***OFFICIAL Asus P5K-E/WiFi Thread

[CrazyNutz]

Just bought a P5K-E from Newegg last week. It shipped with 0906 BIOS, I'm currently running at these settings:

FSB: 434 x 9 =3.9Ghz
vcore: 1.3875 (bios), in windows reads 1.28 (vdrop = .1, no vdroop at all)
everything on auto
except
vdimm: 2.1v
dram settings: 4-5-5-15

I have 2 problems.
1st, I can't seem to get it stable at 4Ghz, at least at under 1.4v in BIOS which is the max I want to give it.

2nd, and this is the biggie. I have sound popping, cracking noise.
I though maybe it was an issue with my old Audigy LS pci soundcard, so I tried the onboard soundmax & had the same issue. So I thought maybe the PCI bus was "dirty" and had some issue with signal distortion, etc.. So I got a X-Fi PCIe card and I'm still getting the popping noise. I tried using my speakers, headphones, etc... still the same issue. WTF, could it be that would affect 3 different soundcards? (Audigy PCI card, onboard Soundmax, and X-Fi PCIe card)

Could it been my powersupply or something supplying a dirty power signal?

Upgrade bios to 1004, or 1006 ( you can find them here ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5K-E/ )

Disable all Spread Spectrum

Enable Load-Line Calibration (Will get rid of most of your vdrop)

Bump your NB voltage up to 1.55 or 1.70 and SB to 1.20

This Should get you where you want to be.

As for the audio problem there could be a number of reasons here are a few that come to mind:

1. Some other device/s sharing resources (irq and/or mem i/o addr's) with your sound device and not playing fair (USB, SATA controller, etc..).

2. Other devices firing interrupts at an uncontrolled fast rate, will greatly
increase the bus latency, witch is a common cause of pops, and crackles.

I would just try the process of elimination, remove devices until it stops,
USB devices, pci cards etc.. then go from there.

[Zeus]

Do you really think NB voltage needs a bump?

I'm wondering cause i did this with NB voltage set at auto:



I know it's only a couple of minutes but if the NB is unstable it should crap out in these few minutes i think.

I haven't messed around much with gtl voltage yet, running prime is so frustrating when it pukes after half an hour or so.

Will try more but not now.

[TheOnlyBaD]

hello guys i recently bought my computer (specs in sig) its everything stock i didnt change anything. i want to make my q6600 go 3-3,2 ghz but since im an aprendice at overclocking could someone give me a configuration of bios?
and wich bios to use? how to upgrade it?

thank you

[Resurgence]

Do you really think NB voltage needs a bump?

I'm wondering cause i did this with NB voltage set at auto:

I know it's only a couple of minutes but if the NB is unstable it should crap out in these few minutes i think.

I haven't messed around much with gtl voltage yet, running prime is so frustrating when it pukes after half an hour or so.

Will try more but not now.

OMG

Beautiful score!!!
Which are your adjustments?
I do not manage to reach 440 of the fsb stable one! which bios use you?

[NINaudio]

Holy hell! I "upgraded" to Bios 1004 and put an e8400 in. I'm having all kinds of issues.

First I can't boot with the team ram at all. I get the endless black screen, no matter which ram slots I try with one stick or the voltage I use.

Second, I can boot with corsair value ram, but not in dual channel mode on the black slots. I can only use the black slot closest to the cpu. The yellow slots work fine with the corsair ram.

Third, I can no longer boot with my raid enabled, it tells me that hal.dll is corrupted. I can, however, boot with it disabled.

Fourth, the net connection is slow as hell. It just took me 3 minutes to d/l the 1006 bios at 5.6 kb/sec!

I'm going to see if I have any better luck with 1006. Hopefully if all goes well, I'll be back in a few minutes to report on that.

[tranceaddict]

I just got the Asus P5K-E WIFI and an E8400 and I need some assistance. I am not too familiar with the BIOS options of the ASUS board and was wondering if there is a guide I can be pointed to for help. I really just need to know which are the optimal settings for an OC. In other words, which BIOS options should be ON or OFF. The actual process of OCing and voltages I am pretty comfortable with. Moreover, should I got with the 1006 BIOS, or 1004? Thanks

[CrazyNutz]

Holy hell! I "upgraded" to Bios 1004 and put an e8400 in. I'm having all kinds of issues.

First I can't boot with the team ram at all. I get the endless black screen, no matter which ram slots I try with one stick or the voltage I use.

Second, I can boot with corsair value ram, but not in dual channel mode on the black slots. I can only use the black slot closest to the cpu. The yellow slots work fine with the corsair ram.

Third, I can no longer boot with my raid enabled, it tells me that hal.dll is corrupted. I can, however, boot with it disabled.

Fourth, the net connection is slow as hell. It just took me 3 minutes to d/l the 1006 bios at 5.6 kb/sec!

I'm going to see if I have any better luck with 1006. Hopefully if all goes well, I'll be back in a few minutes to report on that.

Post a link to your SPD, I'll fix it for you, It's not the board.

[CrazyNutz]

Do you really think NB voltage needs a bump?

I'm wondering cause i did this with NB voltage set at auto:



I know it's only a couple of minutes but if the NB is unstable it should crap out in these few minutes i think.

I haven't messed around much with gtl voltage yet, running prime is so frustrating when it pukes after half an hour or so.

Will try more but not now.

Maybe, maybe not, but when I bump mine up it made my overclock a great deal more stable. I think his main problem was he had his vcore set at 1.38
but with the vdrop he was only getting 1.28 or so. Newer bios's 1004, and 1006 dont have very much vdrop if any at all, and Load-line calibration will fix
vdroop for the most part.

[Zeus]

OMG

Beautiful score!!!
Which are your adjustments?
I do not manage to reach 440 of the fsb stable one! which bios use you?

Bios 1006.

Most settings were at auto, except for Vcore and Vdimm, loadline cal. enabled.

Try disabling DRAM static read control, it might help you.

Maybe, maybe not, but when I bump mine up it made my overclock a great deal more stable. I think his main problem was he had his vcore set at 1.38
but with the vdrop he was only getting 1.28 or so. Newer bios's 1004, and 1006 dont have very much vdrop if any at all, and Load-line calibration will fix
vdroop for the most part.

Hmm, will give that a try, i know when runnning 3D mark a bump in NB voltage helps.

[Resurgence]

I hope that the passage to the bios 1006 goes regulated my problem of FSB if not I pass to an old bios like the 0706. And if that does not function, I thrown the p5k-e

[Cwelle]

Flashed 1006. Works fine.

[nobi125]

I'm having trouble getting my Q6600 stable at 3.6ghz (9x400). It's prime stable at 3.2ghz (8x400) with 1.27v, but won't do 3.6ghz with voltage up to 1.47. All other voltages besides ram and cpu are set to auto, loadline calibration is on. Spread spectrums and cpu features are off.

What else do I need to adjust? The FSB is proven stable at 400mhz with a lower multiplier, so the NB and SB should be fine.....or is that not how it works...?

[WeldZilla]

This board and 8400 proceesor seem almost limitless.
Couple the 2 with some G.Skill 6400 HZ and it is sweet.


Only one thing to say to that...


WZ

[pschma]

i am about to have almost same setup, expect i have 4gb GSkill pc-8000.. what speed is your ram at? consider you running 2.36v? i too have a h20 setup.

Atm i cant get past 460 fsb, but i think /HOPE it is the chip holding me back. old chip = e6750, i get my e8400 tomorrow or next.

[WeldZilla]

Check the sig again that is for my P5E.
I am running 2.15V on my P5KE board. I need to update my sig cuz I just installed mt newest memory in the P5E and it is now only putting 2.2 to the mem.

[chrisf6969]

As for the audio problem there could be a number of reasons here are a few that come to mind:

1. Some other device/s sharing resources (irq and/or mem i/o addr's) with your sound device and not playing fair (USB, SATA controller, etc..).

2. Other devices firing interrupts at an uncontrolled fast rate, will greatly
increase the bus latency, witch is a common cause of pops, and crackles.

I would just try the process of elimination, remove devices until it stops,
USB devices, pci cards etc.. then go from there.

Upgraded to 1006 & tried other suggestions, still craps out around 4Ghz. vdrop is only about .02 now vs. .10 before. I guess I got subpar 8400 that just doesn't want to do 4Ghz.

As for the sound, I've tried disabling spread spectrum, changing PCIe speed, unplugging USB mouse & camera, etc. None of that helped.

I've got almost everything disabled in the BIOS (onboard sound, onboard firewire, serial port, etc..) So I though that left the GigaLAN as possible problem. So I tried changing Marvell Yukon's max IRQ requests from 5000 down to 2500, to see if that would make a difference, didn't seem to help. I also manual set it to full duplex 100 (I don't have a giga router). Any other ideas, I'm thinking about RMA'ing the motherboard as I can't think of anything else that could be causing it. I tried 3 different sound cards. (Audigy LS PCI, Soundmax onboard, & X-Fi PCIe)

[MAXLD]

Upgraded to 1006 & tried other suggestions, still craps out around 4Ghz. vdrop is only about .02 now vs. .10 before. I guess I got subpar 8400 that just doesn't want to do 4Ghz.

As for the sound, I've tried disabling spread spectrum, changing PCIe speed, unplugging USB mouse & camera, etc. None of that helped.

I've got almost everything disabled in the BIOS (onboard sound, onboard firewire, serial port, etc..) So I though that left the GigaLAN as possible problem. So I tried changing Marvell Yukon's max IRQ requests from 5000 down to 2500, to see if that would make a difference, didn't seem to help. I also manual set it to full duplex 100 (I don't have a giga router). Any other ideas, I'm thinking about RMA'ing the motherboard as I can't think of anything else that could be causing it. I tried 3 different sound cards. (Audigy LS PCI, Soundmax onboard, & X-Fi PCIe)

Have you tried other multipliers?

I have a E8400 (+ P5K-E) wich is also a bad one for 4GHz and I tried it also in a P5K Premium system with watercooling on it. Nothing really helped.
I'm using mine right now with 4GHz @ 1.41V "cpuz" (1.4375V bios) to keep it barely stable, and with a x8.5 multiplier. At "x9" it's Orthos unstable and I have sound problems too with my X-Fi at that configuration.
I tried also other multipliers but I had no low voltage good results either.
I don't think it's the motherboard, ram or settings, it's just not a good one for overclocking...
With so many good cpus out there, i guess eventually someone have to take the weak ones, it's just bad luck...

[chrisf6969]

Have you tried other multipliers?

I have a E8400 (+ P5K-E) wich is also a bad one for 4GHz and I tried it also in a P5K Premium system with watercooling on it. Nothing really helped.
I'm using mine right now with 4GHz @ 1.41V "cpuz" (1.4375V bios) to keep it barely stable, and with a x8.5 multiplier. At "x9" it's Orthos unstable and I have sound problems too with my X-Fi at that configuration.
I tried also other multipliers but I had no low voltage good results either.
I don't think it's the motherboard, ram or settings, it's just not a good one for overclocking...
With so many good cpus out there, i guess eventually someone have to take the weak ones, it's just bad luck...

I don't think I have a lot of more room left with my ram. So if I drop the multiplier, I'll probably hit a wall with my ram. But I guess I can try that too.

I just tried rearranging all of my wires, speaker wires, etc... in case it was a non-computer related thing, and I think the popping/crackling noise is less! Doh, if it was a non-computer related issue I'll feel stupid, maybe just when I reinstalled everything, the wires are in a place where they're picking up interference?

[bvanaerde]

I just tried rearranging all of my wires, speaker wires, etc... in case it was a non-computer related thing, and I think the popping/crackling noise is less!

offtopic:
I'm thinking the same: my sound system is quite sensitive when it comes to moving the wires. I have placed my woofer on the ground, next to my feet. And when I accidentally pull one of the cables with my feet, the woofer starts to make a humming sound... it can get quite loud too.

[Lil'ManComputer]

I'm having trouble getting my Q6600 stable at 3.6ghz (9x400). It's prime stable at 3.2ghz (8x400) with 1.27v, but won't do 3.6ghz with voltage up to 1.47. All other voltages besides ram and cpu are set to auto, loadline calibration is on. Spread spectrums and cpu features are off.

What else do I need to adjust? The FSB is proven stable at 400mhz with a lower multiplier, so the NB and SB should be fine.....or is that not how it works...?

9x400 != 8x400 for N/B! It can be that the N/B voltage should be raised. What are the other settings? ( pll, fsb termination, pcie/cpu spread spectrum, transaction booster, load line callibration ). How much is the vcore drop?

[nobi125]

9x400 != 8x400 for N/B! It can be that the N/B voltage should be raised. What are the other settings? ( pll, fsb termination, pcie/cpu spread spectrum, transaction booster, load line callibration ). How much is the vcore drop?

Both PCI and CPU Spectrums are off.

PLL and FSB Termination voltage are at auto.

Transaction booster is at auto.

Loadline Calibration is enabled. Vcore is at 1.3 in BIOS, which reads ~1.27 under load in Windows (1.28v idle).

[NINaudio]

bah. my windows install was completely fubarred. I re-installed last night and I have some Ballistix 1066 on its way. Running with the corsair value ram for now...

Any clue why the black slots don't seem to be working?

[Lil'ManComputer]

Both PCI and CPU Spectrums are off.

PLL and FSB Termination voltage are at auto.

Transaction booster is at auto.

Loadline Calibration is enabled. Vcore is at 1.3 in BIOS, which reads ~1.27 under load in Windows (1.28v idle).

Try to set the pll voltage to 1.7V, and raise the fsb termination voltage to( test it on every step, if its enough ). Leave transaction booster on auto. Start with blend test, if it fails, then set the booster to relax level 1, if it fails again then relax level2, and 3. If the blend test runs without errors, then test is with small fft. Is there pencil mod on your board? Which BIOS do you use? The vcore drop can cause instability as well, whith the first BIOSes I had a huge drop, then i did the pencil mod, and with load line calibration there's only 0.01-0.02 left.

[CrazyNutz]

Upgraded to 1006 & tried other suggestions, still craps out around 4Ghz. vdrop is only about .02 now vs. .10 before. I guess I got subpar 8400 that just doesn't want to do 4Ghz.

As for the sound, I've tried disabling spread spectrum, changing PCIe speed, unplugging USB mouse & camera, etc. None of that helped.

I've got almost everything disabled in the BIOS (onboard sound, onboard firewire, serial port, etc..) So I though that left the GigaLAN as possible problem. So I tried changing Marvell Yukon's max IRQ requests from 5000 down to 2500, to see if that would make a difference, didn't seem to help. I also manual set it to full duplex 100 (I don't have a giga router). Any other ideas, I'm thinking about RMA'ing the motherboard as I can't think of anything else that could be causing it. I tried 3 different sound cards. (Audigy LS PCI, Soundmax onboard, & X-Fi PCIe)

Yea, you may have a bad board, RMA may be the way to go.
Good luck

[CrazyNutz]

I'm having trouble getting my Q6600 stable at 3.6ghz (9x400). It's prime stable at 3.2ghz (8x400) with 1.27v, but won't do 3.6ghz with voltage up to 1.47. All other voltages besides ram and cpu are set to auto, loadline calibration is on. Spread spectrums and cpu features are off.

What else do I need to adjust? The FSB is proven stable at 400mhz with a lower multiplier, so the NB and SB should be fine.....or is that not how it works...?

I have found that (for whatever reason) bumping up the NB, and SB voltage
greatly improves the stability of my overclock (BTW I'm only doing 350mhz FSB).
So although the NB/SB itself may not need the extra voltage until you go past
say 400 FSB (or what ever it may be for you particular chipset), the extra NB/SB
voltage is some how improving the stability of the CPU while overclocked. Also
note that Bumping up the PLL, and FSB termination voltage seems to go
hand in hand with bumping up the SB/NB voltage, in other words if your
bumping up NB/SB volts, you should also be bumping up PLL/FSB Term volts
as well.

This is just my experience with my Mobo, and CPU so your mileage may vary.