ASUS P5B-E @ [H] Enthusiast

I just got this board as an open box from newegg. It works really well and I am happy with it. The only problem I have to solve is my temps. I don't think my heatsink is quite on right as the capacitors to the side of the socket kinda get in the way.

The processor is over clocked to 3.0Ghz right now and seems to be running fine.
 
Keyser.Soze said:
Still waiting for the distributor to send back the board but upon further research it appears that we might have been bit by a bug in the 0904 version that's not compatible with a PCI sound card or other PCI devices (namely a Creative sound card). I found this thread where a few P5B users encountered similar issues with a BIOS version released around the same time as 0904 for the P5B-E. I actually have the same Audigy 2 ZS card mentioned by one of the posters there.

http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47424

Apparently removing PCI cards present will allow the system to boot and then downgrade the BIOS to older releases. If this is indeed the case, I'd safely assume if you flash your newly arrived P5B-E with the same ill-fated 0904 you'll see the same thing. If 1002 fixes this PCI issue then it would be fine to upgrade to it.

I've been surprised by such a bug if it's indeed the case.

Update: Also check out this: http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47570


PF
Click to expand...

Interesting. I am glad my 0904 update went without issue, hopefully it is stable once flashed? I use an XFI as well....

Right now I just switched to an e6600 from my e6400. Got it stable at 3.2ghz and 1.4875v. Still loving my P5B-E :)
 
Grentz said:
Interesting. I am glad my 0904 update went without issue, hopefully it is stable once flashed? I use an XFI as well....

Right now I just switched to an e6600 from my e6400. Got it stable at 3.2ghz and 1.4875v. Still loving my P5B-E :)
Click to expand...

It seems that 0904's compatibility issue is with ATi video cards, not PCI cards, at least on my system and also from the experience of many posters on the Asus official site support forums. I happened to have a PowerColor Radeon 1950XT on my system.

I got my P5B-E board (1.01g) back from the dealer after I told them I had found out it wasn't a real dead board so they don't need to send it back to the factory or anything. I put the system back together without installing the SoundBlaster PCI card but the system still halted at the same stage with a blank screen. I then used the CTRL-ALT-DEL-PGDN trick I learned from the forums to get to the text mode EZFlash program successfully. I put the latest 1002 version onto a USB drive and flashed to 1002 without any issues. After reboot, everything is back to normal after setting the BIOS to default values and then manually restoring all previous settings.

Next time there's a new BIOS version I am definitely going to wait at least a week after it comes out before I make any decision to flash or not.

Peter Fang
 
I'm patiently waiting for Kyle to do a final update to this review. I do have a few questions for you current 965/975 intel users:

If getting the P5B-E, would I be better off finding a SATA DVD writer to replace my IDE drive?

Are there any issues with running 4 sticks of ram on one of these boards? Or is running 4 sticks no different than 2 sticks? For example with AMD Nforce3/4 boards - you often have to back off on ram speed, or switch the 1T command rate to 2T when running 4 sticks... Thanks
 
If I am downloading multiple files at the same time, the Attansic onboard NIC is locking up. By this I mean that I completely lose the ability to even ping my local router or make any type of network connection. The only way to resolve the problem is to reboot the computer. I tried simply disabling and enabling the NIC in Windows XP, but that doesn't help.

This is 100% repeatable by trying to download files via Bittorrent or the IRC. I have read that others might be experiencing the same problem and I wanted to see if anyone has a resolution.

I have read this page, but it did not help:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/network/taskoffload.mspx

To make it even more interesting, due to the 0904 BIOS fiasco I have a new rev. 1.02g motherboard courtesy of a Newegg RMA. The new board has the same problem...if I try to download from the XDCC or bit torrent or any other high bandwidth filesource, the NIC completely locks up and I am forced to reboot. The system won't even let me disable/re-enable the NIC.
 
I have the same lan issue - asus just released a new bios update which does nothing but update the lan ROM, so give it a shot - i am right now.
 
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