Motherboard Problems

[SK keith]

I have a Asus P5B-E motherboard that is acting up a would like to get a new one. Just want some input from you guys, I have a e6600 and 3 gigs corsair xms2 ddr2 800 ram.

Thanks
Keith

[Togglehead]

Input about......?

I'll assume on "What board to get?"

Asus P5k is sweet. Its for socket LGA775 chips...is your 6600 AGP or PCI-E?

[itsplayed]

I have a Asus P5B-E motherboard that is acting up a would like to get a new one. Just want some input from you guys, I have a e6600 and 3 gigs corsair xms2 ddr2 800 ram.

Thanks
Keith

I agree with Togglehead, the P5B is a good board......how is your motherboard acting up....what are your symptoms?

What power supply are you running with?

[Togglehead]

Good point played....are you sure you need to replace it?

[SK keith]

Yes there are so many choices I'm lost, I am not a computer genius but not helpless either, most of my computer was build from peoples help from this site, and it has been great. As far as what is wrong with it, The internet connection does not work anymore, the onboard audeo does not work and usb port are constantly telling me my drives could be faster if they where in 2.0 ports, which all the usb ports are suppose to be. I also would like to get a different video card, the one I have is really loud. It is an ASUS EAX1650XT/2DHT/256M/A Radeon X1650XT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 CrossFire, any input on a quiet one would be helpful also. I have a Antec Sonata II case that came with the power supply advertised as "Specially designed low-noise SmartPower 2.0 450W ATX12V v2.01 power supply" other than that I don't know much more about it. The E6600 is the processor.
I use Cubase SX3, Motu 24I/O 424, Waves Platinum, SSL and V-series Plugs, I am also having some problems with the plug ins crashing cubase, I am not sure if I am just using 2 many of them at 1 time, this problem just started a couple of days ago. It actually send the computer into the blue screen of death and reboots it. Although the mother board problems started a long time ago. Any insite on this would also be great.
Thanks
Keith

[ecc83]

Checkout www.soundonsound.com A full series on building a state of the art, quiet pc. 2007 issues.

Dave.

[Bops2000]

For my audio, I use genuine intel board and chips.
Asus/AMD combo for graphics machines. For some reason, the ASUS boards (3), would fry within a year running long audio sessions, no matter how cool I kept them.

[Togglehead]

usb port are constantly telling me my drives could be faster if they where in 2.0 ports, which all the usb ports are suppose to be.

Ok this could be a driver thing. Are the proper updated USB2.0 drivers installed?

I also would like to get a different video card, the one I have is really loud. It is an ASUS EAX1650XT/2DHT/256M/A Radeon X1650XT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 CrossFire,

running two cards? or is it just the crossfire edition?

450W ATX12V v2.01 power supply"
and this...ESPECIIALY if youre running two vid boards...is a little underpowered in my opinion. You should be running about a 550 to be safe... there a little program out there that will calc how many watts a psu should have based on your system....i think its called Juice. Then i always over estimate.

However, with the ethernet issues and on board sound id go with you on replacing the board anyway...to be safe. I just built a machine with the 6600 the P5K and an NVidia 8800....and man...its great. Its my main Audio/video box.

[SK keith]

It is just a single card with 2 monitors

[itsplayed]

It is just a single card with 2 monitors

Are you into gaming/video as well or is this strictly a DAW setup?

Also 3GBs of ram is an odd number.....why not 4?

[SK keith]

It is strictly a DAW setup

[itsplayed]

It is strictly a DAW setup

Then I would choose any one of the offerings based on the P35 chipset from one of the big players ....ie. ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Intel etc. along with a silent piped graphics card(dual DVI?) and a beefier PSU(remember that most newer MoBos carry a minimum requirement on the 12v rails amp output).

[SK keith]

at the time that I built the computer they only had 3 gigs of that ram in stock and I just never got around to buying the 4th one

[itsplayed]

at the time that I built the computer they only had 3 gigs of that ram in stock and I just never got around to buying the 4th one

Then I would also suggest buying that fourth stick in order to take advantage of the dual channel memory architecture.

[Togglehead]

Running windows XP? THat 4th gig is useless. The 32bit addressing only really allows use of 2.5 gigs...and "third" for virtual memory. I know im opening up a can of worm with this statement....but unless youre going with vista (or another 64-bit os like bsd) then anything over 2gb of mem isnt useful anyway.

The single card is fine. but id agree with itsplayed and try standing on a larger power supply.

[itsplayed]

Running windows XP? THat 4th gig is useless. The 32bit addressing only really allows use of 2.5 gigs...and "third" for virtual memory. I know im opening up a can of worm with this statement....but unless youre going with vista (or another 64-bit os like bsd) then anything over 2gb of mem isnt useful anyway.

The single card is fine. but id agree with itsplayed and try standing on a larger power supply.

If your only seeing 2.5GBs of ram with XP something is wrong.....XP will take advantage of 4GBs. That said, some memory will be diverted to the system....hence you won't see all 4GBs, while the system itself can also be tweaked to allow for more addressable ram going to the user. Besides, running ram in pairs is the way to go, even if it turns out to be just 2.5GBs after all is said and done.

[Togglehead]

no..you can SEE 3.5....but its really only using 2.5...ish.

Let me dig up my sources...i know theyre around here somewhere...

[itsplayed]

no..you can SEE 3.5....but its really only using 2.5...ish.

Let me dig up my sources...i know theyre around here somewhere...

Under normal conditions XP allocates 2GBs to the kernal and the other 2 for the user. However, this can be manipulated(Win XP Pro) to allow the user to use 3GBs of ram while leaving the kernal with the remaining 1GB. The actual numbers do vary a bit from one system to the next.

[SK keith]

It see's the 3GBs, I ordered a p5k mobo, a 550w psu, a new quiet video card and the 4th stick of ram, if it uses it great if not that's ok too, I am running XP Pro. I would like to thank you for all the input. one more question, is it worth upgrading to a quad core processor, while I'm doing all this other stuff? If there is some setting to help the ram situation that would be helpful info also.

[itsplayed]

It see's the 3GBs, I ordered a p5k mobo, a 550w psu, a new quiet video card and the 4th stick of ram, if it uses it great if not that's ok too, I am running XP Pro. I would like to thank you for all the input. one more question, is it worth upgrading to a quad core processor, while I'm doing all this other stuff? If there is some setting to help the ram situation that would be helpful info also.

Cubase will take advantage of the quad-core and you should see a substantial increase in both track/plug-in count before instability occurs.
Getting that 4th stick of ram was a good call as you'll now be operating with dual channel ram enabled.
You can implement the 3GB switch that will give programs access to 3GBs of ram instead of 2GB. Here's a thread that goes into it a bit more.....
http://www.audioforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19457&highlight=3GB+switch

....and remember to kill any devices not being used within the BIOS (ie.soundcard, parallel port, serial port, ethernet, USB ports, etc) this will free up valuable resources and you should also reinstall the OS after the mainboard switch.

[SK keith]

I want to thank you for all the help, I did put a quad core in it and the 4th gig of ram and made the 3GB adjustment, everything is running great.

Thanks Again
Keith

[Togglehead]

Sweet...this is great news. Good info itsplayed!