*** Official ASUS P5W DH Thread ***

[nrs251]

I just saw that Windows aparently is supposed to keep loading drivers and only later in the process asks for the disk. Isn't it ridiculous that here we are running dual and soon quad core processors and MIcrosoft still has us using 1980s technology to do an OS install. I mean can't USB flash drives etc be used. This is insane. I threw my floppy drive away in 1999, how the F^%k am I goiing to make a floppy to boot. Use the internet you say.... I can't ....I don't have a PC ...thats why I'm installing this stupid OS. I mean PCs are not even shipped with floppy drives from major vendors like Dell and soon the term DOS will be for "old timers". Yet the buttheads at Microsoft think that this technology is the "wave of the future". Whats next, "handcranks" to jump start after BSODs?

 

[phile]

Do not forget, XP is 5 years-old. I'll bet Vista provides better options for pre-loading drivers.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

Phil,

Come on...5 years? How old is the floppy. We have 1TB HD, 2 GB Flash USB thumb drives..HD-DVD and we are still relying on a 1.44MB piece of flimsy plastic that was last used to distrubute software in 1995. In fact if you really look at it MSFT has not even specified a way to easily create boot floppies in the XP installation.


I mean it would be like Apple saying...


OK to begin using your iPOD you need to find a 12 inch vinyl disc..never mind that there are no players....

 

[phile]

Hold on. Unless you wish to build a RAID array, or run the drives in AHCI mode, you don't need to pre-load a driver. Neither of these drive modes are used all that much by the mainstream desktop demographic. So, your Apple analogy is not exactly appropriate.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

RAID Array...must have RAID array...droool..sloober..drool...slobber

Whats the answer to the EZ-Back Build and then swap to ICH7R controller??

My solution is going to be to install to a stand alone IDE (keep it simple) and then try to use Acronos to image to the RAID later.

Phil come on just admit that there must be a better way than these damn floppies. I don't even own one in the machine. I had to find one in my supply drawer from an old machine. I just wish the process of building recovery/boot CD-ROMS would be automated in XP so that you could just go into control panel. Click.... Make a Bootable CD-ROM and you are good to go. Is that too much to ask?

 

[phile]

Of course, I'd like to be able to toss my floppy drive into the trash, and hope that Vista will finally make that possible.

I have never built a RAID array, but here's what I would try:

- connect both drives to the ICH7R ports SATA1 and SATA3
- boot into BIOS and set SATA mode to RAID
- [this is the step where I fiddle with whatever settings unlocked by the previous step]
- BOOT with XP CD (floppy with Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver ready to pre-load)

-phil

 

[nrs251]

You think it matters that I have the original Win XP without SP@ and I plan on installing SP2 after or do I have to I have to have an "integrated" XP2 disk.??

 

[phile]

I don't think you will have any problems, aside from shotty USB support. Without SP2 USB devices may not work properly, or at all, without a driver.

Floppy Configuration Utility - Intel® Matrix Storage Manager
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts...&ProductID=2101&DwnldID=11310&lang=eng

The readme for this download does not specify any particualr service pack.

-phil

 

[imported_TheDuke]

It seems countless people have a "no POST" problem with this board and there is no 'set solution', to fix it. If this is a problem that has arisen from the BIOS update I did, ASUS should be supplying a fix for it (that actually works when you have no display) - otherwise they should be warning people, what exactly it is that causes it.
I've built about 5 machines in the last few years and never been as dissapointed as I am with this one right now, about £1300GB for the components and it doesnt even POST!
I dont care how much overclocking you can do - if the board isn't fit for POSTing then its not worth having!

I'm not sure what exactly my problem is, it could be MB, CPU, RAM, PSU or Gfx Card, I can't diagnose it as the same thing happens, whatever my config!
Everything seems to point to the MB/BIOS. I wish I'd gone for 1305 rather than 1407.
if you are reading this

*** THINK VERY CAREFULLY ABOUT EZFlashing YOUR ASUS BOARD ***

It could still be a PSU issue but I have tried running next to nothing on the MB (CPU 1 stick of mem and gfx Card) and I have tried a 450W and 480W PSU. I have heard whisperings that a 600W PSU whoudl be used - although the manual suggests I'll be fine with a 450W with my spec.

I've tried running in the case out of the case and CMOS reset about 10 times - but nothing changes.
I've also tried an old Matrox PCI Vga card to see if I can get the machine to boot - no luck.

Quite frankly ASUS website sucks and there is no contact numbers for Tech Support in the UK. The reseller that I bought the MB from (who I won't mention just yet) are being as helpful as a bottle of whisky at an AA meeting by not reading the 2000 letter email (via their rubbish web form) I sent them and asking me the same questions over and over and tellin me that installing Vista RC1 is not supported - WELL GO FIGURE, IF I COULD INSTALL ANOTHER OS I WOUDNT BE CONTACTING YOU!

last ditch attempt ... anyone got any ideas, aside from maybe a box of matches and some petrol??

 

[phile]

Well, this cat's curiosity got the better of him. I had to see EzFlash in action, for myself. I prepared a floppy with 1407, renamed to P5WDH.ROM, placed it in my floppy drive, and rebooted. At POST I hit ALT-F2 and the machine prompty powered-off, rebooted itself, and launched the EzFlash module. It found the BIOS file on my floppy and automatically started the flashing process. When done, it beeped a few times, displayed a message that the flash was successfully completed, and then rebooted the machine.

It worked perfectly. One thing I noted: on the EzFlash screen, my ATi's x800xl video BIOS version was displayed. I'm not sure what the video BIOS has to do with anything, but it nevertheless served my pet theory that these problems seem to affect only people with certain video cards, all of which seem to be late model nVidia.

I also tried the CrashFree method - Recovering the BIOS from a floppy - as explained in the manual. When I booted with a floppy that had the BIOS file on it - P5WDH.ROM - nothing happened. I received a message that I have since forgotten. Perhaps, this methid only works when the BIOS is corrupt.

TheDuke,

Did you try what seemed to solve this problem for mikepaul? Remove the CMOS battery, switch the CMOS jumper, and physically unplug the PSU. Wait a few minutes and see if that helps. If not, it's worth trying both the methods I described, above. If nothing helps, you'll have to order a new BIOS chip from ASUS, or your reseller.

There are third-party BIOS chip vendors, as well:
http://www.biosman.com/biosrecovery.html
http://www.badflash.com/

-phil

 

[dando]

Originally posted by: nrs251
You think it matters that I have the original Win XP without SP@ and I plan on installing SP2 after or do I have to I have to have an "integrated" XP2 disk.??

I've tried that maneuvre during the XP install, and the installer just asked me for the SP2 disk after I installed from a non-SP2 XP Pro disk.

I've read your other posts too as I have a similar setup. I installed XP on 2 Raptors on the ICHR7. I had to hit F6 so I could load the correct driver which I got from the Intel website, not the CD. After hitting F6, several minutes go by before the installer asks me to insert the floppy with the drivers. Sadly, you still need a floppy if you run Microsoft products. You have to make sure you pick the correct driver as several are included on that floppy.

I doubt that you can move a EZ-Backup install of XP from one RAID controller to another unless you did the F6 thing for the ICHR7 in anticipation of moving your drives. I'm making the assumption here that you use the pair of drives for booting.

Some of the other guys here on this forum have pointed out the keyboard issues. I made sure I used a PS2 connected keyboard with the F-lock key on (Logitech keyboards), so that my F6 command was recognized.

It took my several attempts to get this RAID thing going. I had started using the EZ-Backup ports, but realized that I couldn't do RAID 5 on the ICHR7, so I scrapped that idea and bought an Areca ARC-1210 RAID card for the RAID 5 drives (4 WDs). I put my boot pair on the ICHR7 (RAID 0). Things seem to be working great, but I'm still aggrevated that I can't really use all those SATA ports the way I wanted to.

My main rig:
Mobo: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe/Wifi (bios 1407)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
CPU cooler: ZALMAN CNPS9500
RAM: Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 750w Modular
Case: Lian Li PC-V2000B
DVD drive #1: Plextor PX-760A (firmware 1.04)
DVD drive #2: NEC ND-3550A (firmware 1.06)
Floppy drive: Samsung OEM
Video card: Sapphire x1800gto2
HDD boot: WD1500ADFD 10K Raptors (x 2) on the ICHR7 (RAID 0)
HDD data: WD 250GB SATA2 (x 4) on an Areca ARC-1210 (RAID 5)

 

[imported_TheDuke]

Hey Phil,

Yep I left the batter out and PSU unplugged all of last night. I have also tried a legacy Matrox PCI card instead of my NVidia.

What is annoying me is, in a an age where PC's are bcoming as important in daily life as say a car why vendors and resellers can get away with makiong you pay for anything when your product is faulty?
I would completely expect new products to turn up at my house tomorrow via courier and for the courier to take away the faulty products, companies that regularly sold faulty products would not have them sold by resellers / vendors because they couldnt afford the cost of the faulty products and would therefore not get away with this kind of issue.

It's crazy - the only reason I was updating the BIOS in my MB was because it wasn't working as expected, then after it doesnt work at all - think I'm going to ditch ASUS and go for an alterntaive replacment - any recomendations?

 

[phile]

I don't think any of your components are faulty. You must always keep in mind that BIOS flashing is inherently risky. In your case, as well as that of others who have had this problem, I believe there is a compatibility issue that has not been properly investigated. While I sympathize with your situation, it hardly makes sense to go through all the trouble of an RMA when ASUS will overnight you a new BIOS chip, for the cost of shipping.

-phil

 

[imported_TheDuke]

Phil, I agree completely - however, I have no way of contacting ASUS in the UK, that I have not already tried.
There is no listed customer support phone number on their website in the UK (other than for notebooks) .
I'm really hoping that I can some to a good resolution with this, a colleague of mine reccomended this board and is using a 7600 with it OC'ing at 30%, no problems, so I guess its just rotten luck!

Other than switching the BIOS it looks like there is nothing I can try that I haven't already! I can't understand why the CMOs reset won't work for me ... that's just odd.

 

[phile]

What you need is a new BIOS chip, programmed with something other than 1407, preferrably 1305 - assuming the 14xx series is potentially dangerous for you. That really does suck, ASUS not having any good telephone support in the UK. I would call that number for notebook support and have them help you with a quicker response than waiting for that email response. Have you tried your retailer?

-phil

 

[nrs251]

Win XP Install Done:

The ICH7R drivers from Intel's website worked great. No issues. It took 20 minutes to install XP to RAID 0 (WD Raptors x 2).

Thanks for the suggestions and help on the board.

Now back to overclocking...!!!

 

[Butterbean]

I was reading about antiquated floppy drives on the previous page and thought I would mention an odd floppy problem that kept me from loading drivers via F6. I couldn't get a new system ( with PW5 DH) to respond after pressing "S"on a new install. I tried to make a floppy a bunch of different ways. I swapped different floppy drives in and out and they always worked in other machines so I never suspected the drives themselves.

I finally figured out the problem was the way the floppy was installed in my Lian Li 6077B case. There is a floppy sized sleave inside the larger floppy bay that takes screws and the drive stopped working if the screws were fully tightned (not brutally tightened - just "tightened" like every other drive I have tightened and then worked). As soon as I kept the screws loose the floopy worked every time where before it would tell there was "no disk in drive" when there certainly was. I found another guy who had the same problem and he too had a Lian Li case ( V 1000 ) . We both realised what was going on when drives worked hanging loose out of bays (after a jillion screwings/unscrewings).

I mention all this since I have come across a lot of people having problems with F6 installs and floppy drives, and are very frustrated after days of trying to tweak one thing or another with no result. I too was ready to cuss the PW5 and would never have suspected my floppy could be so sensitive to the case sleave and screws.

Unfortunately I didn't realise the exact floppy problem until I had abandoned the attempted AHCI install and simply configured Bios for EIDE with SATA drive. I was just "finished" with the F6 thing and switched out of AHCI as a last resort and was surprised that the machine just took off and ran MCE without a problem. Only then did I realise floppy wasnt woking in the Lian Li case.

This was my first full system assembly after tinking in a Gateway for 4 years. I wanted to learn more but got a bit more than I bargained for. After system posted after first start-up I thought it was downhill from there. Haha on me.

I will add I updated Bios from 1201 to 1407 - but I was confuddled by the process. I used EZ Flash and it told me my flash worked and to re boot, but after re boot I got screen telling me it had failed with an option to choose last working configuration - which I did. But then Belarc Advisor said I was running Bios 1407 (it had said 1201 just before flash). So not sure what happened there!

I also get a nice "engrish" splash screen when I start up. Before MCE boots up I get a notice that "No Any Drive Detected". But then all runs well enough so far. Sorry to write so much but I know a lot of people are assembling systems and using Lian Li cases so I thought I would leave a record of my floppy issues.

Thanks for this thread.

 

[The111]

Originally posted by: The111
Has anyone figured out how to fix the auto-detection of USB HDD's in BIOS, on a cold bootup? I have 3 external HDD's, and it takes forever when I turn the computer on, because BIOS detects all of them and waits for them to warm up. On old motherboards, I never had this problem, and I had the exact same setup (3 externals).

I solved my own problem here... in case anyone else is interested, it is the "Legacy USB" option in BIOS. Disable that and no more USB detection in POST.

 

[imported_TheDuke]

OK, I've gone about this the expensive way around.
Having talked to my reseller - who were not as helpful as I would have hoped - I went to shop and I have purchased another PW5 DH Deluxe (knowing that I can get a refund on my original).

So ...

even though i am apretty well aquainted with this board now ... I just want to get it up and running.
My spec's are at the bottom of this message ( I have 2 x Samsun Spin points which I was looking to RAID0) - I have access to Windows XP (not SP2) and Windows Vista RC2 and RC1.

I will not be doing any re-flashing of the BIOS ... so, tips please on setting this mobo up 1st time (treat me as a newbie!)

 

[phile]

Glad you got that sorted out. Which BIOS version came with the new mobo? As for how to proceed, what exactly are you looking for, in terms of suggestions? Which OS to use? How to build the RAID array? BIOS settings?

OS: I would use XP as primary OS.

RAID 0 array: Build it on the ICH7R (SATA1 + SATA3). A few posts back, I provided a four-step "how to". (Note the empty step. This is where you're on your own, since I haven't actually done this, and am not familiar with the BIOS options for RAID.)

BIOS settings: start off by keeping everything at stock, except for the memory settings. Setup the mem to run at rated speed, voltage, and timings.

To configure mem speed and voltage:

Advanced/Jumperfree
- AI Overclock: manual
- DRAM Freq: DDR2-800
- vDIMM: (check your mem spec, I think it's 2.0v or 2.1v)

To configure mem timings:

Advanced/Chipset
- SPD Timings: disabled
- Set timings (check your mem spec, I think they're: 4-4-4-12)

Also, make sure to configure the BOOT order so that you'll be able to boot with XP CD. Since you do not have SP2, you're going to have problems with the USB ports. Until you get SP2 installed, you'd be better-off using a PS/2 mouse and keyboard. If you're like me, you have a box full of the USB to PS/2 adapters.

Anything else?

-phil

 

[imported_TheDuke]

Phil - you are a legend!

I guess what I am saying is this:
The original problems that I had with the first board led me to reflash the BIOS - which I wont be doing again (well not with EzFlash anyway).
I just want to make sure that I have done everything that I need to to get XP (or Vista) installed and running on a stable box. before I start OC'ing.
So anything like setting up the memory and processor properly before installing XP is useful.

The BIOS (as far as I can tell) is 1305 on this board - and will be staying that way if everything works!

I'll be fine with the RAID0 stuff.

I will need to find an extra PS2 to USB converter as I currently only have one for my Keyboard. No problem really.

Thanks for everyones help I'll be trying this this evening!

 

[phile]

Legend? I like the sound of that! Hehe.

Well, BIOS 1305 is definitely one the best variations, so I don't forsee you having any issues. What problems were you previously having, that prompted you to flash the BIOS?

re: USB
If memory serves, you won't have any trouble with the mouse or keyboard until you install the proper chipset drivers.

re: Vista
If you're looking to maximize your machine's performance, Vista is not the way to go, yet. Vista's memory and CPU overhead well exceeds those of XP. Not to mention, the driver support is just not there, yet. If you really want to play with Vista, setup a dual boot with XP. But, you definitely want to use XP as your primary OS. I don't plan to migrate to Vista until it's matured a little. Perhaps, in a year. Until then, I may dual boot just for kicks. You'll want to put Vista on a different drive than XP, for best results. Don't risk borking your RAID array.

-phil

 

[mikepaul]

Here's a possible reason 1407 sucks for some people:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1778783&postcount=1462

 

[phile]

I'm not so sure that's enough to indict 1407. It's been a well-known issue for this board to require SPD timings once the FSB hits around 360, with every BIOS. My understanding is that this is due to the board's handling of memory sub-timings, which are not available for manual configuration in the BIOS. If I'm not mistaken, many people have solved this SPD timings issue by adjusting the memory sub-timings using a windows app called MemSet.

Hopefully, we'll soon see a BIOS that adds the ability to adjust the full array of memory timings.

-phil

 

[mikepaul]

Originally posted by: phile
I'm not so sure that's enough to indict 1407. It's been a well-known issue for this board to require SPD timings once the FSB hits around 360, with every BIOS. My understanding is that this is due to the board's handling of memory sub-timings, which are not available for manual configuration in the BIOS. If I'm not mistaken, many people have solved this SPD timings issue by adjusting the memory sub-timings using a windows app called MemSet.

Hopefully, we'll soon see a BIOS that adds the ability to adjust the full array of memory timings.

Well, I can boot all day long (except when the USB refuses to initialize) with 410 FSB and RAM at manually-set 4-4-4-12 1:1 using 1305, but as I pointed out in that other thread I never reset everything to stock for 1407.

Maybe ASUS decided to be picky about RAM timings, but then their change-log (so full of information now) should have said something about that on top of the graphics card fix it did mention. Or maybe that WAS the fix for the graphics card???...