The Unofficial ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Board Thread

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jkcheng122

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Dec 31, 2006
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thanks for the cheerups, i think i will exchange it for the same board, this time leaving the NB alone and putting the asus chipset fan on the southbridge. i'll put the zalman sink on my old board where the asus fan used to be.

really do not want to go through reformatting again after having just done it over the weekend. just wanna plug it in, set my timings and get my WoW on.
 
C

Core2

Senior member
Dec 28, 2006
991
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Originally posted by: jkcheng122
thanks for the cheerups, i think i will exchange it for the same board, this time leaving the NB alone and putting the asus chipset fan on the southbridge. i'll put the zalman sink on my old board where the asus fan used to be.

really do not want to go through reformatting again after having just done it over the weekend. just wanna plug it in, set my timings and get my WoW on.
Click to expand...
Did you do the things I said? What does the board do? My son plays alot of WoW. He has 2 level 60's and I don't how many others. His main charater is named Zulcan look him up

 
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jkcheng122

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Dec 31, 2006
186
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Originally posted by: Core2
Did you do the things I said? What does the board do? My son plays alot of WoW. He has 2 level 60's and I don't how many others. His main charater is named Zulcan look him up
Click to expand...

yeah i did, no compound was smeared over components, and i checked q-conn numerous times. i didnt use a wrist strap tho and i'm not sure if shorted anything. if i did would it power up at all?

no worries, since i got the board at work, i can just exchange it here for another one and take it home tonite to work on.

going to pick up a wrist strap and a arctic cooler freezer 7 pro also, i'm done with fans requiring motherboard removal. hate the thought of having to remove the board when i upgrade to a new cpu near end of the year.
 
C

Core2

Senior member
Dec 28, 2006
991
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Originally posted by: jkcheng122
Originally posted by: Core2
Did you do the things I said? What does the board do? My son plays alot of WoW. He has 2 level 60's and I don't how many others. His main charater is named Zulcan look him up
Click to expand...

yeah i did, no compound was smeared over components, and i checked q-conn numerous times. i didnt use a wrist strap tho and i'm not sure if shorted anything. if i did would it power up at all?

no worries, since i got the board at work, i can just exchange it here for another one and take it home tonite to work on.

going to pick up a wrist strap and a arctic cooler freezer 7 pro also, i'm done with fans requiring motherboard removal. hate the thought of having to remove the board when i upgrade to a new cpu near end of the year.
Click to expand...
Do you work at computer parts store? When you install that freezer Pro in order to have it blow out the back of the case you have to trim a small portion of the fan cover and bend up the bottom fin that faces the NB or it won't fit (rests on the NB use a hacksaw blade). Also leave the thermal compound thats comes already applied to it, MX-1 is good stuff. You can also face it so it blows up. It will blow hot air into your PS if its located above. Make sure the pins are in a locked position, set the HSF over the CPU and line up each pin and then push one pin at a time in a criss cross manner. Some say two pins at a time. I found this to be the easiest because you can hear each pin click and know it securely locked. I have two computes with the Freezer PRO each have a E6400 and both idle @ 30c or lower. Great HSF

 
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jkcheng122

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Dec 31, 2006
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if i point it up to have hot air blow upwards (p180 has fan on top blowing air out, psu in bottom chamber), do i still have to go through the trimmings?.

dont have the dremel know-how or the patience to do the trimmings.

i work at http://www.directron.com
 
X

Xdreamer

Member
Aug 22, 2004
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so overall is this board a recommended buy?
is there another motherboard that is as good for the money?
i am thinking e6300, a x1950xt256, 1gb corsair xms2 ddr2-800.
 
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jkcheng122

Member
Dec 31, 2006
186
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if u got a ati video card and have no near-future upgrades to SLI enabled card, prob be better for u to get a intel 965 chipset board such as the asus p5b series or gigabyte ga-965p-ds3.
 
C

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
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Originally posted by: Xdreamer
so overall is this board a recommended buy?
is there another motherboard that is as good for the money?
i am thinking e6300, a x1950xt256, 1gb corsair xms2 ddr2-800.
Click to expand...

For the money? Probably not. However a lot of this board's potential will rely on a BIOS update that hasn't come yet, so its a bit of a gamble. From the sounds of it though, it looks like Asus does have a fix to the picky memory timing issues on this board and is working to get it released. Its a new board and was probably a bit rushed, but I'm feeling pretty confident they'll fix the problems soon with a BIOS update.

In the meantime, if you can get it to run at @400MHz FSB with tight memory timings, the board performs as well as the 680i for a fraction of the price. The parts you spec'd out shouldn't have a problem getting there. There's some Intel chipsets that also perform well but from what I read, the nVidia boards have more OC'ing options as well as the option for future SLI.

 
C

Core2

Senior member
Dec 28, 2006
991
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Originally posted by: jkcheng122
if i point it up to have hot air blow upwards (p180 has fan on top blowing air out, psu in bottom chamber), do i still have to go through the trimmings?.

dont have the dremel know-how or the patience to do the trimmings.

i work at http://www.directron.com
Click to expand...

No, but it so easy to trim. You can melt it with a soldering iron if your better at that You want the fastest escape route for that warm air. Hey did the Asus Commando come out yet, maybe you should wait for that if you plan on going the single card route $$$$ I bet. Nice board. I might add one to my collection
 
J

jkcheng122

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Dec 31, 2006
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it's not out yet, and it's gonna be one of teh Republic of Gamers boards, which means i won't be able to afford it nor will i need more than half of the extra features. the onboard cmos reset switch would be sweet tho.
 
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jkcheng122

Member
Dec 31, 2006
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confirms what all of us have noticed, the stock cooling solutions for the board are simply inadequate.

and i'm a little afraid to mess around with the nb hs now after what happened last night.

what is the best solution to remove it w/o breaking the clips in case it needs to be put back?

what i did yesterday was pop it out from behind the board, i dunno if maybe i scratched up the board that way or perhaps i wasn't properly grounded.

anyways i'm gonna exchange the board today and pick up a anti-static wrist strap along with the cpu fan.

another question, if i put the zalman on the NB, will that make the arctic fan fit w/o modifications?
 
C

Core2

Senior member
Dec 28, 2006
991
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Originally posted by: jkcheng122
confirms what all of us have noticed, the stock cooling solutions for the board are simply inadequate.

and i'm a little afraid to mess around with the nb hs now after what happened last night.

what is the best solution to remove it w/o breaking the clips in case it needs to be put back?

what i did yesterday was pop it out from behind the board, i dunno if maybe i scratched up the board that way or perhaps i wasn't properly grounded.

anyways i'm gonna exchange the board today and pick up a anti-static wrist strap along with the cpu fan.


another question, if i put the zalman on the NB, will that make the arctic fan fit w/o modifications?
Click to expand...

What you did is right pop it out by squeezing the push pin with pliers. I think re-applying a good thermal compound and add a small chipset fan Scythe SY124010L Fans is good enough The Zalman heatsink is not good enough you need somthing like the Swiftech MCX159-CU Copper C110 Fan&Heatsinks.

 
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jkcheng122

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Dec 31, 2006
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hmm, can't remember off the top of the head, but i think only the asus chipset fan i got from asus (the a8n-sli boards had a very loud and sometimes defective chipset fan that was replaced by asus through mail), which is about half an inch in height, is just short enough to allow the VC2 to reside over it. this may actually be a reason asus didnt include a cooling solution here.

you can also check the picture on the AT review page for a further look, i think most mainstream and high end video cards will not fit there if a HS/HSF taller than the pci-e slot is present.

with my p180 case featuring 12cm fans in back and above the top rear end of the case blowing hot air out along with another fan in the front of the case sucking cool air in, will i need to replace the NB hs if i dont intend to oc past 450mhz (3.15ghz on the e6300)?
 
S

Srfrbum

Banned
May 19, 2005
385
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Originally posted by: donxvi
Originally posted by: Srfrbum
Can anyone make a Overclocking guide to this motherboard, because everything I try, I can't get the FSB to get over 1380 without no boot, or no stability. THANKS.
Click to expand...

A few thoughts;
Make sure you're not trying to run your CPU to a speed that's unreasonable for whatever model you have.
make sure you're running CPU to Memory clocks unlinked.
Set the memory clock, and timings, by hand, to what it's rated for. You may have to run CPUZ to verify what to set and that it's taken. Set memory voltage by hand as well. Worry about OCing memory later.
Make sure you have good seating of the NB heatsink, put some cooling on it to help out.
Set NB voltage to 1.4
Put your RAM in the black slots
Note the amount the voltage drops from the setting in BIOS to measured; think about 1.4-1.425 setpoint
Finally, I found that I couldn't boot for some period of time above a certain speed (one I'd successfully run at before) after a CMOS reset but then kept adjusting some of the CPU Settings (odd things on the Speedstep page of the BIOS) and it booted again. Not sure if there's a correlation there or not.
Just a few things I've played with so far.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much ! I got it stable to 1500 FSB and 800 Memory, I did everything you told me above. I set the my memory at 1.920 ( Corsair XMS DDR2-800 5-5-5-12 ) and the NB at 1.4. Now the problem is, I can't go over the 1500 barrier ( 2.62 Ghz ) What should I do next ? Thanks.

 
J

jkcheng122

Member
Dec 31, 2006
186
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0
Originally posted by: Srfrbum
Thank you so much ! I got it stable to 1500 FSB and 800 Memory, I did everything you told me above. I set the my memory at 1.920 ( Corsair XMS DDR2-800 5-5-5-12 ) and the NB at 1.4. Now the problem is, I can't go over the 1500 barrier ( 2.62 Ghz ) What should I do next ? Thanks.
Click to expand...
try lowering the cpu multiplier to 6x and up the fsb again to see if it'd go over 1500, if not, then that would be ur max fsb. if it does go over 1500 stable, then ur cpu is probably holding u back, try upping the vcore.

someone correct me if i'm wrong here, as i'm not as seasoned an oc'er as most of u here are.
 
J

jkcheng122

Member
Dec 31, 2006
186
0
0
Originally posted by: Core2
What you did is right pop it out by squeezing the push pin with pliers. I think re-applying a good thermal compound and add a small chipset fan Scythe SY124010L Fans is good enough The Zalman heatsink is not good enough you need somthing like the Swiftech MCX159-CU Copper C110 Fan&Heatsinks.
Click to expand...

seems a bit overkill to use a $35 HSF on the chipset when i have DDR2-800 memory. this would seem a good deal for those with money to spent on 680i with x6800/qx6700 cpu's and ddr2-1000+ memory
 
J

jkcheng122

Member
Dec 31, 2006
186
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0
C

Core2

Senior member
Dec 28, 2006
991
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0
Originally posted by: Srfrbum
Originally posted by: donxvi
Originally posted by: Srfrbum
Can anyone make a Overclocking guide to this motherboard, because everything I try, I can't get the FSB to get over 1380 without no boot, or no stability. THANKS.
Click to expand...

A few thoughts;
Make sure you're not trying to run your CPU to a speed that's unreasonable for whatever model you have.
make sure you're running CPU to Memory clocks unlinked.
Set the memory clock, and timings, by hand, to what it's rated for. You may have to run CPUZ to verify what to set and that it's taken. Set memory voltage by hand as well. Worry about OCing memory later.
Make sure you have good seating of the NB heatsink, put some cooling on it to help out.
Set NB voltage to 1.4
Put your RAM in the black slots
Note the amount the voltage drops from the setting in BIOS to measured; think about 1.4-1.425 setpoint
Finally, I found that I couldn't boot for some period of time above a certain speed (one I'd successfully run at before) after a CMOS reset but then kept adjusting some of the CPU Settings (odd things on the Speedstep page of the BIOS) and it booted again. Not sure if there's a correlation there or not.
Just a few things I've played with so far.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much ! I got it stable to 1500 FSB and 800 Memory, I did everything you told me above. I set the my memory at 1.920 ( Corsair XMS DDR2-800 5-5-5-12 ) and the NB at 1.4. Now the problem is, I can't go over the 1500 barrier ( 2.62 Ghz ) What should I do next ? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Now just raise your mem voltage 2.01 should be good 1600 - 1650FSB 2.08 1700 FSB
Watch the heat on the NB put a fan on it if you can.
 
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jkcheng122

Member
Dec 31, 2006
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heading home soon to try the new replacement motherboard. hoping to regain the 1600fsb/800mem 2.8ghz oc i had.

wish me luck =)
 
C

Core2

Senior member
Dec 28, 2006
991
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0
J

jkcheng122

Member
Dec 31, 2006
186
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well, i'm up and running on default settings right now. will start the oc'ing after a bit.

btw i installed the freezer 7 w/o any modifications, the heatsink on the nb is bent just a slight bit.
 
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