ASUS P8Z77 WS very first look

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mobilenvidia

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Sep 25, 2011
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A parcel arrived today, sent from STH for me to have a look at, thanks for the confidence

First looks of this motherboard very impressively built.
Chucked in my new Ivy Bridge Core i5-3470T, recognised it right away.

Having an issue right away, cannot for the life of me enable either the IBM M1015 or M5015 in any slot.
Had a fiddle in the BIOS, tried a video card to force other slot to 8x but nothing.
Both cards come from working machines.

I have a feeling the P8Z77 WS is made for utter Graphics speed.
Not looked too closely at the specs but there has to be a PLX PCIe bridge in there somewhere to get all PCIe lanes.
But already a big snag as this workstation board cannot take LSI SAS controllers :(

Any help appreciated, I may have missed something.

Also anything you guys would to have tested looked at bring it on.
 

mobilenvidia

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Sep 25, 2011
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Hmmmm, OK BIOS update to v0703 from 0601 fixed it.
I take it EC Firmware update has the LSI fix in it, as it's the only difference between 0703 and 0601
Good news is both cards now work and together.

Happy now, this could prove to be a very good board (now that it can actually be a Workstation :) )
 

cactus

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I remember back in the day you needed "capture interrupt 19" to use SCSI cards. Could have been something similar?
 

sotech

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This and the Premium are the two Asus Z77 boards we haven't tried out yet - I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on it.
 

Patrick

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Wow it got there fast! I think I sent it on Saturday (USA time so Sunday NZ time)
 

mobilenvidia

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Yes I was caught unawares in its arrival so quickly.
My office is a shambles of computers pulled apart to make a test bed (I mus take a piccy of the chaos unleashed)

My first thoughts now that the LSI issue is fixed, very impressive for a worstation, Server not so good, but you can kit this mobo out and kick some serious graphics butt :)
 

mobilenvidia

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Huge rearrange in my case that held the gear in my sig.

Now have P8Z77 WS in the case with the giant Noctua NH14 Heatsink/cooler on the i5-3470T, complete overkill for the 35w CPU
Got the Geforce GTX470 in PCIe slot 1 @ 16x (takes a double slot)
The M1015 in slot 2 @ PCIe 8x
The M5015 in slot 4 @ PCIe 8x
PCIe slot 3 is empty to keep GTX470 at 16x

Pretty nifty 32 PCIe lanes used on a LGA1155 CPU :)
 

mobilenvidia

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Forgot to mention above.
While putting the mobo in case, I noticed that the P8Z77 WS had no IO back panel in the box.
Looks to be an oversight from ASUS, a wee bit ugly at the back of the case with the gap around the edge.

ECC issue is cropping up again with this board too.
I have the Kingston KVR1333D3E9S/4G DIMMs, these are supported on the ASUS mem support list and also the ASRock mem list.
But board refuses to boot get memory error.
Now is my i5-3470T not supporting ECC, possibly due to it being an engineering sample ?
 

Patrick

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Oh... Rear panel IO missing is likely a STH shipping error than an ASUS error. Sorry. Will see if I can locate it. I did take out a few SATA cables because they basically cost $10 to ship two cables due to weight pricing on the parcel.
 

mobilenvidia

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Sep 25, 2011
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Ah, you did a pretty good job in taping it back up and make it look like it was shipped from ASUS like that :D
I havn't checked the other cables as I'm swimming in them from previous builds so not too worried about those
No need for the IO panel, I can live with it the way it is.

Need to cruch some drivers, so will check out how the dual core does with multithreaded 7zip
 
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ehorn

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How has your experience been with the board?

I can say I do love this board but had no joy working with the 9207's... Producing very erratic behavior with these controllers... CTRL-C works only sometimes and the controllers would sporadically just disappear taking the array with them.

2 new boards tested with the latest BIOS produced exactly the same results... Fiddled with OROM settings and legacy BIOS settings. Nothing produced possitive results... Was really hoping to use this... I do hope ASUS addresses these issues as I think this would make a great board...

The P9X79-WS on the other hand is a joy to work with... Not a single issue (except less money in the bank account now). lol...

peace,
 
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Patrick

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Funny you should ask... he has a longer term update scheduled for this week :)
 

ehorn

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Funny you should ask... he has a longer term update scheduled for this week :)
Looking forward to the follow-up... I really wanted this board to work for my purposes. Unfortunately, it just was not playing nice with me... :)
 

mobilenvidia

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Sep 25, 2011
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Board was working great.

Last night one huge lightning strike and things not so good now.

It blew the DSL modem, and the 2nd LAN port on the Mobo.
When plugging into 1st LAN port, the Video went crazy, I was doing heaps of testing and running video out the CPU.
I'll need to pull the machine apart and see what other damage there is.

Lightning went through phone line, through VDSL splitter, frazzled Modem, through router, hit the 2nd LAN port frazzled that, and then must also have done other nasties.
Not a good morning :(

Luckly the 6x HDD's, Geforce GTX470 and IBM M5015 were not in the machine at the time either
 

Patrick

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Board was working great.

Last night one huge lightning strike and things not so good now.

It blew the DSL modem, and the 2nd LAN port on the Mobo.
When plugging into 1st LAN port, the Video went crazy, I was doing heaps of testing and running video out the CPU.
I'll need to pull the machine apart and see what other damage there is.

Lightning went through phone line, through VDSL splitter, frazzled Modem, through router, hit the 2nd LAN port frazzled that, and then must also have done other nasties.
Not a good morning :(

Luckly the 6x HDD's, Geforce GTX470 and IBM M5015 were not in the machine at the time either
Yikes! Actually, there will probably be a guest post soon on a similar incident. At least it did not fry a more expensive motherboard since I know what you paid for that one. :)
 

mobilenvidia

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It was for a split second when the lightning struck.

All odd, as it blew certain things not others.
The VDSL splitter I though would have gotten fried, as would the cordless Telephone, but only every 2nd item along the chain got it.
 

mobilenvidia

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Phew, did a BIOS reset, plugged back in weird graphics gone.
I didn't have the GTX470 in so CPU was doing the video, had thoughts of zapped CPU

LAN2 is definitely zapped, it flashes real quickly and faintly no matter if cable is in or not.
LAN1 is working, took ages to sort the interweb connection, but seems to be going now, all a bit ugly with ancient Zyxel modem/router and then plugged into DLink router.
Modem has fried, big burn mark just below RJ45 socket, I'm going to miss this as it was capable of 1/2 bridge mode, and still be able to get to it's firmware, may get another if I can find one
 

mobilenvidia

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It just gets worse :(

My Dlink DIR-655 also got fried, I had to use a DSL modem/router while I waited for my new Modem to arrive.
New modem here nice Draytek 120 from Israel.
Plug this in, set it up.
Plug it in DIR-655 WAN port and nothing.
Check all the LAN ports, find 2 of those also no worky.
Pull router apart and see 2x great big scorch marks on the case
One by 1Gbit LAN ports and other by 1Gbit WAN port.
A few swear words later, router in rubbish after taking WLAN PCI card out.

I have a Buffalo 11n WLAN router lying around somewhere, will need to dust this off
I cant' use this ancient Zyxel modem router, it's terrible (but works)

I can also no longer get the computer to sleep, it instantly wakes again,
Turned all the WOL off but its an insomniac now.
Not sure if it's the new BIOS (WIN8 update) or the lightning.