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

[Fearlessleader]

I've tried everything

The fans are spinning for 5-6sec, no post, computer shut off and repeat (5-6sec fans spinning no post, switch off...)

(crappy asus) RMA time

Mine does that too after bios but I think the 3rd time it booted Or few times I shut it down after the 2nd time it did that and when it fired up it told me overclock settings failed and let me into bios. Did you try hitting the del key the moment you try to fire it up even before video shows up? Or pull all the add on cards usb printer and just use keyboard video. No Lan bare min start up and clear bios first then pull the bat and wait the 15 min. Replace the bat and make sure the clear jumper has been returned to the normal position. then try booting. If none of this helps you will have to ask someone else because I am out of answers then.
good luck

[sesdave]

I killed my board trying to downgrade my bios

If the flash failed to verify after erasing the EEPROM its RMA time. The chip is soldered on. There are a lots of failed updates using Asus update mainly because you forget to set the o/c setting to defaults before rrunning - I know cos I did the same on an Asus deluxe which is whu I now have a premium as an RMA replacement-so it wasnt all bad -lol. Personnally I would not use Asus update -ever!

[dexx]

whats the verdict with the 0504 bios? Some say it helps and others say its a lemon.

[situman]

If it ain't broke, why take the risk?

[sesdave]

If it ain't broke, why take the risk?

Too true - you are gambling with potentially killing your MB if ithe BIOS doesnt work for your overclock and you have to flash back with the method posted by TinTin. Its not guaranteed to work as it uses Asus update - some of the people RMAing their boards have found out the hard way. I noticed someone on the delux thread tried it and killed his MB too!

Heres a link to the many ways to flash a BIOS for future reference http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/hardw...herboards.html apart from flashing back from 0504 that is -lol!

[Supertim0r]

If the flash failed to verify after erasing the EEPROM its RMA time. The chip is soldered on. There are a lots of failed updates using Asus update mainly because you forget to set the o/c setting to defaults before rrunning - I know cos I did the same on an Asus deluxe which is whu I now have a premium as an RMA replacement-so it wasnt all bad -lol. Personnally I would not use Asus update -ever!

right on

it's dead

[TI66ER]

I still have 0404 on mine,it works fine so screw 0504.

[Fearlessleader]

right on

it's dead

This is just it here going back is just not worth ending up like this for real!

If you flash go forward and always, wait till the verdict is in on the next bios. Or keep spare board and or bios chips badflash helped me out once.

This Asus board kills me with not putting the bios in a socket. The P5k P Is really not such a pearl when it come to layout either. No bios rest button and the Cmos Bat is under the video card. I had to tear half my rig apart just to clear my Cmos when I was getting ready to flash got lucky and did not have to do it again after flashing.

[sesdave]

This Asus board kills me with not putting the bios in a socket. The P5k P Is really not such a pearl when it come to layout either. No bios rest button and the Cmos Bat is under the video card. I had to tear half my rig apart just to clear my Cmos when I was getting ready to flash got lucky and did not have to do it again after flashing.

Not too much of a problem as they are only releasing a new BIOS about every 3 months-lol!
How you getting on with your E6600/E6850 overclocking? If the E6850 is a good chip it should be good for 4.0Ghz plus on this board with the right settings - especially if its an ES. This is a good test example with an E6600 http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=155116

[Fearlessleader]

Not too much of a problem as they are only releasing a new BIOS about every 3 months-lol!
How you getting on with your E6600/E6850 overclocking? If the E6850 is a good chip it should be good for 4.0Ghz plus on this board with the right settings - especially if its an ES. This is a good test example with an E6600 http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=155116

Ya its crazy with them bios releases. We are all being used for R&D and should be on the Asus payroll They love to just put the products out and leave the testing to to us. But it's really better that way, I am sure,there's nobody there that has a clue anyway. Not at least if the tech support team is any indicator of the brain power over there.

Well the E6850 ended up in my wifes MSI P35 Platinium, I just bumped the FSB had it Running in her rig @ 3.3 but had it at 3.6 testing. I took your advise and picked Up a new Yorkfield quad core 2.33 ES 2 X 6 cache 45nm. Seen some other test samples out there doing some nice numbers. I got it for the same guy I that had my last e6850.

Right now I my rig running e6600 running at 3.15 and prime stable had it up to 3.4 for a bit and ran prime for a few hours. I did not like the temps I was seeing so, I am back on the hunt for a new water cool sys. I have been delayed getting wife's rig back so have not had much time for mine. (Remember) *lol* I thought I would let stay right where its at for now and do the new LCS and the Yorky at the same time

Oh BTW that little Program you told me about to make a boot drive. STAY FAR AWAY !!!!! If you hit the wrong button it will eat your c: drive instantly (and it did eat mine on a spare rig I have) and it did not work for me. I got a program like it from HP Works in Vista X64 just fine you just need to set your folder views to show hidden sys files so it can copy the bootsector right from a floppy and that worked great.

I would think it will be a week of so now for me to get back to testing on the Yorky. I think this will get some interest here for real, not many care about clocking up and old E6600 but now a chip that not even released that should be fun!! I got the thing for $100 to boot. I saw the CPUZ shots at 3.2 running cool and pretty low voltage but off the top of my head don't remember to numbers, just the fact that I was impressed with its numbers and 15000+ with a 8800gs it did 15000+ 3Dmark 6, So stay tuned. I will post the results and let you all know how that works out.ASAP

[sesdave]

Oh BTW that little Program you told me about to make a boot drive. STAY FAR AWAY !!!!! If you hit the wrong button it will eat your c: drive instantly (and it did eat mine on a spare rig I have) and it did not work for me. I got a program like it from HP Works in Vista X64 just fine you just need to set your folder views to show hidden sys files so it can copy the bootsector right from a floppy and that worked great.

Apologies on the link to the HP utility sure it worked when I used it in winxp. May be the wrong one - I will look into that. Have removed from previous post. So you lucky man - you have your hands on the fabled Yorkfield Quad penryn CPU - Be interested to see how it goes.

[Fearlessleader]

Apologies on the link to the HP utility sure it worked when I used it in winxp. May be the wrong one - I will look into that. Have removed from previous post. So you lucky man - you have your hands on the fabled Yorkfield Quad penryn CPU - Be interested to see how it goes.

Yes I do as a matter a fact!! it has been shipped and is on its way. I am also working on get my water Sys too. right this very moment I am tring to cut a deal with a guy to get a Koolance INX-720 I have a Chieftec Dragon Server Case and this units were born to go in this case so I thought it would look great. I am sure there is better units out there but this should be a far cry better then this TT Tribe toy I am using.

The guy I get my chips from told I would have to moniter my CPU temp with a probe because there is something about the current temp sensor on the chip that most or all of the new boards has issues reading, so I guess I will use some good thermal adhesive to attach my sensor that I have or use the one from the Koolance unit to monitor my temps.

My worry is that it works with this p5k P with the 404 bios and I hope I don't need to use a beta bios to get it up and running. Have you heard anything about it? Any info on this would be a great help. I hope I did not step right Sh*t with this one but it was cheap so how bad can be?

[nightrhyme]

So I just build a new pc around Asus p5k Premium and has been reading through this thread. Disturbing info. I still have 7 days to return my motherboard if it's really important.

Have been testing the ICH9 controller. I only have one SATA 2 drive:WD7500AAKS. I installed it as AHCI succesfully in winxp 32bit and Vista 64bit. No eventviewer warnings. Runs perfect.

So I wanted to test the raid config. Borrowed 2 wd800jd Sata 2 drives and enabled RAID in bios. Booted and configured stripe Raid0 and tried installing winxp 32bit.

However the problem is that my sytem refuses to boot of any winxp installation CD (I have several). The CD spins up but it doesn't start booting. The cursor in upper left corner just sits there blinking and nothing happens ?
What could be causing this. I would really like test if raid works on my p5k.

If I change setting in bios to ACHI it boots just fine on winxp installation CD..

Anything I missed ?

Any helpful comments will be much appreciated....

Thanx in advance

[Fearlessleader]

Just give it some patiance this is a great board, (P5K P). If you overclocking nothing with a P35 chip set can run with it. There has been some issues with onboard raid, but I think bios update 504 has fixed it for most but some have been reporting a bit of memory overclock loss with bios 504 and wanting to stay with 404. The Issues with raid comes with sata 2 drives only SATA 1 is fine and if I was doing raid drive for my OS using the onboard raid, I would only use a pair of raptor 150 drives and they are sata 1 there for no issue. Also No need then for ACHI you can just leave it IDE from what I have read. I only use a Single Raptor 150 myself for my OS work with everything, I also don't think raid is faster for your OS and more of a pain then its worth. Raid if for large data read and fasted through put and a bit slow for access times. Your OS has no large file transfer just lots of reads and write and lots of fast access, One Raptor will get the job done.

Now putting any kind of raid for storage on a onboard raid controller is really not smart ever because if you ever want to make a board change chances are you will lose your data.

SO since your using drives not your own for testing, and save yourself the time and effort. I would say get yourself a pair of Raptors 74 GB 16 MB buffer or 150 GB no one has issues with them remember there SATA 1 but don't let that make you think anything on the planet is faster or more dependable Raptors rule and the rest drool!!

I have 2 arrays in my rig for storage both on PCI cards one sata 2 with Promise TX2300 and the other on a old Silicon Image IDE both have not given me troubles both are strip raid but not set bootable, so I just always leave them unpluged when doing installes. I have seen many troubles with installes of Vista if you have any drive connected at install that is dynamic drive. Vista Freaks on that stuff even if you have Ultimate because of the multi install DVD that Vista uses. I spent hours on the phone with MS before I found that out on my own. MS tech is Crap!! but I thought I would give it a try for gins and gigles.

There are lots more guys in here to give you a hand with the raid set up that have been wiill to deal with the isssue caused more by the P35 chip set I believe. A RMA is not really needed in your case but wait a bit for some of the other here Members to help you out for sure on that.

Peace

[nightrhyme]

Thanx for reply

Sorry if my last post was a little unclear. I'm not looking to get a raid setup. Was just testing for a pal who also has p5k premium. He gets BSODs if he tries to install any sort of raid on the ich9 controller. Just doing it to test/provoke the ich9 controller to verify if it is buggy as I have read SO many threads about.

My own drive is the WD7500AAKS + some WD ide's on a promise controller.
Just discovered that it was the promise controller that somehowe confused the ích9 controller. Removed it and now everything runs perfect in Raid0

Funny thing though that any winxp install disk will load with all other BIOS settings except Raid Luckily I only need AHCI.

/Topic Change/

Would sure love some overclocking advice.

My system is:
P5K Black Pearl
C2D E6850
4Gb Crucial Ballistix pc8500
Asus Geforce 8800gts (G92)
WD7500AAKS

Thanx for Reading

[Fearlessleader]

Thanx for reply

Sorry if my last post was a little unclear. I'm not looking to get a raid setup. Was just testing for a pal who also has p5k premium. He gets BSODs if he tries to install any sort of raid on the ich9 controller. Just doing it to test/provoke the ich9 controller to verify if it is buggy as I have read SO many threads about.

My own drive is the WD7500AAKS + some WD ide's on a promise controller.
Just discovered that it was the promise controller that somehowe confused the ích9 controller. Removed it and now everything runs perfect in Raid0

Funny thing though that any winxp install disk will load with all other BIOS settings except Raid Luckily I only need AHCI.

/Topic Change/

Would sure love some overclocking advice.

My system is:
P5K Black Pearl
C2D E6850
4Gb Crucial Ballistix pc8500
Asus Geforce 8800gts (G92)
WD7500AAKS

Thanx for Reading

Overclocking on this board is real easy untill you get over about 380 or 390 FSB, Then I had to drop my CPU multi and then you start to run into that doublle pump boot that plaugue most P35 chip sets. But anyway I think what your looking for is the basics http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overc...s-p5k-add.html This guide will show all the the able disable things for this board. Which ends up just about disabling everything. Its always best to look up a guide for the mainbaord your using like the guide I gave you the link for.

But first get yourself some good CPU cooling something Like the Tuniq Tower 120 for air and water do your home work there is to many options out there to cover and everybody will have there own likes and dislikes, But names like Koolance, Swifteck and Asetek are all great stuff.

After you read this guide I think you will be on your way to basic overclocking.

First Download The basic tools of the trade. Speedfan Nice tool to watch them temps!!! Stay under 60c on the CPU during Prime testing when you start Real important!!!Memtest CD iso, Prime64 Prime95 or orthos. Know your memory basic timing Like (5-5-5-15 and its safe voltage) Moslty its on the manufacturer web site
Step 1 Good CPU Cooling
Step 2 abe disable check list in bios
Step 3 Setting up your memory timings and voltage, testing you memory to know how fast it will run. Testing with memtest
Step 4 pushing the FSB up and using memory dividers and such. (mostly you can bump the FSB 50 or so real easy mostly if you have any kind of good memory or use that memory Divider
Step 5 Tweaking Voltage and and Memory timing

And all along the way lots of testing with Memtest at first and then later when you push the FSB Prime testing in Widows.

Time and patience is the most of it and lots of reading. Its not as hard as it sounds. Google is your best friend. This forum has great members and for me they always seem to help out when I get stuck.

Good Luck

[stepinrazor]

I got an 8400 a few days ago and have been playing with it. Have it overclocked and prime stable @4.04x445FSB on BIOS 0504. The problem are my temps in PC Probe and Core Temp seem really hot. When I touch the heatsink it's warm, so not sure if the P5K Premium has problems reporting the new wolfdale temps correctly, anyone else have this problem?

Default (3GZ) my idle temps are are:
Coretemp 47
PC Probe 29 *18 Less than Coretemp

Load temps with Prime95 (small fft)
Coretemp 63
PC Probe 48 *15 less than Coretemp

Overclocked:

FSB Strap 333
FSB 445
DRAM 891 4x1GB Kingston HyperX 1066
CPU 1.3250 V
CPU PLL 1.50 V
FSB 1.1 V
DRAM 1.8 V
NB 1.25 V
SB 1.05 V

Idle temps are are:
Coretemp 50
PC Probe 33 *17 Less than Coretemp

Load temps with Prime95 (small fft)
Coretemp 76!
PC Probe 62! *14 less than Coretemp

[Fearlessleader]

Is your 8400 Wolfdale A retail or a ES sample? I just bought a yorkie 2.33 ES and I was told that temp would have to be read with a thermal probe? Have you tried that to verifiy temps?

[TinTin]

For those who updated BIOS but failed with NO BOOT, did you try to insert the CDROM disc came with the box into your CDROM? It should recover the BIOS to the old BIOS with the CDROM.

[sesdave]

For those who updated BIOS but failed with NO BOOT, did you try to insert the CDROM disc came with the box into your CDROM? It should recover the BIOS to the old BIOS with the CDROM.

Crashfree recovery is worth a try if the BIOS is Corrupt but it aint going to work if the EEPROM has been erazed cos the MB wont post if it has. It will be dead as a DODO!

[sesdave]

So I just build a new pc around Asus p5k Premium and has been reading through this thread. Disturbing info. I still have 7 days to return my motherboard if it's really important.

Have been testing the ICH9 controller. I only have one SATA 2 drive:WD7500AAKS. I installed it as AHCI succesfully in winxp 32bit and Vista 64bit. No eventviewer warnings. Runs perfect.

So I wanted to test the raid config. Borrowed 2 wd800jd Sata 2 drives and enabled RAID in bios. Booted and configured stripe Raid0 and tried installing winxp 32bit.

However the problem is that my sytem refuses to boot of any winxp installation CD (I have several). The CD spins up but it doesn't start booting. The cursor in upper left corner just sits there blinking and nothing happens ?
What could be causing this. I would really like test if raid works on my p5k.

If I change setting in bios to ACHI it boots just fine on winxp installation CD..

Anything I missed ?

Any helpful comments will be much appreciated....

Thanx in advance

I take it you did set CDROM as boot drive in BIOS ? is it an IDE DVD? if it is try connecting it to the Jmicron and set that to IDE. Better still buy a SATA dvd=lol! If you do consider running RAID check this out for getting the best setup/speed from your hard drives. Raptors not required http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=467848 That stats look great when you run HD tach or HD tune. Speed for free!

[stepinrazor]

Is your 8400 Wolfdale A retail or a ES sample? I just bought a yorkie 2.33 ES and I was told that temp would have to be read with a thermal probe? Have you tried that to verifiy temps?

It's a Retail chip and I dont have any kind of thermal probe. But the heatsink is just warm to the touch and doesnt feel like the reported temps.

My buddy has a P5K-E with a wolfdale and he is also seeing similar temps at overclocked speeds. Someone with a Premium has to have a wolfdale, anyone?

[Supertim0r]

yes, I have 2x E8400

they run cool : 24-25c idle, 50-55 load with 1.45v

[stepinrazor]

yes, I have 2x E8400

they run cool : 24-25c idle, 50-55 load with 1.45v

SuperTimor what BIOS are you running? I'm running 0504 and wondering if it's the new bios

[Fearlessleader]

SuperTimor what BIOS are you running? I'm running 0504 and wondering if it's the new bios

I have noticed that some temp programs read different when I updated the mainboard drivers. Some show higher temps and some lower. I also notice my CPU temp runnning about 10C warmer when I went from 102 bios to the 404 bios and that I think was because the default Cpu voltage went from about 1.3 default to 1.35 default but it won't let me set it any lower. Since I am still at default now there was no way to see if my CPU could run on the lower voltage at the same clock. I don't know if any of this helps. It was just a few things I have seen.