Post - Problems with 680i -I have'd it went and bought a Asus Rampage Formula

mmarsh · April 17th, 2008

I word of warning for you Asus Striker or P5N32-E SLI owners that use the 680i chipset.

There are some very serious flaws within these boards including the inability to add 4 GIGS of RAM in 4 DIMM modules as well as some incompatiblies with the DDRII 800mgz memory -the MB uses a insufficent memory voltage. It is possible to manually specify a higher voltage (2.2 volts I am told is the key) in the BIOS first and then reinstall the RAM but this solution never worked for me.

On top of this the 1403 BIOS is seriously bugged and should be avoided at all costs otherwise your NIC cards will stop working (a bug in the BIOS causes the NIC cards to lose their MAC address when the computer is put into sleep mode. Only way to get out of this is to reset CMOS, but problem will continue everytime PC is in sleep. Wait until BIOS 1405 is released for trying any major upgrades.

I got all 3 problems, and even after trying the non-official 1404 beta BIOS I finally gave up and bought another board. I am job hunting and the loss of my PC was too troublesome.

I was so sick of Nvidia (the GPU drivers in VISTA also suck) that I went out and bought the Ramage Formula which is based on the new Intel X48 chipset cost 250 Euros. Everything is now at 100%.

Lesson learned? unless you are planning for SLi stay away from Intel CPU versions of the Nvidia chipset such as the 680i.

I am told the Striker II is good, but its very expensive and it only takes DDR3 memory which is also expensive. I would have had to spend 500 Euros for both the board and memory.

I will probably get a new CPU later, but I have a major personal life announcement (its a surprise) coming up and I need to save money.

April 17th, 2008
mmarsh Kilobyte Posts: 230 Country: Microchips: 637 Gadgets	Post - Problems with 680i -I have'd it went and bought a Asus Rampage Formula I word of warning for you Asus Striker or P5N32-E SLI owners that use the 680i chipset. There are some very serious flaws within these boards including the inability to add 4 GIGS of RAM in 4 DIMM modules as well as some incompatiblies with the DDRII 800mgz memory -the MB uses a insufficent memory voltage. It is possible to manually specify a higher voltage (2.2 volts I am told is the key) in the BIOS first and then reinstall the RAM but this solution never worked for me. On top of this the 1403 BIOS is seriously bugged and should be avoided at all costs otherwise your NIC cards will stop working (a bug in the BIOS causes the NIC cards to lose their MAC address when the computer is put into sleep mode. Only way to get out of this is to reset CMOS, but problem will continue everytime PC is in sleep. Wait until BIOS 1405 is released for trying any major upgrades. I got all 3 problems, and even after trying the non-official 1404 beta BIOS I finally gave up and bought another board. I am job hunting and the loss of my PC was too troublesome. I was so sick of Nvidia (the GPU drivers in VISTA also suck) that I went out and bought the Ramage Formula which is based on the new Intel X48 chipset cost 250 Euros. Everything is now at 100%. Lesson learned? unless you are planning for SLi stay away from Intel CPU versions of the Nvidia chipset such as the 680i. I am told the Striker II is good, but its very expensive and it only takes DDR3 memory which is also expensive. I would have had to spend 500 Euros for both the board and memory. I will probably get a new CPU later, but I have a major personal life announcement (its a surprise) coming up and I need to save money.