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

[CBird28]

Im getting the video playback problem, i always thought it was my gc doing it, but my new 9800gtx's are doing it too, wheres this bios update!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYHuzJSpORw

[Marios]

Well is this the same problem Nvidia is talking about?
I thought the problem is about PC freezing during video playback.
How can we reproduce your problem?

[Hor$eman]

It isn't freezing. Its a bunch of vertical red/green squiggly lines, making the video unwatchable. It happens for me about every twenty to thirty minutes when watching video. It doesn't affect games.

[CBird28]

then the pc freezes... which is a pain in the ass as i watch alot of vids.

anyway this is the email i got back off asus

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.

My name is Jany and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.

We have been investigating the issue, there will be a new BIOS to be uploaded as soon as possible. Please wait patiently.
Thanks for your cooperation.

[holystarlight]

then the pc freezes... which is a pain in the ass as i watch alot of vids.

anyway this is the email i got back off asus

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.

My name is Jany and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.

We have been investigating the issue, there will be a new BIOS to be uploaded as soon as possible. Please wait patiently.
Thanks for your cooperation.

Cool, just have to wait it seems, Also the problem i have is with movies and also games, With SLI enabled games crash every 10-20mins and movies are unplayable, with SLI off movies look f***ed up sometimes and game dont seem to crash at all. so im not sure if its display drivers or bios or even both, guess I will find out soon

[Marios]

then the pc freezes... which is a pain in the ass as i watch alot of vids.

anyway this is the email i got back off asus

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.

My name is Jany and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.

We have been investigating the issue, there will be a new BIOS to be uploaded as soon as possible. Please wait patiently.
Thanks for your cooperation.

You were right. I could watch videos without problems for hours. Though this time I did exactly the same thing you did at your video to replicate the problem. I installed Nero, then I started two videos. One with Nero and another one with media player. While changing between full screen and windowed mode and I got a crash. The video froze while in full screen mode without any lines or other kind of image corruption and only the mouse could move. The keyboard was dead. I pressed the power button but this didn't work. So I hard reset my PC.

Edit
Now I recall a couple of problems that might be related to this issue.
Google Earth, set in DirectX mode, crashes. In opengl mode it seems to be OK.
With firefox and lots of tabs open, video playback stops after a few seconds. The only way to watch a video is to turn firefox off and on again.

[CBird28]

Can everyone with a striker2 formula please make a complaint about the video prob, use the link below, the more complaints they get the faster they are actually going to sort this issue out, thanks

http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techser...Language=en-us

[seba84_2005]

Hej this looks the system of the cooling is so EK-Water

NB- 34C Idle


and here a bit pictures:








already soon blocks on mosfets

[Kevin1970]

Ok, new information here............

I got new ram from best buy. Not to keep but just to test if the issue was the ram. And it's not the ram at all. I put in a 2gig stick of corsair(not there best i might add). And i got into the bios and moved arround. It froze once, i rebooted put in the ram timings and saved. I checked the board temps. They read as follows 34,29,56,48. I made it to vista. things went well for 30-40 mins. i was just playing arround to see if it worked. I managed to hit windows update and update some stuff. and rebooted a few times. All seemed well. I believed it was the ram at that point. Till it froze again. I turned off the machine and opened the case. I felt the chipsets and they where hot. Like i didnt want my finger on there hot. I tried to get into the bios after letting it sit but never made it. I will try later but i wanted to see the temps. I know they must have been high. So i believe the issue is heat. NOW WHAT DO I DO? Cause i've got a stock setup. No overclocking. Also no fan on the chipsets. My CPU fan doesnt aim down at the board like most do, it aims sideways to cool off the massive heatsink. I've heard the is not ideal since a stock intel fan would aid at least a little in cooling the nearby chipset. Also i am wondering if the cheap non-artic silver compond might be bad and at this point degraded cause of the heat and that may have been the begining of my issues. If so do i rma the board of remove the heatsinks and replace with artic silver which i have. Did the heat cause permanant damage to the board? This i am wondering. I know that if i do remove the heatsinks i can't return the board. So if someone can reasure me the board isnt toast i will at least try to replace the heatsink compond.

I am wondering if the issue began when the cold weather went away. Cause it alway was very cool on the floor by the pc. It's been hot and humid here lately. Not like Florida weather but warm nonetheless. i felt i had good cooling on my case. and maybe i do, but maybe not for this board.

So is my board toast or do i can i still work work to fix it??????????

[Hor$eman]

I don't remember; did you not replace the thermal paste? If not, then that was/is a big problem.

They will take a board back even if you remove and clean and add as5. I have one of my two boards RMA right now because I bent a spring pin in the socket. They said that was ok; they would still fix or replace it. As long as there isn't physical damage to the board, you are ok.

Here are grounds for not accepting for repair: http://support.asus.com/repair/repai...Language=en-us

[Kevin1970]

I didnt replace the paste. I did put artic silver on the cpu/heatsink. I'm worried the chipsets are damaged. How would i test to see if they are fine?

[Kevin1970]

Would the freezing be a way the board is keeping damge from being done? Or does it mean the damage is happening? And if i replace the compond do i wait overnite for it to set? or can i try it out right away?

[nugzo]

You can use it right away. no waiting. If this is your problem, the freezing is because the chip is to hot to operate. It may or may not have damaged it. Just because it froze doesn't mean its bad, It also doesn't freeze to protect it from burning up. It freezes because it is to hot to operate.

[Kevin1970]

Is there a bios that is known to keep the temps better for chipsets?

[nugzo]

Is there a bios that is known to keep the temps better for chipsets?

No there is not.

[Hor$eman]

I'd say it is time to RMA...

[Marios]

I didnt replace the paste. I did put artic silver on the cpu/heatsink. I'm worried the chipsets are damaged. How would i test to see if they are fine?

Turn off your PSU. Install a 5cm fan on NB. Remove everything that is connected to your S2F. Keep the cpu, 1 mem stick, one video card the 8pin power cable the 24pin mobo cable the video card cable(s), the DVD cable (sata or IDE) and a PS2 keyboard. Check your Clear CMOS jumper to enable clear CMOS. Press the clear CMOS button on the back plate.

Power on your PSU. Enter BIOS, load setup defaults, change your boot device to your DVD, save and exit. Insert your Windows Vista DVD. Check one by one all your memory sticks with windows Vista memtest. You may access this by pressing tab after post. Four passes are enough. Choose one stick that gave you no errors. Now you may flash once again the latest BIOS and start checking each dimm with each mem slot. Then do the same with two dimms.

Remember that you should not enable mem SLI with four dimms. Avoid this anyway. In case you have 4GB of memory you have to increase the mem voltage to 2.1v and the Northbridge voltage at 1.3 with default timings (do not enable mem SLI expert) at 800 MHz.

[CBird28]

X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro

doesnt look like it will fit the top pci-e 1x slot heatsink looks in the way

[nakata24]

I also got some problems with this board. I just received my q9450 and the striker 2 formula. I cant even boot it. I tried 1 ram, 2 rams almost everything but it wont start up. It freeze allready at the ROG screen.
the bios of this board is 1303 when i received it. I have test the board with an old 3.4 cpu and no problem with it. Then i test the q9450 on my maximus formula and no problem. What the problem here ? Its not the rams, cuz ive just test
it with memtest and its ok. please help me

[Kevin1970]

Sounds like your board doesnt wanna play nice with the q9450. Maybe a older bios would have better luck.

[Marios]

X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro

doesnt look like it will fit the top pci-e 1x slot heatsink looks in the way

I do not think you can make it without an extra fan. At least you should be able to play crysis with default BIOS settings. If this is not the case with your mobo just return it to ASUS for a refund. All mobos have the same tricky BIOS and you won't get a better S2F after an RMA.

Check your stability with crysis. Prime95 is not enough. There are some stable BIOS settings that fit any CPU, but we have to find them ourselves. This shouldn't happen in case we are not overclocked and ASUS support won't help us..

In case you decide to keep this mobo and you are not stable at defaults, remember to increase the voltages for NB and VDimm, at least. This works in my case but you might consider increasing HT 1.2 and CPU gtlref as well. Try NB 1.36 and vdimm 2.1v. Leave the rest at auto. Good luck. If this doesn't work try Vdimm 2.1, HT 1.2 at 1.3, NB at 1.42 and CPU gtlref at +30.

I also got some problems with this board. I just received my q9450 and the striker 2 formula. I cant even boot it. I tried 1 ram, 2 rams almost everything but it wont start up. It freeze allready at the ROG screen.
the bios of this board is 1303 when i received it. I have test the board with an old 3.4 cpu and no problem with it. Then i test the q9450 on my maximus formula and no problem. What the problem here ? Its not the rams, cuz ive just test
it with memtest and its ok. please help me

Turn off your PSU, press the clear CMOS button, remove the battery and then try to boot to BIOS with only one dimm. Change dimms and memory slots and try again. You only need to enter the BIOS once. Just use a simple dimm (512 or 1GB).

[MadDog]

Can everyone with a striker2 formula please make a complaint about the video prob, use the link below, the more complaints they get the faster they are actually going to sort this issue out, thanks

http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techser...Language=en-us

Cheers for the link.

I have had the same problem before when watching vids, but it hasnt happened for a while so it hasnt been bothering me. I actually thought it was a bad OC that was doing it in the first place.

But i will put a ticket in about the problem now


And as for my NB cooling:



And this keeps the NB at a respectable 65deg

[nakata24]

Turn off your PSU, press the clear CMOS button, remove the battery and then try to boot to BIOS with only one dimm. Change dimms and memory slots and try again. You only need to enter the BIOS once. Just use a simple dimm (512 or 1GB).

But what should i do when i enter the bios? I allready upper the vcore to 1.35v with an other cpu, but it will once boot once and thats it. Can u guys recon any bios that works good with a q9450?

[Marios]

But what should i do when i enter the bios? I allready upper the vcore to 1.35v with an other cpu, but it will once boot once and thats it. Can u guys recon any bios that works good with a q9450?

Try this. Load setup defaults Save and Exit. Then you may get a black screen. Push the start button for a few seconds to turn off your PC. Now enter again the BIOS and set Nortbridge (NB) at 1.42v and the Vdimm at 2.1v. Nothing else.
Your CPU is supported by all BIOS versions.

[nakata24]

Try this. Load setup defaults Save and Exit. Then you may get a black screen. Push the start button for a few seconds to turn off your PC. Now enter again the BIOS and set Nortbridge (NB) at 1.42v and the Vdimm at 2.1v. Nothing else.
Your CPU is supported by all BIOS versions.

Thanks Marios,ill give it a try.