Asus P5AD2 Premium and 5400s

[drheim]

I have an ASUS P5AD2 and 2 512MB DIMMS of XMS2 5400 with the Asus P5AD2 Premium Motherboard. The system runs fine, but everytime I play any 3d game the system completely turns itself off. I have tried every conbination, but Asus tect support says it is bad memory. This has been going on for 1 month. So far I replaced the systemboard, changed out to a new graphics card, changed power supplies and still have same problem. This is not an overheating issue. Please advise.

System Summary
Asus P5AD2 Premium Systemboard
Intel P4 3.4Ghz LGA775
Asus X800 XT PE Pci-Express video card
******** 480W Active PFC PowerSupply
Corsair 5400 DDR2 XMS2 memory(CM2X512-5400C4)
2 10K SATA WD Raptors

[Wired]

Split off of a thread and bumped.

[Yellowbeard]

Well, the first thing to do is test the memory. Test it 1 stick at a time with the test from www.memtest86.com and set all to default/SPD settings except for the RAM voltage. You can set this up to 2.9v safely and within warranty. Also, in the past on ASUS MOBOs, you must disable Legacy USB Support during this testing. Let the test run for 5-10 passes per stick.

Post your results. Mike.

[VX TheBear]

I'd just like to second this problem as i have almost the exact setup. At first i thought it was a heat issue as i got discolization (blury) when starting games. FarCry would load a level but crashed as soon as it tried to show it and then after a Koolance Exos water cooling system runs for about 45 seconds. With dawn of war i can play indefinitely with very high graphic settings against 1 computer opponent but when i put 7 opponents it crashed after 10 seconds and was very jumpy. With grapihics settings all the way down both games ran longer but crashed within a couple of minutes.

All my temperatures are well within operating range and I've asked a lot of friends (computer techs at work) and everyone doesnt know the exact problem. I'm going to call asus and corsair in the morning ill let you know if i get any results.

System Summary
Asus P5AD2 Premium Systemboard
Intel P4 3.4Ghz LGA775
Asus X800 XT PE Pci-Express video card
******** 480W Butterfly PowerSupply
Corsair 5400 DDR2 XMS2 memory(CM2X512-5400C4)
1 10K SATA WD Raptor
Koolance Exos Water Cooling System

[RAM GUY]

Can you tell me the bios settings you have set for both CPU and memory?

[VX TheBear]

Bios Settings

CPU Configuration
cpu lock free: auto
vid cmos setting: 45
microde updation: enabled
max cpuid value limit: disabled
enhanced c1 control: auto
cpu internal thermal control: auto
hyper threading technology: enabled

Chipset (not sure if this is ram but closest thing i saw)
configure dram timing by spd: enabled
hyper path 2: auto
peg buffer length: auto
link latency: auto
peg link mode: auto
peg root control: auto
slot power: auto

I also noticed that above my graphics card and to the left of my cpu it was very hot...dont know if this helps let me know if you need any more information

-Dan-

[RAM GUY]

Try setting the Dim Voltage to 1.9 Volts and what do you have the CPU Frequency set too?

[VX TheBear]

CPU external frequency is set to the detected 200 mhz while the frequency is at the stock 3400 mhz...all my cpu and ram settings are at the default auto...i changed the dim voltage to 1.9 and I am about to see if that has any effect. I will edit this post with those results

Update:
Didnt seem to have any affect. Played Call of Duty at 1024 x 768 with all settings around halfway and crashed after 14 minutes of online play. The Top left of the mobo seemed unreasonablly hot to me couldnt keep my finger on it for more than a second or two. Bios reported 90F for the mobo but this one area has to be around 130F.

I was browsing around Asus' website and it doesn't list the P5AD2 motherboard as compliant with the intel 3.4ghz F. This seems odd that it wouldnt be listed but could this be the problem?

[RAM GUY]

You might check with ASUS to make sure that you have the latest bios and that the S-SPEC of your CPU is supported with the bios you have. In addition, I would check your case cooling and maybe play with the direction of the case fans to see if you can lower the case temp.

[mouten]

I have a very similar system (same DIMM + MB), and also have compatibility issues, but of a different sort.

1/ when I boot, the systems says that I have 4300 Dimms...,
2/ when I use CPU-Z, and check the "SPD" it says: 4-5-5-15 and "333mhz"...? - however the part name is indeed what it should be 5400C4 etc.

I then went into the BIOS, pushed the voltage to 1.9 (and also above, o 2, 2.1), set-up the latency to 4-4-4-12 manually and also the DRAM frequescny at 533 Mhz this resulted in:

1/ at boot the sytems nosw saying I had 5300 dimms
2/ that is when it would boot at all, and not tell me that overclocking had worked
3/ under CPU-Z, CPD is still the same

Any clue?

System:
Asus P5AD2 Premium Systemboard
1008 BIOS version (ie latest)
Intel P4 3.6Ghz LGA775
6600 GT Pci-Express video card
Corsair 5400 DDR2 XMS2 memory(CM2X512-5400C4)

[drheim]

I am still having the exact same problem. Any game I launch just kills the power on the system. I have changed the motherboard, video card, psu, processor, and tried completely different RAM and still can not get these to work together. I tried all memory settings, memtest86 and everything else. I am completely out of options, but I think ASUS might be holding back on us with this. I mounted to case fans directly above my processor for additional air flow and have a CPU temp of around 45 when idle and as high as 68 when under extreme load. I have tried all kinds of thermal past and stock cooling with both processors and can tell you that tom's hardware article about intel P5-560s heat can crash and kill is not correct in their point that intel thermal paste is cooler than artic silver 5. It depends on how you apply it and if you know what you are doing you definately will do better with 3rd party thermal paste. I have latest bios, drivers, windows updates, etc but this configuration will not work. Also to note that I ran a CPU non graphic intense program mentioned in the tom's hardware article(prime95) and after about 40 minutes it also crashed the system. Last noted CPU temp was 68. All I can say is that I really wish I had gone with AMD. Even if it is a temp problem I do not know what else I can do. I go from 45 idle to crashing in Unreal in under 60 seconds sometimes

All I can say is that this configuration will not work

Intel 3.4 GHz(replaced once and still have same problem)
Asus P5AD2 Premium(replaced once and still have same problem)
Asus ATI X800 XT PE(also hand same problems using Powercolor X800 XT)
******** Butterfly Purepower 480W w/Active PFC(also tried one without PFC)
2 10k RPM Raptor SATA HD(Raid 0)
2 7200 RPM WD EIDE HD(RAID 0)
******** Viking case with 2 side mounted fans over processor

If anyone has any systems that have any combination of 2 of these parts working together fine and can play high end games please email me at dheim@comcast.net or drheim@hotmail.com

[Yellowbeard]

I realize that you have tried almost every possible idea of replacing things. One thing you might want to try is using a single HD for the OS install and all the games. Just to troubleshoot and see if the system will run anything stable with 1 HD. You have a nice system and did not buy it to run scaled down but, perhaps this will be a temporary solution. If the problem is the MOBO or bios, hopefully you can find a work around until ASUS resolves this.

Mike.

[m_pascar]

Same problem here, I can play HL2 for around 10-15 minutes and my pc crashes, (bluish screen for less than a second, thin the pc reboots) vary upsetting. One thing that I have noticed is that the LED’s never max out. (I don’t know if this means anything) anyway there is a new bios version out, (1009) I’m going to give this a try and as soon as finals are over I will try memtest86 on each stick.

System:
Windows XP Pro. SP2
Intel P4 3.6F (EM64T i.e... 64 bit)
Asus P5AD2 Premium (bios version 1008 and soon to be 1009)
Asus ATI X800 XT PE
Corsair TWIN2X1024-4300C3PRO (4 stick totaling 2gigs)
WD 36gig Raptors (2 of them using Intel Matrix Raid)
Zalman Reserator 1 (CPU and GPU liquid cooling)
Coolmax fanless PSU (480watts, 24 pin connector)

Picture of my system

[J_Taylor]

having the exact same problem only mine freezes up if i try to do anything.. i mean if i try to open up a cd i freeze up.

my pc-
Windows XP Pro. SP2
Intel P4 3.4
Asus P5AD2 Premium
ATI X800 XT PE
Corsair 5400 DDR2 XMS2 Pro(CM2X512-5400C4PRO)
Enermax noisetaker 485W ATX 12V V2.0 comp. (24 pin connector)
Maxtor diamondmax plus 9- 60 gig sata

[Yellowbeard]

For everyone in this thread I have a suggestion. Try setting the FSB/CPU/RAM etc settings to the lowest value possible temporarily just to see if you can get the system stable. Of course this is only a troubleshooting idea and a temporary solution. However, we are getting several "me too" people on this thread. There is nothing wrong with that but, most of your systems are more different than they would appear to be at a glance. You may or may not have the same issues.

So, let's try to get some stable systems and go from there.

Mike.

[J_Taylor]

Let me describe what happens a little more in depth. It loads up fine and lets me use 1 program, cd, etc without a problem. After that system bogs down. its so slow that after like 5 minutes of trying to load something i ctr alt del and try to end task. when i do that i dont freeze up but i get my desktop background with no start button, tool tray, and no program icons. After 15 minutes or so i get them back. Also i put a demo of Dday on it and it runs extremely slow. my little brothers pc with a geforce 4 runs it faster

my pc-
Windows XP Pro. SP2
Intel P4 3.4
Asus P5AD2 Premium
ATI X800 XT PE
2x 512 Corsair 5400 DDR2 XMS2 Pro(CM2X512-5400C4PRO)
Enermax noisetaker 485W ATX 12V V2.0 comp. (24 pin connector)
Maxtor diamondmax plus 9- 60 gig sata

[Yellowbeard]

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041114/index.html

This is why my suggesting going to a minimal setup makes more sense to me now. You might even try a large fan (a room fan) blowing into your case with the side off, again, just for testing and troubleshooting. This is starting to sound like a heat/thermal throttling issue.

Mike.

[J_Taylor]

turned everything i could find to the lowest option. i also put a large box fan ( larger than my case ) next to the side of it in addition to my 2 12 cm case fans. the bios said the cpu temp was 48 C (down from 52) and the case temp was 28 C. i also removed the heat sink and reapplied silver thermal paste. unfortunatly this hasnt solved my problem or even increased my stability.

my pc-
Windows XP Pro. SP2
Intel P4 3.4
Asus P5AD2 Premium
ATI X800 XT PE
2x 512 Corsair 5400 DDR2 XMS2 Pro(CM2X512-5400C4PRO)
Enermax noisetaker 485W ATX 12V V2.0 comp. (24 pin connector)
Maxtor diamondmax plus 9- 60 gig sata

[Yellowbeard]

Sorry to hear that it did not help. But, atleast you have eliminated 1 variable. I am guessing that if this is not a thermal issue it is bios related. Hopefully ASUS will rescue you guys soon. At this time, I really don't know anything else to suggest. Hopefully RAM GUY will.

Mike.

[m_pascar]

Has anyone flashed to the new bios version yet? (i.e.. 1009) I did not have time last night and probably not have time tonight either. (GOD Dam YOU business class and your 1/2 hour presentation )

[Yellowbeard]

Has anyone flashed to the new bios version yet? (i.e.. 1009) I did not have time last night and probably not have time tonight either. (GOD Dam YOU business class and your 1/2 hour presentation )

LMAO.....did we have the same instructor?

Mike

[J_Taylor]

the manual says the board supports up to ddr2-533 with 600 mhz overclock. With 5400s being 675, could this be the issue?

my pc-
Windows XP Pro. SP2
Intel P4 3.4
Asus P5AD2 Premium
ATI X800 XT PE
Corsair 5400 DDR2 XMS2 Pro(CM2X512-5400C4PRO)
Enermax noisetaker 485W ATX 12V V2.0 comp. (24 pin connector)
Maxtor diamondmax plus 9- 60 gig sata

[RAM GUY]

No, sorry, that has not proven to be the case. Please do a search for the model of MB you have and you will see this question asked many times. In order to run the memory over 533MHz you will need to OC the CPU.

[drheim]

Here is an email I sent to Asus support today after 6 weeks of hard work fixing the problem described at the beginning of this thread.

I wanted to let you know that I have figured out that the ******** Silent Purepower Butterfly 480w PSUs are not compatible with your motherboard when it is under load. I tried 2 different ********s and one of them did have Active PFC and I changed power cords and even tried taking the computer to a different building, but continued having the same problem. The computer would run fine for days, but would turn off after about 5 minutes into playing any game. Thought it was a heat issue for a long time and kept reapplying different thermal pastes with no luck in fixing problem. I had tried every single setting imaginable in the BIOS and still would not works after hundreds of attempts until I replaced the PSU.

Please send this email to you tech distribution list and your R&D department to avoid other people having this problem which took me 6 weeks to figure out and hundreds of dollars in spare parts purchased. Here is configs of my system and what I did that did not work. The first part I ever replaced was the ******** PSU, but when I put in this ******** Neopower 480W PSU in the unit it works fine. All the rails on the PSU were easily sufficient for the hardware I had in this system.

P5AD2 Premium with latest BIOS 1009 – Replaced this board once
Intel 3.4GHz – Replaced once
Powercolor X800XT – Replaced with ASUS X800 XT PE
(2)Corsair 512MB DDR2 5400s – Replaced with ********
******** 480W Silent Purepower Butterfy PSU – Replaced with different model 019 that has active PFC
(2)Maxtor 35GB 10k SATA Raptors - Raid 0
(2)WD 7,200 EIDE 200GB – Raid 0



Regards,



Dan

[Yellowbeard]

Finally some good news Dan. And,the 2nd poster on your thread here has a ******** PSU also. So, mebbe your info will help him also as well as the others.

For those of you that are not using ******** PSUs, keep in mind that many different companies buy their power supplies from the same manufacturer in ASIA. So, just because it is not ******** on the outside, it may in fact have the same "guts" as drheim's CPU.

Thanks for the feedback Dan.

Mike.

[RAM GUY]

This thread made sticky status. And thanks drheim for letting us know, but this is really a PSU issue and not a MB issue. PSU makers should ensure their products work with what’s in the market not the other way around.

[Yellowbeard]

Originally Posted by RAM GUY

This thread made sticky status. And thanks drheim for letting us know, but this is really a PSU issue and not a MB issue. PSU makers should ensure their products work with what’s in the market not the other way around.

Yep, and drheim should get some pay as a beta tester

Mike.

[snek_one]

phew, i'm relieved an answer was found..
i just purchased two of these motherboards and 4 dual sets of the 5400s...
then i read this thread.. almost gave me a heart-attack!

i ordered 550w ******** PSU's with TruePower, if i have any problems i'll let you know..

however, the person from the store who called me about my order DID say that there seemed to be some problems with the 37Gb 10k RPM SATA drives that i had ordered, and he strongly advised me to take the 72Gb drives which were good he said.. they also resell to other stores, so i'll take his word for it, i've ordered over 20 complete pc's in loose parts from them already as well.. all monster systems.. so they know what i like hehehe

i noticed a few posters here did have 10k drives, might also we worth checking out for them if all else fails.. you know, murphy's law

[RAM GUY]

I have heard of some issues with ******** PSU's as well. You might consider Ennermax or PC Power and Cooling or Sparkle if you have problems.

[Yellowbeard]

however, the person from the store who called me about my order DID say that there seemed to be some problems with the 37Gb 10k RPM SATA drives that i had ordered, and he strongly advised me to take the 72Gb drives which were good he said..

Hehe...sounds like a sales tactic.

And along with what RAM GUY said, I remember there being some issues with some ASUS MOBOs and some of the ******** PSUs (430 Truepower mebbe?) but I can't remember which PSUs specifically.

Mike.