New PC on Asus Maximus V Extreme - Suggestions?

[doGmaI]

Hello everyone

After a lot of problems with my old Maximus IV motherboard, I finally got the Maximus V, and it's beautiful 😉
Now I'm finally built my pc. First of all the specs
Asus Maximus V Extreme (latest BIOS)
Intel i7 3770K
16Gb Corsair XMS3 ddr3 1333 MHz Unbuffered CL 9-9-9-24
ASUS GTX 580
2x Western Digital 2TB (RAID 1)
OCZ Vertex 3 SATA III SSD 2.5 - 120GB (used for ReadyBoost)
Windows 7 x64

Just finished installing everything (windows, drivers, motherboard bios updated to last version

Some questions/suggestion

1) LucidLogix Virtu MVP. I noticed that it is cause of a lot of problems. I installed it (downloaded last version from lucidlogix website), and tried to play something, to test my new system. Tomb Raider (tried different times, from detail level set to Ultra down to a lower detail than my old notebook): after about 15/30 sec of play, the game freeze and I have to CTRL+ALT+CANC it... Tried Minecraft: I cannot even reach the main menu. Instead of Minecraft I see a really nice BSOD saying virtuWDDM.sys crashed blah blah blah. So I tried without virtu MVP and I can play minecraft and a better situation with tomb raider (I think is freezes also due to the problem number 2 I will write below). Has anyone had the same problems with virtu? Is it useful? Right now I'm thinking to leave it out of my pc...

2) Intel Rapid Storage. I created a RAID with 2 identical Western Digital hard drives (same capacity and same firmware revision). Installed the latest IRST software from intel.com. Testing my raid volume with HD Tune the bad news: max throughput about 60MB/s, min 0MB/s, average: 3.8MB/s. I noticed, watching the graph of HD Tune, the drive is "working" for 1 sec writing/reading 60MB/s, after that 10 sec @0MB/s, again 1 sec @ 60MB/s. The systray icon of IRST says IRST stopped. I can't open it's interface to see if something is wrong or whatever. Any suggestion?

3) Intel integrated HD 4000 Graphics. I used to have a nice control panel for the old pc with integrated graphic card. Is it been removed in the latest version of driver or do I have to try reinstalling it (right now, I haven't tried because I was more interested in digging in virtu problem

4) OC key. Really interesting, but I have noticed that as soon as I attach it to my HDMI port on the ASUS GTX 580, the system hangs at boot, not even displaying a single pixel on screen. I remove the OC key and it start without a problem. Are there known incompatibilities with OC key and some models of video card (to be precise, my video card is and ASUS ENGTX580/2DI/1536MD5)

I think it's enough for the first appearance on this board.

Thanks in advance for any suggestion/comment

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Hey there! 🙂

I'm not really going to be of much help here...I have never tried setting up a system of HDD SSD readyboost etc. as you have it

The only thing I spotted is the OC key. I thought this was a DVI thing so how are you plugging it to HDMI...with an adapter of some kind. This might be the problem there? don't you have a DVI cable to a monitor? Also is doesn't work with 120Hz monitors and only up to HD resolution.

[doGmaI]

eheh

You're perfectly right.
I'm not connecting OC Key to an HDMI port, it's an DVI port on my video card. I haven't re-read what I wrote 😛

By the way, thanks for the warning about 120Hz and HD resolution. The monitor I'm plannig to use with the OC Key is a Samsung SyncMaster C23A750X (max resolution 1920x1080)

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Hmm so the connections on that monitor as I understand it are HDMI or D Sub not DVI do you have a DVI to D Sub (VGA) adapter?

[doGmaI]

Currently, the monitor has only HDMI in, so I have connected like this
video card (DVI port) -> OC Key -> DVI cable -> DVI2HDMI converter -> monitor

I also tried with another monitor, which has only DVI input like this
video card (DVI port) -> OC Key -> DVI cable -> DVI in monitor

In both cases the pc doesn't boot
I checked multiple times that the cable from OC Key to the motherboard was properly connected

I still have to try with just the OC key connected to the video card and nothing else (no monitor connceted, no cable to the OC key)...

[doGmaI]

Good news...

I reinstalled everything, this time adding RAID driver to windows install process. I followed the instructions on the user manual 100%, and the performance of raid volume are a lot better: now I don't see those "0MB/s lag", instead I get a 67MB/s average (which is just a little better)

I still have to check OC Key connection

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Cool on the RAID front.....and yeah let us know the last piece of the OC key experiment....the HDMI adapter thing, I can imagine going wrong somewhere because that's how the universe works ..... but the straight DVI connection should have worked...

[doGmaI]

Sad news...
Yesterday I finished rebuilding the raid (as wrote in the last message): very satisfying.
This morning I turned up the PC and no signal to the monitor (still without OC Key): the bad news, the video card is dead. I tried changing PCIe slot (just in case) but it doesn't work. I tried with an hold Captiva nVIDIA GTsomething) and it works perfectly.
Hoping to change the video card as soon as possible. I'm going to contact my reseller. Maybe I will change model. Since I don't seem to be able to find the MATRIX GTX580 P2DIS online I think I will look to an ASUS GTX670 (for example this one http://www.eprice.it/schede-video-ASUS/d-4608260
Does a ROG video card offer more than a "standard" non-ROG video card?

Maybe the problem with the OC Key were related to the videocard not perfectly working (just supposing)

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Oh dear! That doesn't sound good....and yeah, probably a good chunk of the OC key problems etc. hope you get it changed speedily

[sweeko]

Hi. I seem to remember in the m5e manual that lucidlogix virtu cannot be used with more than 8gyg of RAm. Check it out.