[18th Anniversary] Asus Black Pearl - P5k-Premium Testing Report

[Pyr0]

hi scara
it changes the perfomance level of the chipset which alters the internal chipset latencies to make it faster or slower

[gonx_me]

I did solve my problems with X-Fi and P5K Premium with latest intel drivers 8.40.XX drivers. The sound return to be perfect.
Any more tests with 0302?

[theonlybabyface]

I did solve my problems with X-Fi and P5K Premium with latest intel drivers 8.40.XX drivers. The sound return to be perfect.
Any more tests with 0302?

Got a link. My Xi-Fi card hisses after driver is installed.

Also, my board has a double boot issue and if I shutdown my pc, I have to switch off the psu, turn it back on and then it'll boot. Running the enermax in my sig btw.

[gonx_me]

Got a link. My Xi-Fi card hisses after driver is installed.

Also, my board has a double boot issue and if I shutdown my pc, I have to switch off the psu, turn it back on and then it'll boot. Running the enermax in my sig btw.

The driver name is INF_AllOS_8.4.0.1016_PV_Intel.exe.
Here is the link http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...=eng&PrdMap=36

My PSU is a Bequiet Truepower 550W

[theonlybabyface]

Thanks. I take it you don't get the double boot issue then?

[scaramonga]

hi scara
it changes the perfomance level of the chipset which alters the internal chipset latencies to make it faster or slower

Hey buddy!.......thee Pyr0?? ?

Thx for explanation

[GAR]

this board looks nice, i wouldnt mind it, but the x38 has pci-e 2.0 so i would rather wait for that.

[petercintn]

Got mine Thursday and thought I'd got one of the bad ones. Just had to get rid of the nvidia raid on the HD's. Not to bad of a prob.

Been playing around with the board, everything works great, going to see which size stripe is best now. But no problems with board, loaded with 204 bios, made in TW. Lost my water pump, but I have a Q6600 G0 with the stock cooler running @ 356x9 with 1.25vid. This board seems great so far.

[XtremeTiramisu]

Got mine Thursday and thought I'd got one of the bad ones. Just had to get rid of the nvidia raid on the HD's. Not to bad of a prob.

Been playing around with the board, everything works great, going to see which size stripe is best now. But no problems with board, loaded with 204 bios, made in TW. Lost my water pump, but I have a Q6600 G0 with the stock cooler running @ 356x9 with 1.25vid. This board seems great so far.

I have the same board.
Made in Taiwan, shipped with 0204 BIOS.
And unfortunately, my P5K-Premium has that annoying abnormal SATA issue.
I'm using the 5000AAKS WD drive 500GB in AHCI mode and Vista 64bit.
The installation process took 1.5hours which was rediculous. Especially in the expanding file in stage 2.
I thought flashing to 0302 beta BIOS will somehow fix this damn problem but it's not. I get this intermittent system freezes due to the infamous mobo's SATA controller. You can identify the HDD led is on full blue means is on max loading when the system is unresponsive. You have to wait like 2-3 mins for the HDD to finish loading whatever it's loading..

Just exactly like everyone describes on every other forum, Asus support forum...not even my P5K-Deluxe does this....

I'm going to RMA this board in and get a store credit and use it towards the upcomming X38 mobo.

While the the system is running fine, the HDD is smooth and fast. HD tune reports very fast read/write/burst rate speed for one 5000AAKS HD under AHCI configuration, Avg 68mb/s and 112mb burst rate. But as soon as the intermittent abnormal HDD activity kicks in, I feel like I'm back in the P2/P3 days...OMFG....

I hate Asus's so called - 18th anniversary BLACK PEARL special edition Marketing bullsxxt crap....

Yes, I've tried everything I can to try to solve this but apparently, I think it's a hardware related issue like everyone else.

This is my 7th system I build/OC this year so I'm not a noob and I know what I'm doing...

Anyways...just to let eveyrone know that this mobo particularily, P5K-Premium is very buggy in terms of its SATA controller, other than that I belive it's a step above P5K-Dlx in its OC-ability. But it's useless to point out what good is left when the basic PC functionality fails to perform....

[petercintn]

I have the same board.
Made in Taiwan, shipped with 0204 BIOS.
And unfortunately, my P5K-Premium has that annoying abnormal SATA issue.
I'm using the 5000AAKS WD drive 500GB in AHCI mode and Vista 64bit.

It seems the WD drives are one of the worst with this board. I gave up on WD 3 years ago and went with Maxtors & Seagates and I've never been happier.


The Maxtors, where the OS's and games will be



The Seagates, backups, music & movies



Hope you get it all worked out for you, what ever you do. I wish I could get the new X38 DFI baby! I may for Xmas!

[XtremeTiramisu]

It seems the WD drives are one of the worst with this board. I gave up on WD 3 years ago and went with Maxtors & Seagates and I've never been happier.


The Maxtors, where the OS's and games will be



The Seagates, backups, music & movies



Hope you get it all worked out for you, what ever you do. I wish I could get the new X38 DFI baby! I may for Xmas!

It's not the WD 5000AAKS 500GB fault.
Cos it's running lightning fast in AHCI configuration.
Please note that I only have ONE hard drive. Not like the RAID config u have there.

The following screen shot was taken today. It was from my P5K-Deluxe system. I've the exact same drive in my P5K-Premium system. Both have identicle HD bench results from the latest HD Tune.

While the system runs ok in the P5K-Premium, the hard drive activity and everything else are fine but as soon as the abnormal HDD activity kicks in, the system would freeze for 2-3 mins. This happends intermittently which is veyr annoying to a point that I cannot use the system and I'm using my P5K-Deluxe..

As for a single HD score, it's cosiderably higher score than a lot of other single HDD bench I've seen from others running in IDE or AHCI.
This is with the newest Intel storage manager driver. I noticed the curve and the burst rate is smoother and a bit faster than the previous driver

[sergers]

mine is a TW that came with the 0102 bios
i still got the double boot problem...

installed server 2003 x64 with no problems, besides install being really slow on my raptor. ended up running it in ide mode

i think I am also going to rma it and also just get credit aswell....

also I think my p5k deluxe is a better oc'er

I installed 0302 beta bios... but then for whatever reason, windows only saw 3 cores... could have just been a bad flash, but decided to go with 0204

[ChaosMinionX]

Very impressed with the P5K Premium thus far

Some results to come, takes .5v less on this board for processor, as well it runs much cooler than the deluxe.

[VIctorj]

ty board, running mine(look @ sig) and it has the same freaking problem with HDDs.

Returning this , im going with DQ6 and the hell with asus.

[theonlybabyface]

I've had no problems. This is an awesome board!

[scaramonga]

I've had no problems. This is an awesome board!

DITTO!

[VIctorj]

Damn, just saw dq6's gimmick pipe...i cant mount my tuniq there...DAMN!

[WSX]

Damn, just saw dq6's gimmick pipe...i cant mount my tuniq there...DAMN!

they've redesigned the DQ6 heatpipe in the latest revision, it's now smaller!

[VIctorj]

they've redesigned the DQ6 heatpipe in the latest revision, it's now smaller!

The problem is that Crazy Cool thing on the back of the mobo...the tuniq has a backplate...so cant mount it there.

[godsa]

Well it was tricky at first with the bios resetting and the norm learning curve learning the board..but thats what patience is all about if you want to Oc.


Not sure how good this is but looks good to me

[bobov]

Avoid WD&Samsung HD if you use P5K-Premium. Seagate works very well on this mobo.

[ChaosMinionX]

Avoid WD&Samsung HD if you use P5K-Premium. Seagate works very well on this mobo.

Im using all western digitals from caviar to raptors... 100% fine here

[impar]

Greetings!

No problem here with Raptor, 5000AAKS and 3200JS.

[IanB]

I've seen a report, I think on another forum, that the newer Samsung Spinpoint drives have firmware that is incompatible with new Asus boards. The forum member had confirmed this through extensive testing and discussion with Samsung tech support who confirmed the bug.

EDIT: Yep, here on this forum - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=156540

I'd guess none of this is relevant if you connect the drives through a hardware RAID controller, which has the advantage of avoiding the chipset SATA issues so many seem to report and allowing full portability of the RAID arrays when you change mainboard.

[VIctorj]

I'd guess none of this is relevant if you connect the drives through a hardware RAID controller, which has the advantage of avoiding the chipset SATA issues so many seem to report and allowing full portability of the RAID arrays when you change mainboard.

Yes, but i didnt pay for a top of the line motherboard, to use an additional sata controler..it has to work OUT OF THE BOX...and is not OC problems, it has problems on STOCK...so go figure.
Im not pissed cause of the problems...im pissed because Asus doesnt say about this problem, they are ignoring their costumers...and thats bull.

At least for now, im not going with ASUS again...just like i did with BFG and their faulty 79s.