Help me and I'll pay you

A

acetken

n00b
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
63
(Previous thread here)
Hey guys. I'm having some severe issues with my Striker Extreme. Or my vid card. Or something. I'm at the end of my rope here. Let me compile my posts from the last two months here from around the 'net:

First off, my specs:
Core2Duo 6600 (@stock, but OCable in XP to 3.5GHZ) | Asus Striker Extreme (10.04 BIOS) | 2048MB Team Xtreme (4-4-4-9-1t) (Have tried setting all to Auto and changing the timings to all sorts of stuff) | eVGA GeForce 8800 ACS3 GTX | X-Fi Fatal1ty | 1 WD RaptorX 150GB, 1 Maxtor 500GB | SyncMaster 226BW | Corsair 620w PSU | 2 120mm Antec fans

Here's the story from the beginning. After it launched, I ran Vista for a while after I put in all my new parts. It crashed a lot. I removed it after a few days. I started running XP. It crashes within 15-25 minutes in certain games. Most notably Dungeons & Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Oblivion, and NWN2.
Games it HASN'T crashed in are Jade Empire, Sims 2 Life Stories, and Guild Wars.

At this point, I've eliminated thermals as the problem. My CPU runs at 48 and my board is at 39 (So says the BIOS). There is no artifacting, and I've tried 2 seperate cards, so I don't think that's the problem. I started with a non-ACS3 card, then upgraded when I thought that may be it. No dice. I found my board was setting my RAM voltage much too low, and that stopped it from bluescreening, but now it just hardlocks. (Though not as often as it was bluescreening) I've tried setting everything to auto on the board. No go.

What else could it be except drivers? I've installed the Feb. DirectX, latest mobo drivers (Striker Extreme, no network tool), no OC-ing, bought a new PSU (Corsair 620), installed a new fan in addition to my 2 120s... If there's any user error, please let me know. I keep my system obsessively upkept. It's defragged (PerfectDisk 8.0 - Latest build), definitely no viri or spyware... Tried disabling GPU Ex and LinkBoost. Still crashed.

I've drivercleaned and tried the most recent 6 sets of nVidia drivers. I'm currently on the 100.95s.

I had it apperantly working for one night. I played DDO for 3 hours and no crash. Then? Saved those settings to the BIOS, and shut off my system for the night. Woke up, turned on system... CPU INIT.

Fixed that by moving one stick of RAM to the far RAM slot and booting with it, then setting everything and putting the two back. I set things, and put both sticks back. I then loaded my settings from before the CPU INIT error. Now it's locking again, even though everything is the same.

I'm frustrated and very fed up. If anyone can solve this for me, I'll buy them something for $50 or less from NCIX. How's that for incentive? (Also keep in mind I've tried 3 8800s (GTS, GTX, GTX ACS3) and STILL does it, and no, "wait for a new driver" does not count as a solution.)

Extra info:
In Vista, it'd crash when I was just surfing the web. That may have been a driver issue. I hadn't tried the last 2 Vista drivers. But I also don't care to try it again until I get it stable in XP, so please don't give me Vista advice.
 
what frequency is your RAM running at? have you tried running memtest on all your ram?

for what it's worth, systems will perform much more smoothly (not necessarily better) when running the FSB:DRAM @ 1:1. that team xtreme ram should be able to do whatever you want it to do, so with the FSB of the e6400 @ 266mhz(*4) i would suggest running the ram at 533mhz(*2) auto voltage; just to see if you can stabilize your system. try a few hours of gameplay (if you can) then shut it off for a few hours(lol minutes). see if you can start it up from a cold state without any problems and run some benches/games.

of course i'm not suggesting that you permanently cripple your 300$ ram @ 533MHZ. it's just an experiment :D

if you haven't tried that, giver a go. your lockups definitely sound like a memory issue. if you have tried that, sorry for not reading your previous thread.

i haven't had a chance to toy with any of that fancy 1066 ram yet, but the same ratios apply.
 
Install CPU-Z as well as the included ASUS monitoring utillity, PC-Probe. Post all of your voltages, temps, and frequencies read by those programs (you probably won't be able to see the RAM timings).

Also note that, on ASUS boards, 1:1 is really 1:2, and "sync mode" is really 1:1. At least, that's how it is on my P5N32-E, which is basically the Striker Extreme without all of the extras.

The board should be stable with everything on auot, but with some RAM/CPU combinations, auto does not choose the right settings.

The first thing I would change from auto is the RAM voltage. Try 2.075.

(BTW, you don't need to offer money to get people to help you. You'll get plenty of help on this forum for free.)
 
Its a shot... but try a different HD...

I had an issue with my wifes computer that it would install vista or xp, run and then blue screen at random... RMA'd the video and Ram... Then ended up justbuying all new parts... still had the problem... bought a cheap seagate sata and everything worked fine and dandy... worth a shot.. i know it drove me nuts...

Thanks
John
 
I had bsod troubles once that sent me nuts, turns out in the end that changing the sata port which the hdd was connected to solved the problems.
 
Load optimal defauts from bios check every setting and unless there is a overriding need that it must be changed leave it alone. Let everything default to auto.

turn off any OC on the vid card.

if it still crashes in games its most likely the drivers.

if it does not crash in games then its your hardware setup.

Unless you used a methodical process to establish your OC there is no telling where the issue is. If you did use a methodical process, hate to say it, you should have a good idea what the problem is.

Read this as many times as it takes to completely understand what and why they do what they do. Then read it again :p then follow their advice, and get a notebook and write down every change and the results of evey test you perform.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1170174
 
only use the minimum components - cpu, hsf. vid card, 1 stick ram, hd, psu. default bios settings, but give your ram a little room by setting vdimm a little higher, and loosen timing to something like 5-5-5-18. do not use 1t. start up and use one of the apps that crashes your system. if it does not crash, well your prob is/was a ram problem (i am pretty sure this is what it is) and you can t/s it down to one or both of the sticks. if it does crash, its time to start swapping out components. i dont know if you have access to other components, but if you are going to fix it yourself, you will have to get access. first, try 1 stick of completely different ram. you can get a stick (512mb) of decent valueram for around $30. if it still crashes your next target should be your psu, then vid card, then hd, then cpu.
 
snaggletooth said:
what frequency is your RAM running at? have you tried running memtest on all your ram?
Click to expand...
My timings are listed above. It's listed at 4-4-4-10-2t @ 2.0-2.2 volts. I've tried those timings at 2.1-2.2 volts. No go.
I've tried auto. (Which changes things to 5-5-5-15-1t) No go.
My proc is a Conroe 6600, not a 6400. It's voltage right now is 1.138v.
Nothing is OC'd. Not the video card.
 
have you checked the northbridge temp? This usually only matters when your ocing but it could still be a problem, I was getting bsods with an [email protected] and i got a new northbridge heatsink and all is well now.
 
This might seem like a weird suggestion, but have you tried putting the memory into the other pair of slots? I have a P5N32-E SLI, which is a Striker without the LEDs and LCD, and it would BSOD, and be extremely unstable at all stock settings. I changed the slots the memory was in, and bam, no issues at all, and stable overclocking.
 
acetken said:
My proc is a Conroe 6600, not a 6400. It's voltage right now is 1.138v.
Click to expand...

if thats not a typo then theres your problem. 1.325 or so is the default for the 6600. set it to 1.35 and try that, that will give you some headroom but wont increase temps much. also it depends where your getting 1.138 from... if your reading that from CPUZ then that might be after vdroop, which is still low and needs to be raised. if your reading that from bios theres your problem.
 
acetken said:
My timings are listed above. It's listed at 4-4-4-10-2t @ 2.0-2.2 volts. I've tried those timings at 2.1-2.2 volts. No go.
I've tried auto. (Which changes things to 5-5-5-15-1t) No go.
My proc is a Conroe 6600, not a 6400. It's voltage right now is 1.138v.
Nothing is OC'd. Not the video card.
Click to expand...

ok fair enough. i was wondering what MHZ you had the ram running at though, not the timings. but... that doesn't matter since you seem to have things workin a little better. :)
 
i have this mobo too :). advice i can give: use asus probe II its good for monitoring volts and flags up when they drop so you can rule out psu (adjust the amount it drops b4 warning in the prog.) secondly dont boot from raid, myn didnt like it. if it fails, clear the cmos (change jumper to activate button). and lastly make sure to regulalry upate ure bios :)
 
Hey, Im having the same kinda problems that the OP was having, with the crashing in games and whatnot. Basically I cant play anything at the moment, the time varies, but usually it will lockup my system and usually be accompanied by a BSOD. I have tried most of the solutions I could find on various forums and what not, so hopefully I can get this worked out here with some of your help.

Heres my hardware and voltages etc.

QX6700 @3.196 (Bus speed, 355.2) | 2gb Corsair XMS2 Dominator 8500 at 5-5-5-15 t2 at rated speeds ( 1066mhz) | Asus Striker Extreme | XFX 8800 gtx xxx | SoundBlaster X-fi Fatal1ty pro | TT Toughpower 850W psu.

Voltages as reported by PC Probe II ( All are auto except the memory ):

Vcore: 1.42
+3.3: 3.26
+5.0: 5.03
+12.0: 11.71
1.2VHT: 1.49 ( This one sets off a flag in Pc probe, I had manualy set it to 1.2 but it still locked up and gave me a bsod. )
SB Core: 1.50 | NB Core: 1.42 | CPU VTT: 1.34 | Memory: 2.2 ( manualy set )

The interesting thing is this rig ran fine with the overclock and memory settings for weeks before I actually started to get consistent lockups in games, I also ran memtest 1.70 so I dont think the ram timings are the cause, and I can also safely rule out GPU overheating. ( 53 idle 74-75 under load.) Movies and the like still run fine.
 
Nice to see I'm not the only one. No, the fix didn't work. I can play LONGER, but it's still broken. I'm resigned to the fact that it's a problem with both the nVidia drivers for the 8800 and the absolutely horrible Striker Extreme BIOS. Apperantly ASUS will be fixing it. Found a good game to test with though. Infernal. Kills it within 5 mins every time. Next time, I get an EVGA board. Asus has horrid support.
 
Earlier versions of the 680i boards had issues with the QX series, and newer varients have both BIOS and hardware fixes that appear to have resolved issues for most individuals. Another common issue was with SATA driver corruption (has been fixed with an update). Even though you don't have a QX, it was still quite common for individuals with a C2D to have stability issues that appear to have been fixed with current versions.

I don't know if that question has been asked as of yet, but do you have an earlier varient of this board. If you do, I would absolutly RMA that motherboard. I've noticed that the Striker Extreme really has not lived up to its name / potiential vs. EVGA, BFG, and Gigabyte versions.

Swapping the the motherboard may be an option. It sounds like you have tweeked / swapped our video cards and memory. The only other thing that I can think of is a PSU voltage issue, but I have heard really good things about the Corsair 620 that you have.

Good luck man!
Christopher
 
Earlier versions? How am I supposed to know which I have? CPU-Z says I have Rev A2. There is no 3 as far as I know, so I do have the latest, do I not? And the bloody thing is still broken...
 
my system kept dying after about 5 minutes, try a fresh install of windows and use the drivers you got on cd with your gfx card, worked for me :)
 
acetken said:
Dunno yet. Testing later today. (And if I do, do I pay somebody here, or do I pay the guy who made the random topic on the Asus forums whose thread I read to get stable settings?)
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...&model=Striker+Extreme&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
Click to expand...
Donate to the forum……………


Most people would say that’s the right thing to do.

It takes a lot of money to run these forums. Most people post to help others for the sake of helping.
 
That's actually a really good idea... I'd still like to solve the problem though. If not, I may have to "donate" it to EVGA to replace this shoddy Asus Striker Extreme board.
 
Situation has kind of degraded for me, after playing with some settigns I was able to play for a few hours lastnight and I that had gotten my hopes up that the issue was solved, but now its locking up even when I try to browse the web. I really dont want to have to reinstall windows seeing as how this rig is not 2 months old, but im really out of ideas so I just might. Really hope this issue gets resolved, also planning on RMA'ing the card just to eliminate the possibly that its a card hardware issue.
 
Im not even going to bother reading through each post.

You need to stress test each component when building your own system.

My guess (and this is a pretty educated guess) is faulty memory. Run Memtest86+ for 24 hours. You think thats too much? It isn't. I had a pair of 1GB sticks that were faulty and they did not show up errors until a good long time.
 
Try setting you RAM (DDR) speed so that it is exactly one third of your FSB (QDR) speed. You'll have to set the FSB:RAM setting to "unlinked".

I know that sounds absurd but on my PC, whenever I play a video, it crashes unless I'm using a RAM speed that is exactly one third of the FSB speed.
 
Did you do a Fresh install of Windows when you made the system, or was it carried over from a previous system? If you carried over a previous install, this could be the cause of all the issues with lockups and bluescreens.

I know you said you keep your place cold, but have you tried putting like a box fan or desk fan to blow directly into the side of you case with the panel off? This would definitely rule out an overheating issue.

I've also heard of sometimes getting and IRQ sharing problem between the X-Fi's and graphics cards. I don't have the link right now, but you can google it.

This is just my $ .02 for some stuff for you to try




buffbiff21 said:
Im not even going to bother reading through each post.

You need to stress test each component when building your own system.

My guess (and this is a pretty educated guess) is faulty memory. Run Memtest86+ for 24 hours. You think thats too much? It isn't. I had a pair of 1GB sticks that were faulty and they did not show up errors until a good long time.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more with what buffbiff has stated. 2 Passes of memtest simply isn't enough. I would let it run for a minimum of 8 hours before you totally rule out bad RAM.
 
Yeah, it was a fresh Windows install. (All 3 times...) I'll do an 8 hour memtest marathon while I sleep tonight. Will let you know the results tomorrow.
 
have you checked to see if there is an IRQ sharing issue between your sound card and VGA card?
 
Until you switch out all parts, one at a time, you really can't tell what is causing the issue...

For instance, disconnect your Optical drive and Maxtor HD from your system and run DDO (which shouldn't need the Optical drive, unlike many other games) and see if it is better.

If that doesn't help then install your OS on the Maxtor and disconnect the Raptor fully and try again.

The next step would then probably be to get yourself some new RAM and try that. I suggest the RAM below, which should be stable in this system (it is in mine, which is almost the exact same thing) and is incredibly fast for the price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231114

Then if that doesn't help you need to consider moving on to a new motherboard (hopefully you don't need to go this far). I would go with the Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus, which is almost the exact same thing as the Striker Extreme anyway, but costs a lot less.
 
I've updated the heck out of my little tale here for those late to the thread. Yes I'm still having problems.


Core2Duo 6600 (@stock) | Asus Striker Extreme (11.02 BIOS) | 2048MB Team Xtreme (4-4-4-10-2t) (Have tried setting all to Auto and changing the timings to all sorts of stuff) | eVGA GeForce 8800 ACS3 GTX | X-Fi Fatal1ty | 1 WD RaptorX 150GB, 1 Maxtor 500GB | SyncMaster 226BW | Corsair 620w PSU | 2 120mm Antec fans

Here's the story from the beginning. After it launched, I ran Vista for a while after I put in all my new parts. It crashed a lot. I removed it after a few days. I started running XP. It crashes within 15-25 minutes in certain games. Most notably Dungeons & Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Oblivion, and NWN2.
Games it HASN'T crashed in are Jade Empire, Sims 2 Life Stories, and Guild Wars.

At this point, I've eliminated thermals as the problem. My CPU runs at 48 and my board is at 39 (So says the BIOS). There is no artifacting, and I've tried 2 seperate cards, so I don't think that's the problem. I started with a non-ACS3 card, then upgraded when I thought that may be it. No dice. I found my board was setting my RAM voltage much too low, and that stopped it from bluescreening, but now it just hardlocks. (Though not as often as it was bluescreening) I've tried setting everything to auto on the board. No go.

What else could it be except drivers? I've installed the Apr. DirectX, latest mobo drivers (Striker Extreme, no network tool), no OC-ing, bought a new PSU (Corsair 620), installed a new fan in addition to my 2 120s... If there's any user error, please let me know. I keep my system obsessively upkept. It's defragged (PerfectDisk 8.0 - Latest build), definitely no viri or spyware...

I've drivercleaned and tried the most recent 6 sets of nVidia drivers. I'm currently on the 158.18s and have tried about 15 past drivers so far.
(Also keep in mind I've tried 2 8800s (GTX & GTX ACS3) and STILL does it.)

Extra info:
My RAM timings are listed above. It's listed on their site at 4-4-4-10-2t @ 2.0-2.2 volts. I've tried those timings at 2.1-2.2 volts. No go.
I've tried auto. (Which changes things to 5-5-5-15-1t) No go.
My proc is a Conroe 6600. It's voltage right now is 1.248v.
Nothing is OC'd. Not the video card.
I have Rev A2 of the board.

Memtest86+ has run 2 passes with no failing.

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

Guild Wars & Sims 2 run just fine.

Lord of the Rings Online, D&D Online, Infernal and a couple others crash within half an hour every time both on XP and Vista.

My findings after 45 minutes:
The CPU temps seem to top out at around 71-76 (Mostly 74-75) though I saw the vcore stay at 1.23. Is that a problem?
Here's the others:
+3.3 = 3.26 (Went to 3.27 briefly at the beginning)
+5.0 = 4.86
+12.0 = 11.71
1.2VHT = 1.25
SB Core = 1.52
CPU VTT = 1.20-1.31
DDR2 TERM = 1.07
NB CORE = 1.23
MEMORY = 2.16-2.19
MB = 43-44

Then I stopped it. No problems.

Any more help?
 
Erm. Kay. And for those of us who can't just switch out a motherboard at a moment's notice...? I'm pretty sure it IS the board, but it's got to be something I'm doing wrong. A board can't just hate certain programs and not other ones... Can they? There's GOT to be something else...
 
You ran Vista for a while and then upgraded the computer, or you upgraded the computer and then installed Vista? If the latter I'd suggest a reinstall.

 
Have you tried running Orthos and stress testing the cpu? Try downloading UBCD Basic and running it's stress testing - hit F1 in the menu there is a bunch of options for programs to use. UBCD you can have your hard drives unplugged, it'll run off of just the cd.

Also 2 passes isn't enough in Memtest. I say 6 hours minimum. Start it when you go to bed, or when you leave for work/school and just let it go. This is the same for Orthos ect.

Have you tried running with just 1 stick of ram? A little weird, but it might rule something out and let you get an interim fix, so you can game for now.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top