Need reasons to NOT buy a P5W DH Deluxe

[dancingmatt]

Hi all

Tomorrow I need to place my order for a case, motherboard, RAM and Windows MCE to complete my new E6600 7900GX2 system.

I NEED to do it tomorrow - got all the other components and want to play!!!!

I think I'm just going to get an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe. I'm not an overclocker, but I want something that will go with my E6600, has excellent onboard audio, and doesn't seem to have problems. I've done lots of research, I think this is the one I am most happy/least unhappy about buying...

... unless you tell me otherwise, now, why I shouldn't buy this? The main reason I guess being I can get something better/cheaper?

Go on owners/non-owners, pull me in your respective directions!

Thanks

DM

[Clunk]

idiotic battery placement.
doesnt work out of the box with conroe.
idiotic hold down mechanism for the northbridge.
struggles with 1.8v ram (only tried 2 types myself so maybe its fixed)
cheap and nasty cooling system.
poor build quality (mine was).
can you say overpriced?
lots of pointless extras that are pleasing at first, but soon you just wished it was £40 cheaper and didnt come with them.
asus.

[Trevulate]

plenty of reasons there then ...mind you, im not too good on technical jargain myself :S i wouldnt even know where to start with overclocking a computer. But word has it the 590 SLi IE boards arnt too far around the corner...infact the 570 is already available courtesy of ASUS (i think...unless its just US at the mo) but im in a similare situatiuon as yourself. By the time it comes for me to build my new system, the only think i will be waiting on is a Motherboard.

[slugs]

its nice to read the forums and spot things like this. i had a similar shopping list and was looking at that board in particular. and am off to wonder if i really did need to upgrade at all.

and sit back on the fence and wait a bit more.

[PanzerKnight]

idiotic battery placement.
doesnt work out of the box with conroe.
idiotic hold down mechanism for the northbridge.
struggles with 1.8v ram (only tried 2 types myself so maybe its fixed)
cheap and nasty cooling system.
poor build quality (mine was).
can you say overpriced?
lots of pointless extras that are pleasing at first, but soon you just wished it was £40 cheaper and didnt come with them.
asus.

wow issues.

It does support conroe out the box and its works perfectly fine with 1.8v ram. I got mine last week so maybe you got one of the first boards. I dont see whats wrong with the batt placement, to get it out u just poke the retention clip on the side and out pops the batt, very simple. Then you just slot it back in. I don't see whats so nasty about the cooling either.

I do agree with the pointless tat it comes with. You may have use for a remote but I dont bother.

[kempez]

Battery placement maybe
Mine worked out of the box with Conroe
NB mechanism isn't that bad
I have GSkill PC2 6400 and it's fine
Cooling system is fine as long as you use the fan provided
Decent build quality - they're all the bloody same imo
Yes it is a bit expensive
Pointless extra's are great if you need/want them. The remote is AWESOME

You have the option to OC if you want (DOOOOO IT)

Mine has been fine so far. dunno what people moan about. All mobo's have issue's. I had a DFI SLi-D and it was a mobo with "issues" but I never had any. It had some idiosyncrasies, but it work and it clocked like cr@p.

My P5W DH Deluxe has got me to 400MHz FSB stable easy enough...cept my chip like's volts.

So there ya go. get the Asus and I reckon you'll like it if your read stuff first and complain later.

[Clunk]

i think we were trying to put him off it werent we?

the cooling on mine had a slightly bent heatpipe, it wasnt damaged, it had just been made badly and wasnt making proper contact with the NB. the hold down mechanism would be better if it used the 4 loops like on other intel boards...not my cuppa im afraid.

took the NB heatsink off a p5b tonight and that is the same, half of the thermal goop is untouched..shoddy imo...i can do a pic tomorrow if anyone is arsed.

panzerknight - what i meant about the battery was that, should you need to take it out, it means removing the graphics card and if you have watercooling, that can be a right pain.

the out of the box conroe thing i mentioned because it didnt work for me.

[julian.day17]

Guys does anyone know if you can run corsair twinx 5-5-5-15 1066mhz memory in this board?

[dancingmatt]

Not worried about the battery, only ever removed one once. I know about the BIOS issues. Bit worried about RAM compatibility, I'm gonna get some Geil 2x1GB DDR-800 4-4-4-12, could there be a problem?

Does the DH remote work with Windows MCE?

Good responses chaps... but this also highlights the problem - what alternative? I'm not willing for the £550 of hardware I've already bought to sit around any longer waiting for nVidia to get it together, and presumably their first releases for Intel are going to be problematic for a while like anything new.

So aside from the 570 suggestion (thanks Trevulate) what else could I do???

DM

[jimborae]

Hmm

1. Does support Conroe out of the box, mine came with bios 801
2. Cmos battery placement is absolutely stupid
3. Build quality is not that great, but then I tend to be a bit fussy. Stupid things like capacitors and fan headers not soldered on straight
4. Yes there are some quirks in the bios but new releases are fairly frequent to address these
5. My Corsair XMS2 5400C4 works a treat at low volts
6. Overclocks like buggery, currently 24/7 stable on a 433fsb
7. Haven't tried any on the extras yet so can't comment
8. Slow boot up when detecting usb devices
9. SLI works with the hacked 85.96 drivers

[PanzerKnight]

Ah ok, if you got watercooling I can see your pain. Mines only a 7600gt and is a low profile so not much of an issue.

I don't see why the giel would be an issue, I'm running the same specs for with Mushkin ram

Very happy with the motherboard. I guess one thing you need to weigh up is the price and whether you will actually use all the extra features. If you got the cash, what the hell

How about the new abit intel board?

[Voronus]

I have the same system as you and im very happy with the board. Im a casual overclocker (dont want to mess around with voltages) and i run my 6600 at 2.7ghz perfectly, im sure i can get it to 3 without changing voltages but yet to try.

As long as the bios chip says 701 or higher it will be conroe compatible, I think most shipped boards do now. As I said, very happy with the board.

[Clunk]

heres what i was talking about. was nearly another dead board!

[dancingmatt]

What exactly are we looking at there?

DM

[Clunk]

the picture

[nvening]

By the looks of it the cooler was wonky. The chip was not properly covered by thermal paste and so would probably over heat. It has RMA written all over it imho