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Asus 680i board for sale now P5N32-E SLI

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Originally posted by: ExCrow

I think I'll just sit back for a few days and really dig into the various forums, letting others with far more knowledge than I push the board to its limits.
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I believe that there were only a few of these P5N32-E SLI boards sold initially along with some boards that ASUS sent to reviewers. Also I think that I read the real release date is Nov 24th so currently you're almost alone. I've got my eye on one if it doesn't bust the bank.
 
Long time lurker here.

I ordered one of these from NCIX last week and installed it a few days ago in a new system. So far it's been rock-solid for me running F@H for 72 hours straight while simultaneously formatting 1tb of hard drive space. In fact it's the only build I've done that's been completely problem free from assembly through XP install, although that probably says more about me than the board. I've tweaked it a little at this point, waiting until after the holiday to really push it when I have some free time. The BIOS is very straightforward, which is good, because the ASUS utilities (first ASUS board) in the OS are visually maddening from my point of view.

I'm using 2gb Corsair XMS2 DDR800, two Seagate 7xxxx.10 (I think?, whatever the perpendicular read models are, interesting noises on these, but not loud) 500mb HDs, C2D 6600, Evga 8800 GTS, PCP&C silencer 750, and stock cooling in a p180 until my tuniq arrives hopefully today.
 
I'm having major problems with this board and running windows... I have 4 sata drives 2 pairs of hitachi 500's raid 1 and 2 pairs non-raid seagate 320's...

I formatted the seagates using partition magic... primary/logical partition and logical partition for the other drive... installing windows seems to go fine, I use f6 and install the floppy raid/sata drivers...

When im in windows though I was getting random rebooting, while installing any drivers, I tried diff bios settings I tried disabling that ncq thing that seemed to help slightly.... nothing helped...

Installing drivers off of or extracting them on to a diff drive ie) a driver is on e:\ and I run from there to install to c:\ reboots my computer... or if I install lets say MAYA from c:\ to e:\ or any other drive it reboots my computer mid-install...

Now I'm getting blue screen rebooting cycles, it wont even boot windows.. I'm at a loss... I'm assuming it's b/c I have 2 RAID 1 drives and 2 non raid drives on the same mobo sata controller??? I heard this causes issues with Nvidia...

What should I do?

Should I perhaps turn off / disable my RAID 1 mirror while installing windows on regular SATA? or should I do something else... is there something i'm totally missing here? BRAND new HDD's and MOBO.
 
Originally posted by: vladimusmaximus
I'm having major problems with this board and running windows... I have 4 sata drives 2 pairs of hitachi 500's raid 1 and 2 pairs non-raid seagate 320's...

I formatted the seagates using partition magic... primary/logical partition and logical partition for the other drive... installing windows seems to go fine, I use f6 and install the floppy raid/sata drivers...

When im in windows though I was getting random rebooting, while installing any drivers, I tried diff bios settings I tried disabling that ncq thing that seemed to help slightly.... nothing helped...

Installing drivers off of or extracting them on to a diff drive ie) a driver is on e:\ and I run from there to install to c:\ reboots my computer... or if I install lets say MAYA from c:\ to e:\ or any other drive it reboots my computer mid-install...

Now I'm getting blue screen rebooting cycles, it wont even boot windows.. I'm at a loss... I'm assuming it's b/c I have 2 RAID 1 drives and 2 non raid drives on the same mobo sata controller??? I heard this causes issues with Nvidia...

What should I do?

Should I perhaps turn off / disable my RAID 1 mirror while installing windows on regular SATA? or should I do something else... is there something i'm totally missing here? BRAND new HDD's and MOBO.
Click to expand...

I would install the minimum components necessary to install Windows. If you're installing Windows on your hitachi 500's raid then don't install the other drives until Windows is completely installed.

The last time I installed Window XP I was using two sata drives and about half way through I noticed that Windows wasn't always using my boot drive. I removed the 2nd drive and Windows installed correctly.

Can the Windows Setup create your raid drives? I don't know if it's necessary but I've never tried it. Good luck and let us know what your solution is.

 
XP installations and mixed use of SATA ports do not mesh well in my experience. Take everything out of the system except for the one drive that you're installing the OS on, and make sure that the RAID function is disabled in BIOS. Install, make sure everything's working properly (it could be a problem with one of the drives after all), and then enable RAID and configure your array. (Two semi-obvious things that I'm going to say anyway: Make sure that you have only enabled RAID for the drive numbers in the array. No fast formats on any of the drives).
 
FYI, bios 0302 (dated 11/10/06) is now available for download on the ASUS web site. I can't find any documentation listing what issues it addresses. I just installed it, keeping fingers crossed.
 
Originally posted by: ExCrow
FYI, bios 0302 (dated 11/10/06) is now available for download on the ASUS web site. I can't find any documentation listing what issues it addresses. I just installed it, keeping fingers crossed.
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The description says "First release" which should be the bios shipped with the board. If 0302 wasn't the bios shipped then what was it?

What I want is the pdf version of the manual.
 
Originally posted by: msgclb
Originally posted by: ExCrow
FYI, bios 0302 (dated 11/10/06) is now available for download on the ASUS web site. I can't find any documentation listing what issues it addresses. I just installed it, keeping fingers crossed.
Click to expand...

The description says "First release" which should be the bios shipped with the board. If 0302 wasn't the bios shipped then what was it?

What I want is the pdf version of the manual.
Click to expand...

The BIOS on my board was 0102 dated 11/1/06
 
I used EZ-Flash.

After the flash, I ran orthos blend, and it locked up the computer after 30 minutes or so. I've dropped the timings and am now letting it run memtest for a few hours.
 
OK, I just checked the ASUS forum, and there are more reports there of a new Stryker Extreme 0302 BIOS update also causing problems for users who use the windows update feature instead of EZ-Flash.
 
may of us no longer have floppy drives..so they better make sure win. updates work

bad Asus..the guy @ XS is a top flight guy, no noobie
 
Could someone with the P5N32-E SLI manual see if there's anything about using a USB flash drive to flash the BIOS? I sure wish ASUS would put up the pdf version of the manual.
 
Originally posted by: msgclb
Could someone with the P5N32-E SLI manual see if there's anything about using a USB flash drive to flash the BIOS? I sure wish ASUS would put up the pdf version of the manual.
Click to expand...

I used my USB pen drive to update with EZ-Flash and it worked fine. (It showed up as a "C:\ drive) I don't recall seeing it mentioned in the manual.
 
Originally posted by: ExCrow
Originally posted by: msgclb
Could someone with the P5N32-E SLI manual see if there's anything about using a USB flash drive to flash the BIOS? I sure wish ASUS would put up the pdf version of the manual.
Click to expand...

I used my USB pen drive to update with EZ-Flash and it worked fine. (It showed up as a "C:\ drive) I don't recall seeing it mentioned in the manual.
Click to expand...

ASUS posted the manual for the Striker Extreme and in the EZ Flash 2 section it does mention floppy disk/USB flash disk. It's nice to know that it works!
 
Hey guys, i am thinking about getting this board when it gets back in stock at newegg.

I want it because it looks really upgradeable for the future.

I want it mainly for gaming...I'm not going to overclock on it right away. Do you think it will be stable for me right out of the box with a E6600 and 2GB XMS2 6400 ram?

If you think it will be a good stable mobo, I think I will go for it.

Also , does it have the EZ RAID setup?

Any help will be much appreciated....thanks 🙂
 
Originally posted by: whirlwind
Hey guys, i am thinking about getting this board when it gets back in stock at newegg.
Click to expand...
You better hurry! Newegg has them back in stock again for $299.99 + $6.94 shipping. I think I'm going to wait for the price to come down a bit, hopefully!
 
I don't want to take the plunge until I know alittle more about the mobo.

Can anybody help?


Hey guys, i am thinking about getting this board when it gets back in stock at newegg.

I want it because it looks really upgradeable for the future.

I want it mainly for gaming...I'm not going to overclock on it right away. Do you think it will be stable for me right out of the box with a E6600 and 2GB XMS2 6400 ram?

If you think it will be a good stable mobo, I think I will go for it.

Also , does it have the EZ RAID setup?

Any help will be much appreciated....thanks 🙂
 
Yes, it has EZ-Raid. That seems to be the preferered BIOS update option, since there have been reports of problems when updating within Windows.

Re stability, it's still a new board and chipset, and there aren't too many of them out there, but based on my own limited experience thus far plus what I've read on-line, I'd say you shouldn't have any problems.
 
One of the things that has me withholding a buy of one of the 680i mobos is the immaturity of the BIOSes. I'm giving it a little more time. I'm also hoping prices drop some too. Not holding my breath on that though.
 
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