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

[Bossmonkey]

hey @ shanems3, or anyone at this matter,
did you use a legit copy of leopard? or did you do the 0Sx86, ideneb, kalway, etc?
im having alot of troubles getting it to work on my pc. and i was wondering if i could find out how you did it, help me out a whole bunch!

[shanems3]

i used ideneb, search insanely mac, to get all cores working you have to do the DSDT fix......

[shanems3]

drew, my Koolance 301 blocks had the same issue... i had to trim and grind them..

[Bossmonkey]

oh really?
will that solve my freezing problem? for some reason i cant past a "io buffering",
also i only have 4 cores, do i still need to use that fix?
i found it,, but the only version is for the 0201 bios..

[spiro]

OK, I managed to somehow find an older Xeon processor and finally managed to upgrade bios to 401. Put in one E5430 and bingo good boot. Put in the other E5430 and booted in XP64bit no problems. Decided time to install drivers and since on this system I did not have a DVD drive installed yet I went to the Asus site and started loading latest drivers. I came back to the motherboard and it seemed like it was on Standby. No problem, reboot and immediately FF. Removed battery, then shorted circuit tried another reboot and again the dreaded FF.

What gives? Is there something else I should know other than BIOS upgrade to get this working? I am quite fed up but I will try one more time removing processors and trying to boot with one processor. I would appreciate any help.

[STEvil]

Congrats, your board blew chunks.

I'm digging for a higher-up at Asus at the moment.. this is recall material.

Joe Hsieh is the VP of motherboards at Asus but i'm having trouble finding his phone number lol

[jcool]

Oh no, a blown bios.. not again! What the hell guys

[spiro]

Well I got mine to boot again. Reading up on these threads it seems that there might be a shorting problem under the board, so I removed the board and painted some parts sticking out with liquid tape. I then totally removed the CPU's and installed one, got a boot then installed the other one. Seems to be running OK now and even overclocked my E5430's to 3.2 Ghz which was what they were running before on my Skulltrail. I remember on my Skulltrail I increased the voltage two mini notches but was not sure what the default Vcore is. On Core Temp it seems to be 1.2v so I upped the V's to 1.2125 V and seems to be OK as temps on the OEM HSF at full 8 core 100% do not seem to go over 65C. I also left the Snoop filter at default bypass since it seems to have performance issues. On my Intel Skulltrail it really made no difference having it on or off.

By the way I read some are having problems with WD Raptors. I am using a 74GB Raptor 10,000rpm and seems OK. What are the problems with Raptors? I guess I will switch to a Maxtor SATA drive just in case once I locate the 64bit OS image I have somewhere.

The only two things I changed so far in the BIOS is upped the voltage for 2 processors to 1.2125v and then changed clock generator to 400 Mhz. I have very good 800 Mhz FBDIMMS that are good even at 4 4 4 12 but have kept them at 5 5 5 18 since the application I plan to use is not memory sensitive.

I have the system running 100% 8 cores now and keeping my fingers crossed. The OEM HSF will spin at higher RPM's when temps reach around 65C, unfortunately the HS I have is aluminium and not copper like some I have seen. I guess it should be OK since I don't plan to go over 3.2 Ghz.

I would appreciate it if anyone using E5430's can give me his voltage settings or other settings that can help stability.

[angelshonnny]

Congrats, your board blew chunks.

I'm digging for a higher-up at Asus at the moment.. this is recall material.

Joe Hsieh is the VP of motherboards at Asus but i'm having trouble finding his phone number lol

Any news from Asus yet?
Just sent another tech enquiery to them, hoping to get an answer this week Hope we get this sht sorted out soon. School starts again in 2 weeks, and we start with a 3 week intensive course in Revit and Autocad, so I'm screwed if I don't have it going

[STEvil]

they gave me a phone number to call.

I'm half tempted to call the server division.

[angelshonnny]

they gave me a phone number to call.

I'm half tempted to call the server division.

Half tempted??
I just got a reply on the tech enq. This is what I got:

From:ASUS TSD
To:anpai@eba-cph.dk
Date:2009-01-20 09:10:19

Dear Valued ASUS Customer!


Is your RAM listed here:

http://dlsvr04.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...R2-800_QVL.pdf


Best Regards,

ASUS TMSS Support

And I wrote them like half a page with info and questions. Their service dept. is really a joke. Bunch of idiots it seems
Another dead(from Canada, hmmm) board by the way, they are dropping like flies
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...model=Z7S%20WS
What do we do? It just seems like they don't believe that there's a problem with their board. Unfortunately I don't have the funds for another board, otherwise I would just say F**** it and burn this one and post it to them

[Movieman]

I've had this Z7S board here for a month. I've been reading all the comments and all the stories on them dying for no reason.
I just contacted newegg to see about returning it as it hasn't been used or out of the box.
Just not worth the potential grief to me to be blunt.
I'll eat the postage if necessary but I don't want to go thru the crap I've read here.

[jcool]

Ha, some hilarious news on mine:

Called my distributor and asked WTF happened. Got a real nice and competent guy on the line, and he read me the "report" they had received from Asus, it said they flashed bios and returned it.

Yeah sure. Because you can flash a bios on a mobo that goes straight to FF, has a blown VRM and was on the latest bios in the first place

Them Asus guys are a bunch of idiots really. Returned it again today and the nice tech guy at my distro's said he'll try and fix me up with a new one within 1-2 weeks. We'll see...

[Movieman]

Ha, some hilarious news on mine:

Called my distributor and asked WTF happened. Got a real nice and competent guy on the line, and he read me the "report" they had received from Asus, it said they flashed bios and returned it.

Yeah sure. Because you can flash a bios on a mobo that goes straight to FF, has a blown VRM and was on the latest bios in the first place

Them Asus guys are a bunch of idiots really. Returned it again today and the nice tech guy at my distro's said he'll try and fix me up with a new one within 1-2 weeks. We'll see...

I have a feeling with these yo-yo's that you need to stick a typewritten report ON THE BOARD itself when you return it and then maybe, just maybe they will do something positive..
BUT I'm not taking the chance and playing this game. The Z7S is going back to NewEgg.

[angelshonnny]

I have a feeling with these yo-yo's that you need to stick a typewritten report ON THE BOARD itself when you return it and then maybe, just maybe they will do something positive..
BUT I'm not taking the chance and playing this game. The Z7S is going back to NewEgg.

Seems like a good idea.
I just asked Asus to send me a mail that I can give my supplier to give a refund instead of repairing the piece of s**t. Never buying Asus again. What other options are there? Supermicro maybe, limmited OC options though. Sculltrail. Pros and cons?

[jcool]

Seems like a good idea.
I just asked Asus to send me a mail that I can give my supplier to give a refund instead of repairing the piece of s**t. Never buying Asus again. What other options are there? Supermicro maybe, limmited OC options though. Sculltrail. Pros and cons?

Other options? None really. Supermicro X7DWA can go to FSB ~430 if you're really lucky, but you'd have to set the FSB manually in windows every time you reboot. Or just do a FSB400 BSEL mod and be done with it.

Skulltrail, oh well... more bugs than the Z7S, no chance of hitting high FSBs and around 100W (!) higher power drain when loaded compared to the Z7S (according to German HWluxx magazine which is quite reputable).
And way overpriced as well.

[Movieman]

Seems like a good idea.
I just asked Asus to send me a mail that I can give my supplier to give a refund instead of repairing the piece of s**t. Never buying Asus again. What other options are there? Supermicro maybe, limmited OC options though. Sculltrail. Pros and cons?

Skulltrail has a 420FSB limitation. The SM X7DWA-N board I have did 450FSB(bluescreened at 455) with a pair of X5482's but has no ability to increase voltage to the cpu or memory..
Ran 100% load solid at 438FSB with those X5482's

[Jaco]

. Returned it again today and the nice tech guy at my distro's said he'll try and fix me up with a new one within 1-2 weeks. We'll see...

2 more weeks then ?

[D_A]

Asus have GOT to be losing a packet on these things. Given the failure rate seen here how many are failing in enterprise situations?

[angelshonnny]

Skulltrail has a 420FSB limitation. The SM X7DWA-N board I have did 450FSB(bluescreened at 455) with a pair of X5482's but has no ability to increase voltage to the cpu or memory..
Ran 100% load solid at 438FSB with those X5482's

Ok, so we're really screwed if Asus doesn't sort this out. Hopefully STEvil got into contact with somone with a bit of brains. I'm trying to get a contact number for their service dept. here in Copenhagen or an address, so I can take the whole system to them to get tested while I'm there.

[Movieman]

Ok, so we're really screwed if Asus doesn't sort this out. Hopefully STEvil got into contact with somone with a bit of brains. I'm trying to get a contact number for their service dept. here in Copenhagen or an adres, so I can take the whole system to them to get tested while I'm there.

I understand how you feel but God's truth the SM X7DWA-N board is as solid as you could ask for. yes, there are limitations but in the long run what is better? A few more mhz or a machine that works day in and day out with no issues at all?
I just heard back from NewEgg and they are taking back the Z7S with no cost as it is unopened.

[shanems3]

knock on wood, mine is running stable..........

[s0lid]

I'd say the PWM is blown in these mobos, or some caps have been underrated (seen some cases where standby cap is too weak, Leak/dryed).
Those part costs 1-5$, pretty little price for 500$ dead mobo...

Anyways, I'd like to recommend these Supermicro mobos, rock solid can't rly broke these things or make em crash unless by OS error or overclocks :P

[angelshonnny]

I understand how you feel but God's truth the SM X7DWA-N board is as solid as you could ask for. yes, there are limitations but in the long run what is better? A few more mhz or a machine that works day in and day out with no issues at all?
I just heard back from NewEgg and they are taking back the Z7S with no cost as it is unopened.

You are absolutely right. But isn't it a nusance having to set fsb everytime you restart, or don't you reboot at all? I only have E5420's and the 2,5GHz is no good for me, but at fsb 430 they are perfect.
Definately thinking about it, if I can only get them to give a refund

[angelshonnny]

I'd say the PWM is blown in these mobos, or some caps have been underrated (seen some cases where standby cap is too weak, Leak/dryed).
Those part costs 1-5$, pretty little price for 500$ dead mobo...

Anyways, I'd like to recommend these Supermicro mobos, rock solid can't rly broke these things or make em crash unless by OS error or overclocks :P

At what fsb are you running?