ASUS P5K Premium problems

[stureandre]

Ok, here is my question..
I just recieved my Asus P5K Premium today.. Totally exited and everything...

so i take my computer a part (full list will follow), and put it back together in the new MB.
The old system worked flawlesly, but since I'm upgrading to the new q6600 soon i needed a new mobo.

What happens is that windows Xp is installing. But it takes forever.. I mean, with my old setup it takes 25 min from start to finish. With the new P5k Premium it takes about 30.40 min just to copy the files. And of course when the files are all copied i get the message

"Setup can not set the required Windows XP configuration information. This indicates an internal setup error. Contact your system administrator."

I looked it up on microsoft.com (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316425), and it means that some hardware is not compatible with XP SP2. But here is the thing.. IT's brand new.. It should work. All SATA settings were IDE mode and all that jazz..
I also tried to install with only one hard drive, I tried with a different CD/DVD drive, I tried with and withour OC, no difference... the only think i did not try was removing some RAM. But i know the RAM is good, since i've tested it on my old comp, and my friends...
I looked over the MB, and no bent pins or anything like that, at lest not that I could see right of the bat..

I've installed a ton of computers, but this is the first time this has happened

I hope someone can help me out.
Thanks..

Old build
eVGA 680i Rev. AR
Intel C2D E6400 @ 3 Ghz
GeForce 8800 GTX Thermalright HR.03 Plus
4 GB corsair pc6400 RAM
5 SATA discs
Plextor 716A ide burner
1 PaTA disc

 

[stureandre]

Oh yeah.. I guess I can tell you guys what's on the new build..
ALL the same hardware, except the new Asus P5k Premium. That's it..

I'm at a loss. Any help would be much apreciated.

 

[NXIL]

Hi--

you obviously know your PCs based on your previous build, so, there is something funky in the hardware somewhere along the chain.

New BIOS: started out completely clear, then set to very conservative settings for memory timing, etc? I like to set the Clear CMOS jumper, and take the battery out for a while too....have had some clear CMOS jumpers that didn't really clear it until I did that.


Maybe that Corsair RAM is setting the timings too high and tight?

BIOS version OK? As you know, it's best not to "improve" the BIOS unless you have to, but, maybe since that board is so new there is an improved BIOS version out.

Maybe motherboard defective? About a 1-2% chance of that....maybe you got lucky, and are in the 1-2%.

Power supply: ASUS boards like a lot of juice; I assume you have a good one, based on the other hardware you bought, all top of the line....

So, recommend:

complete CMOS clear, including battery.

As you did, install with one hard drive, one DVD drive, like you already did.

One stick of memory, even one a bit less high end than the corsair if you have it, or, make sure timings set very conservatively in BIOS for installation.

By the way, core temps OK in hardware monitor of BIOS? If you are using the stock cooler, I have had some issues getting those locked down correctly, which is one reason while I still like AMD for basic builds....

HTH

NXIL

 

[stureandre]

Hey..
The MB came with the latest BIOS from ASUS 0204 or something like that..

I've got an Enermax 620 Watt modular PSU. I never had a problem before.. It's just kinda weird..

The RAM timings were all on Auto, and the temps of the cpu was 35°C idle. No problems..
I used the Thermalright Ultra 120.

I'll try again tomorrow.. With my q6600..

I'll try and "dumb" everything down and see how that goes..

Thanks for the response..

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Here's a thought ... could it be a problem with the dreaded JMicron controller that is onboard the mobo ? It's used for IDE support as well as additional SATA support. Make sure the BIOS setting is right for the JMicron, and also I would make sure that I used only one SATA HD hooked to one of the mobo's main SATA controller connections. Asus manuals usually have good, specific illustrations on this.

Also, do you have a SATA CD drive ? If so, use that and totally disable the JMicron in BIOS and see what happens. Of course you'll lose PATA support ...

 

[stureandre]

Alright.. I got the board to work..

I only used 1 momeory stick while installing. It worked just fine. I still feel like it was slightly slower than my 680i setup, but hey.. it works..

I plugged everything back in place and it is still up and giong.

Thanks for the help and advice.

 

[stureandre]

OK.. Never mind.. I guess the board was bad..

I finally installed windows XP, and what do you know, it all went bad.
IO errors and extreme sluggish performance..

I'm RMA'ing the board on monday.
Hopefully the next one is better..

 

[PianoMan]

We'll be hoping with ya - that Premium edition looks sweet.

I had similar issues installing Vista on my P5K-E, but it was just that I wasn't familiar with ASUS BIOS settings (my last ASUS board was for my 733Mhz PIII ), and I was installing a new OS instead of XP).

PM

 

[fpbear]

While setting up the P5K Premium with Q6600, two WD SE16 750G drives, and Vista x64 I ran into a similar problem. Vista install was snail slow and would always freeze. It finally installed when I picked the SATA ports carefully (only using ports 1, 2, and 6) and configured the drives as plain IDE instead of RAID. I am wondering if there is something wrong with the ICH9R design on this board or if there will be some upcoming BIOS fix for this, as others seem to have run into the same thing... otherwise a nice board so I hope Asus will come up with a patch.

 

[NicColt]

Ok here's the gibb...

After reading to many posts about this there seems to be a serious HARDWARE PROBLEM with the SATA controller, this is not a bios or driver issue, the only HD that seems to work are the Seagates drives.

Even then I'm probably one of the lucky ones with seagate drives, I took out the jumpers on the drives formatted them and I don't seem to have any problems so far, but I'm using them in IDE mode through the BIOS.

Seems that Asus is playing dumb at the moment and not doing anything about it, if this is a hardware issue then they are in trouble and may have to recall the boards. But as hardware and software companies go we all know that in the end the customer will get screwed over and they will release a version 2 or something and wash their hands of it.

In the mean time even though I have one and like it, stay away from it until they fix this issue.

The two things that bother me about this is

1- Asus Quality control missed it

2- Even worst is that no review caught this problem.

 

[fpbear]

Yes indeed there appears to be some kind of serious hardware problem on the P5K Premium. I RMA'd it and purchased an Abit IP35 Pro instead.

I'm very happy with the Abit IP35 Pro. I highly recommend that anyone else with a P5K Premium return it to the store and get this board instead.

I agree, Asus is playing dumb like an ostrich with its head in the sand. Asus is handling this the worst I have seen any corporation handle a product defect. Time for a major recall.

 

[stureandre]

Ok.. Finally some good news!!

I RMA'd my board and recieved the new one. Good thing I got it, since my old MB died on me..

I installed XP, and then Vista (for crysis). And so far everything is working smooth. I have to say that installing XP and vista was faster on my evga 680i, but heck.. the difference was minimal.

So far so good. Going to OC soon to see what happens.

Hardware; Intel Q6600 (2.4), 4 GB ram, 8800GTX harddrives..

 

[NicColt]

Originally posted by: stureandre
Ok.. Finally some good news!!

I RMA'd my board and recieved the new one. Good thing I got it, since my old MB died on me..

I installed XP, and then Vista (for crysis). And so far everything is working smooth. I have to say that installing XP and vista was faster on my evga 680i, but heck.. the difference was minimal.

So far so good. Going to OC soon to see what happens.

Hardware; Intel Q6600 (2.4), 4 GB ram, 8800GTX harddrives..

how are your HD's connected, are they in IDE mode ?

what and how many HD's ? do you have a SATA dvd ? what bios are you using ?

 

[stureandre]

let's see.. I have mostly SATA-I HD's, but I think i have one or two SATA 2 drives as well..

They are configured as IDE, and connected to all the red and one black connector.. or 4 red and 1 black.

I'm using the latest non-beta 0204 bios. It's the one it shipped with.
So far it's going ok, but i'm still not happy with the OC ability of the board. I need to get a new bios and do some more tweaking.

I got my q6600 (G0) at 3 stabel no problem, but I know i can get more out of it..

 

[NicColt]

are they all Seagate drives ?

 

[stureandre]

They are all Western Digital drives. Except one which is Maxtor.

Let's see here. With al the numbers and all that crap..

WDC WD200JB-00EVA0 on USB (IDE)
WDC WD200JB-00GVA0 ***** IDE - Rest is SATA
WDC WD200JD-00GBB0
WDC WD250KS-00MJB0
WDC WD250KS-00MJB0
WDC WD740ADFD-00NLR1
Maxtor 6Y250M0

I have another raptor as well, but it broke down on me. Need to talk to WD about it.
Anyways, I hope this clears it up a little..

 

[MarcusXP]

I assume that you've installed windows on the raptor 74GB.
For my curiosity, please install HD Tach and run tests on the SATA2 drives:
WDC WD250KS-00MJB0
WDC WD250KS-00MJB0

I think you will see big drops in performance. they are random. this is a know issue of this board with SATA2 drives. Please let us know if they work fine on your board.
You would be the first one who says that..

See all these SATA issues on the ASUS forum:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/topi...iFi-AP&SLanguage=en-us

 

[stureandre]

I have Vista on the Raptor, and XP on one of the WDC WD250KS-00MJB0 drives..

I ran HD tach, and on the first WDC WD250KS-00MJB0 disc, I had no performance drops.. This is the disc with XP on it.
The other one had a huge dip at 120 GB. Everything else was perfectly fine. I ran the test 3 times, and the same result every time..
Some of the other HD's also have some random drops, but nothing major. The next time i run the testm everything seems to be fine.

Then again... I only ran the 8 meg test.

Well.. I hope that they can fix this with a new bios or something. It should not be that hard.
At least, you would think.

Day to day performance of my system i pretty darn good. Sometimes it feels a little sluggish, but no big deal. It's only for a few seconds. I've got an uptime at about 8 days in XP now, and still it works just fine.

If you have any more questions about anything, or any more tests you want me to run, just let me know.

 

[NicColt]

Originally posted by: stureandre
Well.. I hope that they can fix this with a new bios or something. It should not be that hard.
At least, you would think.

Here's my take on it and what I said in the Asus forum

It seems that a very limited number of drives can work in raid mode depending on the firmware versions of those drives and when they were made. When in IDE mode even more drives seem to work but also depending on what board version and where it was made and which bios you are using. Most Seagate drives don't seem to be having problems in IDE mode at the moment. But some posts are showing up with problems.

So depending on the combination of Drives from certain manufacturers such as seagate and depending on the drives firmware from other manufacturers and when they were made and if they have the jumpers removed with the combination of the boards version and combining that with where you connect them them on the board depending on the order you connect them and if your in IDE mode. You may not have a problem.

But if you basically take your same system and change anything such as go in raid mode or put back a jumper to use 3.0 mbit/s or change the connection order you can screw your entire system.

If this is indeed a hardware problem with the controller then I don't think that any bios will be able to fix this thing. Also some posts with Version 2 of the board is showing the same problems and some are not. I think that somewhere asus found and fix the problem with the controller.

This was supposed to be Asus's flagship P35 mobo but like I said it's turned out to be the Black Eye edition that will go down in infamy.

Stay away from this mobo at all cost and if you can't get rid of it and are having problems cut your loses and go with the Abit P35 or do like me hope that this thing lasts another couple of months and go with the X38 which will come out in the next month or two.

 

[turbines]

Vista users must read: http://www.intel.com/support/c.../imsm/sb/CS-025783.htm

 

[Dewfuss]

Just an FYI:
I'm also running XP SP2 and both x86 and x64 versions of Vista on P5K board. I've got a pair of Mirrored 500GB (SATA2) and a pair of 250GB (SATA1) Seagate drives using the ICH9R Raid controller. The only issue I ran into while installing any of this was when I installed Vista x64 OEM via CD boot. It was unable to recognize the mirrors properly and hang, so it would never get the the "Select your Language" first prompt of the install even with the 250GB drives as non raid. To get around the issue I unplugged the mirrored 500GB Mirrored drives until after the install of Vista x64 which did include giving it the ICH9R drivers during setup. Then prior to creating the mirror of the 250GB drive or plugging in the mirrored 500GB drives I installed the latest chipset drivers from Asus as well as the latest 7.8 version of Intel Matrix Storage Console. Of course I then had to VistaBootPro to properly configure my boot options since Vista x64 was installed without it's knowledge of the other 2 OSes.

 

[nrhyme]

Was just reading this concerning info about the p5k premium. I just bought one yesterday. What can I do to provoke the ich9. I just installed my WD7500AAKS as AHCI, loading driver in windows installation F6 etc.. to try and provoke it. It seems to work fine. its the only drive on ICH9. What can I do to provoke further ? I have 14days to return the board and get the abit ip35pro if necessary....

 

[nrhyme]

Here is a HD tune scan of the drive in AHCI mode: http://img107.imageshack.us/im...nchmarkwdcwd750ha1.jpg