Ordered a P5N72-T Dlx, new board looks good for 780i With LLC!

[Lupiron]

I have finally decided upon a new SLI board!

Asus' P5N72-T

Supposedly its their maximus formula/strikerII combo with the bugs worked out.
Guess when you taint a name of a board with 10 bios revisions in a few months, it scares people off, so just re name the whole thing! That will get them back!

Anywho, its sporting alot of features, and since its the formula, I assume the Load Line Calibration will work! Trip sli, or Dual 2.0 SLI also helps, and of course, since its their formula cross breed, you get the un official support for 400 FSB.

Oh, and the fact that new Egg went back to the 30 day no hassle return policy on MoBos helped. Those of us who somewhat maybe kinda sorta know what they are supposedly doing when trying to overclock appreciate the no hassle returns, because I will know in 24 hours if I wanna keep this board.

At least they didnt make it a Striker II price, I can deal with 250$ as long as it works, so expect a review of this board by the end of the week! I dont exactly know how new it is... anyone else plan on getting one? The fact that it has LLC makes it a step beyond other 780i boards, if it works! .08-.09 VDrop and droop combo blows big time. Just what I need, 1.5850 to get 1.50 loaded, yeah, thats a whole lot of over clocking wasted! Hell, if its gonna get 1.5850 anyways, I want it to have zero droop and drop! That way you get every Mhz for that high voltage cost!

CPU COOLER XIGMATEK|HDT-S1283 R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$36.99)
(Shipped from City of Industry, CA)
MB ASUS P5N72-T PREMIUM NF780I SLI - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$259.99)
(Shipped from City of Industry, CA)
CPU CLEAN|ARCTIC CLEAN ACN-60ML % - OEM (Qty=1, Price=$5.99)
(Shipped from City of Industry, CA)

Extended Warranty Fee: 0
Subtotal: 302.97
TAX: 0.00
Shipping and Handling Charge**: 14.57
Total: 317.54

Feel free to ask questions, if you too are interested in this board. Should arrive on thursday, but i know I will have it by Friday! Yippie! GT, GTS and Ultra SLI's, Oh, My!

--Lupi

 

[iluvgillgill]

let us know what the 780i is truly capable of Lupi!!!

but to be honest i still no confidence in Nforce mobo with intel Quadies.PROVE ME WRONG!

 

[Lupiron]

Hehe, got a 750i today as well, that one I found at a store local, so why not, 150 bucks and all that. The other is on order...

--Lupi

 

[jmgator]

So what's the verdict?

 

[Lupiron]

Man, its a tough board to crack! Been working on it for 2 days! It has the usual FSB to memory divider problems, that causes No posts, or freezes while loading vista... At 1333 or higher it appeared totally unstable and had the random re boots, bsods and freezes. I have seen it all before on my 680i chipset board.

However... I appear to have found an interesting stable area. 425 FSB or 1700 QDR appears to be fine, and after a little VTT and a VRef adjustment for the noise level of these NVidia chipsets, and its been Prime 95 small ffts for hours already. That is usable...

You'll have to figure out the memory divider junk yourself, it appears to like only certain areas. This prolly only applies to the q6x00 series chips. The boards have never liked them.

Load Line Calibration only offsets VDroop. The VDrop is rather large, near .0750, but thats all you will see. So thats a bit better than the other boards. I expect a Bios fix will help later on, because their Maximus formula, the basic layout of this board, has a fully functional load line calibration that makes you only receive a .0250 Vdrop and no VDroop.

As long as it hits a good FSB, I havent tested over 425 yet, because I needed a stable starting ground!

You may manually need to enter Trd, because there is no strap selection. Because there is no strap selection, and I had TRD problems, that shows that the board tries to default to the lowest strap to NB that offers your selected speed.

I expect that to also get fixed.. the memory strap issues. I didn't even know you can apply a lesser than FSB speed rating to your RAM, and it sure the hell didnt like running in 16:15 mode, lol! Ram was like 778 and FSB was more!! BSODs and no posts Oh, my!

Its priming away for hours...

After you clear up the memory related and strap related problems. First copule times, I could small FFT, but the instant I started a Blend, re start! Thats a good sign right there that something is up, especially when the RAM was at stock. Now its OC'd and appears fine!

if you'd like a specific test or info, let me know!!

--Lupi

 

[Lupiron]

Okay, I think I found a stable starting ground now, and stole a beta bios from some chinese web site that helped!! Could't read a thing at the site, but when I saw a file name P5N72T401.rom I knew what it was, and it linked to a asus ftp site, then flashed like a charm!

Priming 3.6 @ the usual 400 FSB Q6600 with a loaded vcore of 1.312. (Thats Fing 1.4000 in the bios, how lame is that?) However, the Load Line calibration does stem off vdroop! The reduced VCore to 1.312 is solely the fault of VDrop only.

@ 3.6 with stock 8800 GT factory OC it did get a 17442 3dmark 06 score. I dunno if thats good or bad. Sounded decent to me. I will have to work on her some more, but I am happy!

--Lupi

 

[iluvgillgill]

yeah thats some very nice score.is that 3dmark score SLI or just single card?

 

[Lupiron]

Amazing, I believe its stable!

Prime Loaded over 8 hours in!

Prime Idle afterwards.

Saundra P.A.

Saundra M.M.

Basic 3d mark score @ 3.6 with stock GT's.

Of course I will be tinkering with it a bit more, and fine tuning it, if I can!
It's one hell of a chore to OC on these things.

--Lupi

 

[iluvgillgill]

2.4V vcore?it must be burning!!!

thats some pretty amazing result had to say.

(hate it everytime i see your VID 1.2V Q6600!!!)jealousy takes over!!!!

 

[iluvgillgill]

sorry i only saw the second sensor.its 1.3V.lol

 

[Lupiron]

Yeah, thats some weird other rating, and it has an impact as well! I need to figure out what its doing to know how to use it!

I had to use the 1.2000 VID, it's the only one that can handle the voltage well! 1.312 for 9 hours!!! Hows that for a q6600 Loaded 3.6 Ghz speed?

I Love seeing others @ 1.55000+ VCore to get 3.6 with NVidia chipsets! Makes me appreciate the 1.2000 all the more. Just raised my 3d mark to 17448...

It appears that high though stable NB voltage can effect the over all speed you get from yer comp. I need to do more tests! Went from 1.50 to 1.42 and gained 100+ points for free.

That's a handy piece of info for everyone always using 1.45 volts for 400 FSB. (Like me) Hmmm... more tests are needed!!

--Lupi

 

[Lupiron]

1.2000 VID also makes me feel for everyone who has paid for a retail box q6600 in the past 6 months. All have been 1.3000 or 1.3250 chips. (Dunno about the middle of those two, 1.3125, dont see it much, though I had a B3 chip that had the same VID.)

1.2000!!!

--Lupi

 

[iluvgillgill]

you went from 1.50 to 1.42v and its mroe stable?was it overheating??

 

[Lupiron]

I am just guessing that when the NB is over volted, it causes a minute amount of feed back or something that can interfere with speed.

Got me, but it did work. Went to 1.34 and it bombed after 15 mins of prime, so ended up at 1.38 I think it was!

--Lupi

 

[Lupiron]

How odd that I can not change my FSB up or down and retain stability! It must take a fine balance of junk to keep 3.6 on these NVidia chipsets!

--Lupi

 

[Guest]

I just got this board yesterday - talk about being touchy......

Lupiron, I updated to the 401 bios, made things alot easier but the system is still flaky to say the least - you have any tips that you might want to pass on? Right now I am pretty much leaving everything on Auto since when I make any subtle changes to anything it fails to boot and I have to cycle power to get it to come back online.

System Spec
(2) CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
Item #:N82E16820145197

(2) Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Raid 0
Item #:N82E16822136260

(1) Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit English 1pk DSP OEI DVD for System Builders
Item #:N82E16832116493

(1) ZALMAN CNPS 9700 NT 110mm 2 Ball Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler
Item #:N82E16835118020

(1) ASUS P5N72-T Premium LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #:N82E16813131294

(2) BFG Tech GeForce 9800 GX2 BFGE981024GX2E Video Card - SLI
Item #:N82E16814143128

(1) Thermaltake Toughpower W0132RU 1000W Power Supply
Item #:N82E16817153053

(1) Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.0GHz LGA 775 130W Processor
Item #: N82E16819115034


Its been along time since I have visted these boards, last time I really did any mods to a system was when the 3.2 478's hit the market, it's been running in my vapochill on a IC7-G at 3.85 Ghz ever since. Never really needed the upgrade till now and I have been out of the loop way to long.

 

[Lupiron]

Yeah, she's real touchy alright!! But, it will work!

I haven't played with it in a few days, and I am using a different chip,,, where did you wanna OC that quad to? I am hoping it will be a bit easier on the new 45 NM chips, since the board is a custom Asus, and new, it should fully support it. The q6x00 series has always been a pain on 680i boards, and 780i is just a revision.

Can you run Core Temp and list the VID of your Quad?

The ol' 400 FSB is always a good place to start. (And is the only one I have gotten 100% stable.)

The board Bios will swap junk back to auto if everything isn't manually set, lol. Also, tell me what type of problems you have. Freezes, as in, just the image of the desktop stuck, requiring a hard re set, BSODs, Auto re boots without a displayed error, etc...

And tell me what you have tried, if you remember!

--Lupi

 

[Guest]

Well to start out and I just found this out, When I updated my NForce drivers it waxed the OS, turns out you have to walk it thru a specific order so I am reloading again.

I have to manually set the multiplier on the chip it wants to default to 5 instead of 9. Manually entering in the timings for the memory usually causes a failed boot, and have to power off, do 3 or 4 4 second resets before it will boot again.

I am not looking for an extreme overclock on this, somewhere between 3.3 and 3.5 with the 8 GB's of ram. I pulled CPUID on it the last time I was up but do not remember the VID or the core temp exactly but it was less than 40.

Let eme get this reloaded again and I will get back to you.

Thanks

 

[Lupiron]

That sucks! I didnt have any problems like that after installing the new drivers, etc... The memory thing. Try leaving it linked, and then changing the divider yourself to get the RAM speed you want.

I have noticed that it doesnt like to save settings on re boot!

And I have only found the one way to get it going.

Remember, we got a 1 month old board now. There is just the initial release and the 401 beta bios. There will be more, and they should fix a whole host of problems.

I don't really know what one was telling the truth. When I save and re start, it displayes on the POST screen that my RAM speed is faster, and my processor speed, as a result from raising the FSB, but upon boot into windows, all the tools show it still at 400 x 9, CPUz, Core Temp, etc.

What one is lying?

Lemme know when you get her up and runnin'!

--Lupi

 

[camccardell]

lupiron, can you post your bios file? The asus ftp site has been down for a week and I cannot OC my q6600 or my q6700. I just traded in my p5n-t deluxe, and I am starting to wish that I had kept it. It could do 3.6 on my q6600 with an aftermarket air cooler, but the board would get rather warm. Thought with more copper and after about 12 bios updates, mabye asus got it right with this newer board, but I feel like I am back in January, starting from scratch.

thanks
Chris

 

[Lupiron]

hehe, sure, gotta get it off a thumb drive, if you give me yer e mail addy, I can toss it your way. It'll help!!

--Lupi

 

[camccardell]

Thanks for the update. No luck however. I cannot overclock this board to save my life. Mabye it is the ram 2048 1066 c5d corsair. If I try to change the timings it just freezes and beeps on reboot. I cannot even get 3.0 @ 1333 9x multi.
The chip will do 4ghz, I have done it on my other 780i. You think the board is a bad one?

I am also getting random voltage fluctuations on pc probe. The ram jumps anywhere from 0.0 to 3.8
and the processor from 0.3 to 2.3 volts. I have manually set the voltage for both, and I still ocasionally get the spikes.
New 1000w XION PSU too, all voltages read almost perfect, except 5v, which read 5.24, a little high I think, but not too bad. 3.3 is 3.3 and 12v is 11.84v
I have an ultra heat exchanger cooler as well, so I am getting kinda bummed at the inability of this board to do anything.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Chris

 

[Lupiron]

Sure, have an AIM name and a time you can be on? Its a weird chipset board, and its tough on OCing, but you can get there.

The chipset itself appears to have a bit of low level interference that can block just about anything unless you compensate for it.

I happen to be in the Pacific TZ, just so you know!

--Lupi

 

[Dragonxtreme]

Nice I get kicked after two post - must not have successfully activated the account from the email.

Lupiron,

I gave up on this board for now, between its resets, hard power downs, and instability I am shelfing it till they put out some updates. Adding to my fustration was the other hardware combination and setup that I want to run. First My Vista64 already has SP1 in it. Second I want Striped raid with the Velociraptors and 8GB of ram along with SLI. Vista installs with no issues, I have working sound and Network without any NForce drivers. As soon as I install any of the NForce drivers I get no network or sound from the 9 series pack along with a pop up that the raid drives where encountering errors and BSOD loop with the 15.17's. I tried pulling out one video and all but ram stick, tried installing drivers in safe mode - read somewhere that someone got that to work. No matter what I did the drivers crashed the system. I needed to get this system up and running. I ran down to CompUSA and picked up a XFX 780i. Ok this board didn't have the reset issues, recognized the CPU and memory timings, flashed it to P05 bios set raid, format and install Vista. Great, no issues here, installed the 15.17's, crap BSOD loop again, then I said the hell with the NForce drivers, I have sound and working network and no raid issues just installing Vista fresh, the 40th OS install, get back in, install the Video 175.16's, install the HD Realteck drivers, Installed the the NVidia performance setup, patch with Microsoft and everything is working great.

I have been away from really building computers for a couple of years but was building 3-5 custom overclocked game rigs both AMD and Intel systems a week along with OC stress testing for a Gamer Memory company and I never had such a hardware/driver/setup conflict issue like this one. Kinda makes me wonder how NVidia got company of the year, there really isn't anything elaborate in the setup I have, yet I had way to many issues from products originating from the same company.

Thanks for the time and the replies, I am up and running now. I will get over the hump I need with this machine then start cracking it to perform better, the CPU runs at 3.6 at 1.208 volts without any stability issues and ran prime all night so its got alot of room to move up as long as the NB and Memory can take the additional stresses that will put on them but that is all in the tweaking.

 

[Lupiron]

I didnt have any issues like that at all! Mine simply didnt wanna OC to anything. I installed all that driver junk just fine.

You had your OC on when installing?

The other guy I just yapped at him Via something or other and he used my settings, and they worked for him. Oddly enough.

You wanna try the funny part on the board?

What kinda processor is it?

And Both boards, mine and the other guys needed to have the VTT set for 1.3000 and the CPU GTL VREF set to +50 MV.

(Only if its a 65 NM chip, if its a 45 NM, try 1.18 and +50 mv, then try +40 if that fails.)

Yeah, got me how Intel wins anything. I guess they are not over clockers!!

The P5n72-T is very picky, true, but it does work. Just takes a bit of time. Took me like 3 days where an intel board takes me 3 minutes now.

--Lupi