ASUS Maximus II Formula - new P45 king?

[screwtech02]

Ahhh, but its all about the 4x2gb sticks here.......

[drnick]

Ahhh, but its all about the 4x2gb sticks here.......

I suddenly feel inadequate with only 4GB of RAM...

Anyway, my replacement board came with BIOS version 1306, dated 8/20/08. I can't find this anywhere on the ASUS site in the BIOS revision history. Anyone ever used this BIOS?

[CryptiK]

4GB of ram is fine unless you do serious graphics rendering, then 8GB can help. I have not heard of 1306 nor used it, any chance of backing it up and making it available for download by us?

About the very nice ram your defective board killed, you should contact Asus, they should replace it with something equivalent, as their defective board damaged it, and since your board was tested and confirmed to be defective, the responsibility lies squarely with them.

[drnick]

I have not heard of 1306 nor used it, any chance of backing it up and making it available for download by us?

No problem- I backed up the 1306 bios (ROM file) onto a usb drive. What is the easiest way to make it available for download (it is too big to add as an attachment)?

[nugzo]

No problem- I backed up the 1306 bios (ROM file) onto a usb drive. What is the easiest way to make it available for download (it is too big to add as an attachment)?

I pm'd you my email. Could you mail it to me?

[Gambit_2K]

A follow up on my board which rebooted during windows memtest and subsequently got "stuck" at CPU INIT and wouldn't post anymore- I removed the CPU (e8600) and cleared CMOS then popped it back in- still no post with LCD still showing CPU INIT. I even tried a different CPU (an e6850) and still no post. So I brought it back to the store and swapped it for a new one (techs at store did a perfunctory test on the board and declared it defective).

I think the old board had my RAM for breakfast though! I had 4x1GB sticks of ballistix (my cherished vintage double sided memory bank variety) in it when it crapped out, and now when I put them back in another setup (where they were working fine before I pulled them for the MIIF) they immediately throw thousands of errors in memtest at stock speed and voltage.

I do have a general memory question(s): All things equal, will 2x2GB sticks or 4x1GB sticks require more NB voltage on this board, and given the choice between the two, what would most people prefer to use if they wanted 4GB of memory?

Thanks for the advice.

My board ate my memory for breakfast too, although I have Crucial BallistiX Tracers, I had 2x1 GB doublesided and 2x1 GB singelsided. My doublesided is totally scrapped and my singelsided is giving me bluescreens every 2 hours or so. Im going to RMA them and waiting for some 2*2 GB 1175 Mhz Apogee I ordered.

[e.v.o]

Anyway, my replacement board came with BIOS version 1306, dated 8/20/08. I can't find this anywhere on the ASUS site in the BIOS revision history. Anyone ever used this BIOS?

Sounds interesting but nothing serious. The official 1307 is from 8/22/08.
You can upload the BIOS (zipped) to www.megaupload.com or www.rapidshare.com.

[CryptiK]

I pulled my board apart to re-do the paste on the NB and SB. My temps were ok, but I wanted to make sure it was done properly.

Pics

Board with sinks removed:


Top fets, contact was better than I expected:


Side fets, contact also good:


NB, notice the thick layer of paste:


SB, also had very thick paste:


NB cleaned:


NB Heatsink, notice the foam spacers that can be removed (I did not remove them, I noticed there were traces around the holes and didn't want to damage them):


SB Heatsink, also has some foam & plastic spacers that can be removed, but again I left them on,for same reason as the NB, the traces may be damaged if the metal standoffs scratch them):


From re-doing the paste I dropped 5*C off the NB and 6*C off the SB temps. I may do the washer mod to apply a little more pressure on the NB and SB as after replacing the heatsink setup, I noticed the foam pads around the NB were not very compressed around the NB, so some more pressure may allow better contact and drop temps further.

[drnick]

I re-did the TIM on the NB and SB too using MX2. I was going to take the thermal tape off covering the fets too and put some MX2 on them as well, but it looked as though there was enough of a gap between them and the overlying heatsinks that better contact would be achieved just by leaving that thick thermal tape in place. According to asus probe, the power temperature never seems to exceed about 29C, so doesn't seem like it will be an issue.

CriptiK, did you do anything with the fets or just leave that thick thermal tape in place?

[e.v.o]

New BIOS has arrived:
http://www.forumdeluxx.de/forum/show...postcount=1393

[siavashsony]

ASUS Maximus II Formula bios 1403
http://rapidshare.com/files/15653530...-bios-1403.rar

[SiGfever]

ASUS Maximus II Formula bios 1403
http://rapidshare.com/files/15653530...-bios-1403.rar

Have you tried this bios?

[KURTZ]

guys, i'm wondering about the paste, can i use the Zalman STG-01 for the chipset?

edit: another Q: next week i wanna buy the swiftech WB for the NB, so i need to know i must put the paste under the WB cause i'm not sure i f that WB goes exactly over the chip or over the stock 'freezing system' ...

[Grnfinger]

Well is anyone going to comment on the new bios or shall I be the first lab rat

[e.v.o]

Already tested the new BIOS. Nothing really new.
Also took a look with MMTool and AMIBCP at it. Only found some minor changes to RAM and SMBus.
Someone at FdL told about some error with the intel ahci mode. the boards hangs at "DET IDE".

@KURTZ
For the NB i would use zalman, cause it has no IHS on it. for the rest i would use AS5.

[genec57]

I had a hang at auto detecting sata port 4 and port 6. It got past it but it took several minutes.
I didn't test extensively but it seemed ok other than the lengthy post. I have reverted back to 1307.

[Grnfinger]

Same here on the SATA port hang, maybe 1 min b4 it booted
Rig seems kinda sluggish with it loaded, maybe its in my head Everest scores are identical.
Thanks for sharing E.V.O.

[oxyyy]

Make sure the maximum difference between the vFSB and vNB is no more than ~0.11v. So if you set 1.2 vFSB, set no more than 1.21v vNB otherwise it will just lock on reboot. This is a very annoying 'feature' of the M2F, and Asus need to fix it (along with a lot of other stuff I keep mentioning) to make this board what I would call decent.

anyone fixed this problem? For me it works with a maximum difference of ~0,15v.
But my CPU do realy well with low VTT, ~450FSB with 1,1v VTT...

[CryptiK]

@ drnick - I just left the thermal pad on the fets, the ones in the middle have worse contact the ones at the sides so I was concerned using thermal paste instead of the pad may make the middle fets not even touch.

@ oxyyy - I think this is dependent on your particular board. My board won't let me set the vFSB/vNB more than 0.11v apart until I get to ~1.25v vFSB, where the maximum vdiff I can set is around 0.15v.

*Why didn't Asus actually put into the new bios something decent this board really needs; Command Rate setting for the ram. Some better chipset efficiency would be nice too. From the reported problems I'm not even going to bother flashing to it to test it. Asus bios engineers are so lame, it takes them over a month to release a bios that is actually worse than the previous bios and contains nothing new.

[nugzo]

i'm on new bios now. Same SATA hang when booting. Takes minutes to just detect. Also it wont boot from old oc profile, if i set defaults and enter manually it'll boot. If i then save those settings i entered manually and try to load from them it wont post. I'm reverting back as well. I may try drnicks 1306.

[Grnfinger]

I am disapointed with the latest release, I wonder if anyone actualy tests them, clearly not.
Not even a tref change for improved bandwidth seems Asus are dragging there heels on this board's support.

[nugzo]

I am disapointed with the latest release, I wonder if anyone actualy tests them, clearly not.
Not even a tref change for improved bandwidth seems Asus are dragging there heels on this board's support.

I bet they're doin a lot of work on the x58's. Such an anticipated and new chipset right around the corner. Or maybe they are so busy with the 5000 P5Q Models.

[Funky]

AHCI is confirmed broken on the 1403 bios.

My first guess is that this is work under progress bios. Something as basic as AHCI is broken :P

Tested on 2 boards. Same results. Even ports do not work ( SATA 2, 4 and 6 dont work ) in AHCI mode. It takes long time to detect IDE drives as well.

Back to 1307.

[bonzo_catalin]

What is the top FSB reached by this mobo ?

[KURTZ]

Already tested the new BIOS. Nothing really new.
Also took a look with MMTool and AMIBCP at it. Only found some minor changes to RAM and SMBus.
Someone at FdL told about some error with the intel ahci mode. the boards hangs at "DET IDE".

@KURTZ
For the NB i would use zalman, cause it has no IHS on it. for the rest i would use AS5.

thx Evo

and what about the swiftech WB? someone has tried this?