and it seemed everyone was using them in a variety of motherboards without any real issues besides the odd incident.
 
I also have a slight problem with this board if anyone knows the answer?

When I cold bood I get this message "Error! The CPU to Bus ratio or VID configuration has failed" although if I F1 and exit and carry on into windows the pc is 100% stable, just this message at the beginning of every cold boot. I can't seem to find a fix for it and its anoying me. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
 
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