My Dual Harper - Asus Z7S WS living review *56K warning*

[STEvil]

There's supposed to be a new revision of the Z7S now.. not that it matters anymore. At least thats according to Gary Key.

STEvil - 2
angelshonnny - 1
Jaco/taymans - 3
jcool - 6+
spiro - 1
4DoorGTZ - 1
DanTheBanjoman - 1
Serlv - 1
ZIO -2
colombodk - 1
romanzen - 1
lombardi - 1
Apoptosis - 2
neveroffline - 2
Romanzen - 1

26+

[Syndil]

There's supposed to be a new revision of the Z7S now.. not that it matters anymore. At least thats according to Gary Key.

Stevil, any idea what the new revision number is and if it addresses the VRM issue? Mine is rev. 1.03g.

[neveroffline]

ST, put me down for 2, that Z7S was my second.

I dealt with ASUS USA most of Jan into early Feb. Waited like 5 business days and called. Next day I got an email offering me another MB due to the fact it is discontinued and they have NO supply. I negotiated the DSEB-DG over the other model they offered. I was told she could "try and locate one" (Z7S) in another country, but no guarantee and I didn't want to wait.

So there you have it folks, the Z7S is officially out in the ASUS USA warehouse (and probably elsewhere considering we are a huge market). I'm hoping this DSEB-DG at least lasts 2-3 yrs.

[RomanZen]

hey ya,

thanks for sharing your experience guys!

got a new DSEB-DG now here from the support in NL. called again monday afternoon. it arrived now not even 24h later. as new case, best option (from my point of view) i found was an zalman gs 1000. the case does not support formfactor SSI EEB 3.61 but still fits extended atx.

decision was made cause:

- can re-use all the 120mm pwm fans i used in the old case.
- top side case fan's to get the heat of the cpu coolers out.
- price around 120€, not 250€+ like silverstone stuff for example
- no open side panel (that noise).

do you have some more suggestions on cases ?

[Syndil]

The Zalman looks like it should be a good case. It has a very similar layout to what I am using, a Cooler Master Cosmos 1000. The Cosmos has sound dampening foam on the side panels, no forward-facing vents, and has a door to help block more sound. The intake vents are also filtered. It is still not as quiet as I would like, however, because of the FB-DIMMs. The rear 120mm fan is plugged into the Z7S's memory PWM header and constantly runs at full speed. That is the loudest part of the case. I suspect the Zalman would have similar sound characteristics, maybe a tiny bit louder because of the lack of door plus forward facing vents.

[neveroffline]

I posted a Aerocool PGS 500, and it has the proper standoffs. I paid less than $120 shipped. Link is above as well as a SS. Can you not get the aerocool there?

[STEvil]

Fixed.

Not sure what the rev of the new one is.

[ZIO]

That's weird, it looks like DDR-2 800 ECC fully buffered RAM is what the MAC pro uses, I think that is the same for the Z7S? It even says for 8 core harpertown servers.... hmm what do you guys think?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-019-_-Product

although I should at least get crucial RAM from the reports.

Zio

[Syndil]

Mac Pro RAM will work on the Z7S, but the heatsinks will not. The Mac Pro uses riser cards for its RAM with plenty of space between the slots.

[Syndil]

Still looking to buy some Kingston HyperX FB-DIMMs, if anyone has any. Part number KHX6400F2LLK2/2G.

The 3-year warranty on my Z7S ended last month, so I'm flying without a parachute now. Scary. I emailed ASUS a while back and asked them to pretty please just exchange my Z7S for a DSEB-DG even though it wasn't technically broken yet, but they wouldn't go for it. Going to be upset if it doesn't last another 3 years.

[ZIO]

fun with this build... gtx 460 2 win...EVGA/Nvidia. Gotta say I've not seen Crysis 2 this smooth on my machine for 400? beats out most of the other offerings out there, SLI on a stick. hella smooth with 672 CUDA cores, 512 bit.

[ZIO]

fun with this build... gtx 460 2 win...EVGA/Nvidia. Gotta say I've not seen Crysis 2 this smooth on my machine for 400? beats out most of the other offerings out there, SLI on a stick. hella smooth with 672 CUDA cores, 512 bit.

uh nm, it failed after about a month, well it got choppy after an hour or so, is there an ASUS replacement for the z7s-ws yet? Maybe with Sli?

[STEvil]

uh nm, it failed after about a month, well it got choppy after an hour or so, is there an ASUS replacement for the z7s-ws yet? Maybe with Sli?

supposedly there's a new revision of the board, but whats the point this late in the game?

[STEvil]

I have a smile.



Now to hope is stays there.

[Fuddelbaer]

Tagchen Allerseits! Lurking here for some years now, and since this thread has gone off topic and chatty I hope you don't mind if I bring up another off topic issue which is related to the Asus Z7S WS: There seems to be a linux kernel bug almost exclusivly to the Z7S WS on Kernel Version 2.6.38 and newer. Here is the report entry for Ubuntu Bug tracker.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/801840

Since it is related to the kernel, it seems to affect all kinds of distros. Tested Ubuntu, SuSE and Fedora and all show Kernel Panics on my machine as described in the report or already fail during installation. This Bug is a kind of a showstopper for several months now, i first run into it when ubuntu 11.04 was released. If anyone has knowlodge of a kernel version newer then 2.6.38 that works stable on the Z7S WS please post.

If you bother feel free to post on the bug tracker of the distro of your choice, so far the kernel developers seem to be indifferent to this issue because it looks like there are only very few linux users with a Z7S WS.

DSEB-DG seems to be unaffected by this issue. I own booth, the DSEB-DG and the Z7S-WS, but I can't use the DSEB-DG with linux because I don't know how to boot it from a discrete graphics card, never got a signal although the adapter works fine with all other boards. Tested both PCI-E 16 Slots on the DSEB-DG, but it seems like linux always boots the onboard graphics on the motherboard. Looked in the bios for an option to disable on board graphics but found none so far and there is also no mainboard jumper for configuration as far as i can tell. Can anyone of those who have switched to a DSEB-DG tell me if Windows is able to boot from a discrete graphics card with that board?

[jcool]

The board has many many unresolved bugs and bios issues that never were, and never will be fixed. For me, it's water under the bridge... I guess most people have moved on as well. Although I certainly won't forget the epic fail Asus delivered with this so-called workstation product.

[phusg]

The board has many many unresolved bugs and bios issues that never were, and never will be fixed. ...
Although I certainly won't forget the epic fail Asus delivered with this so-called workstation product.

Well put and many thanks for putting this warning out there. I was almost ready to bid on the Asus Z7S system that's up on ebay.de at the moment but thankfully came across this thread.

Would anyone like to offer suggestions for stable Intel Seaburg 5400 based LGA771 workstation board alternatives? I've currently short-listed the Supermicro X7DWA-N and the Tyan i5400XT. Which company/board is better for a stable workstation?

[jcool]

Both are fine boards really. I'd say, whichever you can get cheaper. The Asus DSEB series of boards is also a valid choice (built & serviced by the Asus server divison which is completely different from the "workstation" line of products)

[Icy]

Hi guys. Im looking at options for an upgrade atm i have an old server sitting here doing bugger all and it has two x5355's im thinking of going down the Z7S WS route but i see there are quite a few problems. Im dont think the xeons will perform as well in gaming terms as the i5 750 i have atm but it seems a shame to have those xeons doing nothing. In an ideal world i would like to run them with 2x crossfire 5850's. Is this an option still or am i completly nuts?

[Movieman]

Hi guys. Im looking at options for an upgrade atm i have an old server sitting here doing bugger all and it has two x5355's im thinking of going down the Z7S WS route but i see there are quite a few problems. Im dont think the xeons will perform as well in gaming terms as the i5 750 i have atm but it seems a shame to have those xeons doing nothing. In an ideal world i would like to run them with 2x crossfire 5850's. Is this an option still or am i completly nuts?

Nuts..UNLESS your electricity is free walk away from them and realistically, toss them away.
Just too old now to be viable.
I used X5350's in 2006, moved on to harpers in 2007 I think and even sold those off in 2009
To me it's production vs electrical cost and build cost.
Think on this, a 2600K has TWICE the computational power of both of those X5355's and costs 1/2 as much to build and uses less than 1/2 the electric.
I rest my case

[Icy]

lol just a same to not do something with them.
I still run an old dothan M740 as a media pc dont like to bin old tech.

[Sparky]

Your avatar is making me hungry.

</end>

[Movieman]

lol just a same to not do something with them.
I still run an old dothan M740 as a media pc dont like to bin old tech.

At leasy the dothan isn't a power hog,
IIRC my clovertown with dual X5350's drew 420w on Rosetta back then
Made the equiviliant of 21,000PPD
2600k will make 40,000PPD drawing under 200w and your in England where elec is at leastb TWICE what it is here
Yep, your nuts. A nice buts but still nuts!

[s0lid]

FYI: You can get pair of L5420's from ebay for 100USD if you wanna go the Z7S route.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Xeon...item35b649f448

[MrBean]

Would anyone like to offer suggestions for stable Intel Seaburg 5400 based LGA771 workstation board alternatives? I've currently short-listed the Supermicro X7DWA-N and the Tyan i5400XT. Which company/board is better for a stable workstation?

Uncle Dave here helped me get my hands on X7DWA-N probably early 2009, and it's a dream board. You can have a look at my Blackbird log to see what I've done with it, running 2 Harpers. I simply cannot justify replacing it, what a beautiful system. Yes, I have a new Sandybridge E3-1245 setup too, but I use that for WCG et al, and other tasks, but my trusty 8-cores of MP goodness I won't easily replace.

For me it's about ROI (return on investment), the cash-outlay for a new system will take a significant time to recover, so, I can't justify - may very well be different if you run 24/7, which I don't....