Asus P5N-E SLI small review

[sbinh]

Go to BIOS .... no need software.

[zeeke]

ok, I powered the PSU off, and now its back to no-boot.. this board it killing me..

[Trice]

I had the cold boot issue a few times, then I reflashed to the same 0202 bios and all is well now. Before when I left it off for awhile it wouldnt start, I would then have to turn off the PSU and put it back on. It would boot fine then, but I had to go in and reset my settings (profile) and save. Frusterating, but its fine now.

[Highland3r]

Seems like a decent board. Can't get the FSB much over 500 though, results in no boots
Ram's running alright (620 so far) but the FSB has to be set below 500 (testing at 490 which seems to work well) anyone else seen similar?

[775911]

Does the bios have any fail safe device or is a bad flash the end of the board?

[Lestat]

Does the bios have any fail safe device or is a bad flash the end of the board?

no a bad flash is all she wrote. and the bios chip is soldered to the board so no hot flashing a new rom chip.
there is no overclocking failsafe either. well thats not entirely true, it works if it fails if your not overclocking too far, once you hit a certain overclock the system wont boot into safe mode and let you get back into the bios, you have to reset the cmos.

[zeeke]

Go to BIOS .... no need software.

well, BIOS overclocking is fine for 24/7 clocks, finetuning for 1 mb PI on the other hand Id rather do without rebooting..

[zeeke]

I did some ram testing last night, is seems like this mobo is overvolting quite a bit. look at these numbers:

Mem Actual DDR Timings Vmem (real) LTD FSB multi CPU Vmch (real) Vcpu (real) memtest #5 pass
950 948,1 474,05 4-4-4-10-2T 2.353 (2.40) 4 1066 9 2398,5 1.393 (1.42) 1.36875 (1.38) 5+
1000 1000 500 4-4-4-10-2T 2.353 (2.40) 5 1066 9 2398,5 1.393 (1.42) 1.36875 (1.38) 13

[Highland3r]

no a bad flash is all she wrote. and the bios chip is soldered to the board so no hot flashing a new rom chip.
there is no overclocking failsafe either. well thats not entirely true, it works if it fails if your not overclocking too far, once you hit a certain overclock the system wont boot into safe mode and let you get back into the bios, you have to reset the cmos.

Shut the machine down for a few mins (@ PSU) then give it a couple of power cycles. That seems to kick the mobo into loading failsafe. It can be a bit hit and miss which is a shame, sometimes it works off the bat others you have to kill the power for a bit.

[Lestat]

Shut the machine down for a few mins (@ PSU) then give it a couple of power cycles. That seems to kick the mobo into loading failsafe. It can be a bit hit and miss which is a shame, sometimes it works off the bat others you have to kill the power for a bit.

yeah i've tried that several times, it doesnt work.
i think, like i said it works at lower clocks but when you start crunching the ram/fsb/cpu i think it stresses it to the break point and it cant recover unless you reset the cmos.

it also sucks big time that your OC profiles that you save cant be used with a hotkey. if they had setup the profiles to load with a hotkey during pre-post, then it wouldnt matter you can just save a lower overclock and hit the hotkey for that profile and it would load up.

oh well, i honestly cant complain about this board, aside from the vdroop which isnt so bad for me as im not going crazy with the vcore. its a killer little board.

[jsbond007]

Can users please share their opinions about the stability of this board at around 400 fsb. Need to decide between this and BadAxe2.

Thanks.

James.

[John44]

that's EXACTLY what mine is doing. board draws power, all fans start, etc. i haven't even seen a post screen yet though. you give me hope that enough reboots maybe it will eventually come up. i can still rma to the egg so not panicing yet, but this is not a good first impression for the nvidia chipset!!

With the ram in the black slots only. Try a power up with the monitor off until it posts them turn the monitor on. If doesn't work try flipping the SLI selector card around single, duel, back to single, duel if you want SLI

[zeeke]

With the ram in the black slots only. Try a power up with the monitor off until it posts them turn the monitor on. If doesn't work try flipping the SLI selector card around single, duel, back to single, duel if you want SLI

Why in the world would the board be booting better with a selector-card-rope-a-dope?

Hower, Ive read somewhere about ram issues being solved when placing the sticks in the black slots, maybe it was you that mentioned it on the asus forum John?

anyhow, this sounds exactly like a bios issue that should have been solved, well, pre-launch..

[John44]

Why in the world would the board be booting better with a selector-card-rope-a-dope?

Hower, Ive read somewhere about ram issues being solved when placing the sticks in the black slots, maybe it was you that mentioned it on the asus forum John?

anyhow, this sounds exactly like a bios issue that should have been solved, well, pre-launch..

Yes, I am the same John. People have have had problems with no boots. So far putting the ram in the black slots only have worked for some. Others have had VC problems and putting the selector card in a different position has helped to at least boot. Leaving the monitor off while booting have helped people in SLI boot. Don't know all the answers just a few suggestions. I have had my board for three weeks now and it runs fine. Higher overclocks were tough when I have all my ram slots filled. Running just in the blacks slots 1 pair allows for some extra FSB

[Lestat]

Can users please share their opinions about the stability of this board at around 400 fsb. Need to decide between this and BadAxe2.

Thanks.

James.

there isnt one single issue with this baord doing 400mhz FSB.
the problem that myself and some other users have is that it takes max mch voltage to do it for some reason. some of the reviews of this board reflect this also, that its random.


as for those saying there is ram issues,,, what ram issues.? i have yet to see anyone complain about ram issues. just the contrary. ram overclocking is great on this board.
4-3-3-12 1000mhz or 5-4-4-12 1150mhz 2.25v

and you always use the slots closest to the cpu. which are the yellow

[falqon]

and you always use the slots closest to the cpu. which are the yellow

That's completely contrary to everything I have read about this board.

[775911]

Ive used the two yellow with no problems, cant see why it should matter particularly if its dual channel

I noticed that compared to 680i, the 650i does not automatically raise pci-e to 125mhz for nvidia cards. Ive done it manually, is that just as good? Seems to be stable but I didnt bother to run 3dmark06 before and after to check for any actual increase in performance - what program could I use to get a quick 3d gfx score with.


Also wondering what other clocking programs people are using with this board. cpu-z and speedfan seem to basically recognise it though speedfan says my fan is 10000 rpm


I havent bothered clocking it yet, just checking it all out slowly and seing how hot it runs and quiet I can run the fans, etc
I brought 2gb of ddr2 for $100 so you can imagine why I'd want async

I havent touched voltages but the northbridge definetly gets toasty even with 7 fans ticking over, I may have to employ a few more to get my quiet cool and clocked effect

Also I noticed the Arctic pro slightly touches the northbridge clump of metal, only very slightly altering the fan position

[burn what?]

With the ram in the black slots only. Try a power up with the monitor off until it posts them turn the monitor on. If doesn't work try flipping the SLI selector card around single, duel, back to single, duel if you want SLI

thanks for all the tips guys, but back to the egg it went. i tried everything you've all suggested and more and still no go. tried booting with the sli card on single side, dual side, no card at all! absolutely no post ever. bad bios flash at factory is my guess. anyway i'm not too excited anymore to start playing with this as the e6400 i just got with it is an "A" rather than "B" chip. i threw it into a ds3 board that's been running a B chip at 450x8 24/7 and it wouldn't even boot at 400fsb! bummer, i wanted to test the upper limits of this board against the ds3 before buying 1 final rig. sucks

[Lestat]

That's completely contrary to everything I have read about this board.

and if your having troubles and your using the black slots,,, thats why

[John44]

where the hell is this 0307 bios Shamino is talking about
all i have and can find is the 0202 bios the board came with

hell you search for downloads on the asus site and this board isnt even in the list, but if you search for the board it finds it.

im at 475 x 8 24/7 1.47v windows and 1.42v droop.

whats screwed up is that 400 and up requires maximum chipset voltage for me. and it pisses me off big time. it wont even post at 400x 9 unless i have max voltage.

Try the black slots only

[John44]

Forgot to mention: If you're having trouble overclocking, try putting your ram in the black slots. That worked for me.

This is were I found the tip. In your own thread

[richnrich]

well i was having trouble with my mobo at stock speeds
so i tried every possible solution and nothing worked so i decided to try the 0308 bios update
i flashed ,turned off took battery out cleared cmos put battery back and now it wont stay on ,it will turn on for 1 sec then off

i tried differ memory just in case memory voltage was to high or low and nothing
so i am guessing i killed my mobo

RMA & 2weeks from now i shall have another 1

thought i share

[775911]

I heard using one black and one yellow was dangerous but potentially sweet!



They let you RMA failed bios flashes?

[sbinh]

I found one thing weird with this board ... When using SLI, no need to use SLI brigde to connect cards .... In manual, it says you need to use brigde to connect SLI Ready video cards to use this option.

[couppi]

The black slots were the only ones I could get to run at 1T. They also helped me hit 525mhz 2T stable on my ram.

Edit: Putting your ram in the black slots may help with other problems, but I doubt it.