ASUS P5P800

[tsar chasm]

Just thought I would chime in with my config for comparison purposes.

Running a P5P800 with a 540 processor (3.2GHz not overclocked)
2GB ram
NVidia 6600GT
2 x 160GB hard drives
1 x 200GB hard drive
1 dl DVD-RW drive

in an Antec Sonata with 380w PS

I've had this system up and running with no problems (other than a poorly seated CPU fan at install time) since 2/2005.
I did purchase the "sound blaster firmware upgrade" and can say that this was a mistake. I am back in the market for a replacement sound card as I didn't hang on to my old Audigy.

 

[NotquiteanooB]

I just rec'd my second P5P800 today. Spent the last 4 hours installing the mobo and a Corsair CWC100-1001 watercooling kit into a Sonata II case with Antec 450W PS. Pulled out the CPU/VGA cooling duct and tossed that nonsense. Using a P4 540J (3.2Ghz) Dual Chan OCZ EL 2X512 DDR400; Seagate Barracuda 80G Sata HDD; ATI Radeon 9250 AGP 8x; LG 4163 CD-DVD writer; Sony Floppy.

Tomorrow I will fill the Water cooling and give it a test run. Now I'm away to bed.... to dream of OC'g this mother to 4 Ghz.

 

[Arctor]

At the beginning of the year, I started researching parts, proceedures, and compatibilities to build my first PC. (And as I'm no longer lurking, big thanks to everyone for the wealth of knowledge I've gained thus far!) About two weeks ago, I finally received the final pieces, but it all together, and... nothing. Not even a POST. Let me list what I'm working with, then what I've done.

Codegen 6209 case
Antec SmartPower 2.0 450W
Asus P5P800
Pentium 4 630
Zalman 7700 Heatsink (CuAl flavor)
Corsair ValueSelect 1GB kit (2x 512MB)
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Atlantis 128MB
Western Digital 250GB Caviar SE SATA HDD (x2)
NEC DL DVDr (x2)

Put it all together and... nothing. No POST. The LED on the MB was on, so I started disconnecting drives, thinking the PSU was too small. Still nothing. Since I've no way to test individual parts (all my friends are using older, prebuilt systems) and *I'M* the resident geek! So, I shipped the MB and CPU back to ZipZoomFly, who last night sent me .jpg's of their tests and those parts test fine.

While those parts were shipping, I looked over what I still had here and made a couple discoveries. First, the case had no speaker and I hadn't noted this before, so pulled one out of an old P1 system I still had here and mounted that in the case. Then I checked the switch on the case and it appears fine.

I hate admitting to such a dumb mistake, but I don't remember if I slid the plastic clip onto the video card when I installed it. Don't know if that makes a difference, but it was certainly seated properly and secure.

Is there a way I can tell if my brass standoffs are causing a ground? They were all filled when I mounted the board. And would the lack of a speaker cause a no POST situation?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[tsar chasm]

The lack of speaker wouldn't be a problem. The only problem I've ever had with this mobo is ensuring that the cpu fan was firmly seated. When you power it on, do the fans and everything take off? I would probably pull one stick of RAM and swap them once as a start if you're sure of proper seating. Remove all non-essential items like sound cards and network cards if installed. Just a single stick of ram, disconnect the hard drive, disconnect the floppy drive. As I noted before, I have several drives and a vid card requiring power and my 380w seems to be just fine.

Good luck

 

[NotquiteanooB]

When you power on, immediately hit "delete" and see if you can get into BIOS. I suspect your Bios is Rev1005 or lower#. I think you will need 1009 to use 600 series CPU's. Check the ASUS downloads site for the latest BIOS for that mobo. If you can't access the BIOS, there is obviously some other problem.

 

[Arctor]

Thanks for the replies!

I did swap both the memory sticks into all four of the slots and nothing changed.

The box the mobo came packaged in had a "Works for 6xx series processors" sticker on it and the test .jpg's from ZipZoomFly let me know the BIOS is 1009. (In fact, I believe they tested my 630 processor on my P5P800 motherboard.)

At this point, I'm in a holding pattern until those pieces come back from ZipZoomFly. (FedEx says they'll be here on the 6th) So for now I'm just making a laundry list of things to try and to watch for when I can try to put the system together once more.

Thanks again!

 

[NotquiteanooB]

Arctor:

"Is there a way I can tell if my brass standoffs are causing a ground? They were all filled when I mounted the board. "

ALL filled?!

There should be 10 only. If you think it's a grounding problem; don't put the mobo in the case; lay it on the foam sheet that's at the bottom of the box the mobo came in. Or just lay it on the box. Hook up the power, 1 stick of memory; 1 HDD ; The CPU and HSF; monitor and see if it then posts.

I still have a feeling it is a Bios setting that is not right.
I have a P5P at Bios 1005 and the other at 1009, and I was surprised at the number of changes between them. Mostly in the 'advanced' tab; CPU settings. Yet there is very little difference in the 530J & 540J. Bios 1009 sees the 540J differently more than just the speed.

Good Luck.

 

[Arctor]

The case came with 8 standoffs with matching fine-threaded screws but if I'm remembering right (it's still en route back to me and I can't eyeball it right now) the mobo had more holes than I had standoffs. I did the corners first, then one on the edge near the AGP slot, one in the middle, one near the heatsink and one between the two IDE connectors. I wrote 'all filled' just to be clear that there wasn't a standoff used that wasn't filled with a screw once the board was in place.

The .jpg's sent by the tech at ZipZoomFly identify the BIOS as American Megatrends, version 1009.001, dated 03/17/2005.

While at work last night (I work 3rd shift and generally have plenty of time to think, heh) it occured to me that in my research I'd read someone's account of having to make a BIOS change because of the voltage the video card needs. I've got a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro that at 8x needs 0.8v. P5P800 supports this, but is there a change I need to manually make in the BIOS to make it so or will the proper voltage be delivered when the board 'sees' an 8x card there? (Naturally, I didn't bookmark that account, and I tried Googling 'P5P800 sapphire radeon pro 9800 bios' but came up empty.)

Another thing that's occured to me is that the Zalman 7700 heatsink is BIG. So big that the fins make a small contact with the bottom of the power supply. I'd read elsewhere that this isn't a problem, but did slide a non-conductive surface between them just to be sure. Same result. (The fins are aluminium.)

I know there must be an explanation as to why this is happening (or in my case, not happening, heh) that will seem obvious in retrospect. But with the way my luck seems to go, I'll get the parts on Tuesday, put it all together, have NO problems, and be stuck wondering why it all went so wrong the first time around. Sigh.

Thanks again for the help!

 

[NotquiteanooB]

Arctor: Your Bios is the same as mine 1009.001 etc.

On page 4-20 of the user guide: AGP VDDQ Voltage [1.50v] I don't see 0.8v supported. A message to ASUS tech help; would get you an answer to that in about 5 days !

There is a setting in Bios for the AGP aperture: 32; 64;128; etc. page 4-23 of U.G. Also, the Graphic Adapter Priority should be the default if you're using an AGP and not PCI video. The card I use is 128 and the Bios is default of 64, I had to change mine.

Was your CPU an OEM or Boxed? If the Zalman is tilted because it is in contact with the PS; you may overheat the CPU and have it auto-shutdown. ( if it doesn't fry first) IF you have the boxed Intel HSF. try it temporarily. It won't cool like the Zalman, but at least it will fit.

Make sure the standoffs you do have, line up with the holes; there are 10 holes; and I'd try to find 2 more standoffs, so that the board is firmly supported. Particularily around that heavy Zalman HSF/CPU.

 

[Arctor]

Wow! Thanks for the fast replies!

I believe the P5P800 does support AGP 8x 0.8v because the spec page on the Asus website lists it. (I can't refrence the printed manual as it's in the box with the board still making it's way back to me.) The Asus site seems to be having a hiccup right now because when I call up this page, I get a Microsoft OLE SQL error. (Had no problem getting to it last week...) Here's Google's cashe of that page:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:hC...p5p800+agp+0.8v&hl=en&client=firefox-a

Even if it didn't support 8x, the 9800 does 4x at 1.5v, which the printed manual lists. (And I'm fine with that. I'm not a gamer, but as I was buying parts I thought I might want to try a game of some kind eventually.)

I bought the retail CPU, so I will have the stock heatsink on hand to try, though I don't believe the Zalman was tilted. If this does turn out to be the case, the fins on the Zalman are thin enough to make slight bends enough to provide some space between them and the PSU without a dip in cooling.

Thanks again!

 

[NotquiteanooB]

It sounds as if you've covered all the bases pretty well. Good Luck and I hope all goes well when the parts arrive back to you. I couldn't get into the stats part of the P5P800 of the ASUS web site either.; but I saw what you linked to. You should be okay at the 0.8 V with that vid card.

 

[Arctor]

What a week... Just wanted to take a moment before turning in to thank everyone who replied to my questions.

My parts arrived on Tuesday, as expected. Put everything back together in a few hours. I decided to put the Zalman on first instead of trying the Intel-provided heatsink. Moved one of the standoffs from the middle of the board to the edge near the processor to give the Zalman more support. Remembered to slide the plastic clip onto the video card because I couldn't remember if I'd done that the first time. Attached the speaker I added to the case. Long story short, it POSTed without any further problem. Then I connected all the cabling and, well, I'm using my build to post this note.

I did discover that one of the two SATA cables the mobo came with was defective, but a quick trip to the local used computer part store and $5 later, that problem was fixed. Both HDDs are working as they should. I've been running the machine for about five hours now and the BIOS tells me the CPU is 51C while the AsusProbe tells me 45C, so I believe the extra I spent on the Zalman was worth it.

I've been installing software and 'moving in' since Wednesday, but didn't want to delay any further in sending off big thanks to everyone who helped.

Peace.

 

[imported_Crane]

Quick question, I want to have 4 hard drives and 1 optical drive.
I do not want to use an internal IDE card, so I think I can use 4 pata and 1 SATA with this mobo.
What do you think would be better, getting the Sata optical drive, or the sata hard drive ?

 

[baclips6]

Any big differences between this and the P5P800 SE other than 4 instead of 5 pci slots and SATA? The SE costs a few bucks more but seems to have less features. Which is better?

nevermind found it, SE supports pentium D

 

[Wiz]

I'm ressurecting this old thread instead of starting a new one (for now).

I had no problems with my P5P800 from March 2005 through Feb 14, 2006.

Now it will not post. No video just like some others in this thread.
I've tried all the major components in other systems and they all work, including the PSU.
I can't try out the cppu in anything else because nothing else accepts this type of cpu.

Fans spin, LED is on.

When I powere up this is what happens:

All fans start (cpu & video)
3 keyboard lights flash
one beep
HDD spins up
maybe 3 or 4 quick beeps or one longer, can't tell it's very fast

60 seconds from start it powers itself down

I've tried this about 5 times now, timing it, - same thing every time.
No video ever comes up - but I am sure the monitor is OK (verified).

I had an Arctic Freezer HSF on there, I've put the stock intel HSF back on, no difference.

Any ideas?