Asus Striker 680i Fixes
EDIT 6/21/2009
I was still having stability problems after all this, so I did end up resetting the memory timings to 5,5,5,18 cas2 for for 4 corsair CMX2 1024 sticks, and things have improved further. Note that I also am now able to run fairly stably in Linked mode (occasionally I’ll get a little tearing in Mozilla for some reason?). Also, be sure to turn OFF vista media player enhancements in the BIOS.
You may also find my other guide Unfucking Vista SP2 useful to get Windows out of the way as a problem.
Good Luck.
–chitlenz
OK so I build water-cooled PCs with some guys I know here in Greensboro as Platypus PC, and as seems to be typical, people like me who experiment with our computers tend to have nasty problems. To be short, the bleeding edge… sometimes hurts. There is NOTHING more annoying than a broken computer… at least to a programmer.
So this is my box, Chiron:
System Specs
So 2 years ago I bought an Asus Striker Extreme as the foundation for my first full attempt at watercooling. This used what has now come to be known as the dreaded 680i architecture from Nvidia which… well doesn’t play nice with RAM. After MUCH searching of the internet, and noticing that no one recently has posted anything new… I will forward my solutions to fixing this wonderful little joy in the hopes that someone finds it useful.
I used Corsair CMX2 1024 ram which is supposed to be run in dual channel mode with 4 1GB sticks in the ideal world. In reality the symptom I got was a freezing at irregular intervals, particularly if something got hot (using Koolance case probes). I tried EVERYTHING over the last 6 months, one stick at a time, various power supplies (1010W Nvidia certified Everest atm), you name it. I washed out the watercooling system, rerouted my hoses and upgraded to new Geforce 260GTX cards, all to no avail… but tonight, I have an answer.
By setting the bios in the following manner, I found stability success at stock speeds running Vista32 Sp2, your mileage may vary.
The basic summary is 1.5v for all the voltages except ram, with ram recommended at 2.2v, and I found it to be unstable at 2.1v, dipping into the 1v range and freezing the thing up while it caught up. My theory is it’s either the low voltage on the ram, or the linked memory settings that were at the core of the problem. This system runs stable at 35C with no tearing in games and NO fucking freezes (anymore… knock on wood). Consequently, I finally had to sit down and really work to solve it AFTER applying the new BIOS update from ASUS (1901). At first I thought it had a problem with Vista Sp2, but I think it just amplified the existing memory problem…
–chitlenz
Bios Settings pictures follow:
My apologies for the shitty camera, it’s all I have at the moment since Juli lost the good one =\
Anyway, hope this helps some other poor sucker out there with the same problem to finally find some relief.
An alternative Rar file is also available for download HERE with better/larger pictures.
Good luck — chitlenz