***Asus Rampage III Extreme Owners Thread***

[zoson]

I've run the R3E for something like six months now but now I've began to experience a strange issue. When booting up the system, sometimes the board won't go further from POST. It hangs on "Initialising USB controllers...done". And nothing after that. If I press F8, it tries to to go BIOS, but it won't. CTRL-ALT-DEL sometimes lets me boot up or if not reset usually helps. So it's not completely crashed since it recognises some keys, seems it just can't go on for some reason. This began just two days ago, of course while I'm on my holiday and willing to game, FFS...

I googled and I saw several other users having this issue, someone said it's a bad south bridge or a bad integrated sound card since disabling onboard sound helped for some. I don't have another sound card in the system so I'm not too willing to test as it doesn't always happen.

Time for RMA? btw my friend has exactly this same problem on his R3E. I'm not sure if I'm out of warranty as well, have to contact my old colleague in the store I bought it from (open box).

Luckily I still have my ol' trusty P6T6 and i7-965! I just threw two of my 580s in it and of course I could transfer the SSDs and games as well! To be honest, I haven't been too impressed at all with my R3E, I liked my P6T6 much more. It could run my 990X at 4.5 with lower volts than my R3E..

I had this issue when I had a dying USB device plugged in. Try unplugging all USB and booting. if it helps, plug each one in one by one, and boot to figure out what device is dying.

This issue will also happen some times if you have a cdrom in your drive that's marked bootable but has no OS. Same thing with a usb flash drive.

Yup, i'm aware of that risk...i refer to this thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...20-1.65V-*HOT*

he uses the same proc as i'm using, that's why i'm a bit dare to take the risk for going beyond 1.45v of cpu/vtt

however, i will try with 2k dram and 4k uncore with 1.45cpu/vtt..and btw, is going above 1.5v considered safe for 24/7..?

1.45v is max 'safe' for 24/7. Intel says 1.4 with overshoot of .05v, so even 1.45 is 'bending' the rules on safety. I read the link you posted. You need to re-read the first post. He says that Turbo-V is misreporting the voltages and they are not that high. 1.65v is DDR Voltage, NOT qpi/vtt.

[xarot]

I have no other USB devices than mouse and keyboard. Nothing in the DVD tray.

My sound card has started to disappear now as well, yesterday once and today I've been without sound. RMA..

[kaka_89]

Owh..yeahhh..now i notice the statement..btw, what is your qpi/vtt..?..are you running it on 24/7...?..

Can i know what is the lowest timing which cn be describe as the best..?..so far that i know is the 7-8-7-20..

[zoson]

Owh..yeahhh..now i notice the statement..btw, what is your qpi/vtt..?..are you running it on 24/7...?..

Can i know what is the lowest timing which cn be describe as the best..?..so far that i know is the 7-8-7-20..

I have a Gulftown. It's different than a Bloomfield. I run my QPI/VTT at 1.35v max for 24/7. Bloomfield can run QPI/VTT at 1.45v max for 24/7.

Timings all depends on your memory. You'll have to test trial and error to find out the best timings your ram can do.

[micromini]

Hi guys,

I recently upgraded from R2E to R3E and have my system on 20x200 with the same bios settings as when i had R2E.
The thing is that the computer is stable in windows/games using these settings but i get overclocking failed when i reboot my computer, if i then turn it off and on again it boot fine!
anyone had this problem?

Which bios are you guys recommending/using for R3E? Currently I am on 1401.

Thanks in advance

[zoson]

Hi guys,

I recently upgraded from R2E to R3E and have my system on 20x200 with the same bios settings as when i had R2E.
The thing is that the computer is stable in windows/games using these settings but i get overclocking failed when i reboot my computer, if i then turn it off and on again it boot fine!
anyone had this problem?

Which bios are you guys recommending/using for R3E? Currently I am on 1401.

Thanks in advance

You only need 1401 if you have an i7 980(non x). It is arguable between 1005, 0003, and 1301 for best bios.
0003 offers memory overclocking options not available on any other bios.

[dionysus]

Need help!!!!

So yesterday I decided to update my Intel SSD X25 80 Gb firmware. I followed all the instructions as per Intel and it went without a hitch.
I saved the file to ISO and ripped it to CD set my bios to boot to CD and followed the firmware instructions again all went well.

After I rebooted the system I went into the bios to load my O/C profile, I had set it to default prior to the SSD firmware.

The really strange thing now is that whenever I boot my system to windows my bios overclock setting do not seat, in other words I can set it in bios make the changes but the changes do not save. I have it set to 4.011 ghz overclock its been my 24/7 overclock.

So I then I loaded the default bios settings and made a slight change for example boot without the ROP logo and it does make that change but the overclock never changes it stay at the default cpu clock in my case i7- 950 2.8ghz.
The bios allow me to make subtle changes but anything related to overclocking will not work even if I try the cpu level up feature.

I then booted to the second bios and tried to make the same changes that are on bios 1 save exit and still no changes it still boots to the default cpu.
This is really stange I then decided to plus the cmos battery and reset that doent help not sure what to try next other than pulling the processor out any help will be appreciated.

[dionysus]

Let me also add that I flashed the bios of the motherboard to 1401 and then tried to load the O/C profile and it still will not make the changes in the bios to my oc/ settings.

[dMITIj]

You only need 1401 if you have an i7 980(non x). It is arguable between 1005, 0003, and 1301 for best bios.
0003 offers memory overclocking options not available on any other bios.

were can i downloade this 0003 BIOS?

[zoson]

http://tinyurl.com/3js5336
I used google and found it in the first hit.

[gotendbz1]

just picked up a m4 ssd. is the sata 3 controller bootable?

[zoson]

just picked up a m4 ssd. is the sata 3 controller bootable?

yes, but you might get better overall performance on the intel sata 2 controller anyway.

[zoson]

Thanks for your help. I must have flicked off that setting when i first installed the program by accident. I did a little messing around and I've come to believe that my RAM is what is giving me grief when I try to overclock. I'm able to get it to 1600 with no problems, but even though it's rated at 2000, I can't run it that high without my computer failing to boot (while pushing roughly 4+ GHz clocks). I don't know what voltages I could bump to improve that. Anyways, I do remember the guys I got the RAM from saying they had to put it down to 1866 to get it through their stability test, I'm assuming they have some kind of program like memtest86.

Here is another submission;

Kyprioth | Core i7 990x [6C 6T] @ 4610.7MHz | 1.450 | ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | Water | 3045A751



There's so many runs because I had to go to work, and I needed it to still be running when I got home so I could take the screenshot with LinX still running. I assume the GFlops are low because the RAM is at 1600, but my chip isn't a sandybridge and i'm not going for the 5GHz club so it shouldn't matter if i'm below 100 for this submission.

Any tips on improving the RAM speed or timings at all? It's two triple DIMM packs of Corsair Dominator GT.

The submission looks good. Great voltage for that speed for sure.
You'll probably only be able to run up to about 1833-1866 with that much ram. It puts a large strain on the IMC of your cpu. You might have to increase QPI/DRAM voltage and DRAM voltage to get there.

Here's my current setup:

Everything you need is there. The only things HWMON mislabels is CPU PLL(I think this is really -12v), and IOH PCIE +1.5V(which is really CPU PLL).
I stuck with 4.4ghz HT on rather than going for 4.6 HT off. I'm running mixed module sizes, too. It really just seems like once you go beyond 12gb mem, you end up killing your ability to get past the mid 1800's. Populating the second sockets also makes me have to drop my uncore from 3.6 to 3.3ghz. You'll want to run with as high as possible uncore speed for maximum memory performance.

[dMITIj]

hmm
what will the best BIOS be for a i7 920?

[Kyprioth]

The submission looks good. Great voltage for that speed for sure.
You'll probably only be able to run up to about 1833-1866 with that much ram. It puts a large strain on the IMC of your cpu. You might have to increase QPI/DRAM voltage and DRAM voltage to get there.

...pic removed from quote...

Everything you need is there. The only things HWMON mislabels is CPU PLL(I think this is really -12v), and IOH PCIE +1.5V(which is really CPU PLL).
I stuck with 4.4ghz HT on rather than going for 4.6 HT off. I'm running mixed module sizes, too. It really just seems like once you go beyond 12gb mem, you end up killing your ability to get past the mid 1800's. Populating the second sockets also makes me have to drop my uncore from 3.6 to 3.3ghz. You'll want to run with as high as possible uncore speed for maximum memory performance.

Great, I really appreciate your help. I'm going to try changing some things right now, I'll either edit this post or post again later if there's a few others.

EDIT - You were right, I can get the RAM up at 1864 without complaint and improve the Gflops, slightly. I'll run a full LinX test while I'm sleeping later (takes around 20 mins per pass on max settings with 24GB).

[evm]

I am looking to find out where to install the thermal sensors that came with my ASUS Rampge III. I have never attached a thermal sensor before so I have no idea where or how to do it. I don't even know where the sensors get attached to for their power from the MB. Could someone please help?

[zoson]

Got a new i7 980x! Batch 3013A540. Doing 4.4ghz with 1.45vCore, 3.6ghz UCLK with 18GB memory running 1834MHz at 1.35v QPI. Best chip I've had so far by a long shot. The core is better than any I've had before and the UCLK is just as good as the best one I've had (3.6ghz with only 1.35v qpi). Gonna be shooting for top 10 gulftowns in the 4.5ghz club for sure.

[BranFB]

Anyone having solution for Stuck at post "Initializing USB Controllers... Done!"

[zoson]

I heard that disabling your onboard sound sometimes helps in that situation branfb.

[BranFB]

No go... cant go into bios

[zoson]

if you use bios2, does it help?
Have you reset cmos?
cleared cmos via battery reset?
i assume you unplugged all usb devices?

[sdgserv]

Just picked one of these up..Can I use 2, 4 pin power connects or do I have to use 2 8pins. on the mobo?
Thanks

[Toritechie]

Just a quick question; anyone here using 3 x 4GB sticks - in particular Corsair Dominator 2000mhz GT's?

I've read that it's a bit more difficult to hold high ram clocks with 4GB sticks? Currently running 3 x 2GB Gskill Tridents @ 2080mhz 9-9-9-24 @ 3815Mhz QPI.

I'd hope to do the same with the GT's; if there are no issues with 4GB sticks.

[zoson]

I have 3x 4gb sticks rated for 2000mhz cas 9-9-9-25 and they run perfectly well. They're mushkin blackline sticks with elpida BBSE IC's.
It's when you go beyond 12gb that the real issues with speed start.

[Leeghoofd]

No problem here with 12GB Gskill Snipers (1600C7) at 2000 9-10-9-24 Trfc 90 1T at 1.6Vdimm... with the RE3 to get best performance it might be required to manually adjust the RTL values... sometimes higher speeds result in bad auto RTL setting, crippling performance...