ASUS Maximus Formula SE

[Raja@ASUS]

One thing I forgot to note with this and Asus's other recent boards. If changing out a CPU, make sure you clear the CMOS without a CPU in the socket. The board will not boot with a changed CPU unless the BIOS is cleared before putting it in. 'LAZY' may want to try removing his CPU, clearing the CMOS and trying to boot with only one stick of memory.

regards
Raja

[Leeghoofd]

One thing I forgot to note with this and Asus's other recent boards. If changing out a CPU, make sure you clear the CMOS without a CPU in the socket. The board will not boot with a changed CPU unless the BIOS is cleared before putting it in. 'LAZY' may want to try removing his CPU, clearing the CMOS and trying to boot with only one stick of memory.

regards
Raja

I didn't know that, are you sure of this ?

All my recent Asus boards (P5W, P5B, Striker , P5K and Maximus Formula SE ) all booted back (without a bios reset) with this message : a new CPU has been detected, press F1.... tralalala....

[Raja@ASUS]

We have 2 boards here that are exhibiting a need for an empty CPU socket CMOS clear before booting a new CPU..

[Leeghoofd]

We have 2 boards here that are exhibiting a need for an empty CPU socket CMOS clear before booting a new CPU..

Thx I'll keep ya tip in mind then....

[Maglin]

Does anyone know what resister I can tweak to get 3.3v on the 3.3 rail and 5v on the 5v rail? I love the new OCCT. I'm using it with everest and I can see what is happening right before I get an error. On these pics you can see that the 3.3v line is fluctuating and so is VNB. You can see it goes unstable as soon as the vNB gets one of many spikes. This is at settings that I've ran OCCT for almost 4 hours on stable and I think this could be why a stable setup becomes suddenly unstable.


VDMM


3.3V Line


VNB


NV Temp


I'm wanting to just do a pencil mod on the resistors for this as then I wouldn't have to solder a VR on and if it didn't help what so ever I wouldn't have to unsolder my VR's and what not. It if did work I would put some quality VR's on as pencil modding is very temporary.

Edit: I also believe these voltages being low is cause for the overvolting as the reference voltage would be low and thus it would pump it up to compensate.

[TheSamurai]

Go for another Maximus it's the best motherboard I've had, maybe I'm lucky but it takes whatever I throw at it, the only thing I can't make work is RAID apart from that superb.

try the updateded raid drivers.

[ZilverPhish]

One thing I forgot to note with this and Asus's other recent boards. If changing out a CPU, make sure you clear the CMOS without a CPU in the socket. The board will not boot with a changed CPU unless the BIOS is cleared before putting it in. 'LAZY' may want to try removing his CPU, clearing the CMOS and trying to boot with only one stick of memory.

regards
Raja

Cpu init error `?

[jonny_ftm]

Does anyone know what resister I can tweak to get 3.3v on the 3.3 rail and 5v on the 5v rail? I love the new OCCT. I'm using it with everest and I can see what is happening right before I get an error. On these pics you can see that the 3.3v line is fluctuating and so is VNB. You can see it goes unstable as soon as the vNB gets one of many spikes. This is at settings that I've ran OCCT for almost 4 hours on stable and I think this could be why a stable setup becomes suddenly unstable.


VDMM


3.3V Line


VNB


NV Temp


I'm wanting to just do a pencil mod on the resistors for this as then I wouldn't have to solder a VR on and if it didn't help what so ever I wouldn't have to unsolder my VR's and what not. It if did work I would put some quality VR's on as pencil modding is very temporary.

Edit: I also believe these voltages being low is cause for the overvolting as the reference voltage would be low and thus it would pump it up to compensate.

Yep, exactly what I discovered on my ASUS board. After a while, your temperature increases, your capacitors are less efficient, and thus the voltage becomes unstable

In your case, we see well, OCCT RAM burned up your NB which reached 60°C, which why you got the error. The vNB fluctuation is also very indicative. A quad core above 3.6GHz is an extreme overclock and suerely passive cooling is not enough on this board for such an overclock: NB, mosfets, and maybe RAM and its mosfets if you overclock the DDR2 too

[GAR]

even when my NB on the maximus was only 43c i got an error, system was very cool, not hot at all...........my antec 900 has a 2000rpm fan on the side wich keeps my NB very cool....on full load never went above 45c.....also another problem with occt i had even on stock settings, is it would crash the desktop, but occt would still run..........i also have this issue with my gigabyte board, i am guessing this is releated to the program itself and maybe vista x64.....anyone else get this???

EDIT: also the voltage fluctuation probably had something to do with it.

[Maglin]

I'm actually running my ram @ 800mhz 4-4-4-12. I get slightly less ram performance @ 800 then at the 1050-1100 mhz range @ 5-5-5-15.

I've noticed from almost everyones SS that their 3.3v and 5v lines are a tad low, so I'm not thinking it's a PSU issue. I have a pretty beefy 850w PSU single rail. I do have a fan on my ram/nb and the air does pass over the caps around the cpu as well. It helped a lot in the search for stability. I decided to drop to 400x9 as I need far less voltage and the tiny bit of performance difference is not worth all the hassle at this moment.

[binormalkilla]

Well I got things somewhat sorted out here.

BIOS: 0602
9x400MHz
FSB Strap: Auto
PCIE Freq: 100
DDR2-1066MHz
5-4-4-12-3-42-6-3
8-3-5-4-6-4-6
Dram Static Rd: Disabled
Ai Clock Twister: Strong
Trans Booster: Enabled
Relax lvl: 0




Got better clocks w/ Dram Static disabled and Trans enabled than I did with Dram Static enabled and Trans Disabled. There is still more tweaking to do with the timming but I am pretty happy thus far.

Wow your system is VERY similar to mine! Turn your PCI-E up to 115 BTW I keep mine there 24/7.

[kup]

I've found the same issues with the Maximus, since using the new OCCT Beta.

I can use OCCT 24/7 if I keep cold air blowing directly over the vregs, mosfets and caps around the CPU. As soon as I take that extra airflow away it lasts a few hours MAX before crashing and Folding can crash within hours too... Right now with window open and case temp of only 23*c (temp sensor seems out, it's about 10*c by the window...) I can Fold/OCCT/Prime/Game as much as I want, but seeing as I don't like my hands turning blue I keep the window pulled shut. This instantly increases the temp in the case and then I lose my stability...noticably with voltages going, then crashes/reboots!

What particular parts would people recommend for extra cooling/heatinks to be attached? I'm building a caseless testbench so I'll be able to get closer in to the motherboard and use my 'OPT Sensor@ temp sensors from my Striker Extreme on the Maximus to read these temps correctly around the NB and CPU area!

[TouGe]

I have not really got around to messing w/ the PCIE setting yet. You haven't experienced any corruption issues w/ the PCIE frequency set at 115MHz. Is there a stability benefit to setting it @ 115MHz because when I used to have my 680i I saw no performance benefit from that particular setting.

And, yes, our systems are very similar. I've actually been pretty happy so far. You?

[GAR]

I have not really got around to messing w/ the PCIE setting yet. You haven't experienced any corruption issues w/ the PCIE frequency set at 115MHz. Is there a stability benefit to setting it @ 115MHz because when I used to have my 680i I saw no performance benefit from that particular setting.

And, yes, our systems are very similar. I've actually been pretty happy so far. You?

yes, there is a performance gain, 1-2 fps in crysis from 100-118 mhz.....120 seems to have an issue with detecting drives, the sweet spot for this board is 118 for the pci-e.

[kimandsally]

try the updateded raid drivers.

Hi

I seem to have a problem that I haven't had before, if I use the F6 floppy new or old drivers it fails trying to install and blue screens so I have tried to make a N lite with the drivers built in and it does the same, it goes by installing the Raid drivers then fails totally with the blue screen.

I just try it again as I get time, the strange bit is that on every motherboard I have had for the last 4 years I have successfully installed and run Raid.

Surely nothing could be wrong with the motherboard that would cause this is there?

[TouGe]

yes, there is a performance gain, 1-2 fps in crysis from 100-118 mhz.....120 seems to have an issue with detecting drives, the sweet spot for this board is 118 for the pci-e.

Okay, sounds good guys. I'll give 118MHz a shot after I finish running Mem Test.

[TheSamurai]

I've found the same issues with the Maximus, since using the new OCCT Beta.

I can use OCCT 24/7 if I keep cold air blowing directly over the vregs, mosfets and caps around the CPU. As soon as I take that extra airflow away it lasts a few hours MAX before crashing and Folding can crash within hours too... Right now with window open and case temp of only 23*c (temp sensor seems out, it's about 10*c by the window...) I can Fold/OCCT/Prime/Game as much as I want, but seeing as I don't like my hands turning blue I keep the window pulled shut. This instantly increases the temp in the case and then I lose my stability...noticably with voltages going, then crashes/reboots!

What particular parts would people recommend for extra cooling/heatinks to be attached? I'm building a caseless testbench so I'll be able to get closer in to the motherboard and use my 'OPT Sensor@ temp sensors from my Striker Extreme on the Maximus to read these temps correctly around the NB and CPU area!

what are you running right now for a case and air flow? i have my mcr320 YL SH push/pull at the bottom along with my mcr220 YL SH push/pull at lower then normal air flow through my fan controller (remember these are the SH series) and i'm having no problems... also, no side panels on the case. could this be why mine seems to be stable while others are having problems?

[TheSamurai]

Hi

I seem to have a problem that I haven't had before, if I use the F6 floppy new or old drivers it fails trying to install and blue screens so I have tried to make a N lite with the drivers built in and it does the same, it goes by installing the Raid drivers then fails totally with the blue screen.

I just try it again as I get time, the strange bit is that on every motherboard I have had for the last 4 years I have successfully installed and run Raid.

Surely nothing could be wrong with the motherboard that would cause this is there?

wow, i have no idea... i haven't actually installed mine yet, but my raptors will be here tomorrow so i'll give it a shot. other then that, bump for more replies from others...

[devilhood]

Hi

I seem to have a problem that I haven't had before, if I use the F6 floppy new or old drivers it fails trying to install and blue screens so I have tried to make a N lite with the drivers built in and it does the same, it goes by installing the Raid drivers then fails totally with the blue screen.

I just try it again as I get time, the strange bit is that on every motherboard I have had for the last 4 years I have successfully installed and run Raid.

Surely nothing could be wrong with the motherboard that would cause this is there?

Ok, perhaps I was a little hasty, but it is true that the new Intel Matrix Storage Drivers helped things a little. It is almost perfect, but I'm actually still experiencing iaStor timeouts with my Seagate 160 GB (x2) RAID-0 setup. Well, to be more specific, the HD LED stays on and the system becomes completely unresponsive.
This is a complete pain in the a$$.

All my HD's are SATA-II and fairly new, my TSSTcorp SH-S128D DVD-RW had an old firmware on it which I just upgraded, but that didn't seem to help; I have done some research on the web and have learnt that this issue can be linked to a conflict with DVD drives as well as USB devices. Perhaps the JMicron Controller cannot properly co-exist with the ICH9R controller. It might also have something to do with the fact that Intel are encouraging people to use SATA DVD-RW's instead of IDE.

Both my DVD-RW drives have the same Power state mappings, and all my HD's are the same too with the exception of S1 -> D3 (Sleep state and Device state) being specified for IDE drives and S1 -> D1 being specified for SATA drives.
I really want to be able to re-create this timeout problem whenever I can to actually test if certain conditions fix it...

Lavalys Everest reported that all my HD's have the same ATA feature set as each-other, so there is no significant difference between any of the drives other than 4 of them being Seagate and 1 being Samsung. The Samsung drive does have Automatic Acoustic Management and DMA Setup Auto-Activate though(?), both of which aren't present in Seagate drives.

I tried the iaStor(v) registry fix at The Flying Nerd by deleting the Parameters section, but that didn't seem to help.
Apparently the problem is supposed to go away if you disable the new functions of SATA-II, so unless the RAID Boot ROM is setting LPM information automatically, or there is a device conflict, the registry fix should have actually worked.

Is it really linked to LPM? is it a compliancy issue? who knows.
I suppose we can always hope that the next BIOS update will contain a new revision of the ICH9R controller BIOS.

I'm going to send an e-mail to Seagate to find out if they are aware of any firmware/Vista incompatibilities.

[kimandsally]

Ok, perhaps I was a little hasty, but it is true that the new Intel Matrix Storage Drivers helped things a little. It is almost perfect, but I'm actually still experiencing iaStor timeouts with my Seagate 160 GB (x2) RAID-0 setup. Well, to be more specific, the HD LED stays on and the system becomes completely unresponsive.
This is a complete pain in the a$$.

All my HD's are SATA-II and fairly new, my TSSTcorp DVD-RW had an old firmware on it which I just upgraded, but I don't know if that will help; I have done some research on the web and have learnt that this issue can be linked to a conflict with DVD drives as well as USB devices. Perhaps the JMicron Controller cannot properly co-exist with the ICH9R controller.

I tried the iaStor(v) registry fix by deleting the Parameters section, but that didn't seem to help.
Apparently the problem is supposed to go away if you disable the new functions of SATA-II, so unless the RAID boot ROM is setting LPM information automatically, or there is a device conflict, the registry fix should have actually worked.

Is it really linked to LPM? who knows.
I suppose we can always hope that the next BIOS update will contain a new revision of the ICH9R controller BIOS.

Gosh your way ahead of me, you have quite a knowledge base, Raid is probably the subject that comes into my know almost nothing catagorys

One thing that I will try is to set the hard drives from Sata 2 into Sata 1 and see if that works, you know though I could easily be doing something wrong in the BIOS settings, these things always seem difficult then someone will see what I'm doing wrong.

I'll look forward to hearing how yours go and wish you good luck although you might not need it fingers crossed.

[devilhood]

Cheers, I'm going to try another fresh install of Vista again to see if upgrading the DVD-RW firmware actually helped, so my fingers are definitely crossed with this one.
It really is quite strange though, I mean, I'd happily trial and error this problem right down to plugging in devices one by one, but because of how sporadic it seems to be, it's kinda like waiting to hitch a ride by mooning cars instead sticking your thumb out. Bad Analogy, I know

[kup]

what are you running right now for a case and air flow? i have my mcr320 YL SH push/pull at the bottom along with my mcr220 YL SH push/pull at lower then normal air flow through my fan controller (remember these are the SH series) and i'm having no problems... also, no side panels on the case. could this be why mine seems to be stable while others are having problems?

Antec 900 Case. 2x120mm TriCool fans on High @ front. 1x120mm TriCool fan on High @ Rear, 1x200mm TriCool fdan on High @ top. Side panel off.

Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme with 2x120mm Sharkoon Silent Eagle 200rpm ~75cfm in push pull, in from NB area, out into 200mm top exhaust.

The way the TRUE is mounted (top to bottom airflow) gets me better temps on the CPU by about 7*c over front to back airflow, but it seems to leave a dead spot around my CPU area, especially caps and vregs and mosfets and all that other kit tucked in there. I'll try to dig out a temp sensor later/tomorrow and measure the temps down in there. I'm also going to gut the case and build it on my bench again, so I can prop up a million fans on anything vaguely warm...!

[thelawns]

Well after your help, I have managed the following so far:



Using the following settings in the Bios:





I shall continue to see how much further I can take it tomorrow!!

Well, as per my post above I am now stumped. Next level is 460FSB from 450FSB. I can't seem to get any higher FSB right now. Any suggestions?

After reading TouGe post earlier I just tried changing Dram static rd: disabled and Trans booster: enabled with a relax lvl: 0 and 1 but it hung on Det Dram. I also tried changing FSB Strap: Auto from 400mhz. I am thinking my memory keeps holding the CPU back but am not sure what to try next???

[TheSamurai]

Cheers, I'm going to try another fresh install of Vista again to see if upgrading the DVD-RW firmware actually helped, so my fingers are definitely crossed with this one.
It really is quite strange though, I mean, I'd happily trial and error this problem right down to plugging in devices one by one, but because of how sporadic it seems to be, it's kinda like waiting to hitch a ride by mooning cars instead sticking your thumb out. Bad Analogy, I know

lol, that was funny.

have you tried it in XP? would that matter? i'm going to try my setup tomorrow with two raptor 150's and my DVD drive is ide so we'll see what happens. is there anything i should try or look for?

[devilhood]

lol, that was funny.

have you tried it in XP? would that matter? i'm going to try my setup tomorrow with two raptor 150's and my DVD drive is ide so we'll see what happens. is there anything i should try or look for?

Look for random pauses during heavy I/O operations and iaStor timeouts or DVD drive bad block errors in Event Log.
XP SP2 does not exhibit the same problem according to 99% of the reports I have come across.