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

[Madman666]

@jcool: What do you expect for the 771 Socket?
Will there be an upgrade/successor or will Harpertown be the end of the 771 socket?

[jcool]

No, I don't expect to ever upgrade my S771 rig. It is a beast as it stands, and will be for quite some time. In 2-3 years it might well be history, until then a 4Ghz Octacore will surely be a force to be reckoned with.
Nothing planned from Intel either AFAIK. The future for servers is Gainstown.

[Madman666]

I'm getting an error 0x00000124. About once in 2 days. It just crashes doing some downloading/rendering. When i google there is a lot of discussion on this error:
1. Sounddrivers
2. Nvidia drivers
3. C1E (turn it of)
Nobody has a real solution.
I tested all my hardware, memory=ok, drives=ok, MB=no error. Tried using prime to get this error, but no error.
Checked all drives, there the latest.
Does anyone here have an idea (it happened in Vista 32 and 64)?

I suspect Core voltage, so I increased core voltage to see if this helps.

[shanems3]

just did a google, that is a sound driver error or nvidia related..

[jcool]

My Dual Harper is finally back up again. New mobo seems to have no trouble running FSB 450 as well, running prime and memtest for a while tho just to be sure. I'm gonna have to cancel the whole WU cache anyways argh.

[shanems3]

thats good to hear, wish my rig could run 450 stable...

[jcool]

You have C0 step CPUs right? They usually won't go above FSB 430 without VTT adjustment. So you gotta wait for VTT I guess... What is the max FSB you can run stable?

By the way, I got like the perfect mount on them this time, using just a tiny little bit of MX-2 paste my Coretemps are 56-56-56-56 on CPU 1 and 57-56-57-56 on CPU 2 after 10 Minutes of prime SmallFFT at 4,05Ghz

[shanems3]

My stable is 400, 410 gets a lil buggy, 420 boots, but as soon as you do something it goes beserk, bsod..
My temps get to about 60c under full load for 10 min, idle is around 45c, i need to redo my contacts on the heat sink,
hopefully they will release VTT settings .. doubt it..

[jcool]

Well my E5420's can do FSB 430 primestable, and they are early C0. Are you sure it's the CPUs FSB limiting you? Try with a lower multiplier in order to avoid running into a CPU mhz limit... also use 1,35V MCH and 1,83V Vdimm, improving the NB cooling is pretty important as well.

[shanems3]

i am gonna have to get a better NB cooler then, all i have is stock, might see if i can find a fan to put on stock cooler..

[Madman666]

@jcool: where did you buy your Buffalo memory? Can you tell me the exact type(number)?
Did you buy them as a KIT of 8Gb or as seperate items?
I suspect my Kingston is the bottleneck when oc'ing.

[shanems3]

i have Simple Tech Memory, could be my bottle neck too.. i am gonna get the NB cooler, before i start screwing with voltages

[Madman666]

i have Simple Tech Memory, could be my bottle neck too.. i am gonna get the NB cooler, before i start screwing with voltages

Just attached 92mm silent fan to my Asus FBDimm cooler which has a 80mm fan.
Works like a charm.

[shanems3]

i have aftermarket ramsinks(thermaltake) , they are fanless, but i do have the rear mount fan cooling them. I found some good heatsinks at work that are junk to them, but will work for me as a better Heatpipe heat sink than stock. It was designed for a Dell Server x5450 xeon processor, I am gonna make a bracket to hold it down to the NB , and possibly make another one for the southbridge, but i think that would be overkill..

what is your NB and Ram Temps?

[D_A]

No such thing as "overkill". If it does the job it's "just-enough-kill".

[shanems3]

No such thing as "overkill". If it does the job it's "just-enough-kill".

i like the way you think... lol

[jcool]

Very nice setup!
That PSU is overkill tho My X5450's run on a 500W crap unit lol

The mem I bought off my distributor's (Wave computer Germany) they are basically the same as Alternate/Mix Computer just cheaper

Actually I swapped mems, cause I was having difficulties with a build for a customer so I took my mems and put them in his rig (since I knew they worked well). The problem turned out to be a defective raid card tho, so I now have his ram in my rig.

Both were Buffalos (bought them as single sticks), my old ones were Samsung, new ones are Hynix chips. I can get you some if you like, also some Compustocx ones with flat heatspreaders (no need to modify cooling there, just slap a fan on it) for very cheap.

Tho I don't think it's the mem limiting you.. the Z7S can handle any mem exceptionally well from what I've seen.

[shanems3]

well, if he is like me, my 750watt ps is a must, i have 5 HDDs, 2 video cards, board, with various USB hardware..

[jcool]

Ya well, I got 4 HDDs and a raidcon as well, soon to be 8.. but you're right, I have no real GFX card. 1100W is still overkill unless you want to run 2 HD4870X2.

[shanems3]

true, 700w, was min for xfire 4850 1gb, so i went to 750w Thermaltake Truepower

[shanems3]

my processors are doomed, 3.6ghz/400fsb is only stable overclock, guess it has to do with the CO stepping.. if i change the Vcore. on reboot, it gets stuck at FF, then i hard reset, overclock failed, default settings restored..

[jcool]

Guys,

I noticed an unpleasant bug with my new Z7S which the old one (which definitely was anotehr revision) didn't have.
As soon as I set Vcore manually and save, it reboots fine but hangs and says "Press F1 tor necover bios settings, F2 to load defaults and continue". When I then enter bios, all voltage-related settings are set back to default. I circumvented this by loading my saved settings again, disabling "press F1 on error" option (or similar), hit F10 and it booted up fine using the Vcore settings I set.

However, as soon as I reboot or shut down, the settings are lost again.

Now, I don't care much because I hardly ever reboot or shut it down (roughly every 6-8 weeks when some update or program keeps nagging about a reboot) but this should be a real PITA for people who want to use the rig as their main systems

And like I said, my old board definitely didn't have that problem. I guess Asus isn't done here yet, the bios still sucks.

[shanems3]

That is MY EXACT problem, described to the T.... guess ill make a asus support ticket on it.

[jcool]

Yeah but my solution should work for you as well...
Just don't reboot

[shanems3]

ha, yeah, but its to get a solid restart .... at 430-450 fsb