Had enough of the RIVE, 3960x and DCUT 7970, HELP NEEDED, OC FAILING NON STOP

[ssmb_92]

Hello to everyone, sorry i haven't been around but i have had a lot to deal with. Now i'm not sure how far you have all gotten with these problems, i know a lot of people here have had them (listed below), but i am starting this thread to get it over with.

These are the troubles i still face, and probably many of you unless some of it has been fixed:

1. I can no longer OC my CPU to the level i had it before, 4.7ghz @ 180% CC/Extreme LLC/1.3v vCore/1.3v VCCSA/1.1v VTT
This worked fine, CPU never came above 40celcius and never had a problem.

2.I can OC the CPU if my 2nd 7970DCUT is disabled via lane switches. As a matter of fact i can no longer Xfire while OCing CPU, and just barely so with stock settings with lots of BSODs. I know that the card i have in slot 3 is a bit shonky cos it played up straight out of the box by itself. This card has only been OCed twice, to 1050/1450 which proved unstable at any rate and had to be dropped to 925/1400. Can't even turn the fans up without artifacting my games with it.

3. Continuing on about that 2nd card, it would Xfire on default setting in Catalyst, but would often cause a BSOD while under load. My current card in slot 1 runs just fine on 12.7, OCs very well but will not Xfire anymore. 2nd card won't run properly alone, RMAing it, however it is not the cause of my CPU OC problems.

4. Although the card in slot 1 runs well, it WILL NOT run at 16x, even in GEN2 and GEN1 setting via BIOS, just stays at x8, however card 2 runs at 16x when it's working (even in BIOS it states running at x8 native when simulator says it should be 16x).

5. Last complaint i want to give, when i OC at the level i had before (above) i have to reset the BIOS as the computer no longer POSTs. Codes are usually 00, 01, 25, 31. I lost the handbook so i haven't looked it up yet but it is irrelevant at this point because this OC is used by many and reports to be stable, not on mine anymore. Also the DRAM lights blink like hell, even when left at the recommended specs by Gskill in XMP, and not OCing in BIOS.

My specs are below.
Now i have tried everything physically possible to fix this, including running my 3960x through my friends set up, a Gigabyte x79 board (forget the model, one with the gun heatsinks) with EVGA 690GTX and Gskill 2666Mhz RAM and it's flawless.

At this point i'm regretting buying anything ASUS, it all seems to fail bad except the card i have in slot 1 atm, despite the x8 problem. As this is my first uber rig, i chose ASUS as i have always been happy with other ASUS products, but as i say i'm seriously disappointed and never again will i buy high end from ASUS. However, i do want this current rig to be fixed, and i'd love to be proved wrong.

Note that my CPU is watercooled, if that helps. Anyone that can offer me some help would be so great, like i say, prove me wrong about these ASUS products, i'm happy to pay someone, or more so make a "donation" for their support. That's how fed up i am at this point.

Big thanks in advance to anyone that can be of assistance. 🙂

Sean.

[HiVizMan]

Hey mate sorry to here your troubles. No need to pay anyone buddy. That is not how we role here - cool on that. 🙂

It might just be you have a defective or substandard motherboard mate. I suggest you go back to your retailer and RMA the board. List the issues you are having and get them to send you a new one.

That is my advice. If you want to try and problem solve stuff one at a time then no problem. But I think RMA that board.

[ssmb_92]

I guess at the end of the day i haven't been sure if it was the board, CPU or VGA cards. I haven't severely OCed anything, have followed all directions and advice and also what others are saying is stable to no avail. Thanks for the swift reply, i appreciate your help.

If there is one issue that blows my mind, it's the x8 issue that lots of us are having. Note my MBoard is a rev 1.1 so maybe this is a problem with that board? Running BIOS 2003 now, till no fix... Any ideas on this one? Just seems to weird, as it has always been this way...

Thanks again mate.

[HiVizMan]

Give me a hour and I will pull out a RIVE board. And I will see if I can duplicate your issue.

[ssmb_92]

Ok thanks, much appreciated, if it is of any help, the issue is the same on all BIOS versions, and as i say i have the 1.1 revision of the board and the 2nd revision of the DCU2TOP 7970. I just went away and pulled my PC apart and gave it a good air-cleaning, didn't solve any problems.
Thanks again.

UPDATE: Just let you know i'm off to sleep, i'm over it for 1 day lol. I'll check back in the morning.

[HiVizMan]

Hello again.

I am not able to duplicate your 8x PCIe lane regardless how many HD7970 cards I use. There is a BIOS that might help you, I will pull it off my USB drive and upload for you.

[HiVizMan]

Lets start here

r4x005b http://www.mediafire.com/?766mf9zv4nmh6y9

0018 http://www.datafilehost.com/download-03f241a9.html

Those are two that I know helped some folks with HD7970 issues.

[RonanC]

sorry to hear your troubles, but please remember overclocking can be very tricky at times, nothing is guaranteed, what works for others might not work for you, what works for one config you have might not work with another config you have. the nature of this gear is the highest of the highestend. I would not blame asus products,

i did notice your vcore for 4.7 is rather low tbh, most of these chips need around 1.4v, its very rare to get chips that do these speeds under 1.4. try 1.4vcore and see if you are stable.. your VCCSA is too high @ 1.3 too, you should never go above 1.2, also are you running your ram @ 2400? when you get into that territory things become very tricky to get stable, the imc on your cpu might not be able to do 2400mhz

[ssmb_92]

Thanks HiVizMan, i'll try that out in the morning and get back to you, been very busy of late.

@RonanC It's funny you mention that about the vCore, i must of mistyped cos it is at 1.4 (profile standards in BIOS) really but doesn't want to go any higher. I am running at 2400mhz on the RAM but it wont boot unless it's at 1.3, i would usually go 1.15 which is usually stable, but seems not with these so that one i have no explanation for, perhaps some other setting makes this happen but as i say i've been using the recommended XMP settings otherwise. Thanks for replying btw much appreciated :). Perhaps i'll roll back to 2133 and see if that helps, although as far as i am aware the 3960x should be fine with it but i've heard what your saying before so yeah i'll give that a go. Also i hate the idea of blaming the ASUS products or i wouldn't of built this rig with it, just seems that it's all failing on me whilst my mates rig with gigabyte, evga etc etc products are doing just fine. I'm too stuffed atm to do anything but i'll redo my bios tomorrow, again thanks HiVizMan for going out of your way to upload for me.

[RonanC]

no problem m8, please post back if you isolate the issue..

one thing might be to try iswell is save your current profile to oc profiles, and revert to optimized settings or defaults and try boot with both cards, thats where I would start 😉