ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Thread

[dpawl31]

Now that Pook informed me of the NB/SB temp being the motherboard temp, I decided to try and cool mine a bit.

Still running that crappy stock NB sink, and no SB sink.
But I got some old fans

It's not pretty, but it dropped me from 32C idle to 28C idle I will be getting new NB/SB sinks soon hopefully... god it's ugly

[dpawl31]

ATTENTION ALL P5N-E SLI 650i THREAD READERS/BOARD OWNERS!

I need YOUR help. I want to add a tips/hints section at the beginning of the thread. If you look, I have already started. I would appreciate:

• ANY tips/hints that you have
• If I list something WRONG, please let me know!
• I will be using these tips to also compile a complete P5N overclocking guide, and will give all credit where credit is due, as well as REP+

Thanks in advance guys, I really think this will help a LOT of the new guys, and avoid them reading the 100+ pages lol. I will be reading EVERY page myself to search for more tips

PS- If you haven't already, VOTE 5STARS for the thread!

[The Pook]

When I get home I will.
Little thing called school.

[Ravin]

Originally Posted by dpawl31

ATTENTION ALL P5N-E SLI 650i THREAD READERS/BOARD OWNERS!

I need YOUR help. I want to add a tips/hints section at the beginning of the thread. If you look, I have already started. I would appreciate:

My 2 cents.....When you set up, download the latest nVidia drivers from their website instead of using the CD that came with your board. Sounds hokey, but I found that by installing the older drivers from the CD and then updating was giving me some problems with RAID bandwidth and Sandra/PCmark only seeing one core.

[Kopi]

First thing I'd have to say is about the auto settings, they are often read incorectly. Check your ram settings (timings) online and check stock voltages for everythign and set it yourself.

[Nevaziah]

My mobo's getting pwned by my ram right now.
I have 1GB AUM DDR667 and another 1GB of ddr667 of unkown brand.

they both work perfectly cause i tested each one separately. Now, ONLY the first 2 slots of ram work!!! meaning hte closest to the cpu, the black and the yellow. If i try inserting the ram in dual channel or in any of the other two slots, it wont boot.

I have the febuary bios. could that be the problem?

EDIT:

I had a bad experience flashing my old gigabyte board. it's messed up now. so i'm scared...
but my old ASUS A8NSLI-premium flashed okay.

[TriBeCa]

Originally Posted by Nevaziah

My mobo's getting pwned by my ram right now.
I have 1GB AUM DDR667 and another 1GB of ddr667 of unkown brand.

they both work perfectly cause i tested each one separately. Now, ONLY the first 2 slots of ram work!!! meaning hte closest to the cpu, the black and the yellow. If i try inserting the ram in dual channel or in any of the other two slots, it wont boot.

I have the febuary bios. could that be the problem?

Same thing happened to me with my OCZ Platinums. I RMA'd the board, returned the RAM for something that had been tested in the board by the RAM manufacturer, and have had no problems. I suspect those DIMM slots that the RAM won't boot in are actually dead.

Originally Posted by dpawl31

Pink - RAM slot issue was only with stock BIOS
If you are still on it, use the 2nd slots.

XLR8- If you can get a lower multi, I believe it's actually better? Sync mode is 1:1 as Kopi said. Use that. Tribeca said AUTO but use sync. AUTO will keep your FSB/RAM linked, which is bad because it will constantly run a 1:2 divider due to the BIOS displaying QDR and DDR values.

I'm on the stock BIOS with my RAM in the black slots with no trouble.

I don't seem to have this 'sync' setting in my BIOS? When I set to unlinked, the divider option is grayed out at 'auto'. I assumed it just meant it automatically sets the divider to whatever clock speeds I give it. So, under unlinked with 1600 cpu clock and 800 ram clock, i'm running a 1:1 divider no problem. The problem with running sync or whatever before you get your OC stable, is your RAM UC's while you're slowly pushing your clock speed up. I'd rather keep my RAM clock constant than have two clock speeds changing every time I boot (for troubleshooting reasons).

Originally Posted by xlr8

Thanks a lot for the step by step instructions…I really do need them..(noob)
I also thought about lower the multiplier to x8 as you suggested but was unsure of this
as I thought I have read somewhere that lowering your multiplier is not good to do but don’t remember why??

Do you think it’s really not going to be that big of a difference performance wise running my ram at 667 MHz verse 800 MHz?
I figure I might get some really tight timings with my ram at 667 MHz…

I've read that lowering your multiplier lowers the mb chipset bus speed, but I don't claim to understand why or how or to be able to evaluate whether the person who said that is full of it.

I'd run at 800 MHz and focus on getting your CPU up to that clock to match it, rather than UCing the RAM :P Though yes, you'd probably get great latencies at 667, I suspect your system performance will be better at 800.

Originally Posted by dpawl31

ATTENTION ALL P5N-E SLI 650i THREAD READERS/BOARD OWNERS!

I need YOUR help. I want to add a tips/hints section at the beginning of the thread. If you look, I have already started. I would appreciate:

• ANY tips/hints that you have
• If I list something WRONG, please let me know!
• I will be using these tips to also compile a complete P5N overclocking guide, and will give all credit where credit is due, as well as REP+

Thanks in advance guys, I really think this will help a LOT of the new guys, and avoid them reading the 100+ pages lol. I will be reading EVERY page myself to search for more tips

1. Be sure your RAM has been tested in the board.
2. At a minimum, reseat the northbridge heatsink with a real thermal transfer medium before installation.
3. Manually set RAM timings to stock, as this board seems to like going auto to loose timings. Also make sure the command rate is set to 2T. If you're going for 1T wait until you achieve a stable OC you're happy with.
4. genral OCing thing: make sure you have a stable windows install and say 10 minutes under orthos before doing ANY ocing.
5. make sure you know how to reset the cmos (jumper+battery) before you start ;p
6. don't forget about the NB voltage settings if you can't seem to get stable by playing with vcore (especially over 375 FSB).
7. Test each succesful bootup into windows for at least 1 minute of orthos at low FSB's and for at least 10 minutes at higher ones. You can often diagnose and fix a problem before it becomes a real problem (i.e. no POST at higher clock speeds) this way.
8. When you encounter orthos errors after close to or more than an hour, make sure you check the voltage and temperature charts in speedfan. If you notice the error coincides with, say, a drop in vcore (due to vdroop), you know where to look to fix it. For example, I couldn't get 8-hours orthos stable until I pushed vcore high enough that it *never* vdrooped under 1.37V.
9. Use the 'Save OC Profile' option! If you don't have a thumb drive, I'd recommend using one of the spots for either your 'stock' BIOS settings or your last 6+ hours orthos stable OC. Use the other one for your last succesful boot into windows.
10. If your system hangs while you're in the BIOS or immediately after POST (so you can't get into the BIOS), turn off your PSU for a minute. Turn it back on, boot up, and load one of your OC profile, save and quit AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. If you can get in and out before the system hangs you won't have to reset the CMOS with battery+jumper I can't even remember how many times I did this when I was having trouble with my first RAM kit.

[dpawl31]

Nev- Try flashing to the 04 series bios.
The windows utility works great for me, but if you are scared to use it, use EZFlash in the BIOS.


Tribeca- Still on stock bios? That was buggy as all hell for RAM.
Go to 04 series bios. I am willing to bet 04 would have revived your old board, but the OCZ Platinum seem to be the only troublesome ram so far.
Also in regards to your tips/hints... Sync mode is in LINKED, not UNLINKED.
Linked offers: AUTO, a few dividers, and SYNC. Sync is another way of saying 1:1.

An overclock attempt CAN fail because you are running stock RAM speed and timings and a divider other than 1:1. Intel chips LOVE 1:1. So I suggest running your ram underclocked, with stock timings, and 2T. Use sync mode and you don't have to worry about the whole entering two values every time, just up your FSB and your RAM will match it. ( ie 1060FSB & DDR2-530)
I have never had to remove the battery to clear CMOS, the jumper cuts the circuit. You can do either, but both is not neccessary.
As far as system hangs and such, If I get to the BIOS, I am OK. If it hangs before hand, no matter how many reboots etc I can NOT get to the BIOS. Always have to clear CMOS, hence the reason I am doing a case mod that includes a custom CMOS clear switch

OC Profiles - I like to save, as you said, stock settings in OC Profile #1.
I save my current OC attempts to 2 for easy access, and save FINAL, stable overclocks on my thumb drive.

I don't have time right now to edit the hints/tips on the first page, but I will add this stuff later tonight. Pook, where you at with your tips?

[TriBeCa]

I am on stock BIOS, because I had no trouble with it and so saw no reason to change it (on this board, I tried every single BIOS more than once on my first board trying to get the RAM stable).

I tried every single BIOS on my old board, and no matter what it wouldn't boot with RAM in the two dead DIMM slots. So no, 04 didn't revive it ;p

My race-against-the-system-hang-in-BIOS was almost exclusively on my old board, with those OCZ's. There were many many times when I saved myself a CMOS clear by loading saved settings and quitting before it hung. I think I did it once on my new board, as well, when I had too low NB voltage or something. I included it because it came in real handy when I was fighting with that RAM, so I figured it could be useful. I've also seen other people say they've had system hangs while in the BIOS, so I know it wasn't just that board/RAM combo.

As for the 1:1 issue, I'd tend to agree that 1:1 is something to shoot for at all (ok, most) costs. But as long as you keep the divider issue in the back of your mind I don't see a reason to keep 1:1 for your whole OCing process. I was able to get 13:16 and 15:16 dividers no problem. I only ran into trouble when I tried to boot into what would've been a 31:32 divider, but since that was clearly a longshot it was no trouble to jump forward to 1:1.

[Kopi]

You say you had OCz? Were they platinum sticks? Platinum sticks dont work on this board for one reason or another, i had constant crashing and instability...changed to gold series and worked perfect