Jumping on the P5WD2 Premium bandwagon

After reading review after review, and seeing the success that others have been having with this board, i just couldn't wait for the 975 chipset to come out.

I ordered this board from Newegg last night and am expecting it later in the week. I'm curious if anybody has any pit falls or recommendations for this board (i've been seeing a lot of turmoil over bios'). I'm going to be running some value PQI 2x512 mem, along with a 630 CPU and a PCI video card just to get me off the ground (can't seem to afford the same stuff i used to).

Are there any recommended volt mods before i even put the board in the case? NB and CPU will be water cooled. Thanks for any info guys.

To OCF

I've been keeping up with the latest in motherboards, and CPU's for the last couple months, and can tell you that you cannot buy a better board right now.

I am an Abit fan, but lately, they have dropped the ball. Abit used to be the best OC'ing board that you could buy, and lately they have come out with one board that could be called decent, but won't OC up as far as their Asus counterpart.

Thyere are a few tricks to these new boards, but it's nothing major. Any new board that comes out requires improvents and tweaks on the BIOS when it comes out, and the P5WD is no different. Certain BIOS's run better.

Memory selection is also important. This board can be picky about the RAM you put on it, so chose the RAM wisely, and ask lots of questions in the memory forum concerning which speciffic brand, and speed runs stable and gives high OC's. The PQI has been good, but there is a new RAM every week that's faster and tighter.

There are vmods for the board, but you wanna get the system up and running, make sure the board doesn't have anything wrong and doesn't have any weak componets that may require an RMA. You also wanna get the OC up there and see how stable everything is first. Ther's no since in vmod'ing a board for 4.5-5.0GHz if the CPU will never achieve that OC.

If you're going water, you going the right direction. These new Intels (especially the 8xx CPU's) like water, and it will only add to your OC and stability. Coller is always better.

You have a every good system started. I think you will have alot of fun, and achieve very high OC's. Take your time, and give it alot of TLC when assembling. It's all the details that make the dfference.

Thanks for vote of confidence. You make this sound like its my first OC experience and first time in the forums. i would not by far call myself an expert, but i'd consider myself pretty much up to par on what the deal is. No newbie here!

I was looking for more specific answers though, of pitfalls or recomendations of people that have experience with this board.

For instance

BigStan said:

I found the 0204 to be the most unstable. I have just uploaded the 0409 to that link above in case you want to try it.

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Maybe its just more excitement cause it will be my first new mobo since october last year!

Yeah, good idea on getting the p5wd2. I maxed my P5LD2 Deluxe (945 chipset) at 275 FSB, I had to max all my volts out on my NB/SB/FSB to reach this speed. At 276 FSB the board craps out, everything gets out of sync I might invest in the P5WD2 or just wait for the 975's to come out.

HempHog said:

Yeah, good idea on getting the p5wd2. I maxed my P5LD2 Deluxe (945 chipset) at 275 FSB, I had to max all my volts out on my NB/SB/FSB to reach this speed. At 276 FSB the board craps out, everything gets out of sync I might invest in the P5WD2 or just wait for the 975's to come out.

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I had similiar problems with my 875P-T, unless everything was absolutely perfect, you'd be lucky to see over 270 fsb. I know i'm not gonna be turning out 320+ fsb on water cooling, but i want some more head room and flexibility to play with.

Welcome aboard! You shouldn't need any volt mods. Peeps are getting up to 350+fsb with no mods. The Vcore jumps around but so it doesn't seem to affect stablilty. I think it is a bug in some of the monitoring proggies.

Only think to watch out for when installing is, unlike other mobos, you have to install IDE drivers with F6 like you do SATA drivers or Win won't be able to see your IDE drives during install. But if you are totally SATA it won't matter. Also put your CD drive on the Blue connector on the side of the mobo. You will see what I mean when you get your moo.

It will prolly ship with the 0306 BIOS. It's OK. Some ppl are doing well with it. I prefered the 0422 BIOS from ASUS support site. Except I decided I wanted to try the 14 multi and only 0509 and 0512 will do a 14 multi for me. I was OK with both, but peeps that do higher OCs then I do had trouble with the 0512.

Good Luck!!

Thanks for the input guys! Unfortunatly, my budget still doesn't allow for SATA drives at this time. And unfortunatly, i have to get this system up and running before i sell off my old parts otherwise i'll be without a computer.

That was partly the idea was to sell this stuff off while there is still a little bit of a market for AGP and DDR. That PQI memory you mentioned is the stuff i had already ordered.

Fedex estimated delivery is friday, but usually the egg is a day early.... i'm sure you guys are gonna be hearing from me soon! Thanks again for your help

Nasgul said:

Do not put a PATA HDD in parallel with an optical drive.

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why the hell not? it works fine and is the easiest way to install windows with an ide hdd.

Up and running last night. Windows installed smoothly. I'm glad i had heard mention of the EIDE drivers on the CD, cause it definitly needed them. Didn't get to do much tinkering because of work (who's stupid idea is this 9-5 stuff anyway?!). just sitting with all voltages on auto, and clocked to a solid 4.0ghz, FSB of 235, cheap 551 CPU.

After i'm done loading software i want to change the bios. Anybody have that link to a few bios' i saw on a web page?

After i mess around with the clocking, i'm going to see what my 630 does, i have a feeling its going to clock better then this 551. I'll try to keep up to date. I'm also using a really really old PCI vid card (i think its got 1 meg of ram on it) while i'm saving for a decent PCI-E card, so i'm definitly not going to be 3D benching, except for maybe a few laughs

Here's the link you need.

I had the best luck with 509, i tried 512 and it's terrible!!!

Yup! thats exactly what i wanted. Thanks buddy!

NP, let me know what bios you use and how it worked out for you. GL