ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Thread

[Xeon Zombie]

@ ROB126:

Hi Rob, a couple of things that you mentioned, such as no issue with temps, but instability nonetheless, and a suspect NB, bnoth stuck out to me, as I had similar issues with my P5W DH Deluxe at one point...

You may want to look into a Vdroop mod for this board. Asus Mobos are plagued by Vdroop issues that can cause similar instability to what you described here.

I modded the P5w, and now my voltage is rock stable, and no more issues. In fact I was able to take my quad core all the way up to 3.6GHz (orthos stable) on air alone. (I keep it at 3.4GHz as this box runs 24/7, and it just seems safer to me, lol)

As for heat issue upon reinstallation: If you seated your chip with AS5, or most any other heat grease, you will not see optimal temps for roughly 200 hours (of use), as the TIM needs time to settle in. Your mobo temps may be improved by either reseating your NB cooler with AS5, or replacing it alltogether with an active cooling solution. You should also toss a small copper passive heatsink onto the SB.

Other than that, try to make sure you have good airflow throughout your case.

[MrQ]

Originally Posted by Xeon Zombie

>Hey, Xeon what IS the advantage of running a xeon? Whats the dif >between it and the q6600?

The other members are correct, the Xeon is primarily a server CPU. Intel recently started making socket 775 Xeons that are counterparts to the Core 2 Duo series, for instance, mine is an X3220 = Q6600, E3110 = E8400, etc.

The Reason I chose to go Xeon is that I have been using Xeon based worstaions for some time (Since the old Foster Core PIV Xeons), and have always found them to be extraordinarily reliable for 24/7 machines, and in environments where cooling is less than optimal.

There is a debatable rumor that Xeons are manufactured from higher binned silicon.

What is not debatable, is that the X3220 can take close to 10c more heat than a Q6600 and remain rock stable. Mine is stock @ 2.4GHz, but I have it OC'd to 3.4GHz on air 24/7, and my warmest core barely breaks 42c at idle/ 58c Load. I can crank it to 3.6GHz, but rarely do I need such a small speed boost, so I tend to err on the side of caution. Also, I use air cooling only to acheive these clocks. My case is a custom Lian Li PC V2100, outfitted with 6 120mm Scythe S-Flex fans, and a pair of 80mm Panaflo's to keep my PSU chilly, so that helps to keep the temps down as well.

As far as cost, at the time I purchased the Xeon, (Oct. 2007), it was only $10.00 more than the Q6600, so price/ performance wise it was the better choice (due to the higher thermal spec).

I have benched it against Q6600's and performance is the same, however my temps and max OC are better than anything I was able to pull off with a Q6600 on the same board (P5W DH Deluxe, stock cooling reseated with AS5, and I did the vdroop mod).

IMHO, best chip for the buck right now is the E3110, it is the Xeon version of the E8400. If you want high (4.5GHz or more) OC's, spend the extra few bucks.

Also, IMO, Xeon's are just really darn classy bits of silicon.

- I hope this better explains why I went with it. if you have any other questions, let me know. I have been checking in on this thread regularly, so I'll try to answer as best I can.

Thanks. Thats what I wanted to know. I appreciate you taking time to explain this.

[Xeon Zombie]

Not a problem at all. Sorry if I got a bit long winded, lol.

[Gauvenator]

Originally Posted by r0b126

LONG post inc... please read it, I'm desperately looking for an answer

I know this might be long, but its not overly complicated info. Please read this, I'm completely stumped here...


The Beginning-
Assembled a machine using an Asus P5N-E 650i SLi motherboard and an E8400 processor.
The stock speed on the CPU is 3.0GHz / 1333MHz FSB
The aftermarket cooler is a Zalman's CNPS9700
I also have 2x 1GB PC6400 DDR-2 800MHz Corsair memory. Timings are 4-4-4-12, 2T and manually set to this in the bios.
I also manually set voltage for the memory to 2.085 per the spec.
North Bridge voltage is set to auto.

At stock speeds and a fairly low voltage (I want to say it was 1.225v) everything was fine. Low CPU temps, low mobo temps.



The Overclock-

I overclocked the CPU to 3.6GHz / 1600MHz FSB
This gives me a 1:1 with the 800MHz memory
The CPU temp after OC is only 32C idle and I think it got as high as 38C under orthos load. Maybe 39-40C on a hot day.

voltage might have been kicked up 1 or 2 notches above 1.225, but no higher. The system was completely stable and temps were perfect.


The problems-
After about 2 weeks, I noticed some issues with stability. No issues with the temps...
The machine had rebooted itself or blue screened a few times while I was playing games. At first I thought it was a memory issue. So I retested both dimms with memtest twice each and both times they passed 100% with 0 errors. So the dimms are fine. Then I started having some other stability issues. Orthos would give a stop error or a blue screen / reset. So I bumped up the voltage a few notches and kept my eye on the temps. The temps were still very low.

From this point on, everything seemed perfect.... for about 10 - 15 days. Then I noticed another couple of random resets and a blue screens. Orthos would kill the machine again as well. Again a jump in voltage fixed this and the CPU temps stayed low.

This pattern continued until I hit 1.31v. The max for this CPU is 1.35 and I refused to go any higher than I was at.



The stability issue came back and this time I noticed my CPU temp was up a little, nothing dangerous though.

The motherboard temp was up a lot. I don't recall what it was back when I first did the overclock, but it was up over 45C when I noticed it this time. The machine had reset a time or 2 as well. Rather than attempt to fix the stability issue with voltage, I lowered it back down to 1.22v and canned the overclock.



So the situation I am in is this:

3.00GHz / 1333MHz FSB (Stock speeds) cooled with a CNPS9700
1.22v on the CPU

the motherboard temp even here is still 45C, with just the WoW load screen and not actually running the game it was at 52C, but its usually between 44-49C. Which is ridiculously high.

My next guess was the north bridge was overheating. I removed the NB heatsink and the paste was crusty dry. I removed it and applied arctic silver. No luck w/ the temps.



So I replaced the motherboard. It was suggested here that the NB was either bad or had sustained some damage.


I ordered and just installed today a new Asus P5N-E 650i SLi motherboard.
I put the CPU on it and left everything at stock speeds. No overclocks anywhere. Flashed the bios to 0803 and set all the bios settings. 1.22v on the CPU's vcore.

CPU temp while idle (and with the aftermarket cooler) is 34C and the mobo temp is 38C. I checked it earlier and mobo temp was 39C. This sounds way too high for an idle temp. Not sure what the norm is supposed to be. The CPU temp isn't bad, but it's at stock and not doing anything and has a CNPS9700 on it... so it should be a few degrees lower imo. I guess the question is... why is my motherboard heating up like this? Is this temp normal?

Under load with Orthos, I have the following temps:

CPU: 39C after 3 minutes of testing
MOBO: 39C after 3 minutes of testing

stock speeds.... CNPS9700 cooling it...

will post more temps as it gets further into the test

PROGRESS LOG
--------------------------
stop error after 8 minutes

temp was 39/39, CPU/mobo respectively

upping the voltage a tad. 1.22 might be low

set vcore to 1.250

idle temp... CPU = 35C, mobo = 39C
CPU-Z shows voltage to be at 1.28v instead of the 1.250 that I set it to. Its never read exactly the same before

11 minutes in @ stock w/ 1.250v vcore:

cpu 41c
mobo 39c

I guess the good news is the mobo temp isn't going up.

31 minutes in @ stock 1.250v vcore

CPU = 42C
MOBO = 39C

mobo still hasn't gone over 39... which is a good thing, again hopefully the gaming doesn't change that. Might pull up the WoW load screen (best I can do at work) and see if that has any impact at all on it.

48 minutes @ stock w/ 1.250v vcore

CPU = 41C
MOBO = 39C

Temps aren't exactly impressive for being under load w/ this cooler and stock speeds, but it *looks* stable. And the motherboard isn't overheating (yet).


Any suggestions, cautions, advice??


15 mins of playing crysis

motherboard temp went up to 47C


....I can NOT figure this out....

please help

Your graphics card is probably heating up this motherboards temp sensor. Same thing happened to me with the nb temps and Crysis iirc.

[Xeon Zombie]

Gauvinator could be right... I didn't notice you had an SLI setup. I have a Crossfire rig myself, and I used to get a nasty heat pocket between the cards. I replaced the coolers on both cards with Thermaltake DuOrb's, and replaced all my stock Lian Li case fans with high quality aftermarket parts. Problem solved.

For me though, the heat didn't so much cause instability, but I run my box 24/7, so I like to make sure it's a chilly as it can be.

Good thinkin' Gauvinator!!

[Gauvenator]

I added some vreg cooling to the Vcore and memory mosfets. See pics
They do heat up a good bit more at 1.43125v than 1.375v vcore.

Vcore mosfets:

With heatsinks:

Memory mosfets:

With heatsinks:


I didn't put bigger one's on the memory because of interference with that circle thing with the copper coils. But I don't plan to be using lots of memory voltage anyway.

I used Arctic Alumina Epoxy to attach them. Thermal Tape worries me..afraid it will fall off and short something out.

[SketchyFish]

my rig is dead it was fine a few days ago but my PSU was gettign real hot as i got my router and harddrive on top of my case so guess got to hot maybe as its not a good PSU and had to swaop it out the first time as the 5+v rail was under powered at only 4.55v and was ok for ages but ivejust put 2 new sticks of crucial ram in and these are ok so dont think its them but i started getting hardware crashes few weeks ago and my NB is so hot after 5 mins of bein on post scree nthat it burns to touch it no it gets hot but ****!!!

that the other thing it frezzes in the middle of post but still get a good 1 beep to say all is ok buit it ramdomly frezzes in middle of post and wont even get to the XP install disk menu so cant even install a fresh xp to see if its that as it said i had a bad install amnd needed to fix XP which i did but didnt do any good but as it wont let me boot from XPisk cant do anything bout that now or even install on another harddrive.

the main1 is making some strange like guring noises but its a newish sata drive so shouldnt be dead yet!! and if it was that then why cant i post or get to the install stage then??

do ua think my motherboard is dead or dieing im still under my warnty i think so i emailed em but its easter init so ave to wait i got an old ****ty amd 3200+ rig that im useing so at least im online...

so what does this sound liek to any1???

my motherboard was gettign to 48c or over on the asus temp thingy and was red so is that to hot!!! no gets hot tho...CPU is rounf 40ish at load harddrives at bout 30ishc so not to hot but im thinkin itsmaybe my psu and mobo it the way out.as got soem weird like glue **** on back on my mobo which i noticed other day looks like running over the dif lines on back of it and
DEF shouldtn be there but not from me!! and the fact that soem of my screen is only a small amount but its shakeing or really fast moveing from side to side but only in post screen or set up menu??

how i can find out what bit isnt right or is messing up rest of it!!!no lot of stuff but need help im stuck dont no what to do...my babie is hurt lol...

[MrQ]

Dang man that sounds like an BIG heat issue. After you finish toasting your bread (or crumpets as the term may be over the NB, get your whole mobo out of the case. If you have any good thermal grease use it on the NB after you have cleaned off the crap ASUS puts on there. Isospryl alcohol is a good solvent. I recommend Arctic Silver 5 for the thermal paste. Clean off the goop off the back of the board and try starting it up again. Maybe try a different PSU?

IMHO, by the sound of it, I think its toasted, (I HATE saying that) but its worth a shot.

[r0b126]

anyone have a good how-to guide for doing a vdroop mod?

I'd kinda like to give this a try to see if it solves any problems. I also plan to upgrade my case to an Antec 900, but I might wait to see if the mod alone does me any wonders

[Perry]

Originally Posted by r0b126

anyone have a good how-to guide for doing a vdroop mod?

I'd kinda like to give this a try to see if it solves any problems. I also plan to upgrade my case to an Antec 900, but I might wait to see if the mod alone does me any wonders

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4450&s=12

This has just about every mod for this board. Some hard, some not so hard.

I'm looking at the pencil mod myself since my vdroop is between .060 and .064.