ASUS Striker Extreme Revisited

Boo my 1700 MHz FSB failed a stress test -_-

Seems like at the moment I can only get 1600 MHz FSB working, I did a 5 hour test with Orthos + 3D Mark 06 no probs.

Before, if I ran it for a few hours it would just shut my entire system down, which is kinda weird, no crashes. I'm wondering if I'm not getting enough power?

CPU under load is about 47c, MB is 48c, freaking video card is close to 90c!! ~__~

Maybe a little more tweaking I can get a stable 1700, and with new BIOS maybe even further hehe (dream dream). I tried booting with 2000 by accident, couldn't even pass initial boot test, showed CPU @ 3.5 GHz then hard stalled hehe.
 
Outlawsys said:
question does lowering the multiplier lessen the achieved speed ?
i can't seem to get near 3.4 at 9mutiplier...but i can using a higher FSB at 8 multipier.

I read in another post on a different site that doing that actually is slower.

thanks ahead of time to anyone that replies.
Click to expand...

Well it is a matter of mathematics. Dropping your multiplier will in fact lower your final CPU clock speed. But running a CPU at 3.0GHz with an x8 multiplier is no worse than doing it with a x9 multiplier. In fact, theoretically, the higher FSB speed with a lower multiplier would be more desireable.
 
Dan_D said:
Well it is a matter of mathematics. Dropping your multiplier will in fact lower your final CPU clock speed. But running a CPU at 3.0GHz with an x8 multiplier is no worse than doing it with a x9 multiplier. In fact, theoretically, the higher FSB speed with a lower multiplier would be more desireable.
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Haven't benchs shown that higher FSBs on the 680i result in increased latency? I believe that is also true for memory clocks, meaning that tighter timings @ lower speeds are significantly better than loose timings at higher speeds.
 
GhostDog said:
Haven't benchs shown that higher FSBs on the 680i result in increased latency? I believe that is also true for memory clocks, meaning that tighter timings @ lower speeds are significantly better than loose timings at higher speeds.
Click to expand...

I don't know. I haven't looked into it too much. As far as the timings, my experience tells me that the difference on the Intel processor based machines isn't earth shattering. The AMD systems bennefit from tighter timings far more than the Intel's do.
 
I wanted to let you know I was one of the guys that was pretty shocked at how the Striker wasnt working out for you.

I will tell you this. I called Asus Support the day I got it to help set up my raid. They were very nice to me on the phone but man, they didnt even have the manual that comes with the board yet. I couldnt believe it. Finally the technician was able to aquire the info that the bootable device in cmos will simply appear as hard drive not SATA raid which is what I have been used to. I also had a little confusion in creating and using the raid driver floppy disk. Loading the 2 drivers back to back. I was not familiar with this but they were able to figure out over the phone that is what I was not doing. That was some good phone support becuase I know. That is part of my business.

They moved the Striker out I guess as fast as possible in small quantities to 1000s of venders I guess. I think I got mine in the earlier phase of the release. I infact got mine for $375.

I have been lurking on the Asus site about the Striker and their are alot of beta bios going on. I think ultimately the board is going to really be what it is meant to be.

Not trying to tell you guys anything because you really technically should have way more experience with any new piece of hardware but I have 7 computers all with Asus Motherboards. I even have a P2B that works great with a slot 1 600mhz processor on it. 3 Sound cards (ISA) and a Creative Labs Geforce2 Ultra in it.

I have a CUSL and the CUSL2. I have overclocked these boards successfully well with the auto features they give you. I have always run into stability problems using a manual OC and especially voltage changes.

This was most prevalent on my P4C800E - Deluxe board with a 3.2ghz CPU. With air cooling with my current Thermaltake 6000 rpm jet engine fan heatsink on it I can only get it to run stable at 3.3ghz. I think if I got a Zalman and some arctic silver on it. Updated the bios and made sure I got some good exaust I can get more now.

So basically , yea , it seems that the trend with all Asus Mother Boards is that for stable Overclocked systems it is best to go with the Auto feature. So with the Striker when you use the Tweaker I use AI - Overclock and after I updated to the 0505 bios I actually can set it to the max setting of %20.

I have been told repeatedly that I can get way more out of my CPU but after reading this thread about the EVGA board and my personal Overclocking experiences in real time gameing situations really pushing the processor to the limit is going to notoriously result in lockups , etc.

There are 4 ways to Overclock I believe or 3. AI - Nos I think is the same thing as AI - overclock its just done with a software app in windows. it still uses the percent way of Ocing.

At the time you talked with the Asus guys they didnt know enough about the board just like with me. But they will tell you now how good it is.

I look forward to future Bioses but I am not going to try a beta bios. You guys can but these boards are hard to get.

Really interesting about EVGA though because I personally like the company a lot. I feel bad that they are experiencing issues with their board.

I want to know if the external raid controller is better than the internal. Just the fact that with the Striker there is an external SATA raid controller available ups the cost and value of the board you know.
 
Did you ask them what happened to the PCI clock 33mhz setting. Maybe this is why theres sound crackling in sli mode. I have spoken to many people who own this board and NO ONE has this feature in there bios settings. Maybe asus was so busy on all the other features and they forgot to put this one in.
 
infospace said:
Did you ask them what happened to the PCI clock 33mhz setting. Maybe this is why theres sound crackling in sli mode. I have spoken to many people who own this board and NO ONE has this feature in there bios settings. Maybe asus was so busy on all the other features and they forgot to put this one in.
Click to expand...

I got my crackling problem solved with an Audigy SE. The Creative X-Fi didn't work worth a damn, and niether does the onboard audio. The onboard audio crackles when SLI is disabled, and the Creative X-Fi only works when SLI is disabled, but doesn't crackle or anything.

With the Audigy SE, no problems with SLI enabled or disabled.
 
The sound crackling issue is with the nForce based chipsets running in SLI mode with the X-Fi board. Even happened with the older 570 chipset, and if you go onto EVGA's board, lots of people are having the cracking noise with the 680i boards.
 
chanchan said:
The sound crackling issue is with the nForce based chipsets running in SLI mode with the X-Fi board. Even happened with the older 570 chipset, and if you go onto EVGA's board, lots of people are having the cracking noise with the 680i boards.
Click to expand...

I also experienced the rice crispies issue with the eVGA 680i's onboard audio, the Striker Extreme's onboard audio and the Creative X-Fi on both boards. All known current and older BIOS versions were tried as well as all known driver versions. The issue was not solvable. I've tried different speakers and headphones to no success.
 
Just a thought you think maybe its because these cards are sharing the same IRQ (soundcard and video card)
 
There is a new BIOS, 0701, on both the ftp and website now. I'm going to give it a try.


List of fixes:
Striker Extreme Release BIOS 0701
1. Fixed NB Core voltage setting error when CMOS fail
2. Enable support for Conroe 1333MHz processor
3. Fixed VID incorrect after OC to 1201Mhz(FSB)
4. Added New Micro Code to support new CPU
5. Finetune CPU temperature calculation algorithm
6. Displays "Press TAB to display BIOS POST Message" string even when full screen logo is enabled.
7. Correct incorrect info under Summary screen.
8. Correct "SLI-Ready Memory Detected" display problem at POST
9. Fixed CPU not restore back to original frequncy after CPR
10. Add help string for HPET item.
 
eva2000 said:
No SLI/sound issue
Click to expand...

Are you running 8800s in SLI? GTX?
Which specific games have you tried?
F.E.A.R. multiplayer has been crackling on me with the onboard sound, but after playing a few hours I can say it is much better after installing my old Audigy 2 ZS.
I tried both Quake 4 and Doom3 last night and they both seem okay.
 
eva2000 said:
No SLI/sound issue or SATA issue with my retail sample striker http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=3478 so far

It takes time to tweak and tune your voltages and settings for optimal stability and performance.... so be very patient :)
Click to expand...

Same here, totally no sound probs with my Striker Extreme. However, I'm not running in SLI mode and that seems to be the source of the problem.

Maybe it has something to do with the linkboost feature, tho linkboost is also activated with one 8800 card too if i'm right.
 
Ob3r0n said:
Same here, totally no sound probs with my Striker Extreme. However, I'm not running in SLI mode.
Click to expand...

I have major sound issues with mine. They've been getting worse over time too.
 
Ob3r0n said:
Same here, totally no sound probs with my Striker Extreme. However, I'm not running in SLI mode and that seems to be the source of the problem.

Maybe it has something to do with the linkboost feature, tho linkboost is also activated with one 8800 card too if i'm right.
Click to expand...
Yup linkboost normally activates even in non-SLI configs

Disabled
linkboost_1.jpg


Enabled
linkboost_2.jpg


I have linkboost and GPU ex disabled in bios.. linkboost gave me instability in 3dmarks with 8800GTS SLI.. and anyway enabled only gave me a slight boost in benchmarks (30pts in 3dmark06). So best to leave linkboost and GPU ex disabled.

I also have PCI-E and SPP->MCP ref clocked fixed at 100mhz and 200mhz respectively.



And left HT link at x5 although option to set it as high as x8. Anyone try raising or lowering HT link and see how it effects SLI/sound issue ?
 
morphine said:
There is a new BIOS, 0701, on both the ftp and website now. I'm going to give it a try.


List of fixes:
Striker Extreme Release BIOS 0701
1. Fixed NB Core voltage setting error when CMOS fail
2. Enable support for Conroe 1333MHz processor
3. Fixed VID incorrect after OC to 1201Mhz(FSB)
4. Added New Micro Code to support new CPU
5. Finetune CPU temperature calculation algorithm
6. Displays "Press TAB to display BIOS POST Message" string even when full screen logo is enabled.
7. Correct incorrect info under Summary screen.
8. Correct "SLI-Ready Memory Detected" display problem at POST
9. Fixed CPU not restore back to original frequncy after CPR
10. Add help string for HPET item.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the post about the new 0701 BIOS. I love new BIOS updates. They are like little pieces of heaven. I just flashed to the 0505 BIOS the other day, but what a lovely suprise to see they have an even newer one out. Maybe I will be able to get a stable overclock now.
 
I got a second 8800GTX last week. When I had just one GTX, my system was perfectly stable with my overclock and with linkboost enabled. After putting in the second GTX, I have the sound issue with SLI enabled, and even with SLI disabled I will get a bluescreen randomly (usually after an hour or more of gaming, but once only after a few minutes). I also find it extremely funny that my X-Fi and both GTXs are now sharing the same IRQ (16, IIRC); what's worse is that there are several other IRQs that are unassigned. I'm going to try the 0701 bios when I get home, and hopefully that will fix the SLI issue.
 
0701 actually seems to give me a few EXTRA pops and crackles with SLI and the Audigy 2 ZS.




:rolleyes:
 
morphine said:
0701 actually seems to give me a few EXTRA pops and crackles with SLI and the Audigy 2 ZS.




:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I'll try it on mine when I get home. Hopefully it helps with my issues.
 
eva2000 said:
And left HT link at x5 although option to set it as high as x8. Anyone try raising or lowering HT link and see how it effects SLI/sound issue ?
Click to expand...

Good suggestion.
Moving to x6 seems to have lessened the amount of crackling.
Going down to x4 did not make a difference.
I'll keep playing with it and see what happens.
 
morphine said:
Good suggestion.
Moving to x6 seems to have lessened the amount of crackling.
Going down to x4 did not make a difference.
I'll keep playing with it and see what happens.
Click to expand...
sounds promising.. sounds like with SLI/sound might want more bandwidth between them :)

maybe more of an issue with 8800GTX SLI and not 8800GTS SLI
 
BIOS 0802 is up on Asus' FTP server. So far I've tested it on stock settings, and the SLI-sound card issue is gone (FINALLY). I'm going to play around with it on my OC settings, now.
 
So far it's working with my OC. I've tried Company of Heroes, Medieval 2, BF2142 and Oblivion, with no issues. I also had the SLI load bars on and fraps running just to make sure SLI was enabled and performing as expected.
 
ArrowMk84 said:
So far it's working with my OC. I've tried Company of Heroes, Medieval 2, BF2142 and Oblivion, with no issues. I also had the SLI load bars on and fraps running just to make sure SLI was enabled and performing as expected.
Click to expand...


Well I flashed the BIOS and the now the system won't boot. Thanks ASUS!
 
Dan_D said:
Well I flashed the BIOS and the now the system won't boot. Thanks ASUS!
Click to expand...

Ouch. There's a thread in the Asus forum when people were having trouble with flashing to 0701 when it was released. I don't know if it will be of much help to you, since you've probably already done what they've posted (its mainly common sense stuff).

Edit: Did you use the AsusUpdate Windows flasher, or did you use EZFlash or a floppy? The AsusUpdate program is known to screw up (although I've never had a problem with it).
 
ArrowMk84 said:
Ouch. There's a thread in the Asus forum when people were having trouble with flashing to 0701 when it was released. I don't know if it will be of much help to you, since you've probably already done what they've posted (its mainly common sense stuff).

Edit: Did you use the AsusUpdate Windows flasher, or did you use EZFlash or a floppy? The AsusUpdate program is known to screw up (although I've never had a problem with it).
Click to expand...


I used the ASUS Update Windows utility. I've never had an issue with them in the past, and I refuse to have a floppy drive in my system. I realize you can use a USB flash drive, but I didn't have one handy. Not to mention I already own two eVGA 8800GTXs.

What's odd is the motherboard manual has NO troubleshooting section and I can't find anything about BIOS recovery anywhere for this board. If it doesn't have such a feature I am going to be seriously angry with ASUS.

In general, the 680i chipset has been a personal nightmare for me. I'm seriously thinking about shoving the P5W DH into my machine and saying screw SLI. Though I don't want to because at 2560x1600 I've found the extra performance to come in handy.
 
these are not the posts I like to read while contemplating my 680i mobo. whew.. that sucks man.. I mean Dan.. D.

maybe turn the 3007 in for a LVM-37W3 and go single 8800 with a quad core on the p5w dh? I should prolly be going the same route.. I am starting to stress my single 8800GTX with all my Oblivion mods.. and it's only going to get more intense from here. :) anyways.. I'm hoping the Abit and Gigabyte 680i boards fair better than the Asus and Foxcon ones have so far.. but I haven't heard of much complaining on the Foxconn variants of late..
 
Woah is anyone else having problems flashing to the new 80XX BIOS?

Hopefully it will let me do more overclocking!! My goal is 1800 MHz FSB, go E6300 goooooooo!!!
 
chanchan said:
Woah is anyone else having problems flashing to the new 80XX BIOS?

Hopefully it will let me do more overclocking!! My goal is 1800 MHz FSB, go E6300 goooooooo!!!
Click to expand...

Yeah I am having issues. I don't recommend flashing to the 0802 BIOS unless you have the SLI and sound issues.
 
Dan_D said:
Yeah I am having issues. I don't recommend flashing to the 0802 BIOS unless you have the SLI and sound issues.
Click to expand...

And if you do flash, use the EZ Flash utility or a floppy. After doing some more reading, the Windows flash program is akin to Russian Roulette.

Now that I've owned two SLI machines (the first was a NF4 board with a 4800+ and two 7800GTXs), I have to say I'm not going down this path again. The first machine loved to crash, and why this machine has been stable with (for the three hours I've had SLI working...), the wait to get the BIOS update was excessive. On the flip-side, the P5W DH I had while waiting for the NF6 boards to come out was as solid as rock, and since we now have high-end cards the handle 1920x1200 by themselves, going SLI was probably a waste (at least the second 8800 was a step-up and didn't cost much).
 
ArrowMk84 said:
And if you do flash, use the EZ Flash utility or a floppy. After doing some more reading, the Windows flash program is akin to Russian Roulette.

Now that I've owned two SLI machines (the first was a NF4 board with a 4800+ and two 7800GTXs), I have to say I'm not going down this path again. The first machine loved to crash, and why this machine has been stable with (for the three hours I've had SLI working...), the wait to get the BIOS update was excessive. On the flip-side, the P5W DH I had while waiting for the NF6 boards to come out was as solid as rock, and since we now have high-end cards the handle 1920x1200 by themselves, going SLI was probably a waste (at least the second 8800 was a step-up and didn't cost much).
Click to expand...

Well I can't get this thing to come back up. So far I've not been able to find any information on BIOS recovery for this thing. It may be RMA time.
 
Just flashed to 0802 using my USB drive.
Went fine.
SLI and sound issue does seem to be fixed!
 
Dan_D said:
Well I can't get this thing to come back up. So far I've not been able to find any information on BIOS recovery for this thing. It may be RMA time.
Click to expand...

I've gone through my manual and several pages of the Asus site, and I haven't been able to find anything that can help you, either.
 
ArrowMk84 said:
I've gone through my manual and several pages of the Asus site, and I haven't been able to find anything that can help you, either.
Click to expand...

I appreciate it. I'll keep looking and trying to make this thing work.
 
Just flashed with the EZ Flash utility in BIOS from a usb drive...no problems. It has been posted quite a few times in the asus forums that the windows-based bios update utility..at least for this board.... is problematic...good luck, Dan. If you figure out how to save your board, others will be thankful. I don't believe the 0802 bios is bad, just the flash method. I would recommend flashing through EZ Flash in the bios.
 
Texxxxx said:
Just flashed with the EZ Flash utility in BIOS from a usb drive...no problems. It has been posted quite a few times in the asus forums that the windows-based bios update utility..at least for this board.... is problematic...good luck, Dan. If you figure out how to save your board, others will be thankful. I don't believe the 0802 bios is bad, just the flash method. I would recommend flashing through EZ Flash in the bios.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this thing is now a no POST. I have no other options at this point unless there is a BIOS flash recovery method. I've tried methods similar to those found on other boards without success.
 
revenant said:
maybe turn the 3007 in for a LVM-37W3 and go single 8800 with a quad core on the p5w dh? I should prolly be going the same route.. I am starting to stress my single 8800GTX with all my Oblivion mods.. and it's only going to get more intense from here. :)
Click to expand...

No. I prefer the Dell 3007WFP and 2560x1600 to 1920x1080 on the 37". The Westy is a fine unit, but I see no reason to spend another $1000+ on a monitor. I'd sooner buy another 680i board. Hopefully I can either recover this thing get it RMA'ed.

I've NEVER had this problem with a BIOS flash in my life. I've probably flashed the BIOS on a hundred boards or more and some multiple times with out any issues. This just plain sucks.

The Windows flash utility not being reliable is plain bullshit. In my opinion this is unacceptable. Compaq can get Windows flashing right, there is absolutely no reason why any other manufacturer shouldn't be able to do the same since the bar has already been set so low.

God computer part manufacturers piss me off sometimes.
 
I hear ya.. I have been contemplating the Westy also.. but right now I need to beef up the back end before dropping a grand on another monitor.. The 3007 to the Westy transition would be about a wash in some ways, you pick up some screen real estate with the Westy, but loose some res.. so anyways.

man, this really sucks about the flash... I put this in another post, but did you try pulling all power from the board for an hour or so.. psu cables and bios battery.. leave it for an hour, then try booting with only 1 video card, 1 stick memory, and the cpu... nothing else..

I wish I WISH more dual bios configs would be used on these enthusiast boards.. every so often these things do go bad, like now, and with these bleeding edge boards people flash them way more often so it's tempting fate, sort of, to not have a backup bios, imo. I have had scares before, but never a complete bad flash.. my MSI neo4 plat sli acted like it died after a flash, then I left the machine on, in a power up attempt state, and after 5 mins it went into "fail safe mode" and came on... I thought it was toast.. I assume you also tried to leave the machine in boot attempt to try and trigger such a thing? But I guess my p5w seems to do fail safe very quick like and comes back saying it didn't like a bios setting.. but you don't have to wait.. I would guess the striker like that also.. hrm.
 
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