Opinions on Asus P5QL-E motherboard?

[chriskorff]

I'm tempted by this:

http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=26288

Largely because it's slightly cheaper than the DP35DP, which would be my alternative (it seems modern mobos with 3 x PCI slots are getting a little thin on the ground).

Does anyone have any experience with it?

Cheers!

Chris

[chriskorff]

Cheers Tom (is it Tom? or Mark? I can't keep up with all the pseudonyms!) that's exactly the kind of advice I was after!

I assumed that a P43 thingamajig would be better than a P35 oojamaflip, because 43 is a higher number than 35. Goes to show, eh!

In that case I'll get me a DP35DP, based on the glowing recommendations from people here. To be honest, I'm more than happy to spend that little extra if it'll finally bop my PCI woes on the head once and for all.

There was one question I asked on another thread that hasn't been answered though, about the DP35DP: will the physical distance between the lone PCI slot on the end and the other two slots mean that I'll have to buy a non-standard STDM cable? Because I just forked out 15 quid on a standard one from SC (I thought it'd be nice to buy it directly from them, as that way they get all the profit margin), and I can't be arsed to source another one!

Also, again regarding the strange PCI slot placement... does this mean that, as far as the board is concerned, the three slots aren't 'consecutive'? ie. that there's some other integrated thingamajig between the slots that may cause havoc with the 3-card setup I plan on implanting into it?

Many thanks!

Chris

[garyb]

three cards works fine on that motherboard. you will need to disable a few usb controllers(not all however)...

that board is very stable and works well.

[AndreD]

....The p5Q works finde here!

All the best,
Andre

[garyb]

and there you go.

[chriskorff]

Hello!

In light of this new info, I'm about to order the P5QL-E... unless anyone can tell me why I shouldn't, in the next 15 minutes! (I'm just about to call the guy up to order it).

Also, Andre: do you have a multi-card setup? Because I'm guessing that the need for good PCI bandwidth goes up quite a bit when using more than one card...

Cheers!

Chris

[chriskorff]

!GRR!

I want knowledge, dammit, not scapegoats! Sod it, I'm going for the DP35DP. Better safe than sorry, eh!


Chris

[dbmac]

I'm going for the DP35DP. Better safe than sorry, eh!


Chris

Rock solid here, with all 3 PCI slots Scoped.

/dave

[chriskorff]

Done and done!

DP35DP motherboard and Q8200 2.33mHz CPU ordered...

For the time being I think I'm gonna do a Frankenstein job, with parts salvaged from my current PC (which includes 2GB of 667mHz DDR2 RAM, an IDE HD, a SATA HD and a DVD-RW.

It's arriving tomorrow. If I break anything, I'll be back!

Cheers,

Chris

[chriskorff]

Was only joking mate. Cheers for the advice though - and if this setup doesn't work, despite all your invaluable advice, I'll have a perfect scapegoat too!

[dawman]

It only had trouble because they spit their boards out and update later.
Intel loves this as they get to watch their tier 1 manufacturers redo and update their BIOS's.
Then they release a board after the fact.
Just watch the new boards from everyone.
Intel let's the top 5 guys fight for the chance to help with their QC...
It's a stroke of genius IMHO.

[garyb]

they should have the most data on their own chipsets and processors...

[chriskorff]

Did you mean that I sounded monopolistically patronising? If so, sorry — I'm very grateful for your advice, and I wouldn't want you to think I was taking the piss or anything.

Also, what's TCPA?

[MD69]

Did a test with a ASUS P5Q SE Plus .... This board (and maybe ASUS) should be avoided. Poor memory bandwidth, 3.2/4 Gb memory max, shitty bios.

cheers

[Ben Walker]

Hi,
starting to spec a new system.

After reading this thread, it seems like the DP35DP is the MOBO to go for. Is this the same as the DP35DPM mentioned here:
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Qu ... ationKey=0

Reading a few reviews about that board it seems that, because there's no floppy connector, there's no way to load SATA drivers for XP without slipstreaming, which seems like a PITA. Is this the right board, am I getting confused?

Thanks,
Ben

[chriskorff]

Hello,

I can recommend the DP35DP wholeheartedly - I started this thread, and on the advice given here went for the Intel over the Asus, and have been most happy with it.

I've never bothered with SATA drivers myself, though SATA drives work fine without them (I think in IDE mode or something - it's basically not important unless you're running RAID arrays).

That said though, the DP35DP (and most modern motherboards) will let you boot from a USB pendrive. Since I've never bothered with SATA drivers though, I don't know if it's possible to do the SATA install thing via a USB driver or not.

Cheers,

Chris

[dbmac]

DP35DPM looks like the good old DP35DP branded as "Media' series"

You're right about the SATA drivers - my SATA HDs are set as IDE devices in the bios but it doesn't seem to diminish HD bandwidth. Except for losing hot swap for external sata I don't believe there's any performance hit.

I have 3 scopes in a DP35DP and 3 sata HDs, and have had no HD issues.

Other than waiting for Seagate to supply a firmware update, but that's another story.

/dave

[carischila]

How can I manually read the temperature chip on my motherboard? So I've seen that some software can get the temperature from your motherboard, so I assume there is some sort of sensor? Can I manually read this without having to install software? EG: A cmd line? Thanks!
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[valis]

Many motherboard manufacturers provide tools (Asus usually does) but they may potentially clutter your system up with other bits you don't want/need. Linux can read from command line, most BIOSes can show you that info on a 'hardware monitoring' page (or similar) and you can use the following tools for Windows:

Speedfan - Free so who can complain? And if your motherboard is supported directly works well enough (but lacking that the software makes a 'guess' as to what sensor readings correlate to and you may have to edit things.)

CoreTemp - For Intel Core, Core2 & AMD 64bit cpu's only--is more accurate than normal temperature readings for cpu temps and will NOT correlate to your 'cpu' temp reading on more generic software

Lavalys Everest - I generally use this & coretemp, my registered copy of this reports everything but 'demo' copies will exclude a few things from being read (like +12v line on your PSU for example).

SiSandra - Has a 'lite' version for 'evaluation' but this program has become more bloated in recent years, leading me to prefer Lavalys Everest instead personally.