*** Official ASUS P5B / P5B Deluxe Thread ***

[Tomahawk903]

Originally posted by: NewtypeX
I'm having the same problem as many of you have had getting the P5B to POST. Same story...the board is powered, all of the fans are running, the vid card's fan is running and the onboard Asus logo lights up red; however, I get no video to even get into the BIOS and update it, nor do I hear any beeps.

These are the components:

E6400 CPU
1x1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 RAM
Geforce 7600GT Vid card
Antec 450W PSU

I tried testing with a one-year-old LGA775 P4 CPU, DDR2 533 RAM, a 6600GT video card and a different 500W power supply...to no avail. All I could ever get was a black screen (as the graphics card gets absolutely no signal) and a bunch of whirring fans. I did connect the 4-pin ATX connector so that's not the issue. I tried clearing the CMOS and I even tested it outside of the case to make sure I had no grounding issues and still no go.

I figure it's the board since all of the old parts which are working fine on my one-year-old rig right this minute would not work on the P5B. RMA'd the board yesterday and hopefully will get a replacement back later this week. I'll keep you guys posted.

This is the first time I've had a problem with an ASUS board (4th build with them) but apparently this isn't an isolated issue.

The only way I got the P5B board to post is this.. I took it out of the case, reinstalled it. 2. took the battery out of the motherboard, reinstalled it. 3. Jumped the pins on cmos jumpers to clear cmos on the motherboard, and got to post on the screen. I can not put my finger on which worked but it worked for me.

 

[Fishy007]

Originally posted by: NewtypeX
I did connect the 4-pin ATX connector so that's not the issue.

You mean 8-pin right? there are 2x4pin connectors for the CPU power. A black cap is covering the second set of 4-pin connectors.

 

[Strikez]

Originally posted by: KvT

Originally posted by: Kanis
Is it possible to disable the PEG Link Mode on the vanilla P5B? From other posts, it appears the option may be in the P5B-Deluxe, but I can't find it in the vanilla P5B BIOS. The reason I ask is because I have a factory overclocked 7900GT and whenever I play a graphic intense game (or test optimal settings via coolbits), the graphics begin to "tear" and the system will lockup pretty quickly.

I originally thought the issue was a motherboard/memory compatibility issue. I had OCZ memory and RMA'd it for Corsair TWIN2 that other posters reported success with. However, I'm experiencing the exact same behavior now that I have the Corsair memory in. Now, I'm wondering if this PEG Link Mode may have something to do with it, as it only occurs in graphic intense operations (or monkeying with the video card clocks). As long as I'm surfing the web or typing up documents, it works just fine. I'm not overclocking anything, so it's all the basic settings in the BIOS for me.

Is another updated P5B BIOS expected anytime soon?

Thanks for your help!

Kanis

---------------------
Asus P5B @ 266FSB
E6400
Corsair XMS2-6400 (DDR2-800, 5-5-5-12, 1.9V)
MSI Geforce 7900GT (500/1530)

I get the same crap in games. Comp locks up (BSOD). If you find any solutions I would very interested to see what did the trick for you. tkx and good luck.

@strikez. If you're reffering to my rig all I can say is that i've updates the mobo (P5B vanilla) to the lastest bios available on the asus website, which is 0509. I don't think the P5B deluxe bios works on the vanilla version. but tkx anyway

Yes I was refering to your system and I apologize for not reading the type of mobo correctly.

 

[MADMAX23]

Originally posted by: NewtypeX
I'm having the same problem as many of you have had getting the P5B to POST. Same story...the board is powered, all of the fans are running, the vid card's fan is running and the onboard Asus logo lights up red; however, I get no video to even get into the BIOS and update it, nor do I hear any beeps.

These are the components:

E6400 CPU
1x1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 RAM
Geforce 7600GT Vid card
Antec 450W PSU

I tried testing with a one-year-old LGA775 P4 CPU, DDR2 533 RAM, a 6600GT video card and a different 500W power supply...to no avail. All I could ever get was a black screen (as the graphics card gets absolutely no signal) and a bunch of whirring fans. I did connect the 4-pin ATX connector so that's not the issue. I tried clearing the CMOS and I even tested it outside of the case to make sure I had no grounding issues and still no go.

I figure it's the board since all of the old parts which are working fine on my one-year-old rig right this minute would not work on the P5B. RMA'd the board yesterday and hopefully will get a replacement back later this week. I'll keep you guys posted.

This is the first time I've had a problem with an ASUS board (4th build with them) but apparently this isn't an isolated issue.

I think it's the RAM memory, no doubt...try a different module and boot....some memory modules have compatibility issues with this board....get a cheap 256mb 1.8v module for testing if you cannot get any other borrowed.
Good Luck!

 

[NewtypeX]

Originally posted by: Fishy007

Originally posted by: NewtypeX
I did connect the 4-pin ATX connector so that's not the issue.

You mean 8-pin right? there are 2x4pin connectors for the CPU power. A black cap is covering the second set of 4-pin connectors.

Yeah, I know there's a black cap covering the 8-pin connector, but the manual says you can either use the 4-pin ATX12V plug or an 8-pin EPS+12 plug. I have 3 different ATX12V 2.0 PSUs and none of them have an 8-pin power plug. I assumed that only using the standard 4-pin would be sufficient? Isn't that what most people are doing?

 

[Fishy007]

Er....I'm not sure. I've seen those adapters, but I'm not sure how they would get much accomplished. If you have '100' power going through a 4 pin plug and you split that into two 4 pin plugs, then I would assume it's '50' in each plug. However, the point of the plugs is to power each core. If the core needs 80-100 of power, then putting 50 into each slot isn't going to do it.

(I'm just pulling numbers out of the air to illustrate my line of reasoning)

 

[Strikez]

Originally posted by: Strikez

Originally posted by: KvT

Originally posted by: Kanis
Is it possible to disable the PEG Link Mode on the vanilla P5B? From other posts, it appears the option may be in the P5B-Deluxe, but I can't find it in the vanilla P5B BIOS. The reason I ask is because I have a factory overclocked 7900GT and whenever I play a graphic intense game (or test optimal settings via coolbits), the graphics begin to "tear" and the system will lockup pretty quickly.

I originally thought the issue was a motherboard/memory compatibility issue. I had OCZ memory and RMA'd it for Corsair TWIN2 that other posters reported success with. However, I'm experiencing the exact same behavior now that I have the Corsair memory in. Now, I'm wondering if this PEG Link Mode may have something to do with it, as it only occurs in graphic intense operations (or monkeying with the video card clocks). As long as I'm surfing the web or typing up documents, it works just fine. I'm not overclocking anything, so it's all the basic settings in the BIOS for me.

Is another updated P5B BIOS expected anytime soon?

Thanks for your help!

Kanis

---------------------
Asus P5B @ 266FSB
E6400
Corsair XMS2-6400 (DDR2-800, 5-5-5-12, 1.9V)
MSI Geforce 7900GT (500/1530)

I get the same crap in games. Comp locks up (BSOD). If you find any solutions I would very interested to see what did the trick for you. tkx and good luck.

@strikez. If you're reffering to my rig all I can say is that i've updates the mobo (P5B vanilla) to the lastest bios available on the asus website, which is 0509. I don't think the P5B deluxe bios works on the vanilla version. but tkx anyway

Yes I was refering to your system and I apologize for not reading the type of mobo correctly.

Just a shot in the dark but did you install the intel chipset drivers? If not here is a link to them http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1490

 

[NewtypeX]

Okay, I just got my replacement P5B Deluxe and I'm still getting the same problems! The first time I boot up, I hear one beep but still no video. Every time after that, I get no beeps, no video. In order to run a dual core CPU, does this board absolutely need an 8-pin +12V ATX plug? It seems like the board is not getting enough power. None of my PSUs have that so if that is indeed the case, I'm going to have to get a new one.

 

[FCBarca]

First time PC Builder here about to start this weekend...Curious for some experiences in working with the P5B Deluxe and tips that might be useful to avoid unnecessary headaches.

BTW, Core 2 Duo E6600 already came mounted onto the P5B Deluxe.

The only gaming I'll likely ever be doing is FreeCell and I don't have a need to OC...Going to do some multitasking and multimedia work mostly...Curious about whether my 2 HDs should be RAID or SATA connected and why.


Many thanks.

 

[Fishy007]

Originally posted by: FCBarca
First time PC Builder here about to start this weekend...Curious for some experiences in working with the P5B Deluxe and tips that might be useful to avoid unnecessary headaches.

BTW, Core 2 Duo E6600 already came mounted onto the P5B Deluxe.

The only gaming I'll likely ever be doing is FreeCell and I don't have a need to OC...Going to do some multitasking and multimedia work mostly...Curious about whether my 2 HDs should be RAID or SATA connected and why.


Many thanks.

The HDs should be in SATA mode with AHCI, not IDE.
Now, the catch is to install Windows XP (and Vista) with AHCI mode, you need to install a driver right at the setup. With XP, as soon as the screen goes blue, you hit F6 and eventually it will ask you to insert the driver disk.

The driver disk is a floppy with the latest ICH8R driver (the ICH8R is the controller that the board is equipped with). You can download the floppy maker from:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts...dID=11310&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional&lang=eng



SOrry if you already know all this. I'm all hopped up on caffeine and figured a first time pc builder would be confused by the driver installation

GL!

 

[FCBarca]

Originally posted by: Fishy007

Originally posted by: FCBarca
First time PC Builder here about to start this weekend...Curious for some experiences in working with the P5B Deluxe and tips that might be useful to avoid unnecessary headaches.

BTW, Core 2 Duo E6600 already came mounted onto the P5B Deluxe.

The only gaming I'll likely ever be doing is FreeCell and I don't have a need to OC...Going to do some multitasking and multimedia work mostly...Curious about whether my 2 HDs should be RAID or SATA connected and why.


Many thanks.

The HDs should be in SATA mode with AHCI, not IDE.
Now, the catch is to install Windows XP (and Vista) with AHCI mode, you need to install a driver right at the setup. With XP, as soon as the screen goes blue, you hit F6 and eventually it will ask you to insert the driver disk.

The driver disk is a floppy with the latest ICH8R driver (the ICH8R is the controller that the board is equipped with). You can download the floppy maker from:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts...dID=11310&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional&lang=eng



SOrry if you already know all this. I'm all hopped up on caffeine and figured a first time pc builder would be confused by the driver installation

GL!

No, that's great information...Thanks...Problem is, I wasn't intending to add a floppy to my PC but looks like I may have no choice.

Gratzie...What about additional fans or cooling?...I hear so many people talking about temp and wanted to know if there's something I should consider.

Also, it had been suggested to me to rid myself of the ATI AIW X1900 and go with separate Video and Tuner Cards...Not sure about that either.

 

[FCBarca]

I read someplace where they used Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro for the CPU...Not a good thing with the P5B Deluxe?

 

[Fishy007]

Originally posted by: FCBarca
No, that's great information...Thanks...Problem is, I wasn't intending to add a floppy to my PC but looks like I may have no choice.

Gratzie...What about additional fans or cooling?...I hear so many people talking about temp and wanted to know if there's something I should consider.

Also, it had been suggested to me to rid myself of the ATI AIW X1900 and go with separate Video and Tuner Cards...Not sure about that either.

If you're not planning to game, overclock or tax the CPU with intensive applications, the stock cooler should be fine for you. However, if you do need to pick up one, I highly reccommend the Zalman coolers. Anything made for the socket 775 chips should be good. But make sure it's an actual FAN and not just a passive cooler.
Also, along with that, get some decent thermal grease like Arctic Silver 5.

As for the AIW, again, you don't seem to be trying to squeeze every ounce of perfomance out of the system so I'd stick with it. THe upside is that everything is all in one card so you only have to occupy that one slot. A little less power being drawn and you only take up one IRQ instead of two.

And floppies are cheap. Add it It's not a power draw on the system and it's a failsafe for booting and troubleshooting. I work with PCs for a living and if someone asks me to fix their PC and they have no floppy, I just tell them right off the bat that I'm installing a floppy and charging them the parts cost. It's only $15 cdn here, so they don't care too much. When all else fails, a floppy will boot the system, update your bios and sometimes, jsut sometimes, mow your lawn.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Fishy007

Originally posted by: FCBarca
First time PC Builder here about to start this weekend...Curious for some experiences in working with the P5B Deluxe and tips that might be useful to avoid unnecessary headaches.

BTW, Core 2 Duo E6600 already came mounted onto the P5B Deluxe.

The only gaming I'll likely ever be doing is FreeCell and I don't have a need to OC...Going to do some multitasking and multimedia work mostly...Curious about whether my 2 HDs should be RAID or SATA connected and why.


Many thanks.

The HDs should be in SATA mode with AHCI, not IDE.
Now, the catch is to install Windows XP (and Vista) with AHCI mode, you need to install a driver right at the setup. With XP, as soon as the screen goes blue, you hit F6 and eventually it will ask you to insert the driver disk.

The driver disk is a floppy with the latest ICH8R driver (the ICH8R is the controller that the board is equipped with). You can download the floppy maker from:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts...dID=11310&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional&lang=eng



SOrry if you already know all this. I'm all hopped up on caffeine and figured a first time pc builder would be confused by the driver installation

GL!

Well, my ICH8 drivers installed without using a floppy. I only used the Intel inf installer and a standard Windows Xp Sp1 disk and installed SP2 later. I have no idea what i did or how, but hey it worked.

 

[koitsu]

Received my P5B today (after trying the Gigabyte GA-P965-DS3 and having almost-perfect luck with it, minus some temperature problems and random crashes when using C1E...).

I'm completely disgusted with the NIC on this board. Realtek is known for being utter garbage, but I didn't realise it was this bad. Windows randomly claims to be losing network connectivity (that is, losing link), while on my switch, it sees the issue as the remote PC (the P5B) intentionally dropping link. 5-10 seconds later, link is resumed, and things are OK.

Other problems with this NIC:

Drivers on Asus's site do not auto-negotiate properly with 1000/full networks. The drivers will always pick 100/full. Forcing the speed does not work, since the uplink switch expects the PHY on the remote end to do auto-neg properly (100% reasonable).

Tried the drivers from Realtek's site, which are quite a bit newer. Sure enough, 1000/full now works and auto-negs correctly (looking at the driver changelog, I can see why -- they did in fact address some bugs). However, what you see a few paragraphs up is happening -- random link loss.

Finally, while installing the drivers for my Audigy 2 ZS, Windows would randomly report link loss while the driver would load + initialise. This seems to indicate there's some broken IRQ handling code in Realtek's driver, and it's becoming massively confused.

I'm *thrilled* with this motherboard other than the NIC. I'd have gone with the P5B-E, which doesn't use Realtek, except Asus chose some IC manufacturer who I've never even heard of in my entire life. Why can't they stick with one particular NIC vendor? They literally flip around between FIVE different vendors (Intel, Realtek, Broadcom, Marvel, and the one who's name I can't remember). Is it that hard to stick with either Intel, Broadcom, or Marvel (all of who have working drivers)? Good lord!

On the bright side, my system and CPU temperatures are literally __20C lower__ than my Gigabyte board (yes you read that right!), and C1E appears to be functioning properly. RMClock appears to like this board quite a bit more. Oh, and I'll note that the southbridge on the P5B appears to run cooler than on the Gigabyte -- that I find very odd too.

So, looks like I'm going to have to send this board back because I *rely* on gigabit on my LAN (no, its not a "nice thing to have" -- on my setup its mandatory due to CD and DVD image transfers I do across my local network), and I cannot deal with shoddy NIC drivers.

If you're someone who only uses 100/full, oh I'm sure this board will be more than happy to work with you -- and I do recommend keeping it in that case. But for me, I'm going to have to go back to my Gigabyte board and try to figure out what the hell is with C1E randomly crashing my box during 3D gaming.

 

[Fishy007]

Originally posted by: koitsu
Received my P5B today (after trying the Gigabyte GA-P965-DS3 and having almost-perfect luck with it, minus some temperature problems and random crashes when using C1E...).

I'm completely disgusted with the NIC on this board. Realtek is known for being utter garbage, but I didn't realise it was this bad. Windows randomly claims to be losing network connectivity (that is, losing link), while on my switch, it sees the issue as the remote PC (the P5B) intentionally dropping link. 5-10 seconds later, link is resumed, and things are OK.

Other problems with this NIC:

Drivers on Asus's site do not auto-negotiate properly with 1000/full networks. The drivers will always pick 100/full. Forcing the speed does not work, since the uplink switch expects the PHY on the remote end to do auto-neg properly (100% reasonable).

Tried the drivers from Realtek's site, which are quite a bit newer. Sure enough, 1000/full now works and auto-negs correctly (looking at the driver changelog, I can see why -- they did in fact address some bugs). However, what you see a few paragraphs up is happening -- random link loss.

Finally, while installing the drivers for my Audigy 2 ZS, Windows would randomly report link loss while the driver would load + initialise. This seems to indicate there's some broken IRQ handling code in Realtek's driver, and it's becoming massively confused.

I'm *thrilled* with this motherboard other than the NIC. I'd have gone with the P5B-E, which doesn't use Realtek, except Asus chose some IC manufacturer who I've never even heard of in my entire life. Why can't they stick with one particular NIC vendor? They literally flip around between FIVE different vendors (Intel, Realtek, Broadcom, Marvel, and the one who's name I can't remember). Is it that hard to stick with either Intel, Broadcom, or Marvel (all of who have working drivers)? Good lord!

On the bright side, my system and CPU temperatures are literally __20C lower__ than my Gigabyte board (yes you read that right!), and C1E appears to be functioning properly. RMClock appears to like this board quite a bit more. Oh, and I'll note that the southbridge on the P5B appears to run cooler than on the Gigabyte -- that I find very odd too.

So, looks like I'm going to have to send this board back because I *rely* on gigabit on my LAN (no, its not a "nice thing to have" -- on my setup its mandatory due to CD and DVD image transfers I do across my local network), and I cannot deal with shoddy NIC drivers.

If you're someone who only uses 100/full, oh I'm sure this board will be more than happy to work with you -- and I do recommend keeping it in that case. But for me, I'm going to have to go back to my Gigabyte board and try to figure out what the hell is with C1E randomly crashing my box during 3D gaming.

My p5b Deluxe has Marvel NICs and a Realtek Wi-Fi. The wired NICs work just fine, but the Wi-Fi drops every so often (the same problem you seem to be having with your wired).

I had no idea that it was a widespread problem. I thought I just had a crappy wireless router. Good to know.

 

[NewtypeX]

Alright, after a week of frustration, I finally got the P5B Deluxe/Wi-fi to POST so that I could update the BIOS. :shocked:

Lesson #1: The extra 4 pins for the EATX12V connector does matter...even if they are covered up by a mysterious black plug! The manual is really ambiguous about it as well. I found that the normal 4-pin ATX plug is not enough to power the Deluxe (although the vanilla P5B only has this connector and not an 8-pin connector, which caused me some confusion).

Lesson #2: A lot of boards still seem to have older BIOS revisions that will not support higher-end RAM...even if they are on the qualified vendor list in the board's manual. Even after purchasing a new power supply to power the board, it would still not POST. The system would display the graphics card info and then hang. Hey, at least I was getting a signal to my monitor after a week of darkness, so I knew I was on the right track. I'm guessing the board could not support the stick of Crucial Ballistix DDR 800 with the older BIOS. I tried using an old DDR2 533 stick of RAM once again (it didnt work last time with only a 4-pin ATX plug connected) and...finally! I got it to POST so I could get into BIOS and update it with the USB drive.

MadMax23 and Fishy007...you both were right. Thanks to all who replied and I hope this will help some people who are going through a lot to get this board to POST. Hopefully you have an older stick of RAM lying around if you're planning to go with this board at this point in time. :disgust:

 

[Eric61]

Quote:

The HDs should be in SATA mode with AHCI, not IDE.
Now, the catch is to install Windows XP (and Vista) with AHCI mode, you need to install a driver right at the setup. With XP, as soon as the screen goes blue, you hit F6 and eventually it will ask you to insert the driver disk.

The driver disk is a floppy with the latest ICH8R driver (the ICH8R is the controller that the board is equipped with). You can download the floppy maker from:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts...dID=11310&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional<=eng



SOrry if you already know all this. I'm all hopped up on caffeine and figured a first time pc builder would be confused by the driver installation

GL!

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Argh! New builder here with P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi, e6700, wd raptor 150 and wd caviar 400. Already installed XP Pro without AHCI drivers. Is it worth it to reinstall XP to get the AHCI drivers? No interest in raid or OCing at this time, single user. Use the computer for FPS games, multimedia, photo editing. The build is relatively new, and I could do it without too much pain but if there is minimal advantage I might skip it at this point.

Thanks

 

[imported_Husky55]

@Eric61,

NO, you do not need to reinstall the AHCI drivers. There are 2 versions, DOS and WinXP, apparently your WinXP install did it for you.

 

[Eric61]

Thanks Husky, I was not looking forward to a reinstall of windows.

Eric

 

[imported_Husky55]

@NewtypeX,

Happy to hear that the PS solved your problem. What was the original PS that you did use? Wattage, brand?

 

[Fishy007]

Originally posted by: Eric61
Argh! New builder here with P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi, e6700, wd raptor 150 and wd caviar 400. Already installed XP Pro without AHCI drivers. Is it worth it to reinstall XP to get the AHCI drivers? No interest in raid or OCing at this time, single user. Use the computer for FPS games, multimedia, photo editing. The build is relatively new, and I could do it without too much pain but if there is minimal advantage I might skip it at this point.

Thanks

If your BIOS is set to read the hard drives as AHCI AND if Windows boots with no problems, then you're sitting pretty. No need for anything else. If Windows fails to boot when the BIOS is set to read the hds as AHCI, then you need the proper driver. You don't need to reinstall Windows, just install the driver package. It's not as neat as an initial installation, but it'll work.

 

[Eric61]

Thanks Fishy.

 

[imported_BigTwin]

My sata drives are configured as IDE and if I try to change to AHCI, my system won't boot. Can I install the AHCI drivers without reinstalling windows?

Originally posted by: Husky55
@Eric61,

NO, you do not need to reinstall the AHCI drivers. There are 2 versions, DOS and WinXP, apparently your WinXP install did it for you.

 

[NewtypeX]

Originally posted by: Husky55
@NewtypeX,

Happy to hear that the PS solved your problem. What was the original PS that you did use? Wattage, brand?

Thanks, Husky55. I was using the Antec SmartPower 450W PSU that came with the case. I've heard about these dying on folks pretty early so I was more than happy to shell out the money for a new one with an EPS ATX plug. Everything is running smoothly now.