P5N-E Issues.

[GamingDaemon]

Originally posted by: Numble
I'd just like to update that I am still stable on 0401 @ stock CPU
I cannot even TOUCH the memory timings ... although stock is 4-4-4-12, I am forced to keep 5-5-5-15 2T, yellow slots. Windows freezes were a direct result of memory timings, so I've settled for the lax timings.

*Just a tip for anyone who can't get into 0401 Bios, throw a single RAM stick into the b-1 (yellow) slot and clear CMOS, that should get you in there.

As long as I don't mess with anything, I am stable as a three-legged man. I thought I'd throw a curve ball in there and install Vista tonight, so let's see where that takes us! I will start to push the CPU speeds soon, I'll keep you updated. I'm convinced there's a workaround for everything!

One thing's for sure, this BIOS is F****D

So if you had stayed with the 202 BIOS, do you think you would be doing better?

EDIT: This is a dupe message, not sure how that happened...

 

[AZDude]

Two things, there are a lot of memory holes in the 0202 BIOS and never (I mean NEVER) update the BIOS in windows. This board has a BIOS updater in the BIOS itself. Use that. Everyone that updated the the BIOS in windows hosed their system.

AND MAKE SURE THAT YOU DO A HARD RESET(UNPLUG THE POWER CORD, UNPLUG THE 24 PIN CONNECTOR, REMOVER THE BATTERY AND RESET THE JUMPER) OF THE CMOS AFTER YOU FLASH THE BIOS!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Numble]

AZ Dude is absolutely right, it was an amateur move on my part to update the BIOS via windows (although I will say I've done it on the MSI p965 neo-f and it worked...but that board really sucks) I should have known better.

Like I said now I am totally stable- it was just after the initial flash that I had a problem!
I will also say that 0202 BIOS allowed me to use tighter timings at stock CPU, but I can attest to the instabilities and FSB holes when OC'ing. For whatever reason, this board at this BIOS doesn't like my RAM nor its stock timings: Corsair TWIN2X1048-6400C4. Then again any real results I've seen with OC'ing on this board have involved timings @ 5-5-5-12 2T.

So I'm torn- right now I can't push the CPU at all (although I am determined to make some progress tonight), while in 0202 I had a little bit of OC'ing ability.


AZDUDE: I see you put some active cooling on the NB/SB, were you able to OC before you added these? And what are you using?

 

[AZDude]

Originally posted by: Numble


AZDUDE: I see you put some active cooling on the NB/SB, were you able to OC before you added these? And what are you using?

I use this cooler on my NB
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835116018

And this HS on my SB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118002

I did a little OCing before I installed those. My signature is now correct. I've been stable at 2.9GHz for a couple days now. Unfortunitly all the people who are having trouble with their systems seem to be using Corsair ram. not sure what this is all about. I'm using A-Data and the only time I'm unstable is when I push the OC to far.

 

[shapkahead]

Just FYI, if y'all are having problems like mine, ASUS appears willing to RMA the board. I have NO idea what they'll try to do to it to fix it, but an ASUS tech support guy just told me to RMA it. If I can get any information from the RMA people about what they're planning to do (or what's causing the problems), I'll post it here.

 

[SilentBob66]

I'm in the same boat as most of you. I have had nothing but problems since I put this system together.

The first problem I had was that it would lock-up while copying the files from the XP cd to the pc for windows installation. (my DVD burner just died the other day and I'm wondering if that is why I had installation problems)

From there I would get random lock-ups. Sometimes it would lock-up on the 'welcome' screen or just after the desktop appears.

I tested the memory (ADATA DDR2 800, 1 GIG) in ever configuration with Memtest and never received any errors. I tried just the black slots (couldn't even boot originally this way) and just the yellow slots and both in one channel, one at a time... Nothing seemed to make any difference.

I flashed the bios (through windows) and after that I could boot in just the black slots, but then I started getting random BSOD's.

I swapped out the PSU from the NeoHE to a Smartpower 350w and didn't notice any difference.

I ran a diagnostic on the hard drive and found no errors.

My video card (BFG GEFORCE 7800GT OC) had been damaged in shipping (at least the box was). It didn't look to me like there was any actual damage to the card but if it got a big enough bump that could have effected it. So I sent it back and I've got a new one showing up tonight. (I ran this program called 'video card stability test' which gives you an average of the FPS that the card can do. Mine was giving me numbers 1/2 of what others with the same card were getting)

I'm hoping that is the problem but I'm not holding out too much hope after reading all these posts.

If the vid card doesn't fix it I think I'll have to RMA the mobo and hope that helps.

I have been able to play F.E.A.R. with the settings to 'low' for computer and 'low' for vid card. I could play the game for a couple of hours but would sometimes get a BSOD on exiting the game.

My only other thought is to try starting over again from scratch and re-installing everything. I'm just thinking that I had so many problems just copying the files for install that maybe something got corrupted.

Maybe if I flash the bios outside of windows and then install on the correct bios that will help.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws at this point but I'm running out of ideas and patience.

P.S. A friend of mine built just about the same system as I have (same mobo, cpu, mem) and has not had any problems.

 

[AZDude]

SilentBob66,

I see two things that can cause some of your pain. 1st you flashed the BIOS in windows, that can cause a lot of problems; 2nd you did not clear the CMOS after you flashed the BIOS.
What version of XP are you trying to install? If its anything less than SP2, that can cause problems also.

I would reflash your BIOS using the utility in the BIOS and then make sure you clear the CMOS (unplug, take out the battery, switch the jumper, put the jumper back, put the battery back in) Make sure to go back into the BIOS and put all of your settings back in. This should work for you. You have all the symptoms of not clearing the CMOS after a flash.

Hope this helps.

 

[ed6612]

I finally received my replacement memory and put the system to the test. After one hour and over two passes with memtest not a single error with 5-5-5-12 2T. Booted into XP and it seems to be stable. I will see if I can retain stability with 4-4-4-12 tomorrow since this is what this ram is rated for.

If the ram was indeed faulty I find it welcome indeed (swapping the board would have been a major pain) but at the same time I am puzzled that memtest found errors when testing with each of the old sticks by themselves. Only explanation I can think of is that somehow both of the old sticks got fried although I never got a chance to OC the system and my temp monitoring never reported excessive values.

BTW: I am running with 0401 in yellow slots. I have followed the proper BIOS flashing procedure as described by the manual and AZDude and never experienced any post-flash problems described.

 

[SilentBob66]

I am running SP2 on XP Pro.

Is there any problem with updating the bios using a USB stick? In the manual it says to press (Alt + F2) during POST, and then you can update from there. (I don't have a floppy drive)

I'm going to try that tonight, and then I clear the CMOS.

I got my new video card in and it is 100% better than the old one (the vid card is better, but I'm still not stable).

Hopefully you are right about the CMOS. I was having stability problems before flashing the bios, but I never got a BSOD until after I flashed.

 

[idiotekniQues]

Originally posted by: SilentBob66
I'm in the same boat as most of you. I have had nothing but problems since I put this system together.

The first problem I had was that it would lock-up while copying the files from the XP cd to the pc for windows installation. (my DVD burner just died the other day and I'm wondering if that is why I had installation problems)

From there I would get random lock-ups. Sometimes it would lock-up on the 'welcome' screen or just after the desktop appears.

I tested the memory (ADATA DDR2 800, 1 GIG) in ever configuration with Memtest and never received any errors. I tried just the black slots (couldn't even boot originally this way) and just the yellow slots and both in one channel, one at a time... Nothing seemed to make any difference.

I flashed the bios (through windows) and after that I could boot in just the black slots, but then I started getting random BSOD's.

I swapped out the PSU from the NeoHE to a Smartpower 350w and didn't notice any difference.

I ran a diagnostic on the hard drive and found no errors.

My video card (BFG GEFORCE 7800GT OC) had been damaged in shipping (at least the box was). It didn't look to me like there was any actual damage to the card but if it got a big enough bump that could have effected it. So I sent it back and I've got a new one showing up tonight. (I ran this program called 'video card stability test' which gives you an average of the FPS that the card can do. Mine was giving me numbers 1/2 of what others with the same card were getting)

I'm hoping that is the problem but I'm not holding out too much hope after reading all these posts.

If the vid card doesn't fix it I think I'll have to RMA the mobo and hope that helps.

I have been able to play F.E.A.R. with the settings to 'low' for computer and 'low' for vid card. I could play the game for a couple of hours but would sometimes get a BSOD on exiting the game.

My only other thought is to try starting over again from scratch and re-installing everything. I'm just thinking that I had so many problems just copying the files for install that maybe something got corrupted.

Maybe if I flash the bios outside of windows and then install on the correct bios that will help.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws at this point but I'm running out of ideas and patience.

P.S. A friend of mine built just about the same system as I have (same mobo, cpu, mem) and has not had any problems.

i had similar issues during xp install with this mobo and also tested my memory and hard drives etc.

what i finally did is partition the drive in an older rig and i got xp to install finally.

but i still got bsod's like crazy. found out about disabling Native Command Queuing and after that my bsod's went away.

you can disable NCQ in your device manager by right clicking on the properties of your IDE/SATA controllers in your hardware list.

while this solved my BSOD's i was wary of this board so i rma'd it for an intel chipset. i was getting very good oc's with my p5ne-sli though, i was orthos stable at very high speeds once i disabled NCQ.

now i am happy with my gigabyte dq6, but give the NCQ a shot and see what happens. i especially got BSOD's during any large file transfer and once i started doing any multitasking.

 

[AZDude]

Originally posted by: SilentBob66
I am running SP2 on XP Pro.

Is there any problem with updating the bios using a USB stick? In the manual it says to press (Alt + F2) during POST, and then you can update from there. (I don't have a floppy drive)

I'm going to try that tonight, and then I clear the CMOS.

I got my new video card in and it is 100% better than the old one (the vid card is better, but I'm still not stable).

Hopefully you are right about the CMOS. I was having stability problems before flashing the bios, but I never got a BSOD until after I flashed.

No problem using a jump drive. Let us know how it went.

 

[SilentBob66]

Well I flashed the bios and cleared the CMOS.

I was able to play FarCry on 'very high' settings without any problem.

I ran memtest through 2 passes with no errors.

I decided at the end of the night 1:30am to run memtest and let it run overnight.

When I checked it this morning I had a screen full of yellow DOS 'blocks' and had to power down and re-start.

Is this normal for memtest, does it 'end' the test at some point, or does it just keep running passes?

When I tried to reboot I froze up on the desktop and then re-booted fine.

I haven't gotten any BSOD's yet, so that is a good sign.

I'll have to work with it more tonight to see if it's more stable now.

I've been planing on installing a second OS on a dual-boot for DAW, so I might try doing that tonight and see if it gives me any problems.

 

[SilentBob66]

Well, last night I re-installed windows. Everything was fine for a couple of hours. Then, while I was looking at some photos in 'slide show' and listening to some mp3s the computer just shut down and restarted.

I was installing a program and had to restart after installing. When it booted back up, ALL MY VIDEO DRIVERS WERE GONE. I re-installed the drivers and got the screen back to normal. I had to restart later and as it was shutting down I opened the DVD drive to get the CD out. The drive bay was still open when it shut down. I tried to restart and found that the machine would not start. The lights would come on and it would start to power up, then the CD drawer would start to close about 1 inch and it power off. I tried again and the CD drawer moved another inch before it shut down. I closed the CD drawer and then it booted up fine.

I tried to run Nvidia's stability test. It would play the video of the monsters dancing, but it only played that twice and then it never appeared on the screen again (even though the test kept running and I could see that the CPU was ramping up and down.

I tried to run Memtest overnight again and in the morning I looked like it was still going but in fact it was hung up on pass #3.

I'm so tired of trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with this thing. Not sure I'll ever buy from Asus again.

I'm not sure if I have enough time left to RMA NewEgg, So I might have to RMA through Asus.

 

[ed6612]

Seems like this might be a power supply related issue. Have you tried another PS since the shutdowns started?

 

[SilentBob66]

I did all this last night, so I haven't been able to try a different PSU. But I've been having problems of one sort or the other for two weeks now. I've had two different PSU's but found it didn't make any difference in stability. I have the original PSU back in there now. I will try tonight to see if the other PSU makes a difference, but I doubt it at this point.

I tried posting on the Asus Forum, but just like my motherboard, their forum doesn't work either.

 

[SilentBob66]

I found that the problem with the pc not starting with the CD tray open was because I had my Maxtor 100gig usb drive (it uses two usb ports) plugged in. If I unplug the Maxtor drive then it boots find.

My PSU has modular connections so I hooked up a separate power cable to the DVD drive and now it boots even with the usb drive hooked up.

 

[idiotekniQues]

seems like antec still hasnt gotten back on their game.

 

[SilentBob66]

It seems kind of weird that I would have to hook up a second power cable. The only thing on the first one was the DVD drive and the rear fan.

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with USB power.

Anyway, after having so much trouble with this board I'm RMA'ing it tomorrow. I have to do it tomorrow to be within NewEgg's 30 day return policy.

So it kind of sucks that it's probably going to take a week and 1/2 or two until I get a new motherboard, but hopefully that will solve my problems.

It's been a while since I put a pc together, but it seems remarkable that I would have to jump through all the hoops that this motherboard requires just to get it to run stable with no OC at all.

 

[idiotekniQues]

i think you might need a new ps. the other ps you were putting in wasnt it another antec that was 350w?

 

[SilentBob66]

OK, I RMA'd my P5N E-SLI and the new board has the exact same problems as the old board.

So now I'm left with trying to find new memory that 'might' work with this miserable motherboard.

Any suggestions of what memory to try? What has been stable with other people?

 

[AZDude]

I have had zero problems with the DDR2 800 I got from A-DATA

 

[SilentBob66]

I picked up some Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 mem and that seems to have solved all my problems.

I put it in the black slots and so far everything has worked fine.

I initially put all the bios settings at auto and checked through CPU-Z to see how the timings were set. They were:

5-5-5-18-1T @400Mz

I went in and changed to Mfc specs 4-4-4-12-2T. No problems either was so far.

One interesting thing. While I was waiting for my new mem to arive (took 1 day!), I found that I could not boot at all with the Adata with both sticks in the black slots. (I had booted that way the day before, but not that night when I got home from work. I tried 5 times in a row and every time it locked up during boot-up.) So I took one of the Adata sticks out and left just the one in the B2 (farthest slot from CPU). It booted find and ran for a little while with no problems. So, I put both sticks in the B side and was able to boot up and run overnight with no problems at all. (I tried this on the original motherboard but still had problems).

So now I have a dilemma. What to do with the Adata mem. I don't know if there is a problem with it or if it's just a problem with that mem in this motherboard. I'd like to sell or trade it but I don't want to give anyone bad mem.

 

[AZDude]

What is it, 1 gig, 2X512????????

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: SilentBob66
So now I have a dilemma. What to do with the Adata mem. I don't know if there is a problem with it or if it's just a problem with that mem in this motherboard. I'd like to sell or trade it but I don't want to give anyone bad mem.

What kind of RMA/lifetime policy does Adata have? Best way would be to RMA those sticks through Adata, then unload em (or the Crucial) on FS/FT or Ebay. Bad karma to sell dead memory; imagine pawning off your problems and sending all that troubleshooting you went through onto someone else.

But ya, I've hated this board for quite a while now. I've got a bad feeling it likes to kill memory. Started having similar problems to people in this thread after cruising along at 1500/1000 for 1 1/2 months. Then BSODs, instability, crashes, reboots and finally to the point I couldn't even boot or get into the BIOS with 2 sticks. Took 1 stick out, got some stability back by turning up the voltage and then ran memtest86 and found I was getting tons of errors.

I've got a pair of Buffalo PC-6400 and I'm RMA'ing my dead Ballistix as well. If it kills another kit of RAM, its going back to Asus and I'm going to try and get a different board. Like others said, tired of dealing with this crap.....never had so many quirky problems with a board before. Its was supposed to be a good deal at the price, but at this point I'd rather pay more for stability.

 

[DevourerofSouls]

This all sounds pretty darn familiar!!

My setup:
E6600
Asus P5N-E SLI
2GB G-Skill DDR2 800 PC2-6400 CL4-4-4-12
2x 250GB SATA 2 WD 16MB HDDS running in RAID 0
Gainward 8800GTS Golden Sample
Antec P180 case
850W Toughpower Thermaltake PSU

At the rated timings of 4-4-4-12 (and 2T) the PC freezes up quite a lot, that being from every couple of hours to 5-10 minutes.

But nothing in particular seems to set it off: it can freeze at the login prompt, after a few hours of Dawn of War, browsing the web or midway through a movie...

I have run memtest over night with no problems, run Burn-in-Test for hours and no problems. I have run 3D-Mark 06 again and again and not reproduced the problem.

It just strikes randomly and does not produce any windows errors in the event logs.

I have found that after reducing the timings to 5-5-5-12 it seemed to stay stable for a lot longer - a day or two.

At this point I am probably looking at reinstalling XP on a standard IDE drive to test the install but I would be interested in hearing anyone else's opinions/ideas.

Thanks
DoS