ASUS P5B-Deluxe; Problems & Fixes

[test99]

Hello,

I have the following system:

P5B Deluxe Rev 1.03G (BIOS 1216)
Core 2 Duo E6600
4 Gig of DDR2 800 MHz OCZ2G8001G memory modules (memory voltage set at 2.0V)
Seagate 200 GB and 320 GB SATA disks
Asus 7900GS
Antec Sonata II 450W ATX12V v2.01 power supply
Windows XP SP2 (Ran Vista Ultimate before)

I bought the Asus P5B Deluxe in February this year, and the board has been unstable. I have had the following problems:

1) It works for the most part, but I get strange behavior such as random application crashes (Event ID 1000). Ex: Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.3156, faulting module shell32.dll, version 6.0.2900.3051, fault address 0x0002cb36.

Faulting application firefox.exe, version 1.8.20070.6982, faulting module js3250.dll, version 4.0.0.0, fault address 0x0004caf4.

Faulting application vmserverdWin32.exe, version 1.0.3.44356, faulting module msvcrt.dll, version 7.0.2600.2180, fault address 0x00038ae2.

Faulting application avginet.exe, version 7.5.0.473, faulting module mfc71.dll, version 7.10.3077.0, fault address 0x0002a3a3.

Faulting application avginet.exe, version 7.5.0.473, faulting module msvcr71.dll, version 7.10.3052.4, fault address 0x00010c34.

Faulting application winamp.exe, version 5.3.5.1305, faulting module gen_jumpex.dll, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x00016795.

2) Sometimes I have had random reboots, but not too many.

3) I flashed to the latest BIOS a couple of weeks ago, and after the flash the ASUS logo screen during boot up would sometimes become corrupted, which made the screen displaying the logo look messed up. This is fixed now, and I don’t know if reflashing the BIOS fixed the issue.

4) Windows XP would sometimes hang on the Windows XP logo during boot, but just hitting the reset button would solve the issue. The 2 Seagate SATA disks are connected to the Intel storage controller and that is set as IDE in the BIOS.

5) When I was at the 1004 BIOS, the EZ Flash utility did not work, but a BIOS reflash fixed the issue. I am now on the latest BIOS 1216.

6) The soundmax audio produced a cracking sounds when recording my voice with skype, but this is resolved now and I believe is a known issue.

I am thinking the problems I am having with stability have something to do with a bad BIOS chip, or something to do with the storage controller. Please let me know if you have had similar problems with this board and resolved them. I am not overclocking the system and I tried downclocking my ram to 667 MHz to see if it would help. I ram memtest86 when it was set at 800 MHz and 667 MHz with 30 passes and there were no memory errors reported. So this is not a ram issue.

I am at the point where I will either RMA the board, or maybe I will waste more money on the Asus P5N32-E board.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks