Good 'deluxe' P4 mobo for Pulsar?

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:34 am

Hi peeps..

I know this topic has been done to death, but is anyone using any of the newer Asus 'deluxe' version boards with Pulsar? I am building a new machine at work for a Pulsar 1 we have.

Hyperthreading isn't *that* important to me.. but I absolutely *need* ethernet, firewire, USB2.. with the kinda of PCI slot hell we have these days I can't really risk having to buy 3 more PCI cards, as the slot options for putting the Pulsar in would be greatly reduced.

I've heard reports from Andre Dupke about deluxe version boards not being too good with IRQs etc, but I can switch off stuff like COM/printer ports, and internal audio etc.

Anyone successfully using P4C800 Deluxe or P4P800 Deluxe with Pulsar? If so, have you also tried using the firewire at the same time as SFP? On my P4PE board at home, I get a lot of PCI overloads when I use the firewire bus.. the firewire is very important to me as the machine will also be used with a TC Powercore firewire.

Also, has anyone been able to have a look at the ATI chipset? Asus has a board based on it now:

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket4 ... erview.htm

Cheers for any help.

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:46 am

hi!

..go for non-deluxe:
asus p4 p800 SE
you will get:
-8 usb onboard
-gigabit etnernet onboard

the firewire pci-interface will cost you about 15 dollar...

...got best performance with this board...

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 12:02 pm

Hi Andre,

Thanks a lot for your advice.. is that motherboard quite new? I can't see it at any UK retailers so far..

I must say that Asus's naming system is getting a little confusing - it's pretty easy to get confused between P4P800S-E Deluxe, P4P800S, P4P800S SE, P4P800 SE

firubbi · Post by **firubbi** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 1:07 pm

Sandrob is using P4C800 Deluxe. you can check with him.
thanks

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 5:28 pm

I'm using a P4C800e Deluxe with a PowerPulsar Plus(15dsp) and XTC (7dsp)as well as an Adaptec SCSI in the PCI.
I just added an external USB2/Firewire DVD burner, so I enabled both onboard ports in the Asus bios to see which connection I preferred. There was no effect on my audio performance, no IRQ conflicts.
This is an excellent motherboard, I recommend it highly.

/dave

scary808 · Post by **scary808** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 6:05 pm

On 2004-03-16 11:34, dArKr3zIn wrote:

I know this topic has been done to death,

I don't think this topic can ever be done to death. New MOBOs are being released every fricken' day it seems. Most of us have and/or will update our machines. If MOBOs never changed it would be done to death, however they do. If you have your eye on a MOBO & want to make sure you're making the right investment, I say by all means, get opinions. When I get some extra income(if there is such a thing) I'll either be looking through the tech talk topics dijour or starting a new one. I'm still a bit of a novice with PCs so I need all the help I can get. I know the more savy users(you know who you are) here can help me make the correct decision. That's the beauty of the "Z"!

Post by **hubird** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 6:34 pm

and don't forget to ask for ACPI/Normal mode!

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 7:57 pm

Thanks for all the advice guys.. I finally found a UK retailer (www.komplett.co.uk) with the board Andre mentioned, and I'm gonna go with it and buy a PCI firewire card.. I've seen too many bad motherboard-based firewire controllers.. the trouble comes about when you actually use the firewire for an external HD or a Powercore firewire, this is when the PCI errors can come up..

Of course a PCI card will still go through the PCI bus and be capable of causing PCI overloads, but at least I'll be able to try a few different cards.. some may manage PCI resources better than others - anyone had any good experiences with any specific cards?

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 1:38 pm

Just thought I'd give some feedback regarding the Asus P4P800 SE.

I have the thing set up now with a Pulsar1. However, I got random crashes until I turned off Hyperthreading and changed the Kernel from ACPI Multiprocessor to uniprocessor ACPI.

I went through pretty much everything trying to get it to work, including turning off USB2.0 stuff.. but nothing cured the crashes until I got rid of all hyperthreading stuff.

I'd love to know what Andre does to get his systems stable with HT !!

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 3:45 am

hi,
are there any external midi-devices connected to pulsar midi in??

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 10:25 am

Well yea I suspected some MIDI overloading problems, but as I said the crashing disappeared after I turned off HT.. I require MIDI input much more than HT. I tried a Yamaha SY77 and also an Oxygen8. I have no doubt that these spew lots of garbage thru the MIDI connection but unfortunately I need them

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 5:31 am

Hi,
ok, simply try to connect your midi-cable AFTER Scope was started...

Best,
andre

maakbow · Post by **maakbow** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 7:23 am

I Breifly installed my lunaII,A16Ultra on my work computer asus P4C800E delux with no problems in full default mode [3.0 gig, 2 gig ddr400 ram, SATA HDD, nvidia gforce 5600 256MB] needless to say it was fast.[logic]

The good thing about the E delux on 875 chipset that many people seem to ignore is there is sata contoller and gigabit lan is using southbridge so does not rout through PCI bus.
This has GOT to be good for creamware users.
Maak

[ This Message was edited by: maakbow on 2004-04-24 08:54 ]

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 11:15 am

How much CPU-load?
Any crackles @ 50-60%?

Tech. spects are nice but how doas it work in "real" live?

It was NOT possible, to set up a crackle free setup with this mainboard in our tests...
(Nuendo/SX 2)

[ This Message was edited by: AndreD on 2004-04-24 20:34 ]

maakbow · Post by **maakbow** » Sun Apr 25, 2004 6:27 am

As I said i "breifly" set this up when i first loaded a computer for work at home with the purpose of testing for hardware creamware compatability.
I use logic platinum 5.5.1.

winxp pro install...very generic..i didnt have time to play with setup much

crackle free...at full cpu load [using xtc too]... but then i dont use more than a masterverb or two on the luna dsp's
the easiest install ive done.

I loaded projects that are overloading my curent computer. about 45 tracks 24bit 44.1 plus about 10 vst and sampler within logic.
no crackles .
and also did the logic cpu tests utill logic quit with asio overloads [at about 70 0dd platnumverbs]

Did track count test to above 60 tracks with 7200 rpm drive and 5400 rpm os drive.
the only time i get crackles is when i am near top cpu load and use the optimaster or 3 masterverbs.

I was suprised the setup worked so well as usually i will use a known stable matrox video card but instead i used a leadtech 310a 256 MB g force 5600 which came with the computer.

Maak

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 4:37 am

hi,
this problem is sx/nuendo related only...

best,
andre