Striker Extreme forgets BIOS settings....

[chris watton]

Have had an Asus Striker Extreme in my work PC for a while now, coupled with an Extreme Q6700, 2GB of Dominator Ram, 2x150GB Raptors in RAID0, 250GB SATA h/d and 8800GTX.

The board is fine, until it’s switched off at the power switch. When I turn it back on, the BIOS always, and I mean always resets itself to factory default, meaning I have to faff about in the BIOS so that it boots back into XP, as the RAID config and boot order has changed to default.

Now, I don’t normally turn the PC off completely 99.9% of the time, so it’s not really a big deal, but does anyone else know why it does this if all power has been turned off, as I’ve never encountered this before, and I didn’t think for a second that a £200+ (at the time of purchase) mobo would ‘forget’ my settings when switched off! I have kept the BIOS updated, but never makes a blind bit of difference.

I am asking also because we are emigrating to Italy next month, and my PC will be in the premises where I will be working, and am not sure if everything is turned off at the power switch each night, if it is, it’s going to be a nightmare having to hit the DEL key and sorting the BIOS options every morning! Lol

Cheers

PS - Scan, do you deliver to Italy?

[staffsMike]

Sounds like a duff bios battery.

[vinnyT]

Just replace the flat, round battery (you can get them from many places, including watch shops), very easy.

"PS - Scan, do you deliver to Italy?" Probably, but I doubt you'll get the free delivery option

Hope you enjoy Italy.

[chris watton]

Cheers for the responses . I did, in fact change the battery the first time it happened. as a duff battery made perfect sense, considering the symptoms. Alas, no change - I just wondered if it were a 'trait' of this particular motherboard...

Am sure we'll enjoy Italy, we bought a house twice the size as our house here in the UK for a third less asking price!

[Lee H]

Sorry, we do not ship outside the UK, but if required we can take the order and you can organise your own courier to collect.

Best Regards,

[chris watton]

Sorry, we do not ship outside the UK, but if required we can take the order and you can organise your own courier to collect.

Best Regards,

Thanks for your answer - I guess the reason I have upgraded all of my home and work equipment now is that it won't be as easy to get the parts I want (at your superb prices), once we move.

Hopefully, what I've bought already should see us through a good year or two anyway...

[vinnyT]

OK, it may not be the battery, but have you checked the battery connection points on the mobo are clean (it may be worthwhile giving the points a couple of gentle rubs with some emory cloth).

[chris watton]

Well, the mobo died altogether this morning, it posts the power on self test beep, brings up the screen logo (which I had turned off!), and then, nothing! it just hangs. I cleared the BIOS with the jumpers, inserted other memory, taken everything and went through the usual process of elimination, but it's futile. I can press DEL to enter set up, but still hangs, so can't even get into the BIOS options.

I think this will be the last expensive mobo I buy, they are just not worth it (from my own experience), and seem more fragile than boards costing a fraction of the price. Have just ordered a EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 NF650i Ultra for £60 to replace the Striker Extreme.

[vinnyT]

Hey Chris, sorry about the dead mobo. Your comment about the more expensive pieces of kit is true, the prob is, that when you buy the top, bleeding edge kit, not all the tech crammed into it will be bedded in yet. In effect you are often beta testing, although they wouldn't call it that.

[chris watton]

Hey Chris, sorry about the dead mobo. Your comment about the more expensive pieces of kit is true, the prob is, that when you buy the top, bleeding edge kit, not all the tech crammed into it will be bedded in yet. In effect you are often beta testing, although they wouldn't call it that.

I think you're right. I suspect the BIOS chip was always a tad faulty, with hindsight, due to the re-setting of the BIOS settings when it was switched off at the power source.
Would it be possible to order a new chip from Asus?

[vinnyT]

I had to get a new bios chip for a mobo a few years ago, can't find the Co. I used, but this site is offering the same service http://bios-repair.co.uk/

Hope this helps.

[chris watton]

Thanks for that Vinny , I have contacted Asus Uk, to see if they can either fix it or replace it for me, failing that, I'll try the Bios repair link. In the meantime, I think I'll avoid Asus mobos, I feel jinxed!

[slickric21]

Chris which bios versoin are you using ?
Maybe if you updated to the latest one 1303 it may help you.

I know you can't get into it..................yet, but if you try to boot with just 1 stick of ram in either slot 1 or 4 and keep trying - thats how I finally got mine to post after freezing on the logo screen (after I loaded cmos defaults by mistake).

then use the EZ flash utlity to flash from a cd or usb drive whatever.

maybe worth a bash - can't get any worse

I'm a member on the Asus forums and I believe you can get the Bios chips from them - or so I read on there yesterday.

Good luck.

[chris watton]

I flashed the Bios to 1303 a few days ago

I did try everything possible in troubleshooting, including swapping the memory. I even started it with only the CPU in situ, and I got all the correct error beeps.

I really do think the CMOS is shot - even when I put the jumpers on the clear CMOS pegs and leave them there, it still boots, whereas it shouldn't do anything!

The BIOS is fubar'd beyond redemption, I feel, with hindsight, I should have RMA'd it when I realised it was loosing, or not being able to save the BIOS settings everytime I switched it off at the power, but as I rarely did that, I didn't think much of it, silly me!

I have just 'jury rigged' an old Abit NF-M2S MATX (in a huge Lian Li case!) with its AMD 4600+ X2 CPU, and re-installed XP, just to get me through my work for this week (Quite a difference in performance compared to the Extreme QX6700!) - thing is, this little mobo has been in and out of various cases, chucking in its box with leads piled on top, and it still works great, am sure if it had cost me £200+, instead of the sub £30 I did pay, I would only have had to look at it and it would break! lol

[chris watton]

Well, I contacted Asus and explained the symptoms and asked if the BIOS chip could be replaced.
They answered stating that, from the symptoms I gave them, it does seem likely that the BIOS chip is faulty, and to contact my reseller where I bought the product from to get it fixed/replaced.
That, I have done, so hopefully, I can have another one soon! (As I am moving to Italy in two weeks!)

At the moment, I am using a MATX board (bereft of any features!)with AMD X2 4600+, and an ‘old’ 74GB Raptor to see me through my work until the proper board is replaced.

ETA, I have the cheap replacement motherboard (that I ordered in a fit of panic!), but to be honest, I feel a tad ‘aggrieved’ to replace the Striker with a lesser motherboard (especially when it costs so much and it should last at least a good few years, not months!), and prefer to keep it as a spare. Also, I really do not wish to re-format and re-install my 2x150GB Raptors that contain the OS and all programs again – a like for like replacement would negate this, and save me a days lost working time.