Observations of P6T Deluxe

[Guest Alphahawk3]

I have had this board going on 3 months now. It has worked out in the end for me except in one area and I think if anyone is looking to buy this board you should know about the issue with the on-board audio SoundMax. It has lots of problems. It does not show up on every board but it shows up in a high percentage. Has lots of nosie...static...popping....and can even sometime cause lockups of FSX. You can get this popping just using your browser also. There is also some discrepancy as to how to install this board. It comes with enough isolation washers to go on one side of each screw hole. But each screw hole has a ground ring of solder around it which tells me it needs to be grounded to the case. Now I called Asus and they said to put the washers underneath the board....the manual does not mention anything about the washers. Well not only is that nearly impossible to do it makes no sense. You are using brass standoffs to mount the board...if it needed to be isolated those standoffs would be made from plastic. For far too long I was fighting one big stutter on flare before landing and stutters when interacting with ATC. I had posts all over the place about this problem. I took the washers off the screws and have not had a stutter since then. I suspect it helps isolate the components from interference...EMI...if you will....or maybe it fixed a ground loop...all I know is it fixed my problem. But once that was fixed still noise in the audio. Through many hours of research I found this is a common problem with the Asus boards with SoundMax. If anyone who is considering this board Asus already has an P6T Deluxe V2. That tells me something...the first version has problems. If you look at the specs I can't see any difference in the two boards. I am keeping this board as I have installed a sound card and have it running smooth. It is easy to setup and easy to clock. I just thought this info might help someone. Had I not found the stutter problem I would have returned it....and maybe there could be a driver update in the future that would fix the SoundMax. Regards

[Guest UlfB]

If anyone who is considering this board Asus already has an P6T Deluxe V2. That tells me something...the first version has problems. If you look at the specs I can't see any difference in the two boards.

Not true. The V2 doesn't have any SAS raid controller on board.I have no problems with the on board sound. Have you updated AUDIO drivers, CHIPSET drivers and BIOS?

[Guest Alphahawk3]

Not true. The V2 doesn't have any SAS raid controller on board.I have no problems with the on board sound. Have you updated AUDIO drivers, CHIPSET drivers and BIOS?

Ulf, You are correct about the SAS..I missed that...and I did say that not every board had this problem with the SoundMax. I have updated every bios...chipset...and tried several versions of SoundMax drivers....old and latest....DTS and non DTS.......and one article I read and several post were talking about ADI..the maker of SoundMax..is going under or has been sold. One cannot go to the ADI site and get a driver either, you must get them from the board manufacture. As I said I am keeping the board. I have formatted and re-installed too many times to do it again now that I have it all worked out. But yes you are right about the SAS...I don't use it and it had slipped my mind. I remember reading that those that do, Asus would probably give them another board. While the SAS did slip my mind I did not dream this up about the SoundMax...I would not have posted about it. It is a problem with a lot of their boards. I knew it a week into my researching....I just wanted it to work...and the reason was when it did work it sounded great.....but you did not have to be in a flight too long before it started to act up....and thought all those other people just had not done something right...drivers...or something. This is what i experienced and what I have found out by reading a ton of posts..articles...and maybe what I went through might help just one person not have to fight this for 3 months. Regards

[jwenham 1]

Alphahawk, I had the sound problem you describe when I was running XP 32 bit. I just upgraded to XP x64 and I now have no popping or crackling whatsoever. I think the sound problems either have something to do with the OS or maybe in FSX it is a sign of a over taxed system and may be an indication of OOM when running 32 bit OS. Actually after switching to x64 the sound being fixed was the first thing I noticed aside from my OOM issue is also now gone!As for the washers I put mine ontop so they are under the screw heads as I too thought, How the @#$% am I going to put them on the bottom?The only problem I have had is my DVD/CD drive causes BSOD if I use one of the SATA ports on the back side. I have my 2 HD's in that area and they work fine but I have to use one of the 2 topside SATA ports for the DVD to not crash the system. It took me 4 days to figure that out!Overall I am pleased with it and have no other issues. I also see the price has dropped 50 bucks from when I purchased it last month.Jim

[Guest UlfB]

The problem is that there are problems with every board. Escpecially the new releases. Read the first page of this article on AndandTech http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3471

[Guest Alphahawk3]

Alphahawk, I had the sound problem you describe when I was running XP 32 bit. I just upgraded to XP x64 and I now have no popping or crackling whatsoever. I think the sound problems either have something to do with the OS or maybe in FSX it is a sign of a over taxed system and may be an indication of OOM when running 32 bit OS. Actually after switching to x64 the sound being fixed was the first thing I noticed aside from my OOM issue is also now gone!As for the washers I put mine ontop so they are under the screw heads as I too thought, How the @#$% am I going to put them on the bottom?The only problem I have had is my DVD/CD drive causes BSOD if I use one of the SATA ports on the back side. I have my 2 HD's in that area and they work fine but I have to use one of the 2 topside SATA ports for the DVD to not crash the system. It took me 4 days to figure that out!Overall I am pleased with it and have no other issues. I also see the price has dropped 50 bucks from when I purchased it last month.Jim

Jim, As I said I am going to keep my board. I have gone through too much to set all this up again. I do know that to get the most out of this system I need a 64 bit but am waiting on WIN 7. Of the post I read from the P6 board that was using Vista a lot of the reads were mentioning the front connector for audio. Several reported disconnecting that from the board corrected their static prolem...it did nothing for me as I have WIN XP. Again a lot of people love the SoundMax and have no issues at all with it...but a lot do and I am sure some of it is with folks who don't have the correct drivers....conflicts...and so on...but there are a lot it just will not work on no matter what. I did not start looking closely at this as the issue until I read a post...from a well known person on here who everyone asks for help a lot..including me....where he had mentioned in a post that it seemed a lot of different Asus boards seem to have an issue with the on-board sound. If you go to NewEgg you Will see that for those that gave a bad review of the board Asus is going above and beyond to make them happy. I gave my review too early. Not that I would give it a bad review. I would just mention what I have said in the posts here. If Asus comes out with a dual i7 CPU board I am sure I will buy from them again. Regards

[Alvega 2,119]

I have this board for 3 months also and no problems whatsoever. Using Vista 64 bit. Maybe jwenham is right and the 32 bit OS is the culprit.