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

ssmb_92
Level 7
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.
My Rig:
Rampage 4 Extreme BF3/Dead 3960X thanks 2 RIVE/16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill RipjawsZ CL9 PC19200 2400Mhz/ASUS HD7970 DCU2T No longer Xfired - 1 card dead n never really worked/Threw away my Phoebus/Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W PSU/480GB Intel 520 Series SSD/2TB WD Black Caviar HDD -- All in Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS (BigWater 850GT LCS) Chassis with all the bells and whistles. Peripherals: Vulcan ANC, Logitech G-19 K/Brd, Logitech G700 Mouse.
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17 REPLIES 17

I have tried that b4, no luck and as i say i started off with the card that i thinks faulty by itself in slot 1 and had major dramas under load. I can accept that it was DOA, just the x8 thing which is killin me, about to try this BIOS out now.

EDIT: HiVizMan, i should of asked first, but does this BIOS require anything special to flash or can i use AI suite?
I don't want to try just in case ;). Cheers mate.
My Rig:
Rampage 4 Extreme BF3/Dead 3960X thanks 2 RIVE/16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill RipjawsZ CL9 PC19200 2400Mhz/ASUS HD7970 DCU2T No longer Xfired - 1 card dead n never really worked/Threw away my Phoebus/Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W PSU/480GB Intel 520 Series SSD/2TB WD Black Caviar HDD -- All in Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS (BigWater 850GT LCS) Chassis with all the bells and whistles. Peripherals: Vulcan ANC, Logitech G-19 K/Brd, Logitech G700 Mouse.

X-ROG
Level 15
Sorry I haven't read the whole thread only OP.

Are you sure it's not the CPU? Have you tried another CPU or that CPU in another board? If you've been overvolting it quite heavily for a while beforehand it could just have suffered electromigration or other marginal problems that still means it works but not entirely. CPUs are built with enough redundancy in them to do this.

ssmb_92
Level 7
As i said i have tried the CPU on my mates Gigabyte board on it OCs well on standard OC settings (as one would think) and also i should mention that it runs the 690GTX on his at x16 and also my 7970 (the good one) at x16. I cant see how it could be the board, but it makes sense that a faulty CPU could possibly be only outputting the first 16 lanes of PCI-e as x8 if you get what i mean. It could of suffered as you say, and perhaps the Gigabyte board had some setting that may of made up for it slightly or whatever, but that scares me to think about seems though it's a 1k+ CPU. Guess i'll build myself another rig like my mates (i was kinda planning to anyway just so i have two, like i have two mad cars) and test everything on that and run the new 3960x on this RIVE and see what happens. I think i'll go looking for a v1.02 RIVE board as well to be sure and perhaps RMA this to be even more certain. Neither way i'm up for serious cash and serious waiting times (which is what i'm more reluctant about) because it seems like the only way at the end of the day.

@HiVizMan: The BIOS made no difference to the x8 problem, however now that i have removed the 2nd 7970 and tried a fresh OC on the new BIOS things seem good even under load. Just played BF3 at maximum and OCed my 7970 to the setting in my signature and all went well.
Current CPU OC: 4.7ghz, 1.5v vCore, 1.15v VCCSA, 1.15v VTT, 180% CC, Extreme LLC (Gamers profile), 1.65v DRAM ABCD 2400mhz, C3, C6, C7 disabled (no visible loss to SSD performance) and SpeedStep off. BCLK @ 100.00 (standard) @ x47. Never goes above 40 degrees again so thats cool.

Again i've only been running for a few hours now, but hassle free on BF3, Oblivion and Fallout NV. CPU passed ASUS diagnostics stress-test for 10mins without going above 40 degrees or BSODing. My head is very itchy but the BIOS did work for all this. I even cable tied the card up to the roof of the chassis to make sure sag wasn't a problem, previously i placed a RAM fan between the cards to hold them up (also helped the 1st card from blowing hot air on to the second by sucking it straight out). I'll run it through tonight, bench it at current setting and let you know tomorrow.
My Rig:
Rampage 4 Extreme BF3/Dead 3960X thanks 2 RIVE/16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill RipjawsZ CL9 PC19200 2400Mhz/ASUS HD7970 DCU2T No longer Xfired - 1 card dead n never really worked/Threw away my Phoebus/Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W PSU/480GB Intel 520 Series SSD/2TB WD Black Caviar HDD -- All in Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS (BigWater 850GT LCS) Chassis with all the bells and whistles. Peripherals: Vulcan ANC, Logitech G-19 K/Brd, Logitech G700 Mouse.

ssmb_92
Level 7
Ok so heres some interesting facts worth noting. I was just trying to push it up to 5ghz (all went well on my setting, no test though but booted) and when i changed to default profile so i could make another i noticed that the Auto settings on the normal gamers profile has the VTT and VCCSA running at 1.359v on both. Surely this ain't right, it also does the same on the 1305 BIOS (my secondary). vCore sits at 1.25. I'll try the 2003 BIOS and see what the defaults are on that as well.

Just thought i'd add this as it is rather strange. Also i have noticed some strange happenings (artifacting, glitches etc) in general use while running at 1.15v on VTT and VCCSA which is how it was before except it wouldn't boot and all the DRAM lights came on the board. Perhaps Marshall you are right about the CPU suffering, and as HiVizMan suggest, this board is the root of all evil lmao. Further testing by tomorrow will tell all.
My Rig:
Rampage 4 Extreme BF3/Dead 3960X thanks 2 RIVE/16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill RipjawsZ CL9 PC19200 2400Mhz/ASUS HD7970 DCU2T No longer Xfired - 1 card dead n never really worked/Threw away my Phoebus/Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W PSU/480GB Intel 520 Series SSD/2TB WD Black Caviar HDD -- All in Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS (BigWater 850GT LCS) Chassis with all the bells and whistles. Peripherals: Vulcan ANC, Logitech G-19 K/Brd, Logitech G700 Mouse.

HiVizMan
Level 40
LOL - I would not go as far as saying the board is the root of all evil. But I do get your drift.

The key thing I need to know is if all your PCIe 16x lanes are working correctly. I seem to get the feeling they are but that one card which works on other systems at 16x will not play nice on this board. Please spell that out for me mate, that point is key to the way forward here.
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

ssmb_92
Level 7
I'm not sure i understand the question, but i know that these cards run at x16 in slot 3 and both in slot 1 on the Gigabyte board. Now i have no idea what setting is related to this in the BIOS, but the simulator says it should be x16.

I've given the PC a good run in now on BF3, New Vegas, Skyrim, TDU2, ProStreet, Shift 2 Unleashed, Burnout Paradise and Oblivion. I only had probs with TDU2 and BF3 leaking textures and artifacts, although i cannot get Skyrim to pass the first scene where the dragon lands, which has always been the case. ATM i would say it's okay now that i have removed the second card but i'm still not confident about the VCCSA and VTT voltages, because as i said it has noticeable problems when put at a safe level but is good when over-volting plus the fact that the default BIOS setting over-volt them wildly.
Please let me know what specific settings or measures you think are related to this x8 prblem, and thanks again for your help.

Also i think it's worth noting that there is a strange overlay on my VG278H monitors, kinda like the snowy effect of the old CRT TV's when no signal is input. It's only faint but it's hugely noticeable in FEAR3 and BF3 in parts where it is extremely dark. Don't know if it is relevant but this doesn't happen with my friend 690gtx and his LG screens (24in) but slightly does with my 7970 in there. Perhaps it's just an AMD card thing.
My Rig:
Rampage 4 Extreme BF3/Dead 3960X thanks 2 RIVE/16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill RipjawsZ CL9 PC19200 2400Mhz/ASUS HD7970 DCU2T No longer Xfired - 1 card dead n never really worked/Threw away my Phoebus/Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W PSU/480GB Intel 520 Series SSD/2TB WD Black Caviar HDD -- All in Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS (BigWater 850GT LCS) Chassis with all the bells and whistles. Peripherals: Vulcan ANC, Logitech G-19 K/Brd, Logitech G700 Mouse.

ssmb_92
Level 7
Another interesting fact, not sure if i mentioned but i'll rewrite it anyway: PCI-E slot 1 runs at x8 even when put down to GEN2 and GEN1 (not sure if GEN1 was safe but anyway).

Ok so just now i had a major hassle, quite like it usually does b4 a BSOD but it didn't. All programs stopped responding, windows explorer couldn't be restarted and it took forever to restart via Ctrl+Alt+Del method so i had to hard reboot. Started when i tried to open TDU2 then got orse after itried to open BF3 again after that didn't work.

UPDATE: Just had a BSOD exiting BF3, dxgmm1.sys was mentioned again. Rolled OC back to 4.5Ghz will see how that goes. Furthermore, temps were not above 50 on the 7970 and temps got to 41 on CPU.

UPDATE 2: Totally over this now, just going to switch brands now. CPU doesn't want to sit at 1.2v or less on VCCSA, 1.3v stops the crashes. Thanks anyway people, it's clear that no amount of stuffing around in BIOS will fix a thing and it's clear that standard setting don't even work (factory i mean) so in that case i'm jumping ship. I'll put this rig up 4 sale on ebay.
My Rig:
Rampage 4 Extreme BF3/Dead 3960X thanks 2 RIVE/16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill RipjawsZ CL9 PC19200 2400Mhz/ASUS HD7970 DCU2T No longer Xfired - 1 card dead n never really worked/Threw away my Phoebus/Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W PSU/480GB Intel 520 Series SSD/2TB WD Black Caviar HDD -- All in Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS (BigWater 850GT LCS) Chassis with all the bells and whistles. Peripherals: Vulcan ANC, Logitech G-19 K/Brd, Logitech G700 Mouse.

ssmb_92
Level 7
LAST CALL FOR ADVICE!!!!!!::::

Ok so i now know that i have a version 1.02 board, not 1.01. This takes away the possibility of the earlier board problems.

Now i have the 5A message (internal CPU error) at POST however the computer boots fine. BSODs are usually service exceptions, PFN corruption and dxgmm1.sys (directX driver) crashes.
I am now running default setings with VCCSA @ 1.25v as specified by the GSkill XMP guide for RIVE, VTT @ 1.15v, vCore @ Auto and everything else auto or standard other than XMP. Still as stable as a straw hut in a cyclone. I get BSODs just surfing the net on Google Chrome FFS on a fresh boot. This is nothing less than farcical to say the least. The most stable OC i can get is 4.7ghz, BSODs are more often on 4.5 and 4.2, but at this point i'm scared to run it any higher.
Furthermore i still have the F'ing x8 problem, in every mode. Now i note that in the system info section of Win7 that the processor has allocated PCI port 2a to the 7970, not sure if that means anything, but in bios it says its in slot 1 and running at x8 but capable of x16, with all power saving options off. Now i've tried putting the card in slot 3 because when i have 2 cards in there slot 3 runs at 16x however i can't get a signal when it's there - it has to be in slot 1. So i've pretty much exhausted all options. FFS if it don't work on factory setting when will it work.

I can't sell the rig on ebay or at all if it is like this. This is my last call for help here, or ASUS will be hearing from me in unconventional ways, i didn't spend 9K on this rig just so it wouldn't bloody work. Please understand my frustration.
My Rig:
Rampage 4 Extreme BF3/Dead 3960X thanks 2 RIVE/16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill RipjawsZ CL9 PC19200 2400Mhz/ASUS HD7970 DCU2T No longer Xfired - 1 card dead n never really worked/Threw away my Phoebus/Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W PSU/480GB Intel 520 Series SSD/2TB WD Black Caviar HDD -- All in Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS (BigWater 850GT LCS) Chassis with all the bells and whistles. Peripherals: Vulcan ANC, Logitech G-19 K/Brd, Logitech G700 Mouse.