My Dual Harper - Asus Z7S WS living review *56K warning*

[ulvac]

Oh, two things I forgot to mention:

1) thanks in advance for the help
2) Asus has a mention of a BIOS 0401 on the site in reference to the QX9775, though the link is to the old 0302. Does anyone have the new BIOS ROM yet?

[milkmandan]

Good evening gentlemen,

First off, thanks jcool for a great thread. Very entertaining and educational...

I'm in the process of starting up a Z7S rig for the first time tonight and... nothing. Fans spin up, the diagnosis card shows FF for the code, no beeps (buzzer seems to be missing from it's location on the board, so who knows), and no video. I'm going to start the usual drill of troubleshooting power supply, power connections, cards and CPU's being seated correctly, resetting the RTC, etc., but I wanted to throw this out in case anyone's got past experience with these symptoms.

Rig is as follows:

Asus Z7S, bios rev unknown (purchased from Newegg 7/31)
2x E5430's w/stock cooling for now
Kingston 2x KHX6400F2LLK2/2G RAM kits (4x 1GB total), 00,10,20,30
Asus EAH4850/HTDI/512M video (first PCI-E x16)
Creative X-Fi Titanium audio (PCI-E x1)
OCZ 2x OCZSSD2-1C64G SSD's, SATA1,2
Plextor Premium IDE CD burner, slave
Plextor PX-716 IDE DVD burner, master
Antec P190 +1200 case

The case was purchased open box, but was in excellent condition with all the parts bags sealed.

Any thoughts anyone?

Did you purchase all ur parts from newegg? if you did, can you link me exactly which processors you bought?

when i had my board with NO CPU and NO RAM installed, it was giving me FF, but that is expected. there is no ram or cpu O_O.
I loaded up the cpu and the ram and it all worked fine :\ i don't know what problem you could have, but i do remember someone using some odd pair of Xeons and it posted FF on the ASUS Z7S.

[STEvil]

Install only 1 stick of ram in 00. Install only 1 cpu in top socket. Check motherboard mounting screws, you should only have 7 studs behind the board (2 located behind cpu's should not be there they will cause a short to ground especially if you did not install the plastic liner between the board and CEP clips).

Unplug PSU, pull CMOS battery, hold down power button for 5-10 seconds. Plug in PSU, put CMOS battery back in, try to power on. Wait 20 seconds then press reset if nothing happened. If your board goes past FF but does not make it fully through the POST sequence into the bios or stops at the full screen logo or the screen showing CPU's before you can enter the bios then scream and yell at Asus for their poor bios... get your bios chip flashed by someone or asus and try again or locate a cheap 5000 series Xeon to use for flashing.

[jcool]

Good evening gentlemen,

First off, thanks jcool for a great thread. Very entertaining and educational...

I'm in the process of starting up a Z7S rig for the first time tonight and... nothing. Fans spin up, the diagnosis card shows FF for the code, no beeps (buzzer seems to be missing from it's location on the board, so who knows), and no video. I'm going to start the usual drill of troubleshooting power supply, power connections, cards and CPU's being seated correctly, resetting the RTC, etc., but I wanted to throw this out in case anyone's got past experience with these symptoms.

Rig is as follows:

Asus Z7S, bios rev unknown (purchased from Newegg 7/31)
2x E5430's w/stock cooling for now
Kingston 2x KHX6400F2LLK2/2G RAM kits (4x 1GB total), 00,10,20,30
Asus EAH4850/HTDI/512M video (first PCI-E x16)
Creative X-Fi Titanium audio (PCI-E x1)
OCZ 2x OCZSSD2-1C64G SSD's, SATA1,2
Plextor Premium IDE CD burner, slave
Plextor PX-716 IDE DVD burner, master
Antec P190 +1200 case

The case was purchased open box, but was in excellent condition with all the parts bags sealed.

Any thoughts anyone?

Welcome and thanks
Nice parts you got there, especially like the SSDs.
Now on to the problem... like STEvil said, try 1 stick of mem in the slot closest to the NB.
What PSU are you using? Like it says in post #1, you need to connect both the 8pin 12V and the 4pin 12V to the mobo or it won't start with 2 CPUs present.

[milkmandan]

Welcome and thanks
Nice parts you got there, especially like the SSDs.
Now on to the problem... like STEvil said, try 1 stick of mem in the slot closest to the NB.
What PSU are you using? Like it says in post #1, you need to connect both the 8pin 12V and the 4pin 12V to the mobo or it won't start with 2 CPUs present.

Hey jcool, no potential mobo problems by using a p4 12V 4pin from molex right?

If i got a pci-e 6pin to 12V 4pin adaptor, would that be a same thing? or no?

i see a lot of ATX 4pin 12V and p4 4pin 12V. Not sure if there is a difference though O_o.

[ulvac]

Ahh, it's so nice to have a little sleep to clear the mind.

OK, to milkmandan: the processors were from eWiz (NewBiiz), Intel PN BX80574E5430A. I did read the Newegg review mentioning the FF code using E5420's. Oddly, the E5430's I'm using aren't on the Asus Z7S supported CPU list (calculated gamble since jcool's E5420's aren't listed either), but they do have two listings for the E5440; I'm hoping one of them is a typo for the E5430.

To STEvil: you and I are on the same page for troubleshooting steps, though I hadn't thought about the plastic liner for the heatsink clips. The clips I have came with a thick layer of Kapton tape on the spring tabs, on the side contacting the mobo, so I didn't think to much about using the pad. I'll take a look at that to ensure I didn't rub through the solder mask.

Jcool, the man: the power supply is the one that came with the case. It's Antec's funky dual Neo Power solution, wherein they have a 650W supply for the mobo and video cards, then a separate 550W supply for the accessories. It's a proper EPS supply with the 8-pin and 4-pin 12V mobo connections, so there shouldn't be any issues there. I have access to a PCP&C Silencer 750 in case there are problems with this configuration.

So, did anyone else see that mention of the 0401 bios for the QX9775 on the CPU compatibility page? Or did I miss the post saying it was bogus?

Thanks again guys.

[jcool]

No, I didn't see a 0401 bios mentioned anywhere, but they should make a fix since Vcore adjustment with the QX9775 doesn't work properly, as we know thanks to giorioprimo. Also AHCI/Raid doesn't seem to work properly for some people, especially when more than 4 drives are installed. Again, I don't know about that, I only got one DVD running in IDE mode... leave the Raid to a real controller

Well, back to your problem. I don't see how you could solve this without trying to swap hardware, piece by piece. Try another PSU, one stick of mem, a PCI video card, only one CPU, and finally another S771 CPU.
If all that fails, you should consider the possibility of a dead motherboard and rma :/

On a sidenote, I just finished operation "get rid of ing stupid aircoolers" - my 5420's are watered at last. Pics later or maybe tomorrow.. I'm kinda tired right now.

[milkmandan]

On a sidenote, I just finished operation "get rid of ing stupid aircoolers" - my 5420's are watered at last. Pics later or maybe tomorrow.. I'm kinda tired right now.

Nooo! We want pics immediately! Haha j/k
anyways i am interested in seeing how you did your set and your water blocks did you use EK as well ?
we should compare temps now .whahahaa

[milkmandan]

just found this on youtube. finally someone with a asus z7s build.
It might be someone here!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7ZbdMSNtjc
watch it

- how the hell did he mount the EK Surpremes using that backplate? I could not get any screw through those holes ! (oh wait, my bad, his mobo tray had standoffs, no wonder) I didn't have standoffs, cek clip is the only way to go for me.
- HR-05/IFX with copperbase? Isn't that just KILLING the thermal transfer? IHS --> Thermal paste --> Copper base --> thermal paste --> HR-05/IFX. At least he mounted it the same way I did using J-hook clip, wonder where he got that base.
- His temps are kinda high O_O, i hope those are his temps after a short load. 47C idle in BIOS on watercooling?

good to know he also had to shave off his ek supreme's

he says something about "non-sync"?

[giorgioprimo]

No, I didn't see a 0401 bios mentioned anywhere, but they should make a fix since Vcore adjustment with the QX9775 doesn't work properly, as we know thanks to giorioprimo...........

Since CBGPCS results to be a scammer, i send a mail to my contact talking about the issue i got with the board, i don't wanna promise anything, but i hope to have soon some good response )

[jcool]

Since CBGPCS results to be a scammer, i send a mail to my contact talking about the issue i got with the board, i don't wanna promise anything, but i hope to have soon some good response )

What do you mean, he's a scammer?
I almost figured as much, the whole "call us" kind of thing looked a bit fishy in the first place. Wanted money for the bios or what?

Anyway, here are some pics for you guys. Should have cleaned the EKs though...

[ulvac]

Ok, wierd set of symptoms for what turned out to be a power supply issue. After swapping around the CPU's and memory, double checking the heatsink clips weren't shorting the board, re-seating all the connections, and removing all non-essential components, changing the power supply fixed the problem. My (false) assumption was that if the supply goes bad, the CPU fans wouldn't run and I wouldn't get any response from pressing the power button. I guess that's not true. During the course of this, I've learned a couple of things:

1) I personally have about a 1 in three chance of having an Antec power supply fail (I've used 10 in the past 6 years and three have died prematurely).

2) That black plastic gasket looking thingy that came with the Z7S is actually a template to properly locate the heatsink plates in an ATX chassis. (The small holes slip over the standard ATX mounting standoffs, and the cutouts are perfectly placed and sized for the plates.) No more figuring out to mount the board with the plates pre-attached! (I'm hoping I didn't miss that info from a previous post. )

3) Asus at least has the wisdom to ship new mobo's with the latest bios (mine came with 0302)

4) The stock Intel heatsink / fan combo is FRIGGIN LOUD!!!! My 12 year old POS vacuum is quieter than the two of these at full tilt. My wife won't let me bring this rig in from the garage until they are replaced with something quiet. That's what you call a justifiable expense.

5) A failed or failing power supply will frequently create the most frustrating and confounding troubleshooting.

On to happier subjects. Here is the link mentioning the 0401 bios:

http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/c...model=Z7S%20WS

Like I said before, the 0401 link just leads to the 0302 listing, but someone with a reliable contact at Asus ( ) could call them and get an ETA.

Thanks for listening and posting. I'm off to battle the SSD's. Rumor has it I'm in for some pain with these.

[ulvac]

Nice plumbing jcool! I like the clear tops...

[jcool]

Thanks!
Glad you got your rig working, somehow I knew it might be the PSU.. that's why I asked whether all the connectors were in place (my board also went directly to FF when I forgot to plug in the 4pin 12V)

Temps are very good it seems, after 10 minutes of prime smallFFT I got 46/45/49/49 realtemp on CPU #1 and around 5C higher on CPU #2, which seems to be the price to pay for the in-line tubing. No idea about water temp but I assume it's rather low, 26-28C at 24 ambient maybe (360 + 120 rad pretty much for CPUs only).
Still great overall improvement, considering the CPUs are overclocked. And now I can swap CPUs or re-seat the heatsink in like 30 seconds

Oh yeah, the stock fans. Mine are rated for 1,1A at 12V... small wonder it's loud one of those draws more power than all my 120mm fans put together (including pump probably )

[milkmandan]

2) That black plastic gasket looking thingy that came with the Z7S is actually a template to properly locate the heatsink plates in an ATX chassis. (The small holes slip over the standard ATX mounting standoffs, and the cutouts are perfectly placed and sized for the plates.) No more figuring out to mount the board with the plates pre-attached! (I'm hoping I didn't miss that info from a previous post. )

Good to hear you got it working!

But yes you did miss that black plastic gasket info i posted about it in one of my posts.

jcool: i see you used the clips as well Btw how much are they bending? my CEK Clips are bending a little/moderate amount, but at least my mobo is straight.

[STEvil]

I used clips + backplates, no bending at all.

EDIT - HR-01X's with a 120mm fan on each.

[milkmandan]

So I've FINALLY crawled out of the ashes of a busted PSU and I have my ASUS Z7S up and running again.

Now couple questions.

1. I used ORTHOS Beta to stress test my RAM and cpu, this program only puts 2 of my cores under load on 1 CPU O_O. Anyways, how do i get it to stress all 8 of my cores?
The Coretemp values go up to 59-61C. Is that high? I am overclocked at 3Ghz, 375 clock speed. I tried 400, but windows crashed (blue screen of death), it may not be stable, i haven't tried since the first time.

2. I can't seem to get realtemp working on Windows Ultimate 64bit. It says driver not loaded? Anyone got an idea or a suggestion? :\
Disregard my #2, I got real temp working. Stupid me.. 40-41C idle cpu temps

3. CPU-Z reflects like the wrong information about my CPU speeds. lol It says my multiplier is 6. When in the BIOS it is set to 8. Am I doing something wrong, or is the program just retarded? Coretemp and ORTHOS all read my CPU speed correctly :\

----

HOLY COW.... O_O

under 100% CPU LOAD on ALL 8 cores for 10+min, 47C highest realtemp i get O_O (nothing even passed 50C)... cinebench10 in 40 seconds. not as fast as jcool obviously, since i am only clocked at 375x8. but this is still DAMN good.

[Jaco]

3. CPU-Z reflects like the wrong information about my CPU speeds. lol It says my multiplier is 6. When in the BIOS it is set to 8. Am I doing something wrong, or is the program just retarded? Coretemp and ORTHOS all read my CPU speed correctly :\

Disable C1E and Intel Speedstep technology in the bios.

[Movieman]

jcool;
Nice looking rig!

[jcool]

One day I'm gonna have to make a sticky or something about these questions, as they keep coming up

1. I used ORTHOS Beta to stress test my RAM and cpu, this program only puts 2 of my cores under load on 1 CPU O_O. Anyways, how do i get it to stress all 8 of my cores?

Use prime95 to test all cores. SmallFFT test is for testing the CPUs only, blend will test mobo and mem too (or some of the mem, it won't use more than ~1,8GB unfortunately, but that's what memtest is for anyway)

The Coretemp values go up to 59-61C. Is that high? I am overclocked at 3Ghz, 375 clock speed. I tried 400, but windows crashed (blue screen of death), it may not be stable, i haven't tried since the first time.

No, temps are fine. Coretemp still assumes the wrong tjunction for all 45nm CPus, meaning that it constantly shows too high temps. You can substract around 10C from coretemp (and Everest) core readings, so you are running around 50C which is great.

3. CPU-Z reflects like the wrong information about my CPU speeds. lol It says my multiplier is 6. When in the BIOS it is set to 8. Am I doing something wrong, or is the program just retarded? Coretemp and ORTHOS all read my CPU speed correctly :\

This is due to the EIST/C1E feature clocking down the CPUs in idle. If you open CPU-Z while running prime, BOINC or Cinebench, you'll see the full 3Ghz.

About your OC: What CPUs and mem are you running again? Try max FSB with 6x multiplier, that way you can rule out what's limiting you one by one. The mobo doesn't need more juice till >430 FSB, so you can leave the MCH voltage. It's either your mem crapping out (--> more volts), or the CPUs can't handle the FSB (unlikely), or the CPUs need more Vcore.
Using the 6x multiplier will help you clear that up.

@Dave Thanks
Though I really need to start cleaning my rigs before taking pictures

[milkmandan]

One day I'm gonna have to make a sticky or something about these questions, as they keep coming up

Maybe like a comprehensive sticky devoted to this board, whahaha. i could help

This is due to the EIST/C1E feature clocking down the CPUs in idle. If you open CPU-Z while running prime, BOINC or Cinebench, you'll see the full 3Ghz.

About your OC: What CPUs and mem are you running again? Try max FSB with 6x multiplier, that way you can rule out what's limiting you one by one. The mobo doesn't need more juice till >430 FSB, so you can leave the MCH voltage. It's either your mem crapping out (--> more volts), or the CPUs can't handle the FSB (unlikely), or the CPUs need more Vcore.
Using the 6x multiplier will help you clear that up.

I am running Intel Xeon E5430 2.66Ghz, and Crucial DDR2-800 FB-DIMM. :\

I'll get back to you when i lower the multiplier and max my FSB.

[jcool]

Ok so it's down to the CPU's I'm afraid. They need more Vcore or more VTT. Now if it's Vcore they're craving (if you can run 400x6 then it's Vcore), you can do something about it by performing a Vid pin mod (so your CPUs will have a higher default Vcore). It's rather tricky but it can be done.
If you don't get your FSB any higher you're pretty much screwed, as there is no possibility to adjust the VTT on the Z7S as of yet (unless you put in QX9775 CPUs).

[milkmandan]

Hmm as awesome as it is...Prime95 crashes for me, I get bluescreen of death after a few mins into the test. I did SmallFFT, that didn't crash as far as I know, but i only ran it like 4-5 min. Strange thing is, while testing, only 7 of 8 cores were being used. 1 core didn't work or some thing O_O.

Large FFT, crashed after 2 mins or even less. But all cores were working.

Blend, crashed after 2 mins or less, and 1 core stopped working in the middle.

I hope this isn't a major issue, whahahaa...

[jcool]

Dang, if large and blend are crashing, it's either the CPUs having trouble with the FSB, the motherboard (unlikely below 400) or the mems being faulty/crapping out.
Try running prime large or blend with slightly lower FSB and run memtest+.

What do you mean, only 7 cores are running? Taskmanager must show 100% load on all cores when running prime.

[milkmandan]

Dang, if large and blend are crashing, it's either the CPUs having trouble with the FSB, the motherboard (unlikely below 400) or the mems being faulty/crapping out.
Try running prime large or blend with slightly lower FSB and run memtest+.

What do you mean, only 7 cores are running? Taskmanager must show 100% load on all cores when running prime.

When Prime boots up, it opens up a window for every core in my compy. Working thread... So a total of 8 windows. 1 of 8 says hardware failure and stops running while the other 7 keep running. The error message i get is "Round was 0.5, expected less than 0.4"

I returned my clock speeds back to the normal 2.66Ghz with 333 clock and prime acted perfectly :\ No errors in anything, Large, Blend, SmallFFt, all worked perfectly no issues. :\

--

okay back after some testing.
i get bluescreen even before windows boots when i do 400 clock at 6 multiplier :\ (2.4Ghz) So its even slower than cpu.. i am guessing i have a RAM issue.
i get bluescreen during cinebench10 when i run clock at 390 at 8 multiplier, 3.12Ghz, :\ at least i boot up, but when i run a benchmark, it bluescreens.

this is a RAM problem huh? not fast enough or is it overheating? odd that the rams were rated for DDR2-800 :\