1st look on asus P5K-VM: G33 matx board

Is this still a good board to get? I'm building a new SFF that will mostly be used to play LAN games with occasional use for Dreamweaver, Photoshop, video editing, etc.

I'll be putting a GeForce 8800GTS in it so won't be using the built-in video or need HDMI. The CPU will be a C2Q 6600 and there will be two sticks of 2GB RAM.

Since I don't plan on using the HDMI, I thought this one would be a better choice for my use than the P5E-VM (plus save me about $30).

Another option would be something like the EVGA e-7150 which currently has a rebate making it almost half the cost of the P5K-VM. It looks like the main downside to the e-7150 is that it is single channel memory. Is the difference between running dual vs single channel noticeable considering I won't be using the onboard video?

Any other good yet under $100 boards to consider knowing that I don't need the built-in video features?
 
I would not recommend the evga 630i like its xfx clone...max fsb around 340....
that's not the case with the abit i-N73HD!
 
hook said:
Is this still a good board to get? I'm building a new SFF that will mostly be used to play LAN games with occasional use for Dreamweaver, Photoshop, video editing, etc.

I'll be putting a GeForce 8800GTS in it so won't be using the built-in video or need HDMI. The CPU will be a C2Q 6600 and there will be two sticks of 2GB RAM.

Since I don't plan on using the HDMI, I thought this one would be a better choice for my use than the P5E-VM (plus save me about $30).

Another option would be something like the EVGA e-7150 which currently has a rebate making it almost half the cost of the P5K-VM. It looks like the main downside to the e-7150 is that it is single channel memory. Is the difference between running dual vs single channel noticeable considering I won't be using the onboard video?

Any other good yet under $100 boards to consider knowing that I don't need the built-in video features?
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that EVGA 7150 BIOS doesn't support 45nm CPUs natively...just for future upgrade reference. The P5K_VM is a great overclocking board and can also be easily VDrooped moded, similar to the P5E_VM HDMI. The one setback I had with the P5K_VM though was that you couldn't control the on board fans via SPEEDFAN. The P5E-VM HDMI does allow this (albeit only with the AUX_FAN).
 
Thanks for the quick replies.

I ordered the P5K-VM open box from NewEgg. It cost about the same as the I-N73HD and having the extra RAM slots seemed more valuable in the long run than having the HDMI (odds are I'll put this board to work as a Windows Small Business Server in about 2 years).

This will be my second SFF system. My first is a F-I90HD with a C2D 4300 running at 3GHz that has been running fine for a year (only glitch I've had was a bad BIOS flash that required ordering a new chip from Abit).
 
You won't regret your choice. I ordered one NIB for a friend and easily overclocked his e2180 to 2.4ghz. I'm using one myself that I bought open box from the egg as well; after vdrooped-mod I pushed my q6600 to 3.6ghz with no sweat, but temps in my case were terrible and I am currently running @ 3.0ghz stable 24/7.

I had researched in advance and there seems to be power/boot-up issues regarding this board. I had a similar problem at first when I put my X-Fi Fatal1ity in the second PCI slot. The PC would not post until I put it in the first PCI slot. Then I ran into a "Chassis Intrusion" error during bootup and upon inspection, I saw that one of the jumpers fell out of the mobo. Once I placed it back in, I did the overclock and everything was well. I had initially thought the error was associated with the PSU I was using but this was not the case.

Current rig is:
P5K-VM
Q6600 g0 @ 3.0ghz
8gb A-data DDR2-6400 5-5-5-15
EVGA 7800GT
X-fi Fatal1ty Pro
Rocketraid 2300
3x 7200.10 250gb Seagate drives RAID0
SATA Lite-on DVD-RW
Corsair 620hx

All inside a microfly and it runs like a champ.
 
dyesan said:
I had researched in advance and there seems to be power/boot-up issues regarding this board. I had a similar problem at first when I put my X-Fi Fatal1ity in the second PCI slot. The PC would not post until I put it in the first PCI slot. Then I ran into a "Chassis Intrusion" error during bootup and upon inspection, I saw that one of the jumpers fell out of the mobo. Once I placed it back in, I did the overclock and everything was well. I had initially thought the error was associated with the PSU I was using but this was not the case.
Click to expand...

Flash your BIOS to the latest and greatest. It should fix all these issues (it did for me).
 
I received the P5K-VM from NewEgg. I got unlucky this time with the openbox board; all I got was the board. No back-plate or cables were included.

I've been having some troubles getting this thing stable. I first tried installing Vista 64bit but kept getting BSODs during the decompressing files part of the install. I gave up after a couple hours of that and installed Vista x86 which went pretty smoothly.

Things still aren't right though because I have the same problem that many others seem to have in that going into standby/sleep doesn't work right. When going into sleep mode the screen shuts off and it appears to be turning off the drives, etc. but then the fans switch to full power and the PC never shuts off. Plus to get it back on again I have to do a hard restart. And sometimes once it comes back up it reports that Windows has recovered from a Blue Screen error.

I also tried hibernate mode and it almost worked; the PC hibernated and shut down but then it restarted itself a second after turning off...

The first thing I did after setting up the hardware was flash the BIOS to the newest version (0803) and I'm not doing any overclocking so far so those aren't the causes of my issues. I'm tempted to send it back to NewEgg and get a P5E-VM but I'm not sure it is worth the extra $50 to get the power management features to work (assuming the P5E-VM doesn't have the same problems).

I'll try it out for a couple more days and maybe try installing Vista 64bit again.
 
p5e-VM has the same issues.....it's an asus bios thing apparently...
 
I think I've decided I'll just stick with the P5K-VM I have. It seems pretty solid except for the power management which I don't really need since this PC is mostly just for playing games on LANs.

I ran it through OCCT and Orthos for a few hours with no problems. Played Vegas 2 with maxed setting for a couple hours last night and it ran great until it crashed with a BSOD but that looks like it is a separate issue with the GeForce driver on the 8800 series.

I haven't tried installing Vista 64 since I was first getting BSOD and few days ago. Not having used Vista 64 before, could someone tell me what the advantage would be over Vista x86? Considering I'll be mostly using this for games, would it be better to stick with Vista x86 for now?
 
hook said:
I haven't tried installing Vista 64 since I was first getting BSOD and few days ago. Not having used Vista 64 before, could someone tell me what the advantage would be over Vista x86? Considering I'll be mostly using this for games, would it be better to stick with Vista x86 for now?
Click to expand...

If you don't have more than 4gb memory, don't bother.
 
blayde said:
Hi guys. I need your help to do one thing. I have a MSI G33M-Fi, and i whould like to do vdrop mod (pencil mod), but i only find pictures of it of DS2R and P5K-VM. Can you help me please?

PS: My board can adjust vdimm up to 3.3v ;) :D

Cheers :p
Click to expand...

Can anyone help me pleeeeeease...
 
hook said:
I received the P5K-VM from NewEgg. I got unlucky this time with the openbox board; all I got was the board. No back-plate or cables were included.

I've been having some troubles getting this thing stable. I first tried installing Vista 64bit but kept getting BSODs during the decompressing files part of the install. I gave up after a couple hours of that and installed Vista x86 which went pretty smoothly.

Things still aren't right though because I have the same problem that many others seem to have in that going into standby/sleep doesn't work right. When going into sleep mode the screen shuts off and it appears to be turning off the drives, etc. but then the fans switch to full power and the PC never shuts off. Plus to get it back on again I have to do a hard restart. And sometimes once it comes back up it reports that Windows has recovered from a Blue Screen error.

I also tried hibernate mode and it almost worked; the PC hibernated and shut down but then it restarted itself a second after turning off...

The first thing I did after setting up the hardware was flash the BIOS to the newest version (0803) and I'm not doing any overclocking so far so those aren't the causes of my issues. I'm tempted to send it back to NewEgg and get a P5E-VM but I'm not sure it is worth the extra $50 to get the power management features to work (assuming the P5E-VM doesn't have the same problems).

I'll try it out for a couple more days and maybe try installing Vista 64bit again.
Click to expand...

S_T said:
p5e-VM has the same issues.....it's an asus bios thing apparently...
Click to expand...


may be this is cuz there is an issue between serveral boards and vista (w/o sp1) when using more than 3 gigs or more of ram.

KB: Installing vista with >3gigs ram

the solution is to take out enough ram to bring it down to 2 gigs, install vista and install the patch.

the patch has been included in sp1.
 
I had researched in advance and there seems to be power/boot-up issues regarding this board.

Yep. Sure is. After struggling with this issue for a couple of months and being stuffed around and patronised by ASUS I asked for a refund. (Btw, I tried the very latest bios update before it's general release too). I heard the p5e-VM had similar problems. So I bought the Gigabyte GAQ-G33M-DS2R, no problems with starting up, and now I've got RAID too, it was also cheaper in Oz. Well, I lost about AUS$40 in postage too over the mess- I'm likely not going back to ASUS.
 
Anyone know if its true this board is incompatible with IDE optical drives? After much deliberation I would like to get either the P5K-VM or the G33M-S2L.
 
Some guy at Newegg was saying that it only had an EIDE port and that normal Optical Drives would not work on it. I know, I know, people on Newegg are not that reliable but I just wanted to cover my bases.

:D

Also, would this still be a better buy than the Gigabyte seeing as how it is known to have boot problems and such? Has the problem already been taken care of now seeing as how not 'that' many people complain about it?
 
sorry I haven't been keeping up with this thread. I've made a few boxes for people with the p5k-vm and have never heard back from them about boot issues. What are you referring to
 
Hi,

I just got the P5K-VM motherboard (paired with the Antec 430). I also have a generic IR with a generic Windows XP Media Center remote.

The controls work great in Windows (mouse moves, buttons launch, etc).

My problem is when I hit the power/sleep button on the remote, the system powers down perfectly but it wont come back on. Hitting the power button on the remote does nothing, hitting the power button on the case works perfectly.

I changed all the jumpers (just in case) for the various USB ports to +5VSB.

I also changed the KB/Mouse jumper to +5VSB as well.

In the bios, I made sure it was on S3 standby only. In Windows, the device is set to wake under power management (within the device manager).

In the bios, I have all the items set to wake (aside from RTC). I do not see a wake on "USB" option though.

I know some of you have similar setups, is there something I am missing? I feel like I tried everything.

Thanks,
Rich
 
Ok, I've just picked up this board after accidentally killing my gigabyte DS2R while cleaning it (bent cpu pins - dont ask!). I chose this board over the HDMI or another gigabyte because of the power socket location which allows me to watercool in the SG-03 case. The others are set too far back to the edge of the board and dont clear the radiator.

The problem Im having is that I was using a E6750 with 2x2gb OCZ DDR-800 ram on the gigabyte and this resulted in an overclock of 3.6ghz with a 450fsb and thus the memory running at 900. OCZ told me that those sticks NEEDED 2.4v which the Asus board cannot provide. As a result, I cannot get a stable overclock, as soon as the system is put under load it BSOD's.

Therefore can anyone recommend some good 2x2gb memory that will work well with this board. Im currently eyeing this 4gb pack by A-Data as its stated to run at 1.8v

http://www.memoryc.co.uk/products/d...2-Vitesta_Extreme_Dual_Channel_kit/index.html
 
I just installed a EO stepping E8400 and can run 4050Mhz @ 450Mhz bus speed with just 1.40v. This on a cheap HyperTX hsf. Vdroop on this board is around .07v so under load with Orthos CPU stress test it's like 1.33v

This board still has legs.

Jerry
 
Nice OC, Jerry. I own two of these mobos and am very happy with them. Its still a good mobo although there are newer mobos out now that go farther on OCing and tweaking. Like pvhk said there is a vdroop mod you can apply to it to help performance. I've noticed this mobo is getting harder to find. Fewer stores are carrying it seems. I assume its due to the demand of the newer mobos and less on this one.
 
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