OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

As some of you already know my new (1-1/2) year old gaming PC's ASUS P5N32-E SLI mobo died on me. Well today ASUS offered to replace it with a P5N-T Deluxe, which I promptly refused.

The P5N-T has a bad rep and is already an obsoleted board. My P5N32-E SLI board, although older, had more features and didn't require odd ball unsupported memory.

My question is this, what the hell do I do now? Chances are that ASUS won't be able to replace my P5N32-E SLI board because they have none. Most of the comparable 775 ASUS boards on NewEgg all have very bad raps.

I am left with a dilima. I have all this great hardware for my P5N that won't work on newer boards. My DDR2 800 memory, which ironically is only six months old, is useless on newer boards.

My Hard drive won't work because my XP sp3 OS will freak out at the sight of a new board. So I'll have to pick up a new HD, and that means figuring out how the hell to use both drives on the same machine. And is NForce 780I (north bridge)up better than the Intel alternative?

So I am asking you guys, you PC wiz heads what mobo would you recommend I buy that will work with the crap I have now?

Asus P5N32-E SLI Quad 680I 775 - Mobo is dead

Intel C2D E 6850 3.0 Ghz 1333FSB (775)
4.0 Gigs Kingston Hyper DDR2 (2 2.0 sticks)
500 Gig Sata II 3/0 GB 16mb 720RPM
EVGA 8800 GT Cards (x2 SLI)

Ultra 600 SLI Ready Power Supply

OS: XP Pro SP3

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Damn this place sure isn't like it used to be. :( By now I'd have over two dozen or more posts, but now none. :(:(:(

Oh well, ASUS is sending me a better board, I hope. Reviews at newegg give it about a 50/50 slip between 5 and 1. So its a 3.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

AT, not all the reviews at Eggheads are included in the product descriptions. There are many products that work great , BUT because people have no problem with them they never come back to post a "Thank You" or "Good Product" report. People always get pissed :mad: and write, when they have problems. Soooooo just take that with a grain of salt :confused: and look for the few complaints and read what actually happened. Just as your mobo was replaced by ASUS (which I also use) :up: other manufacturers are also very good about taking care of their customers. As competition in the industry gets tougher, these companies want to mkae sure you look at their products next time your going to purchase! :cool:
Get the mobo that best fits the system you currently have.

Make sure you update the drivers for the board. WinXP should have no problems with configuring itself with the new mobo. Just be prepared to wait, while XP refreshes its registry files.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Thanks man. :) I will let you know how it goes.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Yea, let me know how it works out. REMEMBER to use ESD proceedures so you don't fry your board!!! :hurt:
Gotta wonder how many people who write about component problems did that and blame the manufacturer for their carelessness. This is what I'm talking about when I say to 'read the bad reviews' and find out what the actual problem could have been... I've purchased a couple of 'problem products' (customer reviews) from Eggheads and because I use proper care when installing them, I've had no problems.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Esd?

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Electro Static Discharge A small electric discharge into a component you're handling. They can be so tiny you won't even know or feel them, BUT your electrical equipment will. :sick: Especially like a processor or a mobo.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

I got the new board today. I haven't had a chance to pull it out of the packaging yet but will do it later.

ESD - will do.

Um what did you mean by this? And how would I do it?

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Check the ASUS site and then check for the latest drivers for your chipset on the mobo and for the mobo itself (this may be on an installation disk with the board, just check for current versions). Look for any processor drivers also (may not need one)! Download anything you find (related to your mobo, processor and chipset) and put it in storage, just incase you need to update later.

Good luck AT and remember to have fun. :D If you don't have ESD strap or gloves, make sure you ground yourself on the power supply (power off) by touching it frequently...;)

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

ESD is still overrated. ESD products are a waste of your money.

Grounding is only necessary once when you sit down/hover over the machine. You can't build up enough charge to do anything just by sitting there and pulling boards in and out. Unless, of course, you like to work on a huge metal plate with a cord connecting it to the power main.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Thanks guys. Here is a stupid question. Keep in mind that the last PC I built was in summer of 2001.

Should I mount the CPU and fan prior to installing the MoBo into the tower?

Also what would be your recommendations for a really good CPU cooler? Non-water cooled. I am looking at this one.

Oh ya the board they sent me is a used one. :( The manual had writing in it and the board itself was dusty. I am considering sending it back.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Mount the fan and CPU after the board is supported in the case! Newer boards have circuitry running on multiple levels within the board itself. Kind of like multiple boards laminated together. You could flex the board and cause damage to the internal circuits. Boards also have components mounted top and bottom so by laying the board on a surface you could damage components from the pressure applied on the board for installation. The mounting points in the case are positioned for maximum support on the board.

Quote:

ESD is still overrated. ESD products are a waste of your money.

Fryon, while YOU feel ESD is "OVERATED" that's fine when working on YOUR own stuff. :hurt: I've worked for three electronics companies and have been "Trained" in ESD proceedures. Most damage done is not even visible to the eye. Now, if these companies thought it a good idea to train people in ESD, then I would think (my opinion) that it's not a waste of time and money, as some of the processes can be quite expensive. This is so they can get their product to you, so you can fry it! :doh:

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

They just did that to have a paper trail for any lawsuits from shareholders. Far cheaper to buy magic straps than shell out for lawsuits. ;)

Certainly hoping you read the rest of the post that you didn't quote, cause I did agree a quick touch to metal is good to discharge any buildup when you first approach a box... It's just silly to suggest that you must keep yourself constantly grounded throughout the process, ala ESD straps and gloves and other malarky. Though if your job is to assemble boxes all day long, it's probably easier to use gloves just because you will sometimes forget to touch a grounding point. Forgetfulness is probably the real reason those companies trained you, more than anything special about ESD products.

Oh? All I ever see on the bottom of motherboards are embedded wires and bits of solder, neither of which are particularly damageable. Certainly, mounting the CPU externally is ok if you place it on a soft surface, like a sofa or a carpeted floor (which cannot get any static discharge unless you spend time dragging it along!). Towel underneath it on the table, perhaps.

I'd actually be more worried mounting a tricky CPU with the motherboard IN the case, because those mounting points give really poor support for pressing down on the board. The actual location of the mounting screws is pretty arbitrary, and doesn't really give optimal support to every part of every motherboard. Sometimes a CPU might be mounted in the center of 4 supports, sometimes inbetween two of them. A nice flat (and soft!) surface supporting the entire motherboard gives far, far less opportunity to flex it. Luckily CPU/fan mounting brackets have gotten a lot less ****ty in recent years, but it has traditionally been a rather worrisome task.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

The CPU better just drop in or you have problems. The cooling fan will be the biggest problem. The mounting points have holes and are calculated to be away from any circuitry, in or on the board. :eek: As far as working on towels, what ever floats your boat...

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

So here's what I now know. 1. Power was fluxuating from 107v to 120v. - Under powered memory. Needed 800mhz min, Kingston HyperX was only 667. To much memory being used. Had 4 gigs but XP only recognizes 2 to 3 gigs. So when I tried to run FarCry 2 using SLI, it killed the system.

MoBo was a POS. ASUS forum for the P5N32-E SLI is filled with issues, many just like mine.

So I have ordered Corsair Dominator 1066mhz memory (2x 1Gig), a Cyberpower CP1285ACRLCD back up PS, and I am looking at a coolmaster UCP 700w PS.

A crap load of extra money but I guess needed. If this PC fails now I don't know what I am going to do.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

You're the one that didn't like hard surfaces!

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Fyron, AT posted looking for advice. All you've posted is crap responses in this thread. If you don't believe me, go back and READ all your postings. You haven't contributed a thing even resembling advice.

You are a LEGEND in your own mind!!!

Please don't post any responses to any of my posts for help. If you have something you wish to add then just do it and keep your postings about the topic. Your negative outlook is what's chased a lot of people from this site. I really don't care what you have to say at this point. You've done nothing but criticize and have posted nothing toward any help or advice, with the exception of criticizing my advice to help AT.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Thank you both. Xaiti I wanted to thank you about reminded me of ESD. The manual states that I have to use ESD techniques or I risk voiding the board warranty. I have an old ESD strap from when I worked with semi-conductors so I will be using that for good measure.

I think I will go ahead and install the CPU and fan while the Mobo is out of the PC. I have the foam packaging that the mobo came in and a static bag that the mobo can rest upon. This will be both firm and static free.

When I boot up using the old HD I will have to boot into the bios and make sure that the CD Rom is the primary boot and that the date and time are correct. Then I boot to the XP disk that came with my PC and follow the direction to do a repair. Its going to be a rough ride and I hope that I can get the PC to boot up and run long enough for me to do a data dump to a new 1 terrabyte HD. Then I will do a reformat and fresh install of XP.

When installing a second SATA II drive do I just plug it in to the momo in one of the six available slots?

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Sorry you don't like people having contrary opinions on good system work practices, Xrati.

AT:
Yes, just plugging it into another slot will get it detected by the BIOS automatically. if you need the drives mounted in the other order, you should be able to simply swap the ports the SATA cables are plugged in to.

You should also consider creating two partitions on the drive; one 50GB for XP and big programs that cannot be effectively installed outside of C (eg: Adobe products, Visual Studio, sometimes MS Office), and one to hold your documents, photos, videos, and other installed games and programs. You can use TweakUI (from microsoft.com) to relocate "My Documents" type folders to other places, such as D:\Documents. This makes it easier to reinstall windows in the future for the next inevitable meltdown.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Thank you Fyron I will do that. That is good to know. I was wondering if I just went out and bought a new Sata II HD and did a fresh install from the get go and then after that was up and running and updated and such, then install the old drive as a slave would be a better way to go?

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

It shouldn't matter one way or the other; the OS installer asks you which drive to use, and warns you if there is an OS already on it.

You probably need to put the new drive in the first SATA port, to make sure it comes up first in the BIOS. This will prevent any weirdness like Windows setting up the new partition on the new disk as "Drive D" instead of the more canonical "Drive C."

If you want to be absolutely safe, it couldn't hurt to disconnect the old drive entirely during the installation on the new drive.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Thanks Fyron, I will let you know how it all turns out. Thanks Xaiti for all the help as well.

I miss the activity of this site. To bad things have to change.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

ASUS IS A F**KING POS COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everything is installed. Power up, no alarms and no video. Fans work, everything seems to be working, but no video. Swapped out the cards. Still no video. Call ASUS, and they are not there. Ooops holiday. WTF!!!

They sent me a POS used mobo without a serial number. Oh the joys of my life. I cannot exchange it now because they will not except a mobo without the serial number sticker. This I know because they made it very clear when I shipped my first busted Asus POS motherboard back to them.

Two months now this PC has been down. Its bad enough that ASUS made the first board a FAIL, but then they send me another FAIL!!

I WILL NEVER AGAIN BUY AN ASUS PRODUCT!!!

THEY SUCK! THEY TOTALLY F**KING SUCK!

I am going to go to every site that sells ASUS crap and post on every product to stay away from ASUS. Award winning my ***!!! They SUCK

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

Just to see what would happen I pulled the memory out and restarted. Nothing happened. No beeps no alarms, nothing. The board is bad.

God Damn ASUS sent me a bad Mobo! An entire month wasted on this joke! Now another month is to be wasted!

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

I don't know what to do here guys. I have no way of knowing what the actual problem is. Perhaps when the old board died if fried everything on it. I doubt that though.

I have all these components and no clue what my Intel C2D E6850 3.0ghz CPU (775) can be used on effectively. I have two EVGA 8800GT cards with no system now. And that new memory I just bought is useless in anything modern so it was a huge waste of money.

I am so livid pissed at ASUS right now I don't know what to do. I mean just climb a clock tower and thin the ASUS techs herd kinda pissed. (Not that I would ever do such a thing, its a figure of speech.)

I wanted to see what would happen if I installed the second video card but didn't add power. I got a long continuous beep. So I know the beep audio works.

If I could afford it, I'd take it to the geek squad or the local PC store but who has a spare $200.00 bucks to spend just to be told that the board is bad. (Money I could use to buy a new board.)

Speaking of that, any suggestion for a new board that I might be able to use with my socket 775 E6850 CPU and memory?

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

I doubt this but could this be an over heat issue with the CPU? Perhaps I didn't put enough thermal Jell on? I doubt it as I used a pea size drop as instructed on the back of the Jell container.

I pulled the power to the video card and tried to start the PC, I got a loud non interrupted tone from the board. So ya, the speaker is working.

I re-read the instruction and I do have both the 24 pin and 8 pin power plugs plugged in. I did the ASUS power requirements thingy too and my PSU is fine for this system.

I ran the system from the BUPS as well as directly from the wall socket. No joy either way.

I pulled the new memory and used on of the Mushkin 512 800mhz memory dims. No joy. Tried both, still no joy.

I pulled the CMOS battery, no joy.

I disconnected the HDD, CDRom, DVDRom and tried, no joy.

Swapped out the 8800 GT with a 9800 GT, no joy. (So much for $115.00)

This board is just bad. ASUS sent me a broken board. Those mother****ers! I mean that too. They are MFkers!

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

You would have to actually be doing something to overheat the CPU. The newer CPUs are quite smart and turn off parts of themselves that are not being used. So, they only overheat under a full load. If the CPU was working when you took it out of the previous system, it should be fine now.

Pulling the CMOS battery was your last option. If they left something set in the BIOS from when it was in another system, that should have cleared it. How long did you wait, btw? At least 20 minutes?

If that didn't work, there's no reasonable way you could rescue this board without being an Asus tech with lots of fancy equipment.

Pretty low of them to not have a serial number on the board. This must be a sneaky way of terminating support without having to own up to it. But the core 2 Duo is still a relatively current CPU and there should be plenty of boards for sale that can use one. Go to a good site like NewEgg and start shopping for a MB that says it handles your CPU. The specs are almost always available in a link on the item page. It'll probably cost $100 or so. But then you could re-use all those other parts.

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

PM to AT...

Re: OT - Need Some PC Advice
 

UPDATE

ASUS tech support is paying to have the board shipped back. The tech guy thinks it got damaged during shipping. The board isn't passing its self test at the CPU. - My CPU looks as new as the day they installed it originally. The thermal jell was properly dispersed and no discoloration. I did a quick search and found that this board is often shipped DOTD. (Dead Out The Door)