ASUS Crosshair V: Mixed Feelings

[mrcaffeinex]

My wife bought me the ASUS Crosshair V motherboard for our anniversary. I was naturally excited to install it and see how it would perform with two 460s in SLI (discussed in a previous post in the Video Card section). I spent a couple hours tearing down my old rig, cleaning everything and preparing the case for the new motherboard. Once everything was assembled and configured, I started a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with SP1 included.

At this point I was still excited because Windows installed without any blue-screens or other erros. I loaded the AMD chipset driver from the driver disc, then installed the latest nVidia drivers. I opened up the nVidia Control Panel and then the problems started...

There was no entry in the nVidia Control Panel to configure SLI. I searched around online for a bit and found that nVidia does not support SLI on the 990FX chipset in the 275.33 official driver release, but they do with a beta driver. I downloaded the 280.13 beta drivers, installed them and there was still no option to configure SLI in the nVidia Control Panel.

After some more online searching, I came across a post on the ASUS help forums that detailed some problems with running SLI on the Crosshair V boards while running Windows 7 with Service Pack 1. The conclusion was that Windows 7 would have to be installed without Service Pack 1, then after installing the nVidia beta drivers and configuring SLI, it would be safe to install Service Pack 1.

I re-installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit from my pre-Service Pack 1 disc, installed the AMD chipset driver and the nVidia beta driver version 280.13 again. The option for SLI configuration was there in the nVidia Control Panel! I thought success was certain at this point, so I installed Service Pack 1.

Once Service Pack 1 had installed, the system rebooted and loaded back into Windows. I opened the nVidia Control Panel to check that the SLI configuration had not changed, but the option was now gone. While surfing for more information regarding the issues that I was having, the system shut down. There was no warning, no beeps, no lights, just no power.

I turned the system back on and noticed that the primary video card's fans were not spinning, but I was still getting video. Worried that the card might overheat without adequate airflow, I shut the system down. I unplugged the power supply and made sure there was no residual power on the board, then let the system sit while I worked on some other things. When I came back and started it up again, the fans on that card still were not spinning and now I was getting no video from the primary card.

I swapped the two cards and started up the system again. The new primary card was working fine, but the secondary card (which was formerly the primary card) still did not have its fans spin up. I went into the BIOS/UEFI and checked the status of the cards. The system was only registering the primary card. I shut everything down and moved the secondary card from the second x16 slot to the x8 slot. The fans on that card still did not spin up when powered on and the BIOS/UEFI still only recognized the primary video card.

I tried using the primary card in each of the x16 slots and the x8 slot, but the system would not recognize it in the x8 or second x16 slot. Resisting the urge to find a hammer, I tested both 460s in my backup rig, but only the one would work. I then tried the HD 5770 from my backup rig in the x16 slots and the x8 slot on the Crosshair V board, but it would only register on the first x16 slot.

I did an old-fashioned reset on the Crosshair V by pulling the CMOS battery and leaving it sit overnight. When I came back to it this morning, I replaced the battery, installed the one working 460, removed all the other HDDs and the DVD drive, then started it back up. All the BIOS/UEFI settings were at their defaults. I did some more internet searching and read a few more posts on the ASUS forums that discussed various bugs in the BIOS/UEFI. I downloaded the latest BIOS/UEFI from their support site and it installed without error.

I tested the working 460 and 5770 in all the x16 slots as well as the x8 slot, with everything functioning each time. I then tested the non-functional 460 in each slot and unsurprisingly it didn't work in any slot. With the working 460 and the 5770 installed, I checked the voltage readings on the extraneous molex/PCIe connectors on the power supply and they all showed proper voltages.

I am in the process of requesting an RMA on the non-functional 460 right now. I am tempted to just return the Crosshair V as well, but I'm not sure my wife would appreciate me exchanging it after she obviously put some effort into buying it for me. In the meantime I think I'm going to try and borrow a GTX 260 to pair up with the old one I have lying around to do some further testing with the board and keep me occupied until the replacement 460 arrives, if the Crosshair V didn't somehow kill it and its covered under warranty. The worst part is that the newer 460 worked very well for the week that I had it in my old setup until I got the new motherboard...

Thanks to anyone who reads this lengthy post. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated. I thought it would at least be good to get the story out there in case anyone else is considering a similar setup and I will keep the forum posted if I come to any new conclusions.

Complete system specs follow:

AMD Phenom II 955BE (Revision RB-C2)
ASUS Crosshair V Formula
2x4GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 (Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL)
2x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1333 (Model Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL)
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 460 1GB (Model GV-N460OC-1GI) <--Still working
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 460 1GB (Model GV-N460OC2-1GI) <--Dead
Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB
Western Digital Caviar Green 1.5TB
Hitachi Deskstar 5k3000 2TB
Cooler Master RS-A00-EMBA 1000W (I really don't think this is the problem, especially after finding this old JonnyGuru review and according to the eXtreme PSU calculator the system shouldn't be drawing anywhere close to 1000W)
Everything is bundled up nicely inside a Cooler Master HAF 912 and the processor is kept cool by a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ with a pair of Cooler Master Turbine Master Mach 1.8 120mm fans.

 

[Raja@ASUS]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about the issues. It is a strange scenario indeed - sounds like a faulty card. If those GPUs are using different BIOSes it may not sit well with the nV drivers also.

You can get away with using different types of DIMMs provided you do not breach the specifictions of the slower set. Generally we advise against mixed pairings, though.

There is a newer beta UEFI here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/2ni62jzj34qyjjo/CrosshairV-Formula-ASUS-0051.rar

-Raja

 

[mrcaffeinex]

Thank you for the information. I couldn't resist the price on the 8GB kit, so I bought it knowing that I wouldn't get its full potential until I was able to get another kit running at 1600. It has been running flawlessly in my old board for a couple of months now at the 1333 speed, so I just set it up to run at 1333 and called it good.

The 4GB kit is somewhat superfluous at the moment anyway. I needed the 12GB to keep the system running smoothly when I was virtualizing Windows Server 2008 R2 in VMWare Workstation while simultaneously running Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and Fedora Core 12 virtual machines in a sandbox for a class I was taking...

How stable are the beta BIOS nowadays? The last time I had used a beta BIOS was back on an M2N-SLI Deluxe that only supported my new CPU with a beta version.

 

[Raja@ASUS]

The 51 beta is stable - actually improved stability over current release.

-Raja

 

[mrcaffeinex]

I'll install it today and see how it goes. I RMA'd the video card and with any luck I'll have the new one in the next 10 to 14 days.

 

[mrcaffeinex]

I updated the BIOS to the beta version and I think I may have bricked the board. The lights turn on, all the fans spin up, but there is no output of any kind: USB devices receive no power, no video, PWM doesn't kick on and the fans spin at full throttle, etc...

I tried clearing CMOS, but still received the same results. What now?

 

[Raja@ASUS]

What method did you use to update UEFI and did you let the process complete?

-Raja

 

[nenforcer]

Wow this is a bummer but thanks for posting. I am surprised about these error considering the 990FX is pretty much the proven 890FX chipset plus the added SLI support (which should only be a BIOS / firmware update) change.

I'm not positive but are your Gigabyte GTX 460 cards exactly identical i.e. why is one OC and the other OC2?

As far as the motherboard when something like this happens one of the only options you have is to put an old PCI video card in because sometimes the BIOS reset causes the default video to go from PCI-E back to PCI. I don't know if this will work on one of these new UEFI BIOSes however, especially if it didn't successfully update previously.

 

[mrcaffeinex]

I downloaded the BIOS update to my flash drive and went into the UEFI on system startup. I selected the EZ-Flash utility, loaded the BIOS file, then selected yes when it asked me if I wanted to write the new BIOS. It said that the process completed successfully and that the system would restart to finish the setup. When it restarted there was no video. I left it running for a few minutes and still there was no video. I tried the card in each of the PCI-e slots, but each time was the same. Then I disconnected the PSU, popped the battery, let it sit for a while and started it back up again, but the situation remains the same.

As far as the graphics cards are concerned, yes, they are two different versions of the GTX 460. The older one has a factory overclock to 715MHz and the newer one had a factory overclock to 760MHz. I had searched around the internet and posted on the forums here to verify compatibility for SLI and all indications pointed to yes. I was planning on using MSI Afterburner to try and set them both around 730MHz just to make sure there were no inconsistencies because of the clock difference, but even if I had to keep the newer one down at 715MHz to match the older one there should have still been a decent performance jump in most of the games that I play (Crysis, Crysis: Warhead, Crysis 2, Metro 2033).

 

[nenforcer]

I just read a review of a Zotac GTX 560 from a user who also runs an AMD 990FX who say's that the graphics drivers stop working (SLI) when AMD Cool'N'Quiet is disabled in the BIOS with the current 275.13 drivers. 280 beta drivers suppose to fix this, they said.

Did you ever disable AMD Cool'N'Quiet in the BIOS?

Don't know if this will help you now but interesting to know.

 

[mrcaffeinex]

Cool & Quiet is disabled by default in the UEFI (at least it was with the previous 2 BIOS versions).

I have been toying around with it again today awaiting an e-mail reply for my RMA inquiry and currently when the board is powered on the CPU LED is Red and the SB_Crazy LED is lit, but still no POST or display output...