The Unofficial ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Board Thread

[PoopyPants]

holy frackin crap this thread is long and where the sam hell did the "last post" button go,, jesus i just spent the last hour getting to the end...


i LOVE this baord, even though i am on my 3rd one, i love it.

what killed my first two was going past 2.3v on the vdimm,, somehow someway setting that and rebooting just killed the baord or bios... total RMA situation there.

i have absolutely no reason to get another board.

 

[Tuvoc]

Originally posted by: Nnyan
Anyone that has this board know if it handles 4GB (4 sticks) memory well while OCing?

Thank you

I don't know, but my guess would be that it's perfectly fine as long as you keep the memory speed below 730 or so - maybe less. Try it and see...

 

[AMelbye]

PoopyPants: Holy sh*t! 3.8 GHz at 1.38V!!! Is this voltage hardware measured, software measured or the bios setting? What kind of cooling do you have? Have you done the vdrop mod?

You say that going past 2.3V on the memory thrashed your board. does this mean that 2.3V is safe, but any higher is a risk?

Are you sure the ram didn't break?

Have anyone gone past 2.3V without any problems? I've seen people using way more than that when overclocking their ram on other boards...

 

[Sylvanas]

Well I got my board a few days back, the install was surprisingly easy all I did was clear up the NB and apply some AS5 along with some ramsinks on the Mosfets surrounding the CPU area. My thermalright Ultra 120 extreme fits no problem with a Sythe S-Flex 120mm Fan.

First impressions were excellent, in that the bios is so simple to use yet has all the features you'd need, much better design than the Asus Commando (my previous board). Right now I am running 4x1gb Crucial Ballistix PC5300 (D9GHM) @ DDR1120 5-5-5-12 solid as a rock in addition to 490FSB X 7 (1960 QDR) 3.43ghz on my E6320 (1hr Orthos Stable as I write this). The option to run the FSB and memory in 'Unlinked' mode makes a world of difference as you can test the maximum of both the CPU and the RAM individually- well done Nvidia. I will try tomorrow for 500+ but for now I am very pleased- great mobo

EDIT: heres my voltages in BIOS for reference

Vcore: 1.525
VDIMM: 2.35
Vcore: 1.56
Vcore Offset: auto

Temps in Orthos have'nt exceeded 43degrees so far, but it is still running as I write this.

 

[AMelbye]

Sylvanas: You've been lucky. What's your board revision? Just wondering if the reason yours is working is that it's a different revision from ours..

Do you really need that much vcore? I reached 3.5 with 1.4V, (not totally stable. never crashes under heavy load, though)

 

[edge929]

Figured this might help someone on here.

Purchased a refurb P5N from the egg last week. From reading on the net about it's poor heatsink issues, I ordered a water block for the NorthBridge. I used a smaller heatsink I had lying around (kit from CompUSA posted on here somewhere) for the bare-naked SouthBridge (it gets REALLY hot when OCing). Seeing how the SB gets so hot, I was able to "hang" an 80mm fan from my video card to blow directly on my SB, I believe it's helped stability. Will try to post some pics later. Radiator is a 120x3 cooling my 1900XT, NB and CPU and it gets fairly warm when playing games. Here are my settings so far, on water cooling using latest bios 0602 (0401 was horrible for me, RAM in black slots).

E4300 @ 3330 mhz 1.46 Vcore according to BIOS (370x9)
NB on water @ 1.39
2x 1GB Crucail D9 @ 2.193 Vdimm 5-5-5-12 2T @ 1066mhz

At first I couldn't get the board stable for the life of me (0401 BIOS), even with everything at stock speeds. My first thought was that my RAM was bad. Ran memtest at 800mhz, 4-4-4-12 1T @2.2V and I got roughly 1000 errors in 12 hours. Set the RAM to it's rated speeds of 5-5-5-15 2T @ 2.2V and no memtest errors (the command rate was the prob, wanted to run 1T but it wasn't happening).

From there I tested my CPU using SuperPi and Prime95. I can POST at 3.6Ghz @ 1.55Vcore but windows won't boot up. Lowering it down to 3.5 I can get into windows but it's very unstable, regardless of the Vcore I give it. My room is a sweltering 85 degrees F so my CPU temps are a good 10 degress hotter than they should be (66 load sometimes). Once I move my rig to the basement, they should drop significantly (currently on 2nd floor in 90 degree weather).

I'm really hoping I can get 3.5 stable but I'll settle for 3.33 considering the cpu I'm using (stock = 1.8ghz). The cpu/mobo/RAM upgrade cost me just under $300 ($117 for cpu, $92 for refurb board, $90 for RAM). So far at 3.33Ghz it locked up on me twice when playing games, bumped up the Vcore one notch and added the fan on the SB last night, so far so good.

From my years in OCing, I've never had to deal with a super-hot SB (NB yes). I'm aware of the SLi problem if your SB heatsink is too big, but until I run SLi, I'll use the biggest heatsink that will fit plus air cooling.

 

[Tuvoc]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Right now I am running 4x1gb Crucial Ballistix PC5300 (D9GHM) @ DDR1120 5-5-5-12 solid as a rock in addition to 490FSB X 7 (1960 QDR)

First person I've seen I think who can run 4 x 1GB at anything greater than DDR730 or so
My Geil certainly won't run at that speed in this board
Coincidentally, I have 4 x 1GB sticks of Crucial Ballistix here doing nothing, I may try those and see what happens

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: AMelbye
Sylvanas: You've been lucky. What's your board revision? Just wondering if the reason yours is working is that it's a different revision from ours..

Do you really need that much vcore? I reached 3.5 with 1.4V, (not totally stable. never crashes under heavy load, though)

Where would I locate the Board revision? On my Commando the 'made in China model' was the more recent revision, it appears that this P5N-E SLI was also manufactured in China if it makes any difference. As for the Vcore, it was a no go at < 1.475v in the BIOS where it would post but fail Orthos after 2 minutes, a little more voltage and its solid, my E6320 is a 'G' batch week 48 CPU which according to various forums around the web (namely XS), requires a little more voltage to overclock than other batches.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: Tuvoc

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Right now I am running 4x1gb Crucial Ballistix PC5300 (D9GHM) @ DDR1120 5-5-5-12 solid as a rock in addition to 490FSB X 7 (1960 QDR)

First person I've seen I think who can run 4 x 1GB at anything greater than DDR730 or so
My Geil certainly won't run at that speed in this board
Coincidentally, I have 4 x 1GB sticks of Crucial Ballistix here doing nothing, I may try those and see what happens

Definitely give the Ballistix a try since It's pretty much guaranteed they are Micron IC's which love a little extra voltage. If you cant go higher than DDR730 or so have you tried running them at 1T and low latencies? That would give a huge increase in bandwidth without the need for the high frequencies.

 

[Tuvoc]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Definitely give the Ballistix a try since It's pretty much guaranteed they are Micron IC's which love a little extra voltage. If you cant go higher than DDR730 or so have you tried running them at 1T and low latencies? That would give a huge increase in bandwidth without the need for the high frequencies.

1T is guaranteed impossible with 4 sticks I'm told... unless that's what you're running

 

[franjam]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Well I got my board a few days back, the install was surprisingly easy all I did was clear up the NB and apply some AS5 along with some ramsinks on the Mosfets surrounding the CPU area. My thermalright Ultra 120 extreme fits no problem with a Sythe S-Flex 120mm Fan.

First impressions were excellent, in that the bios is so simple to use yet has all the features you'd need, much better design than the Asus Commando (my previous board). Right now I am running 4x1gb Crucial Ballistix PC5300 (D9GHM) @ DDR1120 5-5-5-12 solid as a rock in addition to 490FSB X 7 (1960 QDR) 3.43ghz on my E6320 (1hr Orthos Stable as I write this). The option to run the FSB and memory in 'Unlinked' mode makes a world of difference as you can test the maximum of both the CPU and the RAM individually- well done Nvidia. I will try tomorrow for 500+ but for now I am very pleased- great mobo

EDIT: heres my voltages in BIOS for reference

Vcore: 1.525
VDIMM: 2.35
Vcore: 1.56
Vcore Offset: auto

Temps in Orthos have'nt exceeded 43degrees so far, but it is still running as I write this.

Hi Sylvanas, I am toying with the idea of getting a Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme, can you tell me if that 43°C on load is cpu or core temp and what is your approximate ambient temp?
With my current Aerocool Dominator I'm getting 44°C cpu temp and 59°C core temp on load at around 25°C ambient, which is okay but I'm looking at seriously overclocking a 6850 soon.
Thanks.

 

[franjam]

Can anybody confirm the fsb strap issue in this link?Text

 

[SilentBob66]

Hey,

I've had this board up and working great for a few months now. I have 2 x 512 sticks of Crucial Ballistix ddr2 800 and everything was working fine.

Last night I tried to add 2 x 1gig sticks of the same Ballistix mem to bring it up to 3 gig.

I left the 512 sticks in the black slots and put the 1gigs in the yellow slots.

It froze up before getting to the welcome screen so I went into the bios and changed the timings to 'auto'. When I tried to 'exit and save' the pc locked up and ever since then it won't boot up or post at all.

I've tried going back to just the 2 x 512 with no luck. I also tried one stick of 512 in each slot individually but that didn't work either. I even went back and put some old Adata 512 mem in and no difference.

I'm afraid my bios are corrupt to the point that it won't even post, but if that is the case then is there any way to get the bios back to the original.

I tried to boot from CD with no luck and tried sticking the usb stick with the bios in at start up but that didn't work either.

Any ideas. Am I at the point where I have to RMA (again!). Can I just get a new bios chip?

What do you think.

Thanks.

 

[Tuvoc]

Presumably you took out the battery and cleared the CMOS ?

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: SilentBob66
Hey,

I've had this board up and working great for a few months now. I have 2 x 512 sticks of Crucial Ballistix ddr2 800 and everything was working fine.

Last night I tried to add 2 x 1gig sticks of the same Ballistix mem to bring it up to 3 gig.

I left the 512 sticks in the black slots and put the 1gigs in the yellow slots.

It froze up before getting to the welcome screen so I went into the bios and changed the timings to 'auto'. When I tried to 'exit and save' the pc locked up and ever since then it won't boot up or post at all.

I've tried going back to just the 2 x 512 with no luck. I also tried one stick of 512 in each slot individually but that didn't work either. I even went back and put some old Adata 512 mem in and no difference.

I'm afraid my bios are corrupt to the point that it won't even post, but if that is the case then is there any way to get the bios back to the original.

I tried to boot from CD with no luck and tried sticking the usb stick with the bios in at start up but that didn't work either.

Any ideas. Am I at the point where I have to RMA (again!). Can I just get a new bios chip?

What do you think.

Thanks.

I am interested in any replies on the above subject, because my 2 extra sticks of memory are on their way from Newegg! In my case, I've decided to add 2 x 512 MB of the same G.Skill memory as 2 x 1 GB in my signature.

According to a G.Skill technician on another forum, the 650i chipset is too "weak" to support 4 sticks of memory, and the success ratio is about 50/50. I believe that the board's power supply or the capacitors might not be able to support it on some boards.

I decided to take a chance, since while playing Quake 4 in Ultra settings my 2 GB of RAM was 99% used, according to my Logitech G15 keyboard software, and the game is quite "jittery" at times that it happens, as the system is (most likely) trying to exchange information with the "swap" file on the HD.

My plan of action is as follows: reduce the FSB from 1300 now to 1066 (stock), and memory from 800 to 667, install the extra 2 x 512 sticks (same timings/voltage), and then raise the memory back to 800 MHz and... hope for the best.

I am planning to use my 32 bit XP for at least another year, so adding another 2 GB for a total of 4 GB did not make sense to me, as the OS would not recognize the full 4 GB anyway (I have 512MB Video Memory, plus the chipsets etc.)

Any comments or suggestions before I "fry" something...?

 

[Tuvoc]

Yes - first, put everything back to STOCK speed
Set the memory to 667 manually
power down
fit 1 extra stick (so that is 3)
power up
go into BIOS and make sure memory is still set to 667
power down
fit the 4th stick
power up again and hopefully all is well
re-instate your overclock, possibly gradually, but you may need to make sure the memoery speed stays below 730 approx

4 x 1GB sticks is possible, I run them

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: Tuvoc
Yes - first, put everything back to STOCK speed
Set the memory to 667 manually
power down
fit 1 extra stick (so that is 3)
power up
go into BIOS and make sure memory is still set to 667
power down
fit the 4th stick
power up again and hopefully all is well
re-instate your overclock, possibly gradually, but you may need to make sure the memoery speed stays below 730 approx

4 x 1GB sticks is possible, I run them

Thank you, Tuvoc.

In my case it will be 2 x 1GB + 2 x 512MB, for a total of 3GB. There is a guy on ASUS forum running the same configuration (3GB) of Patriot mamory at 800MHz, according to his signature. I'll try, and hope it works.

It won't happen till probably Tuesday though... got 3 day shipping, and it ships today.

Thanks again!

 

[Tuvoc]

OK - 4 x 512MB I think commonly works at 800 and more. It is only 4 x 1GB that is problematic
With your combination you may be lucky

If you start increasing the RAM speed and it doesn't boot, remove 1 stick again and it should boot straight up again, enabling you to lower the speed again

 

[VicVega]

I have 2 questions for the uber 650i guys

I want to get another 2x1gig set of crucial ballistix to go along side my firestix, what problems will I run into? I am currently at 3.4 with a e4300, everything is in sig.

Also, my firestix is d9. Should I run the fsb up unlinked for extra performance or will I not see any gains? seems a shame to run d9 at under ddr1000 or even 800 for that matter.

TIA

 

[VicVega]

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: Tuvoc
OK - 4 x 512MB I think commonly works at 800 and more. It is only 4 x 1GB that is problematic
With your combination you may be lucky

If you start increasing the RAM speed and it doesn't boot, remove 1 stick again and it should boot straight up again, enabling you to lower the speed again

Thanks, Tuvoc. I'll try that as soon as the memory arrives - as I said, probably Tuesday.

Will keep you posted...

 

[franjam]

Originally posted by: VicVega
I have 2 questions for the uber 650i guys

I want to get another 2x1gig set of crucial ballistix to go along side my firestix, what problems will I run into? I am currently at 3.4 with a e4300, everything is in sig.

Also, my firestix is d9. Should I run the fsb up unlinked for extra performance or will I not see any gains? seems a shame to run d9 at under ddr1000 or even 800 for that matter.

TIA

I got more or less the same performance at 361 fsb 3-3-3-8-1T Sync mode as at 480mhz 4-3-3-9-2T unlinked.
eg. 1 frame/sec more in Aquamark but 10 points less in 3DMark 06 running in Sync mode, Super Pi 17.5 secs in both cases.
You should read the last few pages to see what others have encountered with 4 sticks (if you haven't already) but apparently you'll have trouble going very high from what I understand and no 1T cmd rate.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: franjam

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Well I got my board a few days back, the install was surprisingly easy all I did was clear up the NB and apply some AS5 along with some ramsinks on the Mosfets surrounding the CPU area. My thermalright Ultra 120 extreme fits no problem with a Sythe S-Flex 120mm Fan.

First impressions were excellent, in that the bios is so simple to use yet has all the features you'd need, much better design than the Asus Commando (my previous board). Right now I am running 4x1gb Crucial Ballistix PC5300 (D9GHM) @ DDR1120 5-5-5-12 solid as a rock in addition to 490FSB X 7 (1960 QDR) 3.43ghz on my E6320 (1hr Orthos Stable as I write this). The option to run the FSB and memory in 'Unlinked' mode makes a world of difference as you can test the maximum of both the CPU and the RAM individually- well done Nvidia. I will try tomorrow for 500+ but for now I am very pleased- great mobo

EDIT: heres my voltages in BIOS for reference

Vcore: 1.525
VDIMM: 2.35
Vcore: 1.56
Vcore Offset: auto

Temps in Orthos have'nt exceeded 43degrees so far, but it is still running as I write this.

Hi Sylvanas, I am toying with the idea of getting a Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme, can you tell me if that 43°C on load is cpu or core temp and what is your approximate ambient temp?
With my current Aerocool Dominator I'm getting 44°C cpu temp and 59°C core temp on load at around 25°C ambient, which is okay but I'm looking at seriously overclocking a 6850 soon.
Thanks.

I would definitely recommend getting a Thermalright ultra 120 extreme if you are contemplating the idea, 43degrees is what core 0 and core 1 read within Speedfan 4.32 under Load in Orthos (usually 20 degrees Idle), the 'CPU' temp in Speedfan and ASUS PC Probe is a little lower than that. It's winter here in Australia so ambient is around 18-22 degrees at the moment so I am making the most of it

I noticed recently that under Orthos the Vdroop was around 0.05 so I raised the Vcore to 1.6 and I can now maintain around 1.55 under load which I'm happy with so it is a little hotter now but not by much. I tried 500+ with bios settings at 1.6vcore, 2.32vdimm and 1.56 NB but it would not last long in windows, so I am pretty sure I'm at the max for this mobo. I will update with some pics as soon as I get home

UPDATE #1

Heres the rig- open case on floor

Orthos 2 hours

 

[zealit]

Hi there, I'm about to purchase a new system with this board and I read quite a big chunk of this thread. There's only 1 thing that is still not clear to me. I plan to set an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro on my CPU and was looking for a NB heatsink that would be small enough to not mod anything. I looked at the Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II Copper Northbridge Cooler ( pic1 , pic2 )
Am I going to get clearance problem with this combo? Is that NB hsf decent?

 

[vicariousgeorge]

Hello again (JustAGeeK, thanks for your recent help)...

From previous posts, you will notice that I had a problem with system temperatures. To combat this issue, I added 2 additional 80mm fans to my Antec TX640B case. Immediately, my temperatures dropped to a more reasonable level. However, this created another problem altogether - noise. The sound of 2 80mm fans at high RPM's drove me nuts. At first, I figured I'd get used to it, and that the benefit procured by their use offset the increase in volume. Well, it didn't.

Accordingly, I decided to purchase a case that had a reputation for being both cool and quiet - the Antec P180B. After migrating all my hardware from the TX640B to the P180B, I made the following observation: it wasn't really cool, and it wasn't really quiet. However, it was still better than my old case, and I did get a REALLY good deal on it, so all was not lost.

This brings me to my main issue: CPU temperature. Not only did I buy one of the most thermally efficient cases on the market, but I also removed the MX-1 from my Freezer 7 pro (it was already crusty after 2 weeks) and replaced it with some AS5. My CPU temps stayed almost exactly the same as before. I'm beginning to think that my E6600 has a cooling floor of 35-38C, and that no matter what I do - short of installing a liquid cooler - I won't be able to achieve lower temperatures.

I noticed that I received the L360A stepping (which apparently is one of the worst for overclocking). Do you think that may have anything to do with it? Out of curiosity, what are some of your idle temperatures?

I think I may overclock tonight too, so temperature is now even more important.

Anyway, thanks in advance,
John