Striker II Formula

[balth_dire]

I also had to remove all Ram but 1 stick and remove ESATA HDD (from AKASA Bracket and remove USB Readyboost to get PC to boot to windows after a failed OC on Memory.
.

I know, I realised the moment I installed the BIOS and everything went wrong really quickly!. The Asus tech guy must have been on something when he told me to install the latest (0101) update! what a load of rubbish that was!

I have since reverted back to the 0902 release, which is semi-stable, but still when I leave a stress program on for some time, it fails and crashes my PC about an hour in.

Well, this pretty much sums it up eh? I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

This P5N-T is an improvement to be sure (for me at least, not that things could have got much worse) though it's far from perfect and there's little doubt in my mind that the chipset is inherently flawed.

I'll stick with what I have for the moment and try to extract some value, though truth be told, when the x48 turns up, this entire system is odds on
for the chop.

Skippo, what stress tests are you running?

 

[nantucket66]

It's a shame so many people appear to be having problems with this board.

Not wanting to rub salt into the wounds but mine is running very cool and after several more days of torture tests it's solid as a rock.

I hope a new bios release or nvidia chipset driver can address the problems people are having - I think it's a great board!

 

[balth_dire]

I think your q6600 might have a lot to do with it.

My old b3 qx6800 ran far better in the board than the yorkfield.

Lowering the 9650's FSB from 1333 to 1066 and raising the multiplier to 11-the native specs of the older chips-clearly gains some stability.

 

[helmutcheese]

The settings on the Asus site are n00b settings, nobody who overclocks would leave the NB and SB Auto, these Mobos volt too high at Auto.

And what is cool ?, the Chipsets hit 60-80c depending on clock and room temps/case airflow etc.

Anyone wants to kid themself on that they have cool running high overclocking Striker II, be my guest, they top out stable about 500FSB (2000) and run hot as hell even at stock.

(I have had Heatpipe off and seen how crap it is, with Asus info I refited with Artic Ceramic), so hold your finger on the SB, not NB and see how long you can keep it there.

On top of all that, there is all the issues you can freely read all over the WWW, some of which cant be fixed by new Bios/Drivers and some of which still aint fixed on a 1+year old Striker Extreme.

Ok the Mobo for me clocked higher than previous Striker by a 100mhz gain Quad Pumped (2000 over 1900), and needed little volts to get there, which makes me wonder why there is so much voltage left as it can run any higher stable.

But its a buggy POS, far more so than the Striker Extreme, I cant have NIC's or SATA controlers going missing every so often or wait 30-45secs for a Bios to Post.

 

[Locky]

MSI is a safe board.

The asus P5NT is a good board now the 0802 bios is out.

ive been playing with this board for a month now and got to know all its querks, safe to say i figured out settings that this board is pritty much 100% stable with, and might work for striker users.

ill post these settings when im in work on monday.

 

[skippo]

Not wanting to rub salt into the wounds but mine is running very cool and after several more days of torture tests it's solid as a rock.

I'm guessing this is the case for you as you are using the Q6600, which is a slightly older, larger 65nm compared to 45nm architecture.

I'm guessing there are issues with using these newer 45nm CPUs (especially the QXs - in my own case, the QX9650)... But Asus are hardly going to admit that this board isn't fully compatible, now are they!?

 

[skippo]

MSI is a safe board.

The asus P5NT is a good board now the 0802 bios is out.

ive been playing with this board for a month now and got to know all its querks, safe to say i figured out settings that this board is pritty much 100% stable with, and might work for striker users.

ill post these settings when im in work on monday.

Have you used the P5NT with a QX9650?

And when you say "pretty much 100% stable", does this mean that there are the now and again BSOD/crashes??

 

[skippo]

BETA BIOS 1001

I have found a link to the new beta BIOS 1001 if no one else is aware/ found it yet.
http://elmor.se/S2F1001.rar
(use at you're own risk of course!)
(Someone has made it available from this URL forum post #34:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=173149&page=2

I am not at my PC at the mo, so can't try it out, but as soon as I get back, I will be testing it for increase stability.

Also have a look at this forum, where people seem to be having the same sort of trouble as us.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=173149

and this URL too:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=175399

Hope this is of some use, and I am not re-posting old news.

 

[helmutcheese]

I ran the Beta bios from the 1st week I had the Mobo, it makes Zero difference to anything that I can see.

 

[balth_dire]

Likewise,

Though I respect and admire your continued efforts Skippo!

 

[skippo]

Update - Memory settings seem to be causing system freezes

Hi,

After not doing much in terms of getting to the bottom of the system instabilities, I have finally brought myself to have another go at identifying the problem.

It seems the settings relating to memory speed/voltage/timings are the areas for causing the freezes when running Prime95/other benchmarking apps.

I have currently got 2 x 2GB PC2-8000 OCZ Reaper X memory modules loaded into slots 1 & 3 on the mobo.
This is my second lot of PC2-8000 OCZ Reaper X, so I am guessing the memory is not at fault here!

I had been running my memory at these settings:
Unlinked: Memory: 1000MHz, FSB: 1333MHz
1000MHz @ 5-5-5-18-2T @ 2.1V - (NB: 1.3V all others: AUTO)
The PC would get about 5 mins into Prime95, then the PC would freeze. I tried altering the various NB and Mem voltages to see whether these played a part in the freezing, but this did not work. I then let the BIOS work out the timings by leaving the timing settings on AUTO. The PC froze again, no matter what I did!

I then proceeded to try many other speeds, 888MHz, 1066Mhz, all which failed within a few minutes of running Prime95. (timings were left on AUTO, but voltages were mainly set like this: Mem: 2.14V, NB: 3.1-3.6V)

Finally, I tried this:
Unlinked: Memory: 800MHz, FSB: 1333MHz
1000MHz @ 5-5-5-15-2T @ 2.14V - (NB: 1.36V all others: AUTO)
Prime95 ran for about 20+ mins without causing the PC to crash, result! I know you are supposed to run Prime95 for hours, 12-24+++, which I'll probably do tomorrow, when I have more time, but for me this demonstrates that there is something quite major going on with the memory settings and the mobo.

Therefore, I don't know if the timings I have set for 1000MHz are incorrect, (even though they are OCZ's stock settings for 1000MHz!), or whether I need to change some other voltages....or something completely else!
I have heard people mention that you may need to relax the timings at higher clock speeds, but these timings are OCZ's stock values, and you would have thought that they would run fine at that speed as a result.

Has anyone else had similar trouble with their RAM?

 

[balth_dire]

Skippo, this is quite true, memory is indeed one of the fundamental problems,

Go back and see - among others - posts #49 and #85, they relate to my findings regarding the memory I was and am using both on the Striker ii and p5n-t.

It would appear that anybody planning on running more than 2gb of low latency/high bandwidth memory in this or very probably any 680/780 board is set for major headaches and hours of fine tuning before anything that remotely resembles stability is achieved and even then, it seems one can never be certain. You either have to live with it, or back right off on your "guaranteed" settings.


The other key part of the problem is the qx9650, have a look at the rest of this forum. Every 780 board appears to have some kind of issue running this chip - even the MSI, which was being lorded like mad a few days ago, now has a known cold boot problem attributed to it when running this particular CPU - hmm, sound familiar???

My striker ii needed it on x11 multiplier with the fsb down at 1066 to get things stable.

Those who encounter less or no problems either have less memory or a different processor - usually a q6600, hence it doesn't surprise me that you're finding things more stable at 800 instead of 1000mhz.

On the P5N-T I now have, the Northbridge is at 1.44, memory at 2.31 and timings at 3-3-3-10 , with these settings it managed 14 hours of prime+rthdribl, but still hard locked over the weekend.

Unlike the Striker ii, I haven't adjusted the multiplier or FSB and frankly don't feel inclined to do so as isolating errors is now taking days instead of hours and I've simply had enough. Things now seem stable enough for games/general use or at least stable enough to see me through to my next Intel based board...

 

[skippo]

Stability at last!

Wow,

It appears that my PC is now pretty much running as you would expect. No BSODs, no hanging, no negative performance issues, no NIC troubles, no CPU INIT, DET IDE, no other hanging before POST, no weird artefacts when playing videos... (quite a lot of problems I have had!)
(BTW I am not overclocking, or even going to attempt to overclock for a very long time! It has taken me too long to get this thing to run normally at 'stock' settings!)

Here's some of the key things I am using:

BIOS: 0901
CPU: all on AUTO
FSB: 1333MHz
Memory: 800MHz @ 5-5-5-15-2T (AUTO) @ 2.12 V
FSB Mem: unlinked
NB: 1.34V

Chipset drivers: The ones that came on the CD with the mobo
ForceWare drivers: 169.25 International
No Asus utility software installed. (AINAP....)

Don't think there is anything else that is system wide related...

---------------------------------------

Recently I had a lot of trouble with artefacts appearing at random times when watching videos either using VLC or Windows Media Player. At the time I was using the beta BIOS 1001. I then downgraded to the 0901 release, and this has appeared to solve the problem I was getting.

After running 0801, 0902, 1001, and now 0901, I can say from my own experiences that the 0901 release is the best one for the QX9650.

I hope this is of some use to people who have still got their S2Fs and not RMA'd them! lol


---------------------------------------

Just remember not to leave the clock speeds and voltage settings for the memory at manual! This is a crucial part to the whole Striker II Formula problems.

I haven't tested this, but I imagine that giving you're northbridge some extra juice, to around the 1.34-1.36V mark with 2 sticks of RAM is fairly reasonable.

--------------------------------------

I do hope that my system doesn't start playing up again! It does feel as though all these problems have gone away for once. The other times that I reported in this forum that I had succeeded in reaching a stable system, I still felt very wary. This time however, I fell almost 99% confident that I have reached the sweet-spot in terms of running this system at stock settings. Mad, I know! You would have thought that leaving all the settings in BIOS to AUTO would do that for you.

Anyways, hopefully this will be my last post in this very familiar forum topic!
Laters,
Skippo

 

[helmutcheese]

No wonder its all at stock, most peeps got BSOD with the inc Asus CD drivers.

Best thing for a Striker II is RMA or the dustbin IMO.

BTW, ideally you should have your Memory at 667mhz as FSB is 1333mhz.

 

[skippo]

Best thing for a Striker II is RMA or the dustbin IMO.

lol. I am hoping like other boards, the X38 ones expecially, that future BIOS releases will solve most of the problems.

BTW, ideally you should have your Memory at 667mhz as FSB is 1333mhz.

667*2 as dual channel?? so in my bios memory clock should be set to 1333??? Or linked mode: 1:1
This would mean going crazy with the memory and NB voltages, as well as relaxing the timings??? What sort of values would you suggest? I only have PC2-8000 memory modules, so this is putting me 333MHz over stock. Quite a bit IMO.

 

[chaparral]

[/SIZE]
(BTW I am not overclocking, or even going to attempt to overclock for a very long time! It has taken me too long to get this thing to run normally at 'stock' settings!)

You buy one the dearest motherboards you can get,,and your not going to overclock

 

[skippo]

You buy one the dearest motherboards you can get,,and your not going to overclock

Yeah! That's what all this BSOD, crashes, freezes, artefacts, .........the list goes on...........and............on..........and.......on, does to you.

Anyways, regarding the price, I got it for £130, so not too bothered about that point. I am more bothered about the fact it's a POS with the current BIOS releases!

I will attempt to overclock when I have more money that I can afford to fully H2O my system, and that Asus have released a BIOS update worth thinking about...

Until then, I'm going to be boring and stick to stock speeds, reliability; which in doing so, will hopefully keep me sane. I have already wasted far too much of my life worrying and trying to fix this POS of a motherboard.

 

[helmutcheese]

Whats hard to understand that with a 1333 Quad Pumped FSB, your Memory should be running 667mhz DDR not 800mhz DDR. (not that it will matter much).

It would be lower so not need extra voltage.

On the Asus Striker E and II 1:1 is not the above, 1:1 would be FSB @ 1333mhz and Memory at 1333mhz which DDR2 aint gonna do.

Asus Bios classes it as Sync'd AFAIR.

How did you get the Mobo for £130 (second hard etc?).

And no bios is going to fix this Mobo fully, Asus support sucks, the Striker E is still bug ridden after 1+years, added to the fact it runs too hot even at stock even if bellow 90c there is no need for it to be high 60's to low 70's at stock.

The 790I Ultra seems far better so far.

 

[skippo]

Whats hard to understand that with a 1333 Quad Pumped FSB, your Memory should be running 667mhz DDR not 800mhz DDR. (not that it will matter much).

It would be lower so not need extra voltage.

On the Asus Striker E and II 1:1 is not the above, 1:1 would be FSB @ 1333mhz and Memory at 1333mhz which DDR2 aint gonna do.

Asus Bios classes it as Sync'd AFAIR.

How did you get the Mobo for £130 (second hard etc?).

The 790I Ultra seems far better so far.

This whole quad pumping malarky is too complicated for me! It seems crazy to lower the memory clock - madness!
I got it wrong - I paid £160, £130 is probably what it should be worth though!!

I don't really get this board at all. Its retailing for £230 on OCUK, supposed to support the next generation 45nm CPUs, be great for overclocking etc etc.. but so many people have encounted countless problems with it. Whats going on! Why are retailers still selling these boards when they are quite clearly POSs? The retailers are irresponsible IMO.

When are the 790I's coming out?? And are there any reviews out? And how do you know that the same problems encounted with the S2F aren't going to happen on them??

And no bios is going to fix this Mobo fully.

What make you say this?? This is surely speculation? Already the BIOS updates have shown me at least that they are doing something. 0801 was resulting is shoddy results in SiSoft Sandra (CPU arithmetic), when I updated to 0901 this arithmetic value doubled! One hell of a BIOS update if you ask me.
Surely Asus just need to keep on bringing these out, and then they are laughing!

 

[helmutcheese]

Your lowering the Memory to match the FSB, a 1333FSB CPU not overclocked only needs PC5300 (667mhz) Memory.

Look in CPU-Z and you will see its not now 1:1. (Asus wont have it 1:1 anyhow as explained above).

I was always AMD so I had to get used to QuadPumped also.

And what do you mean speculation in last part ?.

I have used all Asus Mobo since 2001 and support sucks for mostly good hardware, its the Flagship Models that have issues and thats mostly down to Nvidia as the Chipsets on these are crap and the SB is old from the 570I although a revision.

They aint gonna magically cool the Chipsets and most Mobos the Bios support stops at around 1300's, its only recently I have seen 1400's and 1500's to add support for these new CPU's but they DID jump 100 build numbers at a time to get from 1305 to 1401 (1 fix for X-FI) to current Beta 1503 for the Striker Extreme.

Once the new 790i Arrives (in matter of weeks) you will see support drop to near nothing for the 780I's.

Im sorry I bought ther 780I but I had to to give it a chance, it fails so last Chance for Asus+Nvidia is on the 790I.