ASUS P5W DH - Problems + Fixes Thread

[BinaryT]

Hiya there, I'm new to the board, and was hoping I could get some help and feedback here. So thanks in advance!


My P5W-computer just turned 2 years old, and to celebrate I decided to start learning how to overclock and thus simultaneously give the comp a now well needed boost.

I'm running an E6400 with two 1GB Corsair PC2-5300 sticks, and BIOS version 2801. Now, since I haven't been able to (well, haven't been arsed to, really), I haven't installed proper cooling in my box yet, so I didn't want to up the CPU speed at first.

I started with upping the FSB to 333 from 267 to get a 1:1 ratio, however, when I tried setting the multiplier down to 6 from 8, the setting just wouldn't stick. By this I mean that the number 6 was shown in the option after rebooting, and POST told me that the CPU was at 2 GHz, however as soon as POST was done with memory calculation the CPU fan went wild, and in Windows CPU-Z told me the multiplier was still 8 (and my CPU thus at 2,66 GHz). After rebooting BIOS said the speed was 2 GHz, but still showed a multiplier of 8 even though the option read 6. So even though I have the setting at 6, I still have a multiplier at 8. I have no software clocking programs installed, I should add.

It turns out there's no significant increase in temperature at 2,66 (still around 52 idle, sigh), so I'm quite happy about that, but I'd like to know what the hell I'm doing wrong for future ventures. Why isn't the multiplier sticking, and why does BIOS and POST tell me it is?


Also, I seem to have scared off the ability to change Vcore somehow, and I don't have an option to disable EIST. I could change it before I started doing a bunch of changes, so I'd really like to know what it is I've managed to wreck.

Lastly, when it comes to DRAM frequencies, I seem to only have certain options to choose from. From 666 it goes straight up to 800, and I'd like it somewhere in between (when I manage to sort the multiplier out, that is). Is this motherboard-revision-specific or something?


Many thanks for any help I might get, and thanks for a great forum!

[mikepaul]

If I understand well, then you've already increased CPU Voltage to 1.45V but it hasn't made your system stable. I think you should try to increase FSB Termination Voltage too. This makes 45nm CPUs more stable, I've experienced it with my E7200.

I set vCore to 1.45V, vFSB to 1.50V, vMCH to 1.55V and the FSB itself to 333. The memory has been at 2.10V for ages.

This rebooted before loading Windows XP...

[LordX]

BinaryT - I would definitely upgrade the Ram if I were you.

I am in the process of getting 4Gb of RAM that I am trying to get to 4-4-4 timings.

I spent only $55 for FOUR gigs on Newegg. I will be posting most likely Tuesday when they arrive to let everyone know if I hit the timings.

Upgrading from 2Gb of PC-5300 ram to 4Gb of PC-8000 ram can and will make a big diff. plus its cheeeeeeeeeeeaaaaapppp!!

As for your other questions, I am too tired. I am sure you will get a detailed response from some of the other guys here.

[lawrywild]

Hiya there, I'm new to the board, and was hoping I could get some help and feedback here. So thanks in advance!


My P5W-computer just turned 2 years old, and to celebrate I decided to start learning how to overclock and thus simultaneously give the comp a now well needed boost.

I'm running an E6400 with two 1GB Corsair PC2-5300 sticks, and BIOS version 2801. Now, since I haven't been able to (well, haven't been arsed to, really), I haven't installed proper cooling in my box yet, so I didn't want to up the CPU speed at first.

I started with upping the FSB to 333 from 267 to get a 1:1 ratio, however, when I tried setting the multiplier down to 6 from 8, the setting just wouldn't stick. By this I mean that the number 6 was shown in the option after rebooting, and POST told me that the CPU was at 2 GHz, however as soon as POST was done with memory calculation the CPU fan went wild, and in Windows CPU-Z told me the multiplier was still 8 (and my CPU thus at 2,66 GHz). After rebooting BIOS said the speed was 2 GHz, but still showed a multiplier of 8 even though the option read 6. So even though I have the setting at 6, I still have a multiplier at 8. I have no software clocking programs installed, I should add.

It turns out there's no significant increase in temperature at 2,66 (still around 52 idle, sigh), so I'm quite happy about that, but I'd like to know what the hell I'm doing wrong for future ventures. Why isn't the multiplier sticking, and why does BIOS and POST tell me it is?


Also, I seem to have scared off the ability to change Vcore somehow, and I don't have an option to disable EIST. I could change it before I started doing a bunch of changes, so I'd really like to know what it is I've managed to wreck.

Lastly, when it comes to DRAM frequencies, I seem to only have certain options to choose from. From 666 it goes straight up to 800, and I'd like it somewhere in between (when I manage to sort the multiplier out, that is). Is this motherboard-revision-specific or something?


Many thanks for any help I might get, and thanks for a great forum!

I imagine the multiplier's not sticking because you have EIST enabled. Save you current bios settings in 1 or 2, go to load defaults, reboot, load from previous saved slot (1 or 2) but before rebooting and telling it to save your settings, go to cpu configuration and disable EIST and C1E, the settings should be available.

[BinaryT]

BinaryT - I would definitely upgrade the Ram if I were you.

Upgrading from 2Gb of PC-5300 ram to 4Gb of PC-8000 ram can and will make a big diff. plus its cheeeeeeeeeeeaaaaapppp!!

Heh, well, at the moment I really don't have anything that requires a lot of memory. But yeah, I'll have to upgrade them sooner or later, and 8000 ones seem pretty performance-per-dollar friendly.

I imagine the multiplier's not sticking because you have EIST enabled. Save you current bios settings in 1 or 2, go to load defaults, reboot, load from previous saved slot (1 or 2) but before rebooting and telling it to save your settings, go to cpu configuration and disable EIST and C1E, the settings should be available.

Yeap, I managed to make the EIST setting reappear by resetting everything and then loading the old stuff. The EIST still disappeared when unlocking the multiplier setting, though. Thanks a lot!

Also got another DRAM frequency option (711) upon reloading the defaults, which is nice.

About the Vcore, is it any use to set it manually, or does auto work fine?


Take care!

[lawrywild]

Depends, when you get a new cooler you might want to bump vcore a bit to reach higher cpu clocks and remain stable otherwise auto is fine for now.

[Falkentyne]

No, P5W DH Rev. 1.02G can overclock and adjust voltage for both Wolfdale and Yorkfield CPUs. The only limitation is that voltage can't be set to any value lower than 1.4V. However our board has only two GTL reference voltage dividers. And this makes it quite poor at overclocking quad-core CPUs. So if you want to change CPU, then go for E8600 or change motherboard.

My 1.04G board can run my QX9650 @ 4 ghz and 1.3868-1.376v (real), and I've gamed at 1.392v and 4.1 ghz, as well as passed 3dmark06 CPU test without any problems (but i'm sure it wouldn't pass prime here).

Note that you can't even adjust the GTL REF on this board.
(newbie question: Isn't GTF Ref related to stabilizing cpu's at higher FSB speeds but with less vcore? or is it for stabilizing CPU's even at low FSBs?)

I wouldn't come halfway CLOSE to 4.1 ghz (much less 4 ghz) if I didn't have an unlocked multiplier....I remember I couldn't even pass 1 loop of Prime at 380x10 (3.8 ghz) and 1.4vcore (!) although I was at 1.65v vmch; perhaps 1.75v would have helped there, while 333x12 (4 ghz) and 1.3875vcore runs for hours and hours....
(this is with vdroop mod btw).

You really don't want to run a quad on this board with intention to overclock it unless you have an unlocked multiplier.

[G40RoCkEt]

I found the maximum overclock stable for an E8600 with all voltages in AUTO, (cpu vcore too):

With my P5W DH DELUXE Rev. 1.02g:

FSB 385 (3.85GHZ)
MEM - 770MHZ
PCI - 100
PCI CLOCK - 33.33
ALL VOLTAGE IN AUTO

SUPER ESTABLE.


I hope that helps someone. For 4GHZ i have posted in the page 324.

[Tamerlane]

Hello people,

After my new upgrade (E8600), i put some screenshots of my modest overclocking.

Thanks again to my friends Tomcug and Firestarter here.

Thanks for the pictures and settings for your very nice results. This should be encouraging for 1.02g owners like me who are looking at the e8600. Still, I can't help but think that without a new bios and manual control over vcore, I'm not going to get as lucky as you (i.e. heat or a mysterious FSB limit will do me in).

[bodka]

You really don't want to run a quad on this board with intention to overclock it unless you have an unlocked multiplier.

Can you give your current BIOS settings? What is your stable overclock with QX9650?

[bodka]

No, P5W DH Rev. 1.02G can overclock and adjust voltage for both Wolfdale and Yorkfield CPUs. The only limitation is that voltage can't be set to any value lower than 1.4V. However our board has only two GTL reference voltage dividers. And this makes it quite poor at overclocking quad-core CPUs. So if you want to change CPU, then go for E8600 or change motherboard.

Somehow I am seeing core voltages from 1.20V and I am running my proc at 1.21 V.

[Falkentyne]

Can you give your current BIOS settings? What is your stable overclock with QX9650?

Hmm.....
FSB 333, multi x12
DRAM timings 3-3-3-8-3
vMCH 1.65v (didn't seem to make any difference from 1.55)
Dram voltage 2.1v (2.05v if using my gskills but 1 stick is dying; needs 2.3v to post but then runs at lower voltages after POST; Corsair XMS needs 2.1v to be cas 3 stable at 333 fsb and 2.15v for 340 FSB at cas 3).
CPU vdroop pencil mod applied.
CPU vcore 1.375v (not 100% prime stable over several hours; sometimes does a full 3.25 hour small FFT prime run complete pass (8k-64k), sometimes errors out on one core after like 2 hours; i do NOT want to run prime 12 hours and raise the heat and stress my CPU even more; if it doesn't crash in games that's fine). I consider this to be fully stable as nothing can make the CPUs reach 71C except quad prime.
Rybka multiprocessor Chess engine (4 threads) stable.

Vcore 1.3875v runs prime just fine but gets WAY too hot; I stopped it as soon as temps got to 80C; Tuniq tower 120 simply has trouble dealing with 4 cores giving off this much heat, plus nothing is lapped. Linpack makes things get so hot that the entire system just freezes (1 test with 5 loops is fine but do a 2nd test and boom...; Got up to 88C....followed by the absolute WORST horrible screeching sound you've EVER hard in your life, coming from the speakers (even if I set the volume to 10%); i think it startled some apartment neighbors at 1 am in the morning...it was THAT bad.

4.1 ghz @ 1.4v bios (1.392v loaded) runs Rybka chess 4 threads, and 3dmark 2006 as many times as I need it to; seems game stable but I need to run a lot more games; don't ask me to prime at this voltage; pretty obvious it won't pass that; may need a TRUE Black 120 for that.....
FSB 315, multi x13 for this.

[LordX]

Got my new Ram, trying to decide which kit to keep.

OCZ gets 5-4-4-14...

Crucial gets 5-5-4-12...

Which timings are better? What is a good program that I can use to test the speed of my Ram? That will tell me Gb/Second and such? So I can test these timings and their affects..

[Falkentyne]

If I were you, I would timings and just find out which kit runs at the highest FSB your P5W can hit with your CPU.

Everest is a good program for testing memory speed, i think the option is benchmark or cache something.

There shouldn't be much difference in the bandwidth, so you definitely want the most FSB possible. Intel systems like FSB more than timings, while AMD systems like timings more than FSB.

[LordX]

No kit I have ever had will boot faster than 940mhz...

I have my FSB @ 376... I will not change that.

No idea why even a PC-8000 kit wont boot @ 1003mhz....

So now that I am MHZ limited, I am looking for the best timings.

[LordX]

It appears that a 4Gb Kit will not function at the same timings as a 2Gb kit. (this may be common knowledge from what I saw on Google).

The best timings I could achieve with all the kits I tried was 940 Mhz @ 5-5-4-12. (FSB @ 376) (Voltage @ 2.1 - May go lower but I didn't try)

The system would boot @ 5-4-4-12, but error on Memtest repeatedly. Even when I tried slamming these kits with up to 2.35V....

I even tried a more expensive, and higher rated kit, to no avail.

Since all the kits I tried worked at the same timings and speed, the best priced one I found was the Crucial Ballistix kit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148212

I got them for $41, they are at $43 now. That is NUTS for 4Gb of Ram IMO. An upgrade that seriously begs the question: Why Not?

[w2richwood]

did you try bumping your nb voltage up it may help
Rich

[bodka]

Hmm.....
FSB 333, multi x12
DRAM timings 3-3-3-8-3
vMCH 1.65v (didn't seem to make any difference from 1.55)
.

What memory ratios worked best for you ( above 333 and below 333 ) ?

For me, above 320, 1:1 and 4:5 are the only ratios which seems to be stable. But this is with RAM underclocking. Below 320, I am able to run at almost all ratios.

[Ruud]

Hi

I would like some advice i currently have:
Buffalo FireStix PC2-6400 2GB DDR2
Asus P5W motherboard
Intel core2duo 6420 oc @3.20ghz
8800GTS 640MB
Corsair 520W PSU
Windows XP SP2 Pro

so i was wondering if getting the Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 would be a good idea to beef it up even more

[LordX]

Bodka - Yeah, with my FSB so high, I am limited to that same thing. But I am not willing to sacrifice my CPU overclock for the ram timing. No chance.

Ruud - With WinXP, 2Gb of ram never failed me. However, when I moved to Vista 64 (in order to get DX10 for Fallout3), I found that Fallout3 used sick amounts of Ram in combination with Vista. That was my final straw in order to upgrade.

I guess the question is what are you using your system for? Have you ever experienced a time where your memory utilization was at 100% like I did?

[Falkentyne]

I never used anything except 1:1
I'm also not really familiar with how setting different DDR ratio speeds affects straps....I think I tried it once a long time ago (to see if the ram would run at ddr2-1000, i forgot though....i remember having some no posts though....)

[Ruud]

Bodka - Yeah, with my FSB so high, I am limited to that same thing. But I am not willing to sacrifice my CPU overclock for the ram timing. No chance.

Ruud - With WinXP, 2Gb of ram never failed me. However, when I moved to Vista 64 (in order to get DX10 for Fallout3), I found that Fallout3 used sick amounts of Ram in combination with Vista. That was my final straw in order to upgrade.

I guess the question is what are you using your system for? Have you ever experienced a time where your memory utilization was at 100% like I did?

well i am hoping to play GTA 4 on my pc , i know it will run it at the moment but i think 4GB will give it a little more boost

[radlord]

my inbuilt audio control panel keeps disappearing from the system tray for some reason. It's annoying because I loop my 360 through the line-in and so I need to control the volume for this port separately from Windows volume.

The last time the realtek audio was updated on the Asus page for this motherboard was back in 2007 though - and I have this version.

Can I use the the more recent HD audio stuff on the Realtek website - it says this

Audio drivers available for download from the Realtek website are general drivers for our audio ICs, and may not offer the customizations made by your system/motherboard manufacturer. To be sure you obtain the full features/customizations provided in your original audio product, please download the latest drivers from your system/motherboard manufacturer's website.

though

Will this version work with the P5W?

[tomcug]

my inbuilt audio control panel keeps disappearing from the system tray for some reason. It's annoying because I loop my 360 through the line-in and so I need to control the volume for this port separately from Windows volume.

The last time the realtek audio was updated on the Asus page for this motherboard was back in 2007 though - and I have this version.

Can I use the the more recent HD audio stuff on the Realtek website - it says this



though

Will this version work with the P5W?

Yes, you can download and use this software, it'll work with P5W DH without any problems.

[Falkentyne]

Has anyone recently attempted to contact asus about adding TRD and TRFC to the memory timings? How would I do this myself ? Or has everyone just given up? I honestly don't think this would be hard for them to add...IF someone can find the right people to talk to.

Surely someone here has contacts with Asus?