*** Official ASUS P5W DH Thread ***

[phile]

pschweig,

For non-RAID you can use one of the orange, EzRaid ports. So, you can run up to 4 SATA drives in a non-RAID configuration, on the ICH7R.

-phil

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: turbocrime
I have not spent much time oc'ing the E6600 but have got it stable at 405x9 3645MHz, FSB 1620 with a 1:1 mem ratio. Can super pi in 13s and was stable for 1 hour 47 before I got bored. Will try clocking it more once I sort out the cold restart feature that the asus board has when it's beng oc'd.

There is NO solution for the cold-boot that occurs when overclocking. Perhaps, we'll see a future BIOS change this behavior, but for the time-being we are stuck with it.

-phil

 

[luckyinfil]

Originally posted by: phile

Originally posted by: luckyinfil
i just installed windows and in everest, it says 63 degrees as well! i've never installed 775 heatsinks before but all u do is push it down and thats it rite? I tried wiggling the heatsink rite now and it doesn't move at all! I'm gonna get an arctic freezer 7 but if it doesn't solve the issue, what may be wrong?

For whatever reason, it sounds like the heatsink is not making good contact with the CPU heatspreader. I strongly suggest you remove and reinstall the heatsink. Clean off the stock thermal compund and use AS5, as well.

-phil

it seems like the heatsink wasn't secure! now in everest, i have idle temps of 31 for cpu, and 45 for core 1 and 2. Is that normal? I remember when i had a venice it was cpu temps of 32. What are the lowest temps for the cpu and the cores of e6600s?

Thanks alot for ur help phil

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: luckyinfil

Originally posted by: phile

Originally posted by: luckyinfil
i just installed windows and in everest, it says 63 degrees as well! i've never installed 775 heatsinks before but all u do is push it down and thats it rite? I tried wiggling the heatsink rite now and it doesn't move at all! I'm gonna get an arctic freezer 7 but if it doesn't solve the issue, what may be wrong?

For whatever reason, it sounds like the heatsink is not making good contact with the CPU heatspreader. I strongly suggest you remove and reinstall the heatsink. Clean off the stock thermal compund and use AS5, as well.

-phil

it seems like the heatsink wasn't secure! now in everest, i have idle temps of 31 for cpu, and 45 for core 1 and 2. Is that normal? I remember when i had a venice it was cpu temps of 32. What are the lowest temps for the cpu and the cores of e6600s?

Thanks alot for ur help phil

With the stock heatsink, at stock speed, your temps are good. Get yourself a good aftermarket cooler and you could shave several degrees off those temps.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

I thought I would share this lin. Its a really good summary of FSB/DDR etc.

FSB and DDR2 Guide

Neil

 

[nrs251]

I guess I maxed out mu CPU. Thanks to the people on this board for the help.

E6400
CPU Freq: 3.36 Ghz
FSB: 420
Mem running at PC6400 at 2.1V with 4-4-4-12-2(Rt) Slight MEMOC at DDR2-840
CPU Volt: 1.40
FSB TermV: 1.40
MCH Volt: 1.65
ICH: Auto

Water-cooled with a Nautilus 500.

I added a 40mm fan screwed onto the NB heatsink to keep temps down. I got the fan at Newegg. The temps look good, 38C idle and 46 at full load. I am running the SB at stock voltage [AUTO] so I don't have any extra cooling for it. Totally stable in Orthos with Blend for 12 hrs.

I am so happy with this OC. Now I guess I wait for Kentsfield.

 

[Skott]

Thats a very good OC! Congrats

 

[mikepaul]

Originally posted by: mikepaul
Here's my thinking: since 1407 restarted after I reset but failed after I set the BIOS options the way I wanted, something about THEM is probably the problem. Both times I reset, 1407 ran again. However, I haven't tried reflashing 1407, going with default options, and seeing if the computer continues to run. It would be odd that a reflash to 1305 went so well if the flashing procedure is flakey. I had even done 1405, noticed some flaws probably unrelated to that, and gone back to 1305 last week.

Maybe I'll have better luck next revision...

I had the time. I had the 1407 BIOS chips shipped from ASUS. And I have the results.

Installing a pre-flashed 1407 fails the same way as the flashed one: I can set my parameters, then when it reboots the computer plays dead. My serial number starts with 66MOAG, but I bet a bunch of working boards do too.

I'll tell this to ASUS, since they were sure it was a bad flash, but I don't think they'll do anything. Well, maybe only if I can never use another final-version BIOS higher than 1305.

Nice to know their crash-free wasn't actually failing somehow. Maybe someday I'll see it kick in...

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: mikepaul

Originally posted by: mikepaul
Here's my thinking: since 1407 restarted after I reset but failed after I set the BIOS options the way I wanted, something about THEM is probably the problem. Both times I reset, 1407 ran again. However, I haven't tried reflashing 1407, going with default options, and seeing if the computer continues to run. It would be odd that a reflash to 1305 went so well if the flashing procedure is flakey. I had even done 1405, noticed some flaws probably unrelated to that, and gone back to 1305 last week.

Maybe I'll have better luck next revision...

I had the time. I had the 1407 BIOS chips shipped from ASUS. And I have the results.

Installing a pre-flashed 1407 fails the same way as the flashed one: I can set my parameters, then when it reboots the computer plays dead. My serial number starts with 66MOAG, but I bet a bunch of working boards do too.

I'll tell this to ASUS, since they were sure it was a bad flash, but I don't think they'll do anything. Well, maybe only if I can never use another final-version BIOS higher than 1305.

Nice to know their crash-free wasn't actually failing somehow. Maybe someday I'll see it kick in...

I wonder if this BIOS (1407) is somehow incompatible with one of your components.

-phil

 

[Skott]

The majority of the people have the 1101 BIOS or higher. One thing I have noticed in reading all the various threads about this mobo is that there is no one BIOS version that works perfectly fine for all. People seem to have good and bad with all the various BIOS versions. Granted those trying to overclock seem to have more issues than those that do not overclock. There does seem to be a larger majority that are happy with 1301 and higher though. I guess what I'm saying is that there is no single BIOS that fixes everyone's problems concerning this mobo. But I also noticed this is true for all the Conroe mobos. Especially where overclocking is an issue.

 

[yessir]

Hello again...

My memtest of the module ran for 9 hrs and found 3 errors on pass 11. I will be running removing one module and run with just 1 GB and also switch modules position and re-run. Are there any other things that I can do? Do I have to RMA this with OCZ?

My mem module is OCZ Platinum 2GB.

Thanks

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: yessir
Hello again...

My memtest of the module ran for 9 hrs and found 3 errors on pass 11. I will be running removing one module and run with just 1 GB and also switch modules position and re-run. Are there any other things that I can do? Do I have to RMA this with OCZ?

My mem module is OCZ Platinum 2GB.

Thanks

3 errors after 9 hours is quite arguably an acceptable situation, especially if you don't have any problems in normal everyday use.

Can you summarize whatever problems you're having?

-phil

 

[Strikez]

I hope this saves some one some time it sure Pi$$@# me off trying to figure this out. What I figured out finally and maybe its just me but my 550 dollar corsair PC-2 8500 ram will not run using (manual) setup with a speed set at 1066 mhz in the bios. Note if I choose any other ram setting within the 900-1000 mhz setting the bios will post it properly as 8500. Anyother setting it will post anywhere between a pc- 5400 to pc- 7100 ram <--- what the hell is that 7100? FSB does not seem to be the issue to over clock the processor. The strange thing is when the ram is set within the 900-1000 mhz range the CPU-Z program will show the ram running at 533 mhz and as pc 8500 module and the bios will show in the post as 8500. Therefore I think this may be a bios issue. Same problem with the 1305 bios and the bios this board shipped with.

Bottom line if you are having problems Overclocking Check that your Corsair ram is set to manual within the above noted range and check with CPU-Z to see what it is really running at.

Also take it off the SPD settings and put in the proper timings as mine was defaulting to 5-4-4-12. Proper setting for this ram should be 5-5-5-15 runinng at 1066mhz.

Good luck.
At least now I can overclock this sucker
________________________________________________________________
Xgamer 700w PSU
Intel E6400 OC to 2.66GHz (O/C 2.9 mhz 1.23 vlts @ 31 celcius, Corsair PC-2 8500 2.2vlts running at 553 mhz CPU-Z reading)
Stock Cooling (waiting for my Thermalright ULTRA-120 Heatpipe Cooler to arrive)
P5WDH Deluxe 1407 BIOS
2Gb Cosair XMS2 8500C4
Seagate 7200.10 250GB HD
Standard 1.44 Floppy drive
(1) LG DVD Burner
6800 nvidia Video Card (waiting for release of new 88XX series next month)
On board sound

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: Strikez
I hope this saves some one some time it sure Pi$$@# me off trying to figure this out. What I figured out finally and maybe its just me but my 550 dollar corsair PC-2 8500 ram will not run using (manual) setup with a speed set at 1066 mhz in the bios. Note if I choose any other ram setting within the 900-1000 mhz setting the bios will post it properly as 8500. Anyother setting it will post anywhere between a pc- 5400 to pc- 7100 ram <--- what the hell is that 7100? FSB does not seem to be the issue to over clock the processor. The strange thing is when the ram is set within the 900-1000 mhz range the CPU-Z program will show the ram running at 533 mhz and as pc 8500 module and the bios will show in the post as 8500. Therefore I think this may be a bios issue. Same problem with the 1305 bios and the bios this board shipped with.

Bottom line if you are having problems Overclocking Check that your Corsair ram is set to manual within the above noted range and check with CPU-Z to see what it is really running at.

Also take it off the SPD settings and put in the proper timings as mine was defaulting to 5-4-4-12. Proper setting for this ram should be 5-5-5-15 runinng at 1066mhz.

Good luck.
At least now I can overclock this sucker
________________________________________________________________
Xgamer 700w PSU
Intel E6400 OC to 2.66GHz (O/C 2.9 mhz 1.23 vlts @ 31 celcius, Corsair PC-2 8500 2.2vlts running at 553 mhz CPU-Z reading)
Stock Cooling (waiting for my Thermalright ULTRA-120 Heatpipe Cooler to arrive)
P5WDH Deluxe 1407 BIOS
2Gb Cosair XMS2 8500C4
Seagate 7200.10 250GB HD
Standard 1.44 Floppy drive
(1) LG DVD Burner
6800 nvidia Video Card (waiting for release of new 88XX series next month)
On board sound

I'm not at all surprised that you had a lot of difficulty using PC2-8500 memory. This board officially supports PC2-4200, PC2-5300, and PC2-6400.

Glad you finally figured-out a way to get this mem to work.

-phil

 

[Strikez]

Originally posted by: phile

Originally posted by: Strikez
I hope this saves some one some time it sure Pi$$@# me off trying to figure this out. What I figured out finally and maybe its just me but my 550 dollar corsair PC-2 8500 ram will not run using (manual) setup with a speed set at 1066 mhz in the bios. Note if I choose any other ram setting within the 900-1000 mhz setting the bios will post it properly as 8500. Anyother setting it will post anywhere between a pc- 5400 to pc- 7100 ram <--- what the hell is that 7100? FSB does not seem to be the issue to over clock the processor. The strange thing is when the ram is set within the 900-1000 mhz range the CPU-Z program will show the ram running at 533 mhz and as pc 8500 module and the bios will show in the post as 8500. Therefore I think this may be a bios issue. Same problem with the 1305 bios and the bios this board shipped with.

Bottom line if you are having problems Overclocking Check that your Corsair ram is set to manual within the above noted range and check with CPU-Z to see what it is really running at.

Also take it off the SPD settings and put in the proper timings as mine was defaulting to 5-4-4-12. Proper setting for this ram should be 5-5-5-15 runinng at 1066mhz.

Good luck.
At least now I can overclock this sucker
________________________________________________________________
Xgamer 700w PSU
Intel E6400 OC to 2.66GHz (O/C 2.9 mhz 1.23 vlts @ 31 celcius, Corsair PC-2 8500 2.2vlts running at 553 mhz CPU-Z reading)
Stock Cooling (waiting for my Thermalright ULTRA-120 Heatpipe Cooler to arrive)
P5WDH Deluxe 1407 BIOS
2Gb Cosair XMS2 8500C4
Seagate 7200.10 250GB HD
Standard 1.44 Floppy drive
(1) LG DVD Burner
6800 nvidia Video Card (waiting for release of new 88XX series next month)
On board sound

I'm not at all surprised that you had a lot of difficulty using PC2-8500 memory. This board officially supports PC2-4200, PC2-5300, and PC2-6400.

Glad you finally figured-out a way to get this mem to work.

-phil

OOps didnt do my research properly didnt know about the official support for the 4200 - 6400 ram. But one question why does the bios recognize the ram on post then? Wasnt the 8500 ram suppose to be addressed in the new bios 1407?

Thanks for the info.

 

[mikepaul]

Originally posted by: phile
I wonder if this BIOS (1407) is somehow incompatible with one of your components.

That'd be a good trick. Since it shows no sign of life at power on unless I've just done a CMOS reset (or now after just popping in a fresh EPROM) I don't know which component plugged into the motherboard it would dislike only at certain times. I reflashed back to 1305 over top of that 1407 so I have only 1 left, but I bet a reflash will be successful and still fail.

"Only after you save your BIOS parameters will I die" is just not a friendly attitude...

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: mikepaul

Originally posted by: phile
I wonder if this BIOS (1407) is somehow incompatible with one of your components.

That'd be a good trick. Since it shows no sign of life at power on unless I've just done a CMOS reset (or now after just popping in a fresh EPROM) I don't know which component plugged into the motherboard it would dislike only at certain times. I reflashed back to 1305 over top of that 1407 so I have only 1 left, but I bet a reflash will be successful and still fail.

"Only after you save your BIOS parameters will I die" is just not a friendly attitude...

There's obviously something peculiar about your setup, since it would appear that your experience is not widespread. IT would be interesting to see if someone else with the exact same hardware has the same problems. Whatever the case, it's obvious that 1407 is not for you. Heh.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

Can someone check this out:

Intel Thermal Design Guide for the ICH7 (Southbridge)

Look at Section 2.3.

The TcMax they quote (for Config 3) is 109C with no Heatsink and 100C with a heatsink. That is insane!!!

Then I checked out the NorthBridge Design Guide:

That link is here

In section 3.2 they quote a TcMax of 105C at TDP of 13.5W using DDR2-667

A Quote from here at XS.org where a poster calculated the TDP at a FSB of 450.


Assume: 975X MCH produces 13.8W at TDP with 1.5v and 266MHz FSB

Now lets overclock that to 450Mhz FSB and 1.75v

Pf = Po * (Vf/Vo)^2 * (Ff/Fo)
Pf = 13.8W * (1.75v/1.5v)^2 * (450Mhz/266Mhz)
Pf = ~32W

Anyone out there who can give a quantification of what a 32W TDP tranlates into as far as Northbrige cooling is concerned??

 

[phile]

I'm quite confident that mounting a 40mm fan on each of the heatsinks will provide adequate cooling, assuming there's good airflow in the case.

-phil

 

[nrs251]

Phil,

Do you think the SB needs a fan as well, even run at stock voltages?

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: nrs251
Phil,

Do you think the SB needs a fan as well, even run at stock voltages?

At stock voltages you don't need to add fans to either heatsink. You should, however, remove the metal caps on each of those heatsinks. They impede the dissipation of heat. You may also consider removing the heatsinks and replacing the stock thermal crud with some AS5.

-phil

 

[greg20]

First, thanks for this thread, just signed up for the forums because of it. I've had the P5W DH for a few days now.

I have an E6700 proc.

I'm using this memory:
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

I changed the default settings in the BIOS (v 1407) to the following:
AI Overclocking: Manual
DRAM Frequency: DDR2-800 Mhz
Memory Voltage: 2.00V (shows in pink or purple in the BIOS)

In Chipset Settings:
Configure DRAM Timing by SPD (Disabled)
From top to bottom, clocks: 4-4-4-12-4 (the last 4 was already 4 by default)
Hyperpath 3: Disabled

Everything else besides boot order and SATA RAID configuration is set to their default values.

I've built systems but haven't tweaked memory BIOS settings before. Are these settings correct? It was showing PC2-5300 RAM when I booted, now it's correctly showing -6400.

I ran Memtest (10 tests, 1 pass) and received the following error on Test 6:
Pass 0
Failing address: 000343bb614 - 835.6 MB
Good: fffffeff
Bad: fefffeff
Err-Bits: 01000000
Count: 2

Is this something to be concerned about? I've been using this system about 4 days now and it seems stable.

Thanks.

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: greg20
First, thanks for this thread, just signed up for the forums because of it. I've had the P5W DH for a few days now.

I have an E6700 proc.

I'm using this memory:
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

I changed the default settings in the BIOS (v 1407) to the following:
AI Overclocking: Manual
DRAM Frequency: DDR2-800 Mhz
Memory Voltage: 2.00V (shows in pink or purple in the BIOS)

In Chipset Settings:
Configure DRAM Timing by SPD (Disabled)
From top to bottom, clocks: 4-4-4-12-4 (the last 4 was already 4 by default)
Hyperpath 3: Disabled

Everything else besides boot order and SATA RAID configuration is set to their default values.

I've built systems but haven't tweaked memory BIOS settings before. Are these settings correct? It was showing PC2-5300 RAM when I booted, now it's correctly showing -6400.

I ran Memtest (10 tests, 1 pass) and received the following error on Test 6:
Pass 0
Failing address: 000343bb614 - 835.6 MB
Good: fffffeff
Bad: fefffeff
Err-Bits: 01000000
Count: 2

Is this something to be concerned about? I've been using this system about 4 days now and it seems stable.

Thanks.

Try running the 10 tests on each DIMM separately. See if each DIMM gives the same, or different results.

Is 2.0 the rated voltage for your kit @ 800MHz? You could try upping it to 2.1v and re-testing.

Hyperpath 3 need not be disabled unless you're overclocking.

When the BIOS displays the memory information during POST (i.e PC2-5300) it is not actually detecting the highest rated speed for your mem, it is merely telling you at what speed the mem is currently running.

-phil

 

[greg20]

Originally posted by: phile

Try running the 10 tests on each DIMM separately. See if each DIMM gives the same, or different results.

Is 2.0 the rated voltage for your kit @ 800MHz? You could try upping it to 2.1v and re-testing.

Hyperpath 3 need not be disabled unless you're overclocking.

When the BIOS displays the memory information during POST (i.e PC2-5300) it is not actually detecting the highest rated speed for your mem, it is merely telling you at what speed the mem is currently running.

-phil

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

I'm not sure what the rated votage is for my kit. In fact I found the memory timings on the Newegg product description page. I'll take a look at Corsair's site and see.

Looks like I do want to run it at 2.1:
http://www.corsair.com/corsair/products/specs/TWIN2X2048-6400C4.pdf

I haven't overclocked yet, but I'm planning on a modest 25% like yours, so I'll leave Hyperpath 3 disabled for now. I want to ensure that the memory (and system, overall) is stable as is before I push anything.

Right now I'm running the Orthos stress test, 29 minutes into it and everything seems ok. CoreTemp is reporting each core at 79C though (stock cooling, plastic removed, north/south bridge not reseated with AS5 yet (waiting a bit on that to see how the board is on its own)).

I'll probably end up with an aftermarket HSF as well.

 

[mikepaul]

Originally posted by: phile
There's obviously something peculiar about your setup, since it would appear that your experience is not widespread. IT would be interesting to see if someone else with the exact same hardware has the same problems. Whatever the case, it's obvious that 1407 is not for you. Heh.

I was thinking maybe my CMOS isn't handling their parameters properly, then when it's reset I'm OK for a moment. If there's a way to test the CMOS, I'll have them pass it on to me...