The Unofficial ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Board Thread

[Santyclaws]

Well I'm currently running Orthos Blend at the spec's listed in my sig. It's ran 15 minutes so far with no freezing, no lockups, and no errors. I'm gonna let it run while I sleep. When I get up if it's still running I will believe I have a stable system. If not, back to the BIOS settings..

Edit: Well my system was locked up solid after 1 hour and 50 minutes of Orthos Blend running. I upped the Vcore one notch to 1.35625 and I'm re-running Orthos. 1 hour and 22 minutes so far and no problems.

Would I have a better shot at my OC if I upgraded to the 0401 or newer BIOS? I've always been if it works don't mess with it..

Edit #2: After 3 hours of Orthos Blend mode, I'm finally stable. I then ran 1 hour of Orthos StressCPU with Gromacs core which will somewhat simulate when I run Folding at Home.. No problems found. My core temps are pushing 80C so I'm stopping where I'm at, at least until I can get my temps down some more.. I'm satisfied with this OC for now..

Thanks to everyone who has posted here as it helped when I decided to build this rig and for the settings once I started it up..

 

[AMelbye]

Before I begin, let me thank you all for making this thread. To me it has been the most valuable source of information on the net regarding the p5n-e sli, and I would probably have returned mine if I hadn't found this tread.

My setup is as follows:
p5n-e sli with bios 0505
c2d e6300 currently running at 3.15GHz with an arctic freezer 7 pro
2*512MB 800MHz cl4 Corsair RAM
SATA HD
2 optical drives
350W Aopen PSU (didn't expect this to be stable but it is, so I don't see any point in replacing it)

I replaced the stock cpu cooler just a couple hours ago. The performance increase is however less than I had expected. The processor starts throttling after about 15 mins at full load (2xprime95)at 3.15GHz (1800/450MHz FSB). With the stock heat sink I reached 2.8GHz without going into throttling, so I've only gained about 300MHz (maybe less, never really pushed it at stock) by getting an aftermarket cooler. Is this caused by the thermal compound needing time to set?

EDIT: my voltage is at +100mv, and the case is open. I have a 80mm fan blowing against the north bridge, but not straight at it, as the freezer doesn't leave enough room

EDIT2: figured it out. The bios automatically bumped up my vcore. I set it to 1.40 and took the +100mV off, and it's loads better now.

 

[meesterlars]

A quick question here:

Does anyone know of an HT Voltage mod for this board? I'm hoping, since this mobo is so popular, that someone figures out how to enable this setting in the bios. Apparently it's really, really important when it comes to overclocking...

 

[AMelbye]

It seems that I have reached the limit of my system. at 3.33GHz the system seems stable for a while (under stress) until the screen suddenly goes black. I'm at the moment running 3.15GHz, and it's stable. What is likely to cause the screen to just go black? (north bridge, south bridge or cpu?) I currently have no cooling on the south bridge, and the fan working on the north bridge is not fitted on it, as there's no longer room for it since I fitted the new CPU cooler.

Could someone explain this thing about memory strap? At the moment my ram is running at 800MHz, but if I increase my FSB by like one MHz, the RAM frequency gets reduced. Is this reduction what you guys are talking about? How much difference does it make?

I've read people saying that you should run your ram in sync mode, or higher. In my case with the FSB at 1800, that'd be 900MHz, which wouldn't be possible unless I relax the timings. Will doing so result in higher performance?

 

[Santyclaws]

I seem to have a small problem. While Orthos showed me stable with no errors after 4 hours of running,(temps high but still safe), Windows XP Pro SP2 locks up after about 6-8 hours of running Folding at Home which is not as stressful as Orthos. I tried upping Vcore to the next notch from my sig, no good, so I backed the FSB down to 1550 and I'm starting over. I'm not running Orthos this time, just my normal programs with Folding at Home running. (This machine for now is just crunching away)

Does anyone have any suggestions I can try? I would like to go higher but Temp wise I think 1600FSB is going to be about max for me..

 

[radarbeam]

Hey guys,

Newbie to the forums here. I've just bought this board and I'm running into trouble. The PC turns on, fans, HDD and optical drive are all spinning. The onboard LED is on yet I get a blank screen.
I have tried re-seating the video card but no to avail. I've also tried changing the RAM from dimm 1s to dimm 2s only to get the same result.

On my P5N-E-SLI I,ve got an E6000 cooled by a scythe Ninja. The RAM is 2Gbof OCZ 800 mhz Platinum and a 8800 GTS for the video card. The power supply is a Corsair 520W.

I've also posted for help on the tech support forum (see: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...tid=32&threadid=2029850&enterthread=y)
But I figured here would be a good place to ask as well.

Thanks,
Nick

 

[Santyclaws]

Originally posted by: radarbeam
Hey guys,

Newbie to the forums here. I've just bought this board and I'm running into trouble. The PC turns on, fans, HDD and optical drive are all spinning. The onboard LED is on yet I get a blank screen.
I have tried re-seating the video card but no to avail. I've also tried changing the RAM from dimm 1s to dimm 2s only to get the same result.

On my P5N-E-SLI I,ve got an E6000 cooled by a scythe Ninja. The RAM is 2Gbof OCZ 800 mhz Platinum and a 8800 GTS for the video card. The power supply is a Corsair 520W.

I've also posted for help on the tech support forum (see: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...tid=32&threadid=2029850&enterthread=y)
But I figured here would be a good place to ask as well.

Thanks,
Nick

First off, Welcome. Now, do you happen to know what the voltage is that the ram is supposed run at? If it's more than 1.9V, you can try just one stick just to see if it'll boot up to the BIOS, then you can manually set all the ram settings, especially the Volts (Vdimm). If the memory is suppose to run at 1.8V, then you might try removing the motherboard from the case, and set it on something like the anti-static bag the mobo came in and then see if it'll boot to the BIOS. That way will make sure that you are not shorting out to the standoffs in the case..

 

[Ordski]

Hello everybody. I am a noob to this forum, having read a lot and lurked a bit. The materials here are great and clear.

Santyclaws, I am about to build a system much like yours. I see you have a setup with cooling following Core2's recommendations. Any chance you or anyone could share some pictures of the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro mod and pictures of the mounting of the 40mm fans to the NB? I get the drift but the details would be a bonus. (and then, there's always scotch tape.)

I am also thinking of using a Zalman ZM-NB47J on the SB. It's tall however, and I wondered if anyone found that a tall device got in the way of a big video card such as 8800s?

I appreciate the seriousness and detail you all put into this forum - and the willingness to help out. (I may well be back asking for more backup if the system won't POST. My asus a8n-sli took some work to get going but has been great.) Your comments and the basic - be sure everything's plugged in correctly and tight from the general mobo pages are surely useful reminders.

Thanks, Ordski

 

[Santyclaws]

Originally posted by: Ordski
Hello everybody. I am a noob to this forum, having read a lot and lurked a bit. The materials here are great and clear.

Santyclaws, I am about to build a system much like yours. I see you have a setup with cooling following Core2's recommendations. Any chance you or anyone could share some pictures of the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro mod and pictures of the mounting of the 40mm fans to the NB? I get the drift but the details would be a bonus. (and then, there's always scotch tape.)

I am also thinking of using a Zalman ZM-NB47J on the SB. It's tall however, and I wondered if anyone found that a tall device got in the way of a big video card such as 8800s?

I appreciate the seriousness and detail you all put into this forum - and the willingness to help out. (I may well be back asking for more backup if the system won't POST. My asus a8n-sli took some work to get going but has been great.) Your comments and the basic - be sure everything's plugged in correctly and tight from the general mobo pages are surely useful reminders.

Thanks, Ordski

Basically, if it sits higher than the slot, it will interfere with a video card. The one I have listed for the SB, if you take the fan off of it, then use the screws to attach it to the Northbridge heatsink.. I used 2 fans on my northbridge.

For the AC Freezer 7 mod, take the fan off the heatsink, and trial fit it to see where and how much you need to bend the bottom fin. Just set the plastic mounting feet in the holes, no need to lock it down. As to the fan, it's the same corner you just have to trim a little at a time until it fits without hitting anything. Thats how I did it.. I also cleand off the thermal compound that came on it because I lapped the bottom to make sure it was flat and very smooth. I left the black plastic protector on the CPU socket until I had the heatsink the way I wanted it and was ready to install everything.. I still have some playing to do to get my temps down, I never have very good luck getting low temps like some people do, but I am pushing the top as far as my temps go so I gotta figure how to lower them some..

 

[anandtech02148]

why do they advertise Asus Probe update if this thing destroy my OS.
i have 4 asus mobo build all with the same issue if you update bios in Window.

it's the 90s, no wait 2007, upate with floppy disk.. get real.

Update in Post, right.. Post default to A: drive and can't even get to a C:\directory.

If this is unstable why do they keep marketing this junk.
i have 3gigs of memory, bad idea to fill up the slots, can only use the 2 black slot

 

[radarbeam]

Hi Santy,

Thanks for your help. I changed my RAM this morning and was finally able to boot up without any freeze and immediately adjusted my Vdimm.

Now I have another bit of a problem. According to CPU-Z my E6600 runs at x6 multiplier making the chip run at 1600 mhz... yet the mobo is set for 9x multiplier. See the attached screen shot http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=e6600fp6.jpg


I'm confused. Again any help would be appreciated!

Thanks Nick

 

[Tuvoc]

Originally posted by: anandtech02148
why do they advertise Asus Probe update if this thing destroy my OS.
i have 4 asus mobo build all with the same issue if you update bios in Window.

it's the 90s, no wait 2007, upate with floppy disk.. get real.

Update in Post, right.. Post default to A: drive and can't even get to a C:\directory.

If this is unstable why do they keep marketing this junk.
i have 3gigs of memory, bad idea to fill up the slots, can only use the 2 black slot

You can flash the BIOS with a flash drive. You don't need a floppy.
I run all 4 slots filled but it wasn't easy, 4 x 1GB requires experimentation with settings. But 4 x 512MB seems to be straight forward, I see some people here have that. As with many boards today, this board is picky about memory. It is not just this board.

 

[Santyclaws]

Originally posted by: radarbeam
Hi Santy,

Thanks for your help. I changed my RAM this morning and was finally able to boot up without any freeze and immediately adjusted my Vdimm.

Now I have another bit of a problem. According to CPU-Z my E6600 runs at x6 multiplier making the chip run at 1600 mhz... yet the mobo is set for 9x multiplier. See the attached screen shot http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=e6600fp6.jpg


I'm confused. Again any help would be appreciated!

Thanks Nick

Thats probably correct if it's just idling.Put a load on it and watch CPU-Z. It should show correctly then. It's what they call speedstep etc. When the CPU is not doing any work, it backs it down to save energy and keep the temps down. (also saves wear and tear on the CPU.. )

 

[Santyclaws]

Originally posted by: Tuvoc

Originally posted by: anandtech02148
why do they advertise Asus Probe update if this thing destroy my OS.
i have 4 asus mobo build all with the same issue if you update bios in Window.

it's the 90s, no wait 2007, upate with floppy disk.. get real.

Update in Post, right.. Post default to A: drive and can't even get to a C:\directory.

If this is unstable why do they keep marketing this junk.
i have 3gigs of memory, bad idea to fill up the slots, can only use the 2 black slot

You can flash the BIOS with a flash drive. You don't need a floppy.
I run all 4 slots filled but it wasn't easy, 4 x 1GB requires experimentation with settings. But 4 x 512MB seems to be straight forward, I see some people here have that. As with many boards today, this board is picky about memory. It is not just this board.

Tuvoc is correct. I flashed my BIOS from a flash drive. I have a floppy drive but didn't have a blank floppy disk. My flash drive showed up as the C: drive while in the BIOS EZ Update tool..

 

[jkcheng122]

Originally posted by: anandtech02148
why do they advertise Asus Probe update if this thing destroy my OS.
i have 4 asus mobo build all with the same issue if you update bios in Window.

it's the 90s, no wait 2007, upate with floppy disk.. get real.

Update in Post, right.. Post default to A: drive and can't even get to a C:\directory.

If this is unstable why do they keep marketing this junk.
i have 3gigs of memory, bad idea to fill up the slots, can only use the 2 black slot

the letter says a:, but u can load a cd in there and it'll read the cd. that's how i update my bios. it may have been c:, but regardless, either one of the two letters will read off the cd and u can update ur bios with a cd.

 

[jkcheng122]

Originally posted by: Santyclaws

Originally posted by: Tuvoc

Originally posted by: anandtech02148
why do they advertise Asus Probe update if this thing destroy my OS.
i have 4 asus mobo build all with the same issue if you update bios in Window.

it's the 90s, no wait 2007, upate with floppy disk.. get real.

Update in Post, right.. Post default to A: drive and can't even get to a C:\directory.

If this is unstable why do they keep marketing this junk.
i have 3gigs of memory, bad idea to fill up the slots, can only use the 2 black slot

You can flash the BIOS with a flash drive. You don't need a floppy.
I run all 4 slots filled but it wasn't easy, 4 x 1GB requires experimentation with settings. But 4 x 512MB seems to be straight forward, I see some people here have that. As with many boards today, this board is picky about memory. It is not just this board.

Tuvoc is correct. I flashed my BIOS from a flash drive. I have a floppy drive but didn't have a blank floppy disk. My flash drive showed up as the C: drive while in the BIOS EZ Update tool..

does the flash drive need to be formatted in some way to be read by the bios, i've tried plugging it in the front port and nothing came up under ez flash in either drive letter.

 

[Tuvoc]

Originally posted by: jkcheng122
does the flash drive need to be formatted in some way to be read by the bios, i've tried plugging it in the front port and nothing came up under ez flash in either drive letter.

No, I just made sure it was the only file on the flash drive.

But do you actually have a ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Board ? Your sig suggests otherwise

 

[CikaNovo]

Originally posted by: Tuvoc
You can flash the BIOS with a flash drive. You don't need a floppy.
I run all 4 slots filled but it wasn't easy, 4 x 1GB requires experimentation with settings. But 4 x 512MB seems to be straight forward, I see some people here have that. As with many boards today, this board is picky about memory. It is not just this board.

Do you think experimentation comes from fact that it's a 800 mhz ram you're running,and not 667 or 533?What was the cause of instability,and how did you solve the problem?Thanks

 

[sbrown23]

I am having issues with sleep mode and my P5N-E SLI and cannot figure out why the hell it is doing this. It will go into S3 fine, now that I switched the USBPW1-4, USBPW5-8, and KBPWR jumpers on the board to +5VSB, before it wouldn't even go into sleep successfully. But it won't come back out of sleep. If I press the space bar on the keyboard, everything spins up, fans at full blast, but Vista doesn't come back up. If I hit the reset button, it will reset, POST, and then Vista resumes instead of doing a full boot. I don't know why the reset and POST is needed to bring Vista back up. I haven't had a machine act like this before, and I've built plenty. Stock speeds or OC'd doesn't matter, it behaves the same.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 2.3GHz
2 x 1GB OCZ PC6400 @ 800MHz (unlinked in BIOS), RAM in black slots
ATI Radeon X800 XL, stock, Catalyst 7.2
WD SATA drives 250GB and 320GB, 16MB cache
Sony DVD burner
Vista Ultimate

Also, what's the recommended ATK0110 version for Vista? The one supplied on Windows Update is from 2004.

 

[Tuvoc]

Originally posted by: CikaNovo

Originally posted by: Tuvoc
You can flash the BIOS with a flash drive. You don't need a floppy.
I run all 4 slots filled but it wasn't easy, 4 x 1GB requires experimentation with settings. But 4 x 512MB seems to be straight forward, I see some people here have that. As with many boards today, this board is picky about memory. It is not just this board.

Do you think experimentation comes from fact that it's a 800 mhz ram you're running,and not 667 or 533?What was the cause of instability,and how did you solve the problem?Thanks

No instability. The board just won't boot at all with 4 x 1GB sticks at 800
Once booted at 667 or 711 with all 4 sticks it is 100% solid. Mine runs 24/7.

So yes you are correct, the board has difficulty with 4 sticks at 800
Could be that some RAM will do it and some won't but I suspect most if not all won't.

 

[radarbeam]

Does anyone knows if this board mounted with a Thermalright Ultra 120 will fit inside an Antec P180?


Thanks

 

[gvayl]

Does this board work with Patriot extreme 6400 chips? I read a review on newegg saying it didn't? Also how can I find out what chips are on my ram...the heatsinks are glued to the chips? very weird....

 

[jkcheng122]

Originally posted by: Tuvoc

Originally posted by: jkcheng122
does the flash drive need to be formatted in some way to be read by the bios, i've tried plugging it in the front port and nothing came up under ez flash in either drive letter.

No, I just made sure it was the only file on the flash drive.

But do you actually have a ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Board ? Your sig suggests otherwise

yes i do, i had to go thru a very lengthy hardware swapping when my system kept freezing up and bsod'ing. and one of the things i switched was the mobo. i have the one in my sig and the p5n-e sli. thinking about switching back when i get a new cpu but that would require another reformat of my pc.

one of the two motherboards will eventually become the base of a media box that will be hooked up to the main home theater. i dunno which one yet.

 

[CikaNovo]

Originally posted by: radarbeam


Does anyone knows if this board mounted with a Thermalright Ultra 120 will fit inside an Antec P180?


Thanks

I'd like to know myself,i'm thinking of buying Ultra 120 Extreme when it hits the market.

 

[destrekor]

i'm curious, will this board work well with any Micron 9xxxx memory? I am looking at this G.skill memory:
memory

and which is a preferred cooler? My buddy recommended a Thermalright XP-120
cooler
however, I don't know if it will fit properly (I'm at home and not in me dorm, I don't have no PC, so I cannot judge the position of the PSU in relation to where the mobo's CPU socket is), and I have seen the Thermalright Ultra 120 recommended quite a bit. Should I go with that instead? Plus the fan would blow vertically into the PSU's fan I'd imagine, which sounds more ideal.
and I imagine that with the retention brackets, the weight of the Ultra 120 won't do any damage or cause stress on the mobo, right? I've never really dealt with such large heatsink units so I naturally would worry.

oh, and if it matters, my case is the NZXT Lexa.