Crosshair V: Dead again?

[Arbiter Odie]

Guys, I'm getting pretty good at killing expensive hardware. Or, at least, I'm afraid I am.

I decided to see how far I could take my ram. The ram was two sticks of 4GB each 1600 ripjaws memory.

I loosened all the timings as far as they could go... and the system wouldn't boot. I changed the speed of the ram, I could get it to post at 1066 mhz, but anything beyond that wouldn't let the computer post. I changed the cpu multiplier downwards, it still didn't work. I left the settings at the normal, and the system posted! I kept the tighter timings the motherboard set them too, and set the ram to 1600 mhz, and crossed my fingers. It posted! boy, that was weird.

I increased the fsb to 220, and then 240 with the cpu multiplier at 13.5 (normal, this is a sempron 140). Everything looks good...

I change to 250... whoops, the system won't post. Well, I am overclocking, after all, so I thought I'd just hit the ram's limits. I try to boot again (the motherboard normally sets everything back to normal when an overclock fails), and get something terrifying. After hitting f1 to enter bios, I am greeted by a strange screen. I do not have a picture of this screen because I panicked, and didn't think.

The screen was the normal bios area of the crosshair V with most of the settings not loaded, just a few for the cpu. In the center of the screen was a pop-up box, with the words "Entered value exceeded maximum something", and behind that I saw more scary things. Cpu current speed: 5700 MHZ!!!!! And it froze.

I smelled heated metal, and the exhaust vent of my computer was much warmer than normal.

Fighting my sudden cardiovascular failure, I dove for the power button; it wouldn't shut off. I ripped out the power cable. Hmm... did I burn anything? I hit the clear cmos button several times. I booted again, and this time the cpu target speed read "704 mhz". Huh?

I can't get it to boot. I tried switching out the ram, and clearing the cmos multiple times. Nothing.

At first I thought that I'd managed to kill my processor, so I pulled it out of the system, and re-installed my old tried and true hp mobo. It worked fine.



So. I'm pretty sure that I just killed my second motherboard.

Does anyone have any hope to offer me?

 

[SMOKEU]

Have you ever thought about becoming an author? That was a great wee story there.

 

[Arbiter Odie]

With ugly grammar/spelling errors and all. No, I just tend to write eloquently when my computer tries to incinerate itself. I don't even want to know what voltages it was trying to run at.

 

[SMOKEU]

Have you tried taking the CMOS battery out for 15 minutes and then trying to see if it starts?

 

[Arbiter Odie]

No. After what it tried to do to my poor sempron, I don't really want to try again. It's going back, before it take anything down with it.

Thank you for the advice though



I'm getting a sabertooth. Let's see if that works.

 

[Woomack]

I wouldn't play with asus at all but that's just my opinion
In this year I made rma for almost everything that I bought for my pc including cpu, 2x mobo, ssd, some network stuff and some other things ... seems like only Gigabyte board and G.Skill rams are still running without problems
Today I should get one asus from rma ... should be fun

 

[SMOKEU]

I wouldn't play with asus at all but that's just my opinion
In this year I made rma for almost everything that I bought for my pc including cpu, 2x mobo, ssd, some network stuff and some other things ... seems like only Gigabyte board and G.Skill rams are still running without problems
Today I should get one asus from rma ... should be fun

I've had almost nothing but problems with Gigabyte boards. About 4 of the approximately 5 Gigabyte boards I've owned have failed, while only 1 out of 3 Asus boards I've had have given me issues.

 

[Arbiter Odie]

And I'm scared of ALL the motherboard makers. I got a defective Asrock board while learning to undervolt, my first Crosshair V was DOA, my second died yesterday, and Gigabyte boards appear to have voltage regulation issues.

I guess that leaves... MSI?

 

[SMOKEU]

Motherboards tend to be the least reliable computer component, if you get a good one then keep it.

 

[Arbiter Odie]

Exactly my plan. I'm hoping the sabertooth I ordered will work.

 

[g0dM@n]

I've always been a big fan of Abit, but unfortunately they are out of the game. Gigabyte's higher-end boards always pleased me. I've got a Crosshair V and it's been funky, but it's working right now. If I'm to buy a board brand new, I'd probably go with a Gigabyte 990FX...

So how's the Sabertooth treating you?

 

[Mario1]

Crosshair V totally sucks... 90% of the guys over Newegg said they either got it DOA or it messed up after 30 min of using.
Seems that Asus really lowered their standards as far as quality control goes.

 

[Arbiter Odie]

g0dm@n: The sabertooth hasn't arrived yet, it should be here tomorrow. I'll let you guys know how that works once it's installed.
Also... about gigabyte. I've considered their boards multiple times, but I always get scared by the reviews talking about poor voltage control, and large voltage droop. Do you know if there is any stock in these claims? If the sabertooth doesn't work, I might try gigabyte next time.

Crosshair V totally sucks... 90% of the guys over Newegg said they either got it DOA or it messed up after 30 min of using.
Seems that Asus really lowered their standards as far as quality control goes.

Mario, I can see that you don't like Asus. You must have had some really bad experiences with them, considering your erroneous claim that 90% of the reviews are bad. I talked with newegg support two days ago, and gave them some useful figures; you may find them interesting. At the time of this posting, there are
53 one star reviews
10 two star reviews
15 three star reviews
21 four star reviews
109 five star reviews.

That is not a 90% failure rate. Please try to be level headed about these matters, and don't be a fanboy. Onwards to glory, fellow overclockers!

 

[Mario1]

g0dm@n: The sabertooth hasn't arrived yet, it should be here tomorrow. I'll let you guys know how that works once it's installed.
Also... about gigabyte. I've considered their boards multiple times, but I always get scared by the reviews talking about poor voltage control, and large voltage droop. Do you know if there is any stock in these claims? If the sabertooth doesn't work, I might try gigabyte next time.




Mario, I can see that you don't like Asus. You must have had some really bad experiences with them, considering your erroneous claim that 90% of the reviews are bad. I talked with newegg support two days ago, and gave them some useful figures; you may find them interesting. At the time of this posting, there are
53 one star reviews
10 two star reviews
15 three star reviews
21 four star reviews
109 five star reviews.

That is not a 90% failure rate. Please try to be level headed about these matters, and don't be a fanboy. Onwards to glory, fellow overclockers!

I'm not in any means a fanboy.
1:2 ratio of failure:success is still EXTREMELY bad for such a motherboard, plus Newegg ratings aren't a good criteria.
I've personally contacted Plesio.bg asking them about the Crosshair V and they've told me they can't guarantee anything, since 80% of the the motherboards they've sold so far got returned and had to be replaced.
I'd get one if they weren't so unreliable (at least at the moment), but after contacting Plesio and reading some feedback on the internet I've bought a Gigabyte one. Lets hope I won't have any problems with it!

 

[Arbiter Odie]

Okay, okay, I'm sorry that I was a grouch. And yeah, a 1 out of two failure rate is horrible. For me, it's been a 2 out of 2 death rate.

Do you know if gigabyte boards really have widespread voltage droop problems?

 

[66racer]

I have had good luck with my crosshair V. I dont think you can blame the motherboard if you are unaware of the voltage you had things set too. It is possibly you just had bad luck and got 2 bad ones in a row, some people are that unlucky, or possibly you are causing the damage, thankfully its still under warranty I have read some weird stories online, but most issues people have complained about are driver or bios updates they didnt install. USB issue was a bios fix, BSOD intel lan driver fix, etc. They should have done more testing honestly but at least its fixed.

The problem with the crosshair is that some people arent aware of what all the settings are and possibly your way overvolting things. I purposly left my cpu-nb voltage on auto to see what it would do and at 3000mhz cpu-nb it put me all the way to 1.5v!!! Its stable at 1.33v so that tells you how you need to pay attention to details on a serious OC board. Its like driving a brutal race car, behind the right hands its fast and a less experienced driver may struggle and therefore be disappointed.

I personally had bad luck with msi on the 890fxa-gd70 and the 1100t, the vrm's are too weak apperantly to handle a good overclock (safe voltage lol, its been documented online to not use with an x6 OCed), went through 2 and sold the 3rd. They had an easy rma process since they are local but i stayed away from their 990fx for that reason.

 

[Arbiter Odie]

Mario, I've found somebody else to be mad at. Sorry I was rude.

I have had good luck with my crosshair V. I dont think you can blame the motherboard if you are unaware of the voltage you had things set too. It is possibly you just had bad luck and got 2 bad ones in a row, some people are that unlucky, or possibly you are causing the damage, thankfully its still under warranty I have read some weird stories online, but most issues people have complained about are driver or bios updates they didnt install. USB issue was a bios fix, BSOD intel lan driver fix, etc. They should have done more testing honestly but at least its fixed.

The problem with the crosshair is that some people arent aware of what all the settings are and possibly your way overvolting things. I purposly left my cpu-nb voltage on auto to see what it would do and at 3000mhz cpu-nb it put me all the way to 1.5v!!! Its stable at 1.33v so that tells you how you need to pay attention to details on a serious OC board. Its like driving a brutal race car, behind the right hands its fast and a less experienced driver may struggle and therefore be disappointed.

I personally had bad luck with msi on the 890fxa-gd70 and the 1100t, the vrm's are too weak apperantly to handle a good overclock (safe voltage lol, its been documented online to not use with an x6 OCed), went through 2 and sold the 3rd. They had an easy rma process since they are local but i stayed away from their 990fx for that reason.

racer: do you want me to break your post up into little pieces, and answer each segment? I can, if you would like. I did everything right, installed everything correctly (I had LOTS of practice), and witnessed what the auto voltage settings do. Everything was set up properly. It was not my fault the board died, insofar as overclocking is considered reasonable.

Stop implying that I don't know anything.

 

[Mario1]

Okay, okay, I'm sorry that I was a grouch. And yeah, a 1 out of two failure rate is horrible. For me, it's been a 2 out of 2 death rate.

Do you know if gigabyte boards really have widespread voltage droop problems?

The UD5/UD7 indeed have massive vdroop for some reason, but Gigabyte's answer to this was that they've designed the boards following the exact specifications AMD have given them for the Bulldozer.
I'm hoping that the vdroop will be relatively less with the Bulldozer CPUs.
Its quite possible, since the big vdroop is currently experienced by Phenom X6 users, isn't that much of a problem for the quad core users.
@66racer Don't blame Arbiter Odie, I'm pretty sure he did everything correct. Its just Asus messing up this time. I'm pretty sure they'll resolve all issues on the new batch of mobos since they're a great company, but the current problems come from Asus themselves, not Arbiter Odie.

 

[66racer]

Hey sorry if you felt I was attacking you. Perhaps writen out looked more harsh than it would have if i said it. I did mention that its possible you got 2 bad ones in a row and did mention that I have read about some weird issues people had, it was your statement about not knowing the voltage that raised an eyebrow. I also mentioned how I had a few bad boards too with msi so I didn't think it would have come out so harsh. My point was to check voltages and such in case you overlooked one so you don't go through this on a different board. The chv deffinetly has mixed reviews online no doubt about that. They will need to release a new model to get away from the bad rep or put a revision change in the name of it lol

 

[Arbiter Odie]

Oh. I thought you were saying that I didn't know what I was doing.

Sorry, I guess I interpreted it wrong. And you're right, I did get two bad ones in a row. What I said about the voltage: When the error message popped up, and I got to see the poor sempron trying to run at 5.7 Ghz, I wasn't able to see the voltage setting. It wasn't loaded.

Sorry I got mad... I'm still a little upset about the board dying. It was great while it worked!