ASUS - Striker II Formula

[Cykoth]

Hello All,

I've purchased the ASUS MB, and I seem to be having alot of trouble with it. I've got the Lancool K7 case with 3 120mm fans, my CPU is the QX9650, I've got 4 Gigs of Corsair XMS2 800 MHz RAM, 2 WD sata hard drives, 2 eVGA GTS-8800 512 (G92), and a HP IDE Lightscribe DVD-R. I'm powering everything with the Antec Truepower Quattro 850.

I think my issue is related to the QX9650, as several BIOS revisions have been made and say they are supposed to be more stable with that CPU. I've flashed the latest BIOS Asus has put out 0902, and I have noticed much better stability. In that, the OS doesn't freeze with me just being on the desktop. I originally had installed Vista x64, and I thought my stability problems were OS related. I blew the HD and installed XP Prof SP2 and had better performance.....but still got freeze crashes. I am not O/C'ing at all. At the suggestion of some, I set settings to manual and even set my memory timings to 5-5-5-18 per the test conditions put out by corsair. If I get things running stabily, then I might try to be more adventurous Now the computer only freezes once I am in a 3-D app of some kind, like Bioshock or Dawn of War. After about 5-10 minutes, I get a freeze that is only cleared with a hard reboot of the machine. Before my latest BIOS revision, I would have a bad time trying to get the system to post, but since 0902 I never have trouble with that at least. My MB temperatures seem high to me.....after a crash and re-hard boot, I got into the BIOS and recorded the following temps in degrees C:

CPU 34, M/B 40, NB 62, SB 56
Room Temp about 20

On the Asus motherboard forums, I've seen other complaints similar to mine. Some have put new thermal grease on the CPU, NB and SB and added additional fans like the Antec spot cool directly to the NB chip. I've been waiting for Anandtech to finish their review of the Striker II Formula with the QX9650 cpu somewhat impatiently.....they put out a blog on initial results, but I need some guidance!

Seeings how on the Asus website they say they are celebrating the Chinese New Year, I guess it will be several weeks till they perform any more BIOS revisions......Anyone else have this board or similar problems?

 

[vance11]

Im having a similar issue. I have a Core 2 Quad 9300, on a striker 2 formula. The system is constantly freezing. Thinking it was a heat problem, i put a rather large portable fan right inside it, and managed to install windows, and all the drivers.

Now i can get onto my desktop sometimes, but it crashes after 5 or so minutes. The striker 2 formula's NB and SB run very hot (nb: 70 with load and sb: 55 with load). I called the shop where i got everything and they said that those temps had nothing to do with what was going on. Unfortunetly, the mobo is running that 780i chipset, which apparently doesnt get along with the new 45nm Q9300 CPU. Its in the shop right now, so hopefully they can get me rolling soon. This is my first intel CPU, and i feel like amd feels betrayed, so they are giving me a hard time .

Anyways, im letting them handle it, ill post when i get it back.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

This interests me, because I apparently just blew up my 680i Striker Extreme. I swapped the memory -- no cigar. Swapped the processor -- no cigar. Pulled the SLI 9600 GT cards and put the second card in the primary slot, leaving the other one uninstalled -- no cigar.

It won't turn on the monitor when I power on -- no cursor, nothing. This is the same unfortunate situation I had 7 years ago when I blew a Pentium II intel board, and it wasn't even over-clocked.

The reviews at NewEgg seem positive about the Striker II Formula, but you folks seem to have these problems with the 45nm quad cores. This may just be a BIOS revision dilemma, but until they post a new revision, your S-O-L.