**Official ASUS Striker II Formula Discussion/Review/Overclock/Guide/BIOS Thread**

[asp6000]

Here's the settings I used to reach an easy 4ghz...



100% air-cooled. NB could cook an omlet but hasn't caused me any problems.

[javaman]

I have a P5N-T and am considering exchanging it for this board. Is it worth it? Are there differences in the OC ability or is it the same chips that have the same capabilities (multi, fsb, overvolt, etc). By stepping up to this board, do I gain anything other than the CPU INIT display?

[zakelwe]

I have a P5N-T and am considering exchanging it for this board. Is it worth it? Are there differences in the OC ability or is it the same chips that have the same capabilities (multi, fsb, overvolt, etc). By stepping up to this board, do I gain anything other than the CPU INIT display?

For a start you need to remove the display, because it polls all the time it slows down SuperPi and other benches

What FSB are you getting with your P5NT? You get loads of options with the Striker II but it still has to handle a 680i / 780i chip so that means you need to deal with lots of heat and have good memory that can do low latency.

Regards

Andy

[javaman]

I am just having problems getting stability at stock setting much less trying to OC it yet. I am using default FSB 1066 if I remeber right and 800 for the mem. I was mainly curious if anyone knew if these two boards were base on the same alternate design ASUS uses and if there were different hardware components that affected the overclockability.

Polling display? That seems silly. Seems better off with some event driven model, maybe its own pic or atmega chip if it want to poll.

[Jeremy617]

Well, mine just died.

I just reinstalled vista x64, left it alone for a while, came back and it was in sleep/hibernation. So I pressed the power button for it to come back on and then got up to get a drink. After it gets back into windows the siren on my ultra goes off (the ones that go off if you turn it on without the 2x pci-e power connectors).

So rebooted it, got back into windows okay, but now I couldn't get on the internet, the ethernet ports weren't working. So I turned it off again, try to turn it on, and get CPU INIT, and as far as I can tell, its totally dead.

I'm going to blame this one on vista.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Well, mine just died.

I just reinstalled vista x64, left it alone for a while, came back and it was in sleep/hibernation. So I pressed the power button for it to come back on and then got up to get a drink. After it gets back into windows the siren on my ultra goes off (the ones that go off if you turn it on without the 2x pci-e power connectors).

So rebooted it, got back into windows okay, but now I couldn't get on the internet, the ethernet ports weren't working. So I turned it off again, try to turn it on, and get CPU INIT, and as far as I can tell, its totally dead.

I'm going to blame this one on vista.

Sounds to me like you hosed your bios.

[Tony]

Got the board today, tests with 4GB 8000 Reaper X and Q9650.

To start board does not like 9 multi
8 is ok but max fsb =5% over stock base FSB so 1333+5%, 1600+5%, more with duals but not much more with quads.

4GB running memtest clean V2 (brutal) 1000MHZ 1.85V, TRFC 52 was key

early findings on new bios I can't share

[Jeremy617]

Well, I gave up on trying to fix it and went to class.

Came back, didn't change a thing, turned it on, and it posted.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Got the board today, tests with 4GB 8000 Reaper X and Q9650.

To start board does not like 9 multi
8 is ok but max fsb =5% over stock base FSB so 1333+5%, 1600+5%, more with duals but not much more with quads.

4GB running memtest clean V2 (brutal) 1000MHZ 1.85V, TRFC 52 was key

early findings on new bios I can't share

Why do you say it doesn't like 9x multi? many people get very high clocks on this board with an e8400 and 9x.


And what new bios are you talking about? 1001 is common. or do you have 1101?

[Tony]

quads man...you need to read what I posted

duals clock higher, quads are a mess, also 4GB and 8GB are hard with quads, lots of rules.

[asp6000]

QX9650 @ 9x450 with 8 gigs ram..

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=373

[zakelwe]

quads man...you need to read what I posted

duals clock higher, quads are a mess, also 4GB and 8GB are hard with quads, lots of rules.

Although you cannot say much about the new BIOS does it allow half multipiers?

I have a 9.5x E8500 here and it only has options of 7,8,9 in the BIOS which actually equates to 7.5, 8.5 and 9.5 in real life! I can't do full mulitpliers though like 8x400 for instance. Very strange how Asus can allow a BIOS to go out like that, they must have had Wolfdales for ages .... sigh.

Regards

Andy

[Leeghoofd]

Well, mine just died.

I just reinstalled vista x64, left it alone for a while, came back and it was in sleep/hibernation. So I pressed the power button for it to come back on and then got up to get a drink. After it gets back into windows the siren on my ultra goes off (the ones that go off if you turn it on without the 2x pci-e power connectors).

So rebooted it, got back into windows okay, but now I couldn't get on the internet, the ethernet ports weren't working. So I turned it off again, try to turn it on, and get CPU INIT, and as far as I can tell, its totally dead.

I'm going to blame this one on vista.

More bad settings or board and/or bad PSU mate, never heard an OS being the origin of a vidcard not getting enough power... tried popping out the battery, reseat everything ?

[Leeghoofd]

quads man...you need to read what I posted

duals clock higher, quads are a mess, also 4GB and 8GB are hard with quads, lots of rules.

Is it possible Tony to put out a sticky topic on what those rule are to get these quads running on 780i with or with more than 4 gigs... as you got ya q6600 booting at 400 with the SE....but I too have the best ram stability/clocks with TRFC 52, while the Gskill kit sets in SPD 45 for it... at 1000mhz 2 volts.... Might grab the Reaper kit as one of the Gskills kits died on me ( it was erratic from the start ) 780i XFX board is ordered....

[@rne]

Well, mine just died.
[...]
I'm going to blame this one on vista.

I had similiar problems with my striker 2. Taken out battery for ~1 hour was the key. but it seems that they are as fragile as the striker 1

[Tony]

Gary had 450x9 yes, but it was apparent that the board was liable to fall over during severe stress testing, Raja found exactly the same.

During my tests with striker1 i found the "rules" as i call them when using quads and posted about this on the ocz forum, the issue is most of you guys will not be happy running 3.33 when you Q6600 does 3.6+ easy so you tend to ignore what i posted.

Striker and striker 2 Formula are ONLY good with QX cpu's as the multi is unlocked and you can get close to where you need running a higher multi, if you are looking for FSB overclocking get a dual core although how much over 500 780i will do i have no idea.

The rules with 4GB 2x2 with a quad.

tRFC, you have to tune this, big impact on vdimm and stability
FSB has to stay to the sweet spots, 9 multi has issues for some reason also.

For me 8x1333, 8x1600, 8x1667 all worked well with async and 4GB at 1000, 5-5-5-18 tRFC 54 and 1.85V vdimm. At these FSB's the board sets exactly 1000 for the memory and weirdly this seems to have an effect.

Im still testing, but end users who we helped over at OCZ who followed these rules have had no issues, so there is something to them.

[zakelwe]

I have another interesting "feature" with my FSB and memory. I am running linked and sync mode so 1600FSB (400 real money) gives RAM speed of 400 as expected, but when I run 1872 (468) and expect the memory to do 1:1 again it is actually doing 15:16 ratio and the RAM speed is not 936 but 877.

Are there only certain FSB's where the ratio stays 1:1 and elsewhere it gives best approximation?

Regards

Andy

[nuclearjock]

Why do you say it doesn't like 9x multi? many people get very high clocks on this board with an e8400 and 9x.


And what new bios are you talking about? 1001 is common. or do you have 1101?

Could you point me towards a link for 1001???

[@rne]

Does anybody has running the striker II formula with Crucial Ballistix 8500er without any problems?
Yesterday evening, i overclocked the ballistix up to 600MHz 5-5-5-12, vDimm 2,25V, Chipset 1,26 if i remember correctly. Worked fine, primed for about 2 hours then i shut down the system. this morning, i tried to boot it up and again cpu init error. Bios 0902, hasn't booted anymore, atm im leaving it without battery because i hope to get it alive again.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Could you point me towards a link for 1001???

Check out the 2nd or 3rd page of the Striker II review, in the review forum.

[bingo13]

QX9650 @ 9x450 with 8 gigs ram..

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=373

I hand tuned every setting on the board to get that benchmark stable. But it goes to prove that if you work long enough on it, the board will reward you with very good performance. However, testing with the 1001 BIOS I am no longer stable at those same settings, trying to dial the board back in right now.

The 1001 is better in several areas (FSB holes have shrunk, 1T at 800 is working again), but it changed all the rules on tuning the board. It has been like this since the 0701 BIOS. The board (any 680i/780i) is just like a duck, it wakes up in a different world everyday.

[JoeBar]

The board (any 680i/780i) is just like a duck, it wakes up in a different world everyday.

Very funny!

[ppcli]

im at the point and going to a x38 chipset.or a 8400.this mobo hates the q6600 go.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Does anybody know how to boot from USB on this board? I can't boot from USB. So I can no longer flash my custom 8800 bios.

[Mix]

Got the board today, tests with 4GB 8000 Reaper X and Q9650.

To start board does not like 9 multi
8 is ok but max fsb =5% over stock base FSB so 1333+5%, 1600+5%, more with duals but not much more with quads.

4GB running memtest clean V2 (brutal) 1000MHZ 1.85V, TRFC 52 was key

early findings on new bios I can't share

thanks tony result for me!!!!

My system Q6600 G0 , 4gb Transcend 9600,Asus 8800 ultra
the chipset is very hot, and need too much voltages, im using bios 1001, but 4GB dont do 600mhz the board freeze.

The pic:




Later im triyng more fsb.