silenthill

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!

eva2000

Split to new thread

You ran blue + white dimm for single channel 2x1GB memory before ? probably why you were more stable then both blue slots for dual channel ?

2x1GB Corsair 6400 are the new or old memory ??

One should always follow general guide at http://i4memory.com/f54/announcement-overclocking-methodology-eva2000.html. that is first memtest86+ v1.70 memory before you even install or boot windows!

Then share with us you bios settings used from this template Asus 680i Striker Extreme - bios template

silenthill

Hello Eva2000, thank you for your reply and apologies for the late reply as i wanted to capture some screens of the voltages but for some reason, the Asus Probe II v4.19 was corrupted and with some luck after a clear CMOS and an reinstallation of the v4.12, i was about to capture it and it is like this:





Since i was clearing CMOS anyway, i decided to go for broke and flashed to the 1303 bios. Still cannot boot to windows at 3.2ghz but i can boot at 3ghz and am just waiting for the pc to hardlock. It usually does within half an hour to an hour...

I did check for errors with memtest v1.7 at stock voltage (which is actually no less than 1.85v for the memory DIMM voltage for this particular mobo) and zero errors (thank goodness!)

BIOS Settings

AI Tuning: Manual
Nvidia GPU Ex: Disabled
LinkBoost: Disabled

FSB - Memory Clock Mode: Unlinked
x FSB - Memory Ratio: N/A
FSB (QDR), Mhz: 1500 (375FSB)
Actual FSB (QDR), Mhz: 1500
MEM (DDR), Mhz: 800 (400mhz)
Actual MEM (DDR), Mhz: 800

Vcore Voltage: Set to 1.45v (refer to image, please)
Memory Voltage: "auto" (refer to image, please)
1.2v HT Voltage: "auto" (refer to image, please)
NB Core Voltage: "auto" (refer to image, please)
SB Core Voltage: "auto" (refer to image, please)
CPU VTT Voltage: "auto" (refer to image, please)
DDRII Controller Ref Voltage: "auto" (refer to image, please)
DDRII Channel A Ref Voltage: "auto" (refer to image, please)
DDRII Channel B Ref Voltage: "auto" (refer to image, please)

tCL (CAS Latency): 5 ("Auto" setting)
tRCD: 5 ("Auto" setting)
tRP: 5 ("Auto" setting)
tRAS: 18 ("Auto" setting)
Command Per Clock (CMD): 2T ("Auto" setting)
*Dual Channel in the Blue coloured DIMM slots

Advance Memory Settings
tRRD: AUTO
tRC: AUTO
tWR: AUTO
tWTR: AUTO
tREF: AUTO
tRD: AUTO
tRFC: AUTO
Async Latency: AUTO

CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled
MCP PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled
SATA Spread Spectrum: Disabled
LDT Spread Spectrum: Disabled

CPU Internal Thermal Control: Disabled
Limit CPUID MaxVal: Disabled
Enhanced C1 (C1E): Disabled
Execute Disable Bit: Disabled
Virtualization Technology: Disabled
Enhanced Intel Speedstep Tech: Disabled
LDT Frequency: 5x

PCIEX16_1 Frequency (Mhz): 100
PCIEX16_2 Frequency (Mhz): 100
PCIEX16_3 Frequency (Mhz): 100
SPP<->MCP Ref Clock, Mhz: Auto

eva2000

NB voltage looks too low you need between 1.45-1.65v to stability usually.. especially for higher memory and/or cpu FSB clocks

also try manual subtimings loosely set and tighten (lower values) slowly through trial and error

If you use high end video cards you may need to raise SB volts too

All trial and error really

silenthill

Hello eva2000! Many thanks for the advice! I will continue to experiment on the CPU and the mobo especially since :


I also decided to over voltage my 2x1GB Corsair XMS2 6400C5 DHX RAMs and i am leaving it at 800Mhz @ 4-4-4-12 with 1.9v over voltage since the Striker Extreme cannot go lower than 1.85v on RAM/VDimm voltage anyway.



Like what you said, dude, 1303 FTW!!!

Many Thanks for your advice. Will continue to push and o/c with manual tweaks to the NB + SB! The memory tuning looks fun, albeit a little time consuming