Striker Extreme Voltage Advice

R

ram990

n00b
Joined
Jan 17, 2007
Messages
27
Please could someone help me with voltage advice.

I have a Striker Extreme (you can see my setup in my sig) and it's having some instability issues. I get blue screens frequently when trying to play games and occasionally when doing very mundane tasks in Windows.

I have tested my RAM using Windows RAM test booted from a floppy and all the tests were successful.

So my thoughts have turned to voltages. I've never been brave enough to dabble with changing the voltages but I have heard people saying about RAM being run at 2.2V and over and checking my RAM it's only at 1.87V.

Here is a list of the voltages from the hardware monitor in the BIOS. Please could someone who is confident in this stuff just give it a once over and provide advice as to whether it's good or whether certain ones should be changed and what to.

The mobo is running at stock speeds.

Vcore = 1.32V,
Memory = 1.87V,
1.2HT = 1.50V,
NB Voltage = 1.42V,
SB Voltage = 1.52,
CPU VTT Voltage = 1.24V,
DDR2 Termination Voltage = 0.94,
3.3V = 3.26V,
5V = 4.99V and
12V = 11.90V.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers
 
ram990 said:
Please could someone help me with voltage advice.

I have a Striker Extreme (you can see my setup in my sig) and it's having some instability issues. I get blue screens frequently when trying to play games and occasionally when doing very mundane tasks in Windows.

I have tested my RAM using Windows RAM test booted from a floppy and all the tests were successful.

So my thoughts have turned to voltages. I've never been brave enough to dabble with changing the voltages but I have heard people saying about RAM being run at 2.2V and over and checking my RAM it's only at 1.87V.

Here is a list of the voltages from the hardware monitor in the BIOS. Please could someone who is confident in this stuff just give it a once over and provide advice as to whether it's good or whether certain ones should be changed and what to.

The mobo is running at stock speeds.

Vcore = 1.32V,
Memory = 1.87V,
1.2HT = 1.50V,
NB Voltage = 1.42V,
SB Voltage = 1.52,
CPU VTT Voltage = 1.24V,
DDR2 Termination Voltage = 0.94,
3.3V = 3.26V,
5V = 4.99V and
12V = 11.90V.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Bring your memory voltage up. 680i boards seem to like high memory voltage. Otherwise everything looks ok. Your 3.3v, 5v, and 12v are a little low. You want to monitor that. They are still within the correct range, and ASUS boards are known for V droop, but you might want to put a multi-meter it your PSU if you have one and see what it's out put is on those lines. You want to make sure that your power isn't fluctuating, and that it is stable.

Suggestion for memory voltage=2.0v, 2.1v or even 2.3v.
 
Thanks Dan, I've upped the RAM voltage to 2.1V and will see how I go.

Might this low voltage account for blue screens, crashes and/or data corruption? Or is that all part of the fun of owning a 680i chipset?
 
ram990 said:
Thanks Dan, I've upped the RAM voltage to 2.1V and will see how I go.

Might this low voltage account for blue screens, crashes and/or data corruption? Or is that all part of the fun of owning a 680i chipset?
Click to expand...

The low voltage of the ram could very well account for the issues you've been having. I know my memory is automatically set for 2.3v on every 680i board I've used it with. It works at 2.1v, but automatically it's always 2.3v.
 
Really? I had all my settings to AUTO and my RAM was at 1.87V.

I'm going to reinstall Windows again tonight and if I have no luck I'm going to ditch the RAID and see if I fare any better.

Actually I wanted to test each of the hard drives and wondered if you could suggest a program to use. I used to use IBMs Drive Fitness Test but it doesn't like RAID volumes, and it didn't seem to like scanning each drive once it'd been assigned to the array.
 
ram990 said:
Really? I had all my settings to AUTO and my RAM was at 1.87V.

I'm going to reinstall Windows again tonight and if I have no luck I'm going to ditch the RAID and see if I fare any better.

Actually I wanted to test each of the hard drives and wondered if you could suggest a program to use. I used to use IBMs Drive Fitness Test but it doesn't like RAID volumes, and it didn't seem to like scanning each drive once it'd been assigned to the array.
Click to expand...

Well all memory modules are different. The modules I am using are SLI (EPP) modules and therefore that could account for the extremely high voltage settings. I don't think the RAID is your problem. The Striker Extreme has never been reported to have the SATA issues that the 680i reference boards have. Or at least if the Striker does, I am unaware of it.

As far as drive testing, there are some good tools on the Ultimate Boot CD and Hirom's Boot CD. Both of which can be found on the internet.
 
Dan,

I wanted to ask you a question about the striker 4 pin 12 voltage. Is it okay to just put a 4 pin in or do I have to put both 4 pins in. My power supply has 2 of these 4 pin cables tied together a 600 watt thermaltake. When I go into the bios my 12V shows 11.64V

On the Asus P5wdh it has one of the 4 pin sockets covered with a tab. So do you put just 1 in it or do I uncover the tab and put both 4 pin connectors in? The commano also has the plastic tab over 1 of the 4 pin connectors covered. What do I do on these 2 boards and what do I do on the striker. Im a bit confused here.:confused:
 
infospace said:
Dan,

I wanted to ask you a question about the striker 4 pin 12 voltage. Is it okay to just put a 4 pin in or do I have to put both 4 pins in. My power supply has 2 of these 4 pin cables tied together a 600 watt thermaltake. When I go into the bios my 12V shows 11.64V

On the Asus P5wdh it has one of the 4 pin sockets covered with a tab. So do you put just 1 in it or do I uncover the tab and put both 4 pin connectors in? The commano also has the plastic tab over 1 of the 4 pin connectors covered. What do I do on these 2 boards and what do I do on the striker. Im a bit confused here.:confused:
Click to expand...

You can get buy with using only the four uncovered pins, but I'd recommend using both sets of four if your power supply supports it.
 
I don't understand it then Dan, I'm now getting to a point where it'll blue screen during the windows set up. Sometimes it'll boot up and not recognise one of the three drives (not always the same one though) so the RAID array will fail.

The RAM I have from Corsair says it's tested at 2.1V so I'm sticking with that for the time being.

I'm going to try setting it up with just one of the sticks of RAM to make sure it's not a dual channel problem or something like that.

Other than that it's going to be a full dismantle as I read a forum with a guy having similar problem and it turned out to be a tiny piece of plastic under his chip which he hadn't noticed and it'd just been causing the CPU to mess it's calculations up and hence nothing worked properly. He said once he removed it the mobo was solid as a rock.

Only problem I have is I used a Zalman CNPS9700-NT which means I have to remove the mobo from the case to remove the HSF!

Btw if anyone reading this has a Zalman CNPS9700-NT, have you found an easy way of putting this HSF on? It's so large you can barely get to the mounting screws which seems like a major design flaw in my opinion as it doesn't feel like a very controlled install.
 
ram990 said:
I don't understand it then Dan, I'm now getting to a point where it'll blue screen during the windows set up. Sometimes it'll boot up and not recognise one of the three drives (not always the same one though) so the RAID array will fail.

The RAM I have from Corsair says it's tested at 2.1V so I'm sticking with that for the time being.

I'm going to try setting it up with just one of the sticks of RAM to make sure it's not a dual channel problem or something like that.

Other than that it's going to be a full dismantle as I read a forum with a guy having similar problem and it turned out to be a tiny piece of plastic under his chip which he hadn't noticed and it'd just been causing the CPU to mess it's calculations up and hence nothing worked properly. He said once he removed it the mobo was solid as a rock.

Only problem I have is I used a Zalman CNPS9700-NT which means I have to remove the mobo from the case to remove the HSF!

Btw if anyone reading this has a Zalman CNPS9700-NT, have you found an easy way of putting this HSF on? It's so large you can barely get to the mounting screws which seems like a major design flaw in my opinion as it doesn't feel like a very controlled install.
Click to expand...

I doubt it will be a dual channel problem. That was something very common to early Athlon 64 machines. I've never seen that on an Intel processor based PC. Try 2.3v on the memory. I think the Corsair Dominator memory modules I've got in my posession right now like higher voltages than 2.1v if memory serves.
 
Okay, 2.3V it is.

As a greater man than myself once said "Here Goes Nothing!"

Other than this I'm stumped, I'm loathed to dismantle the machine as it took so long to put together.

Anything else you can think of off the top of your head Dan? Any BIOS settings from default that I should watch out for?

All I've been changing in the BIOS from default is:

- The memory voltage,
- Enabling the RAID controller and enabling RAID for drives 1, 2 and 3,
- Changing the VGA slot from PCI to PCI-E,
- Changing Plug and Play OS to yes,
- Disabling the USB controller (as i have a USB card reader which takes up drives C and D when trying to install windows) and that's about it.

I've also tried setting all other drives to none instead of auto and disabling the audio and the eSATA controller too in case it was an IRQ/resource issue but it just seems to be getting worse instead of better!
 
Do you think it might help to remove the audio card in case it is an IRQ thing?
 
It's odd it seems to be that certain people find certain things help, some people are saying that BIOS rev 0402 was the last stable version and that they've had no problems and are sticking with it for the time being. Others are saying it's RAM voltages (and timings), which goes along with what you've been saying Dan, others are blaming the RAID on the board.
 
Dan_D said:
You can get buy with using only the four uncovered pins, but I'd recommend using both sets of four if your power supply supports it.
Click to expand...

I don't know about this...it seems the manual is pretty specific about using one 4-pin for an ATX power supply.

2001611280064275497_rs.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]
 
Texxxxx said:
I don't know about this...it seems the manual is pretty specific about using one 4-pin for an ATX power supply.

Picture11169576906.jpg
[/IMG]
Click to expand...

Seems clear by looking at that diagram that you should use a 4 pin ATX PSU or an 8 pin ATX 2.0/EPS12v PSU.

If your power supply has an 8 pin connector, use both sides. If your power supply only has a single 4 pin connector, then use just that. I do this all the time. In fact, I own the same motherboard you speak of and a P5N32-E SLI, and I have used 8 pin power with both of them.
 
I'm sure you already know this, Dan, but I think ram990's question is stemming from the fact that some psu's...like mine...have 2 4-pin 12v connectors. I don't think the Striker manual directs you to plug both of these in. It says either a 4pin ATX or a 8pin EPS...not two 4pins....Now I'm confused...lol!

Just to clarify...this is the response from Asus Tech:

"Dear Sir/Madam,

With the CPU that youa re using you will need to use the 8-pin ATX12V connector."

So I plugged in the other 4pin...
 
Texxxxx said:
I'm sure you already know this, Dan, but I think ram990's question is stemming from the fact that some psu's...like mine...have 2 4-pin 12v connectors. I don't think the Striker manual directs you to plug both of these in. It says either a 4pin ATX or a 8pin EPS...not two 4pins....Now I'm confused...lol!
Click to expand...

All the PSUs I've seen with two 4 pin connectors are actually 8 pin connectors you can take apart in case you only need 1 4 pin connector.

Then again all the PSUs I've purchased in the last year and a half were all EPS12v compatible PSUs because I was using E-ATX dual processor Opteron boards in both my machines until recently.
 
The Galaxy 850W has an 8-pin connector and the 2 4-pin connectors which can be used as an 8pin too, there is a slight difference in that one of the pins on the 8-pin plug is square not rounded (which it is if the put the two 4-pin plugs together) which matches with the socket on the mobo so I used the 8-pin.

Also Dan, I believe I have found my problem, or at least the general area. I had my RAM cranked to 2.3V as recommended and it crashed and wouldn't boot. Kept saying 'CPU INIT' on the LCD poster so I used the trick of removing the RAM and inserting one 1GB stick of RAM in the slot furthest from the CPU (slot B2 I believe) and it booted fine. I then forgot to set my RAM back and went ahead installing windows and it worked without a problem, not a single blue screen or hang or anything so I think I've narrowed it down to either faulty RAM or a bad RAM config.

Now as I said before I've seen on another forum a chap said that after setting the RAM voltage and settings it worked fine. He said he had to specifiy dual channel and maually set timings but I don't know how to do this. I'm going to move it back over and see if it's stable working as single channel and if it works fine then at least I know the RAM is good and I just need to set my RAM settings.

If anyone knows how to set up RAM then I need your help!
 
Under the Extreme Tweaker section of the BIOS you will find FSB and Memory Configuration. Here is where you set your ram speed.

Linked mode typically works best on the 680i.

Under overclocking, you'll find the Memory Timing menu. There is where you will specify the timings for your memory. Just look up your memory settings for your ram on the web, and go from there. Just input the settings, and save. That's really all you have to do. You already know how to specify memory voltage so you are already set there.
 
This is the weirdest problem I've ever faced.

Now it'll boot up in to windows but only recognises 1 of the 2 gig sticks of RAM regardless of which slots I put them in!? BIOS reports only 1GB and Windows reports only 1GB.
 
ram990 said:
This is the weirdest problem I've ever faced.

Now it'll boot up in to windows but only recognises 1 of the 2 gig sticks of RAM regardless of which slots I put them in!? BIOS reports only 1GB and Windows reports only 1GB.
Click to expand...

It is starting to sound like bad memory, or a bad motherboard. One of the three components is certainly not working right. Have you run memtest86 on your ram?
 
Yes I have and sometimes it works fine and other times I get LOTS of errors. Once I've had my RAM settings right the RAM seems to test fine but I shall do some more conclusive testing and come back to you.

If I just test one stick at a time which slot do you suggest I use it in? Or should it not matter?
 
ram990 said:
Yes I have and sometimes it works fine and other times I get LOTS of errors. Once I've had my RAM settings right the RAM seems to test fine but I shall do some more conclusive testing and come back to you.

If I just test one stick at a time which slot do you suggest I use it in? Or should it not matter?
Click to expand...

It shouldn't matter. I'd test a single stick in multiple slots. The reason being, you might have a bad memory slot. I've seen stranger things happen.
 
With one of the sticks of RAM I seem to get errors on test 5 of MemTest86+ 'Block move, 64 moves'. Not always in the same place but the entry under the 'Err-bits' column is almost always '000000ff'.

I've just started the next stick and it's had two complete passes through test 5 with no errors.

Hmmmm, bad RAM.

I'm going to leave this stick testing for a few hourds and see if it errors.
 
For arguments sake let's call them stick 1 and stick 2.

Stick 1 errored in slot B2 with the error detailed above, I just left stick 2 doing the same full set of tests for 3 hours and had 14 successful passes.

I think it's fair to say one of those sticks of RAM is to blame.

Hopefully it's this stick of RAM and not the motherboard too which is faulty.
 
Scratch that, I'm getting some odd results.

Using slot B1 stick 1 gets 250000 errors on test 5, but now stick 2 gets 600+ errors on test 8.

Another interesting point seems to be that I can't seem to get it to boot using slots A1 or A2 anymore. That probably explains why it only sees 1GB of RAM :D. I have confirmed this by installing stick 1 to slot B1 and stick 2 to slot B2 and the BIOS and Windows both report 2GB of RAM.

Now to see what MemTest86+ makes of it.

Now it's suggesting motherboard problems. Anyone know of a low level mobo testing tool? Or do you think I have an argument to send it back, bearig in mind that I have flashed the BIOS many times and so it's no longer astock model.
 
Just my .02 , but I would return the Galaxy ,and get a Seasonic or comparable brand PSU, when I was researching PSU's to buy ,the galaxy's were showing some pritty hefty ripple under load, not what we want .

And definitly check your conectors from psu to anything to to make shure they are making positive connections, an open gap on female connectors or one thats popping out a little when pushed on could be a problem when a component demands power other than the minimum.

Like I said just my .02 but just what I would look into with your instability issues . my striker is running stable @ 3.5 but cant seem to get 3.6 stable so maybee Im not on par with voltage issues after all!:D
 
I've checked all the connectors a few times as I've had problems like that in the past, everything is in as tightly as I dare to push. I'll keep an eye on that PSU though as Dan already said that the 3.3V, 5V and 12V voltages seemed low.

That said though I don't think it would explain why the mobo no longer detects RAM in certain slots. Do you think that could cause that?
 
I ednded up sending my mobo back to the supplier for testing and I have accidentally ended up burning two pins off one of my DIMMS testing it in another machine so the saga continues.

Am I incompetent or just unlucky?
 
ram990 said:
I ednded up sending my mobo back to the supplier for testing and I have accidentally ended up burning two pins off one of my DIMMS testing it in another machine so the saga continues.

Am I incompetent or just unlucky?
Click to expand...

Just sounds like you got a bad board. Sucks, but it does happen sometimes. I got two bad eVGA 680i boards in a row.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine bought an eVGA 680i and I built a machine out of it and everything was fine. It was a very solid board that overclocks great and has zero issues.
 
I think it was bad RAM, I just tried testing the RAM on a workstation at work and fried the RAM slot. If one of the sticks of RAM was faulty and ruined the RAM slots on this machine then it might have been responsible for damaging the RAM slots on my Striker.

The thing is that when I first got the system up and running it would recognise the RAM in the dual channel slots and then it got worse and worse.

Anyways I've logged an RMA with Corsair to moan about the RAM and we'll see what they say.

Do you think my warranty will cover physical damage like this?
 
ram990 said:
I think it was bad RAM, I just tried testing the RAM on a workstation at work and fried the RAM slot. If one of the sticks of RAM was faulty and ruined the RAM slots on this machine then it might have been responsible for damaging the RAM slots on my Striker.

The thing is that when I first got the system up and running it would recognise the RAM in the dual channel slots and then it got worse and worse.

Anyways I've logged an RMA with Corsair to moan about the RAM and we'll see what they say.

Do you think my warranty will cover physical damage like this?
Click to expand...

If it got fried, it's a possibility. Just say it happened at default voltages and see what they say. You cold also PM Redbeard the Corsair rep for advice.
 
Question Dan,
I have the same Mobo and my voltages look about the same as RAM990. Just FYI, my memory is Corsair Dominator 8500 and I have 2 gigs worth. My PSU is a Corsair HX620.

On Auto my bios set the voltage for memory the same as above, 1.87v. When I set it up to 2.1 which should be spec for this memory, when I run PC probe it gives me an alert on DDR2 term. Standard is .94 v but when I set the memory voltage up the DDR2 term jumps to 1.7 v. Someone told me to just up the alert voltage level for DDR2 term in PC Probe. Do you agree with that?

I have no blue screens, everything seems to run fine. Just do not have the voltages and timings all tweaked out yet.

Oh, a note here in case it matters. With the memory set to auto in the bios it posts as 5-5-5-18 1T. But the spec for that memory is 5-5-5-15 2T @1066 fsb. Is running at 800 fsb right now. When I set the timing to 5-5-5-15 2T sometimes the bios will kick it back to 5-5-5-18 1T. I don't think I have this bios figured out yet.
 
Right, my RAM used to default to 1T when set to AUTO too. I shall bear that in mind with the sli memory.

Btw, I contacted RAM GUY on the official Corsair forums, owned up to what I had done but stressed that I it was underclocked and he just said to obtain and RMA number and they'd replace them so all good stuff.

Sent my mobo back to Overclockers UK and they received it today so we shall see what their tests show and whether they send me that one back or they send me a new one.
 
Sneak said:
Question Dan,
I have the same Mobo and my voltages look about the same as RAM990. Just FYI, my memory is Corsair Dominator 8500 and I have 2 gigs worth. My PSU is a Corsair HX620.

On Auto my bios set the voltage for memory the same as above, 1.87v. When I set it up to 2.1 which should be spec for this memory, when I run PC probe it gives me an alert on DDR2 term. Standard is .94 v but when I set the memory voltage up the DDR2 term jumps to 1.7 v. Someone told me to just up the alert voltage level for DDR2 term in PC Probe. Do you agree with that?

I have no blue screens, everything seems to run fine. Just do not have the voltages and timings all tweaked out yet.

Oh, a note here in case it matters. With the memory set to auto in the bios it posts as 5-5-5-18 1T. But the spec for that memory is 5-5-5-15 2T @1066 fsb. Is running at 800 fsb right now. When I set the timing to 5-5-5-15 2T sometimes the bios will kick it back to 5-5-5-18 1T. I don't think I have this bios figured out yet.
Click to expand...

Your memory is doing that because you don't have the SLI Memory feature disabled. For some reason SLI Ready Memory being enabled causes your ram to do stuff like that.
 
SLI memory is already disabled. It has been disabled from the start. Will have a look at that again on my next boot and post back.
 
I've been testing a lot of Corsair RAM, and sadly they seem to have lots of bad modules ... the funny thing is, this only happens with their XMS TwinX series and Dominator .. you'd think it's the top-of-the-line high quality stuff eh? Their value series never give me problems :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top