Asus P5W DH Deluxe - doesn't support Conroe out of box?

mr poo · 5 Jul 2006 at 16:47

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1884069&enterthread=y

Heads Ups. This board is shipping with BIOS rev 0401 which is reported to not support Conroe. For Conroe you need 0502 or higher. That means you'll need to use a non Conroe socket 775 CPU to flash the BIOS.

That's no big deal if you have a "tide me over" CPU prior to Conroe but if you're expecting this board to POST with Conroe you may be in store for a surprise.

I can't believe ASUS did something this stupid.

Can anyone confirm if this is correct? And does anyone know what bios rev the ones on Overclockers are shipping with?

Explicit · 5 Jul 2006 at 17:17

Yup, it's true. Various threads on XS.org confirm that.

Locrian · 5 Jul 2006 at 17:31

Ok, thats Funny / Annoying! Terrible mistake that will cost them a bomb im sure. I should be able to borrow a cpu to boot but would it be better to just cancel the order and get a diff mobo?

WJA96 · 5 Jul 2006 at 17:34

I think it's great. The long-term Intel users won't have a problem with it, while the AMD crossovers will have to beg/steal/borrow a '775 chip from somewhere. Serves them right, johnnie-come-lately's

Explicit · 5 Jul 2006 at 17:35

Here you go:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=105201
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=104742

Locrian · 5 Jul 2006 at 18:23

Somebody in that first link also wrote:

The P5W-DH Deluxe I received from **** came with BIOS 0502 installed. So perhaps boards shipped to some locations will be Conroe compliant right out of the box.

Are OcUK going to let us know what the deal is here. I guess all these reports so far are from the US so maybe EU will get lucky. If it is shipping without conroe compatability that is a major issue and not all of us have spare CPUs lying around. It also surely violates the description

sachinbadiani · 5 Jul 2006 at 18:25

Same here... no 775 CPU here (only 478). Perhaps ask your retailer (e.g. OCUK) to flash it for you, then ship it?

mr poo · 5 Jul 2006 at 19:15

Locrian said:
Somebody in that first link also wrote:

Are OcUK going to let us know what the deal is here. I guess all these reports so far are from the US so maybe EU will get lucky. If it is shipping without conroe compatability that is a major issue and not all of us have spare CPUs lying around. It also surely violates the description

Glad I haven't ordered yet then - I did ring overclockers to try and get a confirmation on the bios but they said they didn't know what version it was. No 775 chip lying around here for me so I need to make sure before purchasing

Red Arrow · 5 Jul 2006 at 19:26

Luckly my father runs a computer repair shop so he has ton's of 775's lieing around. Glad he does as I have already placed an order.

Devious · 5 Jul 2006 at 19:32

My Asus came from Overclockers with the 0401 bios.

I couldnt boot up with my conroe so I borrowed a P4 from work, same problem :confused:

I left it a few days then ive it another go, it still wouldnt boot with either.

For some reason I went and tried my X1900XT in the secondary PCI-E slot and hey presto it booted.

This was with the P4 from work, I flashed it to a newer bios before trying it with my conroe so I wont know whether it works or not

Ive RMA'd the board as the main gfx slot seems faulty, should get another friday.

Fingers crossed :cool:

Lt Goody · 5 Jul 2006 at 19:36

I was going to order the p5w dh but after reading this will now wait to see what happens,i've only got a 478.

Locrian · 5 Jul 2006 at 20:10

I have to confess i am very very confused. Why is the P965 based board still pre-order and conroe out of the box ready but the 975X boards are stocked and arent. Come to that, the 975 is a higher number but im reading the 965 is newer but cheaper?? Im very confused

Lt Goody · 5 Jul 2006 at 20:11

Very annoying when it says supports conroe on main page :mad:

LordShadow · 5 Jul 2006 at 21:33

Any chance of letting us know which revision you have in stock Gibbo?

daz.wallace · 5 Jul 2006 at 21:41

This is not what I wanted to hear, ordered one to arrive with my Conroe

anyone in the North East with a 775 P4 who will lend it to me to Flash the bios if needed?

split · 6 Jul 2006 at 00:30

daz.wallace said:
This is not what I wanted to hear, ordered one to arrive with my Conroe anyone in the North East with a 775 P4 who will lend it to me to Flash the bios if needed?

If you want to play safe, ask someone who has said board exactly what it says on the BIOS chip. (this thread might also help esp here to get the chip number)

Then look over here. He can prolly supply ready flashed chip if you don't have a board to do it in.
O'h, and you can tell him what BIOS file you want

daz.wallace · 6 Jul 2006 at 08:01

split said:
If you want to play safe, ask someone who has said board exactly what it says on the BIOS chip. (this thread might also help esp here to get the chip number)

Then look over here. He can prolly supply ready flashed chip if you don't have a board to do it in.
O'h, and you can tell him what BIOS file you want

Thanks for that

WJA96 · 6 Jul 2006 at 10:11

split said:
If you want to play safe, ask someone who has said board exactly what it says on the BIOS chip. (this thread might also help esp here to get the chip number)

Then look over here. He can prolly supply ready flashed chip if you don't have a board to do it in.
O'h, and you can tell him what BIOS file you want

I don't want to upset anyone at OcUK - but they have advertised this board as supporting Conroe. They may or may not have known that some would not support Conroe without a BIOS update but they will have to take responsibility if it turns out they don't. If you put a flashed BIOS chip into your new board and it blows up, then you have no warranty. You really do need to RMA the board if it doesn't work with the supplied Conroe chip.

And I have to say that for OcUK to repeatedly turn around and say they don't know what version they are shipping (try getting them to commit to 2 120mm fans in a Lian Li PC-7+ case) is ridiculous. They should be specifying to their suppliers what they want, surely?

I hate to say I told you so, but I have been consistently advising people to wait and see as I have been stung in the past with forward compatible products that turn out to be lemons.

Explicit · 6 Jul 2006 at 10:56

WJA96 said:
I don't want to upset anyone at OcUK - but they have advertised this board as supporting Conroe. They may or may not have known that some would not support Conroe without a BIOS update but they will have to take responsibility if it turns out they don't. If you put a flashed BIOS chip into your new board and it blows up, then you have no warranty. You really do need to RMA the board if it doesn't work with the supplied Conroe chip.

I agree, but I think Asus are required to take responsibility.

If anybody has any trouble with their mobo not supporting Conroe, give Asus an email and state your consumer rights otherwise they'll treat you like a fool.

s.13 of Sale of Goods Act 1979 states: "Where there is a contract for the sale of goods by description, there is an implied term that the goods will correspond with the description."

Asus described on their website that it supports Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe). So, Asus are required to either send you a new BIOS chip or flash your current one so that it supports Conroe. They are also responsible for bearing the costs as it's clearly their own fault.

I hope that helps somebody who feels a bit miffed that they paid £180 for a mobo which states Conroe support but technically doesn't.

BubbySoup · 6 Jul 2006 at 11:07

WJA96 said:
I hate to say I told you so, but I have been consistently advising people to wait and see as I have been stung in the past with forward compatible products that turn out to be lemons.

Que-Eff-Tee!

What with the Intel manky-brown-box problems and now this with the Asus, I completely agree.