ZombieKing

I tried what you suggested, I upped the voltage to 2.75 and upon restart it would not even post. I also chanded all of my settings back to the default value, except for the voltage and again it would not boot.....it's starting to tax my good nature at this point.../

johnnyasia

I order this Enermax today:
EG425AX-VE SFMA/420


I just found a review for the Enermax power supply, it says:

http://www.maxpoint.com/products/pow.../noisetakerAX/

Support latest P4 and Athlon 64 platforms. For P4 platforms using 865 (Springdale) & 875 (Canterwood) chipset's and even new P4 Prescott..

Separate 12V rails
Independent 12V rails supply to MB/CPU and drives in order to provide stable and clean current to noise-sensitive devices, such as: CPU, add-on cards
------------------------

I read an article that said active PFC is recommended for the new P4 systems.




I also ordered the Infineon ram, guaranteed by Komusa to work with this board:

http://komusa.com/1gbkit5pc40d3.html
1GB kit (512MBX2) PC-3200 400MHz Dual Channel DDR Infineon Technology /
Micron

mark3567

Hi,

Just to bump off your message of what you ordered. I think both choices you have made are excellent and hope they both are successful for you. Do hope you keep us posted.

Norfolk_lad

Thanks for that Jonnyasia - I just wanted to know what case you are going for or have. I really appreciate all the advice given in this thread. Thanks.

johnnyasia

I have a Raidmax case. Nothing fancy, but lots of drive bays.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...156-002&depa=1


The side mounted fan, I have it blowing in, helps keep my 2.8E
Prescott P4 between 36-44C.

johnnyasia

The Infineon RAM & Enermax PSU arrived. I'm installing Windows 2000 right now.

Right off the bat, hardware monitor in the BIOS showed better and more stable voltages, and the CPU temp 3-4C lower than with the Thermaltake PSU. The Thermaltake had 2 fans also, so I doubt it's because of the 2 fans in the Enermax that the temps are lower. The Enermax has active PFC, the Thermaltake didn't. Also, it has separate 12 volt rails.

johnnyasia

This board and P4 Prescott work better with the Enermax PSU & Infineon Dual Channel CAS 2.5 The voltage is very stable, the 12 volt stays at 12.22, very seldom fluctuating, and then only briefly. The temps are better too.
Idles at 35-37C I have ram settings on "auto".


FreshDiagnose benchmarks:

CPU P4 Prescott 2.8E

WhetStone FPU 2,698
DhryStone ALU 6,197


memory

Integer assignment 30,077
Real assignment 30,305
Integer split 85,032
Real split 99,902


WD 80GB IDE WD800JB

Write speed 29.93 MB /s
Read speed 27.72 MB /s


NVIDIA Geforce MX 440 64 MB

Random pixels 700
lines 79,666
circles 25,070
rectangles 74,737
texts 988,800
flood fills 758,080
draw 42,188

+

mark3567

Hi,

So glad you got it going and are happy. I just knew that you would like that Infineon memory....that is what I have and what I will put in my next box. It is solid as a rock. Thanks for telling us what happened.

johnnyasia

Windows 2000 boots up noticably faster too, I guess it's the PSU?

mark3567

Hi,

Memory generally is the speed issue, and the power supply is usually the stability issue, but that can interchange with certain situations. Anyhow, you also selected an excellent power supply so you are good to go with both.

johnnyasia

I ran "CPU Stabilty Test", using the "optimal" and "hardcore" settings to generate the most heat. The program runs a 5 minute CPU heatup, I ran it for 10 minutes, my Prescott 2.8E P4 got up to 51C, mostly 49-50C. No errors reported.

I'm running "CPU Burn-in" now, set for maximum heat generation.
It's at 52-53C after 15 minutes. Asus AI Booster shows 91-98% and 51% CPU usage.

I guess those are OK temps for a Prescott.


RAM voltage is set to 2.65V, AGP to 1.6V

johnnyasia

I STILL can't get an external serial modem to work on this board.

This is the second P4P800-E Deluxe I've tried, I RMA'ed the first one,
changed ram and psu, and I have tried 2 different brands of modems.

The modem installation appears to go OK, but as soon as I click
"query modem" under the "diagnostics" tab, or when I try to connect
to the internet, Windows 2000 immediately locks up and I have to
turn off the power to restart it.

twajetmech

Did you disable the onboard lan in the bios ?

johnnyasia

It's a dialup modem, would LAN affect that?

I tried with LAN enabled and disabled, same freeze happens.

I cleared the CMOS, it didn't help.

johnnyasia

Oh well, clearing the CMOS has screwed up my system.

Asus probe pops up every few minutes, showing 5V voltage warnings, shooting up to 6+v, fan warnings.

I'm very discouraged.

EDIT:

I turned off the computer for a while, turned it back on, so far so good.
No more warnings. I wonder what happened?

johnnyasia

I have built several computers, starting with AMD K6's, PIII's, Athlons,
using Abit, Tyan, Epox and Asus boards, but this is by far the most frustrating sytem I have built.



I think the Prescott P4 - Windows 2000 combination isn't completely compatible. Also, the original Thermaltake PSU was the wrong choice, a 420 Watt, but without active PFC. There were lots of voltage fluctuations, I hope it didn't do anything weird to the P4 while I used it.


I just found this:
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1742

Keeping Intel's Prescott cool and quiet Oct 06, 2004,

"....... Prescott consumes a lot more power as well. This means that the power supply and the power regulating circuitry on the motherboard are operating under a substantially higher load. For example, if your motherboard isn’t listed as ‘Prescott compatible’ it might not be able to handle the extra load, possibly causing its power circuitry to fail or get excessively hot shortening its lifespan."


"Actually if you’re serious about reducing the heat generated in your system, to which your power supply is a large contributor, you shouldn’t even consider a passive PFC power supply."



I'm giving up on using a serial modem, I wanted an external modem so it wouldn't use any IRQ or CPU resources. Asus said to send the board to them to check out the serial port, but I don't want to take this computer apart again. I had a winmodem installed, temp went up to 49C when connected. I plan to install a 24 bit sound card, they are very tempermental about sharing IRQ's. Hyper-Threading won't work with ACPI disabled. Also, CPU temps go up when HT is disabled.



+

johnnyasia

I'm curious about why my hard drive led blinks every few seconds, even after sitting idle for hours, the light keeps blinking. I have never seen my other computers do that. This old PIII 933Mhz Win 98SE computer I'm using now doesn't blink.

Is the blinking normal?

johnnyasia

I found out the blinking was caused by Windows Indexing Service.


I still can't get a serial dialup modem to work, nor can I find an answer anywhere about why Windows 2000 locks up when I try to use a serial modem. I tried disabling HT, didn't help. Tried 2 different brands of modem,
although they both had Conexant chipsets & drivers. I suspect a software conflict. I formatted & did a clean Win2k install before trying the second modem, so there were no previous modem drivers installed. Com ports are enabled, the modem is recognized correctly during installation and show up in device manager as working properly.

I ordered a USR hardare PCI modem, is there a particular PCI slot I should use for a modem? I plan to add a 24/96 sound card, many of them won't work properly is sharing an IRQ.



The Asus newsgroup is a good source of info:
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus

mark3567

Hi,

Be sure to put that PCI modem in PCI #3. And, be sure to download the drivers from the website that are new. I have USRobitics and they are tricky, but work so well.

johnnyasia

I installed XP Pro, the system runs much better now, 2-3C cooler too.
I changed from "appearance" to "performance" in "System" "advanced",
and did a few more system tweaks.

The serial modem works now, it wouldn't in Win2k.


I contacted Asus about the serial modem problem, they said to use XP.