ASUS Maximus Formula @ [H]

I got this board in a few days ago and I'm running into a big issue.

On my P5K-E I could run 3200mhz for 24hours in P95 yet with Maximus the computer reboots during Prime. I'm using the same settings as my P5K so I'm stumped... (voltages adjusted so they would be the same after vdroop/overvolt)

Temps are good as well... below 60C on the CPU.

I'm wondering if it is the NB causing this. What is the optimal chipset voltage for a 400FSB?

EDIT: I've lowered the speed of the memory, CPU, and FSB yet I still get BSOD during Prime. Load temps are about 47C for the CPU and NB. This CPU as well as the memory were rock solid with my last mobo. This is an issue with the Maximus... I just need to figure out if it's faulty now.

A 47C NB could be a problem...
Raju found that loaded NB temps over 47°C have been prone to failures, during longer Prime torture test runs. This is not an exact number, nor should it be considered as such. It is simply ment to help give you a better idea, of what NB temp you might wan't to avoid, for the best system stability. I don't believe it is a hard line drawn in the sand that can't be crossed, but rather use it as a guide myself, and was grateful for the information posted in his findings.
Raju's and Bingo13's Maximus SE review: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3149


Ref link: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162085
 
No...I don't believe so. The article was titled ASUS Maximus Formule SE and DDR2 or something like that...I think. The last couple of pages in the article discussed bios settings and voltage settings and such. Those are the pages that really helped me set my motherboard and get it going so well.

Good luck
 
No...I don't believe so. The article was titled ASUS Maximus Formule SE and DDR2 or something like that...I think. The last couple of pages in the article discussed bios settings and voltage settings and such. Those are the pages that really helped me set my motherboard and get it going so well.

Good luck

Ok...I'll have to look for that one.
 
Sick of the limited RAM options on your Maximus? Tired of these 1000 series BIOS releases being terrible? Don't mind if you void your warranty?

Well then, convert your board into a Rampage Formula!

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The Rampage BIOS is much more in depth and appears to be a lot more stable. I did this last night and am very pleased so far.

Here's the source for the how to and the files you'll need: Link to XS

Please keep in mind, this will void your warranty, it is a one way street. There is no going back to it being a Maximus. And as always, if you brick your board, it's not my problem. Do this at your own risk. Since ASUS has discontinued this board, BIOS updates will be few and far between. The Rampage is their new baby now, so this mod at least extends the value of your board by allowing you to update to newer/better BIOS releases.
 
Where's everyone getting this 1000 series bios?

I haven't seen anything posted on Asus' site since 0907.
 
I was re-reading the evaluation and noticed a typo :p.

In "Kyle's Thoughts" you meant to say 'tight' instead of 'right' timings?
 
Thanks for the info on the Rampage conversion, it worked like a charm for me. However, I have found that my Maximus will never-ever make it to my desired 485 fsb. It has to be the heat, as even at 425MHz/1.45v and with a small fan on it I cannot keep the NB under 50c -usually goes up to 55c. I'm fairly disappointed that my old P5K could do that with all stock volts and this cant even come close. At least I now have a unique Maximus Rampage
 
You all seem pretty sure that Asus is going to abandon the X38 Max users when they roll the X48 versions... How sure are you that this is going to happen?

I have been looking for a mobo to get to replace my 680i POS. The thing just won't run stable with 4x1gb ddr2 800, and my experience with SLI was weak enough to convince me that I do not need it.

I have been looking at the maximus formula pretty seriously, and almost pulled the trigger last night before I found this thread.

Is it foolish to buy a X38 board now or what?
 
You all seem pretty sure that Asus is going to abandon the X38 Max users when they roll the X48 versions... How sure are you that this is going to happen?

Seems to make the most sense; why continue supporting a board which has already had quite a lot of support when you're releasing a brand new X48?

Either way, because of the similarity between the X38 and X48 chipsets, we can probably expect the x48 to be launching with a good, mature BIOS.

EDIT: Just saw this!
 
I've never had asus stop supporting my board outright once a newer model came out. Updates will probably slow down granted, but I doubt youve seen the last update. And it doesnt make sense to stop supporting them outright because those buying this are those with the deeper wallets and the sorts of customers you dont want to piss off by offering poor support.

I'd expect updates. Whether you see the features in the Rampage BIOS ported I don't know and would imagine thats fairly unlikely, but you should see a few more releases and really I dont see the issue with that if the boards going solid.
 
Final bump for my issue.


Whenever I enable the AI Clock Twister, or Booster for DRAM, the board won't post and the LCD shows "DET DRAM". Clearing CMOS does nothing, and the board remains in "DET DRAM" state. Even unpluggin the PSU and yanking out the CMOS battery doesn't bring the board back.

I literally have to take out all m RAM, but in DDR 800 (vs the 1066 Corsairl I have), manually adjust all the timings to the Corsair memory specs, save the bios, yank out the DDR800 and put the Corsair back in to get the board to boot up.

This is also tends to happen when I push my FSB a little too far. Needless to say, this makes tweaking the board a really long process.



edit: I have Corsair, not Crucial mem :p
 
Hey folks,

I've been lurking for a while, but I wanted to register to make a comment in this thread. It would appear that various "cold boot" POST issues are still alive (and well?) with this board. I've been around to quite a few other forums where people are still experiencing this in some form.

I personally have been fighting this for a month now. Whenever I boot my system after it's been powered off for more than a few hours it hangs during the POST. I have to perform some combination of restarting and cycling the power 5-10 times before it will finish the POST. Once it POSTS it will continue to POST as long as the system is "warm". Orthos, P95, and Memtest will all run overnight (8 hours) with no errors.

I RMA'd the board and the replacement I received last week exhibits exactly the same problem. Both boards were/are running BIOS 0907. Specs:

Asus Maximus Formula (obviously) (2 separate brand-new boards)
Intel C2D E8400 @ stock (sadly)

Memory kits tried:
OCZ Platinum XTC DDR2-1000 2x2GB @ DDR2-800 and DDR2-667 (various voltages)
Cheapo Corsair Value Select DDR2-667 2x1GB @ DDR2-667 (various voltages)
Mushkin Redline DDR2-1000 2x2GB (currently testing)

Video cards tried:
EVGA 8800GTS 512 (G92)
ATI x1900xt 512

Power supplies tried:
600w OCZ PowerStream (time-tested known good)
750w PCP&C (time-tested known good)

BIOS settings tried:
honestly, just about all of them :)

I've just about had it with this board. Here's an interesting development that I just noticed today as well: Newegg.com is no longer selling this board (that's where I got mine from). It's a "deactivated" item. Normally when they're out of stock on something it says "out of stock" and sometimes they list an ETA for the restock shipment. It appears that they've actually "canned" this item, at least for the time being. I'll bet they're getting a LOT of returns on it. This is not very encouraging, but maybe I can get them to allow me to do an exchange for a different board since they seem to be acknowledging that there are major problems with it. They have a couple of "open box" ones for sale, but they're not selling them new. Take a look:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131227
 
Is there a way to specify IRQs on this motherboard?

No. ASUS was actually one of the last motherboard manufacturers to ditch this functionality. ACPI aware OSes and fewer needed add-in boards have really removed the need for this for the most part.

Hey folks,

I've been lurking for a while, but I wanted to register to make a comment in this thread. It would appear that various "cold boot" POST issues are still alive (and well?) with this board. I've been around to quite a few other forums where people are still experiencing this in some form.

I personally have been fighting this for a month now. Whenever I boot my system after it's been powered off for more than a few hours it hangs during the POST. I have to perform some combination of restarting and cycling the power 5-10 times before it will finish the POST. Once it POSTS it will continue to POST as long as the system is "warm". Orthos, P95, and Memtest will all run overnight (8 hours) with no errors.

I RMA'd the board and the replacement I received last week exhibits exactly the same problem. Both boards were/are running BIOS 0907. Specs:

Asus Maximus Formula (obviously) (2 separate brand-new boards)
Intel C2D E8400 @ stock (sadly)

Memory kits tried:
OCZ Platinum XTC DDR2-1000 2x2GB @ DDR2-800 and DDR2-667 (various voltages)
Cheapo Corsair Value Select DDR2-667 2x1GB @ DDR2-667 (various voltages)
Mushkin Redline DDR2-1000 2x2GB (currently testing)

Video cards tried:
EVGA 8800GTS 512 (G92)
ATI x1900xt 512

Power supplies tried:
600w OCZ PowerStream (time-tested known good)
750w PCP&C (time-tested known good)

BIOS settings tried:
honestly, just about all of them :)

I've just about had it with this board. Here's an interesting development that I just noticed today as well: Newegg.com is no longer selling this board (that's where I got mine from). It's a "deactivated" item. Normally when they're out of stock on something it says "out of stock" and sometimes they list an ETA for the restock shipment. It appears that they've actually "canned" this item, at least for the time being. I'll bet they're getting a LOT of returns on it. This is not very encouraging, but maybe I can get them to allow me to do an exchange for a different board since they seem to be acknowledging that there are major problems with it. They have a couple of "open box" ones for sale, but they're not selling them new. Take a look:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131227

I believe the Maximus Formula has been discontinued. It has been replaced with the Rampage Formula which is almost identical. The difference is that the newer version has an updated BIOS with additional features and it uses the X48 instead of the X38 chipset.

Also it has been my experience that cold-boot issues are often power supply related (not necessarily a sign of a bad one, but rather that of an unusual compatibility issue in some rare cases. Also bad power in the home can in fact cause these issues as well. If that is the case a UPS can often take care of that problem. To check this, a simple volt-meter or even a kil-a-watt will do. If you are measuring less than 95 watts at the wall you have power problems that are strictly enviromental.

Everyone is so quick to blame their motherboards for certain issues when they can in fact be symptoms of completely different issues.
 
Everyone is so quick to blame their motherboards for certain issues when they can in fact be symptoms of completely different issues.

I hear you, and agree. In fact, the motherboard is typically the LAST place I go looking for a problem after the more likely culprits have been tested.

However, I live in a 40-story high-rise condo building with the most rock-solid power I've ever seen. I've never even seen so much as a tiny flicker in the 8 years I've lived here. I've not measured the power from the outlet, but the 20 or so other PCs, many of which were drawing a lot more power than this thing (especially with nothing but ram and a vid card connected), that have "lived" here over the years have never had power problems. Seeing as how I did test two different "good" PSUs of different (and very common) brands, I'd say that this probably doesn't qualify as an "unusual" incompatibility. Yes, I know that OCZ and PCP&C merged, but as far as I know PCP&C PSUs are still PCP&C PSUs and not re-badged OCZ PSUs.

Now, even if I could fix this problem by using yet another PSU and/or plugging into an outlet that outputs more juice, the fact that this board has such a narrow range of power requirements seems like a design flaw to me. That's just my opinion, however.

Anyway, thanks for your input. At this point the sight of this board brings back bad memories...:) Methinks it must go.
 
Final bump for my issue.


Whenever I enable the AI Clock Twister, or Booster for DRAM, the board won't post and the LCD shows "DET DRAM". Clearing CMOS does nothing, and the board remains in "DET DRAM" state. Even unpluggin the PSU and yanking out the CMOS battery doesn't bring the board back.

I literally have to take out all m RAM, but in DDR 800 (vs the 1066 Corsairl I have), manually adjust all the timings to the Corsair memory specs, save the bios, yank out the DDR800 and put the Corsair back in to get the board to boot up.

This is also tends to happen when I push my FSB a little too far. Needless to say, this makes tweaking the board a really long process.



edit: I have Corsair, not Crucial mem :p


Quoting myself because I found a fix.


Had to change Static DRAM from Auto to disabled. Fixed any DET DRAM issues I was having. Hopefully this will fix it for anyone else that was having this problem.
 
Static read should be disabled. It even says in the BIOS "Disable may increase overclock of RAM".

On another note: The Maximus to Rampage conversion is no longer a one way street. Go see the thread link I posted above. It is now a matter of a simple command to flip between the 2!
 
Should I be using the 1x8 EATX12V plug from the OCZ 850W GameXtreme power supply.

This power supply comes with a 1x4 and 1x8 plug for motherboard CPU power.
 
Static read should be disabled. It even says in the BIOS "Disable may increase overclock of RAM".

On another note: The Maximus to Rampage conversion is no longer a one way street. Go see the thread link I posted above. It is now a matter of a simple command to flip between the 2!

Yup, I played around with the flash last night. Works really well (the going back and forth part).

Part of this weekend is going to be devoted to major testing and benchmarking and overclocking.


Question about the memstat program. Is a higher Performance Level better, or worse?
 
Yeah lower should be better for the tRD, I'm still trying to figure out what should be the "right" setting.
 
Question guys I got one of these bad boys in a trade a couple of days ago and the SE version is a very nice setup.

But I cant figure out were the ram Ratio setting are so I can time the Ram away from the cpu, with out this setting it makes thing impossible to overlclock since I have a set up Mushkin pc-6400 d9 2x2gb 996564 modules.


any suggestions?
 
Unlike nvidia chipsets, you cannot unlink the memory from the FSB. Also with X38 there are no downward dividers. 1:1 is as low as you can get.
 
"This was originally posted on PC Perspective"

Credit for finding a solution to this problem should be given to "softnerd"

softnerd said:
I've had an interesting development with this. I was about to pack this thing up and try to get rid of it, and just before I put it in the box I tried hooking it up on my test bench one last time - sans motherboard tray - just the naked board.

It POSTed fine. I was puzzled, so I left it all day to get cold while I was at work...still connected to the PSU to simulate the power situation. When I got home I powered it up and...it posted. What changed? Well, I had a chasis fan plugged into the PWR FAN header that was now unplugged (kept forgetting to unplug it in testing because it's part of the mobo tray), and it was no longer mounted to the tray. I already confirmed that it wasn't grounding out against anything on the tray, so I tried plugging the chasis fan back into the PWR FAN header. Bam - hung at COUNTMEM. Unplugged it, and it POSTs again. I was able to reproduce this until the capacitors got warm and it was POSTing every time.

So, I left it overnight and tried again this morning. First without the fan - it POSTs, then with the fan - hangs at COUNTMEM. Interesting.

I have a hunch that this board has some wonky design quirks when it comes to the +12v1 power tap. Power supply fans usually get power from the PSU - not the header, but they need a tiny bit of power supplied for the fan monitor/speed control to work. If you look at the trace routes from the PWR FAN connector the lead directly to the EATX CPU power plug. Now, I got started thinking about this when people said they solved this issue by plugging in the 8-pin plug instead of the 4-pin, or realized that the plug wasn't pushed in all the way.

Is it possible that a full-on chassis fan is pulling enough power away from the +12v1 tap that there isn't enough juice getting to other components when the capacitors are cold? So far I've been able to reproduce the issue 3 times. I've re-assembled my entire machine. If it POSTs properly when I get home tonight I'd say there's a good chance I found the culprit.

To sum up:
- Use the 8-pin EATX CPU power plug.
- Make sure it's fully connected.
- See what happens if you avoid plugging anything into the PWR FAN header. Weird...I know, but it so far it seems to make a difference for me.

Not sure if this is going to solve the problem, but I'm hopeful.

Thank You SOFTNERD
 
ty ty ty ty... i was having game crashes like no tommorrow thought it was either the memory or mobo.. i pulled the little fan i had stuck in that Pwr_Fan slot... and bam i could play games again no hickups no crashes no nothing...

breakdown, i put my system together 4x1 Crucial Tracer and a E8400 basic system right ,,, ran benchmarks and everything ran stress tests for 2 days straight trying to push the system to the limit before i jump into my games made sure temps were right made sure of ever distinct detail of keeping wires out of the way ,, yea im anal,,,, anyway everytime i jump into the one game Air Rival , Space Cowboys aftermath, Ace online i would immediatly spawn in town then black screen and nothing ,,, lockup and time to restart,
then i played stalker got in it for a hour then same thing,,,,, so i was thinking resourses
i moved sound card {Xfi Gamer Pro Fatality} to the lowest pci slot,, pulled my wireless N card out, Same result
then i thought memory, pulled Everyone out and went through the one at a time deal, Same result ,,,,

then i come on here and find out about the Pwr_Fan deal and im thinking to myself oly S#$@, i never even gave that a thought whatsoever,,,,,, powered down the system put it in the fan slot below the heatsink and above the first Pci slot,,,,,, powered on the system tried my game out ,,, omg i can play games again,,,, till now i been using my system with only 1 ram slot filled,,, till i could get some parts from my brother to troubleshoot some more,,,,,

next up Refill my ram slots and try this out some more.....
you guys rock,,,,,,, ill say that much and do the jig all the way to do more testing after i refill my slots........... ty so much ,,,, Phil Willson

:D:D:D:D:D 5 smiley award to you guys for being as hard headed and determined as me

update in another post im about to make not good for crucial...
 
What psu? I've 120mm fans all over the headers and never an issue w/ pc p&c or ocz powerstream. But I do recall a certain 92mm Tornado that put a fight to an Abit NF7. :D What kind of fan are you using to put the screws to psu/board?
 
"This was originally posted on PC Perspective"

Credit for finding a solution to this problem should be given to "softnerd"



Thank You SOFTNERD

Hehe. You're welcome, although I have to say I did it for me first. :D Softnerd is my username on PC Perspective. I'm also Dex on the Asus forums and _CDex_ on the VR-Zone forums.

It took me over a month, but I finally figured it out. I'm glad that this solution has helped so many people (I've received a TON of thank you email and PMs).

@Dan_D - See, it WAS the motherboard!!! :p ;)

What psu? I've 120mm fans all over the headers and never an issue w/ pc p&c or ocz powerstream. But I do recall a certain 92mm Tornado that put a fight to an Abit NF7. :D What kind of fan are you using to put the screws to psu/board?
It's not the headers in general. Asus apparently assumed that people would only use the PWR_FAN header for an actual PSU fan, although it's spec'd the same as all of the other headers. This header gets power from the +12v1 EATX CPU connector while the other headers get power from where they're supposed to get it from. So, plugging a high-RPM chassis fan into the PWR_FAN header can cause problems by pulling too much juice off the +12v1, which the CPU is getting power from. The problem is especially bad when the capacitors are cold and aren't providing as much current as they do after they've warmed up, which is why this manifests as a "cold boot" problem for a lot of people.

The rest of the headers are fine...I'm using them instead and my problems disappeared. I wonder how many of the people that think they're having memory problems with this board are actually experiencing this issue.
 
I wonder how many of the people that think they're having memory problems with this board are actually experiencing this issue.

Overclockers UK say this is their most popular X38 mobo, so i would guess there are hundreds if not thousands of people experiencing problems with this motherboard !

Some forum members i noticed have tried 5-6 different ram modules thinking this is the cause and i believe some tech support staff are making matters worse by blaming RAM incompatibilty.

Today I contacted overclockers (my mobo suppliers) to explain this design fault and they are now advising people NOT to use the PWR-FAN header for chassis fans on the maximus formula..



NB: I also explained that I was a mere messenger, preaching the words of the Motherboard God named CDex , a genuine miracle worker who has brought happiness and joy to the hearts of pc builders all over the world..


Dodge :D
 
I'm not slighting CDex in anyway :).

But why didn't Asus figure out what the problem was a long time ago? It's their board, and if they put a fan header off of the AUX CPU port, I wonder why they didn't figure it was causing a problem with cold booting with high power fans on that header (especially since most people would use it for the exhaust fan of their cases if they are using that header).

Oh well...I wonder if they fixed that issue on the Rampage.
 
After my 780i died 2 times, fooling around w/ IP35 Pro, I went back to Maximus. This mobo is solid!!
 
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