Re: P5N32-SLI DL

Hi BC

Thanks for the link and information.

Yes I do has a 1k power supply.

There is no short on the board to case.

The case is a cooler stacker and has 8 fans on it, the current CPU
temperature is 94F and the motherboard 80F the fancy fan I have on the CPU
speeds up when the temperature gets to 96F and brings it down to 94F.

I have tried Patriot ram PC2-8000 and this is not even recognised on any of
the boards.

Now something strange, I removed the Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840
Dual Core and put in a 955 Extreme Edition Dual Core and the system has been
relatively stable ever since. The FSB is 1066 and the RAM at 800.

I have now Ram'd everything and ordered a Gigabyte board as I am fed up of
ASUS.

Bob




"BC" <bc@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:zq2ng.50443$fb2.25459@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
BC wrote:
Hi all,

I have been having nothing but problems with this board. As I see it it
is not fit for purpose.

I have a 3.2mhz extreme edition processor with corsair XMS2 6400 DDR2
ram. I am on my third motherboard an 6th set of ram, I also tried patriot
DDR 2G8000 and this fails as well. In all cases the system locks up
after a while and when I run Microsoft's Ram tester I get errors on the
LDAP test on the third pass and every pass after that. The patriot ram
will not even boot every time it mostly fails the post test.

I have loaded the latest beta bios and that has improved things slightly
but the system still locks up and the memory tester fails again on the
random LDAP test but less frequently.

Has anybody got any ideas - asus just ignore my emails.

Bob
Hi Bob,

I do not have one of these boards, but, it does look a bit problematic,
from various reviews.

Here is one thread from Newegg customers:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16813131564

One reviewer on Newegg said:

****

Pros: 6-layer PCB for stability. Heatpiped chipset and voltage regulator
cooling. Excellent bundle of cables and accessories. Good stability once
you get enough power and cooling.

Cons: Latest Rev 1.02 DOES NOT overclock well AT ALL. Anandtech's review
was performed on a Rev 1.01 board. Motherboard REQUIRES a minimum 550W PSU
with EPS12V connector. 600W+ recommended! Motherboard generates a LOT of
heat so great airflow is a requirement or will become unstable. NForce 4's
TCP/IP offload still corrupts packets, so use the secondary GigE port.
Some older HDDs with NCQ can become corrupt and will need a firmware
update. You'll need BIOS 308 or higher for dual-core CPU support or else
go through ASUS's lackluster support and PAY to ship you a new BIOS chip.

Other Thoughts: This is a great board with a LOT of caveats. Its a PCIe-32
lane board, so you MUST install the correct SLI-32 drivers and NOT the
SLI-16 drivers. This board is POWER HUNGRY and you WILL need a min 550W
PowerSupply with an EPS12v 8-pin connector. NO, a 4-pin to 8-pin adaptor
is NOT acceptable. The N.Bridge and Voltage Regulators get HOT; have
adaquate airflow over their heatsinks. If your CPU HS/Fan is ducted,
you'll need to install the included chipset fans for stability. ASUS's
support is horrendous, so don't depend on them. If you plan on using a
dual-core P4, CONFIRM that the board has BIOS 308 or higher or else ASUS
will CHARGE YOU to ship you a new BIOS chip. Some Maxtor and Seagate HDDs
with NCQ can become corrupt due to Nforce4's improper handling of NCQ; the
HDDs' firmware will need to be upgraded. Do NOT use the TCP/IP Hardware
offloading feature on NForce4; you'll have instability issues and corrupt
downloads. Use the secondary non-Nforce GigEthernet por

****

In looking through the reviews, several others had experiences similar to
yours.

Seems somewhat unlikely that 3 motherboards and six sets of RAM would be
bad--might be the way the motherboard and RAM interacts with the rest of
the system.

Specifically, I notice that PC Power and Cooling recommends their $500
*one kilowatt* power supply for this board: man, that's a lot of juice.
Not sure what power supply you are using, but it's not likely that it's in
the 1KW class....

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=TC1KW4E

Case: looks like this board and the Intel processor put out a lot of
heat: is it adequately cooled? (Using a "Thermally advantaged case" and
all that?)

Is there a short between the board and the case?

Stability: I have sworn off VIA chipsets forever....and, sounds like you
have had a 'stable system epiphany'--I am more than willing to take a bit
less performance for a stable system. AMD/nVidia, or Intel/Intel chipset
combinations seem to work well, but, Intel/nVidia: maybe not ready for
prime time yet....

HTH,

BC




.

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