New nforce 780 rig probs - help needed

[rafiki]

Guys,
Hope you can help me. This is my first home build in a few years and i'm clearly not as l3370r as I thought I was back then, cos I'm having no joy here.

Just purchased from OCUK:
Akasa Eclipse 62 Aluminium Case
Asus Striker II Formula nForce 780i (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Leadtek GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
2 of Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit (so 2 pairs of 2)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)
OCZ ModXStream 900w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply

Plus samsung F1 drive and a DVDRW etc blah.

All of it completely stock no tweaking. Just thin application of arctic silver betwen the tuniq and an E8500 (wolfdale 3.16GHz). No timing adjustments or freqs etc.

Problem 1: That mobo is one HOT mofo. 80C on the NB just booting into an OS. NB HS is hot too so there is a proper(ish) connection. These boards are supposed to be for people who want to overclock - 80C stock? No way.
Problem 2: It won't take both RAM kits, no matter what I do. If it gets past POST it crashes during OS boot. Both kits work fine independently, it's only if they're in there together. (I preserve their shipped pairing of course, I haven't mixed them up.)
Problem 3: The RAM should work just fine at 1066. No, can't get more than 800 out of it otherwise no POST.
Problem 4: The RAM wants 2.2v I think - BIOS is giving it 1.88 by defaults and won't be persuaded otherwise (or it's no POST for me)

All in all very disappointing. It's hot, it won't drive a perfectly good set of RAM all on defaults, doesn't look like it will ever overclock without melting through my table (although that's secondary really), and I'm wondering if I have either been shipped a badly built one, or they're just not great anyway.

Any advice very much appreciated as i'd like to get back into homebuilding, modding, and clocking. If not, it's back to Dells for me (and nobody wants that now do they?) I've got until Saturday if I want to reject the board as utterly useless under distance selling regs.

Oh, and yes, I'm aware the board might not be at fault, it just looks very likely to me atm. Could be PSU I guess but i'm finding that unlikely.

Many thanks,
Raf

 

[lay-z-boy]

Return it and get a p35/x38 board.

So much more stable, cooler and better made.

By the looks of it you are not using SLI so there is no loss either.

 

[rafiki]

Thanks for the reply mate.
The theory was to buy a quad-cable dual or tri-sli capable board and a decent PSU so I could upgrade cpu and use SLI later on, extending life a little. So, didn't want to rule out SLI too early.

 

[lay-z-boy]

The problem is, the 6/780i is a BBQ chipset and seems to have the same thermal output as the sun, causing in itself a long list of problems from stability to overclocking.
If you are desperate to go sli then get a reference 780i board from evga or xfx. Custom layout ones suck bad.

 

[Bomag]

I have the P5N-T which is the same basic MB but without the expensive gizmos

What software are you using for temperature sensing? Only the latest version of Everest gets it right. The version I have of Asus Probe was giving the wrong temps. My PC has been on for 5 hours and the MB temp is 34C.

If you cannot change DDR2 voltage it may mean you have SLI memory enabled. Set everything manually as it is unlikely that it will work with 4 sticks.

Finally the latest BIOS apparently solves issues with 1066mhz memory.

 

[rafiki]

Thanks guys,
I'm using Asus Probe for temps, so I'll check it some others instead. As for latest BIOS - hehe, it's diffcult to tell. I'm running 0902, but there's an 0101 up there which people believe is a typo and should be 1001, but it's dated before 0902 (or sometimes after). I know of people who have upgraded from 0902 to 0101 and seen improvements - this despite it being listed as "initial bios"....which strikes me that it's perhaps NOT a typo! Way to go Asus for keeping us guessing.

I'll make sure SLI memory is disabled and then have another go with 4 sticks manually at 1066. Otherwise I guess it's going back as not fir for purpose.

Onto alternatives then: Do I need to ditch the 780s altogether if I want a rig that runs at normal temps?

Cheers,
Rob