ASUS Maximus Formula SE

[kup]

450FSB Quad-Core BIOS Settings
CPU Feature
Ai Overclock Tuner 	[Manual]
OC From CPU Level Up 	[Auto]
CPU Ratio Control 	[Manual]
Ratio CMOS Setting: 	[8]
FSB Frequency 	[450]
FSB Strap to North Bridge 	[400MHz]
PCIE Frequency 	[110]
DRAM Settings
DRAM Frequency 	[DDR2-1199MHZ]
DRAM Command Rate 	[2T]
DRAM Timing Control 	[Manual]
CAS# Latency 	[5]
RAS# to CAS Delay 	[5]
RAS# Precharge 	[5]
RAS# Active Time 	[12]
RAS# To Ras# Delay 	[3]
Row Refresh Cycle Time 	[42]
Write Recovery Time 	[6]
Read To Precharge Time 	[3]
Read To Write Delay(S/D) 	[8]
Write To Read Delay(S) 	[3]
Write To Read Delay(D) 	[5]
Read To Read Delay(S) 	[4]
Read To Read Delay(D) 	[6]
Write To Write Delay(S) 	[4]
Write To Write Delay(D) 	[6]
DRAM Static Read Control 	[Disabled]
Ai Clock Twister 	[Strong]
Transaction Booster 	[Enabled]
Boost Level 	[0]
Voltage Settings
CPU Voltage 	[1.450v]
CPU PLL Voltage 	[Auto]
North Bridge Voltage 	[1.61v]
DRAM Voltage 	[2.16v]
FSB Termination Voltage 	[1.54v]
South Bridge Voltage 	[Auto]
Loadline Calibration 	[Enabled]
CPU GTL Reference 	[0.63x]
North Bridge GTL Reference 	[0.67x]
DDR2 Channel A REF Voltage 	[Auto]
DDR2 Channel B REF Voltage 	[Auto]
DDR2 Controller REF Voltage 	[DDR2_REF]
SB 1.5V Voltage 	[Auto]

With those settings...
455MHz seems to be having trouble...might be vCore too low, I haven't adjusted it for 455MHz...?

[Obijuan83]

Testing Stability...

Q6600 @ 4.13GHz 1.47volt
Transcend AxeRam 800 @ 1100 5-5-5-5-25 2.12volt
Maximus Formula SE (NB without water for now...)
Vista 32bit
Single Stage By Unseen

It seems that my Q6600 needs less vCore with Asus Maximus than Abit IP35Pro...With 1.47v in Abit IP35Pro I was @ 4.0GHz 24/7...Max FSB with Abit 522(x9@4698MHz, SS)
Max FSB with Asus not tested yet...

[ShawnTRD]

Post 2417 & 2418


Any know about these temp problems I see? I thought it was only a 0701 problem.

[Majoram]

update on re-seated and water cooled NB
I used the hair dryer method and very lightly twisted a screw driver under it till it easily came off. almost no pressure applied. now, cleaning off all that concrete they used as thermal paste was a b*tch. but hey, for that much of a drop, i can't complain one bit. i'll be picking up my raptors in about 30 minutes so we'll see how that goes. hopefully i won't have to buy a RAID card...

Just putting in my 2 cents too.

I used the hair dryer method too and it's the best way to go.
As for removing the paste .... OMG that stuff is like concrete!!

What I did was heat it up a bit (just about 10 seconds with the hairdryer) and then using a razorblade, scrap it off. It came off very very easily. Then I cleaned the remainder off with Arctic Clean.

Be careful to place the razor FLAT on the block when scraping off the goop, otherwise you risk scratching the chip/block.

Another NOTE:
Anyone who tried reseating, did you notice that the Sink on the Southbridge was Not making any contact with the chip???


The epoxy on the SB was untouched.
Even when I reseated, I removed it again to check and the AS5 was just as smooth as when I first pasted it on!

[TheSamurai]

if i remember correctly, my SB was touching the heat sink... what are your voltages and temps for the SB on a stable setup?



on a side note, i'm having issues with the blasted RAID... i can't even get the freaking drivers installed lol. i'm such a noob. anywho, my keyboard or system seems to freeze up before it even starts to install. i'm going to try the OEM drivers and see if maybe that helps. this is freaking annoying though.

[crazyea]

make sure if you are not using and/or not providing a driver for the jmicron controller that it is disabled in the bios. i have had blue screens and hanging installs due to this. if you load the driver it should be ok without disabling it during install.

[Majoram]

if i remember correctly, my SB was touching the heat sink... what are your voltages and temps for the SB on a stable setup?

Don't remember but it doesn't matter now as I am replacing the entire assembly with Thermalright HR-05 and HR-09. I should get them tomorrow or Monday

Once I removed the assembly to reseat, I just decided 'what the hell'

[mondocool]

Hmm I'm confused shall I install my thermalright hr-05 the seocnd I get the board or should I install the motherboard first to check if it works then install the heatsinks, I'm saying this because I am lazy but is the warrenty voided if you remove their nb and sb heatsinks?

[TheSamurai]

make sure if you are not using and/or not providing a driver for the jmicron controller that it is disabled in the bios. i have had blue screens and hanging installs due to this. if you load the driver it should be ok without disabling it during install.

i made a floppy and am using the F6 thing... you're still suggesting that i disable it? for some reason i'm thinking that my floppy's are bad... they're old. i mean, after all, who the hell still uses these damn things. time to recognize the usb drive.......

[Warboy]

Whats better right now, Maximus SE, Maximus Non-SE or the P5E

[TheSamurai]

Hmm I'm confused shall I install my thermalright hr-05 the seocnd I get the board or should I install the motherboard first to check if it works then install the heatsinks, I'm saying this because I am lazy but is the warrenty voided if you remove their nb and sb heatsinks?

i'd give it a run first. then, if everything is alright, use the hair dryer method to remove it.

[TheSamurai]

Whats better right now, Maximus SE, Maximus Non-SE or the P5E

maximus se... just because that's the one that i own.



se/non se, just depends on what you want to do with it. pretty much the smae board, one is WC while the other is AC. p53... no clue.

[Warboy]

maximus se... just because that's the one that i own.



se/non se, just depends on what you want to do with it. pretty much the smae board, one is WC while the other is AC. p53... no clue.

Well, wouldn't the AC one do better in cooling for Air cooling people, since WC has those holes in the NB

[crazyea]

i made a floppy and am using the F6 thing... you're still suggesting that i disable it? for some reason i'm thinking that my floppy's are bad... they're old. i mean, after all, who the hell still uses these damn things. time to recognize the usb drive.......

If you are using the ichr9 and providing a driver for that you are ok on that account. but if you have the jmicron enabled, but are not proving a driver via the f6 method at the same time, you should disable it. i have experienced issues when i tried to install without the driver with the jmicron enable. ie bluescreen, system hangs etc. my recommendation to anyone is that if you dont use it, disable it.

wouldnt hurt to try right?

[TheSamurai]

Well, wouldn't the AC one do better in cooling for Air cooling people, since WC has those holes in the NB

if the non-se one uses concrete as a bonding agent for the NB cooler like the se does... there won't be a difference lol. honestly, i don't think there would be much of a difference between the two. that is, unless, the non-se has better thermal compound used.

[TheSamurai]

If you are using the ichr9 and providing a driver for that you are ok on that account. but if you have the jmicron enabled, but are not proving a driver via the f6 method at the same time, you should disable it. i have experienced issues when i tried to install without the driver with the jmicron enable. ie bluescreen, system hangs etc. my recommendation to anyone is that if you dont use it, disable it.

wouldnt hurt to try right?

i'm really lost with this whol freaking thing... reason being is that all my freaking floppy's are dead and i'm trying to figure out how to do it on nlite. grrrrrr... this is making me mad like a grizly bear... could you tell?

[Clump]

If you are using the ichr9 and providing a driver for that you are ok on that account. but if you have the jmicron enabled, but are not proving a driver via the f6 method at the same time, you should disable it. i have experienced issues when i tried to install without the driver with the jmicron enable. ie bluescreen, system hangs etc. my recommendation to anyone is that if you dont use it, disable it.

wouldnt hurt to try right?

I bet that's it! If you need to have jmicron enabled for your PATA DVD drive you need to give it BOTH the ICH9 and jmicron drivers.

[Aldy402]

turns out im not stable at 3.8ghz , i blue screen every now and then
whats are the average voltages for these values towards stability around 3.8ghz

Northbridge voltage
Front side bus termination voltage

[Majoram]

if the non-se one uses concrete as a bonding agent for the NB cooler like the se does... there won't be a difference lol. honestly, i don't think there would be much of a difference between the two. that is, unless, the non-se has better thermal compound used.

I have the non-SE. It's the same thermal concrete as far as I can tell.

[ZilverPhish]

@.....>

Dell to get next. (OCCT isn't stable even at stock).

This board consistently undervolts the ram at reboot. I´ve too been through ALOT of powercycling it demands a dram volt adjustment to
boot properly, since it gets stuck on DET RAM. Probably it tries to boot with 1.8 default or something, that´s why you can sometimes boot without power cycling with cheapo ram.

Even changing the dram voltage and then rebooting via power cycle allows a POST with your new bios settings, so yes this board and its current bios versions has this flaw.


Had this issue with the commando as well, even with later ´bios versions.

[devilhood]

I bet that's it! If you need to have jmicron enabled for your PATA DVD drive you need to give it BOTH the ICH9 and jmicron drivers.

The JMicron drivers are specifically for RAID/AHCI setups only.

If you are just using PATA DVD drives on the JMicron controller then you do not need a driver.

[crazyea]

i didnt even realise that this mobo didnt have eSata ports. :P

But since there is no option for ACHI on the pata in the bios, is it not enabled by default?

[jonny_ftm]

I was willing to settle for this when I tried OCCT RAM mode for final stability testing. It consistently fails between 28 and 38 minutes.

After 100's more combinations and cycles, I decided to test OCCT at stock.
OCCT still fails at stock 2.4Ghz with DDR-800 5-5-5-18. With any combination of the Ballistix.
(OCCT isn't stable even at stock).

Jonny, my Maximus Formula is now stable @ 450MHz FSB! I've run the OCCT Beta 1.2 Auto 30min test with it 4 times, as it's more of a blend test. And I've run an hour long 1024MB test on it...get this...with my window closed, so case temp of about 27*c and the North Bridge didn't break 50*c!!!

@.....>

Dell to get next. (OCCT isn't stable even at stock).

This board consistently undervolts the ram at reboot. I´ve too been through ALOT of powercycling it demands a dram volt adjustment to
boot properly, since it gets stuck on DET RAM. Probably it tries to boot with 1.8 default or something, that´s why you can sometimes boot without power cycling with cheapo ram.

Even changing the dram voltage and then rebooting via power cycle allows a POST with your new bios settings, so yes this board and its current bios versions has this flaw.


Had this issue with the commando as well, even with later ´bios versions.

Looks like many fails OCCT RAM at stock too. But, it is a good idea, try keep your OC then wait and see. If it never fails, you're safe, if you have wired errors from time to time, than this damn board is broken or unstable, or maybe the whole X38 thing. Everywhere, it sounds that the X38 is very tricky on RAM settings and brands. Maybe this board is really unstable even at stock when you ask too much of it. In any case, all the P35, P965 and many eVGA boards are rock stable with OCCT in RAM mode. OCCT, like any benching program, has nothing to do with the NB. It only send large 1024Mb data to CPU to calculate it. So, if it bugs, there's a bug somewhere.

I just tried the last bios 1223 on my P5B deluxe. My overclock (see my signature) was again rebooting under OCCT in RAM mode. Back to 1221, it is rock solid. So yes, ASUS bioses are real crap. After 2 years of producing the P5B deluxe, they're still able to produce bioses as stable as sh*t.

As ZilverPhish noted, he found an explanation why it fails on stock. So, I'm sure, there's always an explanation when a software make your OS or system fail. And the problem is serious if it impacts a whole system and not only the causing program

So, if you really don't care, ignore OCCT in RAM, but just keep it in mind if by case you have wired errors (often induced by RAM)

Under Vista 32, it should be rock solid, or it's hardware issue/bios issue


For me, under bios 1223 (last final and previous 12xx except 1221, my system will reboot under OCCT in RAM mode)

[jonny_ftm]

On the Gigabyte X38 thread, look at this post, and the two ones next it
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=603

Looks like there's something wired on the X38 boards, P5E thread is also picky... even on stock settings

[safan80]

i'm really lost with this whol freaking thing... reason being is that all my freaking floppy's are dead and i'm trying to figure out how to do it on nlite. grrrrrr... this is making me mad like a grizly bear... could you tell?

it's not that hard
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...ation1/11.html

if that doesn't help try this
http://www.google.com/search?q=nlite...en-US:official