P5N-E SLI issues

[Tbone]

Rob,
You will have to excuse the rant, but here goes...

I've been a fan of your site since 2003 when I followed your advice to build an Athlon XP based system on a A7N8X-deluxe board. These were the good old days and this installation took me a few hours and that baby booted first time. I didn't have a single issue in 4 years until recently when my cheap memory crapped out.

So I decided to buy a new PC and checked your site for suggestions and decided to buy the above mobo which looked like good value for money. Man, what a pain in the ass to get it stable with stock settings. (I'm not even bothering to try to overclock)

I won't bore you with the details, you can go to the ASUS web site and search for P5N-e yourself if you want. But.. you should maybe advise people that this mobo is a finicky SOB that should only be tackled by enthusiasts that want to spend days going through the permutations of BIOS settings with voltage, multipliers and memory timings.

now that feels better...

[The Wise Monkey]

Hmm, maybe this is why Jamie keeps recommending it to people - he is definitely an enthusiast. :)

[Jamie Nixx]

Hmm, i wouldn't say it was an enthusiasts board, i just passed my one onto my little brother, 13 to be precise and he configured the bios to his liking in about 2 minutes, its not a hard board to use which is why i recommend it.

Apologies if you are having trouble but i haven't had any complaints about it and at least 10 people have got one on my advice.

[JasonG]

I recently bought this board and after I learned and inputed the correct memory timings I'm having no issues (before that my games were crashing). This was the first PC that I built.

[BrianB]

I also have this board and like JasonG said after inputing the memory timings no problems. Just beat Clive Barker's Jericho with no problems played all day from 8am>10pm no crashes from the computer just a couple with Gametap. Maybe a bad board? This was my first build also.

[Jamie Nixx]

Thats the only problem people with that board have asked my help for, and i gave them all the solution to the problem so maybe you have a bad board or something.

It certainly didn't take me anymore than a minute to configure the Bios and my Bro who was building his first ever computer at 13!! didn't bat an eyelid and it took him 2 minutes tops to configure it to his liking.

If you were having trouble with the board you could have just asked for help insted of slating it lol, but heh its all good mate :D

[Eldric IV]

I just dealt with a locking problem today on the P5N-E and putting in the timing stopped the problem (so far).

Where does one find the Vdimm setting on the ASUS BIOS setup? As far as I know, I went through each menu and never saw it.

[JasonG]

Here are the changes that I made to the BIOS:

Memory voltage - 2.085
tCL - 4
tRCD - 4
tRP - 4
tRAS - 12
CMD - 2
tRC - 22
tWTR - 15
all others auto

This is with Corsair XMS2 RAM.

I actually did have one crash yesterday playing COD-UO on full settings. I lowered the settings a bit and it was fine afterward.

Anyone else use different BIOS settings successfully?

[JasonG]

I just dealt with a locking problem today on the P5N-E and putting in the timing stopped the problem (so far).

Where does one find the Vdimm setting on the ASUS BIOS setup? As far as I know, I went through each menu and never saw it.

If Vdimm is the same as "memory voltage" then it is in the advanced menu under "Voltage Control". That's the voltage that I changed to 2.085.

[Jamie Nixx]

I had no problems at all, the memory timings didn't need to be changed on mine.

A quick fix if you are experiencing problems is to change the command per clock from one to two, if you don't know what you are doing changing the timings or voltage could blow your memory.

[Tbone]

Ok, so I seem to have hit a nerve Jamie, but while I have your attention ;) does your PC (or your 13 yr old brother's) have 1 or more memory sticks?

because, I can get my PC to run fine with 1 stick - but with 2 is a different matter... how about all you others...?
(I'm using 2x1 GB sticks of Corsair XMS2)

In any case, if this mobo works for you then great, but there are a lot of people who are having difficulties with 2 or more sticks of RAM...

[Jamie Nixx]

No you didn't hit a nerve lol, and yeah my bro is using, hmmm, wait for it........ two sticks of Corsair XMS2 as well lol ;) :p :D

The board is a little touchy when it comes to ram and using two or more modules but theres a quick fix so its no drama.

[BrianB]

Ok, so I seem to have hit a nerve Jamie, but while I have your attention ;) does your PC (or your 13 yr old brother's) have 1 or more memory sticks?

because, I can get my PC to run fine with 1 stick - but with 2 is a different matter... how about all you others...?
(I'm using 2x1 GB sticks of Corsair XMS2)

In any case, if this mobo works for you then great, but there are a lot of people who are having difficulties with 2 or more sticks of RAM...


I had that problem with mine, I have the same memory, my problem was that one stick of memory was bad. So I checked both of them individually and found that one was bad, RMA'ed them and the new memory booted fine. With the antec 900 case it does not have an internal speaker so you will not hear the beep, so you may need to find a speaker or just try a new set.

[acidfire]

I just built a computer with the same motherboard and two sticks of ram. I didn't even have to mess with the bios except to change the boot order. Maybe one of your sticks of ram is bad. I can't say much about messing with bios as I don't overclock and that is why I use default bios settings. Good luck solving your problem.

[Amosmoses33]

I built with a p5n32 and i havent had to do anything with timings and voltages. Im really not sure what they are :)
Where the memory goes in mine. there are white and blue (not sure what to call them...dimms i think) places to put the memory. They are in a matter where a1+a2=b1+b2 so you cant have all your memory in one side. they have to be equal if using more than one stick.

[JasonG]

No problem here with 2 sticks.