While finally close to rock stable my latest upgrade/rebuild hasn't gone
too well and am coming to the conclusion my P5N32-E SLI may be to blame
(almost everything else has been swapped/replaced or removed). Anyhow...
Components are :-
E4300 Core 2 Duo (o/c to 3.0GHz)
2GB PC6400 Crucial Ballistix Tracer
320MB 8800GTS
3xHDD and 2 DVD-RW Drives
700W PSU
Kandalf LCS Case (Water cooled CPU)
I don't need SLI/Crossfire so motherboards based on P35 chipset are
fine, I was going to get the P5K but a number of suppliers have the
Blitz formula only £10-20 more and as I've just dipped my toe into
watercooling the Blitz Formula is just a little more appealing with its
water cooled chipset option.
Niether board is cheap and both have good reviews, I need the board to
be a good O/C and to be able to take a quad-core or better in the future.
'Erratic' wrote:
| While finally close to rock stable my latest upgrade/rebuild hasn't gone
| too well and am coming to the conclusion my P5N32-E SLI may be to blame
| (almost everything else has been swapped/replaced or removed). Anyhow...
|
| Components are :-
|
| E4300 Core 2 Duo (o/c to 3.0GHz)
| 2GB PC6400 Crucial Ballistix Tracer
| 320MB 8800GTS
| 3xHDD and 2 DVD-RW Drives
| 700W PSU
| Kandalf LCS Case (Water cooled CPU)
|
|
| I don't need SLI/Crossfire so motherboards based on P35 chipset are
| fine, I was going to get the P5K but a number of suppliers have the
| Blitz formula only £10-20 more and as I've just dipped my toe into
| watercooling the Blitz Formula is just a little more appealing with its
| water cooled chipset option.
|
| Niether board is cheap and both have good reviews, I need the board to
| be a good O/C and to be able to take a quad-core or better in the future.
|
| Any advice appreciated.
_____
How about posting some information on the temperatures reported by Intel TAT
under 100% load for each core, as well as idle temperatures.
I have an EVGA 680i with an EVGA 8800 GTS 320 MByte and Patriot PC-8500
(DDR2-1066) 1 GByte X 2 and an E4300. With an aftermarket ThermalTake i7 my
best stable overclock is 2.7 GHz undervolted from the stock 1.350 to 1.250
volts. Temperature limits higher CPU overclocks (3.0 GHz is possible, but
the CPU core voltage must be higher than I like. The memory overclocks
quite nicely to DDR2-1200 and the EVGA 8800 GTS 320 MByte does also. I do
question some of the extremely high overclocks reported for air cooled
E4300. Cost/benefit wise, a few hundred MHz increase in CPU speed is not
worth a few hundred US dollars for the slight added performance, especially
since now a few extra hundred US dollars could get a Q6600.
Phil Weldon
"Erratic" <Erattic@no.spam> wrote in message
news:46f32e26$0$8426$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk...
| While finally close to rock stable my latest upgrade/rebuild hasn't gone
| too well and am coming to the conclusion my P5N32-E SLI may be to blame
| (almost everything else has been swapped/replaced or removed). Anyhow...
|
| Components are :-
|
| E4300 Core 2 Duo (o/c to 3.0GHz)
| 2GB PC6400 Crucial Ballistix Tracer
| 320MB 8800GTS
| 3xHDD and 2 DVD-RW Drives
| 700W PSU
| Kandalf LCS Case (Water cooled CPU)
|
|
| I don't need SLI/Crossfire so motherboards based on P35 chipset are
| fine, I was going to get the P5K but a number of suppliers have the
| Blitz formula only £10-20 more and as I've just dipped my toe into
| watercooling the Blitz Formula is just a little more appealing with its
| water cooled chipset option.
|
| Niether board is cheap and both have good reviews, I need the board to
| be a good O/C and to be able to take a quad-core or better in the future.
|
| Any advice appreciated.
"Erratic" <Erattic@no.spam> wrote in message
news:46f32e26$0$8426$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk...
> While finally close to rock stable my latest upgrade/rebuild hasn't gone
> too well and am coming to the conclusion my P5N32-E SLI may be to blame
> (almost everything else has been swapped/replaced or removed). Anyhow...
>
> Components are :-
>
> E4300 Core 2 Duo (o/c to 3.0GHz)
> 2GB PC6400 Crucial Ballistix Tracer
> 320MB 8800GTS
> 3xHDD and 2 DVD-RW Drives
> 700W PSU
> Kandalf LCS Case (Water cooled CPU)
>
>
> I don't need SLI/Crossfire so motherboards based on P35 chipset are fine,
> I was going to get the P5K but a number of suppliers have the Blitz
> formula only £10-20 more and as I've just dipped my toe into watercooling
> the Blitz Formula is just a little more appealing with its water cooled
> chipset option.
>
> Niether board is cheap and both have good reviews, I need the board to be
> a good O/C and to be able to take a quad-core or better in the future.
>
> Any advice appreciated.
That is a pretty good OC on the 4300. As Phil says, a little more info might
help a little. I had the same MB on my E6600 build at first and it was fine
until the SATA controller failed. That is a known issue, but most worked out
fine. My replacement was a Striker Extreme with the same chipset and a few
extra bells and whistles. I have had pretty good luck overall with the 680i
chipset. I took my E6600 out for a build for my son and now have a Q6600 (C0
stepping) in the Striker running at 3.37Ghz and it is fast.
On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:32:21 GMT, Ed M. <ed@edmedlin.com> wrote:
: That is a pretty good OC on the 4300. As Phil says, a little more info might
: help a little. I had the same MB on my E6600 build at first and it was fine
: until the SATA controller failed. That is a known issue, but most worked out
: fine. My replacement was a Striker Extreme with the same chipset and a few
: extra bells and whistles. I have had pretty good luck overall with the 680i
: chipset. I took my E6600 out for a build for my son and now have a Q6600 (C0
: stepping) in the Striker running at 3.37Ghz and it is fast.
May I ask a couple of Striker questions please. Wwhere you were able
to get the E6600 up to before you swapped it out with the Q? I'm
having trouble getting my E6600 up beyond 3.0 in the Striker whereas I
had no problem getting up to 400x8 and beyond with the same processor
on a P5W DH.
Did you mod the heat pipe arrangements at all? I think I could fry an
egg on the northbridge and it has me worried...
Can you run ntune without locking the system up?
Striker Extreme, bios 1203
E6600 B2 333x9, arctic freezer 7
Dominator 8500 C5D which I can't get beyond DDR2 800 even though
they're supposedly rated for 1066
Rotton mad dog 430W p/s which seems tapped out - the system draws 330W
during orthos
Hoping the shiny new antec p/s will be the fix here
Ed M. wrote:
> "Erratic" <Erattic@no.spam> wrote in message
> news:46f32e26$0$8426$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk...
>> While finally close to rock stable my latest upgrade/rebuild hasn't gone
>> too well and am coming to the conclusion my P5N32-E SLI may be to blame
>> (almost everything else has been swapped/replaced or removed). Anyhow...
>>
>> Components are :-
>>
>> E4300 Core 2 Duo (o/c to 3.0GHz)
>> 2GB PC6400 Crucial Ballistix Tracer
>> 320MB 8800GTS
>> 3xHDD and 2 DVD-RW Drives
>> 700W PSU
>> Kandalf LCS Case (Water cooled CPU)
>>
>>
>> I don't need SLI/Crossfire so motherboards based on P35 chipset are fine,
>> I was going to get the P5K but a number of suppliers have the Blitz
>> formula only £10-20 more and as I've just dipped my toe into watercooling
>> the Blitz Formula is just a little more appealing with its water cooled
>> chipset option.
>>
>> Niether board is cheap and both have good reviews, I need the board to be
>> a good O/C and to be able to take a quad-core or better in the future.
>>
>> Any advice appreciated.
>
> That is a pretty good OC on the 4300. As Phil says, a little more info might
> help a little. I had the same MB on my E6600 build at first and it was fine
> until the SATA controller failed. That is a known issue, but most worked out
> fine. My replacement was a Striker Extreme with the same chipset and a few
> extra bells and whistles. I have had pretty good luck overall with the 680i
> chipset. I took my E6600 out for a build for my son and now have a Q6600 (C0
> stepping) in the Striker running at 3.37Ghz and it is fast.
>
> Ed
>
>
Problem is random lockups when the graphics card comes under load,
either games or video (after 5-30 seconds). This is regardless of video
card, tried 6800, 7900GT, 8800GTS and couple of ATI cards.
I suspect something to do with the PCI-E part of the chipset when put
underload. I dont think its heat as powering off the system (but
keeping the board powered) and allowing everything to cool will *always*
result in the same lockup next time video is put under load. However
just switching the power off from the board for 5 seconds and back on
will usually cure it. To me this looks like some incorrect internal
setting on the board is surviving the crash and only powering it off
completely resets it to the working state.
Apart from this issue the system is rock stable even under sustained
load 24/7 (BOINC) and passes various stability tests without missing a
beat (48hrs+).
I run the CPU at 325x9 (2925Mhz) at 1.4125v in BIOS (1.39v reported),
RAM at 940Mhz (4-4-4-12) at 2.25v.
CPU will POST ok up to a little over 3150 (350x9) but fails prime or
simply reboots after at most a couple of minutes when over about 3060
(usually in less than 10 seconds), increasing voltage makes no
difference. 356FSB seem to be about the limit for this CPU on this MB
even dropping the muliplier it wont POST.
RAM is actually ok up to around 972Mhz at same voltages and timings
above but I get strange black screen flashes at random, pauses lasting 2
to 20 seconds where the screen wont update and occasional BSOD. This is
despite passing 72 hours memtest86+ without problem and working fine on
a friends board.
PSU(s) I've tried are Thermaltake 700W Toughpower, Antec 460W and
Jeantech 700W STORM. System is pulling only about 260W max (according
to the meter on the STORM PSU). Voltages are very stable.
MB voltages are HT=1.3v, NB=1.45v, SB=1.55v and VTT=1.55v, all other
voltages are auto.
Temperatures (CPU/MB) are 58C/45C under full load and 30C/42C idle/low load.
First P5N32-E SLI I had died after about a month, first it got VERY
flakey then got some strange voltage readings including warning of
overvoltage on the 12v line (BIOS said 27v!!), not surprisingly a week
after this the BIOS chip physically burnt up!).
Another week after getting the replacement board one of the RAM sticks
died completely.
About 2 weeks after this the 7900GT i was using started to flake out.
"Howard Goldstein" <hgoldste@mpcs.com> wrote in message
news:1190386544.21083@news.queue.to...
> On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:32:21 GMT, Ed M. <ed@edmedlin.com> wrote:
> : That is a pretty good OC on the 4300. As Phil says, a little more info
> might
> : help a little. I had the same MB on my E6600 build at first and it was
> fine
> : until the SATA controller failed. That is a known issue, but most
> worked out
> : fine. My replacement was a Striker Extreme with the same chipset and a
> few
> : extra bells and whistles. I have had pretty good luck overall with the
> 680i
> : chipset. I took my E6600 out for a build for my son and now have a
> Q6600 (C0
> : stepping) in the Striker running at 3.37Ghz and it is fast.
>
> May I ask a couple of Striker questions please. Wwhere you were able
> to get the E6600 up to before you swapped it out with the Q? I'm
> having trouble getting my E6600 up beyond 3.0 in the Striker whereas I
> had no problem getting up to 400x8 and beyond with the same processor
> on a P5W DH.
>
> Did you mod the heat pipe arrangements at all? I think I could fry an
> egg on the northbridge and it has me worried...
>
> Can you run ntune without locking the system up?
>
>
>
> Striker Extreme, bios 1203
> E6600 B2 333x9, arctic freezer 7
> Dominator 8500 C5D which I can't get beyond DDR2 800 even though
> they're supposedly rated for 1066
> Rotton mad dog 430W p/s which seems tapped out - the system draws 330W
> during orthos
>
> Hoping the shiny new antec p/s will be the fix here
>
I had the e6600 up to 3.7Ghz at its max eventually, but it took a lot of
Vcore to get it stable. Backed it down to 3.6Ghz and it was very stable and
cool and took much less Vcore. I have the same issues with my Muskin Extreme
DDR2 1133. I just can't get anywhere much above 866 with it. I tried Ntune
very early and thought it was crap. Nothing but lockups and instability with
it. I took it off my system rather quickly and never looked back. You should
be ok with about a 550-600W. There have been several folks in the ngs that
have had issues with Antec lately. I always use PC Power and Cooling PSUs
only because I just don't have any problems with them. They keep their
design very simple and they just work.
On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:02:16 -0500, Ed M. <ed@edmedlin.com> wrote:
:
: "Howard Goldstein" <hgoldste@mpcs.com> wrote in message
: news:1190386544.21083@news.queue.to...
: > On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:32:21 GMT, Ed M. <ed@edmedlin.com> wrote:
: > : That is a pretty good OC on the 4300. As Phil says, a little more info
: > might
: > : help a little. I had the same MB on my E6600 build at first and it was
: > fine
: > : until the SATA controller failed. That is a known issue, but most
: > worked out
: > : fine. My replacement was a Striker Extreme with the same chipset and a
: > few
: > : extra bells and whistles. I have had pretty good luck overall with the
: > 680i
: > : chipset. I took my E6600 out for a build for my son and now have a
: > Q6600 (C0
: > : stepping) in the Striker running at 3.37Ghz and it is fast.
: >
: > May I ask a couple of Striker questions please. Wwhere you were able
: > to get the E6600 up to before you swapped it out with the Q? I'm
: > having trouble getting my E6600 up beyond 3.0 in the Striker whereas I
: > had no problem getting up to 400x8 and beyond with the same processor
: > on a P5W DH.
: >
: > Did you mod the heat pipe arrangements at all? I think I could fry an
: > egg on the northbridge and it has me worried...
: >
: > Can you run ntune without locking the system up?
: >
: >
: >
: > Striker Extreme, bios 1203
: > E6600 B2 333x9, arctic freezer 7
: > Dominator 8500 C5D which I can't get beyond DDR2 800 even though
: > they're supposedly rated for 1066
: > Rotton mad dog 430W p/s which seems tapped out - the system draws 330W
: > during orthos
: >
: > Hoping the shiny new antec p/s will be the fix here
: >
:
:
: I had the e6600 up to 3.7Ghz at its max eventually, but it took a lot of
: Vcore to get it stable. Backed it down to 3.6Ghz and it was very stable and
: cool and took much less Vcore. I have the same issues with my Muskin Extreme
: DDR2 1133. I just can't get anywhere much above 866 with it. I tried Ntune
: very early and thought it was crap. Nothing but lockups and instability with
: it. I took it off my system rather quickly and never looked back. You should
: be ok with about a 550-600W. There have been several folks in the ngs that
: have had issues with Antec lately. I always use PC Power and Cooling PSUs
: only because I just don't have any problems with them. They keep their
: design very simple and they just work.
:
Ahhhh I wish I'd researched the power supply part a little more
then. I was worried about having cables long enough. In the q6600 box
with this funky p/s on the bottom alot of my Good Cable Management was
for naught as the last p/s lead I connected wasn't long enough to thread
beneath the motherboard tray (thermaltake p/s)
I'm having a lot of long term instability issues right now back on the
e6600 and the striker. I can get what seems to be stability back
where I used to be on the P5W - 400 x 8 -- but when I get up in the
morning I see that the box reset itself at some point instead of
greeting me with orthos running
So I'm stuck at 3.0 but still pressing on, I'm going to try to find a
good spot to pick off vcore for measuring with the VOM later today and
see where I am. Vcore as set in the bios excessive and asus probe as
well as the bios show a pretty large disparity between what 's set and
what's reported when the box is quiescent. I did one of the vdroop
mods but don't like it (pencil, seems funky for production use) Did
you do the vdroop mod to your striker?
Reassuring that I'm not the only one to have issues above 800mhz.
Thanks
> : I had the e6600 up to 3.7Ghz at its max eventually, but it took a
> lot of
> : Vcore to get it stable. Backed it down to 3.6Ghz and it was very stable
> and
> : cool and took much less Vcore. I have the same issues with my Muskin
> Extreme
> : DDR2 1133. I just can't get anywhere much above 866 with it. I tried
> Ntune
> : very early and thought it was crap. Nothing but lockups and instability
> with
> : it. I took it off my system rather quickly and never looked back. You
> should
> : be ok with about a 550-600W. There have been several folks in the ngs
> that
> : have had issues with Antec lately. I always use PC Power and Cooling
> PSUs
> : only because I just don't have any problems with them. They keep their
> : design very simple and they just work.
> :
>
> Ahhhh I wish I'd researched the power supply part a little more
> then. I was worried about having cables long enough. In the q6600 box
> with this funky p/s on the bottom alot of my Good Cable Management was
> for naught as the last p/s lead I connected wasn't long enough to thread
> beneath the motherboard tray (thermaltake p/s)
>
> I'm having a lot of long term instability issues right now back on the
> e6600 and the striker. I can get what seems to be stability back
> where I used to be on the P5W - 400 x 8 -- but when I get up in the
> morning I see that the box reset itself at some point instead of
> greeting me with orthos running
>
> So I'm stuck at 3.0 but still pressing on, I'm going to try to find a
> good spot to pick off vcore for measuring with the VOM later today and
> see where I am. Vcore as set in the bios excessive and asus probe as
> well as the bios show a pretty large disparity between what 's set and
> what's reported when the box is quiescent. I did one of the vdroop
> mods but don't like it (pencil, seems funky for production use) Did
> you do the vdroop mod to your striker?
>
> Reassuring that I'm not the only one to have issues above 800mhz.
> Thanks
I haven't had the northbridge heat pipe problems on the Striker. It is
quite a bit more efficient than the other Asus 680i (P5N32E-SLI) because it
is much larger and has the fan. If you didn't install the fan on the HSs on
the heatpipe, you should. It makes a huge difference. I also have not done
the vdroop mod either. I have used the pencil for other mods like on the old
AMDs. I even used a rear-window defroster repair kit on one of the early AMD
XP chips to unlock the multiplier.......:-). It does work. My voltages do
vary a bit from what I have set, but once I know the disparities, I don't
worry about it. I just set voltages accordingly. At least the disparities
seem to be very constant and don't vary.
Memory is an issue on these boards, but not confined to just the 680i
chipsets. It seems to be an issue across the board. I wish I had just got
some slower, non SLI memory and saved some cash. I fell into it hook, line
and sinker. Even with extremely loose timings, I can't get anywhere close to
the rated speed of my memory. It is rated at 2.35v and even set there it
doesn't help. I get the best results in the 2.1-2.2v range.
On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:54:58 -0500, Ed M. <ed@edmedlin.com> wrote:
: > : I had the e6600 up to 3.7Ghz at its max eventually, but it took a
: > lot of
: > : Vcore to get it stable. Backed it down to 3.6Ghz and it was very stable
: > and
: > : cool and took much less Vcore. I have the same issues with my Muskin
: > Extreme
: > : DDR2 1133. I just can't get anywhere much above 866 with it. I tried
: > Ntune
: > : very early and thought it was crap. Nothing but lockups and instability
: > with
: > : it. I took it off my system rather quickly and never looked back. You
: > should
: > : be ok with about a 550-600W. There have been several folks in the ngs
: > that
: > : have had issues with Antec lately. I always use PC Power and Cooling
: > PSUs
: > : only because I just don't have any problems with them. They keep their
: > : design very simple and they just work.
: > :
: >
: > Ahhhh I wish I'd researched the power supply part a little more
: > then. I was worried about having cables long enough. In the q6600 box
: > with this funky p/s on the bottom alot of my Good Cable Management was
: > for naught as the last p/s lead I connected wasn't long enough to thread
: > beneath the motherboard tray (thermaltake p/s)
: >
: > I'm having a lot of long term instability issues right now back on the
: > e6600 and the striker. I can get what seems to be stability back
: > where I used to be on the P5W - 400 x 8 -- but when I get up in the
: > morning I see that the box reset itself at some point instead of
: > greeting me with orthos running
: >
: > So I'm stuck at 3.0 but still pressing on, I'm going to try to find a
: > good spot to pick off vcore for measuring with the VOM later today and
: > see where I am. Vcore as set in the bios excessive and asus probe as
: > well as the bios show a pretty large disparity between what 's set and
: > what's reported when the box is quiescent. I did one of the vdroop
: > mods but don't like it (pencil, seems funky for production use) Did
: > you do the vdroop mod to your striker?
: >
: > Reassuring that I'm not the only one to have issues above 800mhz.
: > Thanks
:
: I haven't had the northbridge heat pipe problems on the Striker. It is
: quite a bit more efficient than the other Asus 680i (P5N32E-SLI) because it
: is much larger and has the fan. If you didn't install the fan on the HSs on
: the heatpipe, you should. It makes a huge difference. I also have not done
You are 100% right on. I put two of the fans on and bam, took the
rear MOSFET heat sink down to 120 and the NB heatsink to 115. Why
didn't they put fans on this board to begin with?
: the vdroop mod either. I have used the pencil for other mods like on the old
: AMDs. I even used a rear-window defroster repair kit on one of the early AMD
: XP chips to unlock the multiplier.......:-). It does work. My voltages do
Rear window defroster repair kit? To jumper something?
: vary a bit from what I have set, but once I know the disparities, I don't
: worry about it. I just set voltages accordingly. At least the disparities
: seem to be very constant and don't vary.
: Memory is an issue on these boards, but not confined to just the 680i
: chipsets. It seems to be an issue across the board. I wish I had just got
: some slower, non SLI memory and saved some cash. I fell into it hook, line
: and sinker. Even with extremely loose timings, I can't get anywhere close to
: the rated speed of my memory. It is rated at 2.35v and even set there it
: doesn't help. I get the best results in the 2.1-2.2v range.
I must have beat my head against the wall to make it work but finally
I'm there at DDR2-1067, albeit at the rated 5-5-5-15 2t, at least as
far as 24 hours of orthos blended is telling me. The trick turned out
to be either in the sockets or in turning everything on the board way
up other than Vcore and a smidgen to 2.2 on the memory. Dropping
these puppies into B1 & B2 I have a feeling was the key because the
other voltage pushes didn't do a thing before. It seems very solid.
We'll see after it runs for another 24 hours.
Word has it these corsair 8500-C5Ds can go 4-4-4-5 and 1t but I want
to try to make sure it can go 48 hours without barfing...
One thing strange/disturbing was that it was still flakey in the A1 &
A2 sockets at anything over 667mhz, but was stable at 667 *provided* I
had Vcore up at 1.4125 (measured). I suppose that should have been
the giveaway something else was funky. Maybe something still is funky
since running at 333x9 is only solid with Vcore at 1.3825
I'm looking forward to working on the Q6600. I'll dig back into your
earlier posts and see where you went with the part. (What stepping did
you wind up with?)
Asus P5K Deluxe Wifi or Asus Blitz Formula? 
Linear Mode
