*** Official ASUS P5W DH Thread ***

[The111]

Actually, I think I was wrong and am actually not using USB3/4. I have mouse and one external HDD in 1/2, and two other external disks in 5/6 (on the bracket you mentioned). I'll check when I get home. I think I left 3/4 empty.

Why do you recommend disabling the second ethernet controller in BIOS?

 

[phile]

Very simply, it's better to disable whatever you are not using, and do not need.

-phil

 

[asmielia]

Originally posted by: sshrum
There seems to be a ton of issues when attempting to install WIN XP to a drive array in RAID 0 mode (regardless of whether it's the Silicon Image controller, Intel controller, or the Jmicro controller).

Can someone point me to a source that outlines in detail what must be done in order to install WinXP to a >RAID 0< setup, preferrably using the SI controller (EZ-RAID) option first and the Intel controller as a second option?

TIA

Hi,
I can't help you with the JMicron, I disabled it last night soon after booting up. But I did install WinXP with no problems on a RAID 0 running on the Intel ICH7R. Here's what I did:

1. Get on a machine with a floppy drive. Put the motherboard driver CD in the machine, and try the utility there to make a 32 bit RAID driver disk. I tried it, and it didn't work (complained it couldn't write the file). But after digging around on the CD, I found the files I needed in a subdirectory (makeDisk/DOS or something). Copy all those files to the floppy.

2. Plug an internal floppy drive into the p5wdh. Put the floppy with the drivers in the drive. Put the WinXP CD in the CD drive. When the machine boots up, go into the BIOS, and configure the SATA mode to RAID. Also make sure the CD is the first boot device. Save changes and exit.

3. Reboot machine, after BIOS loads, hold down Ctrl-I. The configuration screen for the RAID will come up. Select the drives you want to Raid, and follow the instructions.

4. Reboot again, make sure RAID is detected now. WinXP will load, hold down F6 while it loads. Eventually it will ask you to supply the extra drivers, it should find them on the disk. Continue with the installation and everything should now be recognized. If you want to make sure the RAID 0 gets used as drive C, unplug other hard drives when you first install Windows.

Hope this helps,
Adrian

 

[Skott]

Okay, well I let this rig run long enough and stress tested in stock setup and absolutely no problems. So now I'm thinking its time to venture into the OCing arena. I went into the BIOS and set the JumperFree to manual and changed the Corsair PC6400C4 to 800. What I dont see is where can I set the RAM timing. I know its gotta be 4-4-4-12. Just need to figure out how to get to that screen that allows me to set the timing. Can someone tell me which Header its under in the BIOS?

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: Skott
Okay, well I let this rig run long enough and stress tested in stock setup and absolutely no problems. So now I'm thinking its time to venture into the OCing arena. I went into the BIOS and set the JumperFree to manual and changed the Corsair PC6400C4 to 800. What I dont see is where can I set the RAM timing. I know its gotta be 4-4-4-12. Just need to figure out how to get to that screen that allows me to set the timing. Can someone tell me which Header its under in the BIOS?

In the BIOS:

Advanced/Chipset

Set SPD Timing to disabled. You will now see the various timings.

-phil

 

[Skott]

Thanks Phile. The mobo defaults the P6400 RAM to 533MHz with the 0801 BIOS. I set it to 800MHz. The RAM timing was 5-4-4-15 and I set it to 4-4-4-12. Disabled the Hyper Path 3 so now I'll see how it tests out for a bit before doing anything else. Just gonna go slow and easy with things since I'm new to OCing. I did notice my idle and load tests temps jumped 2C-3C while running Orthos. RAM looks good though. No errors.

 

[jedisponge]

@ The111 and phile: I don't really have anything else plugged in. I haven't even gotten up to the point of installing an OS.

I just bought another power supply (Antec 550watts) and tried it, with the same thing happening. So now I'm leaning towards another motherboard problem.

 

[sholodak]

FYI, a new version of AI Booster just posted on the Asus site. V2.03.04 ... 2006/09/15 update

 

[The111]

Originally posted by: jedisponge
@ The111 and phile: I don't really have anything else plugged in. I haven't even gotten up to the point of installing an OS.

I just bought another power supply (Antec 550watts) and tried it, with the same thing happening. So now I'm leaning towards another motherboard problem.

Even though I am now suspicious of the P5W since mine has done the weird power down thing once or twice - in your case since it happens every time, with two boards in a row (and so many people have success with this board), I would have to guess, probability-wise, that it isn't the board. If you have two brand new sticks of RAM and have tried each by itself, then probability wise you would think it's not that either. You've tried two PSU's also, so it seems exponentially less likely that either your PSU, mobo, or RAM are at fault.

That leaves the CPU.

Although I'll admit I'm still suspicious of the mobo. And there is a ridiculously unlikely chance that your BIOS is not as new as the sticker on the chip says. But again, unlikely.

You need some way to prove one by one which components AREN'T at fault, though that's probably easier said than done, unless you have a computer hardware store in your closet. That what sucks about putting a bunch of new hardware together - too many variables.

 

[sholodak]

I have a RAID question. I have 2 10,000 RPM WD Raptor drives. In my current machine, I have them installed on a Promise chipset (37x I think, formerly Ultra66/FastTrak66 Resistor/BIOS hack) & the performance sucks. I'm debating on what to do when the P5W DH arrives. My plan is to install 2 Windows OS's (either XP32/Vista32 or XP32/XP64), but I'm torn between the following 2 configurations:

1) either going to abandon the RAID altogether and put each OS on a separate Raptor in JBOD config. The first OS would use the second drive for its paging file and vice versa for extra performance.

2) stripe the 2 drives and create 2 partitions (leaving the swap files on the same partitions as the OS) using the Intel RAID controller. If I understand correctly, Windows would install w/o the F6/driver disks.

My questions...
- Do they appear to Windows as a SCSI/RAID config or is window oblivious to the RAID with and/or without the Intel drivers installed?
- I know on the Promise chipset, it was a bad idea to do a RAID 0 stripe for a boot partition. Is that the case with the Intel as well?
- Which config will be better for me performance-wise?

The only real reason I'd consider option 1 is because my experience with booting to a RAID array has been disappointing... I suspect/hope it's just the Promise controllers fault.

jedisponge: I haven't read the last few pages, so forgive me if it's been covered, but could a bad video card be pulling too much from the power supply? In a bare bones system, you've got your mobo, cpu, ram, video card, and power supply... I assume if the problem is occurring w/o drives you can rule out cabling. Have you ruled out the rest besides the mobo?

 

[jedisponge]

Originally posted by: The111

Originally posted by: jedisponge
@ The111 and phile: I don't really have anything else plugged in. I haven't even gotten up to the point of installing an OS.

I just bought another power supply (Antec 550watts) and tried it, with the same thing happening. So now I'm leaning towards another motherboard problem.

Even though I am now suspicious of the P5W since mine has done the weird power down thing once or twice - in your case since it happens every time, with two boards in a row (and so many people have success with this board), I would have to guess, probability-wise, that it isn't the board. If you have two brand new sticks of RAM and have tried each by itself, then probability wise you would think it's not that either. You've tried two PSU's also, so it seems exponentially less likely that either your PSU, mobo, or RAM are at fault.

That leaves the CPU.

Although I'll admit I'm still suspicious of the mobo. And there is a ridiculously unlikely chance that your BIOS is not as new as the sticker on the chip says. But again, unlikely.

You need some way to prove one by one which components AREN'T at fault, though that's probably easier said than done, unless you have a computer hardware store in your closet. That what sucks about putting a bunch of new hardware together - too many variables.

Definitely.

Now... things have got even more interesting. I took out the motherboard and put the whole thing back in. Now it works! It powers on and stays on! Now the only problem is that I put in my gpu. I connect it to the mother and the monitor boards getting no signal. Also, the gpu's fan stays on a very high speed and nothing's happening.

I was so close! My morale shot up when i discovered the power was working only to run into yet another wall.

Any idea now about this?

 

[The111]

Originally posted by: jedisponge
Now... things have got even more interesting. I took out the motherboard and put the whole thing back in. Now it works! It powers on and stays on! Now the only problem is that I put in my gpu. I connect it to the mother and the monitor boards getting no signal. Also, the gpu's fan stays on a very high speed and nothing's happening.

Any idea now about this?

Umm, you have a bad GPU? (something the poster above suggested) Unless you've used it before and know it's not.

I was surprised to see a power connector on my GPU since my last PC (3 years old) did not have one of those. I almost missed it and even then was not 100% sure about it since nowhere in PSU or GPU manual did it refer to that 6-pin connector. Well, except for the "PCI-E" label on the cable connector itself that I eventually noticed. ;-)

On the topic of GPU's, does anybody know what normal operating temps are? I installed Everest Ultimate like Phile recommended, and I noticed there are 3 main sensors on my GPU it is monitoring, and one or two of them get into the 70's and sometimes even 80's when gaming!

 

[jedisponge]

Originally posted by: The111

Originally posted by: jedisponge
Now... things have got even more interesting. I took out the motherboard and put the whole thing back in. Now it works! It powers on and stays on! Now the only problem is that I put in my gpu. I connect it to the mother and the monitor boards getting no signal. Also, the gpu's fan stays on a very high speed and nothing's happening.

Any idea now about this?

Umm, you have a bad GPU? (something the poster above suggested) Unless you've used it before and know it's not.

I was surprised to see a power connector on my GPU since my last PC (3 years old) did not have one of those. I almost missed it and even then was not 100% sure about it since nowhere in PSU or GPU manual did it refer to that 6-pin connector. Well, except for the "PCI-E" label on the cable connector itself that I eventually noticed. ;-)

On the topic of GPU's, does anybody know what normal operating temps are? I installed Everest Ultimate like Phile recommended, and I noticed there are 3 main sensors on my GPU it is monitoring, and one or two of them get into the 70's and sometimes even 80's when gaming!

Those temps for GPUs during gaming are fairly normal. I don't know the exact temperature characteristics for your card, but don't fret about those temps as they're within the vicinity of normalness.

I also made sure the power was connected to my gpu, and now the if anyone's familiar with Sapphire's 1900xtx, the two led lights above the power connector on the card, which are labeled with T-Fault and Ext_Power are lighting on. I'm gonna ask in the video card and technical support areas now, but I'll throw it out here if anyone knows.

 

[dando]

Now... things have got even more interesting. I took out the motherboard and put the whole thing back in. Now it works! It powers on and stays on! Now the only problem is that I put in my gpu. I connect it to the mother and the monitor boards getting no signal. Also, the gpu's fan stays on a very high speed and nothing's happening.

I was so close! My morale shot up when i discovered the power was working only to run into yet another wall.

Any idea now about this?

There must have been a short between the motherboard and the case. That would explain why swapping out power supplies didn't make a difference.

 

[Skott]

Okay, so when it comes to the finesse part of overclocking with the P5w DH basically the stock cpu frquency (fsb) is set to 266, the dram frequency (spd) is set to 800. Everything else is left in auto for AI Overclocking. If I understand the technique correctly I bump the cpu up from 266 by 5. Boot up windows after each upward adjustment? Then when windows wont boot up reset down 5 or 10 till it does boot up and then run tests? if i get it to say 350fsb the dram spd should be what? 700 for a 1:1? or should i set the dram spd to 533 to begin with when i start at 266 and just let it go up on its own? Trying to understand the actual technique here for my setup and this mobo. Could use some clarification. Feel free to explain to me like I'm a five year old. I need it ::laugh::

I know later after getting a fsb established then I cant tighten timings and up the voltage and go for more if so desired. I heard its best to get the pcu/fsb done first then worry about memory and voltage secondly.

 

[phile]

From stock FSB, you don't need to start with small increments. You could always start with something like this:

CPU config
-------------------------
C1E: Disabled
Speedstep: Disabled

Jumperfree config:
-------------------------
FSB: 333
DRAM: DDR2-666 (no mem divider) or DDR2-833 (uses 4:5 divider)
VCORE: Start with AUTO, increase one step at a time until you achieve stability.
VDIMM: Your mem's rated voltage.

Chipset config:
-------------------------
SPD: Disabled
TIMINGS: Your mem's rated timings.
HYPERPATH 3: Disabled

Additionally, I have QFAN disabled - never liked it. It never throttles-up the fan until the CPU approaches imminent death.

All other voltages set to AUTO.

You may be wondering why the mem is clocked down to DDR2-666. I did that in order to run the mem without a divider. In other words: synchronous with the FSB -333/333. However, I also had a stable o/c with the everything as above, but with DDR-833. This second config has the mem slightly overclocked, and running with the 4:5 FSB:MEM divider. Having benchmarked both configs, I discovered that the performance difference was negligible.

So, this is a 25% o/c of the E6400, bringing it up to 2664MHz. From here, you can proceed to move the FSB up in increments, boosting the vcore only when needed.

Test each setup with Orthos Stress Prime:
http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm

-phil

 

[Skott]

I have Qfan disabled. I disabled right after first boot up. On the XS forum this was one of the fixes for a slow boot up. Not sure why it affects boot up but it definetly helped my boot times. It was taking like 3 miniutes to boot up before I disabled Qfan. Not going to question something that works though. I saw on a german site an example with same mobo and ram and he started with 400 so wasnt sure wether to start with 800, 400 or 666 like I read in the earlier part of this thread. I'll give it a try tomorrow. its late now and I need to hit the sack. Thanks for your suggestions.

 

[Geekwannab]

I am having interesting/frustrating experience with my OC.(Pease refer to my signature for the specs). I was orthos stable @375 FSB(3.2 GHZ) with vcore-1.375V vMCH-1.55 V and PCIE/PCI locked to 101/33.33 . I read about the 1402 bios @xtremesystems forums and flashed to 1402 using the afudos /pbnc/n switch, look out the battery and reset the CMOS and tried the same exact setting that I was stable using the 1305 bios. Orthos errored out after about 20 mins. I really liked the multi unlock(downward) in the 1402 bios , but I want to be stable also. So I went back to 1305 only to get frustrated as the same bios setting that worked before was erroring out after 2 hours. I was totally not happy as I have to work my way backward to go forward. So I dropped the FSB to 350 and everything else on AUTO and sure enough was ORTHOS stable for 13 hours. Then I bumped the FSB to 360 without any other change and ORTHOS is stable now!!!(comming up on 2 hours). Previously I had to bump up the VMch to 1.5V to get it stable @360. So I am totally frustrated with the inconsitent behaviour of the board. I think it is the board as people @ extremesystems were able to go to 375FSB(3.4G) on stock vcore wiith the same week and same batch E6600 as mine.

 

[Skott]

Has anyone else been having trouble to get the ASUS Update to install from the ASUS cd? I'd really like to update the bios but the silly thing refuses to install. I'm hoping to get WINFLASH installed so I can do it from Windows but Whenever I try to install the program I get a ASUS BIOSINFO.DLL message saying, 'Unable to create NT driver service for BS_DEF.DLL' Whatever that means. I know the DvD drive works because I'm able to do everything else with it. Anyone else run into this problem or know a fix?

 

[niroswe]

Hey Phil, I was hoping you could take a look at my problem and comment if you can think of anything to try.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=32&threadid=1927239&enterthread=y

 

[phile]

I responded with a question for you.

-phil

 

[sweetrugger]

Okay, I have a problem. Any disk I put in my optical drive will not work. I did a fresh install with an XP Pro SP 2 disk. After everything installed (quickly, I'll happily add), Windows booted for the first time. Not LAN drivers, no audio drivers, etc etc. I put in the ASUS CD that came with this mobo, and from the autorun I got this error -

"The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000006). Click on OK to terminate the application."

I did some research, and lot of people got that error from UPGRADING the windows version, or installing some sort of antivirus software. I also tried the CD that came with my video card, and I got this error -

"E:
Only part of a ReadProcessMemory or WriteProcessMemory request was completed"

I have run Memtest86+ for approximately 3 hours, with no errors. As far as I can tell, Windows is fine. I downloaded LAN drivers and HD audio drivers from another computer and transfered them via a USB drive, so now those work, no problems. It seems the problem lies with the DVD drive.

I have come up with a few ideas.
1. Replace the IDE cable (Windows installed, why would this be the faulty part?)
2. Replace the drive (again, Windows installed, why would it not work now)
3. Update the BIOS, see if something after version 801 works.
4. Get a whole new drive (same one, or different one) and see it that works.

Oh yeah, I tried to update the Firmware from the Lite-on website, but that failed. Any ideas on what else I could try (or what I should of the ones above) would be greatly appreciated.

E6600, no OC
P5W DH Deluxe, BIOS 801
2x 7200.10 320 GB
Lite-On SHM-165H6S
Conect3d X1900XT (no drivers/software installed yet)
2x 1GB OCZ Platinum at 4-4-5-15 (BIOS Setting order) @ 2.10V

 

[phile]

Is the DVD drive connected to the intel ide port (blue), or the jmicron port (black)? According to the manual, the jmicron controller does not support atapi (CD/DVD) drives.

re: bios
Definitely flash to the latest bios available.

-phil

 

[sweetrugger]

Originally posted by: phile
Is the DVD drive connected to the intel ide port (blue), or the jmicron port (black)? According to the manual, the jmicron controller does not support atapi (CD/DVD) drives.

re: bios
Definitely flash to the latest bios available.

-phil

Sorry, forgot to mention that. Yes, it's connected to the intel port.

 

[phile]

I can't think of anything to suggest.

-phil