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

[jcool]

MrBean,

can you please forward the following (or give me his address so I can personally bash the out of him) ?

"Dear Mr. Quan,

as you are obviously completely unaware, the Z7S magically supported VTT adjustment from day 1 if you plugged in QX9775 CPUs, that's confirmed by more than one user. So stop talking BS and get it done already.

Yours sincerely"



God how I hate Assus tech support. Incompetent lying idiots all of them.

[MrBean]

Hey jcool,
This is what I send yesterday:

I bought this board for it's overclockaing abilities, not as a workstation
board, as it was advertised with 9775 Xtreme chips, and having for example
Vcore, and CPU VTT adjustments. Now I am using E5430's, and it took Bios
0401 to give Vcore. Now what about CPU VTT? It's undervolting on this board,
mine is reading 1.075 vs 1.12 to 1.15?

And now his reply I posted above.

Sad that the engineers don't talk to tech support
I will forward your reply too - will "diplomatize" it first though...heh

edit: jcool, your input forwarded.....

[jcool]

Too bad, maybe they'd finally get the message without the "diplomatizing"

[MrBean]

Hehe. This is what I emailed him though, close enough - awaiting feedback.

As you are completely unaware, the Z7S supported VTT adjustment from day 1 if you plugged in QX9775 CPUs, that's confirmed by more than one user. So, it seems your feedback is not 100% accurate?

VTT adjustment works with QX9775 - what's the difference?

[STEvil]

Got a line in, waiting for a response now

[MrBean]

Hello Guys,
Ok, some interesting feedback.

As I have discussed in the past, my system became violently unstable at 400 fsb, no matter what voltage levels I would set for Vcore, Vdimm, and of course the chipset and SB.

Generally, my experience with Intel CPUs over the last number of years have been that, once you reach an overclock ceiling, either on air or water, on default voltages, you need to do silly things with the voltage (diminishing returns really), or use decent phase-cooling to get an extra amount of headroom.

Well, trying to bench at 400fsb, the system would well, bluescreen - especially running Prime95 and SuperPI32, this would be indicative of memory-related failures.

I upped Vcore to 1.40 even, no go, same issues, basically 1-2 minutes into Prime torture, keel over and die.

With new Bios 0501, no change there.

I always maintained there is something here not kosher, and several times I received feedback that VTT et al is the culprit...

I am currently running my system on 398fsb, 3.18gig (default 2.66), and everything default, and it is dead-stable running prime95 for few hours, Memtest for a few passes, and even now Linpack 64.

No bluescreens, crashes, nada - I am even browsing while this is going, so.... I will be happy with this result, I am not concerned over the possible (if any) benefit going to 400fsb and 3.20gig, but I'm just curious why this limitation.

Next test would be to undervolt the CPUs, and I am sure they have huge headroom. I still have a feeling something on this board around 400fsb, with 1333 CPUs ain't kosher - and it ain't the CPUs.

I will receive my new SM X7DWA-N (Thanx Movieman) hopefully this weekend, and do more testing on these CPUs - and I am sure they will be good for 3.6-3.8 gig on water.

Something on this board is holding me back - not memory, as it's default 800fsb Kingstons - it may be that somewhere in the deepest recessses of memory-timing land, there's settings that are to aggressive, similar to a couple of DFI boards of days gone by with Mushkin and OCZ sticks.

So yes, my bet is voltages on this board is good, stable, if undervolting a little, incl. VTT

Memory timings though, will explain BSOD's. After all, if one core were to error in Prime95, I would expect to see rounding-errors, et al.

I will keep you guys posted.

The main thing here though, with Bios 0501, much more stable, no defaulting to stock settings, even if still only beta, seemsAsus is finally getting a grip on this tricky board.

To late for some though, but I may just keep this one and vmod the crap out of it once I have the SM up and running.

Please feedback on your experiences to.

See attached screenie.

[MrBean]

Important request

I checked this issue with relative department.
There is some hardware limitation about overclocking. The motherboard Z7S WS itself does not contain VTT change circuit. So, there is no way to change VTT.
Are you sure there is VTT adjustment with QX9775 CPU?

Hello Guys,
Who here can provide a screenshot/photo of the Bios of a Z7S, with Xtreme CPUs, indicating VTT adjustment settings?

Feedback, asap, would be appreciated, as I am still busy with Lyn Quan of Asus to try and get behind this issue.

[jcool]

No screenshots, but I think there where at least 2 people in this thread with QX CPUs confirming the VTT setting existed and worked (as opposed to Vcore, which was available as well from day 1 but doesn't work properly with QX9775 CPUs to date, it's either stock or 1,6V setting lol). Also it was available in that shady preview posted by this news site (forgot which) a year back, they used QX CPUs as well.

I think it's pretty ridiculous we need to prove it though.

Edit: giorgioprimo's post here, Z7S preview with VTT was on the Inq but the article seems gone...

[MrBean]

I think it's pretty ridiculous we need to prove it though.

Yep, I concur, but one thing I've learned in my short life of 42years is that a simple picture shows so much more than mere words. How many times did we request proof in the past? He didn't ask for proof, but I think in this case it will go a long way to make Asus realize they should'nt come with bovine feaces - and they will realize we do our homework, and are prepared for any twaddle that may come along

[MrBean]

@ jcool: I did PM Giorgio, and he has already boxed the Z7S, but confirmed he could remember seeing a VTT setting.

Now, my only propblem is this: No-one have actually confirmed that they adjusted VTT, and saved Bios, and then looked in h/ware monitor to verify that VTT did actually change.

The VTT setting "viewed" by many may have been an indication only, and we need to have facts if we want to take on Asus tech support that the setting was actually:

1)Available
2)Configurable
3)Affecting VTT indication in hardware monitor section in the bios.

Unfortunately hearsay won't score us to many points, so we need someone out there with QX9775's to do this test. Yeah yeah, I know, frustrating as hell, but we need facts to back us, and at this point in time those are a bit hard to come by.

Anyone?

[Movieman]

@ jcool: I did PM Giorgio, and he has already boxed the Z7S, but confirmed he could remember seeing a VTT setting.

Now, my only propblem is this: No-one have actually confirmed that they adjusted VTT, and saved Bios, and then looked in h/ware monitor to verify that VTT did actually change.

The VTT setting "viewed" by many may have been an indication only, and we need to have facts if we want to take on Asus tech support that the setting was actually:

1)Available
2)Configurable
3)Affecting VTT indication in hardware monitor section in the bios.

Unfortunately hearsay won't score us to many points, so we need someone out there with QX9775's to do this test. Yeah yeah, I know, frustrating as hell, but we need facts to back us, and at this point in time those are a bit hard to come by.

Anyone?

QX9775's are hard to come by and not many had them.
most that did used them with the SkullTrail board a year ago when that was the "hot" thing to do.
maybe a request out in another part of the forum for someone with QX9775's and the Z7S will be more productive??

[Bossmonkey]

hey i currently have 1 qx9775, i can send a screen shot to whoever!

[Jaco]

hey i currently have 1 qx9775, i can send a screen shot to whoever!

Post them here if you will

[jcool]

That would be great Bossmonkey

[MrBean]

Please Bossmonkey, drop them here, and I will forward them to Lyn Quan the moment I receive them

Let's get this issue resolved then.



Ta.

[jcool]

On another note, I really wanted to update my Raidcontroller's firmware so I took a chance and rebooted the machine.. after more than 9 weeks of uptime
Well it came right back up, I flashed the raidcon and while I was at it, slapped the 0501 bios on it. What can I say, HWmonitor is working now, but that's about it. I still get the "press F1 to enter setup" crap as soon as I manually adjust Vcore, so I still have to set it to ignore errors, load my settings and boot up (and never reboot lol) or it'll reset to default 3Ghz. Oh well, good thing I run this rig 24/7 anyways.

[MrBean]

Ta for the feedback At least some improvements. I had the same F1 error with Vcore the same time I adjusted, but nothing since then.

So, all ok, but anyway, my new SM X7DWA-N should be delivered tomorrow, so I will rip the Z7S out, and use the SM. The Z7S will undergo some reverse-engineering, to see what I can make of VTT.

Will keep you posted.

[4DoorGTZ]

I'm very rarely on Xtremesystems, but this thread inspired me to get a Z7S build going. And it was going good for a few months now. 16gb of 800mhz ram a couple X5460's and a pair of 4870's, it WAS going to be my end all machine, not needing an upgrade for many years... (cpu/ram/mobo)

So last week my linux install hangs while doing some folding@home crunching. I reboot, and nothing. I start to question my psu, my gpu's... systematicaly going through everything one at a time, even one ram stick at a time looking for the problem. Then I notice FF on the diagnosis card, little bit of searching and I see this is the telltale sign that the board has moved on to another plain of existance. Currently trying a few of the miracle solutions like unplugging psu/clear rtc jumper/remove battery. I might play with it this weekend here and there, but if I cant get past FF, then I'm gonna have to RMA it with the company i bought it from.

It was running fine since november, had it run folding@home while I'm out of town for work, noticed it stopped crunching a week ago, only to come home to this. Even better, my custom made waterblocks for the whole board (cpu/cpu/chipset/chipset/chipset/ram) just arrived, glad I havent torn into the board yet, dont want to give any reason to deny my rma.

<sigh>

STEvil - 1
angelshonnny - 1
Jaco - 1
jcool - 1
spiro - 1
4DoorGTZ - 1

[STEvil]

ouch

I havent had a reply from Asus beyond the first contact (recent not counting first couple tries) yet.........

[Movieman]

ouch

I havent had a reply from Asus beyond the first contact (recent not counting first couple tries) yet.........

Remember, just got finished with Chinese New year and they may be backed up right now.

[4DoorGTZ]

Well after a few hours screwing around today, I've come to the conclusion that I'm Worst part is I've been searching my records and cant figure out where I bought the board... wonder where that puts me with regards to getting a new one from Asus... argh. I'd so rather have a gaming laptop right now then this monstrosity, good thing my QX6700ES is still running (gasp) its in another asus board P5W DH. Am I doomed?

[STEvil]

I think I took all your bad luck for the day, had the 1000w Antec in my system blow up (sparks everywhere!) about 2 hours ago.... at least it didnt take anything with it.


Now running a 600w OCZ Powerstream V1.. and an 8800GTS/512 because it cant get enough power to my 4870X2 lol

edit - scratch that, i'm running both 600w powerstreams I have because one cant power both the cpu's AND the 8800GTS... wth.

[MrBean]

Ah, the bliss that is PC Power & Cooling 1Kw turbocool

Soz to hear about your badluck, though, STEvil.......bad one, and some good luck in it didn't take anything else out....

[STEvil]

Got another reply, have pointed the sender at this thread. Jcool you bought 2 boards for clients right? That makes 6/8 known purchased boards dead so far... or 6/7 if you only set up one client machine.. wow what a record

[jcool]

Got another reply, have pointed the sender at this thread. Jcool you bought 2 boards for clients right? That makes 6/8 known purchased boards dead so far... or 6/7 if you only set up one client machine.. wow what a record

Actually I have bought a total of 5 boards in all. 2 for me (1 initially and 1 new when my old one died cause I didn't wanna wait that long), 1 for Jaco (that's my 2nd board in RMA) and 2 more for customer's builds that are alive and kicking (thankfully). So right now it's 2 out of 5 dead for me...