ASUS BETA (Asus AiLifestyle Series P5N32-E SLI)

Name: me.net

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Product:	Asus AiLifestyle Series P5N32-E SLI
Date:	06.03.07 (511 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Advanced

Disadvantages: Not Finished

Asus as a company make some of the best motherboards. They provide quality products at reasonable prices. There boards are some of the most reliable and are manufactured to perfection.

So does this board live up there name?

To start with I would like to list the board’s specs.

P5N32-E SLI

CPU Socket Type LGA 775
CPU Supports Intel processors up to Quad Core
FSB (Front Side Bus) 1333/1066/800MHz

Chipsets
North Bridge NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI

Memory
Number of Memory Slots 4×240pin
Memory Standard DDR2 800
Maximum Memory Supported 8GB
Dual Channel Supported Yes

Expansion Slots
PCI Express x16
2 x PCI Express x16 slot, support NVIDIA SLI technology, at full x16, x16 speed
1 x PCI Express x16, at x8 speed (Yes That’s 3 PCI-E Slots)
PCI Slots 2

Storage Devices
PATA 1 x ATA100 up to 2 Devices
SATA 3Gb/s X 6
SATA RAID

Onboard Audio
Audio Chipset ADI AD1988B
Audio Channels 8 Channels

Onboard LAN x2
Max LAN Speed Dual 10/100/1000Mbps

Rear Panel Ports

PS/2 2
USB 4 x USB 2.0
IEEE 1394 1 x IEEE 1394a
S/PDIF Out 1x Optical and 1x Coaxial
Audio Ports 6 Ports
Onboard USB
Onboard USB 3 x USB 2.0 connectors support 6 port
Onboard 1394
Onboard 1394 1 x 1394 connector supports 1 port

This board’s specifications are some what impressive. It can take and use most of the modern Technology and supports much of the upcoming hardware.

This board also looks great both with the specifications and the physical appetence. The board is well marked with instructions. For example it explains where pin 1 should be on the IDE floppy connector and various other well marked niceties.

The instruction manual is very informative and comes with a step by step quick installation guide for an easy build.

The actual case install of this board is great it is easily installed using a few screws and a minimal amount of effort. The processor, memory, PSU and drives all fit on the well and securely with no dodgy connections.

The board is wonderful so long as you only want a glorified footstool.
The problems only start to occur once you actually want to use the computer.

The machine boots to the bios with out any issues, Except the high spec memory you’ve just paid £200 for is only running at 50% of its speed. And the new NVIDIA 7600 GT duel SLI video card setup stops your machine form booting, this is when your perception of the board changes.

There have been many issues with this board including issues with the memory, processors. Sound cards, and the issue I am having with my 7600 graphics cards.

Admittedly many of these floors have now been ironed out with the latest versions of the BIOS and Asus have been doing all they can to get the issues resolved.

The BIOS is really easy to upgrade and can be done using there BIOS Flash tool which can be found by accessing the BIOS and going to the tools tab. The BIOS versions are readily available on there website and it is just the matter of unzipping the files and writing them to CD and using the above mentioned BIOS Flash utility to install the new BIOS.

This fixes most of the Processor, memory and sound card problems. But still leaves us with the feeling that we are doing some unnecessary Beta testing. This in my opinion a board costing around £150 should be finished and in a perfect ready to use state. But unfortunately at this moment in time this Asus board is still unfinished.

Don’t get me wrong this board is still brilliant but the board is so new that it needs some extra work and TLC before it will be working as it should.

I would also like to point out that I was slightly disappointed with the support provided by there American IT Support helpdesk who where extremely rude and had a very annoying habit of hanging up on me for no apparent reason. They where also not that helpful and didn’t seam knowledgeable when it came to motherboard support. This might just be that I work in an IT support environment and feel a professional attitude is important. It was also very annoying that they would not admit any responsibility for any issues that I was having relating to 3rd party products i.e. my graphics card. I would imagine that the problems I am having with the graphics cards will be resolved in the next BIOS update.

But this should be no reflection on Asus. They still make the best boards. I think if I knew what I knew now I would still purchases this bard because it does everything I need but would rather delay purchasing of this board for a few months until all the issues have been ironed out and all these boards being shipped with the latest BIOS.

I hope the information provided has been helpful.

Should you have any questions please feel free to contact me. I am always please to help.

Summary: Wait a bit befor buying.

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