*** Official ASUS P5W DH Thread ***

[phile]

Originally posted by: Ziggy1111
Hi guys,

I have set the bios to ahci now following those steps in the neowin guide worked fine. But i think my sata 2 drive is still running at ide speeds. On startup in bios its recognised as third ide master and when i benchmark it it doesnt go higher then 60mb/sec. Thats not right is it??

Im using bios 1305

Thnx
Ziggy

Are you using HDTACH? That will give you results for:
- Average read
- Burst speed
- Random access

Here's what I get for my SATA drive (Raptor 74GB), running in AHCI mode:
- Average read: 65 MB/sec
- Burst speed: 125.9 MB/sec
- Random access: 7.7 ms

These numbers are essentially identical to what I got when running the drive as Standard IDE.

-phil

 

[Ziggy1111]

Hello

Im using hdtach for the testing. Its a westerd digital sata 2 drive with 16mb buffer bios in in ahci mode, my results are

Random acces:13.3ms
Average read: 51.5mb/s

And the burst speed is 167.2mb/s
Is this ok then for a sata 2 hd?

Thnx again
Ziggy

 

[Athkatla]

Originally posted by: Athkatla

Originally posted by: phile

Originally posted by: Athkatla
After running twice, 2 threads of blend test of Orthos for about 2 hours my M/B started beeping and orthos reported:
"FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file."

The CPU temperature after the test failed was at 37 C with PC Probe and at 51C - 47C with CoreTemp.

Im using stock CPU fun, 1x12 front and 1x12 rear case funs

Assuming those Temperatures are normal how can I improve the stability of my system?
Im not intended to Overclock my system for the time being.

P5WDH deluxe (1305)
Cpu E6400 at 2.13Ghz
Bios Vcore: 1.35v
Pci Xpress: 90
Pci : 33.3
FSB : 1.20v
MCH : 1.50v
ICH : 1.05v

2x1Gb DDR2 @ 800 Ocz Platinum 4-5-4-15 (OCZ2P8002GK)
Bios Vdim: 2.1v
Memory has been tested with Memtest for about 7 hours with no problems.

ATI 1950xtx
WD Raptor 150gb
SB X-Fi Extreme Music
600w Tagan Easycon XL

thanks in advance

A few points:

The BIOS transposes the two middle mem timing values, so the timings should be entered like this: 4-4-5-15.

Since you are running at stock, all your voltages, except for memory voltage, can be left at AUTO. Re-run Orthos with these changes and see what happens.

-phil

timings in bios are 4-4-5-15
Hyper Path 3 is Disabled
Throttling is Auto

Ill change everything to auto except vdimm and ill post results

thanks

FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
Torture Test ran 1 hours, 2 minutes 20 seconds - 1 errors, 0 warnings.
Execution halted.

 

[nrs251]

Has any one had any experience with this RAM:

Patriot PDC22G8000+XBLK Rev.2 Memory

I checked out the PC STATS review and was really impressed. I am thinking of taking the plunge as it seems like this memory can be seriously overclocked within manufacturer specs. I have to say that I am very disappointed with Corsair OC specs. Their PC6400 4-4-4-12 RAM on the P5W DH does not really overclock to any significant degree. The fastest clock I get that is stable on the memory is 820MHz.

Check out the review I linked to. Do you think that the P5W can handle this RAM ? In my experience it is the memory that is holding back theis board. Asus either needs to introduce more timing fine control or this board is FSB limited to 400-420 as the top end. I have not seen any orthos stable numbers for an E6400 above this number at a 1:1 CPU:Memory ratio.

Neil

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: Ziggy1111
Hello

Im using hdtach for the testing. Its a westerd digital sata 2 drive with 16mb buffer bios in in ahci mode, my results are

Random acces:13.3ms
Average read: 51.5mb/s

And the burst speed is 167.2mb/s
Is this ok then for a sata 2 hd?

Thnx again
Ziggy

Very nice burst speed. Your numbers look fine for a 7200 rpm drive. Check your results against the official specs for your drive.

-phil

 

[phile]

Athkatla,

Did you use the latest version of memtest, when you tested the memory?

Latest version:
http://www.memtest.org

Try lowering the mem to DDR2-533. That will have the mem and FSB running at 1:1 - no mem divider. You can also try lowering the voltage to 2.0 or 1.9. If you get no errors with these changes, it may be a power supply issue.

-phil

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: nrs251
Has any one had any experience with this RAM:

Patriot PDC22G8000+XBLK Rev.2 Memory

I checked out the PC STATS review and was really impressed. I am thinking of taking the plunge as it seems like this memory can be seriously overclocked within manufacturer specs. I have to say that I am very disappointed with Corsair OC specs. Their PC6400 4-4-4-12 RAM on the P5W DH does not really overclock to any significant degree. The fastest clock I get that is stable on the memory is 820MHz.

Check out the review I linked to. Do you think that the P5W can handle this RAM ? In my experience it is the memory that is holding back theis board. Asus either needs to introduce more timing fine control or this board is FSB limited to 400-420 as the top end. I have not seen any orthos stable numbers for an E6400 above this number at a 1:1 CPU:Memory ratio.

Neil

The P5WDH officially supports PC2-4200/PC2-5300/PC2-6400. Since PC2-6400 (800MHz) can be run without a memory divider all the way up until FSB 400, faster RAM is just not necessary unless you plan to overclock even more. PC2-8000 has an effective clock speed of 1000MHz (500MHz real), which means you only really start to overclock this memory when exceeding FSB 500, which is an insanely high overclock.

Imo, all you need is a good kit of PC2-6400 to give you great performance at stock, and a lot of room for overclocking.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

Phil,

I have a stable FSB at 410MHz. That allows for my Corsair RAM to clock at 820Mhz. That is the limit. That RAM will not clock higher. I have booted into Windows at a FSB of 450 and Orthos passes small FFTs but fails the blend in a nanosecond. I guess my point is that the Patriot memory will allow a FSB of 450. I have not seen many posts that state that the P5W DH can support a STABLE, and I mean ORTHOS BLEND stable at those clocks. I don't want 500FSB, I wanted to run this Corsair at 900MHz, that ain't going to happen. I really am disappointed in this RAM. $300 to run 20 Mhz above rated clock on a 1:1 Divider? That is not worth it.. 450 FSB is not going to happen ever on the P5W with the meory I have so the Patriot RAM seems like it would do this.

 

[nrs251]

Basically, I want to beat the hell out of this processor at a Vcore of 1.45-1.48. I don't have the guts to go higher but the E6400 is a superb overclocker. It can do 3.52-3.6 GHz with watercooling and I am obsessed with doing that.

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: nrs251
Phil,

I have a stable FSB at 410MHz. That allows for my Corsair RAM to clock at 820Mhz. That is the limit. That RAM will not clock higher. I have booted into Windows at a FSB of 450 and Orthos passes small FFTs but fails the blend in a nanosecond. I guess my point is that the Patriot memory will allow a FSB of 450. I have not seen many posts that state that the P5W DH can support a STABLE, and I mean ORTHOS BLEND stable at those clocks. I don't want 500FSB, I wanted to run this Corsair at 900MHz, that ain't going to happen. I really am disappointed in this RAM. $300 to run 20 Mhz above rated clock on a 1:1 Divider? That is not worth it.. 450 FSB is not going to happen ever on the P5W with the meory I have so the Patriot RAM seems like it would do this.

I bet your mem will clock a lot higher than 820, if you up the voltage and enable SPD timings.

If you have tried to overclock without loosening the timings, this is likely what's holding you back. That and higher speeds will require added voltage. You should also make sure DRAM Throttling is disabled.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

1) Patriot warranties their mem to 2.3V (see the above review)

2) Looser timings don't help the P5W.

4-4-4-12
5-4-4-18
5-5-5-12
5-5-5-18

3) I am scared to volt the memory higher than 2.25. Corsair seems to say anything over 2.1 is unsafe. I know this is probably not true and from what I have read 2.3-2.3 seems OK but I am still scared.

4) Don't get me wrong I can overclock the mem to 840-850 but ORTHOS is not stable in blend.
This seems to be a common P5W complaint (ie memory options in the BIOS as not as flexible for example as on some Gigabyte boards that I have read about).

5) The E6400 is amazing with the fact that 1.48V can boot super high bus speeds.

 

[phile]

Enable SPD timings if manually loosening them has not worked.

-phil

 

[Skott]

Originally posted by: SavageThrash
Well, i belive skott siad that the ocz mem prices have skytrocketed. Some type of ram down here have gone up a 100$

The first type of ram i got was http://www.infonec.ca/site/main.php?module=detail&id=17721

when it was at 225. i ended up takign it back and spent the extra money for http://www.infonec.ca/site/main.php?module=detail&id=129732

which was 275 at the time. Since then the gold memory is at 325 and the platinum is 290 ( the platinum had fluxuated all the way down to 250 or so then went back up)

Now i have 3 questions. First off what cause the price changes, second which is the better of the 2 types of ram the plat or the gold and thrid i heard something that the plat ram i got has a revision 2 or something of that matter what is that and how can i tell if i have it?

Thnx again Savage

Heya Savage,
Yeah, all DDR2 RAM prices have gone up. Why? Supply and demand basically. All Conroe users *and* AM2 users need it now where just a few months ago (before either came out) they didn't use it at all.

The Corsair TWIN20486400c4 set I bought was $256(shipping included). This was more or less stable price at the time but it was high end for a higher end RAM. I was pricing this same set just last night and its now $299. That includes shipping to my house. A couple weeks or so ago it was just a little north of $300. So prices have dropped slightly apparently.

From what I have read from the very start most people are using 4-4-4-12 modules and having the best luck with them. I went with the Corsair because it was probably the most popular. Corsair makes some other sticks that'll work with this mobo as well. Kinda depends on what you plan to do with the mobo. The overclockers seem to use 4-4-4-12 so thats what I got. I know GSkill makes a 4-4-4-12 stick that works just as well and it was a little cheaper than Corsairs. Not sure if it still is. Check into it. I stayed away from OCZ because at the time people were trying to use the Gold series and were running into problems. So research OCZ carefully to get the right modules if you want to use OCZ with this mobo. I did read some people were using Patriot RAM with this mobo. Saw it mentioned a few times anyway. Forget what exactly they were using. 4-4-4-12 would probably work okay but again I would research that carefully. Sorry, i dont remember what sticks they used. Its been awhile since I read about Patriot. I tend to stay with something proven even if it costs a little more.

My guess is that RAM prices are gonna stay high for a while. Why? Well, more people now flocking to Conroe. Quad Core launches this month. AMD is now dropping prices to fight off market loss. Also AMD is pushing their quad core version and I'm willing to bet they try and get it out in time for Xmas. In fact Christmas sales should make demand higher for DDR2 RAM. Factor all these in and what do we get? Continued high RAM prices. I'm thinking the particular RAM I have is gonna hang at or just below $300 till the holidays are over. Just my prediction. Hopefully I'm wrong. New RAM choices could deflate the prices of current choices so we'll have to see.

Summary Edit: Corsair and GSkill seem to be the two most popular RAM for this mobo. Followed by Crucial, OCZ, Geil, and Patriot more or less in that order from what I have read. Basically what most people are getting is 4-4-4-12 modules.

 

[Skott]

Originally posted by: nrs251
Phil,

I have a stable FSB at 410MHz. That allows for my Corsair RAM to clock at 820Mhz. That is the limit. That RAM will not clock higher. I have booted into Windows at a FSB of 450 and Orthos passes small FFTs but fails the blend in a nanosecond. I guess my point is that the Patriot memory will allow a FSB of 450. I have not seen many posts that state that the P5W DH can support a STABLE, and I mean ORTHOS BLEND stable at those clocks. I don't want 500FSB, I wanted to run this Corsair at 900MHz, that ain't going to happen. I really am disappointed in this RAM. $300 to run 20 Mhz above rated clock on a 1:1 Divider? That is not worth it.. 450 FSB is not going to happen ever on the P5W with the meory I have so the Patriot RAM seems like it would do this.

From what I been seeing most people are hitting the upper wall (as I call it. there is a lower one as well) at about 420fsb. Then they pull it back to 415fsb for stability performance. Sounds like you found your wall unfortunately. The upside is thats a pretty good overclock for this mobo so dont feel bad about it.

 

[nrs251]

Well, what about the fact that I can boot fine at 450FSB. Surf the net etc.

I gather you think the RAM is not to blame.

 

[phile]

There is an experiement you can try that may help determine if the mem is the problem. Bring the FSB down to 333, and overclock the mem using a divider. At 333 I think you have the option for DDR2-888 (3:4). Make sure to enable SPD timings and up the voltage by 0.1v higher than rated.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

I will try it. That is a great idea!!

 

[SavageThrash]

Thanks for the reply skott. Luckily i bought my ram during the summer before the prices went north. Like you mentioned i did try the gold ocz ram and it didnt boot with the system, (although it could of been that psu never really figured it out). I took the gold back and the psu and got a new psu and ram and all was good. The new ram i got the platinum stuff was what was orignally reccomended to me. It turns out i dont have the new revision which isnt to much of a big deal although it would have been nice

My reason that i thought about the ram prices going up was because of maybe a large issue and a lack of ram components, didnt thin supply and demand would have been a factor here but i guess it is.

About the new quad core, i have heard that the p5w will beable to handle intels new quad core is that correct? and also the new quad u mentioned is that comoing out, is that intels quad that may be compatiblwe with teh p5w?

Thanks again

Savage

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: SavageThrash
Thanks for the reply skott. Luckily i bought my ram during the summer before the prices went north. Like you mentioned i did try the gold ocz ram and it didnt boot with the system, (although it could of been that psu never really figured it out). I took the gold back and the psu and got a new psu and ram and all was good. The new ram i got the platinum stuff was what was orignally reccomended to me. It turns out i dont have the new revision which isnt to much of a big deal although it would have been nice

My reason that i thought about the ram prices going up was because of maybe a large issue and a lack of ram components, didnt thin supply and demand would have been a factor here but i guess it is.

About the new quad core, i have heard that the p5w will beable to handle intels new quad core is that correct? and also the new quad u mentioned is that comoing out, is that intels quad that may be compatiblwe with teh p5w?

Thanks again

Savage

The P5WDH supports the quad-core chips starting with one of the 14xx BIOS revisions. I forget exactly which one. 1407 being the only official release in the 14xx range, that's the one to get. In any case, I expect at least one or two more official BIOS revisions before the quads hit the stores.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

What price will the Quads be?

Also,

How well does the E6600 clock in your experience??

Is 3.8Ghz achievable on that CPU and the P5W DH?

 

[Skott]

Originally posted by: nrs251
What price will the Quads be?

Also,

How well does the E6600 clock in your experience??

Is 3.8Ghz achievable on that CPU and the P5W DH?

Well, they wont start out below $999 IMO. They'll be more than the top end Intel Core 2 obviously. You wanna hit 3.8 with a E6600? Check out the P5W64 WS Pro mobo. I caution you its pricey ($300) but its got the overclockers raving about its high fsb out of the box. 460fsb I think they are saying without changing voltage or anything. Its QuadCore ready, got 4PCIe and 2PCI slots. it can do CF and SLI with the hack drivers. Very stable mobo from what I'm hearing and overclocks like mad. I havent read too much about it but it sounds badass. For $300 it should be.

Edit: If you want to hit 3.8 on the P5W DH I think you'll have to switch to watercooling to do it. Highest I think the aircoolers are getting with a E6600 and the P5W DH mobo stable is 3.6 and its not easy because it becomes a crapshoot after 3.4.

 

[phile]

Let me just add that 3.8GHz on air would not be a good idea.

-phil

 

[jhh979s]

AsusUpdate Issue
I tried to install AsusUpdate and I get this message; "Unable to create NT driver service for BS_DEF.DLL". I click ok then I get this warning message; "No ASUS motherboard. Installation will be abooted now."
And no I did not spell aborted wrong, that is what it says. So I'm stuck at BIOS 1201 right now which isnt too big a problem accept that I have to set DRAM timings by SPD "enabled" or it wont post.
Any ideas on the Asusupdate issue?

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: jhh979s
AsusUpdate Issue
I tried to install AsusUpdate and I get this message; "Unable to create NT driver service for BS_DEF.DLL". I click ok then I get this warning message; "No ASUS motherboard. Installation will be abooted now."
And no I did not spell aborted wrong, that is what it says. So I'm stuck at BIOS 1201 right now which isnt too big a problem accept that I have to set DRAM timings by SPD "enabled" or it wont post.
Any ideas on the Asusupdate issue?

I have no idea why you aren't able to install ASUS Update. You're better off using the AFUDOS or EzBackup methods, in any case.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

WATERCOOLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I am pissed. E6400. I just spent 2 weeks trying to get to 3.4 GHz and now I am thinking E6600.

This OCing thing is a disease!!!!

I read this post on the E6600.

E660 at 3.6GHz.

I have WC so thats not a problem.