ASUS P5W DH - Problems + Fixes Thread

[Random Murderer]

Yeah stay away from 4gig gskill crap with p5w. They need high trfc to run at rated speeds. Cant see why its so hard for them to test it and not just stick 975 chipset compatibile sticker on it. What a pain.

can you say "fanboyism?"
i'm running 4 gigs of g.skill and have been for over a year without any problems, in fact it has been running way over spec.

[Xeon Zombie]

can you say "fanboyism?"
i'm running 4 gigs of g.skill and have been for over a year without any problems, in fact it has been running way over spec.

Lots of us are somewhat, or even overly, "brand loyal". G.Skill makes some really good memory, and some so-so memory.

However there are very few people I know of that would choose G.Skill over Corsair XMS if $$ is not the issue.

G.Skill works great (usually) but you get what you pay for. Anytime I have been able to push G.Skill modules over spec, I feel lucky. When I get Corsair modules to do it, I feel like I got what I was expecting.

Corsair > G.Skill anyday, but would never knock a guy for using G.Skill, I guess it's just a personal preference.

[mikepaul]

However there are very few people I know of that would choose G.Skill over Corsair XMS if $$ is not the issue.

...

G.Skill works great (usually) but you get what you pay for. Anytime I have been able to push G.Skill modules over spec, I feel lucky. When I get Corsair modules to do it, I feel like I got what I was expecting.

So when I only got an extra 10Mhz out of those Corsair XMS sticks I bought, was that just hard luck or was that all I should have been expecting?...

[Xeon Zombie]

So when I only got an extra 10Mhz out of those Corsair XMS sticks I bought, was that just hard luck or was that all I should have been expecting?...

Look, I am not trying to start an argument here on this... Corsair XMS generally OC's like a beast.

If you know the P5W DH very well, then you are aware of the issues it has when OCing with 4 dimms.

Slap those puppies in a modern chipset and you may see different results.

G.Skill is a great company, but they DO NOT have the reputation of Corsair. That is basically what I was getting at in my earlier post. G.Skill OC's pretty well, but I feel like I took a chance on a company that was still an "off-brand" as of '06 and it paid off. If I OC Corsair, I feel like I got what I paid for - Corsair's long reputation of high quality.

It's hardly fanboyizm. G.Skill (stateside) are still new kids on the block. They are cheap, and they OC well, so they are usually a good buy for the budget overclocker. If there is no budget constraint, then most folks will go with a more well known brand name, such as Corsair, OCZ, or Crucial. How many legitimately "High End" rigs do you see running G.Skill??? It's something like wearing an Armani suit with a tie you bought at Wal-Mart. The tie may be nice, but it's out of place, and detracts from the look.

- If you are having issues OC'ing 4GB of ram on this board, you should look at a 2x2GB configuration, or even try running 2x1GB and see if your results change. Could be a variety of things inhibiting your OC, but I doubt it's the Corsair modules that are well known for OC'ing beyond spec.

Also, I just noticed you're running a CPU that has just very recently become supported on this board. A board, mind you, that was built for Pentium 4's and D's, with Conroe in mind - not built for Conroe with Yorfield in mind. That would be a P35. A P35/X38/X48 should not have an issue supporting the OC you are looking for. The 975X seems to be your limiting factor, not the RAM, or the CPU. - Remember that this board was not designed for these new 45nm CPU's, support for them is being added as an afterthought. 65nm supported out of the box, and even 1333 support "When CPU's supporting 1333fsb are available", didn't see anything about 45nm quad-cores on the packaging.

Good luck with your OC, but I wouldn't expect miracles from this board if you keep using the Q9450, even the Q6600 is a tough egg to crack on this board.

[mikepaul]

If you know the P5W DH very well, then you are aware of the issues it has when OCing with 4 dimms.

No argument intended. And that 410 was with E6300 and 2GB where 411 failed Orthos.

4GB's issue was abandoning 1:1 for whatever still booted. I even had to pull RAM out to get it to POST properly if 1:1 was used with 4GB inside.

I just wondered if 800Mhz XMS was intended to go higher but some batches were bad, or if getting 10Mhz out of it was lucky...

[Xeon Zombie]

I just wondered if 800Mhz XMS was intended to go higher but some batches were bad, or if getting 10Mhz out of it was lucky...

Sorry if I misunderstood, It's been a long day already, and I'll be leaving the office no time soon, lol.

Depends on what kind you get... I have had awesome success with my most recent kit (800MHz 4-4-4-12) They run just fine at 1000MHz 5-5-5-15, which is a pretty monster OC.

The non-SLI variety, I think they're rated for 5-5-5-12 ( I may be wrong) do not OC as well.

You should definitely be able to get more out of the 4-4-4-12 version. I am really suprised at the 10MHz increase. I am thinking it is related to something else. (poor BIOS support for the processor, etc.) Do you have another system you can test them in?

[mikepaul]

You should definitely be able to get more out of the 4-4-4-12 version. I am really suprised at the 10MHz increase. I am thinking it is related to something else. (poor BIOS support for the processor, etc.) Do you have another system you can test them in?

Nope. And again, 10Mhz was established a long time back now. I just ran with what worked best, then when adding the extra 2GB forced me back from 1:1 I just sucked it up and hoped the extra RAM helped.

Now with the Q9450, currently underclocked to 2Ghz to keep it from crashing, I see I need all the help I can get. WinAVI uses 4 cores when converting MPEG-2 to WMV, apparently ONLY if all 4 are really empty when it starts. Kaspersky's rootkit scan had already started on its daily schedule, and I saw that WInAVI was barely hitting 9 frames per second. So thinking it'd pick up the pace if I killed the scan, I did that and now see one lousy core doing all the work with a vague rumble on the other 3. No sign that WinAVI is capable of looking at the current status of the machine and rethreading if the coast is clear.

So it looks like I have to check the Process list every time I want to do something intense, and if the coast is clear I can kick off a Power Application like WinAVI. Otherwise I end up waiting longer than I ever expected after $300 and (still ongoing) work getting my 4 cores. Nearly 30 frames per second during the few days 2.66Ghz ran right.

ASUS Tech Support wrote back, saying they don't know when a better BIOS for a Q9450 is due. Seems like they could have gotten word from the developers, if they all worked for the same company and the company actually cared. Must not work that way.

At least now I cut the rootkit scan back to every 4 days to balance paranoia against hardware flaws...

[Khalmyr]

No argument intended. And that 410 was with E6300 and 2GB where 411 failed Orthos.

4GB's issue was abandoning 1:1 for whatever still booted. I even had to pull RAM out to get it to POST properly if 1:1 was used with 4GB inside.

I just wondered if 800Mhz XMS was intended to go higher but some batches were bad, or if getting 10Mhz out of it was lucky...

I had the same problem

2 x 1Gb Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400 v5.1 or v5.2. had VERY CRAPPY Promos ICs.

They did 800mhz 4-4-4-12 1.8v and wouldn't do 850mhz 5-5-5-18 2.2v stable.

So glad i got rid of those.

Only after i had that problem, i decided to look on those modules and found out it was common knowledge they're very poor overclockers

[Xeon Zombie]

Only after i had that problem, i decided to look on those modules and found out it was common knowledge they're very poor overclockers

Can't win them all. I did a lot of research when I bought my most recent kit, so much so that I was torn between Corsair and Crucial.

I bought both

After benching them, I found the Corsair OC'd a bit better, so I am now selling the Crucial on craigslist, LOL.

Still, 800MHz @ 4-4-4-12 is great, if you do not plan to exceed a 400MHz FSB (1600MHz QDR)

In fact, I bet if you underclocked them a touch, you could actually tighten the timings a little more.

You will see little/ no performance difference with them underclocked at tighter timings (like 3-3-3-8, if you can pull it off with those sticks)

- I have been burned a few times in the past, even by well known name brands. While OC'ing is never (or rarely) a guarantee, it sucks when you buy an item thinking it will help you get to that next level, and then it turns out to be dog turds.

P.S. - NICE mobo... I was eyeballing the DS3's for a build I am working on for my girlfriend. They're colorful, that's why she likes 'em.

I like 'em because they use all solid caps, and OC like a Banshee!