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#1
20th Jul 2008, 13:39
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Hi All:
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Last week, I decided to purchase an Asus P5K Pro motherboard and an Intel E8500 to replace my current Asus P5N-E SLi board and Intel E2160 CPU. After assembling all the parts and powering on my PC, I got nothing... That is: the system was starting up, all drives and fans were spinning, etc... but there were no BIOS beeps and nothing appeard on the screen...  To keep a long story short, after performing all the basic checks (i.e. making sure everything is plugged in and seated properly as well as eliminating other hardware) I decided to find out if I had daft motherboard by plugging in my E2160 CPU. That worked fine...  .Convinced that I must have done something wrong before, I put the E8500 back in, checked, double checked and tripple checked all the connections and fired up my PC. Guess what... Black screen again...  Next step was to test the E8500 in my Asus P5N-E SLi. Fired up my system and I had a nice message telling me that a new CPU was detected (even gave the correct CPU spec and all) but that I needed a BIOS update in order to unlock the full potential of the processor. Until that time, I would be limited to 2GHz core clock.. Now that is something. At least that proves that the CPU is not daft. I guess I don't have to tell what the result was when I changed the CPU back to the P5K Pro...  I have been looking all over the internet for the past few hours and have found no one who had any issues with the Asus P5K Pro and any of the Wolfdale processors. I've read the Mobo manual from front to back, inside out and diagonally in both directions, but I can't find any indication of certain settings that need to e changed in the BIOS in order to get a 1066FSB+ processor to work. Even more so, looking into the BIOS, all settings other than "enable", "disable", "auto" or "manual" are workig with multipliers which indicates overclocking options to me (I'm not a great overclocker.. I guess you can tell... )I'll be installing the latest BIOS version for my mobo tomorrow, but somehow I got a gut feeling that that is not the solution to the problem (no harm in trying anyway). Anyone got any other idea's...? Or even better... Anyone had the same issue in the past and can give me solution to the puzzle...? Because if the BIOS upgrade doesn't work, going crying to Asus for help is the only option I have left before I'm at the end of my tetter... Cheers: Chris My System: Willy Wonka's Polygon Factory
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#2
20th Jul 2008, 13:41
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Sounds like a dead/faulty mobo to me, assuming everything is connected proper and it sounds like it is.
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My System: Hybr!d
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#3
20th Jul 2008, 13:46
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Even if the Intel E2160 is working properly...? Howcome...?
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#4
20th Jul 2008, 13:57
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Oh sorry missed that bit, thought you tried both cpus in the old mobo but not the new.
There seem to be quite a few BIOS updates for that mobo, specifying cpu updates. http://support.asus.com/download/dow...odel=P5K%20PRO Open the BIOS tree to see them. |
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#5
20th Jul 2008, 14:09
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WhenI got the new mobo to work with the old processor, I forgot to check the BIOS version that is currently installed. But on the Asus web site, it states that the P5K Pro is compatile with all processors since BIOS versio 0601. That got released in January this year...
Hving said that, th latest BIOS (1002) states that it is needed for support of new processors. Than again, the Core 2 Duo E2160 and Core 2 Duo E8500 are the same architecture (both 45mn Wolfdale) so why does one work and the other one doesn't even if Asus states that the bord is ready for the 1333Mhz FSB processors...? Also, looking into the compatibility list of Asus motherboards with E8500 processors, there appear to be 2 revvisions... Revision C0 of the E8500 has got the P5K Pro in the list of compatible boards while revision E0 has only got a few boards in there and the P5K is not one of them... Then again, the P5N-E is also missing from that list but my processor does work in that board... Apart form needing that system to run ASAP, I'm lso intrigued as to the cause of this issue. Will keep everyone up to date on this one... In the mean time, anyone with more idea's... Keep them coming... Cheers: Chris |
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#6
20th Jul 2008, 14:40
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Ooooohhhh.... I might have found the problem.
just had a quick look at the Intel site for the specs of both the E2160 and E8500 and found something very interesting. All the Core 2 Duo Wolfdale CPU's (up to and including the E8400) have a Bus/Core ratio of 9. However, the E8500 is the first Wolfdale with a 9.5 Bus/Core ratio. Looking in the Bios of the Asus P5K Pro (with the E2160 plugged in), you can set the Bus/Core ratio to 6, 7, 8 or 9... not 9.5. In other words, the latest Asus BIOS update should unlock the 9.5 ratio and get the E8500 to work properly. I'm at work now so I won't be able to flash the BIOS before tomorrow. Will post another update with the result of the BIOS flash tomorrow evening. Hopefully the results will be positive... WATCH THIS SPACE... Now I can go back to sleep (lol) Cheers: Chris |
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#7
21st Jul 2008, 07:53
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Yeah, definitely flash the BIOS.
Just because the firmware was released in January, doesn't mean yours has the latest one loaded. It could have been made quite a while before, and sat on warehouse shelves for an equally long amount of time. Each CPU needs to be handled differently by the motherboard.
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serverguy  My System: Eclipse
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#8
21st Jul 2008, 11:44
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Well... It's solved... Whoooooohoooooo.....
.BIOS update indeed made sure that all is working fine. I suspect that it was indeed the Bus/Core clock ratio that made sure that I needed the latest BIOS. Why I got a black screen and didn't even manage to get into the BIOS with the new processor...? Well the 0601 update I was talking about in one of my previous posts dated back to January 2007. That's the one that should have made sure that all processors up to (and including the E8400) were running fine. The BIOS loaded on my new motherboards was version 0201, which dates back to some time in between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the rise of the Homo Sapiens... As you stated Serverguy; one wonders how long this mobo has been on the shelves...? In my case, I was also lucky that I had a much lower spech processor available to get into the BIOS and try and solve the issue... What if you don't have that luxury and all you get is a black screen...? Cheers: Chris |
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#9
21st Jul 2008, 11:52
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I'm glad it's fixed, but this is a poor show really by ASUS, not everyone has a spare compatible chip lying around so the BIOS can be flashed...
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#10
21st Jul 2008, 15:00
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Quote:
They take it back, and look at it and decide its fine. If you're lucky they might update the BIOS. A few months later hopefully you'd get it back. They send you a 'repair' bill most probably as well.  (Or you just do exactly what you did, as most people who are building there own computer are prepared to think a bit 'outside the box' so to speak.) Glad you got if fixed anyway.
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serverguy |
