ASUS Striker II Extreme

[tekjunkie]

OMG!!! This board is such a PITA. I am very close to ripping my system apart and jumping up and down on the board. I tried 0704 and the system froze during priming with everything @ default speeds. I would strongly recommend against RMAing the board if you do not have compelling reason to do it.It seems like a hit or miss with what kind of SPP chip that you end up with on your board. Nvidia's "Ultra" chip binning is a joke. Anyway, my ranting apart am trying 0603 now, which worked for me with my previous board and hope and pray everything works without any data corruption.

Edit: This is after an overnight and sucessful run of memtest 2.01(about 6 hours 11 passes).

[slim142]

The way I see it, slim's problem, hopefully which will get resolved, might just end up helping alot of others. These forums are a huge help for a lot of people so don't complain. This is my very first puter build and without these forums I would be lost. I'd rather thank slim than slam him. Every bit of information gained is progress no matter what.
Slim I'm really hoping as much as you that we can raise our hands up in celebration when the lot of us figure out how to tame this beast, no doubt there is potential here regardless of the issues.
Cheers.

Thank you very much for the support.

My thoughts exactly buddy.

Though i think the next time NV comes out of the market stable, guns blazing about how good their next chipset is, alot more people are going to think twice before laying down the cash - memories of the sheer collective number of hours spent on this board won't fade quick!

This is for sure my last nvidia board and probably many of you think the same. If for any circumstance there is a strong reason to buy an NVIDIA board next time, lets just make sure we wait for at least 10 BIOS revisions.

OMG!!! This board is such a PITA. I am very close to ripping my system apart and jumping up and down on the board. I tried 0704 and the system froze during priming with everything @ default speeds. I would strongly recommend against RMAing the board if you do not have compelling reason to do it.It seems like a hit or miss with what kind of SPP chip that you end up with on your board. Nvidia's "Ultra" chip binning is a joke. Anyway, my ranting apart am trying 0603 now, which worked for me with my previous board and hope and pray everything works without any data corruption.

Edit: This is after an overnight and sucessful run of memtest 2.01(about 6 hours 11 passes).

I wish some people could understand that...

[Tyke]

Tried with Plug & Play enabled, no change. I am getting the same flashing even with a Asus Sonar soundcard in the PCI-E x1 slot, so it seems to be a PCI-E error!!!

Sorted my own problem...it was a faulty SLi bridge!!!


BTW Slim, take no notice of any criticism...you are one of the most helpful and enthusiastic posters here and in other forums, and it is really appreciated!!

[Coupa]

Sorted my own problem...it was a faulty SLi bridge!!!

Lucky you, that was one of the first things i changed before i even discovered xtreme systems, so that wasnt my problem.

Anyway, ive been playing assassins creed now for the entire day, no lockups or freezes. Although last night i was playing CoD4 and i got the display driver stopped working problem. So i read around some forums and apparently unpacking the nvlddmkm.sys (is that it? close enough) file again from its original folder fixes that for a few people. So far no issues.

For anyone that still has the freezing issues, i suggest they still try and find and run the 177.26 drivers, cause that worked for me. Although of course, loosening RAM works for some, and not for me, disabling CPU cores works for some, not for me, etc etc etc. Might just be my lucky thing.

[gcardinal]

Well, I keep having lock ups at desktop. I can run prime95, and OCCT all i want and be stable, But let it idle at desktop for a few hours and it locks up. I'm confused.

I am having exactly same problem! I can run prime95/superpi/pcmark you name it be stable. but when I start firefox or just do nothing - ot locks up...
The funny thing is - I have exactly the same ram bricks as you have

[Justifire]

I am having exactly same problem! I can run prime95/superpi/pcmark you name it be stable. but when I start firefox or just do nothing - ot locks up...
The funny thing is - I have exactly the same ram bricks as you have

Try to up your SPP voltages a bit (1.55-1.6v max) and see if that will help.

[slim142]

Sorted my own problem...it was a faulty SLi bridge!!!

BTW Slim, take no notice of any criticism...you are one of the most helpful and enthusiastic posters here and in other forums, and it is really appreciated!!

Thanks a lot bro, really appreciate the comment. BTW, you are very helpful too (specially with the RAID )

Lucky you, that was one of the first things i changed before i even discovered xtreme systems, so that wasnt my problem.

Anyway, ive been playing assassins creed now for the entire day, no lockups or freezes. Although last night i was playing CoD4 and i got the display driver stopped working problem. So i read around some forums and apparently unpacking the nvlddmkm.sys (is that it? close enough) file again from its original folder fixes that for a few people. So far no issues.

For anyone that still has the freezing issues, i suggest they still try and find and run the 177.26 drivers, cause that worked for me. Although of course, loosening RAM works for some, and not for me, disabling CPU cores works for some, not for me, etc etc etc. Might just be my lucky thing.

I wish XP had that version of drivers. We still dealing with 175.80 and all because the heat monsters are coming out next week and it doesnt even benefit me at all lol (after seeing those power usages on load, dam).

[toyzruz]

Here are my 9450@3500mhz stable settings:

Bios 704
FSB 1750
Mem 1600 7-7-7-20.1t
p1/2 Enabled

CPU 1,325
LLC Enabled
Pll 1,52
VTT 1,34
Mem 1,9
NB 1,46
SB 1,5
All Spread Specs: Disabled


--------
Any improvements/changes using the new nforce driver 15.17?
Are they final and stable? Did someone test them?

[slim142]

Here are my 9450@3500mhz stable settings:

Bios 704
FSB 1750
Mem 1600 7-7-7-20.1t
p1/2 Enabled

CPU 1,325
LLC Enabled
Pll 1,52
VTT 1,34
Mem 1,9
NB 1,46
SB 1,5
All Spread Specs: Disabled


--------
Any improvements/changes using the new nforce driver 15.17?
Are they final and stable? Did someone test them?

I FINALLY SOLVED MY ETHERNET ISSUES!!!!

1 issue left and I will be a happy nvidia user. Thanks to 15.17, they rock!, I dont know about performance, but as long as I can have those dam ethernet ports working with teaming and first packet working, Im happy.

I KNEW THIS WASNT HARDWARE ISSUE!

[toyzruz]

what are you talking about? (Sry... long time since ive been here...) WWhat did it solve?

[slim142]

what are you talking about? (Sry... long time since ive been here...) WWhat did it solve?

I had this issues where the ethernet drivers wouldnt install. Even after installing XP 20 times, nForce installer would install the SMBUS and IDE/SATA drivers, but when the ethernet driver started to copy the files to the HDD, it would get stuck in the middle and then not respond. I wasnt even able to install the drivers manually cuz it wouldnt let me anyways.
However, now with this 15.17, the drivers installed like there was never a problem.

Yes I know this is weird, but what can you expect from NVIDIA? One day works, the other it dont.

[pmp]

slim - i tried to replicate your video issue with 9800GTX@SLI (double) by playing mkv file over the night, and it's okay. though i'm still getting weird trisli problem, need to check my bridge later.
qx9770/c1, 4x2gb @ 1600 7-6-6-15-2t, latest bios and nvidia driver for nf and gf. rest of all set to Auto.

[HurinThalion]

Edit: Nevermind. Was just good ol' CD autoplay. Disabled in registry and the heartbeat has stopped. I think I'm only noticing it because I have SATA CD/DVD drive for the first time and the LED on my other system doesn't register older PATA activity.

Hi All,

I haven't seen this issue on a computer I've built in a long while. And, honestly, it's barely an issue and is more a paranoid concern on my part.

My IDE activity LED has a "heart-beat." As soon as I load into Windows, it starts to flash rhythmically. About once per second. And it never stops.

I've seen this caused by CD drive autorun and other issues long ago. But haven't seen this on any of my recent builds. Looking at my system running side-by-sid in sig. . . it has no heartbeat.

XP 64-bit. PATA ports disabled.

Can another Striker II Extreme owner here confirm that you're getting this too so I can move on to more important things?

[HurinThalion]

Well, that's odd. Either my backplane or the BIOS has mislabeled ethernet ports. I'm on 0704 bios. I have #2 disabled according to the BIOS. But #1 on the backplane is the one that's actually disabled. I've googled, but I seem to be the only one to have ever noticed this (or thought it worth pointing out?).

Sorry for the mundane concerns. But rest assured that after my initial overnight stress tests, the overclocking will begin in earnest tomorrow. I also plan on putting in my other 8800gtx to test for Slim's SLi video-watching issue.

BTW, my board is revision 1.02g. If that matters.

[TheHardCase]

Edit: Nevermind. Was just good ol' CD autoplay. Disabled in registry and the heartbeat has stopped. I think I'm only noticing it because I have SATA CD/DVD drive for the first time and the LED on my other system doesn't register older PATA activity.

Hi All,

I haven't seen this issue on a computer I've built in a long while. And, honestly, it's barely an issue and is more a paranoid concern on my part.

My IDE activity LED has a "heart-beat." As soon as I load into Windows, it starts to flash rhythmically. About once per second. And it never stops.

I've seen this caused by CD drive autorun and other issues long ago. But haven't seen this on any of my recent builds. Looking at my system running side-by-sid in sig. . . it has no heartbeat.

XP 64-bit. PATA ports disabled.

Can another Striker II Extreme owner here confirm that you're getting this too so I can move on to more important things?

I have the same issue, but mine stops within a few mins.
It flashes for a longtime I find when you first install Vista 64... But it should stop.

[slim142]

slim - i tried to replicate your video issue with 9800GTX@SLI (double) by playing mkv file over the night, and it's okay. though i'm still getting weird trisli problem, need to check my bridge later.
qx9770/c1, 4x2gb @ 1600 7-6-6-15-2t, latest bios and nvidia driver for nf and gf. rest of all set to Auto.

Windows XP?

Well, that's odd. Either my backplane or the BIOS has mislabeled ethernet ports. I'm on 0704 bios. I have #2 disabled according to the BIOS. But #1 on the backplane is the one that's actually disabled. I've googled, but I seem to be the only one to have ever noticed this (or thought it worth pointing out?).

Sorry for the mundane concerns. But rest assured that after my initial overnight stress tests, the overclocking will begin in earnest tomorrow. I also plan on putting in my other 8800gtx to test for Slim's SLi video-watching issue.

BTW, my board is revision 1.02g. If that matters.

Probably backplate mislabeled. They did that with the SATA ports on the first striker.
Thanks for spending some time trying to replicate my SLI issues. Just want to know, are you going to be using XP or Vista?

[Qwik]

Well, that's odd. Either my backplane or the BIOS has mislabeled ethernet ports. I'm on 0704 bios. I have #2 disabled according to the BIOS. But #1 on the backplane is the one that's actually disabled. I've googled, but I seem to be the only one to have ever noticed this (or thought it worth pointing out?).

all three boards I have had are backwards

[HurinThalion]

Hi Slim,

I'm on XP 64-bit. But I'm not going to be able to move my other video card until I get this bizarre temp issue solved.

Q9450. At stock speed and BIOS defaults (mostly), Real Temp 2.60 is reporting my cores at 46, 44, 42, 42 at idle. Load temps get as high as 57-60. Room temperature is about 82f/27.5c

I've remounted my Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme three times now. Last time, I used the bare minimum of thermal paste. No change.

I undervolted the CPU and underclocked it drastically (something like 1.6GHz). No change.

Is there a known issue with cpu temp reporting on this board? The Bios is reporting the CPU at 28-29c!

H

[Coupa]

Hi Slim,
Q9450. Real Temp 2.60 is reporting my cores at 46, 44, 42, 42 at idle. Load temps get as high as 57-60. Room temperature is about 82f/27.5c

Real Temp records my Q9450 at 38-40C. And i only have a Zalman 9500. So...maybe your temperature sensor is wrong or something?

[HurinThalion]

Real Temp records my Q9450 at 38-40C. And i only have a Zalman 9500. So...maybe your temperature sensor is wrong or something?

Thanks for the feedback, what's the room temperature?

[toyzruz]

slim did you try my settings? Or are already stable?

[Coupa]

Thanks for the feedback, what's the room temperature?

Heh, no idea, but my PC does heat my room . I have no a/c on and no thermometer in the house, sorry.

Well, that's odd. Either my backplane or the BIOS has mislabeled ethernet ports. I'm on 0704 bios. I have #2 disabled according to the BIOS. But #1 on the backplane is the one that's actually disabled. I've googled, but I seem to be the only one to have ever noticed this (or thought it worth pointing out?).

Same with me, Ethernet port 1 is 2 and vice versa.

[slim142]

Here are my 9450@3500mhz stable settings:

Bios 704
FSB 1750
Mem 1600 7-7-7-20.1t
p1/2 Enabled

CPU 1,325
LLC Enabled
Pll 1,52
VTT 1,34
Mem 1,9
NB 1,46
SB 1,5
All Spread Specs: Disabled

slim did you try my settings? Or are already stable?

Im going to try them right now, I just have a few questions. Can somebody explain me what PLL really is, what it does and how it affects OC? I see many people increase this to 1.52 and sometimes 1.60, but I have no idea what can this be.

EDIT: I just found it on Anandtech. Seems to affect FSB only, will try toyzruz settings.

[Trigger5521]

Real Temp records my Q9450 at 38-40C. And i only have a Zalman 9500. So...maybe your temperature sensor is wrong or something?

Have you guys calibrated RealTemp first? It's easy to do.

http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/docs.php

[slim142]

slim did you try my settings? Or are already stable?

No Luck, freeze ~ same time