Rampage Formula and a 45nm CPU? READ THIS!

[Brama]

PS: Brama which revision says on your pcb? 1.00G?

I don't remember clearly but I think it is a 1.00G. It came with the 219 BIOS mounted.

I confirm again, never had any trouble of BSODs with LLC on.

[Ghostleader]

I don't remember clearly but I think it is a 1.00G. It came with the 219 BIOS mounted.

I confirm again, never had any trouble of BSODs with LLC on.

Do you have a quad or a dual?

What FSB and CPU speed do you run?

What CPU voltage?

[RealTelstar]

I don't remember clearly but I think it is a 1.00G. It came with the 219 BIOS mounted.

Mine too. Will assemble this weekend and see

[Brama]

Do you have a quad or a dual?

What FSB and CPU speed do you run?

What CPU voltage?

Xeon E3110 (dual) at 460x9 Vcore 1.32 V

[003]

Guys, I am in indirect contact with an Asus rep regarding this issue.

I need a favor of everybody who has a Rampage Formula and a 45nm CPU, from both people with LLC working, and not working. The favor I need is detailed system information in the following format:

Board rev:........1.00G
BIOS:...............0403
CPU:.................Intel Q9450
Memory:...........2x G.Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
Video card:.......ATI Radeon HD2900Pro
HardDrive:........1x 250GB Seagate 7200.8, 2x 250GB Seagate ES.2 RAID 0
Power Supply:...PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 860
OS:...................Windows XP Pro x64 SP2
LLC Working:.....No
Add in cards:.....BFG PhysX, ESI Juli@

[mrab54]

Board rev:........1.00G
BIOS:...............0403
CPU:.................Intel Q9450
Memory:...........2x G.Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
Video card:.......NVIDIA 8800 GTS 512 MB
HardDrive:........Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Power Supply:...CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W
OS:...................Windows XP Pro x64 SP2
LLC Working:.....No
Add in cards:.....

[Shadowthor]

Board rev:........1.00G
BIOS:...............0403
CPU:.................Intel Q9450
Memory:...........4GB G.Skill DDR2 8500
Video card:.......NVIDIA 9800 GTX
HardDrive:........WD 640 GB
Power Supply:...Antec Blue 650W
OS:...................Windows XP Pro x32 SP3
LLC Working:.....No
Add in cards:.....

[003]

Wow... we all have the same memory!!! Could that be the problem? I will give this info to the asus rep, they've been testing with corsair memory.

[bigslappy]

Ya'all got XP also :p

[003]

It happens to me in Server 2008 as well, so that is not the issue.

[bigslappy]

It happens to me in Server 2008 as well, so that is not the issue.

Hmm ! that is a head scracher ? i'll see if it happening on my Vista machine

[Leithfield]

Board rev: 1.00G
BIOS: 0403
CPU: QX9770
Memory: Corsair Dominator PC8500 2x2GB DDR2
Video card: Gigabyte 9800GX2
HardDrive: 2x WD7500AAKA (AHCI) + 2 X Samsung HD753LJ (AHCI)
Power Supply: X3 ULTRA 1000W
OS: Vista Ultimate64 SP1
LLC Working: NO
Add in cards: Auzentech XiFi Prelude 7.1

LLC enabled = system instability @ idle on all current BIOS releases; also occurred with my former QX9650, and change of ram makes no difference (tested with Corsair Dominator PC8500, Corsair Dominator PC10000, OCZ9200 FlexII, and Crucial Tracer DDR2-8500).

[Tony]

you know I actually told you the best way to use this board without LLC but it seems my words were missed, so here goes again.

Without LLC when you set the VID in bios in theory you are setting the max voltage the board will spike to when coming from load to idle. Now i know you are saying the board is crashing while idling for a while due to LLC setting above chosen VID, this is why I am saying do not use LLC but instead properly tune the CPU OC and you will not need it.

Opening up the CPU's ability to scale FSB will help a geat deal, reducing the need for Vcore is what this is all about, hence why I suggest you test in the following way.

Pick an OC a little lower than where you want to land finally and lower vcore to the CPU till it starts to error in prime after 10 mins or so. Disable LLC and dial in the CPU with GTL then VTT if it needs any. Watch the cores that are failing and dial GTL in to these cores. The goal here is to tune the CPU with as little VCore as possible.
Once stable increase FSB a little and retest and retune if needed, keep doing this until you hit the final OC you want.

Remember with LLC disabled you are setting the VID that really is the max the voltage should spike to coming from load to an idle state, voltage to the processor under load will be lower .

LLC is a bull in a china shop approach IMO, it does have issues I agree, it could be engineered a lot better..I agree, but do we need it..Naah not if you spend time tuning the board.

[Abducted]

Board rev:........1.00G
BIOS:...............0403
CPU:.................X3350
Memory:...........2x 2GB OCZ Platinum PC8000
Video card:.......ASUS 8800GTX 768 MB
HardDrive:........Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Power Supply:...Enermax NoiseTaker 600w
OS:...................Windows XP Pro x64 SP2 and Vista Ultimate x86 SP1
LLC Working:.....No
Add in cards:.....

[RealTelstar]

Board rev:........1.00G
BIOS:...............0403 (thinking to put the 0401 first)
CPU:.................Xeon E3110
Memory:...........2x 2GB G.Skill PC8500 (white slots)
Video card:.......ASUS 8800GTX 768 MB
HardDrive:........Samsung F1 32mb (boot drive), others for storage and backup
Power Supply:...Silverstone Zeus 750w
OS:...................Vista x64 Ultimate SP1
LLC Working:.....Will tell ASAP
Add in cards:.....Dell PERC 4i (pci-e), Creative X-fi fatality


OO3 I think it is more of a quad issue than memory. Will post my findings ASAP, hopefully tomorrow.

[RealTelstar]

I confirm again, never had any trouble of BSODs with LLC on.

Please tell me which memory do you have. If you fill the complete form would be even better.

[Brama]

Board rev:........1.00G
BIOS:...............0403
CPU:.................Xeon E3110
Memory:...........2 x 1GB OCZ reaper 9200 HPC edition (300 ns advance skew)
Video card:.......Leadtek 8800GTS 512 MB
HardDrive:........2xSeagate Chetah 15,000 rpm SAS in raid0 with LSI controller PCIe 4x on second PCIe 16x slot
Power Supply:...570 W Tagan
OS:...................Vista 32 business SP1
LLC Working:.....YES
Add in cards:.....Creative X-fi gamers PCI, 1 x RS-232 PCI

I have enabled speedstep and C1E in BIOS

[003]

OO3 I think it is more of a quad issue than memory. Will post my findings ASAP, hopefully tomorrow.

I don't think it is limited to quads, as several people with 45nm duals also have this problem, if you look earlier in the thread. Also, my theory about g.skill memory is out the window, as now people with ocz and corsair memory also have the problem.

Tony:
I understand what you are saying. However, the issue here is that LLC works for some people and not for others, indicating there is a problem somewhere. Also, I am able to set a much lower voltage with LLC enabled and remain stable under load. With LLC disabled, I need to set a MUCH higher voltage to remain stable, and the resulting idle voltage is very high. C1E does not lower voltages when overclocking on the Rampage Formula, so that is not a solution either.

[mrab54]

Just another snippet of info: I was not even getting a blue screen when I crashed sitting idle after coming off of either playing UT3 or prime95 etc. This lead me to believe the problem was definately something to do w/ voltages and not bad RAM etc. Now that I see others have this issue it makes a whole lot of sense.

[Leeghoofd]

Thing is people test with prime and co and try to get the lowest value (pretty logic)... try upping ya Vcore a bit more then when it was prime stable with LLC and most will have no issues anymore (at least that's what I learned from from my X38/48 experience) but ofcourse that totally ruins the point for most of LLC... GTL tweaking can also help stability... Second thing like 003 mentioned is that on Asus boards is that the Voltage never drops with EIST enabled which also means ya CPU idles at 6x but at a too high voltage...

[DEFLORATOR]

Board rev:........1.00G
BIOS:...............0403
CPU:................Intel Q9450 C1
Memory:...........DDR2 2*1024mb PC2-8500 OCZ Platinum SLI Ready OCZ2N10661G (Micron D9 BH-3) + DDR2 2*2048mb PC2-8500 OCZ Platinum OCZ2P10662G (ProMOS?)
Video card:.......MSI 8800Ultra 768mb
HardDrive:........ 2*147gb SAS Fujitsu MBA3147RC 15000rpm 16mb in Raid0
Power Supply:... FSP Epsilon 700wt
OS:..................Windows XP Pro x64 SP2, Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
LLC Working:..... Yes
Add in cards:..... Raid controller Adaptec ASR-3405 PCI-Ex4 128mb, Creative X-Fi Elite Pro 64mb, TV-Tuner Beholder M6 Extra MPEG-2 Encoder

[RealTelstar]

Hmm i have got another idea. Could be the pcb. I know that there are two "versions" one made in china and one made in taiwan. Brama, I'm assuming has taiwan board, having bought it locally in my same town.

It would be perhaps useful to know it. its written in white on a side of the board, "pcb made in...".

[nunor]

I have a P5E3 Premium and it's prime stable but when i open some sites or playing sometimes i get a BSOD/Reboot. I had to increase the vcore to avoid this. It seems that it's not only the rampage.


EDIT: I tried to open tvtuga.com with firefox(dunno why but that site reboots when the system is unstable):

LCC=Performance
vcore(bios): 1.23125v
vcore(cpuz): 1.208v
Result: Reboot in few sconds

LCC=Auto
vcore(bios): 1.23125v
vcore(cpuz): 1.192v(drops to 1.176)
Result: Browsed that site for some minutes and no reboots.

[003]

Hmm i have got another idea. Could be the pcb. I know that there are two "versions" one made in china and one made in taiwan. Brama, I'm assuming has taiwan board, having bought it locally in my same town.

It would be perhaps useful to know it. its written in white on a side of the board, "pcb made in...".

They're all made in china. Designed in Taiwan is what they do say, though.

[bigslappy]

Hmm i have got another idea. Could be the pcb. I know that there are two "versions" one made in china and one made in taiwan.

It would be perhaps useful to know it. its written in white on a side of the board, "pcb made in...".

RealTelstar :
what does your board say the pcb was made at ?
as i have 2 of these boards & they are different , even the box they were packaged in are different