P4C800-E Deluxe CPU question?

[dwtjr]

I'm going to buy this mobo soon, and have a question about the bios that
will ship with the board. I was thinking of getting the P4-3E GHz(800 MHz
FSB) (HT) (90nm) 1 mb cache over the P4-3 GHz(800 MHz FSB) (HT) 512 cache.
(if I have this right) but the P4-3E requires bios 1016. So if I get a board
with a lower bios, and the P4-3E chip would I be screwed. Could I flash the
board without it ever booting up to a operating system.

Thank you
Dave

 

[Rich Elgin]

Hi Dave,
I put together the same MB and 3.0E last month without any problems. The MB
was a rev 2.0 and had BIOS 0015 installed.
I installed Win/XP Pro and a few applications before I updated to BIOS 0016.
I am guessing that full support for the 3.0E CPU is active when you get to
BIOS 0016.
There is a beta 0017 available but I will wait for it's official release.
If you want to use the ASUSprob there is a newer level on ASUS WEB site.
The version that came on the CD would get errors on startup half the time.
There has been some discussion on the hardware revision of the MB but I
never found out what the difference is between the 1.xx and 2.0 versions.
Mine was a ver 2.0. It is printed on the MB between two PCI sockets to the
right of the P4C800-E logo.
So far I am very pleased with this MB and CPU combination.

Good Luck,
Rich

 

[dwtjr]

Thanks for the responce Rich.
I'm going to order the stuff off newegg, so hopefully I'll have no problems.
I'm excited about going from 750mz the 3000.

Thanks again

 

[John Blaustein]

dwtjr,

I just assembled a system that I bought from newegg:

P4P800-E Deluxe
P4 3.0C
Zalman CPU fan #CNPS7000A-AlCu
2GB Mushkin RAM
WD SATA 120GB HD (as boot drive)
Antec SLK3700-BQE case w/extra case fan
(other stuff I had already -- 2nd HD, fax/modem, Matrox G450)

It's lightning fast, so quiet you can barely hear it, and 100% stable. Not
overclocked. CPU runs at ~33C. MB runs at ~37C.

John

 

[dwtjr]

Hello John
Sounds like a nice system. This will be my third asus board (I have a CUBX)
right now, and it has it's short comings (the CMD ATA controllers not that
great)
I still have to figure out what ram I'm going to get. I'll probably only get
512, so I can have win98 + XP. Did newegg package up the stuff good?

Thanks you
Dave

 

[John Blaustein]

Hi Dave,

Newegg shipped everything immediately, and with one exception, it was all
packaged very well and arrived is perfect condition. The motherboard and
CPU were surrounded by "popcorn." In fact, the CPU and RAM was in a
separate box filled with "popcorn" and that box was in the larger box of
"popcorn." The whole system was very well protected.

The Antec case was shipped in it's original carton -- not a carton within a
carton -- and it arrived slightly damaged. The carton had clearly been
dropped on its corner and there was a slight dent in the top of the case.
Newegg and FedEx were excellent in handling the problem, and Newegg replaced
the case with no cost to me. It took over a week to get the new case, and
that was frustrating, but at least handling the claim was easy. In fact,
they didn't even want the damaged case returned, even though the damage was
minimal. I now have two cases, but don't need the second one.

One nice thing about Newegg is that if you change your mind, you can return
some (most?) items with a 15% restocking fee.

I would definitely recommend Newegg and will buy from them again.

I bought ASUS because my previous system was an ASUS CUV4X-E and it worked
perfectly for 3.5 years. I did a fresh install of XP Home and the system
really flies. Photoshop is the only app I use that really taxes the system,
and it's amazing to me how fast Photoshop runs on this system compared to my
older (P3) system. This is the first time I've built my own system and it
turned out to be much easier than I'd thought it would be -- thanks in good
part to the very helpful folks in this newsgroup.

Good luck with your new system, and have fun with it!

John

 

[Tim]

Hi,

If you are under the impression that Win98 will not work in a system with >
512 MB ram then do a bit of searching as others have reported that it is a
simple system.ini edit or something like that.

If you do a google on "Win98 512 system.ini" (without the quotes...) you
will get a lot of info including helpful ones like this:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20980310.html

Memory is so cheap that limiting yourself now may result in a bad config...
IE get 2 x 512's rather than 2 x 256's and XP will swim along nicely.

- Tim

 

[ChrisH]

dwtjr,

I just assembled a system that I bought from newegg:

P4P800-E Deluxe
P4 3.0C
Zalman CPU fan #CNPS7000A-AlCu
2GB Mushkin RAM
WD SATA 120GB HD (as boot drive)
Antec SLK3700-BQE case w/extra case fan
(other stuff I had already -- 2nd HD, fax/modem, Matrox G450)

It's lightning fast, so quiet you can barely hear it, and 100% stable. Not
overclocked. CPU runs at ~33C. MB runs at ~37C.

John

It's a crime not to overclock that lot! Even if you only use the AI
10% overclock at least you get 3.3 out of it with no loss of stability
or excess heat (I bulit a similar system a week ago). Try it.

ChrisH

 

[dwtjr]

I've heard newegg was very fast on there orders, and they have great prices.
I'll probably order the stuff tomorow.
Thanks for all the help John.
Tim, I'll check out how the get past the 512 limit in win98

Thanks for all the help guys.

 

[John Blaustein]

Thanks, ChrisH...

I may try it. Can't I set the overclocking in BIOS? (I'm not at my P4P
machine right now, so can't look.) If you say that 10% won't decrease
stability or add excessive heat, I'll do it.

John

 

[John Blaustein]

Dave,

If you have any interest in an Antec SLK3700-BQE case, I am selling my extra
one. See details here:
http://www.antec.com/us/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=93703

You can e-mail me directly at john at johnblaustein dot com

John

 

[QZ]

The Antec case was shipped in it's original carton -- not a carton within a
carton -- and it arrived slightly damaged. The carton had clearly been
dropped on its corner and there was a slight dent in the top of the case.
Newegg and FedEx were excellent in handling the problem, and Newegg replaced
the case with no cost to me. It took over a week to get the new case, and
that was frustrating, but at least handling the claim was easy. In fact,
they didn't even want the damaged case returned, even though the damage was
minimal. I now have two cases, but don't need the second one.

Did you use NewEgg's e-mail RMA procedure?
(They only want calls for special requests.)

I'm surprised they didn't have you ship back the case.
Maybe *instead* of returning it, NewEgg had someone from FedEx come to your
place to inspect the damaged case? If so, how many days later?

How many days until they *shipped* out the new case?
(They claim it will be within 2 days.)

 

[ChrisH]

Thanks, ChrisH...

I may try it. Can't I set the overclocking in BIOS? (I'm not at my P4P
machine right now, so can't look.) If you say that 10% won't decrease
stability or add excessive heat, I'll do it.

John

Sure you can. OC'ing purists would say to get the highest clock speeds
you have to set the memory and SPU parameters manually - and they are
right. But for a modest increase like 10% the 'automatic' AI setting
is fine and worth doing.

ChrisH

 

[John Blaustein]

Hi QZ,

Here's what happened: The damaged case arrived, so I called Newegg's
customer service number. They told me to call FedEx and ask FedEx for a
claim number. (I can't remember the exact term they both use -- "control
number," or something like that). Newegg said that when I had the FedEx
number, I should call Newegg back and give them that number. FedEx took
down a few details and asked what the carton looked like, and what the
damage to the item was. I explained that the corner of the carton was
slightly bashed in and that there was a small dent in the top of the Antec
case. I also explained that the Styrofoam liner inside the carton was
broken in several places, indicating that the carton clearly had been
dropped. FedEx took all that down and gave me a claim number.

I then called Newegg back, gave them the number and they said I'd receive a
call or e-mail from their claims department within a week. It took a week
or maybe a day or two more, and I got an e-mail from Newegg saying they were
shipping a new case and that they and FedEx had determined they did not want
the damaged one returned.

It took several days longer before the replacement case arrived.

So, to answer your questions, "no," I did not use Newegg's RMA Web page -- I
called. And, "no," FedEx did not come to inspect the case. And, "no," it
did not take 2 days to get the replacement -- more like two weeks. During
the two week period, I called Newegg a few times to see what was happening
and in all cases, their customer service people were extremely friendly, and
I trusted that they were doing all they could to get the replacement to me
as soon as possible. (I, too, was surprised they didn't want the damaged
case returned, particularly since I clearly described that the damage was
very minimal.)

John

 

[John Blaustein]

Hi ChrisH,

I changed the overclocking setting in the BIOS to 10% (from Standard) and
the system is running just fine. In fact, I see no difference in
temperature or fan speeds.

Thanks for the tip!

John

 

[Walt]

I have used Newegg for years, and have always been very happy with them.

I, like you, did receive a bad item once. And, like you, they didn't
want the old one back. Maybe, in your case, the damaged case really
belongs to FedEx now, and what would FedEx do with it???

Plus, they sent me a Newegg cap (hat), with my replacement item, for
my trouble.

 

[dwtjr]

Hello John
Thanks for the offer, but I have a fairly new Addtronics case.
Thanks John

 

[QZ]

So, to answer your questions, "no," I did not use Newegg's RMA Web page -- I
called. And, "no," FedEx did not come to inspect the case. And, "no," it
did not take 2 days to get the replacement -- more like two weeks. During
the two week period, I called Newegg a few times to see what was happening
and in all cases, their customer service people were extremely friendly, and
I trusted that they were doing all they could to get the replacement to me
as soon as possible.

Actually, I said NewEgg claims to send advance replacements, and their
normal shipping policy is to *ship* in one to two business days, then it
takes another three business days for it to be *delivered*; a total of 4-5
business days (which is usually 6-7 days). They don't say that if there is a
damaged item, they won't advance replace it. But from your review, it
appears they will only advance replace defective items, or one has to ask
for an advance replacement. Or maybe the case was out of stock.

Thanks for the vendor review.

 

[John Blaustein]

Walt,

I got the baseball cap too, a nice touch. I really like the advanced
search -- when you click on the "Shop For" links on the left side of the
home page. It makes it so easy to narrow a search and compare similar
items. Also, the wish lists and shopping cart functions are terrific.

Now that I have this extra case, I so tempted to build another machine, but
I don't need one!

John

 

[John Blaustein]

QZ,

Sorry if I misunderstood your post.

I asked for an advance replacement, but they wouldn't do it without charging
my credit card and also charging me for shipping. Had I done it that way,
they'd have refunded the cc charge once the damage claim was settled, but
they wouldn't have refunded the shipping on the replacement. In order for
it to cost me nothing -- which is what I wanted -- I had to wait for the
claim process to complete, and that's what took a week or ten days. Once
the claim was approved, the case was shipped via FedEx 2-day. (It was not
an issue of the case being out of stock.)

Hope that clarifies it.

I think you are right that if an item is defective, they will "cross-ship."
That is, they send the replacement immediately and you send back the bad
one. I haven't had to deal with that as this damaged case is the first time
I've had a problem with anything from newegg.

John