*** Official ASUS P5W DH Thread ***

[phile]

Originally posted by: FoeHammer
I have just built a brand new rig with the P5W DH Deluxe(except for the video card as I am waiting for the 8900s or new ATI card) here are the specs.

Intel QX6700
2 gigs: Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C4D (4-4-4-12)
1xWD1500ADFD Raptor
1xWD740ADFD Raptor
Plextor PX755-SA (connected to SATA port 3)
Zalman CNPS9700NT
Thermaltake 750W Modular PSU
HIS Radeon ATI 850XT
Creative X-Fi Extreme Music Sound Card

I have the bios updated to 1901, no problems or post messages. I have set the ram timings to 4-4-4-12 and the memory to DDR-800, the memory volatge is at 2.1v, but I heard some people saying that 2.2 may be more stable? Suggestions.

Go with whatever the rated voltage is for your ram, when running at rated speed. I suspect it's either 2.0v or 2.1v, so you should be quite fine at 2.1v.

First question is: Do I need to change the FSB which is at 266mhz to something higher? And if I do that do I need to change the voltage and if so which settings in the bios is that?

If you boost the FSB you will be, in effect, overclocking your rig. If/when you do decide to overclock, you do have some headroom to play in, while leaving the CPU voltage at auto. There will be a point (different for every user), however, where you will hit a FSB wall, and thus be required to boost the CPU voltage. This is all trial and error, so be prepared to spend the time adjusting the voltage in small increments, until you achieve a stable overclock.

I don't want to overclock my Quad Core right now, but do want to make sure the FSB is running in sync with the ram I have.

In order to run your memory in sync with the stock FSB - 266MHz - you will need to reduce your mem speed to DDR2-533. As you have it right now, you board is using the 2:3 MEM:FSB divider, since you are running the mem at a faster bus speed than the CPU bus speed. To calculate this ratio, you simply compare the real CPU clock and real memory clock. The real CPU clock is the FSB, and the real memory clock is the DDR2 setting divided by two. Remember, DDR memory is dual data rate, so the speed setting is actually the effective clock. For example: DDR2-800 = 400MHz real clock and 800MHz effective clock. To run your mem at its rated speed of 800MHz (effective) you would need to boost your FSB to 400. Leaving you system as is will be perfectly fine, as using memory dividers has an essentially negligible impact on performance.

Second Question: Should a disable the Q-Fan for better overall temperature? It seems to be adjusting the Zalman just fine overall.

If you're happy with the performance of the fan, go ahead and leave QFAN enabled. Since you're not overclocking, you should be just fine with the fan at lower RPM.

Third Question: Should I disable the Jmicron Controller if I dont intend to use those SATA ports?

A great rule of thumb: disable anything you are not using. So, yes.

-phil

 

[FoeHammer]

Thanks For the detailed answers. I appreciate it.

A few questions concerning the FSB @ 266. Is it worth it to bump it up to 400mhz? I understand that there is risk of instability and such. Are most people with DDR2-800 using this setting? and is it safe to leave the CPU voltage at auto if I do so?

 

[cherrypik]

Lately, when booting up my computer it takes forever to post. Should I reset the CMOS?

Also, still having issue with the ethernet after an hour. When gaming online it will freeze and boot me into the lobby.

Last, S3 and S1 for Vista always locks up after awaking my computer. Anyone have suggestions?

 

[haelio]

A few questions concerning the FSB @ 266. Is it worth it to bump it up to 400mhz? I understand that there is risk of instability and such. Are most people with DDR2-800 using this setting? and is it safe to leave the CPU voltage at auto if I do so?

I'm not too sure how well your core can handle an FSB overclock up to 400Mhz. From what I've read, the 4 core processors generate a lot more heat than the dual core ones as you overclock them (as you'd expect).

If you want to run your memory in a 1:1 ratio with your FSB, I'd expect you to have to lower your multiplier a bit too. Maybe a 400 x 7 would be a place to start and an ideal clock would be 400 x 8.

Bear in mind that I'm not an experienced overclocker, so you should listen to anyone who disagrees with me

Sid

PS: Nice rig! Although I would have gone with the X6800 for now unless you do a lot of content creating with Maya etc. (Photoshop CS2 only uses 2 cores effectively apparently).

 

[haelio]

Lately, when booting up my computer it takes forever to post. Should I reset the CMOS?

I have the same problem... It takes a while to identify all my USB devices. There are ways to slow it down, but I haven't bothered with it (takes up to 15s for me).

Also, still having issue with the ethernet after an hour. When gaming online it will freeze and boot me into the lobby.

Update the ethernet driver if you haven't already. I've heard that the default ones with Vista (maybe other OSs too) lock up after extended use.

Last, S3 and S1 for Vista always locks up after awaking my computer. Anyone have suggestions?

I have the same problem, but only when I've overclocked my E6600 to 400*9 (3.6Ghz). At stock, it works fine. Phil on these forums however, hasn't any problems, although he has a more tame overclock... Read some of the earlier posts (around page 90 I think).

 

[FoeHammer]

I'm not too sure how well your core can handle an FSB overclock up to 400Mhz. From what I've read, the 4 core processors generate a lot more heat than the dual core ones as you overclock them (as you'd expect).

If you want to run your memory in a 1:1 ratio with your FSB, I'd expect you to have to lower your multiplier a bit too. Maybe a 400 x 7 would be a place to start and an ideal clock would be 400 x 8.

Bear in mind that I'm not an experienced overclocker, so you should listen to anyone who disagrees with me

Sid

PS: Nice rig! Although I would have gone with the X6800 for now unless you do a lot of content creating with Maya etc. (Photoshop CS2 only uses 2 cores effectively apparently).

Thanks for the advice, I think I may not mess with OCing the FSB until I get a more agressive Heatsink. I wish Thermalright would release that 120 extreme tower. FYi I do create content in Maya and use Photoshop CS2, but mainly I get intel chips for free or half price through a family member - thus aquiring the Quadcore wasn't to expensive.

 

[haelio]

I have a new problem... I'm running Vista Ultimate x86 with all the latest drivers, and my sound goes choppy in the following situation (and others too probably, but I haven't checked):

- I'm playing music in Window Media Player (or another music player)
- I open a photo in Windows Photo Gallery
- If I skip through images quickly, the sound goes choppy. If I zoom an image to 100% and pan around it, the sound goes choppy.

If I use Photoshop to pan around the photo instead, there is no problem. I think it might just be an audio buffer underrun, but I can't find where to increase the buffer size. It's also strange that this happens only when the Windows Photo Gallery app is used... No similar problems when playing games.

If anyone else has this problem please let me know. If you have a solution it'd be great

Cheers,
Sid

 

[mikepaul]

Originally posted by: haelio
I have a new problem... I'm running Vista Ultimate x86 with all the latest drivers, and my sound goes choppy in the following situation (and others too probably, but I haven't checked):

- I'm playing music in Window Media Player (or another music player)
- I open a photo in Windows Photo Gallery
- If I skip through images quickly, the sound goes choppy. If I zoom an image to 100% and pan around it, the sound goes choppy.

If anyone else has this problem please let me know. If you have a solution it'd be great

I did notice that overclocking my memory was important. The stock settings led to bad sound, but with my current settings I haven't heard any bad sounds for quite a while...

Oh, I'm still using XP, so YMMV...

 

[Austin2k]

Hi everyone,
I have been really happy with the board.
e6400 at 3.20GHz. XP 64

Problem is that it occasionally just stops. Blanks out and reboots. It generally, but not always, happens when I an playing music while editing very large photoshop images.
This is rather annoying. It would happen 2-3x a day. I tried to loosen up the timings then tighten them and no improvement.

I read somewhere (sorry I can't find the source) that on this board you should set the memory setting to SPD.
So I did
Memory is Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 2- 1 gig sticks
CPUZ reports with timing set to SPD:
Memory Frequency 400.4 MHz (1:1)
CAS# 5.0
RAS# to CAS# 6
RAS# Precharge 6
Cycle Time (tRAS) 18
Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 24


The system is now very stable and has been up for 3 days now.


I was never able to get all 4 gigs of ram installed. I'll try that later this week.

Cheers,
David (recovering from SXSW)

 

[travsav]

I'm having a problem, not sure if it's my P5W or not...

When booting windows (vista and Media Center 2005), it shows the progress bar, then the screen goes black... And it takes about 2-3 minutes for vista to finally open up to the login screen, and about 30-60s seconds for xp...

I tried safe mode on vista, and the last file it showed was 'crcdisk.sys', then a couple minutes later it finished loading.

I upgraded to bios 1707, i've read it's the latest bios that hasn't given enthusiasts too many problems...

I've reinstalled Vista about 3 times, and MCE another 3... this is single boot by the way, i tried vista, then xp, then vista, etc...

I didn't use any sata drivers to install windows (vista and xp), not sure if I needed to.. JMicron is disabled in the bios, i have my sata drives on SATA1 & SATA3.

I have tried running both overclocked and stock speeds, same results.

My system:
ASUS P5W Bios 1707 vFSB: 1.2v vICH: 1.65v
Intel E6600 @ 400x9=3600 @ 1.42v
2x1gb G-Skill 5-4-3-4 DDR-800 @ 2v
EVGA 8800GTX
74gb WD Raptor
250gb Seagate SataII
Audigy2 ZS
Memorex DVD+RW 16x
Corsair 620W HX

 

[QuietRiot]

Originally posted by: haelio

Lately, when booting up my computer it takes forever to post. Should I reset the CMOS?

I have the same problem... It takes a while to identify all my USB devices. There are ways to slow it down, but I haven't bothered with it (takes up to 15s for me).

From XtremeSystem's thread on the P5W:

"Extremely slow POST - Disable everything to do with fans in "Hardware Monitor". [Credit - OBR]

POST lock up during Detecting IDE Devices - Restart and plug in some USB storage OR change SATA harddrive to other header. [Credit - OPB]

Slow POST (SATA Only Users) - If you're running all SATA drives (Optical and HDD) .. and are getting slow boot times mark the IDE ports and "not installed" in the bios .. saves you the 30sec detection time for each drive. [Credit - Silver Bullet]"

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=110193

 

[cherrypik]

Originally posted by: cherrypik
Lately, when booting up my computer it takes forever to post. Should I reset the CMOS?
I had to reset my CMOS and call MS to reactivate my OS lic. pain in the ass!


Also, still having issue with the ethernet after an hour. When gaming online it will freeze and boot me into the lobby. I found out that this is an issue with the 7800GT. I might try different drivers before I RMA it.

Last, S3 and S1 for Vista always locks up after awaking my computer. Anyone have suggestions?

It still locks up on me. I've tried the S1 state because I heard S3 is problematic.

Thanks for your help guys!

 

[ingeborgdot]

I just installed my two sata dvd burners using the sata ports 1 and 3 (shows 1 and 3 in the manual and their placement). Are these the ones I want to use? I know the one in #3 will not boot from that one. Should I use 4 or 3 and 4? What is anyones suggestions? Thanks.

 

[ingeborgdot]

I am going to install the new vista ultimate now but do have a question and hope it can be answered by the time I get done. I will be doing a moderat oc up to 300 using this board and the 6600 with some gskill 800 4-4-4-12 rated 2-2.1. Temp is cpu 31 and board 49 not oc in a 76 degree room. Is there a place on here that someone has posted the settings in bios as to help me some with the numbers. I have set the beginning bios numbers that Phil so kindly posted earlier. Got in no problem and updated bios and am now installing vista. Would like anything to help as I am a novice at ocing. Thanks. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: travsav
I'm having a problem, not sure if it's my P5W or not...

When booting windows (vista and Media Center 2005), it shows the progress bar, then the screen goes black... And it takes about 2-3 minutes for vista to finally open up to the login screen, and about 30-60s seconds for xp...

I tried safe mode on vista, and the last file it showed was 'crcdisk.sys', then a couple minutes later it finished loading.

I upgraded to bios 1707, i've read it's the latest bios that hasn't given enthusiasts too many problems...

I've reinstalled Vista about 3 times, and MCE another 3... this is single boot by the way, i tried vista, then xp, then vista, etc...

I didn't use any sata drivers to install windows (vista and xp), not sure if I needed to.. JMicron is disabled in the bios, i have my sata drives on SATA1 & SATA3.

I have tried running both overclocked and stock speeds, same results.

My system:
ASUS P5W Bios 1707 vFSB: 1.2v vICH: 1.65v
Intel E6600 @ 400x9=3600 @ 1.42v
2x1gb G-Skill 5-4-3-4 DDR-800 @ 2v
EVGA 8800GTX
74gb WD Raptor
250gb Seagate SataII
Audigy2 ZS
Memorex DVD+RW 16x
Corsair 620W HX

By default, the board runs SATA in Standard IDE mode, which is natively supported. So, no drivers are required to operate SATA drives on this board, unless you wish to run them in AHCI mode, or build a RAID array.

As for your long load time issue, I'm not at all sure what's going on. I'll just suggest a few things:

- check that you have no IRQ conflicts
- try disabling the onboard audio controller in the BIOS
- try disabling the onboard ethernet controllers in the BIOS
- disconnect your secondary HDD
- make sure you have the proper drivers for all your hardware (including the mobo chipset drivers, which can be downloaded at www.intel.com - you want the drivers the 975X chipset)

Ultimately, by trial and error, you need to try to isolate the cause, which may be one of your hardware components.

-phil

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: ingeborgdot
I just installed my two sata dvd burners using the sata ports 1 and 3 (shows 1 and 3 in the manual and their placement). Are these the ones I want to use? I know the one in #3 will not boot from that one. Should I use 4 or 3 and 4? What is anyones suggestions? Thanks.

If your boot drive is SATA, that should be connected to SATA1. Otherwise, you should be fine connecting your SATA opticals to any of the ports - SATA1, SATA3, or SATA4. There is no actual SATA2, as that port was split into the two EzBackup/EzRaid ports. However, by setting the EzBackup/EzRaid jumper to "BIG" (see manual) you may connect a single drive to one of these ports, and it will operate as would a drive on any of the other ports.

-phil

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: ingeborgdot
I am going to install the new vista ultimate now but do have a question and hope it can be answered by the time I get done. I will be doing a moderat oc up to 300 using this board and the 6600 with some gskill 800 4-4-4-12 rated 2-2.1. Temp is cpu 31 and board 49 not oc in a 76 degree room. Is there a place on here that someone has posted the settings in bios as to help me some with the numbers. I have set the beginning bios numbers that Phil so kindly posted earlier. Got in no problem and updated bios and am now installing vista. Would like anything to help as I am a novice at ocing. Thanks. Any help would be appreciated.

Whether using XP or Vista, the procedure for overclocking via the BIOS is identical. Many, many pages back, I posted my FSB 333 overclock config. You could use it as a guide. Let me know if I need to dig it up and repost it.

-phil

 

[ronnystrauss]

ive got my e6600 with this board at 3.4 no problem. 1.4vcore the board runs a little hot, but as the manual says, it can stand more than other boards ( 40-65 is what you should lookfore on the nb) I have HORRIBLE ventilation in my case, it could do way better. thats not why im here though.
my bios are 1901, anyreason to go to 2004?
im on vista 32 bit and this board has a lot of problems with vista. the wifi ap is always messing up. audio seems fine but the newer updates wont install.

more importantly, where are all our asus utilities....ie: pc probe, asus update, asus ai......???

 

[ingeborgdot]

I have looked for over a half hour phil could you dig it up somehow? I really appreciate your patience. Thanks.

 

[ingeborgdot]

Now I have another problem. I have my two hard drives on the ez raid which was easy. Before I was going to do the moderate overclock I was going to backup the hard drives with my external sata drive. I plugged it in but nothing would recognize. I thought maybe by restarting it would find it. WOW> The screen stayed black and would not restart to regular mode. I did a reset and got the black screen with start manually etc. I went into safe mode and did a restore. What did I do wrong? Why did it do this? Anyone know the answer?????

 

[ingeborgdot]

Do I need to install a driver for the rear sata port? I didn't install the jmicron driver because I am not going to raid back there. PPPPLEase help. What a fiasco.

 

[mikepaul]

Originally posted by: ingeborgdot
Do I need to install a driver for the rear sata port? I didn't install the jmicron driver because I am not going to raid back there.

I didn't install a 'driver', but the JMicron option in the BIOS has to be On...

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: ingeborgdot
I have looked for over a half hour phil could you dig it up somehow? I really appreciate your patience. Thanks.

Here's my current FSB 333 config:

Advanced / CPU config area
---------------------------------
C1E: Disabled
Speedstep (EIST): Disabled


Advanced / Jumperfree area:
---------------------------------
FSB: 333
DRAM: DDR2-666 (no mem divider) or DDR2-833 (uses 4:5 divider)
VCORE: 1.35v
VDIMM: 2.1v (use your mem's rated voltage - probably will be 2.0v or 2.1v)


Advanced / Chipset area:
---------------------------------
SPD: Disabled
TIMINGS: Your mem's rated timings. (4-4-4-12 if I recall correctly)
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.

-phil

 

[ingeborgdot]

The one thing that I have just found out about this board is that you don't want to buy sata dvd burners. If you don't use the ez backup which I won't be now because of what the man at Asus said you just don't have enough ports that would work. He said you don't want to use ez backup as a boot raid just backup raid. You should have your hd with os and such on 1 and the two others on ez backup. WWWWHATTTT the F.

 

[phile]

It is my understanding that you can use the EzRaid as your boot drive. In other words: it will work. Now, that's not to say it's a good solution. You will get better performance from a RAID array built on the standard ICH7R slots (SATA1, SATA3, and SATA4) than you will get from an array built on the EzRaid slots.

Ok, so you have 4 drives - 2 SATA HDDs and 2 SATA DVD burners. Here's what I would suggest:

Build your boot RAID array on SATA1 + SATA3. Now, to install your 2 SATA DVD burners, you will need to convert the EzRaid slots into a single standard slot. You can do this by setting the EzRaid jumper to the "BIG" position. This is explained in the manual. For the sake of ease, we can refer to this modified slot as SATA2. With the slot modified, you can now connect your DVD burners to SATA2 and SATA4.

-phil