[Official] ASUS Crosshair V Formula (990FX) club - Page 410

Nop, still not do a secure erase, will be the next step....



any other suggestion?

I don't have many ideas besides the Secure wipe, which to my knowledge is the quickest way to restore your SSD to full speed. I clone the hard drive, secure wipe, and reimage. I would swap out SATA cables to be thorough, but I don't think thats it. Assuming you are installing Windows 7 with default configuration/services, you install the latest AMD chipset driver and should be good to go. I unfortunately do not have any experience with Intel SSDs, just crucial and corsair. You should just need to let the computer idle and do its trim/garbage collection thing to keep the SSD speeds from degrading too bad.

If you are hammering the SSD with tests and installing/reinstalling OS over and over again, without doing a secure wipe in between, that might explain some of the slow down. My sequential read speeds are around 750MB/s right now with my raid set up. I just did an install a few days ago, I will test again early next month and let you know if I see any significant slow down.

Thanks Cesar, today I'll try to do the clone and securewipe and let you know what happend. I cant believe the good speeds last only 1 month, before this drive I own an intel x25m (+msi gd80 890fx) and this SSD manteined its performance until 2 years of use and abuse, dont understand what happend with this drive/motherboard

I ordered a Crosshair V from Geeks. The refurbished unit with full retail package (supposedly) was $149. I am leery of anything refurbished of course, but Geeks has been in business for a long time and I have read many people have good experiences with them. Thus far that has not been the case for me. Right after I ordered it last Monday (7-31?), the page said "out of stock" . I suspect they were actually out of stock when they accepted my order and had to wait until they had another one to send me. They delayed shipping it for 3 or 4 days, I got an E-mail last Friday saying they finally shipped it. When I received it Tuesday and unpackaged it the one thing that was missing was the MANUAL! No biggie I thought and downloaded the .pdf manual. When I examined the board, there were two things that I noticed. First, there was a small dent on a shiny badge that appears to have no ill effects, and the second thing I noticed was that the VRM/NB heatsink was misaligned . Specifically there is a piece that slides in a connects the two heatsinks together and it protrudes farther from one side . When I rocked it back and forth it did not feel like it was making good contact. I tried to realign this, even pulling off the heatsink and discovered that the NB had something resembling Silly Putty gooped on the chip, with none actually where it is supposed to be. I cleaned it and applied some real TP. I was unable to get the alignment problem fixed, it felt like the heatpipe was going to bend, so I gave up and re-mounted the unit. It seemed to feel right after this so I proceeded to assemble the new rig, along with a new Thermaltake W2 PRO watercooler and a new NZXT case.

I got it all together with my FX-4170 and the rest of the pieces from my current rig, plugged it in and NOTHING. The board would power up, all fans would spin, but not a blink on the monitor, and no beeps at all. I then of course checked all connections and card slots, everything was perfect. I had heard about the BIOS issues with FX CPUs, so I was prepared and stuck my 555 in and got the same thing. NOTHING. I then examined the board very carefully, and noticed that the BIOS chip was not quite sitting right in its socket. I stuck my finger on it with the board powered up and the BIOS chip was so hot it nearly burned me. I decided to pull it and I discovered that several of the pins had been bent over on to each other, obviously shorting everything out. It looked like a Caveman had pounded it into the socket with a rock. Undaunted, I then proceeded to carefully straighten out the severely bent pins on the DIP and of course one of them fluttered away like a dandelion petal.....:facepalm: Still hopeful, I saw that the stub might actually be long enough to make contact in the socket, so I re-inserted it. When I fired up the rig again I got a chirp and the ASUS screen appeared , but pressing delete or F1 did nothing, and then got to this:


The part you cant see because of the flash says the EC data or files are corrupted. Do you think the chips is ruined or can it be flashed with a correct BIOS? I already have the correct BIOS on a USB, tried the ROG connect deal, but nothing happened. I have not found exact instructions as to how that is supposed to work, so I tried holding the ROG Connect switch to the "ON" position for 30 seconds and then switching it back while powered up. Also tried it power off. Nothing. Am I doing something wrong? IF I decide to keep this board, I will get a new one eventually, but right now I am really trying to figure out whether to keep this mobo or not. I have read about people getting free new BIOS chips from ASUS due to the wonk FX BIOS issue, do you think they will send me one even though I did not purchase it "new"? Has anyone gone through this process? Should I keep this mobo? They don't have any in stock right now so I would have to get a refund.

Edit to add: When I took this picture, I was trying a ps/2 keyboard, and it says no keyboard, when I try a USB keyboard it shows up, but still does not enter BIOS when delete or F1 are pressed.



I got my top tech-cat Joker on the problem, but he hasn't quite got er figured out yet.

i think its the bios chip you may need a new one, email asus and they should send a new one out 2 ya.

I talked to them on the phone and I was directed to us.estore.asus.com - which of course is down for servicing. I had heard about people getting new BIOS chips for free, but it does not appear to be the case for me. Does anyone know for sure if this BIOS chip is actually ruined gauging by that screen? Would it reach this point if the BIOS chip was not functioning at all? Is it possible to flash this one? If so how? BIOS flashing is a complete mystery to me, I have read what I can, but nothing seems to add up.

tough call. Do you continue to sink money into this mobo and get a new bios chip? Or do you go through the hassle of pulling the board out and getting a refund. I don't know if someone would be willing to pull out their bios chip and see if they get this same message?

In your shoes I would chalk this up to experience and get rid of it, this one has the potential to cost you more.

I am pretty sure I will send it back. I am going to call again and see if they will have CHVs in stock again soon so I can exchange . My only option right now is return with Geeks. They say I will get 100% refund, and I already have the return FedEx stamp so it won't cost anything. This is the first bum piece of gear I have had in a long time. I was expecting better from them really. I figured at the very least they must plug all of the boards in and check them before they go out, but there is no way they did that to this one. The way that BIOS chip was smashed in the socket rendered the whole mobo non functional. Who knows what else got cooked because of that. Missed a CHV on OpenBox Egg yesterday, I should have jumped on it. The thing is , I need a mobo right now to build a new rig for my wife, she needs a new home work setup and I was going to use this M5A97 EVO and my old 555 for it, and get a better mobo for this rig. Full price for either the Sabertooth or Crosshair is just too steep for my taste. Geeks does have Sabertooths right now for $109. Luck of the draw I guess.

Maybe the BIOS chip fell out and the helpful janitor at Geeks popped it back in using his mop handle.

I would send it back as soon as possible because refurbish boards are boards some one else sent back because it do not work and/or they overclocked it til it quit working and then they bundle it with what ever old parts they did not want

 

Very few people ever send back a good board

 

Old pre bulldozer boards that came with bios 0705 or earlier required a new bios chip for bulldozer to work with all its features

There is a white label next to the 24-pin power connector the last 4 numbers show the original bios that came with that board

Edited by Tweeky - 8/10/12 at 2:55pm

That's not quite right though Tweek. Go cruise the reviews on Newegg. For a lot of the negative reviews the issue is obviously PEBKAC. Lots of perfectly good stuff gets returned all the time just because people don't assemble it correctly. Buyers remorse is another thing too, a lot of people get something and have changed their minds or already gotten something else. I was surprised that Geeks obviously did not check this one before it was shipped, I was expecting more. I am still open to trying to fix this one though, if anybody knows something I should try I am all ears.