ASUS P5B-Deluxe; Problems & Fixes

[Big.Wayne]

Hi P5B-Deluxe owners and Merry Xmas!

I am selling this mobo after owning it for over a year (nov 2006) will be sad to see it go but I have replaced it with a similar P35 chipset board (P5K-E WIFI).

Anyway my old P5B-Deluxe WIFI/AP is going off to start a new life as part of a kickass Video-Editing and Gaming machine so I am giving it a once over and plugging in a shiney new G0 Quad-Core. I thought I would make a few posts in this thread in case anyone else is new to Quad-Core like me.

I didn't read much about the different BIOS's but instead just went and download the latest and flashed the board using a USB stick, its now on the latest BIOS version. . .



I have just taken out my old Core2 Duo E6300 and plugged in the Quad and have the system up and running at stock. I'm not sure what to set the vCore at so I have it on auto atm and it is currently running some prime so I can get a feel for the temps etc . . .



The Processor seems to at acceptable air-cooled temps for stock? (Ultra-120/Sharkoon SE 1000 120mm) however I noticed that both the Northbridge and Southbridge are scorching hot? I don't think they were running that hot while I was using a regular Dual-Core?

I will work out some way to help cool the chipset a bit better then start on the overclocking. This machine was meant to be delivered a few days ago but the client has given me a week or two slack so I can enjoy xmas a little but I am still working on it. . .

If anyone has trodden the 'air-cooled-P5B-deluxe-quad-core path' before then I would appreciate any tips you can throw my way regarding overclocking. In the picture above you can see the VID is 1.300v and CPU-z is showing 1.232vCore, is that some killa vDroop there or what?

Anyway I hope everyone is having a nice xmas and will post back soon

[Pepi93]

hey guys, please help..

I had bios 1212, flashed to 1226, now I cant OC my system the way I used to..

I get the popular Checksum Error, Overclock failed, press F1 to enter BIOS.

I know TomNbk said he just set the BIOS defaults and then reinserted his but this is not working for me....

does anyone know how to fix this issue?.I could revert back to an older version of BIOS..I can't use ASUS update it won't let me downgrade...I tried...

I don't have a floppy drive, and I'm not sure how that one guy used AFUDOS using a CD....if you can let me know that would be cool....

Update:

In the mean time I ripped my old floppy drive from my old PC and reverted back to BIOS 1212, so everything is good, but if someone can tell me how to deal with that Checksum Error with the newer BIOS versions, that would be great.

and oh yeah, I also did the clear RTC RAM (CLRTC) thing described in the manual but it didn't help.

Thanks guys.

[chuckbam]

hey guys, please help..



I have no idea how to reboot system in DOS mode?



Thanks guys.

If you have a 3.5" floppy drive, you format as a boot disk. Then boot to that drive. Put in a disk with the bios + AFUDOS and type DIR Look at the files and type AFUDOS i and the bios file. AFUDOS ixxx~x.rom

You can do the same thing with a USB flash drive.

[Pepi93]

If you have a 3.5" floppy drive, you format as a boot disk. Then boot to that drive. Put in a disk with the bios + AFUDOS and type DIR Look at the files and type AFUDOS i and the bios file. AFUDOS ixxx~x.rom

You can do the same thing with a USB flash drive.

I know how to do it with a floppy, I tried with a CD and it said its not a bootable source...not sure how to use USB for it....anyway...if someone could tell me how to fix the OC issue with the 1219 and higher bios revisions...that would be great..

[__Miguel_]

Hmmm, have you tried just putting the BIOS file on an USB stick, booting to the BIOS and using the integrated BIOS updater? I've used it once or twice, it's called EZFlash, or something like that. It's right next to the OC Profile option.

If that doesn't work, you can also make an USB stick bootable. Just copy the contents of the bootable floppy drive to the USB stick, and you should be good to go, since the P5B supports booting from USB.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

Miguel

[Pepi93]

Thanks I'll try the USB boot technique. EZ Flash doesn't let you revert to an older BIOS.

Now does anyone have any idea how to avoid the Checksum Error with the newer BIOS revisions?

Miguel[/QUOTE]

[__Miguel_]

I'm not sure what that error is, though I AM using the newest BIOS release in my P5B Deluxe WiFi/AP.

I can tell you that one Checksum Error is perfectly OK after every BIOS update. It happened to me every time I updated my BIOS on that board. The thing is, right after the update, I entered the BIOS and re-dialed every definition, saving before exiting, and everything went fine from there.

Just thinking out loud, here... can it be that somehow either the 1226 BIOS file or its flash could have gone wrong, and that's the cause of the repeated Checksum Errors, which it's what I understood you're experiencing? You may want to try downloading the BIOS file again to a non-OC'ed system (which you know has 100% stable memory sticks), and re-flashing the BIOS file.

Cheers.

Miguel

[t_p]

I was posting here last month in this thread, (between posts 4441 - 4479) and just thought I'd follow up that I finally hit my wits end and rma'd my motherboard a second time... had to wait about a month for the replacement, but have been up and running with no problems since I got it last week. Not only that, but they actually sent me the correct version! (The first time they sent me back a P5B-D (who knows if it was intentional or not), and this time they sent me a Wifi/Ap version which was what I started out with... )

I haven't pushed the overclock up yet, but am not in a hurry right now. I am going to enjoy stability at stock speeds for a while more and then bump it up some...

edit: by the way, they shipped me the board with bios v1101 installed. I haven't changed that yet either..

CPU - Core 2 Duo - E6400 @ 2.13GHz
Motherboard - ASUS P5B Deluxe Wifi/AP
Memory - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (2GBNQ)
Video Card - SAPPHIRE 194L Radeon X1650
HDD#1 - SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD403LJ 400GB
HDD#2 - Maxtor DM 10 6B200R0 200GB
DVD-RW - SAMSUNG TS-H552B - 16X
PSU - Rosewill RP500-2 ATX12V v2.01 500W
Sound Card - Audigy MP3+
HSF - Freezer 7 Pro
OS - XP Pro SP2
Case - Lian Li PC-65USB

[Tveskaeg]

I have a P5B Deluxe/Wifi with an Core Duo 2 6700 and 2x1GB A-Data PC6400 memory modules intsalled in the two yellow slots.

Today i bought a pair of Mushkin PC6400 512MB modules, same cas and voltage.

When i install them, my PC boots fine but the bios dosent recognize more than 2GB.

When the PC is booted to the desktop and i run CPUz it tells me that there are 3GB installed but XP dosent recognize more than 2GB.

The PC is not overclocked or tweaked in any way and the 2 Muchkin modules works fine when installed seperately or togheter.

I have tried to mess around in the bios to solve things but to no avail.

Why cant i get the board to recognize all 3 GB of memory?

[YngDiego]

I've had my P5B-Deluxe for over a year now and I'm pretty happy with it. Over the last couple of weeks I've upgraded my system to 8GB of RAM for use with Vista x64. Previously I was running with 4GB.

Memory is Corsair XMS2 CM2x2048-6400 C5. I also have an E6400 OC'd to 408FSB and 1:1 memory ratio. Last year I remember running Everest memory benchmarks and got ~12,000 MB/s read, which was pretty close to the max given my FSB.

Since then I've changed BIOS versions and other settings, and for I while I noticed my boot screen says PC2-4300 when it's OC'd. If I revert to defaults it says PC2-6400.

Now running Everest today I get about 7,638MB/s memory read, which is inline with a standard FSB, but not my 408MHz FSB. Everest and CPU-Z both show 1:1 memory ratio.

Any ideas on why BIOS says PC2-4300 upon boot and my memory read benchmarks don't reflect the higher FSB bandwidth? This is with the 1226 BIOS, and also happened with previous versions as well.

[darcmage]

Memory is Corsair XMS2 CM2x2048-6400 C5. I also have an E6400 OC'd to 408FSB and 1:1 memory ratio. Last year I remember running Everest memory benchmarks and got ~12,000 MB/s read, which was pretty close to the max given my FSB.

Are you sure about that number? If this guy got 11K, I can't imagine how you got to 12.

[YngDiego]

It was somewhere in the 11-12 range..I don't remember exactly. So it does appear something is wrong with my system, given someone with basically the same FSB is getting 11,000+ and I'm far below that.

Ideas on the problems?

[__Miguel_]

Over the last couple of weeks I've upgraded my system to 8GB of RAM for use with Vista x64. Previously I was running with 4GB.

(...)

Since then I've changed BIOS versions and other settings, and for I while I noticed my boot screen says PC2-4300 when it's OC'd. If I revert to defaults it says PC2-6400.

Any ideas on why BIOS says PC2-4300 upon boot and my memory read benchmarks don't reflect the higher FSB bandwidth? This is with the 1226 BIOS, and also happened with previous versions as well.

Since only server motherboards (or DDR2+DDR3, or that weird 875P Gigabyte motherboard) have more than four memory slots, and I happen to know that the P5B (and variants) has four of them, I have to tell you that:

1) 4-slot memory configurations are not extensively tested by motherboard manufacturers, and sometimes weird things happen, ranging from slightly lower OC levels to massive performance drops or no POST situations;
2) Electrical signal integrity degrades much more and much faster with four slots populated; this is more noticeable the faster the BUS is running and may cause all sorts of weird symptoms;
3) 4GB and 8GB (2x2 or 4x2GB) memory configurations are also not extensively tested, since 2GB sticks are usually very expensive, and not many people use them (the maximum configuration is usually 3GB, and bigger capacities are often only used for people who need data integrity, not speed - and OC'ing increases the chance of loss of data integrity).

So, in short, that weird behaviour is most likely due to the combination of the 2GB sticks AND the 4 slots being populated. That configuration must likely falls in the "not tested, not warranteed" bin. You might want to drop your OC a tad, to see if that helps.

Cheers.

Miguel


P.S.: @darcmage: That test was under a 680i mobo, not P5B Deluxe... As Intel MCHs are generally regarded as the better ones overall (AMD not taken into account, their MCHs are embedded, and that gives them advantages on bandwidth), could it be the ~12k YngDiego says he got are exactly because of that? Also, we don't know all the timings for his configuration...

[chuckbam]

I have a P5B Deluxe/Wifi with an Core Duo 2 6700 and 2x1GB A-Data PC6400 memory modules intsalled in the two yellow slots.

Today i bought a pair of Mushkin PC6400 512MB modules, same cas and voltage.

When i install them, my PC boots fine but the bios dosent recognize more than 2GB.

When the PC is booted to the desktop and i run CPUz it tells me that there are 3GB installed but XP dosent recognize more than 2GB.

The PC is not overclocked or tweaked in any way and the 2 Muchkin modules works fine when installed seperately or togheter.

I have tried to mess around in the bios to solve things but to no avail.

Why cant i get the board to recognize all 3 GB of memory?

Make sure you have Memory Remap enabled.

You should have purchased 2 more of the same memory.

I have both Vista 64 and on another drive XP Pro. I have 8GB of ram. XP will only read 2GB. Vista 64 reads all 8GB. It is a XP limitation.

[Tveskaeg]

Make sure you have Memory Remap enabled.

You should have purchased 2 more of the same memory.

I have both Vista 64 and on another drive XP Pro. I have 8GB of ram. XP will only read 2GB. Vista 64 reads all 8GB. It is a XP limitation.

Memory Remap did it.

The bios now recognizes the added modules and displays a total of 3GB.

You are also right about XP, it will only recognize 2 GB.

Thanx for the help.

[chuckbam]

Memory Remap did it.

The bios now recognizes the added modules and displays a total of 3GB.

You are also right about XP, it will only recognize 2 GB.

Thanx for the help.

I had Vista 32-bit on 2 systems with and increased them to 4GB. On the Microsoft Page it states that Vista 32-bit will read 4GB. My systems would only read 3GBs. This was with one Intel board and also my P5B-D.

[chuckbam]

Are you sure about that number? If this guy got 11K, I can't imagine how you got to 12.

This is what I get.

[Big.Wayne]

Hey the P5B-Deluxe didn't do too badly so far. . .



Its been running stable as a rock at this speed for a couple of days now, left the vCore on auto too. I have tried higher but the stability tests don't last very long before they find an error and thats including me manually dialling in up to 1.55vCore.

Still Quad 3400MHz is a very nice 24/7 speed in a closed case on silent air!

I had to raise the northbridge volts from 1.25v to 1.45 volts around about 355MHz-FSB, apart from that all chipset volts are on minimum.

I suppose I should really drop the multi to x8 or x7 and see if its an FSB limitation on the P5B-Deluxe (P965) but I been a bit busy.

What FSB's are you guys getting your quad cores up to please?

[chuckbam]

I need a Vcore of 1.38~1.39 at idle to cover the vdroop under load.

PCI Express 105v
Memory 2.0v
+ Vcore 1.4375v = 1.35 ~ 1.39v
FSB Termination 1.30v
NB Vcore 1.45v
SB Vcore 1.50v

[domianos]

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 2.13GHz
Bios Revision: 1226
Memory: 1024MBytes x 2, DDR2, 333MHz

i have a very strange problem.
I Have all my drives connected to ICH8R Serial ATA (RAID MODE)

SATA1: WD2500YS
SATA2: WD2500YS
(Those 2 are in RAID 0 mode)
SATA3: DVDRW
SATA4:HDT722525DLA380
SATA5:HDT722525DLA380
SATA6:WD1600AAJS.

All was working fine. But the last 2 days when intel matrix storage manager starts at pc boot, it freeze about 3-4 minutes. Then suddenly unfreeze, detect my drives and everything works perfect.
I try to boot with all my disks (1 by 1) out of mobo but i had the same problem.

What is this "freezing" time??
Maybe this is a sign that the ICH8R will die?

P.S.JMicron is enable because i need the e-sata port.
P.S. 2 Sorry about my english.

[[XC] Hicks121]

Ok this is strange. I changed the hs on this mobo & cleaned it up a bit. I power the sytem up & it says no boot media detected. I check all of the cables & setting in the bios(even tried different sets of cables). the hd is even being detected in the bios. So I decided to reinstall a freshy of xp, the mobo wont read from the cd drive either, no boot media detected.

Im all out of ideas on what to try. If anyone can help, it it really be appreciated.

[kwalker]

as soon as you see the splash screen hit F8 and select the drive where your XP disk is installed .
make sure that the cd drive is enabled in the boot section of the bios as first boot drive.

[jonny_ftm]

After having hard time to be stable at 9x400 on my Q6600, I had some other reasons to have a valid RMA justification
Got my new P5B deluxe just now. It is same revision 1.03G C1 :-(
But, this new one is fully stable at 9x400Mhz on OCCT RAM which is a very good performance on a quad (don't tell me of stable boards on Prime small FFT or Blend for a Q6600)

My old P5B deluxe couldn't be stable above 389MHz FSB on the quadcore.
Also, this new one solved some issues:
- PCI-E x1 at vNB of 1.55v (bios 1216)
- System temperature and NB température are now 43°C instead of 52°C when Priming in Blend or on OCCT RAM
- The NB can handle that OC on the quadcore + the DDR2-1000 MHz at some agressive timings (5-4-4-15-4 and not the timings on the attached image)

So, even on same version, it seems to be huge differences between a board and another, as with CPUs

For those inetrested in OC a quad core fully stable on this board, look at this topic about my older P5B revision
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=163916

[chuckbam]

jonny_ftm, That is a real good looking system.

I can run at 4 Ghz with any bios up to 12.19. But at 4Ghz it get a little warm on air. At 3.36 GHz I only need a core volt of 1.38 (Vdroop down to 3.5) with very good temps. One day, I will go back to 2.16. I have not used the PCI E x1 yet. I had to lower my mem speed when I went to 2MB sticks. So I went 8x vs. 9x.

I can loop Prime TT and 3DMARK06 simultaneously for hours. I have done it a few times and went out for the day. Came home and it was still running. At first I had some problems. It end up to be the sound driver. I run Vista 64.

[jonny_ftm]

Yep, 9x400 on the 1066 (266) strap is just something huge, especially with 2Gb DDR2-1000MHz on those timings

I'm happy and now testing the vNB at 1.45v and the vFSB at 1.40v

On those low settings (voltage, strap), the P965 beats the X38 by far.