nForce 790i SLI/Ultra chipset mobos - Reviews/OC/Guides

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Originally Posted by Broly

Heya slim. You may be on to something. I'm going to uninstall my chipset drivers and push the clocks. THis is a very very reasonable explanation because my chip can hit 4 ghz no problem but I"d never make it in normal mode, only safe... Will keep you posted. THanks again slimmo

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Guess what Broly? My system is 100% ROCK ESTABLE WITH DRIVERS INCLUDING ALL SATA, IDE AND MEDIASHIELD CRAP FROM NVIDIA. Solution? Manually imput 1.50v for the SB (even if you dont have SLI, 1.5v is the default) and upped my NB voltage to 1.36v (which gives out 1.39v in load). Thats all I did and my system is 17 (yes people, 17 hours) estable not a crash not an error. :clap::clap::clap: , now I just need to test 3d Estability...
Why might have the drivers cause orthos to crash? Because I think if you leave your NB voltage in auto, the motherboard gives the NB around 1.2v and thats waaaay too low for the NB to work specially with SLI and high-end RAM.
Keep in mind I havent OC my system so I dont know if OC+Nvidia drivers=Corruption, this might be related one to the other since unestable OC will definitely interfere with your OS.

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Originally Posted by 5010

The "nforce mediashield" have always been CRAP and until someone proves otherwise I will stay with Windowz drivers. I've still had corruption but not my whole OS, my corruption was quite specific and since adjusting my VTT + GTLVREF I haven't had any corruption issues at all. If anything, having those crap drivers installed can only increase the likelyhood of data corruption.

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I'll be posting my picture of 17 hours estable with the SATA/IDE/Mediashield crap installed. It seems that I was wrong at the beggining and this was all related to NB voltage. Probably, when I begin OCing, I will need to increase VTT and GTLVRefs.
However, as mentioned above, I havent OC my system so I dont know if OC+Nvidia drivers=Corruption, this might be related one to the other since unestable OC will definitely interfere with your OS.

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Originally Posted by tekjunkie

This is the order that I had installed.

OS installation -> nforce drivers(only LAN and smbus drivers, no mediashield)
->Display drivers->windows updates.

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This isthe right way to install drivers. If you want, dont include the SATA controllers etc to prevent corruption problems.

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Originally Posted by OBR

dont use a 0603 bios, my system is after update corrupted and have to reinstall OS

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You know what makes me think that your problem is? The Striker II BIOSes seem to be really sensitive when they are updated. Thats why some people find 0601 and 0603 crap compared to 0511, because they found the spot to make it work on 0511 but on 0603 it wont work until you find the right voltages, we all know this but usually is not that serious, but it seems this motherboard BIOS change a lot.
Ex: 0402 wouldnt be estable, upgraded to 0507 and it was rock solid at the same settings. Enabled SLI and I had to up voltage from the NB to estabilize it.

Slim - So your current stable system settings are mostly stock (Q9450 @ stock, GSkill @ stock, etc...)? That is a great place to start when testing for stability, now as you increase your clockspeeds on everything it will be easier to figure out what might be causeing instabilitiy! Most people don't like doing it this way becasue its time consuming and a bit borning but it will pay off on the other end when your running at 5Ghz, lol! Good job man!

Thanks Roger, and yes Im 100% estable with stock settings and cant OC the CPU until I get my 2 yate loons because my temps go up to 60c when running orthos (is this normal?). Im currently running my Q9450 with the Thermalright Ultra 120 X with no fans.
But Im having some issues now :S
When I put 1800Mhz for RAM and timings at 7-7-7-18 (just to try) and also 8-7-6-18, the mobo wont save the timings settings and will always boot at 9-9-9-24 1T at 1333Mhz 1T with tRC 33 :S
Can this be a mobo BIOS bug?
Also, when windows loads, my floppy wont load memtest 2.01 :S, it has the power cable connected as well as the FDD cable. I probably connected them wrong... oh well

In regards to the FDD, make sure that you have enabled it in BIOS (under the "MAIN" tab I think). If that is all set than make sure you have connected the FDD cable correclt on the FDD (I've been known to install the cable upsidedown when connecting to the actul floppy drive), lol! In regards to your temps, yes I think that temperature is resonable for a decent air cooler with no fans (nothing to be worried about). Especially because those temps are when your running Orthos! Last but not least in regards to the BIOS resetting to different settings I am pretty sure its happening because the settings your manualy putting in are not stable enough to boot from? My board will do this when I manually set DRAM settings that it doesn't like much (it will just boot with SPD timings and clockspeeds, 9-9-9-24 2T at 1333Mhz). I bet that is exaclty what is happening to you?

By the way everyone, X2beach just posted a linky for new Striker II Extreme BIOS file 0701 HERE is the download link! Although I have asked and searched I have no idea what the chang-log is for this BIOS because I think it came from Asus FTP server?

Roger, yes it seems I connected the FDD wrong LOL! the light is on at all times even during boot :S
Tomorrow or most probably wednesday Ill be placing 2 Yate loons 1650rpm connected with a Y adaptor to the Zalman FanMate2. That will surely help me out with the temps.
And about the RAM, yes thats exactly whats happening to me. I noticed that once I changed everything to default (1333FSB, 1600Mhz RAM, 7-7-7-18 2T) everything ran with the selected speed/timings. However, even 8-7-6-18 (is 18 too low? I think most people change this to 24) doesnt boot so I think this is because of the early BIOS I have since many people can boot with this timings at 1600Mhz RAM.

And BTW, NICE to hear about a new BIOS, but Im pretty far away from it since I got to test every single one out there. Any brave people dare to try it???

Glad to hear you got the FDD sorted, like you mentioned if the light on the floppy is always on its a sure sign that the cable is connected wrong, I should have mentioned that in my earier post). As far the RAM goes, I'm not sure that 8 is too low for tRAS setting but at 1800Mhz I'd at least start a bit higher (say 21) or so. By the way what kind of VDIMM are you using for 1800Mhz? My RAM is rated for 1800Mhz 7-7-7-21 on 2.0v so I would assume you should at least be running 1.9v-2.05v for 1800Mhz (which GSkills do you have, the 1600Mhz or 1800Mhz)? I'd like to try the BIOS file and happily would if it was from their actual website but I'm prety sure this one if off of the FTP server? I aleady complained in another thread but I wish they would release a new BIOS on the actual website, at the moment there are only 3 BIOS files there (0101, 0402, and 0508) but the FTP has a handful of different BIOS files!

Well yeah Im going to check the FDD later as now Im concentrated in OCing. So far BIOS 0507 is rock estable at default but when OCing... dam it is the worse BIOS I have ever tried! 1350FSB with 1600Mhz RAM wouldnt boot! can you imagine that! thats a 17mhz increase and it wouldnt boot. I ended up messing with everything but no luck at all so I just upgraded to 0508 and I just noticed I ended up with corrupted OS, oh god! Installing WXPSP2 now... (for 2nd time)

And yes, I think 18 was pretty low for the tRAS, next time I will go for 21 or 24 probably. Im using 1.86vdimm since it gives out 1.90vdimm. If I selecet 1.90, it gives out 1.94.
I tried upping my vdimm up to 1.96 (2.00 true) but no luck. My RAM is rated 1600Mhz 7-7-7-18 on 1.9v.

Since this started, we been getting BIOS files from everywhere except from the ASUS site. Their FTP sometimes uploads new BIOS files but they usually remove it after 3 days (I have seen this, same story with 0601). I hope BIOS 0508 gives me at least a 10% OC since Im still shock that 0507 couldnt give me anything! Could it be that it was because Q9450 is "officially" supported since 0508?

any of u have tried 0701 for the s2e?

i changed once again cpu sold my qx9650 and swapped with 8400

prima stable so far..started to play with it 2hrs ago 1803fsb mems 1800 765181t ,, vcore 1,26 vdimm 2v

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Originally Posted by |SiLA|

any of u have tried 0701 for the s2e?

i changed once again cpu sold my qx9650 and swapped with 8400

prima stable so far..started to play with it 2hrs ago 1803fsb mems 1800 765181t ,, vcore 1,26 vdimm 2v

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Are you guys having more luck with FSB speeds like 1610, 1635, 1740 etc? Because somebody here had some trouble with even speeds like 1600, 1800, 1700 and changing to in-between numbers proved to be the key.
I havent tried 0701 yet and I have a long way to go til I try that one. (currently in 0508, going to test 0509, 0511, 0512,0601,0603)

So far, 0508 the same as 0701. Seems estable with same settings (NB and SB voltages) but as we all know, 0508 has some bugs fixed and adds "official" support for Q9450 so we will see how this goes. I might be able to achieve some OC since I now have the microcode for the Q9450.

Hi guys
I'm wondering if any of you have had issues with windows explorer and file deletion? I get alot of stalling on the prompt that shows you the deletion progress.
It's not frozen or non responsive it just won't cancel or delete properly.
Any suggestions?

ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socke...er_II_Extreme/ 0701 bios on asus site!

I've been running on 0701 for an hour now and rebooted a couple times. I have no problems with the new bios so far. I wish I knew what is changed in this bios. :rolleyes:

Probably pmp knows...

I bet he does, especially since a couple days ago he mentioned something about "somethign special" come Monday night? I have a feeling now he had a good idea that Asus was going to release this new BIOS?

with 0601 is everything great again, system is working properly ... 0603 was crap, i will try 0701 today and will see

I just read the changelogs and I have to say 0702 seems more attractive due to the updated NVMM (0701 was updated too but to fix a bug with QX9770)

Any good/bad news with this new BIOSes?

where did you read em slim?
I just see 0602 and 0701

Download link for 0702

Saw it on the website Bench, thanks.
What's the big update? I see that the nvMM got updated again

NVMM got updated in 0701 and again in 0702, but in 0701 the bug fixed was specifically when using QX9770. 0702 updates NVMM in general for all CPUs.
Just to keep you guys updated with my own testing...

Update #3

BIOS 0507 wouldnt overclock, not even to 1350mhz! I would boot but I will get a freeze when loading taskbar icons. Then decided to mess with the GTLRefs, other voltages but no luck and I ended up corrupting my OS.

Now I have BIOS 0508 and reinstalled XPSP2. I have my system at 1400Mhz FSB with Memory still as stock. 1.25000vcore and LLC disabled (for some reason, my system gives more vcore than I select, at 1.25000 is giving it 1.26 according to Probe II but I prefer that rather than vdroop, for that I dont enable LLC)
I been running orthos for 15 mins and fingers crossed that this CPU batch can run at stock voltage at 1400Mhz FSB. This would mean a 2.8Ghz Quad-Core at 45nm with stock voltage :)

BTW, BIOS 0508 seems A looooooooooot nicer than 0507. Keep in mind I kept my NB voltage at 1.36v and my SB voltage at 1.50. Im also running with SLI enabled and ALL nvidia drivers installed including ESA.
My hypothesys why 0507 doesnt OC at all, because it doesnt have the Q9450 microcodes? Thats what I think so whenever the CPU is running out of frequency it becomes totally unestable for the motherboard?

Whatever the case is... if everything goes fine and tomorrow I wake up and no error, then I will start with 3Dmark06 testing as well as memtest.

Why not 0702 slim?

Man, i've flashed my mobo to 0701.bin using awdflash (to avoid probs) and now it's dead. Now, my s2e doesn't post and lcd poster only shows "codeinit". And that was my 4th RMA that finally worked!!!! I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!!!!! And I can't fix with crashfree since there's nothing.

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Originally Posted by golfjam

Man, i've flashed my mobo to 0701.bin using awdflash (to avoid probs) and it killed it. Now, my s2e doesn't post and lcd poster only shows "codeinit". And that was my 4th RMA that finally worked!!!! I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!!!!! And I can't fix with crashfree since there's nothing.

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Remove all the power plugs from the motherboard and the CMOS battery.
Leave it like that for 6 hours, and try again ;)

I'll try. I'm glad you can't see me cry right now...

0702=ownsauce