Live MB OC Report :: ASUS Rampage Extreme

[Mezzro]

RE 3oh6's saga: this is some of the behavior I've chronicled and commented upon here and elsewhere -- inconsistent and erratic behavior from the board, regardless of BIOS revision used. I actually got a CPU INIT message and failure to boot simply having the monitor plugged into the "wrong" 4870X2 port (when running in 4-way Crossfire). Never had that happen with another board. I still think it has to do with bugs in the automated settings and failure of the manual settings to effectively override them consistently. The fact that the auto settings tend to overvolt overall, but grossly undervolt the vcore without LLC enabled may be part of the problem. I don't think we have a complete picture yet of hidden BIOS bugs in these early releases.

[3oh6]

@3oh6, I read your write up on the canuks and gr8 job. Do you think if I cut up the silicone gourmets that are used to mount the HDDs, it could be used as washer to mount the NB heatsink??

i don't see why not...the whole point is just to get something there to increase the screw travel so you can tighten them more. grommets should work just fine

RE 3oh6's saga: this is some of the behavior I've chronicled and commented upon here and elsewhere -- inconsistent and erratic behavior from the board, regardless of BIOS revision used.

the CPU INIT that i have encountered is of a different nature entirely i believe. the board has been 100% tip top under the most extreme of conditions then all of a sudden bam. this exact same thing happened to another bencher and sure enough, after my PM to him of what i did to get mine back to life...his is up and running again too.

every board has BIOS 'quirks' this board is obviously no different. but i have to also say that this is one of the strongest boards i have ever used, BIOS included. all other 'quirks' i have learned to work around are related to the issues with D9GTR and D9GTS...other than that, this board is solid. stoopid solid at 600+ FSB under LN2 in my experience.

[Mezzro]

every board has BIOS 'quirks' this board is obviously no different. but i have to also say that this is one of the strongest boards i have ever used, BIOS included. all other 'quirks' i have learned to work around are related to the issues with D9GTR and D9GTS...other than that, this board is solid. stoopid solid at 600+ FSB under LN2 in my experience.

What processors have you used with it -- quad, dual, both?

[3oh6]

What processors have you used with it -- quad, dual, both?

yeah, that's where my opinion is of only half the story i guess. i am all dual core, all the time so that is why i haven't had any issues with the board aside from this random CPU INIT issue. it is understood that you guys running quads are having problems.

and just a quick update post CPU INIT issue...after flashing 0501, the BIOS seems to have settled and i just fired out dual 32M at 600x6 tRD 9 2:3 ratio with 1.50vNB so the board seems to be back to its old self

[eternal_fantasy]

and just a quick update post CPU INIT issue...after flashing 0501, the BIOS seems to have settled and i just fired out dual 32M at 600x6 tRD 9 2:3 ratio with 1.50vNB so the board seems to be back to its old self

[Mezzro]

and just a quick update post CPU INIT issue...after flashing 0501, the BIOS seems to have settled and i just fired out dual 32M at 600x6 tRD 9 2:3 ratio with 1.50vNB so the board seems to be back to its old self

Congrats, 3o! Must be a big relief.

[Zeus]

Rock on Jody, good to see you revived it!

[Mezzro]

all other 'quirks' i have learned to work around are related to the issues with D9GTR and D9GTS

3o, can you please elaborate? And what were the workaround you used? Thanks

[3oh6]

couldn't have said it any better

Rock on Jody, good to see you revived it!

Congrats, 3o! Must be a big relief.

huge relief as playing the "Asus RMA Good Board/Bad Board Lottery" was not on the top of my list of things to do this week.

is the gskill pi 4gig set with jnl, jnm ics still the way to go on this board 3oh6?

i honestly don't have a clue. i don't know what ICs are on my G.Skill 4GB Pi kit and to be honest, haven't really tested them that much. this board is my primary benching board and with my new deal with Praxair for LN2 @ 1$/L...it has spent the last 2-3 weeks doing nothing but prepping and running under cold. i have a lot of GPUs to play with so testing 4GB kits has moved to the back burner, sorry but you must understand

3o, can you please elaborate? And what were the workaround you used? Thanks

just the stuff i have encountered from day one, like with my 2x1GB G.Skill HZ's...every now and then perfectly stable settings won't POST after a reboot, hangs on DET DRAM. i have to shut down, pull the inside stick, POST with the single stick, go into the BIOS, Save&Exit, then go back into the BIOS and shutdown. putting the second stick in fires right up again.

other things like certain FSBs at certain temperatures just won't POST...raising tRFC higher than it needs to be allows POST, but then lowering it back in Windows show no ill effects. the next reboot i will POST fine with the tighter tRFC.

small things like that which i haven't documented real well, just encounter when benching and found ways to bypass them when they show up. most of these types of things only happen below single stage temps when benching LN2 but the ones listed above can happen anytime and more frequent at higher clocks. compared to the 790i, the RE is tame though. you want to talk about navigating a mine field to get the most out of a board...but when you figure her out, the 790i can be a monster too.

[tekjunkie]

.... compared to the 790i, the RE is tame though. you want to talk about navigating a mine field to get the most out of a board...but when you figure her out, the 790i can be a monster too.

Lol, one of the reasons that I wanted to go 790i FTW. With the amount of time that I spent on my S2E, I could almost write a thesis on the S2E and get a doctorate, lol. From my experience with the S2E, that board was pretty finicky with the RAM too(read the ICs on them). Try I might, I could not get the board prime stable either with my EB sticks and my Gskills(BHZ)(Everything looks stable,but prime fails randomly), both have some kind of D9 or the other. But it seems to really really like my samsung based OCZs(DDR3-2000 4GB kits).I was very stable with my Qx9650 running 450x9 linked and synced(1:2). I could also get the board pretty stable with 475x8 if I disable P1/P2 with my Qx9650 1:2.0804 BIOS and latter really let the beast of the S2E out.


But for all that, I still went with the RE because I will have two platforms so that I can choose the gfx card(xfire or SLI) with two kickass CPUs(E8600 and Qx9650). I could also pick and choose my platform for either of these CPUs depending on which rus better on what. Even if the RE happens to not like the quad and I could put my E8600 on it and I know I can run my Qx9650 4GHZ 24/7 stable on my S2E with pretty good FSB.

Sorry about a pretty big post and going a bit off topic.I will have to get back to putting my stuff together. Man, we also have a good game on tonight . Now I would have to choose ARGH!!!!!

[Think]

Has anyone tried the Marvel Speeding HD at all?

I will be installing both my raptors in Raid 0 on the Intel ich9r for my OS and just a 500 G WD as well but was wondering if anyone is even using the sil5723?

Bios 0501 seems to make my initial Vista setup extremely slow and I had up my DIMM voltage up to 1.9 as well as install only one stick for the time being since I have the original vista x64. I suppose I should of slipstreamed the operating system before doing this but is there something wrong with 0501????

[Mezzro]

Has anyone tried the Marvel Speeding HD at all?

I will be installing both my raptors in Raid 0 on the Intel ich9r for my OS and just a 500 G WD as well but was wondering if anyone is even using the sil5723?

I'm using the SIL5723 controller to run to data disks (Velociraptors) in RAID 0. Works fine after some initial trial and error trying to get it to play nice with ICH9R -- the two can conflict.