P5K quality??

I have a few problems with this motherboard and wonder if somebody
else have experienced something similar - and, if so, discovered any
solution to such problems.

1) I have a Pioneer DVD-116, an IDE drive, connected via the JMicron
chip. Sometimes it is discovered at boot, sometimes it is not
discovered.

2) Sometimes (when running WindowsXP) the computer slows down so much
that it is very difficult to navigate with the mouse, and graphics
change very slowly.

3) And last, during normal use, I got a spurious message that I had
connected somthing to an audio socket - and repeated messages made it
very difficult to get out of that loop.

The CPU is an Intel Core2Duo 6750, the RAM is 2*1GB Corsair, and the
graphics board is a Gigabyte GeFOrce 7300GS. Windows XP gives me
problems, Slackware 12 other problems, but Arch and Kubuntu run well.

I have been using ASUS motherboards for many years now. Maybe I
should try Gigabyte instead?

wrote:

I have been using ASUS motherboards for many years now. Maybe I
should try Gigabyte instead?

Which P5K? There are various versions, wi-fi etc. I have standard P5K
and have no such issues.

wrote in message
...
I have a few problems with this motherboard and wonder if somebody
else have experienced something similar - and, if so, discovered any
solution to such problems.

Well, I have the P5k Premium, the so-called notorious board. But, I am
having no problems with it at all.

On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:55:01 GMT, John Adams wrote:

wrote:

I have been using ASUS motherboards for many years now. Maybe I
should try Gigabyte instead?

Which P5K? There are various versions, wi-fi etc. I have standard P5K
and have no such issues.

I too have the basic no frills P5K.
Maybe I should add that memtest runs ok overnight, and disk tests show
no errors. Temperatures are well within safe limits.

Somewhere on teh interweb greysky typed:
wrote in message
...
I have a few problems with this motherboard and wonder if somebody
else have experienced something similar - and, if so, discovered any
solution to such problems.

Well, I have the P5k Premium, the so-called notorious board. But, I am
having no problems with it at all.

I have a P5K-E (WiFi-AP) and, other than the known problem with it not
providing enough vcore on 'default', especially with the latest BIOS, it's
just fine. Overclocking an E4500 Core 2 Duo (2.2GHz) to 3.3GHz on air
easilly. Stable and die temp is only ambient +22°C under full load.

I hear the vanilla P5K isn't the greatest but then again it's a lot cheaper
than the -E, -Deluxe and the -Premium. (All of which have eight-phase CPU
power).

The Premium, "notorious"? I just built a system around one and a Q6600 for a
mate yesterday, he'll be bringing it back for me to add the last couple
things (SATA optical drives...) and find a stable overclock in a few days.
What's the story with the Premium? Anything I should be aware of?

Thanks,
--
TTFN,

Shaun.

"~misfit~" wrote in message
...
I have a P5K-E (WiFi-AP) and, other than the known problem with it not
providing enough vcore on 'default', especially with the latest BIOS, it's
just fine.

Never heard of this Vcore voltage issue before. Does that apply to all P5K
models or just the one you have?

Somewhere on teh interweb HelpDesk typed:
"~misfit~" wrote in message
...
I have a P5K-E (WiFi-AP) and, other than the known problem with it
not providing enough vcore on 'default', especially with the latest
BIOS, it's just fine.

Never heard of this Vcore voltage issue before. Does that apply to
all P5K models or just the one you have?

I can only speak for the one I have. Also I've only checked the Asus forums
for the P5K-E. The fault is that the BIOS supplies less voltage than either
a) the CPU requests (VID) or b) what is set my the user manually. It wasn't
bad with older BIOS's, a .02V difference with 0503 (but still enough to
cause some spontaneous reboots under load). With BIOC 0602 it went up to
supplying 0.04V too little and with the BIOS released last week, 0806, it's
a whopping 0.1V out. (these are all my own observations, others on the
forums have got 0.12V differences, always lower than it's set).

That's enough for a machine to behave erratically at 'auto' settings and to
require setting vcores of above 1.4V (in BIOS, actually they're lower than
that, CPU-Z (1.41 or later) is your friend) manually if overclocking (or
just tuning).
--
TTFN,

Shaun.

Somewhere on teh interweb RobV typed:
wrote:
I have a few problems with this motherboard and wonder if somebody
else have experienced something similar - and, if so, discovered any
solution to such problems.

1) I have a Pioneer DVD-116, an IDE drive, connected via the JMicron
chip. Sometimes it is discovered at boot, sometimes it is not
discovered.

There is probably something wrong with the cabling. In a standard mini-tower
case a standard IDE cable is stretched to reach the top 5 1/2" bay. Can you
drop your drive down a bit?

2) Sometimes (when running WindowsXP) the computer slows down so much
that it is very difficult to navigate with the mouse, and graphics
change very slowly.

A 7300GS is only marginally faster than a GeForce 3ti500, a 7 year old card.
Also, what are your CPU temps like? (Use CoreTemp to monitor). The CPU could
be throttling.

3) And last, during normal use, I got a spurious message that I had
connected somthing to an audio socket - and repeated messages made it
very difficult to get out of that loop.

The first time that message is displayed you get the option to net have it
display further messages. I'd say that, somewhere in the audio settings,
that option would still be there. Perhaps it's caused by a bad connection
top a front panel?

The CPU is an Intel Core2Duo 6750, the RAM is 2*1GB Corsair, and the
graphics board is a Gigabyte GeFOrce 7300GS. Windows XP gives me
problems, Slackware 12 other problems, but Arch and Kubuntu run well.

I have been using ASUS motherboards for many years now. Maybe I
should try Gigabyte instead?


Maybe you should just sort out what's happening with this board first?
There's nothing wrong with them (unless you have a crook one), changing
brands isn't the answer.

What brand hard drive? Are you certain the jumper is correct for the
HD. The HD should be set to master and on the end of the ribbon
cable, the 116 on the middle connector jumpered as slave.

Good advice and all that. However, obviously you haven't seen a P5K. The
single IDE port is as far away from the top of the case as is possible to
put it.

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...&mo delmenu=1
(click "enlarge", it's the red thing)

I don't see how it would be possible, in a standard case to have the optical
drive in the slave position and the HDD in the master position using an
in-spec IDE cable. I have a P5K-E and, just last week, bought a Pioneer
DVR-212 SATA DVD writer (even though my DVR-110D is still perfect) as
stretching a ribbon cable up to the top of the case was difficult and
interfered with airflow. (The 212 is Pioneer's best drive since the 110D
anyway so it was an excuse to upgrade...)

Really, folks using P35/ICH9 mobos really should have all-SATA drives
--
TTFN,

Shaun.

Somewhere on teh interweb RobV typed:
~misfit~ wrote:
Somewhere on teh interweb RobV typed:

[snip]

What brand hard drive? Are you certain the jumper is correct for
the HD. The HD should be set to master and on the end of the ribbon
cable, the 116 on the middle connector jumpered as slave.

Good advice and all that. However, obviously you haven't seen a P5K.
The single IDE port is as far away from the top of the case as is
possible to put it.

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...&mo delmenu=1
(click "enlarge", it's the red thing)

I never thought that I'd see a MB with the IDE slot stuck in the
farthest corner of a MB. Yep, that's a big problem. Thanks for the
link.

Y'welcome. Intel thinks that we don't need IDE anymore, hence Asus' decision
to include the JMicron controller that controlls that IDE port.
Unfortunately the layout of the traces etc. between the
southbridge/northbridge/PCI-e/RAM required to produce optimal signal paths
(good overclcoking) require that the JMicron controller be out of the way.

IDE really is an afterthought with modern boards. The interface has been
with us for... 15 years? That's 10 "turnovers" of Moore's Law, a very long
time in the computer business. It's about time that we all embraced SATA
fully anyway.
--
TTFN,

Shaun.

Somewhere on teh interweb RobV typed:
~misfit~ wrote:
Somewhere on teh interweb RobV typed:
~misfit~ wrote:
Somewhere on teh interweb RobV typed:

[snip]

What brand hard drive? Are you certain the jumper is correct for
the HD. The HD should be set to master and on the end of the
ribbon cable, the 116 on the middle connector jumpered as slave.

Good advice and all that. However, obviously you haven't seen a
P5K. The single IDE port is as far away from the top of the case
as is possible to put it.

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...&mo delmenu=1
(click "enlarge", it's the red thing)

I never thought that I'd see a MB with the IDE slot stuck in the
farthest corner of a MB. Yep, that's a big problem. Thanks for the
link.

Y'welcome. Intel thinks that we don't need IDE anymore, hence Asus'
decision to include the JMicron controller that controlls that IDE
port. Unfortunately the layout of the traces etc. between the
southbridge/northbridge/PCI-e/RAM required to produce optimal signal
paths (good overclcoking) require that the JMicron controller be out
of the way.
IDE really is an afterthought with modern boards. The interface has
been with us for... 15 years? That's 10 "turnovers" of Moore's Law, a
very long time in the computer business. It's about time that we all
embraced SATA fully anyway.

I agree wholeheartedly. I have plenty of SATA ports on my P5B-Plus
and bought and installed a SATA drive for the boot drive. However,
it is nice that the Jmicron controller is there for my older PATA
drives. I plan to phase out the PATAs and install SATAs as funds
allow.

I find that an older, slower machine on the home LAN is an excellent place
for those old IDE drives that have too much storage space to throw out. Sort
of a home-baked NAS device. It has the advantage of not having to be
constantly powered up so works quite well for backups too.
--
TTFN,

Shaun.