[18th Anniversary] Asus Black Pearl - P5k-Premium Testing Report

[holwill]

Recently removed my P5W-DH and replaced it with the P5K-PRE and now happily sat at 3.6ghz with my Q6600, 1x WD RaptorX and 1xSeagate drives both picked up and working as they should. The only issue I have is now my 8800GTX squeaks when shutting down the system, I can live with this but does anyone else get this and has it made any differance using anything higher than the 0204 bios? Never did it with the P5W-DH so must be card, mobo combination I guess.

Also can anyone shed some light on some of the voltage bios settings and what the hell is vanderpool tech?

[scaramonga]

The only issue I have is now my 8800GTX squeaks when shutting down the system

This happens on some ASUS/8800 combos, your mobo is shutting the 12V rail off a bit to early, causing the card to scream for having not enough juice

what the hell is vanderpool tech?

Vanderpool Technology (VT) is Intel's virtualization technology which will let computer users operate separate virtual environments in the same PC.

Disable is best if you don't use it

[sergers]

I decided to stay with my prem, re-flashed it with 0302... going better than before...

any ideas when the 0304 is gonna be released

[XtremeTiramisu]

As far as I know, I remember reading one person mentioned that Asus support will release a new beta BIOS which will address to the infamous SATA issue that many Premium boards are having. It's said that the new beta BIOS will be out in a couple of weeks.

However, many ppl believe that it's a hardware issue so even when the new BIOS is released, it may not solve all cases

[Budwise]

just finished my 2nd build on a P5K premium for a customer and just like my P5K Premium, no problems whatsoever. For his i used a Raptor X and a 750Gb WD Caviar SE and both have normal performance according to HD Tune.

[TEDY]

anyone tried this mobo with TRACER 8500, doesnt work

[nibble]

anyone tried this mobo with TRACER 8500, doesnt work

You sure? What exactly doesn't work.

[limb0]

good evening fellow black pearl fetishists,

i recently swapped my deluxe for a premium and promptly cleaned out the gunk from under the heatpipes & lapped a fresh SLACR.

i previously had a p5w with e6600

my problem is that once I exceed 9 x 380mhz my 3D mark score drops from 13000 to just 4000.


ram is 1:1 with FSB
vcore : auto 1.40
dram voltage: 2.10

i've played around with it all day and reinstalled the drivers, it does the same under XP or vista x64.

any idea what i'm doing wrong here? i can't see anyone else complaining about a 3D wall > 380mhz.


system is as follows:

antec 900 case
silverstone st85zf powrer supply
p5k premium
q6600 g0
2 x 1gb gskill F2-6400-PHU1-GBHZ
sparkle 8800gtx
x-fi music
1 x 36gb raptor
2 x 400gb seagate
pioneer 212
thermalright t1-128 heatsink with 120mm fan

cheers, limb0

[wa2000]

good evening fellow black pearl fetishists,

i recently swapped my deluxe for a premium and promptly cleaned out the gunk from under the heatpipes & lapped a fresh SLACR.

i previously had a p5w with e6600

my problem is that once I exceed 9 x 380mhz my 3D mark score drops from 13000 to just 4000.


ram is 1:1 with FSB
vcore : auto 1.40
dram voltage: 2.10

i've played around with it all day and reinstalled the drivers, it does the same under XP or vista x64.

any idea what i'm doing wrong here? i can't see anyone else complaining about a 3D wall > 380mhz.


system is as follows:

antec 900 case
silverstone st85zf powrer supply
p5k premium
q6600 g0
2 x 1gb gskill F2-6400-PHU1-GBHZ
sparkle 8800gtx
x-fi music
1 x 36gb raptor
2 x 400gb seagate
pioneer 212
thermalright t1-128 heatsink with 120mm fan

cheers, limb0

Run CPU-Z, check the value of transfer rate under "Mainboard" tab.

If it shows 1X, then try to adjust the NB voltage and adjust the PCI-E freq.

[limb0]

thanks wa2000, that worked a treat.

i increased the pci-e to 120 and put the nb voltage up a couple of notches and now it says x16 in cup-z instead of x1 when i'm running at 400mhz.

i'll go back and see just how much of each is required because I changed two things at once in my haste.

thanks again maaate, really appreciate it!

limb0

[VIctorj]

So, i live here in argentina, where asus is nowhere to be found...i got this ING PIECE OF BOARD, and as everyone expected...it has the freaking SATA Issue with my WD drive...so what do i do? I send it to my retailer, and OH SURPRISE, the cant do about it...cause? Asus doesnt respond, or say ANYTHING ABOUT THIS CRAP LOAD OF PROBLEMS WE all seem to have(or at least...a buch of folks)

So what do i do? No, im not going to buy a SATA Controller card...i paid a buch of money for this board, and i want it to work.

So im expecting some suppor from you guys...what the hell can we do to get the wheels going? Asus HAS to respond for all of us(or at least...SAY SOMETHING) WTH?

Im stuck with a faulty board right now...and, for the time being, im not buying or recommending asus to ANYONE.

Any ideas?
Is that magical bios comming or not?

OMG, my post is all bannaned (???????? JK...to ease the mods about my flamming post :P)

EDIT: NO, i dont want to read something like "Buy a cheap controller card" or "Change that HDD" I WANT it to work...i HAS to work...this is ridiculous.



EDIT5 :Mods, feel free to edit this post...but...you know im right! I really needed to get that out of my system.

EDIT 4: This board is diarrhea coming out of my d1ck...i had more fun playing with dog turd.

[ChaosMinionX]

lol..... I have yet to experience any SATA malfunctions on my board. Running all Western Digital drives from Raptors to Caviars with 0 problems.

New BIOS should be inbound pretty soon, whether or not it fixes these issues is TBD.

[TI66ER]

i have samsung sp2504c drives on my board and i have had 0 issues.

[billdavis]

Mobo: Asus P5K Premium (unmodded) BIOS Rev. 0302 (Heatpipes reseated with AS5

where did you get the 0302 bios???

[ACE76]

I don't know if this will help but I had the P5K Deluxe and experienced the SATA issues...I sold the board before newer BIOSes came out so I don't know what the situation is now with the DDR2 board(s)...but I am now using a P5K3 Deluxe and with the 604 BIOS I have not experienced a single issue with SATA or RAID...I am currently sing 4 150gb RAPTORS in RAID-0 (red connectors) and a 500gb WD HD for storage in the first black SATA connector....this set-up with my Q6600 overclocked to 3.6ghz is working flawlessly and the performance of the HDs is excellent....I'm guessing this is quality assurance issue with Asus as not all the boards seem to have the issue...they should let people RMA their boards at least...this may never even be fixed via BIOS updates...sad really because when the boards work good. they are excellent.

Vdroop control is also better on this board for me..with it enabled in the BIOS I only get .01 droop whether it's idle or load.

[ChaosMinionX]

Mobo: Asus P5K Premium (unmodded) BIOS Rev. 0302 (Heatpipes reseated with AS5

where did you get the 0302 bios???

Its a Beta bios... search this thread it was posted

[tz3p3]

I've just upgraded my pc last week with p5k premium and a wd sata 2 hdd ( WD5000YS sata300) amongst other components

- windows install was really slow ... and after i managed to install it i had the same problems that some people have ... slow transfer rates ... even hang-ups for a couple of minutes ... i was pi**ed off after many hours of browsing the forums for the solution and reading all the manuals about jmicron sata/raid controller and trying all the possible setups for the wd drive with no success ... and tried with one of my old hdd ... ata100 model... a 250GB WD ... same problems .... then tried my other hdd ... a 250GB seagate (ata100) and everything worked lika a charm ... windows install was smooth ... and after that ... rock solid .... thought my asus has a problem with WD hdds ... but a friend of mine gave me a hint :
you can put a jumper on pins 5-6 and limit it to sata 150 ... after doing this the hdd is working fine ... managed to install and run win and also done a decent oc ...

you guys with wd sata2 drives facing same problem ... might try limiting the hdd to sata 150 ... worked for me(short-circuited pins 5-6 for my model)

hope this will help somebody else ...

[TI66ER]

here is the 0302 bios

http://rapidshare.com/files/52031637...-0302.zip.html

[OnDborder]

(Heatpipes reseated with AS5)

Just got my pearl..
Was going to put as5 on mine but it looked like the heatpipes over the mosets weren't touching the middle mosets without that stick of gum..
Wonder how it would do if I were to just leave the heatpipes off, put a nb cooler on, sb a hs, and fans over the mosets? It seems that the heatpipes over the mosets would increase the heat by withholding airflow without having the hp touching the mosets.

[nibble]

Just got my pearl..
Was going to put as5 on mine but it looked like the heatpipes over the mosets weren't touching the middle mosets without that stick of gum..
Wonder how it would do if I were to just leave the heatpipes off, put a nb cooler on, sb a hs, and fans over the mosets? It seems that the heatpipes over the mosets would increase the heat by withholding airflow without having the hp touching the mosets.

For a dual core you'd probably be alright, but I wouldn't risk it with a quad. Anyway you could just as5 the south and northbridge and leave it as is, it really doesn't need any more cooling than the stock heatpipe. If you've got even the smallest amount of case airflow they'll be kept plenty cool.

[Tranzmit]

also having major sata issues with mine and it's driving me nuts. have bios 302 and hasn't really helped. Don't know what to do and it's driving me nuts

[situman]

odd I like many others don't have sata issues, then again, all my drives are sataI

[jamiee]

0302 gave me a "clicking" sound with my hard drives, going back to 0204 seems to have resolved this at the expense of slightly slower HD performance.
Otherwise my four WD SATA II drives have been running well with this board.


I did however discover a new problem over the past few days (currently suffer from cold/warm boot issues), my CPU will not overclock at all!
If I set the FSB=400Mhz my CPU stay's at 3.0GHz (in fact the post will report 3.01GHz) instead of the usual 3.0GHz when not overclocked. It doesn't matter what I set in the BIOS, the board will only boot at either 3.0GHz or 3.01GHz.

I've had the same CPU clocked at 3.8GHz in a Striker Extreme.

[nibble]

Just for the record, my board is running fine with two 320GB Hitachi T7K500's.

[lowdog]

4 x WD 150GB Raptors sataII in raid 0.....no issues here, both win xp and vista 64bit installed fine in a dual boot config. Using bios 0204.