ASUS P5W DH - Problems + Fixes Thread

[lawrywild]

Hey lawry, does the 1801 bios add anything new, or is it the same as the 1707?

No, it's a pile of $hit

...as usual

[nickfd]

I used to run @ 400 FSB on my Core 2 Duo E6400 (-->3200MHz) on stock voltages with stock chipset cooling. I got random system freezes unless I upped the Vmch to 1.65V. This thing runs hot!!! I couldn't even touch it. But it was stable.

Just to see what happens I ripped the metal foil off and attached a 40mm ixtrema pro quiet fan (it runs @ 4500 rpm with no noise at all but it is expensive). I can now run @ 400 fsb with Vmch on Auto. I've been running orthos for 24 hours 36 minutes 11 seconds now and it is stable

Since I'm one of those strange people who believe in overclocking without overvolting (purists they call us I think), I am very happy with it. A very small modification that goes a long way. And if you use a good fan, without ANY added noise. Highly recomended

Hi Pol, is this the ixtreme fan that you were talking about? Did you have any issues mounting it on to the NB?

Another question to anyone that's used thermal monitors on the NB: I know I remember seeing posts earlier, but if anyone has the information handy, could you please post:

• base temps with the crap thermal stuff and no mods
• replacing crap thermal with AS5 and reapplying standard copper block
• replacing with an aftermarket passive cooled (air) block, and which block you used
• any options with an air actively cooled solution, either with 40mm on standard block or aftermarket
• lastly, with a waterblock, regardless of waterflow (no crazy stuff, just water)

I'm thinking maybe cooling this via air (if you can get it up to 1.65v or higher without much problem), rather than worrying about splitting my watercooling and adding additional tubing/valves and a block. I'm thinking my only benefit of water is that I'd be able to take it higher with some mb modification, since my mb doesnt take the vMCH higher than 1.65.. At least on my 1506 bios.

I'll finally get to work on my rig tonight/tomorrow and will get to paste additional info and make a sig with my specific details.

Thanks all!

[maukka]

The problems are:

1. System becomes unstable and spontaneously reboots (no BSOD) whenever 3D gaming or 2D video rendering occurs. The system is perfectly stable, and seems generally fine when idle, and even runs Orthos without fail.

Hi, I had the exact same problem. Random reboots whenever I was watching any video. Memtest and Orthos ran without errors for hours on end. Reverting to stock volts with no overlocking didn't help. As did not relaxing the mem timings with memset. Sometimes the system was up for several days, sometimes crashed several times a day.

It ended up being the ram. I swapped my Kingston ValueRAM (KVR667D2N5K2/2G) to equivalent Corsair sticks and all the problems disappeared. Now I've been running a stable system for over a month. The Kingston RAM wasn't bad, because they run fine now in a friend's P5B.

Hope this helps.

[don_vercetti]

can you post up the asus support email address? their site is a nightmare to navigate, and you seem to be a man with contacts.

[syne_24]

Everyone send support emails to asus asking for tRFC in bios, maybe that'll get them to finally do something about it. But I mean everyone, even people without problems, just help us guys out please

tell me about..i posted some rant in their forums before about sub timing options. I think everyone should make a post in that forum to get their attention. It's been more than 6 months and we can't even get one bios to fix that issue. And it really pissed me off since either they are unaware or dont give a crap. I doubt we will see this anytime soon. Personally I had it with this board, it's stable as a rock but pissed me off at the same time with the little things. One more month for the IN9 for me.

[lawrywild]

can you post up the asus support email address? their site is a nightmare to navigate, and you seem to be a man with contacts.

http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx

Everyone post the replies back here

[NghtShd]

Once again...another 1337 [ leet ] Asus P5W BIOS Release!
- Nothing Changed actually
- Still CPU Ratios 6-11 for X6800

This is pissing me off!

Have you tried typing in the multiplier? Someone said that worked, but he didn't have an unlocked chip so even if it allows you to enter a number it may not actually set the multiplier to that value.

[petro]

tell me about..

There is no sense in writing messages on their forum. I have seen such requests many times without answers, so I think there is no asus personnel at the forum - for example this is my last post at their forum: http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...Language=en-us
You must become a VIP member (register your product and get personal account) to be able to write a direct "Technical Inquiry". I am planning to do it in a short time.
As I wrote in my post, I have a Patriot-1066 kit and extremely need "Write-to-precharge delayed" timing to set it to 25 or more... I cant do this even under Windows with MemSet utility...

[ketma]

http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx

Everyone post the replies back here

Hi,

I attempted to query the tRFC issue with tech support, but after two attempts they fobbed me off with the 1705 BIOS. I tried (in simple english) to explain what we all want/need in the BIOS but Asus seem to have this barrier that is a 'tech' support team who either don't understand or listen or just want to fob us all off.

The thing I don't understand is that we can change the RAM timings with Memset so why don't they simply add the options in the BIOS?

I wonder if it has something to do with the P5B which has all the timings available - maybe they don't want to lose sales from this board.....either way we need an answer so at least we can decide if we're all waiting in vain and just move on.....

Cheers.

[Pol1977]

Hi Pol, is this the ixtreme fan that you were talking about? Did you have any issues mounting it on to the NB?

No, I used the 40 x 10 mm fan because my Thermalright Ultra 120 CPU heatsink covers part of the Northbridge cooler, leaving just a little more than 1 cm for a fan... So 2mm thick fun is out of the question. But the cooling is adequate with the 10mm thick fan and the formerly blazing hot heatsink is now barely warm to the touch.

No mounting issues. You can use standard mounting screws. I used the rubber ones sold with the fan to jam the fan between mu CPU heatsink and the NB heatsink and it worked fine!

[mooch49]

i just paired this board with the 6600. i would like to overclock, but not very much. from reading posts, it seems this board is ideal for at least 3ghz. the only thing that concerns me is that i am using intel's heatsink. i don't want to buy another because it was pain just getting that one on perfectly. but i get really good temps. according to speedfan, i am at 32 ide, 45 full load. coretemp and TAT are 5 degrees higher respectively. so i think i can overclock a little with intel's heatsink. i just would like a starting point in terms of settings. again, i am looking to clock between the 2.7-3.0 range. any tips would be appreciated.

[petro]

The thing I don't understand is that we can change the RAM timings with Memset so why don't they simply add the options in the BIOS?

Just look at timings of P5W DH vs. P5B Dlx/WiFi:
http://petro.com.ua/pc/p5wdh_p5b_timings.gif

They are completely different, and we cannot modify this f**king "Write-to-precharge delayed" timing that allows memory to work at high speed with P5W DH BIOS

PS I have just written a technical inquiry to asus tech, waiting for a response in 48 hours...

[roger_h99.nor]

Once again...another 1337 [ leet ] Asus P5W BIOS Release!
- Nothing Changed actually
- Still CPU Ratios 6-11 for X6800

This is pissing me off!

Actually, I managed to set the mp to 12 on my first boot after flash, but
on the second boot no luck. 1305 was the last bios to get this option, if I remember right?

[WeldZilla]

I tried the new 1801 bios tonight and I have already tossed it. Total crap!!
you know though it is funny I see these 680I boards running higher speeds using a lower mutiplier that kicks up the fsb then of coarse they are running around 475 1:1 on the mem and this board still hands their ass to them by just about a minute and in some cases more than a minute on 32M at far slower fsb and cpu speeds. I am running the 1707 again but I am going to fall back all the way to the 1305 just to see if it was as much better as my memory thinks. Then I will progress forward from there. The 1801 bios not only killed my highest overclocks it slowed my 1M Pi down dramatically too.

WZ

WZ

[nickfd]

I tried the new 1801 bios tonight and I have already tossed it. Total crap!!
you know though it is funny I see these 680I boards running higher speeds using a lower mutiplier that kicks up the fsb then of coarse they are running around 475 1:1 on the mem and this board still hands their ass to them by just about a minute and in some cases more than a minute on 32M at far slower fsb and cpu speeds. I am running the 1707 again but I am going to fall back all the way to the 1305 just to see if it was as much better as my memory thinks. Then I will progress forward from there. The 1801 bios not only killed my highest overclocks it slowed my 1M Pi down dramatically too.
WZ

Hey WZ, I had flashed my board to the 1801 last night and spent the the majority of the evening trying to push my board a bit higher.. Things weren't so successful, no matter if i put 1.75 mch, 1.65 vcore and 2.4 vdimm, i just couldnt do much more than 380x9 with 5-5-5-15.

I tried going down to 8x, and could do 428x8 but with 1.6 vcore and it wasn't really stable (had to loosen tRD to 8 and i set the tRFC to 42).. Rather than mess with it, i went to bed.

Now I woke up this morning and saw your post, which gave me hope. So I tried going down to 1707 in the asus ez-flash bios using an external usb hdd that had the rom, but the computer locked as it was flashing.

When my box boots, i get a "Boot Block Compatible Version Ver.021 - If you want to recovery from USB device, please do not insert any disc into CD-ROM or Floppy!! Bad Bios checksum. Starting BIOS Recovery.."

It seems to look for P5WDH.ROM, but i grabbed the 1707 rom, renamed it, put it on the root of my usb drive, and it hangs the cycle of the recovery.. This sucks! I'm going to keep messing with it and try another bios, as well as putting it on a floppy.

[nickfd]

When my box boots, i get a "Boot Block Compatible Version Ver.021 - If you want to recovery from USB device, please do not insert any disc into CD-ROM or Floppy!! Bad Bios checksum. Starting BIOS Recovery.."

It seems to look for P5WDH.ROM, but i grabbed the 1707 rom, renamed it, put it on the root of my usb drive, and it hangs the cycle of the recovery.. This sucks! I'm going to keep messing with it and try another bios, as well as putting it on a floppy.

K, burning the .rom to a cd recovered me. That was scary! I'm at 1707 now.

[BenchZowner]

Have you tried typing in the multiplier? Someone said that worked, but he didn't have an unlocked chip so even if it allows you to enter a number it may not actually set the multiplier to that value.

Nope.
Won't work.
The bug was introduced in....1707, and kept ( not as a secret :P ) on 1801 aswell

Now spam AsusTek with requests for a BIOS with tRD & tRFC & RMS 'til they decide to give us what we want

[petro]

Today I have received a most stupid answer ever for my inquiry from ASUS:

Try a QVL specified modules or Corsair, we have never faced such a problem before

Complete bull!! All forums (this forum, iXBT.com, overclockers.ru etc.) are burning with puplic indignation regarding this problem. We need to write a letter to someone with higher authority than such a stupid technical mail-replier!!!

[lawrywild]

Why doesn't an asus tech support guy just ing forward it to the damn bios department..

[WeldZilla]

Good save nick! I fell all the way back to the 1305 bios. I am currently running 425 fsb 1:1 with my timings set at 3-3-3-4 like it's nothing. I am going to work my way back up the bios chain again and take better notes about any subtle differences.

WZ

[bichi]

PW5DH - (early MCH 1.65 version) - BIOS: 1801
QX6700 QUAD @ 3.0ghz (mild OC)

Installed and operating without much change to memory I/O, Temps, Volts, Prime and PI benches, etc.
- have not tried upping multiplier yet

Note:
- appears flash BIOS update method will not read USB flashdrive content, if JMicron SATA port [SATA RAID 1] is connected.
- BIOS flash tool loads normally, but refuses to allow selection of source device.
- disconnecting drive from JMicron [SATA RAID 1] port solved issue.

[Thasp]

I'm curious, does anyone else have the issue where the CPU is stable at 440-450 FSB, but the RAM can't even do DDR670 at 3-4-4-12..? Mine failed memtest after 15 passes/6 hours 11 minutes this morning at this speed, but with a lower FSB it works fine at higher clocks... This was done after it froze within 40 minutes of the CPU being at full load with two jobs going, taking a total of 750 MB of RAM(before browser/OS).

[nickfd]

your way above your ram limit, it problay would have to run
cas6 to hit over 360

even the corsair XMS2-8500C5 have very poor SPD timings


Team Xtreem PC6400


cellshock PC6400



so guess out of those 3 rams that will run into the 975 bug
corsair compatable spd timings myth

the Team Xtreem PC6400 and cellshock wont have the FSB bug over 360
simply because their programmed correctly.

^-- I ran into this post like midway through the thread searching for DRAM Throttling option on if it should be on/off, and it has me a little concerned.. I have this Corsair memory and the max I can do with 9x multiplier stable is 384x9 1:1 (5-5-5-15) with 1.57v on water, my cores on max load are at 59-60c.

I played around with some 8x stuff, but didn't test stability too far, however I know i could get 8x428 1:1 with 1.6v. I may have relaxed my memory, but I don't remember (was 4am and didn't write it down).

Is there anything I can do to get higher fsb with my 9x short of getting different memory? I've already ordered the thermaltake extreme chipset cooler, so I figure that's a start, but I'm wondering if it's a lost cause.

[Luis_GT]

ok, 1801 is THE worst bios I've EVER used... I got constant BSOD's even @ stock... and EZ flash didn't work.

[WeldZilla]

You have a floppy drive Luis? Just grab the older bios you want. I am back with the 1707 tonight well anyway rename the the 1707 bios to P5WDH.ROM and load it on a floppy.
Put the Floppy in and reboot. When your machine posts immediately hit ALT+F2 your machine will take it from there and put on the old bios. You can do this with whatever older bios you prefer. Just remember to rename it or else it won't be recognized. Yes you can do it with a flash drive also. I am old school and will always have a floppy drive. Just don't touch anything, when it is finished it will seem like foirever before it reboots but, it will so leave it alone

WZ