ASUS P5W DH - Problems + Fixes Thread

[Xeon Zombie]

I have this mbo on my second comp,and I always got NO MASTER HDD press F1 to continue (something like that,dont know exact words) on boot up and everything is working good...How to remove that message?

Go into your boot settings, and there is a setting that says something like 'Halt on error message" just disable it.

[Xeon Zombie]

Do you game in fedora 8? or do you use xp or vista to game in? cause you seem to have quite a sick gaming setup, so i just wondered. Also theres a guy in here with gskill 4gb ram and he runs 4-4-4-4, so is he just lucky or is it also good ram. frys has the 4gb corsair ram for 100 bucks, so yeah i was going to get it today and see how it performs.

I mainly game in Windows, but occasionally play a little TUX or Tetris in Linux

Thanks for the compliment on my rig! It's gaming performance isn't what it used to be, since I stupidly upgrade to a 24" Dell Ultrasharp without considering that my "lowly" 320MB 8800GTS would not be quite enough to max things out anymore.

I am sort of playing it safe for a few weeks, trying to decide if I should go back to AMD and get a 3870 x2, or drop some serious cash on a 9800GX2.

(I am leaning toward Nvidia, as ATI driver for Linux are crap, but it's a tough choice due to the TCO - $$$)

[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?

[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!

[radlord]

Sorry can I just butt in here please and ask a stupid question about memory timings and stuff?

It's just CPU-Z never reports that my RAM is running faster than 333.5mhz and I'd like to get it running faster obviously.

I have 4 gigs of GEIL DDR2-800 RAM and it says the voltage should be set to 2.1v and the timings 4-4-4-12.

I am a total noob to all this, when I switch off 'configure RAM by SPD' in the BIOS there are five settings there, so I'm not sure what to do with the other one once I've put in my four 4-4-4-12 numbers!

Stupid question, but can anyone tell me how to make my RAM work at closer to the speed it's specced at?

I have a 333mhz FSB just now so my E6600 is at 3.0ghz, don't know if that makes a difference.

Cheers.

[t_ski]

I've replaced my P5W-DH with a new board, so the Asus is up for sale if anyone is interested...

[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...

[jimmsch]

1. AI Quiet is disabled, still hangs for what seems a long time, sometimes it also go goes back to the ASUS boot screen after displaying the JMicron details, weird!
2. Done!
3. It beeps in windows, randomly a few times a week
4. I want to RAID0 my current and only 2 Samsung drives (with OS on), where do I plug them in and which drivers do I use? I'm getting confused over the ICH7R and JMicron
5. Can I squeeze any more out of the processor? Would you recommend updating my BIOS from 2004?

Thanks

I always disable any full screen logo on POST with whatever mobo I am using. This might help for you also. Also, if you are not using the lowest IDE channel (under the PCI slots) than you will want to disable the JMicron controller. I never used that port and never enabled JMicron and everything worked fine. Faster boot as well since it doesn't need to look for JMicron.

That beeping in WIndows is strange, I have no idea what might cause that.

The lowest two SATA ports...the orange ones...are attached to the Asus EZ RAID. Put your two HDDs on them and there is a jumper somewhere near those ports. This jumper comes default from factory set to RAID1. You will have to move it over to the other pin for RAID0. This EZ RAID has worked flawlessly for me in RAID 0 for more than a year and is so simple it needs no drivers. Your manual covers this in much better detail with pics and everything. If you don't have the manual it can be downloaded in PDF format from Asus website.

You should know once you RAID the drives ALL data will be lost.

Ummm...400X8 was the best I was able to get stable from my E6600 on this mobo. I doubt you will be able to get much more, but I wish you luck if you try.

[Xeon Zombie]

I've replaced my P5W-DH with a new board, so the Asus is up for sale if anyone is interested...

What did you replace it with?? (I am trying to get an idea of what I may go with in a few months when I upgrade again)

[t_ski]

DFI X38-T2R. And the Asus sold last night - that was fast!

[Xeon Zombie]

DFI X38-T2R. And the Asus sold last night - that was fast!

That is a bad mama jama! The new DFI boards are some of the best on the market!

Have fun with it!

Out of curiosity, how much did you get for the Asus? If I end up upgrading anytime soon, I don't want to overprice mine, lol.

[Yolanda]

Offtopic:
I think P5W nice board and most of all can enjoy using it before upgrade to Nehalem, which will be available at winter.

[clip]

I've had 22 mths of great service from this board, long may it continue for those of you not upgrading

[ntvh]

Quote:
Originally Posted by t_ski
DFI X38-T2R. And the Asus sold last night - that was fast!

That is a bad mama jama! The new DFI boards are some of the best on the market!

Have fun with it!

So this one is better than P5w?? Thanks

[radlord]

Hey guys I know this is a really basic question but can anyone tell me what to put in for my RAM timings in the P5WDH BIOS? My RAM is runing at half the speed it should be!

Sorry can I just butt in here please and ask a stupid question about memory timings and stuff?

It's just CPU-Z never reports that my RAM is running faster than 333.5mhz and I'd like to get it running faster obviously.

I have 4 gigs of GEIL DDR2-800 RAM and it says the voltage should be set to 2.1v and the timings 4-4-4-12.

I am a total noob to all this, when I switch off 'configure RAM by SPD' in the BIOS there are five settings there, so I'm not sure what to do with the other one once I've put in my four 4-4-4-12 numbers!

Stupid question, but can anyone tell me how to make my RAM work at closer to the speed it's specced at?

I have a 333mhz FSB just now so my E6600 is at 3.0ghz, don't know if that makes a difference.

Cheers.

[t_ski]

So this one is better than P5w?? Thanks

Depends on what you mean by better. I wanted dual 16x corssfire capabilities and high OC potential. I forgot how much of a pain DFI BIOS's can be to tweak

[Lurker246]

I've had 22 mths of great service from this board, long may it continue for those of you not upgrading

Yeah, I guess I got a little ticked off with the Video signal problem I had on Bios 2602. But payday has come and gone and I'll put the X48 Rampage on the back burner. So I'll probably wait until LGA 1336 (Oh why did they not make it 1337 I guess that's intel for you- 1 pin short of perfection )

After all I don't think there's many other mobo's out there with the overclock potential of a P5W that runs practically every OS you can throw at it flawlessly- including OSX

[riiaku]

That is a bad mama jama! The new DFI boards are some of the best on the market!

Have fun with it!

Out of curiosity, how much did you get for the Asus? If I end up upgrading anytime soon, I don't want to overprice mine, lol.

Can i run 8 gigs of corsair ram at 4-4-4-12 at 8x400 or will i have problems?

[t_ski]

That is a bad mama jama! The new DFI boards are some of the best on the market!

Have fun with it!

Out of curiosity, how much did you get for the Asus? If I end up upgrading anytime soon, I don't want to overprice mine, lol.

Thanks. I sold mine for $100 shipped, but I wanted it to go quick. If I was willing to be patient, I may have gotten another $25 out of it.

[riiaku]

Thanks. I sold mine for $100 shipped, but I wanted it to go quick. If I was willing to be patient, I may have gotten another $25 out of it.

you sold your asus p5w?