ASUS P5B reboots when loading video drivers

[jdeakins]

Hi.

 

I've wasted a week of my Christmas holidays trying to get an ASUS P5B motherboard with E6400CPU, an ASUS EN7900GS video card and 2x512MB 667 DDR2 Corsair memory working together.

 

The drivers won't load under Windows XP SP2. I have all the latest device updates, all the Microsoft patches and updates, and the supplied 7900GS driver, the latest Microsoft certified nvidia driver and the latest beta nvidea driver.

 

The machine reboots when loading the video drivers, or (very rarely) says they have been loaded successfully but doesn't use them. I've sent an email to the supplier asking to return the video card, but I just want to be sure it isn't the memory causing problems. Corsair isn't on the Qualified Vendors List (QVL) for the P5B.

 

Memtest86 finds no problems with the memory, but I bumped up the voltage to 2.1V and changed the delay (sorry, can't remember the exact term) from 10 to 15 as you suggested in another post about the P5B-X and Memtest86. I even tried extending the delay to 20 and 25. It still wouldn't load the drivers.

 

I know it doesn't look like a memory problem, but this has been a very stressful week and I'd hate the supplier to blame the Corsair memory because it isn't on the QVL.

 

Is there anything else I can do with configuring the memory?

Might Corsair memory not be compatible with the P5B?

 

Thanks

James from Canberra, Australia

(where it's a balmy 22 degrees C (71F), and I should be out playing with the kids instead of fretting over an expensive computer problem that never made it to being a Christmas present)

 

Specs:

ASUS P5B motherboard

Intel E6400 CPU

ASUS EN7900GS 256MB DDR3 PCI-E video card

Corsair VS1GBKIT667D2 ValueSelect 2x512MB DDR2 667 memory kit

[RAM GUY]

That would suggest some other problem, did you have another Video card installed with this system or was the HDD used in another system and you moved it to this system with out formatting and installing the O.S. fresh in this system?

[jdeakins]

That would suggest some other problem, did you have another Video card installed with this system or was the HDD used in another system and you moved it to this system with out formatting and installing the O.S. fresh in this system?

 

Yes. I was building 2 machines. I bought 2 P5B motherboards with E6400s, a PALIT 7900GS and an ASUS 7900GS, and two identical sets of Corsair memory. The PALIT card seemed reasonably stable so I put it on my eldest son's machine - he plays WoW a lot and needed the 'grunt' quickly. When I put the ASUS card into the machine that had had the PALIT card it worked reasonably well, but crashed occasionally. I checked the Event Log and tracked the problem down to a PALIT driver.

 

I deleted the partition and started again, using DutchBBQ's suggested order (but ignoring any RAID or P5B-Deluxe specific steps). Once I had cleared the CMOS, reinstalled BIOS 0806 (using a usb stick) and cleared the CMOS again I loaded the Intel chipset drivers, the ASUS motherboard drivers and Windows XP SP2. I then loaded all the Microsoft security updates and patches. Finally, I used Partition Magic to copy the partition so I could try loading each driver set onto a clean install.

 

I've also swapped the two power supplies to see if that makes a difference. It didn't. The system is the same whether I use the 600W NUMAN or 650W SHAW power supplies.

 

The only thing that is consistent is that the BIOS and Windows screens have 40 dotted lines running down the screens. It happens on both my Dell LCD and my Dell CRT screens. There are 5 different patterns - call them A,B,C,D and E. Each pattern is a group of 4 vertical lines with a couple of dots missing (ie not a solid line - it's about 60% solid)), a gap, then the same 4 lines repeated.

 

AAAA AAAA BBBB BBBB CCCC CCCC DDDD DDDD EEEE EEEE

AAAA AAAA BBBB BBBB CCCC CCCC DDDD DDDD EEEE EEEE

 

The reason it is important is that the drivers have loaded when the pattern does not appear. Then it's just unstable. I noticed it when I was posting on the ASUS forum. The drivers had half-loaded and the machine beside me was rebooting, getting to Windows, trying to load the balance of the drivers then rebooting again. I let it go. After around 10 or 20 reboots it managed to load the drivers. After the driver was loaded the lines went away. Seriously. A Windows driver update made the BIOS splash screen pattern go away.

 

Anyway, in summary, yes, I tried loading the drivers onto clean installations. There were no residual drivers.

 

I'm still interested in whether there could be a memory incompatibility though.

[RAM GUY]

That would suggest a issue with the Video card or MB, have you talked to the maker of the MB or Video card?

 

And you can test the modules one at a time with http://www.memtest.org to make sure there is no problem with the memory, but with this MB you need to disable legacy USB when running any memory test.

[jdeakins]

I've disabled legacy USB support and tested each RAM module overnight. They both came through fine.

 

Even if the memory isn't on the qualified vendor's list it seems to work with the motherboard.

 

Let's hope a new video card fixes the problem. If not, I'll keep you updated.

 

Thanks for your advice. It's appreciated.

[RAM GUY]

One thing I would try is to set the ‘Write to Precharge delay’ in the BIOS (same page as for latencies) from default 10 to 15 and then test the modules again with the Voltage set to 2.1 Volts and test with http://www.memtest.org to be sure!