Official ASUS X38 Boards: P5E, P5E3 - Info/BIOS Thread

[aiya_au]

Does any1 have probs running PC8500 memory on there P5E? the other week mine wouldn't boot with G.Skill 1066MHz ram's and seeing as it was a week old I took it back to the shop. They told me it's a issue Asus have with 1066MHz ram and I should use 800MHz sticks. Totally unacceptable from them lol.

So I got home, put it back in the case with my g.skill and it booted. But it keeps regularly not posting, which requires me to remove the video card and ram cooler to remove the battery to reset the bios, putting in 1 stick of 800MHz, booting then putting the 1066 back in.

I'm going to return it again in the next few days, as it says on the Asus site it supports 1066MHz, but the shop told me it doesn't.

I dunno whether or not to ask for a different brand board, ie: Gigabyte, if Asus have these issues.

my crucial ballistix tracer 8500 fail memtest at stock speeds, even at 500mhz 5-5-5-15 (slower than stock speeds). People on the asus forums have the same problem as well. my ram is 12hours memtest stable on my bro's Asus P5K 1394.

so i would wait for a new bios from asus.

[purecain]

i cant believe that i missed this development with the p5e....
only last night when switching from vista to xp did i noticed some slow down and some instability with the os.....
this worried me as the machine had been perfectly stable for over 6months and was only running at 3.6gig....
my ram was at 1008mhz @2.2v with 4.4.4.12.... i knew this board overvolted the ram but didnt notice any build up of excessive heat...
i restarted the pc for it not to boot....

after sitting there for a good 20 minutes wondering what was wrong and checking my loop for leaks i realised that the ram and north bridge were still extremely hot to the touch....
i then took out all but one stick of ram and the system booted...
i used memtest and it passed... i then added the other sticks one by one, untill i installed the fourth which unfortunatly did not pass the first 30 seconds of the first test.... i then restarted only to get a black screen...
i had to take out all the memory barring one stick for it to boot upon which i added more volts to the north bridge, considering that could be the cause of the errors with all four sticks installed.

unfortunatly this was not the case and this morning two of my D9 GMH pc8500 are dead...
but after reading the prior posts i'm not so sure...
i've bought another 4gb set which should be here tommorow, i'll let you know how i get on...
i'm also going to revert to an earlier bios version as this could of caused these issues....
i hope someone else is able to come up with a solution... i know i'm trying...

[Master Farkha]

Let me give you guys my story and how I ultimately got it to work....

I went through 3 pairs of pc2-6400 ballistix on my p5e...first pair both burned out after 1 week...1 stick out of my second pair burned out after 1 day....And this was with NO OVERCLOCKING, NOTHING ZILCH NADA...just stock settings and stock volts (2.2)...

Got my third pair and plopped them in and decreased my volts to 1.96 (2.2v asus suite) and they ran fine @ stock...pushed them to 950 MHZ (150 MHZ overclock) at 5-5-5-15 settings and memtested overnight..perfect (2 weeks now)

I find it hard to belive that 2 pairs came defective..so the board has to have overvolted by a crap load (2.2V bios = close to 3V asus suite) or these sticks are very sensitive to a ~.05V overvolt (previous poster says he used a multimeter to record the voltage and said its overvolt is ~.05V)

So either these sticks are ultra sensitive to a .05V increase or P5E really overvolts the RAM...Try lowering your volts and see how you do

[necron66]

The G.Skill PC8500 is fine, it passed 5 1/2 hours of memtest v2.0 last night in my DS3P.

I am starting to believe it is a issue either with my board and this speed ram, or just the P5E in general.

Actually reading thru the last few posts I am starting to wonder if 601 bios could have caused this.

Asus P5E Bios 0601 loaded from file using the update thing that is on the cd left me with a 12 day old non posting board :\

-E- Turns out to be not BIOS related somehow.

This was when I returned it to the shop, only to be told to use 800MHz ram.

[godsfist]

I'm inclined to believe Asus AI Suite

The only setting that my Crucial Ballistix 8500 will pass Memtest in is 1.96v in the bios which reads 2.2v in Windows Asus AI Suite

[aiya_au]

-snip-
I find it hard to belive that 2 pairs came defective..so the board has to have overvolted by a crap load (2.2V bios = close to 3V asus suite) or these sticks are very sensitive to a ~.05V overvolt (previous poster says he used a multimeter to record the voltage and said its overvolt is ~.05V)

So either these sticks are ultra sensitive to a .05V increase or P5E really overvolts the RAM...Try lowering your volts and see how you do

i have also found greater stability with ~1.94v even though memtest fails, windows is fine. 2.1v (in bios) i would get constant BSOD's.

[lowtcell]

I'm at 2.06 in Bios and AI Suite is reading 2.450 Volts. 2X2GB G-Skill DDR2-1000PQ is 100% stable @ 1066 going on 2 months now, so either AI Suite is way off or the G-Skill is a beast

[Envydia007]

I am about to RMA my brand new 2X1GB Ballistix, it failed memtest after 20 minutes, so most likely nothing is wrong with this RAM? I am currently using my old Geil DDR2-1000.

[aiya_au]

I am about to RMA my brand new 2X1GB Ballistix, it failed memtest after 20 minutes, so most likely nothing is wrong with this RAM? I am currently using my old Geil DDR2-1000.

memtest would fail within 10mins for me. i was about to send it off for warranty until i read about the problems people were having on the asus forums and decided to test the ram on my bro's comp. memtest86+ was completely stable. i would try testing your ram in another motherboard before sending it off for warranty. apparantly bios's released after 107 (i think) have caused ram issues.

but too bad the only bios that supports the E8400 is 0502 and 0601

some guy on the asus forums seems to think running the latest version of memtest 2.0 fixes his problem. i'll try it tonight and see if i pass it. have a read here. hmm also a little interesting read that may answer the memory instabilities with this board, read here.

it seems most the problems are comming from the Micron D9GMH Chip

[purecain]

make sure you disable legacy usb in the bios... this is whats causing the the errors on good ram... according to yellowbeard...

unfortunatly its no help to me as i have well and truely fried my d9's.. i have 2x2gb sticks arriving tommorow so i'll be able to see if the mem slots on my board are faulty aswell...

cant wait for tommorow when the ram arrives....

[EagleRock]

not very good news for some 1 who ordered this mobo from 2 days and i have 4 sticks of supertalent T800UX2GC4
the mobo should be here by tomorrow ill report back

[Psycho_eddie]

Seems ASUS P5E overvolts ram quite abit!

1.96V Bios - 2.2V actual

2.04V Bios - 2.4V Actual


Had my old Ram @ 2.1V bios and wondered why they could fry Eggs on them was 2.55V actual from that bios setting!!

Currently trying to get New ram

PC10000 - 5-5-5-18 @ 2.4V

AI-Suite is Bogus or realistic? makes sense but no Vdim readout in bios so??

[Psycho_eddie]

Asus IT suite is incorect,

Setting bios to match Asus IT suite gave me unstable speeds for 1250Mhz

But setting 2.4V in bios lets me have stable 1250 5-5-5-18


If overvolt contiued to jump 0.1V actual per 0.04V bios then @ 2.4V bios my sticks would be 3V+ easy thus be dead instantly or stupidly hot but they are not

Asus AI suite no longer works under these settings validity somewhat lessend

[necron66]

Where does AI suit tell vDIMM for the P5E? I can't find any programs to get a windows reading on anything but vCore , 3v / 5v / 12v .

Psycho_eddie, how do get the 'Actual' readings? I got a DMM the other day and will try to measure mine soon.

[screwtech02]

So, it is confirmed that this board overvolts the ram, by amost a full volt above actuall setting???

[Cranox]

I measure Vdimm here

[aiya_au]

I measure Vdimm here
-snip-

and what were your results?

[mngdew]

I have 4x1Gb of Kingston HyperX PC8500 (bought two packs of 2x1gb at a local Frys for $85 each). It's running great at 900mhz, 4-4-4-12 with 2.1V. I tried 1066mhz and it needed 2.3V~2.4V to be stable.

Does any1 have probs running PC8500 memory on there P5E? the other week mine wouldn't boot with G.Skill 1066MHz ram's and seeing as it was a week old I took it back to the shop. They told me it's a issue Asus have with 1066MHz ram and I should use 800MHz sticks. Totally unacceptable from them lol.

So I got home, put it back in the case with my g.skill and it booted. But it keeps regularly not posting, which requires me to remove the video card and ram cooler to remove the battery to reset the bios, putting in 1 stick of 800MHz, booting then putting the 1066 back in.

I'm going to return it again in the next few days, as it says on the Asus site it supports 1066MHz, but the shop told me it doesn't.

I dunno whether or not to ask for a different brand board, ie: Gigabyte, if Asus have these issues.

[mngdew]

So, it is confirmed that this board overvolts the ram, by amost a full volt above actuall setting???

1.96V in the bios equals to 2.2V actual (according to ASUS Ai Suite)

[mngdew]

Is that one you installed the latest version from ASUS site?

Where does AI suit tell vDIMM for the P5E? I can't find any programs to get a windows reading on anything but vCore , 3v / 5v / 12v .

Psycho_eddie, how do get the 'Actual' readings? I got a DMM the other day and will try to measure mine soon.

[mngdew]

I have no problem with my ram stability with the legacy usb turned on.

make sure you disable legacy usb in the bios... this is whats causing the the errors on good ram... according to yellowbeard...

unfortunatly its no help to me as i have well and truely fried my d9's.. i have 2x2gb sticks arriving tommorow so i'll be able to see if the mem slots on my board are faulty aswell...

cant wait for tommorow when the ram arrives....

[situman]

Just a word of warning, do not use the latest beta bios 0601 for the P5E. Anything other than stock becomes unstable. 0502 is working great.

[STaRGaZeR]

Guys, the board is NOT overvolting RAM. AI Suite is wrong, and I'll tell you why

Let's see the different steps we have in BIOS to enter vDimm:

1.80 1.82 1.84 1.86 1.88 1.90 1.92 1.94 1.96 1.98 2.00 etc.

Now let's see what are the steps "available" in AISuite:

1.80 1.85 1.90 1.95 2.00 2.05 2.10 2.15 2.20 2.25 2.30 etc.



So, when you put them closer...

1.80 1.82 1.84 1.86 1.88 1.90 1.92 1.94 1.96 1.98 2.00 etc.

1.80 1.85 1.90 1.95 2.00 2.05 2.10 2.15 2.20 2.25 2.30 etc.

When you select 1.82v in BIOS, AISuite will show 1.85v. If you use 2.00v, it will show 2.30v. Try it with the actual voltage you have selected in BIOS, count the steps in BIOS and then count the steps in AISuite. You'll see that they are the same! So AISuite is not reading vDimm correctly. Also, with the measure point Cranox has posted before, I can confirm this. With 1.80v in BIOS, the actual vDimm is 1.82v. With 2.00, it's 2.03v REAL.

So you can now blame AISuite, the problem is not the board. Very good Asus

[M@ster]

Just a word of warning, do not use the latest beta bios 0601 for the P5E. Anything other than stock becomes unstable. 0502 is working great.

I think you are wrong, i'm using 601 since the it comes out and as you can see:



http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=9332754

It did work great.

[Envydia007]

Guys, the board is NOT overvolting RAM. AI Suite is wrong, and I'll tell you why

Let's see the different steps we have in BIOS to enter vDimm:

1.80 1.82 1.84 1.86 1.88 1.90 1.92 1.94 1.96 1.98 2.00 etc.

Now let's see what are the steps "available" in AISuite:

1.80 1.85 1.90 1.95 2.00 2.05 2.10 2.15 2.20 2.25 2.30 etc.



So, when you put them closer...

1.80 1.82 1.84 1.86 1.88 1.90 1.92 1.94 1.96 1.98 2.00 etc.

1.80 1.85 1.90 1.95 2.00 2.05 2.10 2.15 2.20 2.25 2.30 etc.

When you select 1.82v in BIOS, AISuite will show 1.85v. If you use 2.00v, it will show 2.30v. Try it with the actual voltage you have selected in BIOS, count the steps in BIOS and then count the steps in AISuite. You'll see that they are the same! So AISuite is not reading vDimm correctly. Also, with the measure point Cranox has posted before, I can confirm this. With 1.80v in BIOS, the actual vDimm is 1.82v. With 2.00, it's 2.03v REAL.

So you can now blame AISuite, the problem is not the board. Very good Asus

Nice work man, so you are saying I am actually undervolting my RAM? Its rated 2.2 and I set it in bios at 1.96. Lol!