ASUS P5W DH - Problems + Fixes Thread

[gersson]

1st time ive ever had a problem with this mobo since sept of 06.went from 2406 to 2503.bad move, lol nothing like spending 30. bucks to get a new bios chip from asus.from what i was told i think they sent out a few this last week.

I'm in the same boat as you.
I used Asus Update. When I flashed, it said it could not verify the flash. I knew what was going to happen @ that point but I figured it was inevitable so I rebooted. The results were a blank screen even when clearing bios and removing the battery for a 1/2 hour.

Think Asus bears any resposibility?

[Sejo5]

"Why you don't use the Mobo's cd or a usb key and the Asus CrashFree Bios 3 utility to solve the problem with the corrupted bios? You will not have to buy a new one.... Using this utility (check manual 4-9 page)... is the reason you don't have to buy a new chip...[/QUOTE]

LoL, I think thats funny cause i read up on that and it says turn off System, put flash drive in with proper bios and turn on system and it should auto turn on. System cant read anything without any code directing to do so. Bad Bios Flash = Usually No code on chip = Means no turn on system or read anything. So reading from CD, FLoppy or Flash Drive wont do anything. Only Few ways to fix. Hot Swap. New Chip.

[Sejo5]

Ok Guys, Bios 2504-2503 is garbage.
Yesterday I have received my new BIOS Chip from BIOS Depot pre-flashed with BIOS 2504. So I pop it in the machine and it turns on. No surprise. So before I do anything I make sure I cleared the CMOS, and then went ahead and did the Hot-Swap procedure. Done it before on older systems so I was no stranger, flashed it with also BIOS 2504.
Now I have 2 BIOS chips making sure I have a backup just incase this happens again, so after testing the machine for 10 minutes, it was running fine. Then all of a sudden it restarts the system. So I am thinking to myself what is going on now? I turned the system back on and go to bios making sure everything is at default which it is… then again it locks up, forcing me to shut it off hard.
Then it just refuses to turn on, tried the other BIOS chip thinking maybe the Chip was funky. Nope same exact thing, turns on and locks up in BIOS sometimes it take a few seconds or right away, or sometimes it wont boot unless you leave it alone awhile.

Before I start being too over-sure of myself, I might throw this in just to see what you guys think. As well yesterday I receive bunch of cooling goodies for my motherboard. TT N/B Cooler, Corsair Memory Cooler, Artic Silver Ceramique (Non-Conductive), Zalman Cooler for my ATI X1800XT, Case fans. My existing CPU cooling is a TT typhoon, which does the job excellent. The Existing North Bridge H/S was removed by cutting the copper heat pipe from the other side H/S (Everyone should know what I am talking about) applied some A/S and installed the TT N/B cooler, installed a fan on the S/B before I did that I applied some paste there as well, Installed the Zalman on Video Card.
Made sure everything was wiped clean from old paste with rubbing alcohol and lots of napkins, used this technique for years. I doubt any of this is causing an issue. Since the A/S is non conductive it shouldn’t matter if I did lets say get any of it anywhere. I was also thinking its grounding somewhere, usually grounding issues are easy to pick out since they usually have the same out come. Won’t turn system on, or turns on for sec then shuts off but it’s repetitive.

So ok guys, I will be removing the system of the case later today making sure it’s not a grounding issue. Is there a way to flash to older more reliable BIOS? And any tips or suggestions on what could be the issue?

System Specs:
Asus P5W DH – Deluxe
Intel C2D E6750
2GB PC1066 Crucial Ballistix – New Set (2weeks old)
2x Hard Drives.
1 DVD RW
3x 80mm Case Fans ||1x Big Typhoon ||1x Corsair Cooler||1x TT NB cooler ||1x SB Fan
Ati Radeon X1800XT / Zalman Cooler.
Mad Dog 550w PSU <~ Solid PSU works as good as my Corsair and Antec PSU’s

[w2richwood]

use afudos 2.11 it lets you flash back your bios two floppy or flash drive
Rich

[Falkentyne]

On BIOS not check L2 size but can.Depends temperatures which is on idle about 32degrees on heatsink an 41 degrees on cores i can tell that working on 3GHZ everytime an EIST not works.E6850 works well EIST is active and in idle is 2GHZ and temps is about 10degrees lower.Maybe its first BIOS which add suport for Wolfdales and next version start perform well and EIST start working i hope.As i see official support for Yorkfields still not.Maybe when Intel starts selling non extreme Yorkfields they add support officially and everything starts working.This is only thing which not works.CPU itself works perfect on P5W DH

I'm having trouble understanding you, no offense.
Your BIOS detects the L2 at 0 KB? Yes or No ?

[P5WDHdeluxe]

I'm in the same boat as you.
I used Asus Update. When I flashed, it said it could not verify the flash. I knew what was going to happen @ that point but I figured it was inevitable so I rebooted. The results were a blank screen even when clearing bios and removing the battery for a 1/2 hour.

Think Asus bears any resposibility?

Check for the Asus Crash Free Bios 3... Manual Page. 4-9
It is a process to be followed after a failed updating process...

[Sejo5]

P5WDH Look up a few posts just explained why that crashfree Bios is BS.

[P5WDHdeluxe]

P5WDH Look up a few posts just explained why that crashfree Bios is BS.

In some cases... corrupted Bios means that i can at least power on...

[Sejo5]

Ehh if only most of us were that lucky.

[qu3x^]

New Catalyst Software is out too. But that didn#t helped so far

use afudos 2.11 it lets you flash back your bios two floppy or flash drive
Rich

Is there a correct procedure how to flash back correctly with afudos.
Witch parms schould be used? And schould i reformat my flashdrive to a other FS than FAT? pls help me out with this one.

[w2richwood]

fat 32 load you flash with dos boot afudos 2.11 and bios named p5wdh.rom
Rich

[mikepaul]

Sorry, I remembered wrong - I thought it was 0 & 1. I thought you had it hooked up to the second port, not the first. But anyway, I have mine set right now as Safe (Raid 1), even though it's running as raid 0 & 5 for the Matrix Raid. If nothing else is hooked up to the second port, try setting it to Safe, which should be the jumper on the left and the jumper on the right.

I went with SATA1 and it worked acceptably as a data drive. I guess that when you have no PATA drives then the drive on SATA1 is the boot drive, but nothing in the BIOS forced it in front of my existing boot drive.

Except that as you said it's not hot-swappable. I pulled the drive out and put it in the other tray and the drive was still seen, but the original connector must have been polling for a drive every few moments because everything including the mouse would stop moving then start going again. I rebooted and everything went back to normal.

So I'm going to try using the SATA_RAID1 port for that tray job as long as THAT one hot-swaps, and abandon the idea of two eSATA ports for now. While it's on OK deal to have two eSATA cases handy, the change from one drive to another inside those cases isn't as nice as the bare drives in trays. If I develop hard disk issues by handling bare drives all the time I'll regret this plan, but for now it seems like the way to go. I sure hope two drives active at the same time on the JMicron connectors remember I told them NOT to do any RAID stuff.

If I decide on one more internal drive, SATA1 will be for that...

[DrSlump]

HELP!
I got a Q6600 and 4Gb G.Skill PHU6400 2gbhz in four banks.
All memory settings to their defaults (V=2.05V, 4-4-4-12 timings).
Even @330Mhz, i get super pi errors, while @333Mhz i get errors in I/O transfers too.
Please some one may help me to make my sistem stable?

[Falkentyne]

You're using 4 gigs of RAM in 1 gig dimms. There's your problem right there.
Increase the vmem to 2.2v. And increase the vMCH to 1.65v.
That should get you stable at 330 FSB. Then slowly work down the voltage from there until you determine what you need. And what is the vcore for the CPU? Try 1.45v for that then work your way down. A combination of those should get you stable for the moment.

[lawrywild]

P5WDH Look up a few posts just explained why that crashfree Bios is BS.

Actually, it's not. I used it once and it helped me greatly. Provided that the bootblock sector of the bios is still intact after a corrupt flash, crashfree bios will work..

[whoodiestyle]

HELP!
I got a Q6600 and 4Gb G.Skill PHU6400 2gbhz in four banks.
All memory settings to their defaults (V=2.05V, 4-4-4-12 timings).
Even @330Mhz, i get super pi errors, while @333Mhz i get errors in I/O transfers too.
Please some one may help me to make my sistem stable?

default voltage for those is 2.0-2.1v got them sitting on my desk next to me

[DrSlump]

Falkentyne:
I've tested your settings and they does not produce good results to me.
My memory modules are designed to work@2.0-2.1V, and even @2.15V, they becomes really hot.
Seems like there is a phisical limitation of my mainboard that prevent to use all four slots without problems. In the other hand i see that most people uses 4 bank config without any problem, even with their quad g0 overclocked @3Ghz and more, with no voltage triks.
So i got two questions:
1) Is there a bios version that works better with 4 banks?
2) Is there a tecnical explanation of the 4 banks problem?

(P.s. I removed two stiks from the black slots and now i'm going @3Ghz. I've launched 4 sessions of super 32M pi: two of terminated with not exact in round result so, maybe, maybe the problem is not only the four banks but olso a bit unluky cpu..??)

[HitMaker]

You don&#180;t need 2.2v for vdimm.... i'd running a E6400@3200Mhz (400 fsb) with the ram at 800Mhz CL4-4-4-10 withou ANY problem with 2v and vMCH 1.65v when i had the P5W DH Deluxe....

[DrSlump]

You don´t need 2.2v for vdimm.... i'd running a E6400@3200Mhz (400 fsb) with the ram at 800Mhz CL4-4-4-10 withou ANY problem with 2v and vMCH 1.65v when i had the P5W DH Deluxe....

Interesting. So the component liable to the system instability should be my cpu, isn't it?

[vetrelec]

I'm having trouble understanding you, no offense.
Your BIOS detects the L2 at 0 KB? Yes or No ?

Hi
BIOS detect L2 cache 6144KB,right.My problem is that EIST not work.I enable it on BIOS but after restart not works and when i restart again and check BIOS its disabled again.This make CPU running all time full speed 3GHZ and not slow it under WIN enviroment.CPU ratio modify is disabled.This is my problem,hope uderstand

[w2richwood]

Interesting. So the component liable to the system instability should be my cpu, isn't it?

could be the rev of your board rev. 1-2s arent as good as 3-4
Rich

[DrSlump]

could be the rev of your board rev. 1-2s arent as good as 3-4
Rich

My board revision is 1.03

[w2richwood]

thats good then
Rich

[Falkentyne]

Falkentyne:
I've tested your settings and they does not produce good results to me.
My memory modules are designed to work@2.0-2.1V, and even @2.15V, they becomes really hot.
Seems like there is a phisical limitation of my mainboard that prevent to use all four slots without problems. In the other hand i see that most people uses 4 bank config without any problem, even with their quad g0 overclocked @3Ghz and more, with no voltage triks.
So i got two questions:
1) Is there a bios version that works better with 4 banks?
2) Is there a tecnical explanation of the 4 banks problem?

(P.s. I removed two stiks from the black slots and now i'm going @3Ghz. I've launched 4 sessions of super 32M pi: two of terminated with not exact in round result so, maybe, maybe the problem is not only the four banks but olso a bit unluky cpu..??)

DrSlump:
I only suggested my settings to determine if it was the RAM/stress on the MCH that might be causing the issue. I should have suggested removing 2 sticks as well, but you already got to that So indeed it's something else holding you back.

In my experience, using 4 sticks of memory ALWAYS limits your FSB considerably (even more so on the FSB limited 975x), but you seem to have a different issue. I hope you can get it solved.

[whoodiestyle]

Can anyone help me and tell me how I set up raid0 on this? I just bought another 150gb raptor and want to install vista but I cant even get the board to detect the drives. Got them plugged in the ez_raid1 and ez_raid2??




hmm never mind I think I got it working now was looking at the wrong things in the manual