If you have a P5K Premium board and think about using a Samsung HD501lj drive..

[Gitch]

hello,

Sharing something I learned this week. I'm not trying to bas any manufacturer. Just trying to save others some trouble I experienced and see if anyone tried this too.

I ordered and built 2 new computers for my wife and I. Both had the Asus p5K Premium boards with q6600 procs. Based on a review on anandtech, I decided to try the Samsung SPinpoint T series HD501lj drives. The review stated good speed and low noise ad heat.

Once built, I ran into an immediate problem installing vista. It would see the drive, but could not write to it or format it. I could create a partition, but could get no further. It would sit there forever but never advance.

I tried both drives in both machines. Same results. New cables. All sata port combinations I could come up with. Same problem. Put the drive into an old P4 machine and could see and format it. 500mb took about 2 hours to format. I put it back in the quad core new machines and vista saw it and tried to write to it. It eventually gave an error saying it could not write to the drive. I was thinking I had the SATA 2 problem some people hit on the p5k deluxe baords. I checked the web and see some people having some SATA issues and think maybe its a SATA 2 compatability issue. I will try a new drive.

I drove to the store and picked up a Maxtor SATA 2 drive (rebadged Seagate actually). Popped it in one of the machines and it worked fine. Fast install actually. Quiet and fast.

Called Samsung after looking all over their website for a firmware flash. Short version of long call. They escalated me to their top tier support and they eventually confirmed that it looks like they have a compatability problem with that motherboard and will need to flash their drive eventually to solve it. RMA in process to newegg for me. I went back to the store and got another Maxtor drive and have both machines up and running.

Just sharing the problem in case anyone else goes this route.

If anyone has thin MB and drive combination working, I'd love to know. Otherwise, I hope I am saving someone a lot of trouble. I was lucky enough to have 2 exact machines and drives to test with. That helped when dealing with product support.

[CERO]

thnx for sharing your experience, I was eventually lookin for a P5k prem, paired with those samsung drives ( 320/500GB

[ghent915]

Interesting.
I guess it WAS my drive that was the problem then, not the mobo like I originally thought. That would explain why my drive worked fine on different computers, but puked on the P5K prem. board.

Shame I RMA'ed the board, and not the HD, as now my HD's RMA period is up. Looks like I'll be ordering a new high capacity drive for myself...

-Ghent

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Gitch, I appreciate the info. I was planning on getting this drive. Now I won't.

ghent915, i'm sorry to hear that your problem was a HDD compatibility issue and not actually a bad board.

I was planning on getting this drive b/c of the great performance/price/storage, but now I won't. I think I'll go with that 200 dollar 750 gig western digital drive instead.

[trowand]

I'm experiencing the same exact problems. I've got two of those 500GB Samsung drives and neither one will take WinXP with that board. The Samsungs worked in my previous build on an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe but they won't work with this P5K Premium. However, my older Hitachi SATA1 HDD's work fine.

[ghent915]

SK:
It happens man. It's the cost of doing business in this ever-changing tech game. Thankfully, I just ordered a replacement for this drive (a WD SE16 500gb) on the cheap, and sold the Samsung.

I just didn't think that this sort of thing happened anymore, with fairly standardized operating parameters.

*shrugs*
-Ghent

[deadsquirrel]

it has taken me over 3 hours to install vista on my new Q6600m p5k Premium and WD 750 AAKS drive. Once installed it was impossibly slow to use. Realised it might be a problem with the drive and motherboard after reading a thread on the Asus forums, i installed an old 120 gig 7200.7 seagate and all is now fine. No idea what to do now though as i really wanted a faster new generation drive. Do you think Asus will fix the problem via a bios updat? Is the problem even fixable via bios update?

[bobov]

My Samsung HD501LJ works fine with Asus P5K Deluxe. Is P5K Premium much different with P5K Deluxe?

[ghent915]

DS:
Could you link me to that thread on Asus's forums? I'm hoping that I won't have a problem with this with a new board and a new WD HD.
If I will, I guess it'll be yet ANOTHER RMA for me, and get a different board.
-Ghent

[fornowagain]

I had the exact same problem with a Premium and a Samsung. Tried a 16Mb Raptor, same thing. Then a WD AAKS, guess what? Same thing. Its more than just the Samsungs.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...Language=en-us

[Gitch]

Well I am glad I posted this now. It sounds like seal people probably have the same issue.

On the question about the Deluxe.. Yes, the Premium is different. Suppose to have adjustments to the SATA channels to correct some of the early problems with the Delixe. Upgraded electronics are also on the board.

Since installing the other drives, I am running fine. No problems at all and I love the setup. I am going to start overclocking soon. I wanted to give it a couple of days of stabulity.

[ghent915]

Oh bugger.
I need to call up NewEgg in the morning to see if I can't get my replacement RMA changed to a Refund one...
This board series seems to have more issues than a newstand.
Time to go back to the drawing board and find a better board.

What is particularly annoying is that I picked this board for it's full spec set, and there is nothing really comparable to it. In dealing with this, I've replaced a bloody well brand new HD as straight cash, as well as paid to have this board sent back to Newegg for RMA.

Any suggestions for a board on the market now that is from a QUALITY builder? Apparently Asus isn't anymore.

Thanks for the link FNA, I really appreciate it.
-Ghent

[Professor12]

Running a P5k-e with the samsung and haven't experienced any problems with Vista Home Premium x64.

[BigRigDriver]

Oh bugger.
I need to call up NewEgg in the morning to see if I can't get my replacement RMA changed to a Refund one...
This board series seems to have more issues than a newstand.
Time to go back to the drawing board and find a better board.

What is particularly annoying is that I picked this board for it's full spec set, and there is nothing really comparable to it. In dealing with this, I've replaced a bloody well brand new HD as straight cash, as well as paid to have this board sent back to Newegg for RMA.

Any suggestions for a board on the market now that is from a QUALITY builder? Apparently Asus isn't anymore.

Thanks for the link FNA, I really appreciate it.
-Ghent

I still recommend Asus....but not to overclock or do insane things with it. Theyre jam packed with add ons that makes them volnurable to problems. The Blitz series however are promising.

[AbRASiON]

it has taken me over 3 hours to install vista on my new Q6600m p5k Premium and WD 750 AAKS drive. Once installed it was impossibly slow to use. Realised it might be a problem with the drive and motherboard after reading a thread on the Asus forums, i installed an old 120 gig 7200.7 seagate and all is now fine. No idea what to do now though as i really wanted a faster new generation drive. Do you think Asus will fix the problem via a bios updat? Is the problem even fixable via bios update?

NNNooooooo
I have 3 750 AAKS's on their way to my house and a P5K with the latest bios (will be trying XP, not Vista)

Damnit..........

[Brother Esau]

I still recommend Asus....but not to overclock or do insane things with it. Theyre jam packed with add ons that makes them volnurable to problems. The Blitz series however are promising.

That sounds more like a Super Micro recommendation if you ask me.

[trowand]

I just returned my Samsung HD501LJ for a Maxtor 500GB SATA2 drive. Hopefully it'll work for me. Wish me luck!

[sdumper]

hello,

Sharing something I learned this week. I'm not trying to bas any manufacturer. Just trying to save others some trouble I experienced and see if anyone tried this too.

I ordered and built 2 new computers for my wife and I. Both had the Asus p5K Premium boards with q6600 procs. Based on a review on anandtech, I decided to try the Samsung SPinpoint T series HD501lj drives. The review stated good speed and low noise ad heat.

Once built, I ran into an immediate problem installing vista. It would see the drive, but could not write to it or format it. I could create a partition, but could get no further. It would sit there forever but never advance.

I tried both drives in both machines. Same results. New cables. All sata port combinations I could come up with. Same problem. Put the drive into an old P4 machine and could see and format it. 500mb took about 2 hours to format. I put it back in the quad core new machines and vista saw it and tried to write to it. It eventually gave an error saying it could not write to the drive. I was thinking I had the SATA 2 problem some people hit on the p5k deluxe baords. I checked the web and see some people having some SATA issues and think maybe its a SATA 2 compatability issue. I will try a new drive.

I drove to the store and picked up a Maxtor SATA 2 drive (rebadged Seagate actually). Popped it in one of the machines and it worked fine. Fast install actually. Quiet and fast.

Called Samsung after looking all over their website for a firmware flash. Short version of long call. They escalated me to their top tier support and they eventually confirmed that it looks like they have a compatability problem with that motherboard and will need to flash their drive eventually to solve it. RMA in process to newegg for me. I went back to the store and got another Maxtor drive and have both machines up and running.

Just sharing the problem in case anyone else goes this route.

If anyone has thin MB and drive combination working, I'd love to know. Otherwise, I hope I am saving someone a lot of trouble. I was lucky enough to have 2 exact machines and drives to test with. That helped when dealing with product support.

Been running this same mobo for a few weeks now and Raid 0 works great in both Vista and XP.

One strange thing though is the NB voltage. Something seems strange because I can run 485 FSB with my e6850 under phase at just 1.25 and the NB goes up to 1.9... May be a bios flaw because the voltage seems way to low for a FSB as high as this.

[Vega]

Have anyone solved this stupid issue yet? I have a Samsund disc and can see the disc in bios, both in main meny and boot many but not in Vista. If I look in administation tools under storage the disc is marked as dynamic and offline. I have a lot of importent files on it and I dont want to lose anything of it. I use the disc as storage and not as system (boot) disc.
Any ideas?

Thx..

[Vega]

A picture of it!!

[IMG][/IMG]