Asus Striker Extreme

andyr · 3 Feb 2007 at 20:51

Hi, wow some kit you have there , differences i cant comment on are sli as i dont have it and quad core , but i read last night on xtremesystemes that 5:6 was the strongest memory divider and my ram will now do 600Mhz be it at 5-5-5-15 but goes to show that the board is pickey about which divider you run mine up until that point wouldnt do 1066 ram speed but it will do 1200 :confused:

can you try with one graphics card just incase ,bit of a pain when you got them water cooled i know.
but i think the key is to pull off the passive cooling from the board and use either water or good active like swiftech mcx159 which for me would allow 2000fsb . on the sb you can fit a Thermaltake Extreme Spirit Ii even with Sli as long as you dont want the middle gfx slot

But the key is definatly in the nb cooling me thinks,

mast3r · 4 Feb 2007 at 23:52

redeye said:
I've just got my hands on one of these after four weeks of getting nowhere with an EVGA 680i SLi board (trashed one set of RAM, slow boots, unpredictable stability). Specs as follows:

QX6700
2GB OCZ Gold Edition 1100Mhz (PC8800) OCZ2G11002GK
2x EVGA 8800GTX
1x 150GB WD Raptor
1x 500GB WD Caviar
CPU & GPU's water cooled
Win XP Pro SP2

So last night I set it up, installed 0803, got the latest Nforce/Geforce/Ntune drivers. Got the QX6700 at 3.2Ghz nice and stable, GPU's at 620 Mem at 2Ghz. RAM wouldn't run at anything above 1066 even if I set it in the bios at 1100Mhz with correct 2.2v. In Windows CPUZ, Nvmonitor etc displays 1066Mhz. I can't o/c the FSB at all without it crashing, only the multiplyer is possible. So I left it as was.. thinking it was fast enough and most importantly stable.. unlike the EVGA.

So this morning comes round, boot up the system and ta da it crashes on first boot. Get's into windows blue screen flicks up then the system restarts. I've fiddled with the bios, specifically the Linkboost/ NvidiaEX settings and it seems slightly more stable but it freezes on startup for anything upto 20secs then continues to load. 3DMark 06 runs ok but all games are unpredictable, sometimes they are fine sometimes they crash and the system restarts. Almost identical problems to the EVGA board.

I've spent so much time over the past month trying to get a 680i board to work it's a joke. I've tried all the fixes on the ASUS forums, as I mentioned have tried an EVGA one but no joy. Think I need to get something else but they question is what. It seems these boards are brilliantly fast if you can get them working.. if you can't it's a nightmare.

Sounds very much like my problem!

My kit:
QX6700
2x BFG 8800GTX
4x 150gb Raptors
2x 750gb Cavi
XFI Music
2x 2GB OCZ FLEX (only using one kit atm)
Striker OBV
Tagen Z 750 OR/AND Galaxy 1kw

CPU on Phase

I had the Galaxy first, had 3 YES THREE strikers sat on my bench as i thought i was having problems with them! so i bought two EVGA boards, same problem!
I went out and got the new PSU (only one i could find off the SLIZONE list)
Put it in and wallaha! it works! so first problem was iron out!
GALAXY = Scrap metal!! (anyone WANT it)

OK! windows on! (no raid ATM) it booted no problems appart form the CPU FAN FAIL warning.
Time for OC, NO DEAL! i have bios 0701. i thought that was the latest (more fool me)
I get RANDOM issues on boot, can work ok for day then just reboot, FSB changes = instant dirt (no boot) i can boot into windows with Multi at 12 and stable on 3.19. the ram is strange one min it is at 1T the next at 2T
I can not change the FSB without failing.

VOLTAGEs changed etc.
I score 16k in 3d06 once stable.
HELP PLEASE
thanks

PS, i dont have all 3 strikers here, got one spare though.

mast3r · 5 Feb 2007 at 00:15

balth_dire said:
About bl**dy time.

New BIOS folks....802.

ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/Stricker Extreme/SE0802.zip.

DEAD ????

andyr · 5 Feb 2007 at 08:48

Hi , have you got sli memory enabled in bios , if you have try to disable and set memory manually at 5-5-5-15 to start with and command rate to 2 everything else in memory try in auto , my ram wont boot at 1t anything over 860Mhz but in 2t it will do 1200Mhz. I take it you are running unlinked and i dont know what frequencey you should running your quad

mast3r · 5 Feb 2007 at 12:01

andyr said:
Hi , have you got sli memory enabled in bios , if you have try to disable and set memory manually at 5-5-5-15 to start with and command rate to 2 everything else in memory try in auto , my ram wont boot at 1t anything over 860Mhz but in 2t it will do 1200Mhz. I take it you are running unlinked and i dont know what frequencey you should running your quad

Tried it in 1T & 2T, Disabled SLI mem and Enabled.
Set ALL the timings manually and as you said, bumped voltage up to 2.45 still no deal, i tried linked and unlinked, i was a bit unsure on that setting though, may be worth me going back to try that!

TonyM16 · 5 Feb 2007 at 14:28

redeye said:
I've just got my hands on one of these after four weeks of getting nowhere with an EVGA 680i SLi board (trashed one set of RAM, slow boots, unpredictable stability). Specs as follows:

QX6700
2GB OCZ Gold Edition 1100Mhz (PC8800) OCZ2G11002GK
2x EVGA 8800GTX
1x 150GB WD Raptor
1x 500GB WD Caviar
CPU & GPU's water cooled
Win XP Pro SP2

So last night I set it up, installed 0803, got the latest Nforce/Geforce/Ntune drivers. Got the QX6700 at 3.2Ghz nice and stable, GPU's at 620 Mem at 2Ghz. RAM wouldn't run at anything above 1066 even if I set it in the bios at 1100Mhz with correct 2.2v. In Windows CPUZ, Nvmonitor etc displays 1066Mhz. I can't o/c the FSB at all without it crashing, only the multiplyer is possible. So I left it as was.. thinking it was fast enough and most importantly stable.. unlike the EVGA.

So this morning comes round, boot up the system and ta da it crashes on first boot. Get's into windows blue screen flicks up then the system restarts. I've fiddled with the bios, specifically the Linkboost/ NvidiaEX settings and it seems slightly more stable but it freezes on startup for anything upto 20secs then continues to load. 3DMark 06 runs ok but all games are unpredictable, sometimes they are fine sometimes they crash and the system restarts. Almost identical problems to the EVGA board.

I've spent so much time over the past month trying to get a 680i board to work it's a joke. I've tried all the fixes on the ASUS forums, as I mentioned have tried an EVGA one but no joy. Think I need to get something else but they question is what. It seems these boards are brilliantly fast if you can get them working.. if you can't it's a nightmare.

What psu have you got? This sounds like it could be a psu issue. You have overclocked sli 8800gtx and Oc'd QX6700 with Oc'd memory, that would need a lot of power. Also since some psu's have many rails you have to load up the gpu's withn the psu correctley or you end up with massive ripple or not enough voltage going to certain stuff. Legit reviews had the same issues as you, they fixed it by both going to a X6800 or getting a 1kw PC power and cooling psu. Anything below 1000watt is cutting it very fine. A Tagan 11oowatt would be good aswell.

redeye · 5 Feb 2007 at 14:55

I've got a Enermax Galaxy 1000w.. actually it's the second one I've had as the first needed replacing (manufacturing prob making the psu fan warning come on all the time).

I think I've actually got this problem sorted though and I am now running the FSB / memory unlinked for the first time ever!!! Here's how:

- Updated the bios to the latest version 0803 before installing windows xp
- installed windows*
- overclocked the processor... 12x multi, 1.37v, fsb at 1100, mem at 1100, 2.2v unlinked
- installed 9.53 chipset drivers*
- installed 97.44 gpu drivers*
- installed ntune*
- installed soundcard and all others*

* = turn off pc and turn on, do not restart.

I've slacked off the ram timings a tiny bit to 6-6-6-15 2T rather than 5-6-6-15 and it seems fine.

That combination of drivers in that order seems to have got it both stable and running unlinked. I've never been able to do that on the EVGA board or this one before now. I'm getting 16,500 3dmarks and I'm just about to o/c the graphics cards to see how we get on then.

I do still get a slight pause on windows loading which I narrowed down to the graphics card drivers. The blue bar stops for 10 secs or so and then carries on. This didn't happen before I installed the gpu drivers so they are obviously not perfect.. perhaps it's initialising SLi or something.

Cheers

andyr · 5 Feb 2007 at 15:16

hi i found i had to install chipset drivers after coolbits /ntune to enable the overclock option with this board :confused:

good to here your making progress

redeye · 5 Feb 2007 at 15:19

andyr said:
hi i found i had to install chipset drivers after coolbits /ntune to enable the overclock option with this board good to here your making progress

That's just wierd.. should always install chipset drivers first. Ah well whatever works, works! Yeah definate progress now, it's completely stable. Going to try a few hours of gaming tonight and will see what happens.

TonyM16 · 5 Feb 2007 at 15:38

redeye said:
I've got a Enermax Galaxy 1000w.. actually it's the second one I've had as the first needed replacing (manufacturing prob making the psu fan warning come on all the time).

I think I've actually got this problem sorted though and I am now running the FSB / memory unlinked for the first time ever!!! Here's how:

- Updated the bios to the latest version 0803 before installing windows xp
- installed windows*
- overclocked the processor... 12x multi, 1.37v, fsb at 1100, mem at 1100, 2.2v unlinked
- installed 9.53 chipset drivers*
- installed 97.44 gpu drivers*
- installed ntune*
- installed soundcard and all others*

* = turn off pc and turn on, do not restart.

I've slacked off the ram timings a tiny bit to 6-6-6-15 2T rather than 5-6-6-15 and it seems fine.

That combination of drivers in that order seems to have got it both stable and running unlinked. I've never been able to do that on the EVGA board or this one before now. I'm getting 16,500 3dmarks and I'm just about to o/c the graphics cards to see how we get on then.

I do still get a slight pause on windows loading which I narrowed down to the graphics card drivers. The blue bar stops for 10 secs or so and then carries on. This didn't happen before I installed the gpu drivers so they are obviously not perfect.. perhaps it's initialising SLi or something.

Cheers

Yeah I get that loading thing aswell, thats normal. Thats just XP struggling with the two 8800gtx. I would imagine that we are very near the limist of what Xp can handle, thank go for Vista which should allow more powerful gpu's.

I have also heard of that pdu problem you talk about. It' seems to be quite common. I even got it. However I just returned it and bought a Tagan 1100watt instead. Vey happy with the Tagan now (wasn't so sure at first).

Good luck hope things stay stable for you. But if I may a little tip, use sli ready memory if your memory kit has it. Using expert setting will allow overclocking of the cpu aswell. I have been advocating this from the very first time I lost my Oc settings. It makes things a solid as rock and tremendously stable like nothing I have seen before. It seems to activate some extra optimizations.What it does is allow high memory speed and high cpu speed . Without it you can only have on or the other. What happens is after a few days the pc will freeze up and loose the settings if you try with out it. So if after a few days that happens to you, then try sli ready memory.

PS. why not 97.92? It's the bets driver so far by far.

redeye · 5 Feb 2007 at 15:50

TonyM16 said:
Yeah I get that loading thing aswell, thats normal. Thats just XP struggling with the two 8800gtx. I would imagine that we are very near the limist of what Xp can handle, thank go for Vista which should allow more powerful gpu's.

I have also heard of that pdu problem you talk about. It' seems to be quite common. I even got it. However I just returned it and bought a Tagan 1100watt instead. Vey happy with the Tagan now (wasn't so sure at first).

Good luck hope things stay stable for you. But if I may a little tip, use sli ready memory if your memory kit has it. Using expert setting will allow overclocking of the cpu aswell. I have been advocating this from the very first time I lost my Oc settings. It makes things a solid as rock and tremendously stable like nothing I have seen before. It seems to activate some extra optimizations.What it does is allow high memory speed and high cpu speed . Without it you can only have on or the other. What happens is after a few days the pc will freeze up and loose the settings if you try with out it. So if after a few days that happens to you, then try sli ready memory.

PS. why not 97.92? It's the bets driver so far by far.

Ok that's good to know the delay is down to the gpu's.. I'm happy with that.

Yeah I had some SLi ready memory on the EVGA board originally but it blew it! I didn't really find it added much extra stability but then that was probably the mobo!

Well I spent hours fiddling with drivers and I thought the newer drivers might be causing issues. The mix of the new chipset drivers and 97.44 gpu drivers seemed to be best. I'll update them to 97.92 and see what happens.. after I do a backup to Acronis of what I've got now!

TonyM16 · 5 Feb 2007 at 16:38

redeye said:
Ok that's good to know the delay is down to the gpu's.. I'm happy with that.

Yeah I had some SLi ready memory on the EVGA board originally but it blew it! I didn't really find it added much extra stability but then that was probably the mobo!

Well I spent hours fiddling with drivers and I thought the newer drivers might be causing issues. The mix of the new chipset drivers and 97.44 gpu drivers seemed to be best. I'll update them to 97.92 and see what happens.. after I do a backup to Acronis of what I've got now!

Oh you had sli ready memory. Did you actually use the sli ready bios settings though? I am sure you already know this but when you put in sli ready memory you have to then choose sli ready in the bios. Not that it matters now since your new memory isn't sli ready, although check if it works anyway from the bios.

andyr · 5 Feb 2007 at 16:39

looks like 0803 has been pulled from the asus web site :eek:

redeye · 5 Feb 2007 at 16:45

TonyM16 said:
Oh you had sli ready memory. Did you actually use the sli ready bios settings though? I am sure you already know this but when you put in sli ready memory you have to then choose sli ready in the bios. Not that it matters now since your new memory isn't sli ready, although check if it works anyway from the bios.

Yup I had the SLi memory for a few days I had the settings at expert etc. It blew them after a few days. At the time I thought I'd get some different memory so got the 1100Mhz one's instead. The option is actually greyed out on the Striker the options aren't available.

0803 is available here.. http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/BIOS/Asus/Asus-Striker-Extreme-BIOS-0803.shtml

Maybe 0804 is nearly here???

balth_dire · 5 Feb 2007 at 16:51

TonyM16 said:
Oh you had sli ready memory. Did you actually use the sli ready bios settings though? I am sure you already know this but when you put in sli ready memory you have to then choose sli ready in the bios. Not that it matters now since your new memory isn't sli ready, although check if it works anyway from the bios.

I have SLI ready memory, but I don't trust the BIOS's EPP based auto-detect. It seems to have been the cause of many stability problems, especially with the Striker. In my case (using Corsair 6400c3 modules), if I select "expert" and leave all the other settings on "auto", which is what is advised, the board sets it's command rate to 1T instead of Corsair's approved 2T, this results in various instabilities.

Strange, as this is the only value it seems to detect incorrectly, both the timings and voltage are set in accordance with Corsair's official spec.

mast3r · 5 Feb 2007 at 17:34

andyr said:
looks like 0803 has been pulled from the asus web site

Agreed! anyone know where else i can get this!
Edit: oops i did not see the other link!
Edit 2: Still not working for me! page loads but DL will not, link to Asus same as the dead un'

What psu have you got? This sounds like it could be a psu issue. You have overclocked sli 8800gtx and Oc'd QX6700 with Oc'd memory, that would need a lot of power. Also since some psu's have many rails you have to load up the gpu's withn the psu correctley or you end up with massive ripple or not enough voltage going to certain stuff. Legit reviews had the same issues as you, they fixed it by both going to a X6800 or getting a 1kw PC power and cooling psu. Anything below 1000watt is cutting it very fine. A Tagan 11oowatt would be good aswell.

I am using a Tagen Zeus 750 (only one i could lay my hands on that was on the list from SLIZone) also have the 1KW Galaxy (no chance the rig will even turn on with that junk) the Tagen as its own 4PCI rails (6pin)

redeye · 5 Feb 2007 at 17:56

mast3r said:
Edit 2: Still not working for me! page loads but DL will not, link to Asus same as the dead un'

I've got it if you want it. My e-mail is in trust.

And I've got a new problem with my Striker. I can't overclock the graphics card memory at all. Get the blue screen. Can o/c the GPU clock as much as I want but it doesn't make any difference in 3DMark. Something even wierder... I get a pathetic 3dmark score on a cold boot, but get 16,500 if I do a re-start after a cold boot. I've just tried disabling linkboost and the system won't post!

Jeeze!!!

andyr · 5 Feb 2007 at 18:26

a guy on xtremesystems borked his bios chip and asus are sending him a new one $20 with 0804 on it , so i wouldnt bother with 0803 if i was you

Raffi · 5 Feb 2007 at 21:10

Hey guys i have a question,i'm thinking of getting the Striker but will it be compatible with this spec :

Seasonic 700W,
8800GTX
E6600
and most important - 4GB of Crucial (2x1GB) 5300 C3 10th anny.

Will it boot alright and is the Crucial memory supported.Should i go for this board or why i shouldnt?

thanks!

andyr · 5 Feb 2007 at 21:36

Hi dont know about the ram tbh , the rest looks fine