680i SLI is too expensive? Asus as the solution : P5N32-E SLI PLUS

[The Viper]

max I could boot into windows was 515FSB

[Leeghoofd]

any suicide screenies ? my Striker never got into windows at 500FSB, 475 max stable...

[The Viper]

heres a screenshot of a 510FSB suicide shot




Memory Questions for people with this board...whats the highest frequency people have gotton, I have RAM capable of DDR2 1200Mhz (Crucial Ball PC2 8500), but I cant seem to get it to work at this speed, niether can I run CAS of 3. I'm really hoping its not the RAM. Or maybe I have some RAM setting thats not correct. Using 2.35volts, 5-5-5-15 2T, Ive used unlinked and linked at this speed, and does not work

[Radical_53]

I tried CAS 3 and it worked, but only up to ~700MHz at ~2.2V. I didn't mind trying higher as I already killed lots of sticks with voltage.
I didn't try too high frequencies either as tighter timings seemed to be faster for my setup.
Btw., the correct sub-timings gave me the same boost in performance as switching from 800MHz 5-5-5 2T to 900MHz 4-4-4 1T. Quite noticable at least (~5% gain in SuperPi)

[The Viper]

I tried CAS 3 and it worked, but only up to ~700MHz at ~2.2V. I didn't mind trying higher as I already killed lots of sticks with voltage.
I didn't try too high frequencies either as tighter timings seemed to be faster for my setup.
Btw., the correct sub-timings gave me the same boost in performance as switching from 800MHz 5-5-5 2T to 900MHz 4-4-4 1T. Quite noticable at least (~5% gain in SuperPi)

what about DDR2 1200? actually I cant even seem to be able to get DDR2 1140, which is leading me to believe either I have a setting wrong in the subtiming category, or the mobo has a problem with high freq RAM. This RAM (Crucial Ball, PCR 8500) should be able to reach these speeds easy. Next step is memtesting to see if the RAM is malfunctioning

[Radical_53]

Thing is I wanted good memory performance with low voltage. So I tried around and ~1100MHz 5-5-5 was about what I could get with roughly 2.2V. And guess what, due to the low latency and 2T, it was ~1-1.5% slower than 900MHz 4-4-4 1T.
So I kept the 4-4-4 and tried out some sub-timings which gave me another boost of 3.9-4.1%.
1100MHz 5-5-5 2T was as fast (I used SuperPi all the time, 8M and 32M mostly) 900MHz 5-5-5- 1T. As I said, high clocks didn't give me anything on this board. I couldn't run 1T above 900MHz stable, but at least I could run these speeds and 1T with 4 sticks even

[The Viper]

Thing is I wanted good memory performance with low voltage. So I tried around and ~1100MHz 5-5-5 was about what I could get with roughly 2.2V. And guess what, due to the low latency and 2T, it was ~1-1.5% slower than 900MHz 4-4-4 1T.
So I kept the 4-4-4 and tried out some sub-timings which gave me another boost of 3.9-4.1%.
1100MHz 5-5-5 2T was as fast (I used SuperPi all the time, 8M and 32M mostly) 900MHz 5-5-5- 1T. As I said, high clocks didn't give me anything on this board. I couldn't run 1T above 900MHz stable, but at least I could run these speeds and 1T with 4 sticks even

I was really hoping for high bandwidth versus tight timings, my old OCZ 800 could run 4-4-4-12 1T up to 850. Did u try to get above DDR2 1100 just to see if the mobo can run mem speeds that high?

Anyone else with results?

[Radical_53]

No, I didn't try anything above 1100. My sticks wouldn't do 1150, so I didn't try anything in between. Might have been the board too, I really don't know, but as tight timings were a lot faster I kept digging in that direction.

[WannaGoFast]

Heres the 803 bios off ASUS TW FTP dated 07/26/07.
ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/asus/mb/so...LIPLUS0803.zip
Not sure what is new as there is not any release notes with it.
Havent tried it as I wont be able to test it until I get home from work.

[WannaGoFast]

Flash took place without any incident and I'm back running normal daily settings in sig now.

Just that weird hard reset/power off it always does when you first go through the bios, disable stuff, and reboot.
(not sure which setting being disabled causes it to do that, but its kinda scary the first time it happens )
And the keyboard was funky in the bios at first, same as with the 801. But this time I had read that even
though the normal arrow keys dont work, the ones on the number keypad do as long as Num Lock isnt on.
After I went through and set everything up, all was back to normal with the keyboard working correctly.

I wont really have time to do much serious testing on it until the weekend, but it seems fine so far.
And I can say for a fact that it does work.... and it didnt blow up my board.

[Radical_53]

Reset/Power-off? I only knew that from the P5W... never saw it on the P5N!

[The Viper]

Reset/Power-off? I only knew that from the P5W... never saw it on the P5N!

Yeah it happens to me...when I reset CMOS, and then immediately enter Bios and enter my OC settings

[Radical_53]

Well, just flashed the bios today. But sadly, it doesn't work It flashed fine, but then I coulnd't get any further than the initial bios message (the image). I can't enter bios, no CMOS clear helped so far.
Would it be possible to use the EZ flash in that state? I never tried to use it until now...

[safan80]

did you flash under windows or something?

[Radical_53]

Yes, I was stupid enough to do that. But it worked many times before... and the flash didn't show any errors. It rebooted fine, but then I wouldn't get past the initial bios screen.

PS: Something positive to add: I tried the Thermalright HR-05 SLI NB sink and it worked out really nice. I have a probe on the backside of the NB and it woulnd't get warmer than ~35°C under load. An 80mm fan was standing besides it, but I had that before when I was using the larger Zalman NB block (gave me shortly above 50° under load). This was at 1.5V, 426MHz FSB.

PPS: Well, I gave up. Ordered a new board today, I think I'll have to RMA this... Would the EZ flash that's built into the bios work with an USB floppy only, or does a normal stick work too?

[12Iceman]

Bios 0803 Changelog

Version 0803 2007/07/26 update
Description P5N32-E SLI Plus BIOS version 0803
1. Enhance CPU overclock capability of FSB1333 processors
2. Add new CPU uCode to support new processors
3. Enhance memory compatibility

Download Here.

I just flashed my bios to the newest 803 version and all appears well, but I have not had time to do any testing yet.

[Jultsu]

Well, nothing new from me, but just thought i'd let you know.

A fully stable system with e6600 9x400, vcore is 1.458-1.472 according to Everest. NB 1.47, SB 1.52, HT 1.41 and VTT 1.57. Experiment with bios settings to see which gives you the same voltages.

Temps are 43 on both cores, cpu 34. This is done with a 226w peltier and and adequate w/c setup.

I'm gonna try flash the 803 and get 3,8GHz stable next.

[Radical_53]

You get that exact voltage readouts from Everest? A friend of mine told me something alike with the newer CPU-Z version, but it seems as this doesn't work with any of the programs with my board (or is it the CPU?).

[Jultsu]

Yep, I <3 everest

CPU-Z shows just something, or it reads the wrong value (that's what i think.) I'm guessing it's the 1.2v HT voltage that it's showing. I get 1.41v from Everest and CPU-z shows 1.408v.....

[Jultsu]

goddammit the 803 link is down. any other sites?

edit. found it, gonna flash now ->

[Jultsu]

Okay, benching 9x414,7 with new 803 bios ATM. Took me a dozen reboots before i got into windows. I fiddled around all voltages, when all it really took was to increase the NB voltage.

So, 3732MHz, 1.472-1.488v, NB 1.62v , SB 1.52, HT 1.46, VTT 1.57

----------------------

oh bananas, it froze after 10 minutes. NB is now 1.65 and HT 1.52, gonna try my luck again ->

[Overgloc]

how your NB and SB Temp? Ain't that a little high for NB?

[Jultsu]

I've got watercooling blocks on every heat producing thing on my pc MB temps are 44c, according to Everest. An external sensor shows 36 degrees measured from the top of the NB block.

Hopefully I'll get better RAM sticks somewhat soon, so I can try running this in sync.

[The Viper]

I've got watercooling blocks on every heat producing thing on my pc MB temps are 44c, according to Everest. An external sensor shows 36 degrees measured from the top of the NB block.

Hopefully I'll get better RAM sticks somewhat soon, so I can try running this in sync.

So Jultsu, anything youve noticed on this Bios so far? Do you think its better then the 08?

[Jultsu]

So Jultsu, anything youve noticed on this Bios so far? Do you think its better then the 08?

You mean 0801? Nope, haven't noticed a thing, compared to 0801. Then again, if you look at the changelog, they've not really done anything which would apply to my setup.

1. Enhance CPU overclock capability of FSB1333 processors

- nope, don't have one

2. Add new CPU uCode to support new processors

- nope, no "new" processor

3. Enhance memory compatibility

- nope, running VERY old and VERY CRAPPY OCZ 512mb sticks AT STOCK values.


Funny though, I tried running 8x480 with dualcore prime95, it lasted about 10 minutes when it froze, and I couldn't boot back to windows anymore, even with regular and stable 9x400 settings. Had to reinstall Vista. I tried 480 before and it seemed pretty stable then, though I can't remember whether it was with 0801 or 0803...