The Unofficial ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Board Thread

[tno]

So, this is the thread with the most number of replies in this forum, and I can't believe that it has been abandoned. So, anyone have any tips on my PCI-e x1 issue? No?

How about this, I am stil sporting 0901, is there any point in moving to 1101? Have the 4 slots of RAM thing been worked out? How's penryn support worked out? Good? I know Q6xx0 overclocking was iffy, does that still apply for the q9xx0 series? Or can I dive into a Q9450 with reckless abandon.

How about a more social question, just how many of us are still out there? Hundreds of us seemed to be talking about it a few months ago, where'd they all go? We're not all running DDR3 boards now are we?

tno

 

[Tuvoc]

Well most of us with these boards have either sorted out their issues or abandoned the board. And hardly anyone buys these boards new now, so it's natural the thread has died.
As for Q9450 - no chance, the 45nm Quads are not compatible with this board, just the duals.

 

[antirobot]

I sort of doubt to get any responses considering this thread has died out, but I've been fiddling with my board a little lately and had some rather confusing results. I recently installed an ATI 4870 and noticed that I was getting beat out pretty badly in 3dmark06 by people with similar builds, so I thought I'd start experimenting a little. Since I filled all four memory slots, I haven't been able to get up to stock speed on my ddr800, although I was able to get stable at 720 in the "sync" setting (CPU-Z says 1:1?). I hadn't realized the memory hole was finally fixed, so I downloaded the latest bios to find out if I had any more headroom.

Several frustrating days of attempting different methods for flashing the BIOS left me with the impression I'm stuck at 0401, so no closing that hole for me. I'd previously used nTune to attempt memory speeds in the danger zone without getting locked out of my BIOS, but bumping the FSB to 361 always resulted in a crash. I ran across clockgen and decided to have a go. To my surprise, clockgen had no trouble pushing my RAM right past 720 to nearly 800. I wasn't stable, of course, but I have no clue how this is possible if there is a memory hole. Maybe I'm just not getting the concept (I wouldn't be surprised).

Anyhow, my discovery didn't do me much good as running stable under orthos at any speed higher than my previous max results in a stop. I did notice that the CPU stress test ran just fine at much higher clocks, but moving to a "blend" test would crash almost immediately. Does this suggest that the RAM or northbridge is the weak link, or is the orthos CPU test simply not to be trusted (or clockgen, for that matter)?

Well, I don't expect to see any responses, but if anyone is still interested enough, wisdom regarding any of these results would be appreciated. I was particularly perplexed by clockgen's ability to apparently ignore the RAM limitations I had in the BIOS. Thanks.

 

[Ordskii]

hi. Yeah, the board's officially old these days.

me. I just up'ed to 1101 and the memory hole's gone. I have 3 GB in four slots, now running at 800 with 4-4-4 timing.

I used a floppy but a usb stick should work too. Followed these directions and used all the switches. No clear cmos jumper or battery removal and all was good - but, of course, had to reconfigure the bios.

Hey, i only took Asus three years to fix the hole gone!

My P5N-E SLI board has suffered the startup problems since I updated the BIOS from a very old 0202 to 0608 in Windows. The procedure described below seems to have solved the issue.

____________________________


http://www.lejabeach.com/Guide/awardbios.html


I used the command line:

A:\AWDFLASH P5NESLI.BIN /py /sn /wb /cc /cp /cd

UPDATE: I am not sure if the spaces between the switches are relevant, but decided to put them in anyway.

The only problem is that I renamed the 0608 file to P5NESLI.BIN in Windows. When I tried to use the AWDFLASH, it gave me an error "File not found".

I ran: A:\dir command, and it showed me the files AWDFLASH EXE and P5NES~2 BIN.

I used the "rename" command in DOS:

A:\ren P5NES~2.BIN P5NESLI.BIN

After that all went smoothly.

Why is it important to use that utility with the old-style floppy drive...? Because it has all these switches! Read what they do:

/CC - to clear CMOS after reflashing. This option comes in handy when there is a risk that the data arrays created by new BIOS version in CMOS may differ from those former ones. If so, then you are likely to have troubles with the mainboard startup. Clearing CMOS will let you avoid searching for Clear CMOS jumper on the board, which is really helpful if it isn't accompanied with a proper manual or is simply hard to access.

/CP - stands for clearing PnP (ESCD) Data matrix after BIOS reflashing. The information about PnP devices is stored in ESCD. The key /CP is an equivalent to Reset Configuration Data in PnP/PCI Configuration CMOS Setup. It makes sense to use /CP if you skip several versions of BIOS or if you have installed new PnP cards. If you don not update the ESCD, your board may suffer some startup problems.

/CD - stands for clearing DMI Data pool after reprogramming. Literally, DMI is a data base, containing all the information on the system as a whole. Clearing it may be fruitful in the above mentioned situations with /CP and /CC keys, as well as if some of the system components have been changed.

I hope that it using AWDFLASH has solved my startup problem, as described above. Haven't suffered the boot failure since yesterday, but only time will tell...

And for those who do not have a Floppy Drive - I would strongly recommend getting one!

The modern motherboards are a combination of the OLD and the NEW. Working with BIOS and the BIOS chips is a part of the old technology alive for probably 20 years or more. Unless/until that philosophy and approach changes, we will be "stuck' in that weird combination of the antiquated floppies with modern SSD's.

 

[antirobot]

Well, now I'm really confused. I decided I would go back to trying a few "unlinked" combos to see if it made any difference in overall performance. When I moved up to 1600 (400 FSB), the machine wouldn't boot at all and I finally had to clear CMOS. When it booted back up, I was expecting the standard angry beep telling me it didn't like its default settings with 4GB of memory, but it booted right up at default settings. I corrected the memory timings and set my RAID back up and restarted to see if it was just dumb luck. Nope. Booted into Windows just fine with the default speeds (1066/800). Somehow my memory hole disappeared.

Unfortunately, I can't really up the processor speed at all with the memory at 800. I get an almost immediate failure in orthos anytime I go above 1066. Using the sync setting also results in instability at anything much beyond my original top speed of 1440/720, so it turns out it doesn't matter whether there is a hole or not.

I have no idea what changed the board's mind about running four sticks of RAM at 800, but something definitely did. I'm still under the 0401 bios and any attempt at flashing it still fails, so I'm stumped. It looks like it's time to accept that until I decide to get a new mobo, I'll be at 1440/720. Not that that's a terrible place to be.

 

[TheStigUK]

Hello, I've got a little problem with my X-Fi, that I'm not sure is related to this motherboard or not, but I thought I'd ask here anyway!

Basically, I'm still running BIOS 703, this has been fine with my setup, and I have a stable system (mind you the graphics all screwed up earlier today but that's the first time that's happened......); my X-Fi XtremeMusic sounds great, and all works fine.

Except for the new Dolby Digital Live functionality, which experiences pops and skips every 2 or 3 minutes. These maybe last less than half a second, but it's obviously not ideal. If I don't have DDL enabled then my X-Fi works perfectly, and I have no problems in any situation.

I have the latest drivers for my X-Fi.

I have noticed though that there is a BIOS which says it "Improves compatibility with X-Fi soundcards," which Creative have told me to install; however I'm not convinced that it's a BIOS issue, I think it's a Creative driver problem.

I'd like to know however if any of you are running the DDL functionality and an X-Fi with a BIOS later than mine (703), if you are then I might take the risk and update it.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Ordskii]

Hi StiqUK I have a XiFi - no problems with bios 401 in the past or 1101 now.

When I first bought the board the drivers were awful - but over the past 12 months the latest drivers ran fine in XP and both 32 and 64 bit vista for me.

1101 finally got me 800 speed on memory, worth the update, but XiFi was OK with 401.

Good luck! (bios update info a few messages above)

 

[TheStigUK]

Hi,

I've just updated my BIOS, which looks like it went fine. Unfortunately I still experienced an Audio skip when playing some music earlier. All of the rest of the X-Fi features works perfect, it's just the Dolby Digital Live functionality which has skips, so it's not such a big deal.

Must just be a Creative driver issue, so I guess I'll have to wait for a fix.

Thanks

 

[mantras]

Here's my current setup

Asus P5N-E SLI
E6400 @ 3.2 400x8 - Arctic Freezer Pro 7
2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 PC2 6400C5 5-4-4-12 2T
Corsair 520W PSU
Geforce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit
Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP

I plan to upgrade my processor to E8500 and get the UltraSharp 2709W
I wondered what would be the best videocard to handle the dell 27 for mostly movie/tv playback and take advantage of all features. Any comments on the monitor would be appreciated too. Thanks for the help.

 

[Tuvoc]

I replaced my board with a P5Q Deluxe a few months back. However, I passed the P5N-E SLI to my brother and it now runs a Q6600 quad at stock speed 24/7 quite happily. He'll run it until it dies, hopefully he'll get a few years out of it. I ran it 24/7 for over a year.

Ironically - one of the main reasons I changed boards was that the 8GB of Vista Gold Upgrade OCZ memory would not work in the P5N. I blamed the board/NVidia chipset, and got the P45 based P5Q. The 8GB wouldn't work there either !! I was NOT happy.... Crap memory, avoid it. So I had to buy 8GB of Corsair from the P5Q QVL list, and it works like a charm. Now I wonder if all I needed for the P5N was something ike the 8GB of Corsair instead of the OCZ...

 

[willmarth2]

I did not build my system but I designed it 2 years ago. I have an E6300(overclocked 5% with stock HS), P5N-SLI, 1 8800 GTS sli 648 mb, 2 x 1GB generic (CPUZ says freq is 419.6 MHZ), system. I tried to overclock to 20% but system shuts down. I want to run Crysis. I am not buying another cpu till after Xmas. My video card runs great on just about everything. So now I am thinking about upgrading in small increments so I can overclock. Should I go for a new HS first or upgrade to 1033 memory. Newegg configurator has memory not in the mb manual. I have BIOS Revision 0307 12/25/2006.
I am glad I found this forum and thread. This is my first post.

 

[Xdreamer]

I would definatly update the bios, and get the new heatsink. Faster memory cant compete with a larger overclock (unless your memory is a severe bottle neck.). I have the same processor except in in Xeon trim. (It was 2 bucks more and I bought it on a whim.) I tried overclocking in small increments but this board doesnt like that. My setup is more stable at 3.0ghz than it is at 2.2ghz.

 

[Heatwave]

FYI, some dude succeeded in getting a Yorkie Q9450 fully stable on the Asus P5N-E SLI board:

http://forums.overclockers.co....php?t=17668494&page=98

http://img227.imageshack.us/im.../9210/p5neq9450uw4.jpg

 

[mavizaman]

hi everyone,
i want to buy 2gb 800mhz memory. (single module)
my choise is "OCZ 2GB DDR2 800MHz Vista Upgrade Bellek OCZ2VU8002G" or "A-DATA 2GB 800mhz CL5" through price.
but i dont know to compatible with p5n-e
Which rames are compatible with P5N-E ?

note:at asus website ram list is old.

 

[WorldTraveller]

Hi, I am using 2X2GB sticks of G.Skill RAM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16820231122) on my P5E-N SLI board.

Listed RAM timings: CL5.5.5.15
RAM speed: PC2-6400
ASUS MB BIOS version: 1101

The 2 sticks work fine individually (one at a time) on any of the 4 slots.
They also work fine in single-channel mode (one stick in black & one in yellow) and I get the expected 3.5 GB capacity.
The problem is, I can't get them to work in dual-channel mode (2 sticks in the same colored slots - black or yellow).

I have left all settings at AUTO and have also tried playing with the timings and voltage. But, no luck. Do I just have bad RAM sticks? If someone can suggest timings and voltage combinations for me to try, I would be grateful.

Anyone had similar problems or any thoughts?

Please help...

 

[acroig]

After 14 months my P5N-E SLI now refuses to run with two sticks in any DIMM slot.

 

[Endersun]

Is this thread dead because of how long its been since this MB came out?

 

[Endersun]

Ive added 2x2GB G.Skill DDR2 800 4-4-4-12 1.8v-1.9v

So im running with a total of 6GB using 4 sticks.... ill let anyone listening know how it goes.. because I got a lock up about 30 min ago, and that NEVER happens to me, usually running 100% stable, so I dug up this thread to seek wisdom in case of problems...

If it locks up again, im gonna try 5-5-5-15 timings even though all 4 sticks were origonally designed to run 4-4-4-12...

 

[Endersun]

okay... 2nd lockup about an hour after ram installed. I am now running my 6GB of ram on 5-5-5-15. I REALLY hope this works...

otherwise I may have to look into my voltage...

wish me luck!

 

[Endersun]

crashed on 5-5-5-15 .... I'm gonna start digging through this thread and researching voltage a bit... unless anyone has suggestions.

 

[Endersun]

Ive decided I have probably made a bad choice with using a different company / voltage...

I remember having issues with G.Skill ram origonaly, there prices tempt me though!

Im returning the G.Skill and switching to just more of the same Geil I'm using now...

 

[JustaGeek]

I lowered the memory frequency to 667MHz over a year ago, to run 1:1 with the FSB. Everything is running smoother than 800 MHz with the "weird" FSB:RAM ratio, with my 333 (1333) MHz FSB.

Have not had a hardware problem since... (knock on wood!)

Ever Crysis, Crysis Warhead and Far Cry 2 are perfectly playable at 1680x1050 on highest settings (minus AA) with my aging 8800.

Still waiting for the next big thing in processors and GPU's.

Can't believe that it's been almost 3 years since Conroe, and my 6600 is still running strong since September 2006! (And my P5N-E SLI since January 2007).

Good luck!

 

[DeadMan3000]

OK I have come back to this thread for some assistance. I updated the BIOS to 1403 because I thought it might solve some sluggish USB 2.0 perfomance issues with a Sandisk card reader (It didn't). Previously I had been able to get read speeds of 20mbps from a Sandisk extreme II 4GB card and Sandisk mobile card reader. Now it will not read much faster than 14mps.

I have tested the drivers and no difference and am considering a clean wipe of XP. However I wanted to look into the issue of the new BIOS. They have changed the layout and some of my settings have been lost to Auto settings during the update process. I now no longer understand the layout of the memory timings. Previoulsy it was straighforward to enter the timings for my Crucial Ballistix 2GB 800Mhz kit. Now I have no idea. I was only able to set the memory voltage. But the memory timings are confusing as hell to look at now as there seem to be more of them than before.

Can anyone point me to what settings I should be using? Or is Auto as good as it gets? Also any idea why the USB speeds have crapped out?

 

[mr3manuel]

Same here with 667 1:1 running perfectly @ at 1680x1050 2*AA

 

[mr3manuel]

I wonder why there is no thread for the P56N32-E SLI