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

[theonlybabyface]

Thnx both for confirming & leeghoofd i dont have the samsungs but thnx for mentioning

Question: Where do u actually need to connect SATA DVD Drives, to the Black or red ports. I read something like the Red ports need to be used for HDD with OS or sumtin. I need some info on this.

I have mine connected in ports 5 & 6.

[TI66ER]

i have both my samsung sp2504c's in the red ports 1+2 and sata samsung dvd/rw in black port 4.

[sesdave]

Using 0402 here...no problems yet.

Having just updated to 0402 for fun I noticed that my DDR options in BIOS have all increased by 3 Mhz. with FSB 450 and strap on auto I selected 1128(was 1125 with 0204 BIOS) I left the subsettings on default and when loaded Superpi ran slightly slower on superpi 1MB run. Checked with memset and the defualt subtimings appear to have been lossened with this BIOS. Immediately noticable was trfc-56 from 42 , write precharge delay=16, twtr=12. Anyone else getting this slight degrade of settings? I will try it with setting 10,42,10,0,10 in BIOS and see what if it run okay at the speed I ran on BIOS 0204 which was about 14.5 instead of 14.9 sec.

[ChaosMinionX]

Having just updated to 0402 for fun I noticed that my DDR options in BIOS have all increased by 3 Mhz. with FSB 450 and strap on auto I selected 1128(was 1125 with 0204 BIOS) I left the subsettings on default and when loaded Superpi ran slightly slower on superpi 1MB run. Checked with memset and the defualt subtimings appear to have been lossened with this BIOS. Immediately noticable was trfc-56 from 42 , write precharge delay=16, twtr=12. Anyone else getting this slight degrade of settings? I will try it with setting 10,42,10,0,10 in BIOS and see what if it run okay at the speed I ran on BIOS 0204 which was about 14.5 instead of 14.9 sec.

Hmmm, I will have to check that.

[theonlybabyface]

Well, I noticed that my ram speed was slightly higher (2-3 mhz) at the same settings as before and my PI times have slightly improved (which would make sense) but I don't have anything to compare it to as I can't remember my subtimings with 204...

[jamiee]

Jamieee they will never fix your boot issue if you are referring to the boot shutdown procedure after unpluggin the power cord or after altering (OC) setting in the bios, even my gigabyte boards do it sometimes, it's a chipset related thing... and Asus seems to stick with it, my P5W had it, P5B and P5K too... maybe the upcoming maximus too :p

Your FSB matter is another thing

@MCK Another post in the news thread mentioned there were still issues with Samsung drives

Yeah my P5WDH used to do that as well... though Asus did fix it in a later BIOS release (I still like that board...very solid overall, too bad I'm about to sell it to a buddy).
Anyway, my problem is that the P5K-P 99.9% of the time will not cold boot. It takes several power on/off cycles or resets before it will POST. Sometimes I need to turn the PSU off for a few seconds (Enermax 1000W) before trying to re-boot the system. (All the fans do come on though)
Also, durring many OS re-boots my system will fail to re-start - monitor goes off and nothing! Odly enough all the fans stay on then too.

70% of the time in each case I'll get the overclocking failed error upon POST, and sometimes I don't - Even though as it stands my system isn't overclocked at all.


Here's my system's specs:
---------------------------

OS =..........Windows Vista Ultimate
Case =........Thermaltake Mozart Tx w/7" touchscreen LCD display
PSU =.........Enermax Galaxy 1000W
Motherboard =.P5K Premium Rev. 2.00g (BIOS = ORG:0204, Current: 0402)
Cooler =......Zalman CNPS9700 NT
Processor =...Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3.0Ghz default)
Memory =......Mushkin XP2 PC6400 2048Mb x 2 (4Gb)
Video Card =..BFG GF8800GTX
SATA-2 HD =...WD 320Gb x4 (1,280Gb Total)
DVD-R/RW =....Optiarc AD-7170A
HD DVD =....XBox 360 HD DVD drive USB
Floppy =......Fujitsu 1.44 floppy/7-in-1 media card reader
Sound Card =..Creative X-Fi Elite Pro
Monitor =.....BenQ FP241WZ Widescreen LCD 24" (x2)

[Machinus]

This board is not reading my Raptor X correctly. It reports the total disk size to be 127.8 GB, when really its 139 GB. The partition operations are screwy as well.

Has anyone else had this problem?

[Tarowah]

Just finished my Vista 32 reload with my 80 Gig raptors in Raid-0, bios 0402.

[Enoc]

so with the last Bios 402 , the board lost performance or not? can someone confirm this?

[sesdave]

so with the last Bios 402 , the board lost performance or not? can someone confirm this?

To me it looked as if the default memory subtimings had been loosened - may be wrong - need someone else to confirm it. No big deal really as it would only have a minimal effect and you can get any speed loss back by entering your own manual timings in BIOS or with memset. I used 5,5,5,15,3,30,3,3,8 which brought my Superpi back to 14.5

[jamiee]

My boot problems have seemingly gotten allot worse with this 0402 BIOS revision.

before with 0204 or 0302 a cold boot would take maybe 2-10 power on/off cycles and the system would boot after a clear CMOS procedure.... Now it takes at least 10-20 tries and in some cases (like this morning) over 30 attempts before it will POST. Also it won't boot right after I clear the CMOS.

The kicker today is that once I did get it running, it's only booting up at 2.4Ghz where it should be clocked to 3.0Ghz.

I fear having to re-boot or shut down my PC because I know getting it to run again will be nothing short of a struggle.


I'm pretty close to giving up on this board and getting something else. Talk about wasted money

[nibble]

My boot problems have seemingly gotten allot worse with this 0402 BIOS revision.

before with 0204 or 0302 a cold boot would take maybe 2-10 power on/off cycles and the system would boot after a clear CMOS procedure.... Now it takes at least 10-20 tries and in some cases (like this morning) over 30 attempts before it will POST. Also it won't boot right after I clear the CMOS.

The kicker today is that once I did get it running, it's only booting up at 2.4Ghz where it should be clocked to 3.0Ghz.

I fear having to re-boot or shut down my PC because I know getting it to run again will be nothing short of a struggle.


I'm pretty close to giving up on this board and getting something else. Talk about wasted money

Try setting ram to run at DDR1067 in the bios, this sorted some wierd overclocking failed errors I was getting. Just a thought.

[nicepun]

0402 are Betas.

[jamiee]

Nibble,
I have tried running the ram at 1066Mhz and while my ram does run stable, I still suffer the boot problems.

I can't shake the feeling that this might be somehow BIOS related. I just re-flashed 0402 and I'll see how that goes - though I'm not expecting miracles.

I'm also only running with one stick of ram for testing purposes.

The board was able to boot after flashing w/ ezFlash, and also booted after various BIOS setting changes. It did however fail to reboot after I disabled C1E, SpeedStep, Venderpool Tech., etc... on the CPU page and saving.

I was able to get it booted back up after pressing the reset button (only once this time ) and the POST reported that my overclocking had failed (not that anything really was overclocked).


The reason I suspect it may all be BIOS related is because when I first setup the P5WDH, it had a similar boot problem that was eventually fixed with a BIOS update.

The only thing is that I haven't heard of too many people complaining about boot issues with the P5K-P. Most of the complaints seem to surround the SATA-II problem.

[nibble]

Nibble,
I have tried running the ram at 1066Mhz and while my ram does run stable, I still suffer the boot problems.

I can't shake the feeling that this might be somehow BIOS related. I just re-flashed 0402 and I'll see how that goes - though I'm not expecting miracles.

I'm also only running with one stick of ram for testing purposes.

The board was able to boot after flashing w/ ezFlash, and also booted after various BIOS setting changes. It did however fail to reboot after I disabled C1E, SpeedStep, Venderpool Tech., etc... on the CPU page and saving.

I was able to get it booted back up after pressing the reset button (only once this time ) and the POST reported that my overclocking had failed (not that anything really was overclocked).


The reason I suspect it may all be BIOS related is because when I first setup the P5WDH, it had a similar boot problem that was eventually fixed with a BIOS update.

The only thing is that I haven't heard of too many people complaining about boot issues with the P5K-P. Most of the complaints seem to surround the SATA-II problem.

That's rough man, it seems like a bit of a lotto with boards lately. The only issue I had was the bios refusing to save and then on reboot getting the overclocking has failed error, setting ram to ddr1067 fixed the issue. Currently running everything at stock with the 0302 beta and no problems yet, we'll see when I push it a bit.

[btdvox]

Hi everyone first post here.
I built a new system in June and Bought the P5K I overclocked it quite a bit and had a lot of great expereinces, its a very forgiving MoBo which is great.

Anyways I recently heard about these Sata problems and thought id chip in,

I had my Board ship with BIOS 0102. I still have 0102 on it, because I dont want to flash the bios if i dont have to.

Anyways My system consists of E6850 OC'd to 3.92- crucial ballisitx ram clocked to DDR2-1046 @4-4-4-10. 1 WD 320AAKS SATA2 and 1 WD Raptor X, 8800 ultra and other stuff thats not relevant to the SATA problem lol.

Anyways I ran HDTUNE tests using for both my drives 5 times each and got great results which ill post pics below.

One interesting test showed that once i restarted my comptuer i ran the test RIGHT AWAY, and because of this the Disk was used by my PC to load and cache certain items as it does every start up. Which made my test spiek down to 1.98 mbs!!! I got really worried that this is the problem, turns out its not. Its just because that my computer uses the DISK while its being tested which makes the results that way.

I tested this by doing the same thing again (running the test right after i restarted and windows runs. And against restarting and waiting a couple mins for my disk to not be in use and then run the test. You can see the test results yourself- there great!

Anyways all my disks are run at IDE, I dont know what the main problems are some people cant boot into windows i get or even install it, while some just get poor performance, so i dont know waht there basing it on, but these are my results with a China Made v 1.00 board.

sata2 3200aaks


wd raptor x "good"


wd raptor x "in use"

(sorry my "good" raptor test is hard to see- but its there il post a better version if people want)

Cheers

[sesdave]

Nibble,
I have tried running the ram at 1066Mhz and while my ram does run stable, I still suffer the boot problems.

I can't shake the feeling that this might be somehow BIOS related. I just re-flashed 0402 and I'll see how that goes - though I'm not expecting miracles.

I'm also only running with one stick of ram for testing purposes.

The board was able to boot after flashing w/ ezFlash, and also booted after various BIOS setting changes. It did however fail to reboot after I disabled C1E, SpeedStep, Venderpool Tech., etc... on the CPU page and saving.

I was able to get it booted back up after pressing the reset button (only once this time ) and the POST reported that my overclocking had failed (not that anything really was overclocked).


The reason I suspect it may all be BIOS related is because when I first setup the P5WDH, it had a similar boot problem that was eventually fixed with a BIOS update.

The only thing is that I haven't heard of too many people complaining about boot issues with the P5K-P. Most of the complaints seem to surround the SATA-II problem.

If you pay a premium price for a MB designed for overclocking and you know what u are doing and you then encounter problems like not being able to save BIOS updates or cold boots when all the rest of your setup is high quality kit - dont mess abourt trying to fix it - RMA it. If it was a car you had bought and it wouldn't start when delivered you would send it back straight away.! You paid good money - get a replacement so you can get on clocking your CPU without spurious issues because of a duff board.! I am not knocking the MB overall cos I have one and like it but there does seem to have been some bad early batches. I have a rev 2.0 and have no issues at all (apart from Vista x64 speed issues-lol!) and it is great for o/c the q6600 and the memory.

[jamiee]

sesdave,

Of course you're absolutely right... I should RMA this board. I've tried everything I can think of (other than using another CPU - which likely wouldn't change anything), and nadda has worked.
Now the question is, if I RMA the Premium, I'll need another board... Should I get the same thing or maybe see if I can find a Maximus Formula locally?

I still have my Striker Extreme handy, but It's never played all that well with my Mushkin RAM (upper limit of 900MHz @ 5-5-5-15) whereas with the Premium I'm easily getting 1066MHz @ 5-4-4-12. I'd also like to just swap boards without having to re-do the OS et-all. Keeping to an Intel chipset would likely afford that, but installing the Striker would almost for sure mean a format.


Ahh, decisions, decisions...

[sesdave]

sesdave,

Of course you're absolutely right... I should RMA this board. I've tried everything I can think of (other than using another CPU - which likely wouldn't change anything), and nadda has worked.
Now the question is, if I RMA the Premium, I'll need another board... Should I get the same thing or maybe see if I can find a Maximus Formula locally?

I still have my Striker Extreme handy, but It's never played all that well with my Mushkin RAM (upper limit of 900MHz @ 5-5-5-15) whereas with the Premium I'm easily getting 1066MHz @ 5-4-4-12. I'd also like to just swap boards without having to re-do the OS et-all. Keeping to an Intel chipset would likely afford that, but installing the Striker would almost for sure mean a format.


Ahh, decisions, decisions...

Personally I would get another Premium - overall it a nice board and o/c nicely. It was just bad luck getting a duff one. Make sure you get the rev 2.0 if you do get one. The BIOS will continue to be developed and it will support the penryn. The maximus cost more and this living reviews show the BIOS seems a bit flakey. http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=124 Deja VU perhaps-lol! From what I have read x38 boards with DDR2 dont seem to offer much performance gain either unless you want to run crossfire with 2900xt's. That said ChaosminionX has offered to do a comparision of P5K Premium and the Maximus over here http://www.driverheaven.net/motherbo...aximus-se.html That should be good reading and may make your mind up for you.
If you have to fall back on your striker whilst you RMA the MB get a copy of Acronis True image and Universal restore software. This will let you backup the operating system and then restore to any new platform. If you cant get a copy of that software at least take a ghost image whuch may save you a reinstall if you decide on the premium.

[jamiee]

Interestingly enough my current Premium is rev.2.00g made in China - Must just be a flaky board that's all.

Reading around the net, it looks like several users of the P5K series are having similar boot problems to mine. Wonder what's going on?

Yeah I've heard about some flakiness with the Maximus Formula.... but then it is a new board so That's to be expected. The Striker Extreme was touchy at times until Asus finally got most of the kink's worked out of their BIOS. Funny enough it was one of their earlier BIOSes (1102 I think?) that actually worked really well with my Mushkin ram, too bad it doesn't support the G0 core CPU's.

Anyway, I don't think the Striker will be going back in... its been in and out of my PC a couple of times and makes for a good standby if needed, but I think I'd rather just get another premium or try something else.

[sesdave]

Interestingly enough my current Premium is rev.2.00g made in China - Must just be a flaky board that's all.

Reading around the net, it looks like several users of the P5K series are having similar boot problems to mine. Wonder what's going on?

Yeah I've heard about some flakiness with the Maximus Formula.... but then it is a new board so That's to be expected. The Striker Extreme was touchy at times until Asus finally got most of the kink's worked out of their BIOS. Funny enough it was one of their earlier BIOSes (1102 I think?) that actually worked really well with my Mushkin ram, too bad it doesn't support the G0 core CPU's.

Anyway, I don't think the Striker will be going back in... its been in and out of my PC a couple of times and makes for a good standby if needed, but I think I'd rather just get another premium or try something else.

Read what you have said and apply it to the premium-lol!. Its not exactly an old MB is it.
But back to more important things - it half time in the rugby world cup and France are leading England 6-5!

update -21:40-GMT - England with the worst playing record as Cup holders since the tournament began have just allowed France to play all the rugby in the second half but beat them 14-9 to go into the final. Wilkinsons boot saves them again. - I am Scottish but it was the French after all - lol!. wish I had put money on the so called no hopers!

[jamiee]

Read what you have said and apply it to the premium-lol!. Its not exactly an old MB is it. But back to more important things - it half time in the rugby world cup and France are leading England 6-5!

Is that real world time or technology time?

Real world time = Brand spanking new (Almost born yesterday)
Technology time = Somewhat new-ish (certainly not the latest and greatest, but more than acceptable) Will be completely outdated in another 6 months!





GO ENGLAND!!!!!

[sesdave]

Is that real world time or technology time?

Real world time = Brand spanking new (Almost born yesterday)
Technology time = Somewhat new-ish (certainly not the latest and greatest, but more than acceptable) Will be completely outdated in another 6 months!





GO ENGLAND!!!!!

Both could be applicable depending on how you look at it- but thats the name of the game, lol! If your not after crossfire with 2900xt's just how much a performance gain will x38 with DDR3 give????? benching - yes cos any improvement is leapt upon but real world applications I cant see that much of a gain. So the P5k will have legs for some time to come and its cheaper with ddr2.
P.s good game tomorrow at 20:00 GMT - Argentina vs South Africa. That will be a battle of the packs! I must put the light on cos I keep having to edit my spelling.

[jamiee]

Both could be applicable depending on how you look at it- but thats the name of the game, lol! If your not after crossfire with 2900xt's just how much a performance gain will x38 with DDR3 give????? benching - yes cos any improvement is leapt upon but real world applications I cant see that much of a gain. So the P5k will have legs for some time to come and its cheaper with ddr2.
P.s good game tomorrow at 20:00 GMT - Argentina vs South Africa. That will be a battle of the packs! I must put the light on cos I keep having to edit my spelling.

Oh I have no interest in going the DDR3 route yet. Its too expensive for only a bit of increase in performance. The Maximus Formula is DDR2 based and does have the advantage of alot more settings being available in the BIOS than the Premium.
The more simplistic nature of the P5K-P's BIOS is kind of nice, but limiting from an overclocking perspective.


All this motherboard talk reminds me that I need to get building my buddies machine. He's getting my "old" components: P5WDH, E6700, 2Gb DDR800, etc...
Hmmmm... wonder how the P5W would run with my E6850 in it??? -NM-



Argentina vs. South Africa eh? That should be a very good match.

P.S. didn't your mother ever teach you to watch the tv with the lights on?

[lowdog]

I have a P5K-Premium made in China rev 2.00g and had a flaky boot problem....it was because the vid card wasn't seated properly, i'd bumped it when doing stuff in the case!

Aside from that one session where it caused me grief it's been running fine with 8gb of ram and my Q6600 @ 3.6GHz with 1.4v real and 4 x WD Raptors in raid 0. Overclocks set and stick fine in bios, no problems at all, great board so far after a few months use.