The Unofficial ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Board Thread

[AMelbye]

If I was to buy a motherboard these days, I'd get the Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4. It is very much the same as the p5n-e sli, but it comes with a cooler on the south bridge, more stable vcore and as far as I know, it doesn't have the RAM issue.

Also I'd get the cheapest core2duo. I got the E6300, and now I realize that the cheaper E4300 would have given me a higher overclock, hence better performance than the processor I have. (the difference In cache size doesn't justify the difference in price IMO. on top of that, the higher mulitiplier of the E4300 lets you get a very high CPU overclock without pushing your motherboard to its' limits)

The Gigabyte is however slightly more expensive (in europe, same price in the US I believe), and a less known brand.

I did however see a review comparing the Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4 to the p5n-e sli and some other board in the same price range, and the gigabyte came out best.

 

[AMelbye]

sorry, double post

 

[garikfox]

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5N-E%20SLI/0604.zip

 

[sisq0kidd]

Can someone help me out here. Just got this board and cannot seem to get Windows setup to recognize any of my sata drives.

I'm raiding 2 of them and tried making the raid disk, but Windows still gives me that message that it cannot find any hard drives.

The hard drives are seen by the bios and the raid controller on boot, but no luck during setup.

Any help is greatly appreciated

 

[Rooty691]

wow i can't believe there is a whole forum dedicated to the Asus P5NE-sli motherboard =)

well i just order all my comp parts
Asus P5NE-sli
evga 8800 gts superclocked
e6600
antec case, with 500w powersupply antec true power trio
and picked up seagate 300gb hard drive from frys

but for ram i am a little lost still, i do not know which would work the best with my motherboard, i do not plan on overclocking the ram, just need something really fast. i picked out this one is this good?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034

great post.. love all the info on the motherboard any tips would be apperciated =)

 

[imported_bigmike]

I would like to thank core2 for the guide on page92,it was very well writen and extremely helpful,Thanks!

 

[imported_bigmike]

Originally posted by: sisq0kidd
Can someone help me out here. Just got this board and cannot seem to get Windows setup to recognize any of my sata drives.

I'm raiding 2 of them and tried making the raid disk, but Windows still gives me that message that it cannot find any hard drives.

The hard drives are seen by the bios and the raid controller on boot, but no luck during setup.

Any help is greatly appreciated

Install Vista or use nlite to slipstream nvraid driver into xp install cd.

 

[garikfox]

Originally posted by: Rooty691
wow i can't believe there is a whole forum dedicated to the Asus P5NE-sli motherboard =)

well i just order all my comp parts
Asus P5NE-sli
evga 8800 gts superclocked
e6600
antec case, with 500w powersupply antec true power trio
and picked up seagate 300gb hard drive from frys

but for ram i am a little lost still, i do not know which would work the best with my motherboard, i do not plan on overclocking the ram, just need something really fast. i picked out this one is this good?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034

great post.. love all the info on the motherboard any tips would be apperciated =)

You will NOT be dissapointed !

 

[Santyclaws]

Originally posted by: AMelbye
dakata24: I used mine with no issues at all, and I believe I was running 0505 at that point (sold the drive). is it enabled in the bios?

Santyclaws: I used to have random reboots when my ram was in the yellow slots. Haven't had a single random reboot since I moved them.

The crashes I get are generally that the computer freezes for a second, the display some times gets slightly corrupted, then the screen goes black. Also, on very high overclocks, applications randomly quit/disappear just before this happens.

Although your temps seem to be fine, you may have some component overheating. I'd suggest you down your fsb to 1333 for now, to see if it helps. At least then you'll know if your problems are overclock related. it might even be something wrong with your board, but you won't know untill you've checked if it's stable at the motherboard's certified settings...

I've got it at 1333 QDR and the voltages for Vcore on auto, NB at 1.36. I'll see if I get any more reboots at that setting. Ram is already in the Black slots, timings manually set to 5,5,5,15 2T and 2.08 volts per specs.

 

[nicoMVD]

Originally posted by: garikfox


<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5N-E%20SLI/0604.zip">ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5N-E%20SLI/0604.zip</a>

WOW! a new BIOS,
the two previous versions were useless.

There's no info file about this one.
Did you try it ?

 

[AMelbye]

Well, I've got the new bios installed, and it works at the settings I used with the previous bios, but I won't have the time for any extensive testing untill the end of this month

 

[craniumxd]

Good Morning,

I am having trouble with this motherboard and hope to get a few questions answered.

I bought:

CRUCIAL BALLISTIX MATCH PAIR PC28000 1000MHZ

I have not OC'd this board at all yet, but I am having some weird issues I hope somone can identify and help me correct. Here they are:

1. Infrequent, but bothersome rand system resets. The funny thing is it does not happen during a gaming session and seems to be totally random. I know this is a problem and need to address it.

2. Hard Drive thrashing. It seems as I watch the HD LED it just continuously blinks, and I can hear the HD thrashing. I will get mouse lag while web surfing and in game to (WOW). I have watched the system processes and cannot locate the culprit. taskmgr.exe seems to jump to 3-4 cpu usage and maybe thats it, but I have never experience mouse lag and know it to be tied to this hard drive thrashing. I did install every update from the Microsoft website, perhaps I shouldn't have done so??

Is this memory the culprit, do I need to make some BIOS adjustments on this board to reach stability, because as of now it is set to defaults.

TIA

 

[AMelbye]

I've never had any issues with hard drives on this board, or the mouse issue you describe. The mouse issue may be related to display drivers (just a guess)

Do you have the RAM in the black slots? try reducing their speed to 800MHz, and timings to 4-4-4-12-2t or more relaxed.

Although your ram is good for 1GHz, I'm not sure that the board is, as I never tried mine above 800.

Which bios do you have? most people find the 040x bios to be the better one. Upgrade if yours is older.

 

[craniumxd]

Yes, I do have the 040 Bios, and I did put the the RAM in the black slots. i will try the timings you suggest and see how that goes. Let ya know.

Thank You.

 

[JustaGeek]

As AMelbye has said, try 800MHz 4-4-4-12, 2T, all set manually, but it is also VERY important that you set your Memory Voltage to 2.2V for Crucial Ballistix. When you have achieved stability at these settings, try higher memory speed. ALL SET MANUALLY IN BIOS.
For the other problems, get a good AntiVirus and AntiSpyware programs (like NIS 2007 and SpySweeper). And defragment your HD.
Hope this helps.

 

[craniumxd]

Ok I am trying that now, where are the individual timing settings in the 0404 bios? I cannot locate them, I set the memory to 800 mhz though.

 

[jei3]

Hey, just booted up my p5n-e sli system and have run into a problem.. Just wanted to see if anyone had run into this problem and had any ideas..

first of all, this is whats running in the system..

p5n-e sli
C2D e6600
dvdrw
160gb hdd
2gb crucial ddr2800
evga 8800gts 640mb

When I initially put the system together, I was missing the video card, so upon booting the system
I received some beep codes which were expected so I thought all was well.. Well, I installed the 8800 this morning and ran into some problems.. The first boot was fine, the system posted and I entered the bios.. I changed the boot order to boot to CD and disabled the floppy since I don't have one.. After saving the changes and exiting, the system just sat there, didn't restart itself and seemed to be stuck in power save mode, because there wasn't a signal being sent out to the display.. I manually shut down and turned the system back on and this is where im stuck.. Now, evertime I turn on the system it takes about 10 seconds before it spits out a beep code. The code is 1 long and 3 short beeps, followed by 4 short beeps... I have reset cmos, removed the battery and such multiple times with no luck.. I did get lucky once after leaving the system off for about 10-15 minutes, it booted again so I entered bios and changed the same settings, save and exit and the exact same thing happened.. Now I'm stuck and have not been able to get into bios again.. I've tried one stick of ram in both the black and yellow slots, but same results.. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks..

 

[AMelbye]

craniumxd:

that's probably the problem, then. the motherboard automaticly sets the ram to 1T timing, which the motherboard can't cope with.

I think it's in chipset features or something like that. Just have a look through the menus, it shouldn't be that much of a maze.

jei3: I don't have a clue about the beeps, but try disconnecting everything but the display adapter, processor and one stick of ram. try the ram in all the different slots, and once you've made it boot, set the ram timings manually. The black slots are most likely to work, though some people have found the opposite to be true.

 

[jei3]

Thanks, I actually just got it to post with another graphics card. I entered bios and set the ram timings to 4-4-4-12/2t. saved the settings and the system actually restarted after exiting bios this time, but it sat there until giving the same 1 long 3 short beeps... called asus and they said it seemed like a bad PCI-e slot and to RMA it.. So I suppose I'll give that a shot.. I am a little disappointed that my first Asus board is the only one I've ever had issues with..

 

[AMelbye]

IMO the p5n-e sli isn't such a great board. I've had loads of asus boards before, and always considered them a very reliable and consistent brand. Although some of the issues people are having with this board aren't really asus' fault (your dodgy PCI-e slot may be caused by careless handeling by whoever shipped it, or by static discharge from you when installing it), my overall impression of Asus as a motherboard manufacturer is changed.

 

[craniumxd]

FYI,

I moved the ram to the black slots and set the mem timings as you specified. The machine hasn't rebooted once and I believe the HD thrashing is gone as well.

Now that I have the board stable, what do you suggest for ocing this board with the crucial ballistix?

Thanks again for your input and help.

 

[AMelbye]

I'd say keep it like that for another couple days, then try to bump the ram speed up a bit to see how high you can get. looking through this forum should give you an indication of how high you'll be able to get your ram, and how to get your best overclock.

for finding how far you can OC your processor I'd reccomend that you keep your ram where it is now, then start playing with the fsb, bumping up the cpu vcore if it gets unstable. At some point you'll also need to bump up NB vcore, but at that point you'll need additional cooling of the SB and NB.

 

[SoulTaker]

Hello again guys. I am wondering, what is the MB temp? according to pc probe software my MB temp is always around 52C. Cpu is below 40 which is good but what is this MB temp? is 52C normal on you boards?

 

[AMelbye]

what software are you using? chances are that it has got the cpu and motherboard temps mixed up.

 

[SoulTaker]

pc brobe software as i already told. Same temps in BIOS. Please tell me what MB is cause my bf2 is crashing on me to desktop all the time and i am suspecting this high temp on MB. What does your pc probe show on MB temp? anyone?