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790i ultra + plus dual 9800gtx = constant freezing in some games

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Hello everyone, I recently posted on the asus forums about this but was not statisfied by the calibur of responses i got so i decided to post here. Tom's Hardware has always been a reliable source of information for me so I'm hoping you can help me out with my situation which follows:

I purchased a Striker II Extreme about a month ago along with all the rest of my new components (see system below) and its turning out to be quite an ordeal for me to get working. I've been lurking in this forum trying everyones suggestions and troubleshooting methods to stablize my system. I've RMA'ed one video card and one packet of ram (due to one stick being DOA in the pack of two).

The problem, which more or less has been stated before is that i have consistant freezing in certain games, namely Crysis and World of Warcraft with SLI enabled (add hellgate london to the list). Some games will also freeze after a while with SLI disabled (especially world of warcraft, which will more likely freeze in certain areas of the game than other areas).

What drives me crazy is that i can play Supreme Commander (and Forged Alliance) and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for hours on end and not have a single crash or freeze. Vegas runs flawlessly with out any issues at all, and Supreme Commander will occasionally visually distort large explosion animations with a static like tearing but other than that also works beautifully. This is both with and without SLI enabled.

I've updated everything: video card drivers, bios (currently 0703), game patches. I've tried tweaks that others have suggested for similar issues on this forum like upping NB voltage to 1.5v and SB to 1.6v. Nothing has fixed the problem. For a while i felt that 0702 bios had fixed all my SLI disabled freezing problems but soon enough i experenced them.

The only thing i have noticed wrong about the default settings that bios loads are my ram timings and voltages (defaulting to 6-6-6-20 at 1.63v) which i started to manually set (to 6-6-6-18 at 1.75v) when i first upgraded my bios to 0508 beta bios a few weeks back. Other than that i havent left any settings changed for more than one session when i was testing a tweak suggested on this forum. (Oh and to get my ram to 1.75v i accually have to set my ram to 1.72v in the over voltage menu in bios and it rises and falls between 1.74v and 1.76v.)

I just want to get this system working...i dont even care about OC'ing at this point. I just want a stable system that i can rely on not crashing at critical moments. If anyone else has had these freezing problems or at least sees something that might be a leading factor to my problems please let me know.

SYSTEM:

1 ASUS Striker II Extreme LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI DDR3 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Model #: Striker II Extreme

2 EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
Model #: 512-P3-N871-AR

1 OCZ ModXStream OCZ900MXS 900W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply - Retail
Model #: OCZ900MXS

1 Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Yorkfield 3.0GHz LGA 775 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80569QX9650 - Retail
Model #: BX80569QX9650

2 OCZ Reaper HPC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3RPR13332GK - Retail
Model #: OCZ3RPR13332GK

2 SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: HD501LJ

1 SAMSUNG 2693HM Glossy Black 25.5" 5ms HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor with Height/Pivot Adjustments - Retail
Model #: 2693HM

1 SAMSUNG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S203B - OEM
Model #: SH-S203B

More about : 790i ultra dual 9800gtx constant freezing games

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Your freezing has to do with the 790i lacking support for OCZ RAM (amongst many others), especially with SLI and Quad Cores.

You are going to have to retard your timings on your RAM.

These settings work 100% stable with my 1333 Platinum RAM, so I recommend you run these settings first and go from there.

Start with 8-7-7-22 2T @1.75 Volts with the North Bridge set at 1.4V and the South Bridge set at 1.55 Volts.

Then set the following settings:

TRRD - 15
TRC - 50
TWR - 12
TFAW - 50
TREF - 7.7US

From here you can tweak your timings tigher, but I would recommend running these settings for at least a week or two of hard gaming before you start messing with them further.

thx ill giver a try and let you know how it turns out...on the subject of ram incompatibility, is there any ram like the stuff i got that would work better with out having to retard my timings? Or am i better of sticking with i got and seeing if the 790i problems get fixed?
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I think your PSU is too big and causes stipulitus! It's a common disease among "heavy" PSUs. I would give your PSU some transformer rectifier reducers and see if it helps. :D 

Or just stick with what Prax said! :kaola:  :sol: 

yeah i probably did jump the gun a bit on 790i but blah...those timing settings didnt work...my performance in hellgate london accually decreased. The time it took to freeze did increase from 1 minute to about 5 though. Guess im screwed eh?

SlipStream said:
yeah i probably did jump the gun a bit on 790i but blah...those timing settings didnt work...my performance in hellgate london accually decreased. The time it took to freeze did increase from 1 minute to about 5 though. Guess im screwed eh?


Reset the cmos, remove everything bar the essentials (using 1 stick of ram, one video card, no other cards etc), in the bios set everything to do with ram and timings to slack settings and then download and run prime (multicore version) and atitool and see what they find issue wise - give it atleast a few hours, and after that see how the games run etc

if you can, post pics of your rig - might be able to spot something etc

also check the majors - bios up to date, cables all connected etc

also check your temps for video, chipset and cpu

if you have an old copy of windows xp i also suggest trying it (NOT a windows vista issue as its more stable then xp but just to see wether its something fishy with the vista drivers and combination of hardware etc)

SlipStream said:
yeah i probably did jump the gun a bit on 790i but blah...those timing settings didnt work...my performance in hellgate london accually decreased. The time it took to freeze did increase from 1 minute to about 5 though. Guess im screwed eh?


After all the above from apache... replace PSU. Most of the time if your rig is stable under synthetic benches and overclocking tools, it's your PSU not being completely stable under full load. I've had many a PSU be the culprit in my rig.

I also have this problem, only in fullscreen. Running similar hardware. Through most of the forums I have searched I see the common component being the eVGA gtx cards. I have a duplicate system except using PNY 9800gt sli cards and it works fine. This would seem to me that it is either a video or memory problem as those are the only differences between the systems.

System With Problem:
Motherboard: XFX 790i Ultra
Video: eVGA 9800GTX-512 (Dual SLI)
Memory: OCZ 1333mhz Platinum 1GB X 2
OS: XP Pro w/SP3 - 32-bit

System Without Problem:
Motherboard: XFX 790i Ultra
Video: PNY 9800GT-512 (Dual SLI)
Memory: Viper 2000mhz 1GB X 2
OS: XP Pro w/SP3 - 32-bit

roadrunner197069 said:
780/90 boards suck. Read before you buy.


Don't forget to add the 680i to that list, a little old but still classic at being a horrible board... I keep telling people not to buy nvidia boards, but no matter how hard I try, some poor souls still get sucked into nvidia's crapboard owner list.

What I would urge you to do IF possible is to return the 790i board, DDR3 ram, and the pair of 9800GTXs, get an X38 board (DFI Lan Party X38-T2R comes to mind as a good deal), DDR2 ram, and a pair of HD 4850s. If you do this, you'll be a lot happier with your PC.

The 790i isnt the problem. Besides, both HardOCP and anandtech gave the board 91/100 ratings. First I heard about any memory incompatability, especially since i have 2GB 1333 OCZ DDR3 in it at the moment...

From two posts down, it looks like SLI'd 9800 GTX's are the problem, as two GT's and my GX2 work fine. Are you by chance mixing a GTX and a GTX+?

I'm not saying it is the current problem, I am saying that it is a problem. I wouldn't give this board anything above a 60/100 rating and that's me being generous, since the only thing it has going for itself is that it can run SLI setups. They have stability, temperature, and compatibility issues... not to mention the very limited overclocking potential.

It is popular knowledge that nvidia chipsets belong in a toilet, and that intel chipsets are far superior to them, only drawback is that they can "only" run crossfire setups. I really want to know how nvidia plans on staying competitive in the chipset business now that they've given up their trump card (SLI compatibility) to intel, given the fact that both 600i and 700i series have been a total letdown from any perspective.

You've got one of the early, bad 790i Ultra chipset boards. Return it and get a later production model.

I bought an EVGA 790i Ultra board and had nothing but trouble at first.

The first problem was that I bought OCZ memory for it and it wouldn't even recognize it. I returned that and bought some Corsiar memory of the same specs. That worked and it booted up fine, but in heavy game-playing or any video intensive application, such as playing a video, I'd get freezing and hard-locking with my twin 8800GTX video cards, even with everything set at stock speeds.

I contacted EVGA and they agreed to replace the board without any trouble. They sent a new board that was marked as a 'production 3' board and I haven't had a lock-up or freeze since then. I've since replaced the 8800GTX's with twin GTX280's and the Corsair DDR3-1333 with Patriot Viper DDR3-2000 and it runs just fine. I can get it to run stable at 4 ghz on the CPU, (Intel X3360 which is the server version of the Q9550 which runs stock at 2.83 ghz). The only time I have a problem is when I push the overclocking too far on either the CPU or on the video cards.

I can get a little over 24000 on 3DMarkVantage.

Nvidia didn't do the best job on the early boards, but the later ones are fine and with the SLI GTX280's, I can play just about anything on it at high frame rates and high detail.

The ATI 4870X2 is supposed to be somewhat faster, but I've got what I've got now, and can't afford to dump it all.

I've used both ATI and nVidia cards and the speed crown passes back and forth, but honestly, both companies produce pretty good stuff. You can always get a lemon, especially when you're pushing the envelope of performance, but I've had better luck with overclocking nVidia boards than Intel ones. Intel boards are probably slightly more stable, but don't take to overclocking as well, in my experience.

I bought an XFX 790i Ultra a few months back and had many problems with freezing during games and the PC starting up without using the power button. It was getting very annoying and I was thinking about replacing it, I had updated the bios numerous times and while a few of the smaller problems were fixed, the big ones remained. Last weekend I decided to try updating to the latest bios (P07) and to my suprise it has fixed all the problems. My PC has now been running flawlessy ever since. No crashes, no instability and the PC only comes on when I press the power button. lol

I would recommend giving that a shot before getting a new motherboard.
Anonymous

Hi i have had the board for some time now there is a P08 Bios update for the board do that first

Main issues caused by incorrect timmings and voltages to your ram get the timmings for your ram for a reliable source eg packed and voltage also you will have to enter these manually in your bios then make sure T2 is set as DD3 is not set to un no T1
Anonymous

closest ram settings i can find are for OCZ3RPR13334GK- slightly updated version

- 1333MHz DDR3
- 6-6-6-20 (poss make 20 - 18)
- 1.75 Volts
- 1.8V EVP

try these hope it helps
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