wtf...did you read the rest of the postings? he broke a cap off his motherboard that is right by a PCIe slot.
+1 I've had multiple 500GB Seagates fail recently with the F/W issue. No warnings, just one boot and suddnely the drive is reported as 0MB by the bios and thats it dead. Good choice on the P5Q
have you enabled onboard sound in the bios? No doubt it was disabled since you had x-fi? yeah quite a few manufacturers seem to be going down the "capacitor on a mobo" route
Thanks dude, just emailed Aria trying to get them to swap the Seagate out for the Hitachi (I've had the current Hitachi drive for 3 years and it's as good as gold). Thank you for the heads up.
I couldn't get into the bios dude, since the monitor only ever came on upon windows login. But, I think it's enabled by default even when a X-fi is installed (I always had to turn it off manually). Seriously though, this is a crossfire board yet I can't see anyone being able to install a 2nd gpu without knocking that cap off. Anyway, as you see, I ordered a new board anyway, wen't down the safe route (although I've read nice things about the GA-EP45-UD3 series, I've only ever owned 2 gigabyte pieces of hardware and they were all funky in a way (My old 7900gt would overclock ok, but it wouldn't do 500/1500 yet, it would do anything under or over meaning something was seriously ****ed up there))
Let's just sum this up guys as well...The fact that the pc is now running fine without the x-fi means that the cpu, memory and psu are fine right? x-fi not working could be down to 2 things, bad x-fi or bad mobo... mobo is being changed soon... The fact that the screen is in stand by until windows login could be a bad board, bad bios or something or a bad card. but the cpu, memory and psu are definitely fine? so should be the gpu... Right?
UPDATE: Just tried to roll back my monitor driver from the LG one to the generic "plug and play display" one and guess what? The monitor now works as it should, I can get to bios as well... The onboard soundcard was disabled, so I enabled it and installed drivers and now I have sound as well. So that means that my gpu is fine, so is monitor. The one thing still bugging me is why my x-fi is causing problems? Yesterday, after taking it out, everything was fine, then I tried to put it back in and it still worked, I had sound and everything... then after a restart the pc wouldn't come back on again... Plus, I'd really love to know what that cap is for... Because for now, the pc is running without a hiccup with it broken off... Strange... EDIT: in case the x-fi is broken, will I be ok with onboard sound of the P5Q PRO? are the onboard soundcards pretty decent nowadays?
good to see you got the mobo booting again....and with sound Mad how it's working without the cap....but not to worry......bonus As far as onboard sound goes I never have a problem using it. Sounds great through my speaker setup.......I couldn't ask for more really. I mean I know you get onboard gpu's which are very poor compared to dedicated gpu's but I don't think audio cards carry so much sway. I've heard x-fi aswell as aureons and a few others and there is nothing your ears will notice.
Right, just a quick update guys. Got the ASUS P5Q PRO board today, installing it was a piece of cake, had everything done in an hour... Very good layout, liking the bios so far as well... Did a bit of cable managment jobbie as well, as the previous one was rather poor. Looks like the X-Fi is definitely dead, I installed it fine, but then it wouldn't be recognized in windows, tried 2 different drivers (both of them used in the past) and nothing so I'm using the onboard sound. To me, it sounds just fine, but I know there's a certain cpu hit when using onboard v dedicated soundcard. I might look into getting a new soundcard, what would you guys recommend? Anyway, this is the inside of my case after installing everything (not super tidy because the Tsunami case is not that big really)...
The best idea is to run 3D '06 and get a score. Then re-run '06 again with an album playing in WMP and see how much the score drops. This'll give you a rough idea of how much of a drop in performance you get using onboard sound. If your only running stereo setup then you'll see virtually no difference. Take this to 5.1 or 7.1 etc and you may well see a few fps drop.
@MOFO64 - yes, I'm only running a set of stereo speakers, no positioning required, I think I'll stick to onboard sound for now... It sounds pretty decent anyway... I will get a proper soundcard later, don't know which one. If anyone wants to recommend one, I'll gladly listen. @masterchiefx2 - I was having some issues when the pc wouldn't boot up, so I was trying all sorts of things (moving ram around, unplugging stuff you name it) and I also tried the 8800gtx in the other Pcie slot, unfortunately that capacitor is right in the way of the card, never noticed it and it must've snapped off when I "clicked" the gpu in... Anyway, the pc then still ran fine for 3 days until I got my new mobo. I might consider selling that Gigabyte ga-x38-dq6 for like £30 delivered, it still works and I still have the capacitor so anyone semi-decent with a soldering iron should be fine. I always had bad luck with Gigabyte, this was my 2nd Gigabyte purchase and it went wrong again lol...
have the asus xonar d1 and it works well. sounds better than onboard. easy to stick in and no drivers issues at all.
I have a P5Q-E and tbh I'd just stick with onboard sound until you find a problem with it. I've been really impressed with the performance of mine; I have it driving some Creative 5.1s and it all sounds great. I use to be really sceptical of onboard sound but meh, I'm not going to spend money on a component I don't feel like I need...
sorry to hear than man i recon you could get 40+ before delivery even with capacitor as that can be fixed reasonably easy with the right skills
Hm, yeah... I also have a Abit AN8-Ultra s939 board with x2 3800+ and 2gb ram that I could sell, I'm just too lazy to put it up for sale and then post it lol...
