Is my Rampage IV Formula a dud that needs to be RMAed?

[alex_123_fra]

Hi all,

I bought some new components a few days ago and built a new system:

i7 3930K on a Corsair H110 with Akasa vipers in push/pull (280mm rad)
Asus Rampage IV Formula
G-skill Ripjaws Z - 16 Gb 1866Mhz 9/10/9/28 2
Intel 520 SSD (180GB)
2 x GTX 670 (windforce OC) in SLI

Win 7 ultimate 64bit

The build went well. Fired up first time round and the board started auto-updating i-rog. I also noted that the bios was the original one from November 2011! First thing I did was go the the asus support site and read about running the CAP converter utility. I did this using the ezflash utility and it went fine. I then updated the bios to the latest 3602 which went fine but the board has been giving me grief ever since.

Even prior to any OS being installed, it hangs and I had to clear CMOS and restart several times to get it going. The debug codes I see when it hangs are AA, A2 and A0. I unplugged my DVD/blu-ray drive and a storage SSD, both of which are in SATA 3GBps ports and that seems to kick start it but then I have to clear CMOS again and lose all my OC settings every time.

In addition, every time I install a new application (whether a download or otherwise), the restart hangs and I usually get an AA code.

I have tried rolling back a few bios versions to 3404 with no help. Same behaviour happens. Same happens with Windows 8 and win 7 ultimate. I have tested my RAM on memtest86 and there are no errors. The issues happen with everything at stock and with overclocking to 4.6GHz.

I really don't want to send it back but I can't live with it behaving in this way. Any ideas of something else I can do?

Any help appreciated.

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Hey there! 🙂

When you say it hangs what exactly is happening? AA is the code it should show when windows has taken over from BIOS and all is well.

I'm wondering if you have a display problem...GPU not seated right....cable...monitor...SLI not setup right? maybe disable sli and run one card only for now...and no OCing.

A2 and A0 are disk drive related....have you tried changing SATA cables?

[alex_123_fra]

Arne, you are a genius. What I meant by hang is that the display would go blank and my monitor went into sleep mode. I assumed this was due to a system hang. When it happened again just now I switched the HDMI from the top card (in slot 1) to the bottom card (in slot 3). The system showed the display properly and it had not hanged. However, the issue seems to be happening with the bottom card too and after a restart I had to swap the HDMI cable to connect to the top card to get it to display properly.

Is this a cable issue or something to do with the PCI-E slots. On the board, I have disabled slots 2 and 4 and using 1 and 3. They seem to be seated correctly.

Any ideas? Currently I am using an old Phillips 1080p but I have a new Asus 1440p monitor in a box which I haven't installed yet.

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Hmm not sure what to suggest....when this sort of thing comes up...

Have you got the extra power for the VGA cards plugged in? EZ plug it's called (molex connector)

Is your SLI bridge OK maybe try another one? Is the HDMI cable ok as far as you know...worked before etc.

Are you running Gen 3.0 or 2.0?

Maybe swap cards around?

Did you plug one card in at a time...setting up the SLI? Maybe best to clean install drivers...with one card...reboot...install second card...reboot and then enable SLI.

You updated your chipset drivers etc when you set up....

Good link for latest...http://www.overclock.net/t/1193055/asus-x79-series-information-thread-drivers-bioses-overclocking-up...

[alex_123_fra]

Thanks Arne,

Not sure which connector this is but the GTX 670s are powered by my AX1200 PSU directly. It has several PCI-E specific rails. SLI bridge is a though although I used the brand new one that came with the board.

Re: gen 2 or 3, they are gen 3 cards so I assume they are running as such as the board is gen 3 ready? Is there something I have to enable for this? I didn't see it in bios.

I will try swapping cards and redo a clean installation of the drivers. I did chipset, RST, GPU, audio, LAN and then windows updates when I set up initially. I will also swap to a new cable and see what happens.

Thanks for the suggestions so far!

[Arne_Saknussemm]

The extra power plug: You might need this especially with OCd cards....


You'll have to enable gen 3.0 via a hack.....first post this thread http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?22805-GTX-680-PCIe-3.0-amp-Rampage-Mobo (every time you update the driver you have to do this :rolleyes:)

But I would get up and running first at gen 2.0 and try one card at a time would probably be best way to troubleshoot problems

[Menthol]

Are you using a single monitor or multiple, why are you using a hdmi cable? try a dvi cable instead of hdmi or a different hdmi cable

[alex_123_fra]

Thanks Arne and Menthol. I am using a single 1440p 27inch Asus monitor now with the bundled HDMI cable. I have reseated the cards and swapped the around and so far no issue but I haven't reintroduced my overclocks yet.

Menthol, I could use a DVI cable, I was just lazy and like the fact that I don't have to use a separate sound lead with HDMI. Is DVI generally better?

Arne, thanks for that EZ connector pic. I saw it but I didn't know what it was for. It happens to be in a really unfortunate place and will be quite ugly when I run the cable and connector to it but if it is needed I will do it. So even in 2x SLI this connector needs power? Or is it for tri/quad SLI setups?

[Arne_Saknussemm]

When I read the manual it seemed to suggest plugging this in in SLI....and it might be worth doing it as an aid to smooth even power delivery...especially with OCd cards.If you have more problems you could try setting Gen 2.0 in BIOS to see if that has any effect...and go up the OC slowly to see if you're stable at each step.Have you checked the card temps? Just to make sure they are OK for cooling?

[alex_123_fra]

Thanks Arne, the system seems stable in terms of BIOS now and it was indeed a display problem. New display is fine and no post problems.

I have not enabled PCI 3.0. I tried a mild overclock on the cards +100Mhz core and +500 mem and the temps are fine but 3D Mark crashes. On a single GTX670 (windforce OC) I could get +167 +650 quite easily with no temp issues. The new GTX670 I bought might not be a good clocker so I am going to explore its limits on single card configuration to see what both cards will be happy with in SLI. I haven't plugged in the molex into EZ plug yet but that might increase stability.