ASUS P5W DH - Problems + Fixes Thread

[InterMurph2]

I am trying to run 4 instances of Super Pi. One runs fine, but when I run more, I get "Not convergent in SQR05" errors.

But for the 10 seconds or so that I can manage to get 100% CPU utilization, PC Probe tells me the CPU is 45 Celsius, which seems pretty good.

Let me try some other ways to load this guy up...

Edit: I got Core Temp 0.99.4, and I am loading this thing at about 75% now, and Core Temp shows some peaks at 57 Celsius.

[Falkentyne]

You have a 1.02g revision board. You can see the revision clearly right above the top RAM slot; just open the case and look right there.

That revision will NOT get high FSB with a quad. The 1.04g will get higher, but most people can't stablize 400 FSB with a quad. Weldzilla managed to reach 395 FSB, but 400 FSB was too unstable. And I think that was with a Q6600 that had no problems with 1.4 vFSB and 1.85 vmch. (45nm chips are usually recommended to keep vFSB at 1.3 or lower although people have used them at 1.4 VTT (vFSB), but I personally wouldn't go above 1.3v.

Mine does 364 FSB at 1.55vmch but 370 FSB gives about 24 errors in memtest per "test 5" loop but putting vmch at 1.65v fixes that (vfsb at 1.30 with vmch at 1.55v MIGHT also work, since as I mentioned before, increasing vfsb also raises the vmch a bit, like .06v for every .1 increase). So I managed to get stable at 370fsb with 1.65 vmch and vfsb at just 1.20v. But it's really hard to say if its better running 370 FSB x 10 for 3.7 ghz, with 4-4-4-12 timings, or 337 fsb x 11 for 3707 mhz, cas 3-3-3-8 timings (both with 2x2GB PC7200 Gskill Pi's). Too lazy to test.
But for 4 ghz, I just do 333x12, then if I ever want a little more, I have to mess around with multpliers and fsb; 0.5x multipliers would be very useful (cpu supports them; board doesn't....)

and 380 FSB requires 1.75 mch+1.30 vfsb OR 1.85 mch. Dont like running the mch that high though even with the fan I have on it and the Arctic Ceramique which keeps temps semi decent. (I shudder if it's getting 1.96v at 1.85vmch+1.40 vfsb).

Try running Prime 95 version 25.8 at your 370 FSB.
First try about 3 hours of small FFT's. Hopefully that will pass (that Q9650 should be able to do that on a lot lower than 1.36 vcore).

Then try "Blend". Also give OCCT RAM/Blend test a try as well.
You may also want to go back into memtest86+ 2.10 and try LOOPING test #5 in it over and over (test 5 finishes a lot faster than a few of the other tests....I think test 4 and 7 take like 10 minutes each?).

If you get errors in Blend or OCCT (RAM test) then it's the chipset.
Try raising your DRAM voltage by .1v higher, and try 1.40v on the vFSB.
That should get you stable. 370 FSB is pretty good for that 1.02g board...I've seen people that had problems at 340 FSB with a quad on 1.02's....nicely done.

Anyway as I said, get OCCT 3.0 and Prime 95 25.8 and try a combination of small FFT for prime/cpu test and Blend and OCCT Ram tests for chipset stability. 1.40 vfsb should hopefully get you stable.

[InterMurph2]

OK, I'm running Prime95 now, small FFTs. Core Temp says Core 0 is 66C, while the other three are 59C.

So it sounds like this is about as fast as I'm going to get the Q9650 on this board. What if I were starting over; what board would be perfect for the Q9650?

Thanks for all of your help!

[Falkentyne]

I'm not sure.
That one Gigabyte P45 one is supposed to be pretty good (UD3P or something?)
The P5Q Deluxe is supposed to be a good board, but I keep reading all those posts about BIOS problems and losing settings and stuff. It's a great board if the BIOS problems don't hold you back; check the p5q deluxe thread and the UD3P gigabyte thread and see what board you will like better.

X48's are "supposedly" better but they are DDR3.

Since I do have a QX9650 I can keep my board until it's time for an i7 (or unless my chip degrades to the point of useless overclock). I figure as long as I can keep 4 ghz, I'll be fast enough until i7's with improved IMC's (memory controllers) come out, that aren't limiting the chips so much. But in all actuality there's really zero point in upgrading from 4 ghz quad to an i7 unless you want to run SLI or Tri/quad SLI. And I do care about my electric bills, so...

Anyway did you increase vFSB to 1.40v? Did that solve any stability problems?

Definitely get a new board asap though; P5W at this point is only good if you get an unlocked multiplier. It's definitely a stable board, compared to some of the boards out there. (never seen a BIOS die from a failed overclock on P5W yet). Your chip should be able to exceed 4 ghz (not guaranteed but still pretty decent chance) as it's an E0. I think you need 445 FSB (?) for 4 ghz with x9 multiplier ...a piece of cake on a P45 board; only the cpu will hold you back.

[InterMurph2]

My vFSB is still 1.30, and I'm finding that this is stable. Prime95 has been running for almost an hour with no problems. Core Temp says core #0 is up to 69C, which is higher than I would expect. But no crashes yet.

[Falkentyne]

Are you running small fft or blend?
if its small fft i would expect that to be stable.

[InterMurph2]

I just ran the Blend test for about 20 hours with no blips.

So this is great, 3.33 GHz. But I just ordered a Gigabyte UD3P...

[Falkentyne]

When you get the Gigabyte board, good luck on joining the 4 ghz club as your cpu should fly in that board. Some people are reaching 4.5 ghz on air with these quads now. With 4.5 ghz on a quad, there's absolutely zero reason to move to core i7 unless you want Tri/Quad SLI--for a good long while. I'm just hoping my QX9650 will not degrade to the point where 4 ghz won't work below 1.4v anymore (if i can just stop repeatedly doing 50 loop Linpacks at 1.375 (usually passes all 50 but ocassionally misses 1 test out of 50 if ambient's too high) or 1.3875v (always pass) each few days...); Prime runs forever at 1.3625v....

Keep in mind that I believe Gigabyte's BIOS settings for voltage are different than 'standard'; similar to DFI's; I could be wrong, as I mainly just read the P5Q and Rampage 2 extreme threads. Just make sure you read all the posts in that thread so you are prepared to get right to tweaking.

And as always, make sure you have a Floppy/CD bootdisk for Memtest86+ so you can make sure your overclocked system will at least boot to windows without memory or chipset (or severe cpu stability) errors hosing your OS.

[InterMurph2]

With 4.5 ghz on a quad, there's absolutely zero reason to move to core i7 unless you want Tri/Quad SLI--for a good long while.

That's why I'm doing this; to defer the i7 upgrade for at least a year. The price premium is just too high right now.

Thanks for all your help.

[Falkentyne]

No problem; hope your new boards works fine for you.
I'll be watching the p45 threads; after all if my board decides to up and die, I'll need a replacement... board has been good to me so far.
Overclocked stability is alot better than my Northwood on IC7 max 3... that chip acts weird....runs 3D fullscreen for hours and bluescreens in maple story at 3.7 ghz and even 1.65 vcore, no bluescreen at 3.6 ghz and 1.55 vcore... O_o...
I mean, no "crashes"....just "blue screen"...my Core 2 doesn't act like that...
My backup Max3 has been reliable, but my P5W 1.04g+QX9650 has simply been more fun and stable...and the cpu doesn't act so "weird" when overclocked (like bluescreening for no reason in a game when it can run Prime for God knows how long)...and pass Linpack too! oh well ...

[PaVi90]

I thought that my P5W was the problem that limited my E6700 OC, but I wasn't right: in fact, I have just tested my CPU on a DFI P45 motherboard and it walls at only 410MHz... now I have overclocked it at 400x9 = 3.6GHz @ 1.45V

I'll never get 500MHz FSB with my B2 CPU

[InterMurph2]

So I got my GA-EP45-UD3P, and within 10 minutes, I'm crusing along at 445 * 9 = 4.0 GHz. Running Prime95 blend on 4 cores gets the temperature to about 60C.

Anybody want to buy a used P5W DH Deluxe (1.02g)?

[Falkentyne]

vcore and chipset voltages needed on that overclock?
Though you should post that in the UD3P thread also...

[rafaeldb]

Hello,
I've been having this problem for quite some time, but it only happens when I try to copy file to or from the drive it will work for a few minutes and then will tell me that the device has been disconnected and totally disappears from the explorer window. I don't hear and clicking sound and I used WD tools to check and it didnt give me any erros.

Has anyone had the same problem? I'm starting to think that is something to do with the my P5W Deluxe.

I'm running Vista 64, all drivers updated, 4gb, 8800GT

Windows log gave me this error The device, \Device\Harddisk1\DR1, is not ready for access yet.

[secretworld]

Hello,
I've been having this problem for quite some time, but it only happens when I try to copy file to or from the drive it will work for a few minutes and then will tell me that the device has been disconnected and totally disappears from the explorer window. I don't hear and clicking sound and I used WD tools to check and it didnt give me any erros.

Has anyone had the same problem? I'm starting to think that is something to do with the my P5W Deluxe.

I'm running Vista 64, all drivers updated, 4gb, 8800GT

Windows log gave me this error The device, \Device\Harddisk1\DR1, is not ready for access yet.

I had the same for a while back and it turned out to be a flaky sata connection. Reinserting the cable cured it. If that´s not it, if you are running in ahci mode try switching to IDE (enhanced) or try the latest intel ahci driver which seems to have cured some issues.
Hope this helps.
Vincent

[rafaeldb]

I had the same for a while back and it turned out to be a flaky sata connection. Reinserting the cable cured it. If that´s not it, if you are running in ahci mode try switching to IDE (enhanced) or try the latest intel ahci driver which seems to have cured some issues.
Hope this helps.
Vincent

That one thing I didn't try yet, changing the cables, I have another one that I could try.

Thx for the help!

[SturmoV]

Hi Guys,

I am so frustrated with the P5W DH Deluxe Asus board.

All of a sudden in the last few days when I turn on the computer after it hasn’t been used overnight, the stupid computer hangs with a black screen, no boot up noise comes up, so I stop and restart the computer, then it hangs on the post, and complains some about Voltage .

Then I go into Bios, and the first 2 drives I have in there aren’t auto-detected, only the 3rd drive and the DVD rom drive. (So obviously it won’t boot, it doesn’t know that there is a boot drive connected)
But If I restart it again, once or twice, I will get through and it boots into windows just fine.

This is my second board, and the first and now second board are acting flakey after a year and change of usage.

Anyone have any suggestions? Should I flash the Bios to the latest version? Will that somehow make the problem worse? By totally not recognizing the hard drives? The current bios that i have is 1.5 years old, so not the latest.

Same problems here. My mobo has been acting real strange lately.
Fails to boot into windows at the boot screen, restarting it causes a failure to post. Sometimes, after a shutdown it would fail to start at all (pressing the power button multiple times would do nothing).
With my previous PW supply, the green LED that's on the mobo would change intensity, flicker (as if there was an unstable voltage) noticeably during such situations.
With Corsair HX1000 (which I installed yesterday, thinking it was a power supply issue due to the aforementioned LED flicker) the board now starts every time, but still fails to load Windows XP normally (had to start in a safe mode with networking to boot into Windows). Also, the board sometimes will beep: one long beep and three short ones. Or it would say that overclocking, overvoltage failed.
It seems like it's dieing.

[Falkentyne]

Have you tried removing 1 stick of RAM and testing, or swapping to the other stick? failing RAM can cause these problems as well.

[SturmoV]

Have you tried removing 1 stick of RAM and testing, or swapping to the other stick? failing RAM can cause these problems as well.

No, I haven't. Will try.

Btw, I just cleared CMOS (was gonna update to 2801 from 2004 (or was it 2007?)) and removed one of the vid cards. Instead of fixing the issue, weirder things started happening. Basically, my comp refused to continue to boot, randomly restarting itself even before WinXP boot screen, and/or prompting to "F1 enter setup".
Upon entering BIOS setup, after a short while, it would sometimes also restart itself (from a BIOS page! - never happened before). Also, "BIOS bad checksum" message flashed in there somewhere.
I was unable to load new BIOS, because EZflash utility didn't see the file on my USB drive and the page itself was missing a few items.

I then proceeded to setup my BIOS as it had been before(before clearing cmos), and restart. WinXP booted up normally. I installed Ati 9.2 driver and restarted. The comp restarted normally, went trough POST and froze on the the WinXP boot screen. Back to safe mode with networking.

[Falkentyne]

Sounds alot like bad RAM or something failing on the chipset or power regulation. You'll have to do some testing then if you can't come to any conclusion, RMA the board...

[SturmoV]

Sounds alot like bad RAM or something failing on the chipset or power regulation. You'll have to do some testing then if you can't come to any conclusion, RMA the board...

I'd add another thing: corrupted BIOS.
Otherwise how do you explain it when, after a normal shutdown, (you know, through Windows>Start>Turn off computer) the system shuts completely down (hard drives, fans, everything) and then, after ~ 20 seconds proceeds to power itself up again like I just pushed the PW button (except I didn't)

I think this horse has run its course.
Shame it only lasted 2.5 years. My previous Asus mobo, the A7V266-E, lasted twice as long and was fully working by the time it was retired.

Too bad EVGA x58 classified isn't out yet, as I was planning on building a new system anyway.

[Falkentyne]

That can happen if something is plugged into the two USB ports for the remote.

You can try buying a new bios chip or just RMA the board if possible.
Did you test 1 stick of ram separately yet?

[Daimao]

Hey guys, need help in sometin'. Just got Vista 64, and when I use the memory remap feature Vista becomes extremely slow, if a disable it, it runs ok. Another thing I've noticed is the fact that when I had a single card the Bios recognized all 4 gigs of ram, with crossfire it recognizes 3.99 gigs (i thought that 64 recognized all u'r ram despite the video cards u use).

[Daimao]

my specs are in the new sig.

[Daimao]

After a few tests I've noticed that the slowdown only happens when I use both 3870x2 and enable the memory remap feature, if I disable it, it runs fine. If I take one of the cards (no matter what card) and enable the feature it runs fine too. So my question is, can this board run a crossfirex config with 4Gb of ram in vista 64?