Nick - y'think I should RMA the mobo?

[vgbaron]

Wondering the odds of my probs being due to a faulty mobo? Perfectly stable at 3.6 but terribly unstable anything above. Considering the effort you've put in, the help from Mushkin and the folks at Asus I'm just thinking it might be best to bite the bullet and start over.

I do NOT look forward to dismounting and remounting a mobo but wondering if it's a good shot.

Comment?

[NickN]

huh?

you are unstable becasue the memory is not DDR3 1800

you cant run 4GHz on a locked 9x multiplier proc without running 450FSB and that requires memory specific for that purpose @ 2:1

If you wish to RMA that board in thinking that Mushkin memory is not the problem then be my guest but I think you are going to find out the same thing OCZ people discovered in that the memory chips are the problem, not the board

I shot another email off to Asus. Why I have not heard back at this point I do not know but I sent a follow up. If I dont hear back on the GTL issue I will post some skew values to try. My concern is they are using a multiplier instead of a formula for that GTL value and simply displaying the BIOS setting as mv. I have seen them do some strange things over the years and I would prefer confirmation instead of a guess... educated guess or not.

[vgbaron]

LOL - somehow I knew you'd say that. It's just that to the uninitiated (me) if part A passes the test and part B passes the test then A+B should work if not of a third variable. Since I respect your experience and really do NOT want to replace the mobo I'll hang in there.

Asus moderator suggestet trying CPU vCore at AUTO - can't find it but I seem to recall reading *somewhere* that Asus had a habit of over volting the 45nm CPu's. Think I'll skip that suggestion.

Worse comes to worse, if we can't get it stable, I'll get some Corsair memory and start over.

It's this one, correct?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145206

Thanx for your patience

[NickN]

Those are the sticks

I just got an automated email response from Asus.. my contact at Asus is on vacation. I thought something was strange as I usually hear back from him within at least a week

I will post some numbers in the next few days but I would not get my hopes up

The problem is the memory no doubt in my mind about that. The result of your tests prove that. The instability is noise between the chips and the NB+CPU which is what skew and GTL trys to compensate for

[vgbaron]

Understood  - really this time!!