Hello eva2000 and Bun Bun,
apologies for hijacking your thread, Bun Bun, but i think that i have a similar issue with my Striker Extreme and instead of starting a new thread unnecessarily, i thought i would just add on to your thread. Hope that you are alright with it.
eva2000, i have trolled on quite a bit of your postings on the Striker Extreme and i must say that they are all excellent here in this forum and on the extremeoverclockers forum as well. i am hoping that maybe, with your experience working on the Striker Extreme, you can give me some advice.
My system:
Processor : Intel E6400 with Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme
Mainboard : Asus Striker Extreme 680i Rev 1.00G @ 1301 bios
Graphics Card : Leadtek WinFast PX8800GTX TDH
Memory : 2GB Corsair XM2 DHX 6400 DDR2 800
Display : 24" Dell 2407WFP UltraSharp LCD
Storage : 500GB WD Caviar (SATA) / 160GB Hitachi (SATA)
Optical Storage : ASUS LightScribe DVD-RW / Sony DVD-rom
Casing : CM Stacker 832
PSU : Coolermaster RealPower 850W
Audio : onboard audio
OS : Windows XP Pro SP2
I have had the Asus SE since March 2007 and it was pretty rock solid and i did some mild overclocking and documented my "adventures" all in this thread on the hardwarezone forums:
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/sh....php?t=1750654
However, 2 weeks back just before Christmas, my issues with the Asus SE started.
Prior to this, i was running my E6400 @ 3.2ghz rock solid. I ran Orthos for over 10 hours and there were no issues. I also ran Orthos @ 3ghz for over 16hrs and there were no lock ups. The CPU voltage @ 3ghz = 1.41v (on "auto" settings) and @ 3.2ghz = 1.5v (on "auto" settings). This was in Oct 2007 and all along i was running on the 1301 BIOS.
However, on 27 December, i decided to try the 1303 BIOS and flashed it on the EZ Flash function in the BIOS set-up. It could not allow me to overclock beyond 3ghz so i rolled back down to the 1301 bios and even since then i could not return to a 3.2ghz overclock.
However, before this, i was already having some issues with ramdom BSODs and restarts and yes, i did install nTune (silly me!)
I do not believe that it is due to my overclocking of the E6400 CPU to 3.2ghz as i did ran Orthos @ Priority 1 settings for 10+ hours.
The BSOD occured when:
1. Unplugged my ipod from the USB slots
2. run Spyware Doctore (from PC Tools) and Bitdefender Anti-virus together
Recently i made some changes to my PC in the past month and the BSOD only started to occur then:
* Installed a new SATA HDD (WD 500gb) on top of the 160gb and 320gb HDDs
* Moved the GPU from one of the blue PCIE slots to another blue PCIE closer to the Heatsinks
* Moved my RAM from previous configuration of 1x blue DIMM + 1 x white DIMM to 2x blue DIMM (Had BSOD and moved back to original config of 1 in blue and 1 in white DIMM now)
* Reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP Pro into the 160gb WD Caviar HDD but did not clear CMOS back to default 2.13ghz CPU freq initally. Had issues installing XP and cleared CMOS and installation was ok.
i also did some minor o/c of my RAM from stock 800Mhz to 920Mhz and down to 850Mhz ever since i had my rig in March. In the past month, i have moved back to stock 800Mhz. At 3.2Ghz and 850Mhz, i failed the Orthos test.
A kind forumer, NightRaven, informed me that it is probably my RAM dying on me which is why i have the BSOD and restart issues and i had since resolved that issue by obtaining new RAMs (as specified above).
I am installed it on New Year's Eve night and am running my pc on that now.
Prior to any thing else after the installation of the new RAMs, i run Memtest without any CPU o/c for 2 passes = clear! and ran Memtest again with a 3Ghz o/c for 2 passes and it cleared. I was running Dual Channel in blue DIMM sockets and then the white DIMMs.
Decided to go for my "normal" o/c of 3Ghz and half an hour into the installation of the new RAMs....no BSOD but HANG!
I restarted PC all ok until 1 hour later, HANG.
I ran memtest again with the 3.0ghz o/c and no errors for 4 passes. Thinking that it may be BIOS issue, i flashed to bios 1301 again after manually set the jumper and cleared CMOS. Half an hour in, Hang again.
Fed up, i booted to defualt CPU clock freq... completely no prob.
I thinking maybe, it is corrupt Win XP due to faulty RAM as i saw win xp said that it could not boot to windows due to missing registry file a few days back. So i did a fresh installation of windows xp.... ending at 3am in on New Year's Day morning
Ok, finally all the drama over, windows xp reinstalled with a new flash of the bios 1301 and clearing CMOS, i o/c to 3.0ghz and ran Memtest for 4 passes total and the wonderful RAM cleared all passes. Happy that every thing should be ok, i load and wham! half an hour in while d/l updates for windows xp, HANG.
The interesting thing is when i tried to o/c to 3.2ghz, it would POST but Windows cannot load at all.
I ran memtest on 3.2ghz and at test #7, there were errors. Of course, on either stock or 3ghz, there were absolutely zero errors.
Now, the maximum bootable and stable o/c i can get is a miserable 2.8ghz.
Is this a BIOS issue? Or is the mobo screwed?
Many thanks in advance!