Asus Commando i965 what do you think?

[No.72]

Yay I fixed the sound, I just installed and deleted then re-installed and it works fine. It is pretty good sound card actually I can notice the difference between this and the on board sound on the ds4. That is another plus point of the commando.

[Clunk]

Just got mine set up..

A few observations so far.

Had something sticky around the edges of the board (happy valentines day perhaps?)

In true Asus fashion, the northbridge cooler wasnt seated properly, neither was the southbridge cooler, and as this board lets you raise the voltage for the nb and sb quite a bit, the board would probably have been dead within the hour Joking apart, this is the 4th consecutive Asus board that has been like that, so they really need to get their quality control up to scratch, especially as they go to the trouble of making huge, elaborate heatpipe coolers, which are clearly for show.

Was supposed to come with ghost recon, but didnt.

Booted up first time, seemed ok, went into the bios, change some stuff for a modest overclock and it refused to boot up and the cmos clear button doesnt work, so at this time, it is dead

Time to RTFM I think.

[No.72]

Just got mine set up..

A few observations so far.

Had something sticky around the edges of the board (happy valentines day perhaps?)

In true Asus fashion, the northbridge cooler wasnt seated properly, neither was the southbridge cooler, and as this board lets you raise the voltage for the nb and sb quite a bit, the board would probably have been dead within the hour Joking apart, this is the 4th consecutive Asus board that has been like that, so they really need to get their quality control up to scratch, especially as they go to the trouble of making huge, elaborate heatpipe coolers, which are clearly for show.

Was supposed to come with ghost recon, but didnt.

Booted up first time, seemed ok, went into the bios, change some stuff for a modest overclock and it refused to boot up and the cmos clear button doesnt work, so at this time, it is dead

Time to RTFM I think.

LOL now the tables have turned, really unlucky though
maby you got my old one, both of my commandos had goast recon in, so yous have probably been opened at some point or something like that. You gonna bother with the taking the battery out thing?

[Voodle]

Wow, I've had much better luck with my commando board - I mean I'm good at making it not boot but clearing the CMOS always fixes it and the FSB goes up to around 530 without much trouble so I'm pleased with what the board can do. Much better than the DS3 that it replaced and the OC profiles and 3dmark 2006 key help a lot

[No.72]

Mine is fine except that the commando really suffers from heat , I will upgrade the BIOS and see what happens, because I am at 2.8 ghz atm and it go's from 48-51 degrees which is silly. Stock cpu volts too.

[Clunk]

Weird this.

Get to bios, add settings for ram etc, just bog standard timings and voltage.

Get to windows and seems ok, so restarted to get to the bios and it didnt get to the bios, just stopped with a blank screen and no signal to the monitor with fans spinning and leds on.

Reset cmos again, got into bios and same again, no signal to the monitor.

Battery out, reset cmos again, didnt touch bios this time, booted to windows, so restarted to enter ram timings and it did the black screen thing again.

I could understand if I was trying to do some huge overclock, but it is struggling at stock settings.

So, Im thinking that the bios is knackered.

Grrrr.

Edit: Just went back to it, it fired up first time, so I entered some settings that I know worked on the P5B and it booted to windows, but failed orthos, so restarted, went into bios and upped the ram voltage a touch (nothing else) and it black screened as it was restarting. The error message on the display is EN SETUP. Looks like an RMA is pending. Its true what they say, "if it aint broke, dont fix it."

Edit 2: Now Ive got the dreaded "CPU INIT" message that No 72 had, same symptoms and everything. Pile of junk.

[No.72]

Arrr man that sounds rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish , it it a shame that there are so many problems with it as it has the potential of being the best. I had the same symptoms as you yes . I think a serious BIOS update is needed here.

[Clunk]

This has got the latest bios on, but its so buggered now that I couldnt put a newer bios on it, even if there were one!

Im going to see if scan will let me nip up with it tomorrow, if not, Ill get a refund and get one from elsewhere, hopefully a different batch.

Another thing Ive noticed is that the ram slots are loose, and the main atx socket is a bit slack.

Seems like Asus have some serious quality control issues going on at the moment. The P5B that I have, has got "made in taiwan" written on it, and this commando has got "made in china" written on it, so maybe the quality control problems are at the chinese factory?

Edit: Just noticed that the disc that it comes with is called....

COMMANDO MOTHERBOARD
Nvidia nForce 680i SLI Support DVD Rev.291.01

says it all really

[daza]

Lets just hope they can get this sorted soon as in two weeks soon or else I shall be looking at another mobo.

[EtheAv8r]

OK I have an update... put my daughters ATI 800 graphics card in to replace the Palit 8800 GTX boot it up, and...... blank screen. ARRGHHHHH!

Think... the ATi card has an analog port, worth a try in desparation, go find a D-Sub cable, plug it in power on - BINGO I have a fully functioning system with a display via the D-Sub.

Looks like the digital interface on my Viewsonic monitor is kaput.

Put my old computer - being rebuilt for another daughted - onto my monitor to check this theory, this has an AGP ATi 9800 Pro, plug in DVI cable power on, up comes the screen and starts showing the POST info "OH DEAR" I cry, it is not the monitor, what can it be and then .... Blank screen.

Put Palit 8800GTX back on the Commando and plug it in to my daughters monitor via DVI, hold my breath, power on - up she comes!!!

The problem is not my Commando, it is not the 8800GTX, it is my ViewSonic Monitor DVI interface!!!

[No.72]

People reading; remember that 3 of us have had dead mobos, and ones with working mobs have the issue of high temps about 10 degrees higher than normal (WITH ME ANYWAY).
Remember it is brand spanking new so it will have some issues.
But still so far still bad.

[Clunk]

Well, Im glad its only the monitor, its a bit easier to rma

I also had the viewsonic dvi problem, but mine was on a 2025.

There are a few fixes for it, so you might be able to save it.

[Clunk]

The temp problem seems to be asus boards in general, the P5B reports them even higher than this commando did. Bloody thing.

[Supershanks]

Hi i'm back running again got new cpu rma'd old one with scan today.

have learned some things in last few days that might help u newbies(Welcome to the latest commando recruit clunk ) sorry just jkg

1) you have to press the clear cmos x2. :-
1st time clears it second time lets you boot. I found this by watching the lights on the mobo buttons. If you just press x1 & apply power the clr cmos button remains unlit & pc won't post. If you press it again it boots, now i dont like that so tried x2 with power off & everything is hunkydory.

2) don't forget to move the clear cmos jumper to the "armed" position. If left to default it disables the clear cmos button. (see 2-37 manual)

3) I found a way round the lack of bios rioll back You can roll back BIOS using an older Afudos version, this one works:

AFUDOS207 works a treat.

In terms of bios versions best for me so far is 0801-Bta think i put a link up for it somewhere shout up if u want it.

will just see how i go now, had got some better stabilty (8hr orthos large ffts user terminated) but was still getting bsods including 2~3 system failure bsods/day.

Am running orthos as i'm doing this post & it's interesting to see my CPU temps are 4~6C lower (still running stock atm), wonder if i've had a concave cpu lid.

Hope you don't get the grief i've had clunk

Saw a thread a few days ago where there were a lot of issues with the striker mobo. Someone was sayinng that they were being produced in a new factory in china, which wasn't yet up to speed & had qc issues. Noticed my board was also made in china, this might explain some of the odd issues that are around.

luck

[excalibur2]

People reading; remember that 3 of us have had dead mobos, and ones with working mobs have the issue of high temps about 10 degrees higher than normal (WITH ME ANYWAY).
Remember it is brand spanking new so it will have some issues.
But still so far still bad.

Oh dear, I have the p180 with corsair PSU and sata drive, now for a month, all ready and waiting for a motherboard, cpu and ram....methinks I better put off upgrading till about April/May.

[Clunk]

Aha, just the man

Did you say that you took your last board back and they swapped it there and then for you?

I think, the first sign of any problems with the replacement and Ill ditch it for something else, although, there isnt much apart from the abit quad thing. Ill see what they say tomorrow.