ASUS Maximus II Formula - new P45 king?

[IcemaN22]

Guys, I got linpack stable 10/10 but after some minutes of playing I get BSOD (often driver not equal thing), and sometimes when I restart the PC, it doesn't boot correctly on the first try, then it shuts off, and turn on normal again with the clock settings. The temps are high but not to high so it would cause BSOD. I have tried to increase the NB from 1.29V too 1.31 and over, but then I can't post. Please what can I do to fix this?

here is screenshot from linpack

[radaja]

well this watercooling is starting to really peak my interest now,i guess i was only thinking about the bad(what can go wrong).but there is all lot of interesting points being made in WC's favor that i didnt realize,for instance, up untill now ive been buying computer parts purely for the enjoyment of OCing,which is kinda sick considering thats all i do with the computer.i dont game,dont edit photos or do any of the things one might use a computer for.so really its just an addiction for me.spending vasts amounts of money to improve this computer,OC it, then a month later spend some more money on some new part to theroreticly make it better but why?so this is what i started thinking when someone mentioned WCing being quiet.i play guitar and thought maybe i should make a home studio with this computer.im pretty sure most of the hardware i have wil do.but thats where the idea of WCing would help out in the low noise dept. i dont know yet though,if i do this i would have to backup the files or cut back on the OCing to actually be able to do both.but then again maybe like an addict im just trying to justify another large purchase for my computer?are any of the full WC kits any good?

[CryptiK]

Went to start my MIIF this morning and cmos had been wiped including 2 saved OC profiles, sweet I thought as I had saved a profile to a usb stick but when I tried to load it I got a message saying file not compatable (or words to that effect - cant remember exact wording). Blimey I have not removed battery or even touched the mobo. Anyone else had this happen to them?

Oh and dont worry about water cooling, honestly you will love it and the temps, I know I do. Its also silent

That is very odd, I have not had that happen. Is the battery dead perhaps? Do you power off at the wall and/or unplug your system at night? If it is and you do this could explain it.

When you are in the Bios does it say you are using the correct bios version? Does it work ok if you use the jumper and choose the other bios chip?

All I could suggest is try and reflash it if the other bios chip is fine and the battery is fine etc. It may even be a case of the bios chip going bad.

Guys, I got linpack stable 10/10 but after some minutes of playing I get BSOD (often driver not equal thing), and sometimes when I restart the PC, it doesn't boot correctly on the first try, then it shuts off, and turn on normal again with the clock settings. The temps are high but not to high so it would cause BSOD. I have tried to increase the NB from 1.29V too 1.31 and over, but then I can't post. Please what can I do to fix this?

here is screenshot from linpack

What are your NB temps like loaded? Is your ram/NB stable in HCI memtest and Orthos blend?

If it is all ok temp wise & passes all stress tests, perhaps adjust your NB GTL ref, I was totally everything stable except in games, and I found it was my NB GTL Ref.

Adjust it from say -80mv to +80mv and play games you usually crash out of and see if you can find a setting that makes you game stable. Once you do that, you need to re-stress test it, as after I found a game stable NB GTL Ref setting, I found it was not stress test stable (go figure) so I adjusted the NB GTL Ref more till I was stress test stable again and also game stable.

Also if you need to further raise vNB, you may need to increase Vtt (vFSB) as some boards have weird behaviour if vNB is too much higher than Vtt.

[Fragger]

That is very odd, I have not had that happen. Is the battery dead perhaps? Do you power off at the wall and/or unplug your system at night? If it is and you do this could explain it.

When you are in the Bios does it say you are using the correct bios version? Does it work ok if you use the jumper and choose the other bios chip?

All I could suggest is try and reflash it if the other bios chip is fine and the battery is fine etc. It may even be a case of the bios chip going bad.

My pc is never unplugged or turned off at wall, on a ups.
Bios version looks good and is rebooting now with OC still intact, cant imagine what caused it to drop all settings.
Im not gonna play with the jumpers as I really hate messing with those damm fiddly things, that what I love about this board, you no longer have to mess with jumpers woot.

Radaja you only OC?, man you are an addict

There is of course one more reason to water cool...........

BLING!

[IMG][/IMG]

I guess you could say this is my addiction but it is great fun. I have custom built alot of bits for it - espically proud of my reservior which was built from a bronze pipe and 2x 25mm thick bits of perspex.
Swiftech water block for north bridge and UV green hoses coming when I get some more bucks together.
Never had a leak as I run 7/16 tubing on 1/2 barbs for a tight fit and I clamp the hell out of every tube.

[radaja]

fragger that is just friggin awesome looking.that is one of the cleanest and coolest looking setups ive ever seen.great job!i mean its hard to make a regular case look clean and organized but see thru acrylic,like i said that is very nice and clean.

[Grnfinger]

Guys, I got linpack stable 10/10 but after some minutes of playing I get BSOD (often driver not equal thing), and sometimes when I restart the PC, it doesn't boot correctly on the first try, then it shuts off, and turn on normal again with the clock settings. The temps are high but not to high so it would cause BSOD. I have tried to increase the NB from 1.29V too 1.31 and over, but then I can't post. Please what can I do to fix this?

here is screenshot from linpack

I would be looking at your ram / MCH . Test your ram with memtest 3 passes.
If everything checks out up your NB volts a notch or 2.
Your tref value might need increasing

[CryptiK]

well this watercooling is starting to really peak my interest now,i guess i was only thinking about the bad(what can go wrong).but there is all lot of interesting points being made in WC's favor that i didnt realize,for instance, up untill now ive been buying computer parts purely for the enjoyment of OCing,which is kinda sick considering thats all i do with the computer.i dont game,dont edit photos or do any of the things one might use a computer for.so really its just an addiction for me.spending vasts amounts of money to improve this computer,OC it, then a month later spend some more money on some new part to theroreticly make it better but why?so this is what i started thinking when someone mentioned WCing being quiet.i play guitar and thought maybe i should make a home studio with this computer.im pretty sure most of the hardware i have wil do.but thats where the idea of WCing would help out in the low noise dept. i dont know yet though,if i do this i would have to backup the files or cut back on the OCing to actually be able to do both.but then again maybe like an addict im just trying to justify another large purchase for my computer?are any of the full WC kits any good?

Heh, you sound like me 90% of what I do with my system is OC, I sometimes watch DVD's and occasionally game, but that's about it. I used to use it for work but no longer need to.

I am also becoming more and more interested in water cooling, especially when its hot my temps are ridiculous. Benching is not an option in high ambients on air.

It's not that expensive either really. I would use 7/16 tubing on 1/2 inch barbs (like my mate recommended and uses) and use high quality clamps/tubing/pump/rad and fans. I'm definitely considering it now and trying to get over my concerns.

My pc is never unplugged or turned off at wall, on a ups.
Bios version looks good and is rebooting now with OC still intact, cant imagine what caused it to drop all settings.
Im not gonna play with the jumpers as I really hate messing with those damm fiddly things, that what I love about this board, you no longer have to mess with jumpers woot.

Radaja you only OC?, man you are an addict

There is of course one more reason to water cool...........

BLING!

I guess you could say this is my addiction but it is great fun. I have custom built alot of bits for it - espically proud of my reservior which was built from a bronze pipe and 2x 25mm thick bits of perspex.
Swiftech water block for north bridge and UV green hoses coming when I get some more bucks together.
Never had a leak as I run 7/16 tubing on 1/2 barbs for a tight fit and I clamp the hell out of every tube.

Really nice rig I have not seen an acrylic case used for a long time. Glad your board is working again too.

[radaja]

cryptik, yea i think i might take the plunge into WCing.thanks for the info on the parts.i wish some who has a great WCing setup could just put together a shopping list for me as to what parts(like you just did) and what manufactuer for these parts would be best.

[CryptiK]

Yeah the manufacturer(s) are hard to choose, and apparently there is a lot of fanboism concerning that too so its hard to be objective without the knowledge. It's going to take a lot of reading to get up to speed.

[Sem]

Maximus II Formula is probably the best non-core i7 board out there for 24/7 usage.

i agree 100%

ive used many boards with my Q6600

Maximus Formula
DFI x48 UT T2R
Striker II Extreme

And the Maximus II Formula is head of shoulders above them all for stability and low voltage

With the other 3 boards my Q6600 needed at least 1.408 vcore to be stable at 3.6
And the DFI and Maximus Formula needed high amounts of vNB to be stable at 400FSB PL8

With the M2F i only need 1.368 vCore for the CPU to be linpack stable
(actually works at 1.344 but i always up it a notch or 2 to be extra safe)

As for the vNB and VVT i have them both at 1.28v 400FSB PL7 with 6GB ram
all rock stable not had a single BSOD (apart for some nv_disp ones) in the 3 months ive been using it

awesome board that looks great as well

http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/3606/mf2primekm3.png
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/5264/mf2linxav6.png

[Grnfinger]

Yeah the manufacturer(s) are hard to choose, and apparently there is a lot of fanboism concerning that too so its hard to be objective without the knowledge. It's going to take a lot of reading to get up to speed.

Come on get wet
Once you do you'll never look back at air cooling again....

There are alot of good sites to read up on, XS is good but there are some members that like to flame ppl for asking questions. But I suppose you get that anywhere. Newls1 would be a good source for information, his waterkeg is very professional, he could give you great advice on wc gear.
In the end everyones opinion will vary just dont buy Thermaltake

[screwtech02]

Yeah the manufacturer(s) are hard to choose, and apparently there is a lot of fanboism concerning that too so its hard to be objective without the knowledge. It's going to take a lot of reading to get up to speed.

Dont let the whole tubing size thing sway you either, there is like 1-3 deg difference in the temps with tubing size. There is a good read about it somewere here, think Cather made the post/review.....

[Fragger]

Thanks for the nice comments guys.
Lately as the air temp is reaching 30 degrees its good to be liquid cooled.
As long as you use quality parts you cant go to far wrong, if you love hardware you will love water cooling.

[JoeBar]

cryptik, yea i think i might take the plunge into WCing.thanks for the info on the parts.i wish some who has a great WCing setup could just put together a shopping list for me as to what parts(like you just did) and what manufactuer for these parts would be best.

Yeah the manufacturer(s) are hard to choose, and apparently there is a lot of fanboism concerning that too so its hard to be objective without the knowledge. It's going to take a lot of reading to get up to speed.

Guys it's not rocket science...

Though i may sound a bit arrogant, it's not my intention. I just want to make a point that wc'ing is really easy for smart ppl and the shopping list is pretty easy to find. I know it may sound a bit scary now, i was aircooled in the past too, but once u setup one loop things will get way easier...

[Simps]

My pc is never unplugged or turned off at wall, on a ups.
Bios version looks good and is rebooting now with OC still intact, cant imagine what caused it to drop all settings.
Im not gonna play with the jumpers as I really hate messing with those damm fiddly things, that what I love about this board, you no longer have to mess with jumpers woot.

Radaja you only OC?, man you are an addict

There is of course one more reason to water cool...........

BLING!

[IMG][/IMG]

I guess you could say this is my addiction but it is great fun. I have custom built alot of bits for it - espically proud of my reservior which was built from a bronze pipe and 2x 25mm thick bits of perspex.
Swiftech water block for north bridge and UV green hoses coming when I get some more bucks together.
Never had a leak as I run 7/16 tubing on 1/2 barbs for a tight fit and I clamp the hell out of every tube.

OMG that looks so nice!!! I love that backplate on the GFX! Where is the rad? I f everything were inside the case it would have been ever better!

[radaja]

joebar,i am absolutely 100% percent sure i can put it together.my problem is everyone has always told me not to buy ready made kits,so the only thing im worried about is getting the right parts since i will be spending a lot of money again.i want to get it right the first time .dont want to be posting problems and have other people start posting,you should have got this or theres your problem that the wrong barb.get what im saying

[Fragger]

OMG that looks so nice!!! I love that backplate on the GFX! Where is the rad? I f everything were inside the case it would have been ever better!

Being a mid tower there is just not enough space to fit everything, it is very compact. I get better temps because the rad is external so it gets air which hasnt been heated by the system.

[IMG][/IMG]

[Grnfinger]

joebar,i am absolutely 100% percent sure i can put it together.my problem is everyone has always told me not to buy ready made kits,so the only thing im worried about is getting the right parts since i will be spending a lot of money again.i want to get it right the first time .dont want to be posting problems and have other people start posting,you should have got this or theres your problem that the wrong barb.get what im saying

Swiftech makes a very good complete kit, the Apex H220, it comes with all the goodies needed, and its upgradedable later on, the pump is top shelf , you wont find anything better, the Apogee GTZ is on of the best blocks on the market, there res is very very good and alot of ppl use it, not me tho..
There MCR220 rad is decent, it was able to cool my Q6600, NB and 8800GTS.
Alittle common sense is all it takes, never got wet b4 and my first time was a Swiftech kit, no problems installing, great instructions and there forums are stellar for information.
NOW GET WET!

[radaja]

that what im going to do,im sitting here typing this with a swim cap on,im ready.i think i just got the info i needed (swiftech ApexH220,ApogeeGTZ,MCR220) thank you

[IcemaN22]

What are your NB temps like loaded? Is your ram/NB stable in HCI memtest and Orthos blend?

If it is all ok temp wise & passes all stress tests, perhaps adjust your NB GTL ref, I was totally everything stable except in games, and I found it was my NB GTL Ref.

Adjust it from say -80mv to +80mv and play games you usually crash out of and see if you can find a setting that makes you game stable. Once you do that, you need to re-stress test it, as after I found a game stable NB GTL Ref setting, I found it was not stress test stable (go figure) so I adjusted the NB GTL Ref more till I was stress test stable again and also game stable.

Also if you need to further raise vNB, you may need to increase Vtt (vFSB) as some boards have weird behaviour if vNB is too much higher than Vtt.

♦
Thanks, you are the man
GTL REF at -60mv did the trick, game stable whole day and linpack still stable.
By the way, I got 10fps more on this board on Farcry 2 benchmark compared to Asus commando with pci-e 1.1 (same settings and same cpu,ram)

[chew*]

hey grn DI

[xoldboyx]

Here is your result and a shot:


btw. How do you manage to start your Corsairs at 1100 Mhz ? Any advices ? And how do you keep DRAM Static Read Control, DRAM Read Training and MEM. OC Charger, because when I put sumething else than Auto, always end with a blue screen ?!?

ATM are in in stock speed,cause I was away from home for a few days.
best score i ve ever had with my rig:
(and that why I want 8x500 setup,so maybe I could do better score)

17001 is not bad score for this card,right?

[CryptiK]

Guys it's not rocket science...

Though i may sound a bit arrogant, it's not my intention. I just want to make a point that wc'ing is really easy for smart ppl and the shopping list is pretty easy to find. I know it may sound a bit scary now, i was aircooled in the past too, but once u setup one loop things will get way easier...

Oh no, I'm screwed then

Swiftech makes a very good complete kit, the Apex H220, it comes with all the goodies needed, and its upgradedable later on, the pump is top shelf , you wont find anything better, the Apogee GTZ is on of the best blocks on the market, there res is very very good and alot of ppl use it, not me tho..
There MCR220 rad is decent, it was able to cool my Q6600, NB and 8800GTS.
Alittle common sense is all it takes, never got wet b4 and my first time was a Swiftech kit, no problems installing, great instructions and there forums are stellar for information.
NOW GET WET!

Good info thanks.

♦
Thanks, you are the man
GTL REF at -60mv did the trick, game stable whole day and linpack still stable.
By the way, I got 10fps more on this board on Farcry 2 benchmark compared to Asus commando with pci-e 1.1 (same settings and same cpu,ram)

No problem, good to hear that sorted it out, -60mv is also my NB GTL Ref setting.

[CryptiK]

Sorry for double post but this is worth it

I realized my ram and possibly NB were giving me errors in linpack (I'm yet to isolate which), so after getting the system stable by bumping them both up 2 notches, I found I was able to lower my vcore to 1.240v @ 4.23GHz. The LCD poster reports the load vcore as 1.237v although cpuz reports 1.240v, I'm not sure which s correct. Although I doubt I'll be able to lower it more, I will do some more testing later.

The screens below are from the same run, you can see the time/date and residual norms are the same in each SS.

10 trials of Linpack after 1 trial, you can see the load voltage


10 trials of Linpack finished, you can see the idle vcore, Vtt, vNB & vdimm

[Grnfinger]

Small problem guys, wondering if anyone has some suggestions to fix my issues.
During some benching I hard lockd a few times, and hosed my OS.
Did a clean install eect ect, now when Vista loads up I have a dos window that pops up saying, "updating USB" or something to that effect, while this window is open nothing happens as far as the OS loading, it just hangs there,once the window closes Vista continues to load like normal, My problem is its taking longer to boot than normal and I have never seen this b4 Even on my second MIIF its not there.
Any ideas other than re install?
Maybe I should hunt a floppy down and go XP....

hey grn DI

Your going to get me in trouble, I think I should burn my wallett