A tale of two motherboards

[Spook]

So, it begins, time to upgrade my X2, So, i choose the E8400, and wait.

I order it on the day it is released, and all was good, except that it took a couple extra days to arrive.

The Rig
E8400
AC Freezer Pro 7
Asus P5E
Crucial 4x1G 800Mhz
75G WD Raptor
EVGA 8800GT 512Meg
AC Freezer Pro 7

Stock seems to work fine on this rig, although a little high in Orthos, 67c according to Core Temp. Not sure that I trust this reading because the asus utilities say its 10-12c lower. Overclocks worked decent on this board, got it up to 4G, without much effort. The only issue is that Orthos would push the temps up to 70c.

Trouble here was that the temps seemed to be too high... So, i decided to lower the temps by switching to a Zalman 9700. This thing works great, but long story short, the pins on the socket 775 are just a little too fragile.

I ran to Microcenter to get another P5E, but they didn't have any in stock. So, i settled for an Abit IP35-Pro Bios 14. Is it just me, or is this board not stable?

I can understand that yeah, it doesn't seem to like my crucial RAM, it keeps crashing, either crashes Orthos or blue screens, 2 or 4 sticks. I have to pump the voltage settings to 1.425v(1.225v default for an E8400), but is sags down from 1.425v down to 1.280v. With a load the voltage further droops another .01 to .04.

I've put in another generic IPSG(?) 512Meg 667Meg Dimm, lowered the voltages on both the CPU(set as 1.35v, reading 1.17v) and Ram(its 1.8v as opposed to the 2.2v Crucial ram). Now it seems to be running stable, Orthos is running great 2hrs now, and the temps are down to 50c on a full load.

So, in the end it appears that the Crucial ram is causing all my woes for the IP35 Pro. But still the sag, and droop voltage on the E8400.

I don't like this IP-35Pro, for its instability. Now the P5E is no saint, and after reading around it doesn't like the Crucial ram either, so maybe that is the cause of some of my(fewer) issues with the P5E. So, i think this IP35 Pro is going back this week, and I'll get another P5E.

As for the Ram... I need a good stable 1.8v ram for the P5E.... any suggestions, or any reasons why I shouldn't go back to P5E?

Thanks
Spook

 

[KenAF]

The IP35 Pro is rock stable with the E6x00 CPUs. Many have reported instability with the E8x00 CPUs.

 

[Spook]

Yeah, I'm seriously considering going back to a Asus P5E

 

[Heidfirst]

the IP35 series run great with Crucial & is a very stableplatform normally.
There is a fair amount of info on the web though about E8xxx series reporting high (incorrect?) temps on lots of different mobos though.
You shouldn't get that amount of droop with a dual on an IP35 Pro so something isn't right somewhere.

 

[Binky]

I also just upgraded to the same setup. The IP35 Pro is extremely stable with my E6420, the vdroop is almost nonexistant, and the temps are great. With the E8400...not so much.

This is an issue reported on almost every motherboard brand. As of now, I think all we know is that the CPU is a little different than previous chips, and the MB manufacturers are playing catch-up with the BIOS releases. Abit may be more behind the others, but i really don't know. I've seen these issues reported on various forums for every manufacturer.

My IP35 Pro shows a very large 0.1v vdroop with the E8400 (i.e. set it about 0.1v higher than you need). This vdroop is at idle...and it gets worse under load. I also can't read temps with any accuracy at all with any of the current bios releases. Speedstep is not working in any of the bios releases that I have noticed, although the RMclock beta can manipulate the multipliers. I've found that the B03 bios is the best for me (tried 14, 16B03, and 16B04). My E8400 is on a table and my E6420 is back in the system until more bios releases come out.

Oh, and don't run CPU-Z and uGuru at the same time. Maybe it's just me, but I can cause an instant lockup with CPU-Z.

 

[Spook]

Switched back to a new P5E.... Everything works great up to 4Ghz, and I haven't pushed the chip beyond that. Changed the Ram as well to 2x2Gb Corsair sticks. I Ran Orthos for 12hrs+, Memtest says everything is good, and I've had not any quirky program shutdowns or blue screens.

So, the P5E, E8400 with a Zalman 9700cu, and Corsair Ram works great together, if your looking for a good build.

Downside to this build is that both P5E's that I had came with a 203 bios, and this needs to be updated. The 1st P5E wouldn't even boot with this bios, the 2nd booted fine, and I updated with a USB memory stick. A few changes to voltages, and OCing was a snap.

 

[randavis]

I have a Q6600 on my P5E with a Zalman 9700 and 2x2GB G Skill Memory. I haven't tried to overclock yet. What voltages did you tweak? I raised the memory voltage to 1.8. Everything else is on auto.

 

[Spook]

I'm using a E8400... so the default voltage is 1.225v, yours is a little higher. I tweaked my voltage to around 1.3v, but it reads 1.26-1.27v in the monitoring programs... so there is a little bit of a sag there. You say you raised your voltage on your ram to 1.8v? that is default on most ram, if you want to up it from there, take it to 1.85-1.9 up to 2.0v probably. depending on your ram. My Corsair ram is 1.8v, my Crucial is 2.2v... My Corsair is barely overvolted at this point at just over 1.8v

According to Newegg, Gskill has several flavors of 2x2GB ram sticks, some are 1.8v-1.9v, and some are 2.0v-2.1v, you might want to check yours to see that you are giving i enough juice/voltage.