Asus P5A's onboard sound quality

[Jeff7]

Anyone here have the P5A with onboard sound?
How good is the quality of the built-in sound chip? I've gotten some sound cards already that, if you try to record anything, it gives horrible static at anything above maybe 5% of full volume.
Also, is the onboard sound actually PCI? I've used the M571 already, and the SoundPRO chip says PCI, but BIOS ID's it as ISA - it won't allow IRQ sharing of course.
And if you've got any other comments on this board, feel free to post them as well.

[Jeff7]

Something I forgot to ask:
Has anyone used the P5A with a TNT2 Ultra of Geforce card?
I've heard that Gigabyte's boards can't supply enough power to the AGP slot, and these boards will cause freezes, and the AGP chipset upgrades don't help this either.
Is the same true of Asus boards?

[brockway]

I wasted the extra $20(Cdn.) for the on-board sound. It has only worked on a couple of occasions, seems to have its own agenda. From what I've seen on other boards there are numerous different problems with the sound so I assume it's driver related. Also, quality is just "OK" noy\thing special(I wouldn't know).

Otherwise I love this board - very stable for o/clocking.

[Jeff7]

Did you try the updated drivers for the chip? I don't know if these will work, but here's a link for ESS1938 drivers:
<a href="http://www.windrivers.com/script/drivers.asp?company=esssound">www.windrivers.com</a>

I'd figure it's the link for the ESS SOLO-1.

[Jeff7]

OK, apparently HTML isn't enabled the way I thought it would be. Oops.
Let's try it again: http://www.windrivers.com/script/drivers.asp?company=esssound

[This message has been edited by Jeff7 (edited 01-21-2000).]

[brockway]

JEFF7

I believe those are drivers for the P5A-B (AT form factor) not the P5A (ATX). And I may have also seen that the P5A-B sound is ISA / P5A is PCI for sure. I can check if you want.
I tried reinstalling the drivers, (I don't believe there are updates for the ESS Solo on the P5A) but I eventually gave up.

Thanks anyway. Are you thinking about buying or have you bought already?

[Jeff7]

I'm thinking of getting the P5A - the ATX one. I've got a Gigabyte GA-5AX right now. Few places even have the Asus board with built-in sound; the best price I've found for it is $99. Without-sound prices are around 80-85 dollars. I've got an s70 Sonic Impact board right now, with the ESS
Maestro-2 chip, the number on it might be 1968. The main problem I've got with it is that it doesn't actually do DirectSound3D. It just makes horrible, loud static after about 10 seconds. I do have an ESS SOLO-1 sound board.(it might not actually be a real SOLO, it says ESS1938 on it; same thing?)
That one can do great 3D sound with no problems; only thing is, any recordings it does have a lot of static. I don't record stuff often, but when I do, I want it to be recognizable.
When you say "has its own agenda," what do you mean exactly? Does it just kick out and not work for a while, or not detect? The SoundPRO I mentioned earlier wasn't PCI like it claimed, but it had good sound quality, and even a digital connector for the CD, and it always worked. Used 3 IRQs though, and being ISA, that was not much fun. Luckily, everything else in the system was PCI.

[brockway]

What I meant was that it worked intermittently..couldn't figure it out so I gave up and couldn't go back to the shop because it closed up. It always detected and loaded the drivers, etc.

It sounds to me like you might like a bit more quality than the ESS on board audio can provide, but that's your decision.

Aside from that the P5A is a good little board, overclockable, (my K6-2 400 is at 525), which suits my purposes just fine, but it's getting a little out of date now (I like to buy stuff thats been around a little while, bugs are out and it's cheaper).

Again I have seen a lot of posts,etc. about problems with the ESS sound hardware.

[Jeff7]

OK, I guess I'll just save the 15 bucks and stick with the board without audio. The only problem I've ever had with the card I've got, is that every so often, one of the stereo channels just won't work. A reboot always gets it back though. I guess something just might not initialize right. And Diamond hasn't issued a driver update for this card for over a year now. The card is aging though - it's almost a year old. I guess Diamond just won't put any effort into supporting old hardware.
Thanks for replying.

[brockway]

Welcome.

[oblivion]

jeff7,if you want to see how a post is really coded,chick on the edit button and it will show you how it was done................

[Jeff7]

Ah, is that standard HTML, or is that something just on this forum? I do notice that all links in posts open in a new window. I only know basic HTML.
I got the P5A today. I also got a new case, but I don't really like the power supply, so I'm going to swap it with another one I have. The new case has lots of places for fans - spaces on the front, back, and on the side right above the expansion cards. And the edges are rounded. Pretty nice for a $23 generic case(250W power supply too.)
I'm of course going to have to pretty much do an overhaul on this computer then. I'll let you all know how the new motherboard works out. Assuming I get everything together all right that is... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Jeff7]

OK, it's not together - I discovered a little problem.
Would anyone happen to know the part number of the thermal sensor under the CPU? I forgot something - just about everything on the spec sheet of that board is "optional." I got the board out - there are empty solder pads under the CPU socket, where there was supposed to be a thermal sensor. I'm tired of having to check EVERY LITTLE DETAIL of a board I'd like to buy. I think I'll write up a checklist. Thermal sensors, 5PCI, 2ISA, AGP2x, 100MHz+ bus, many voltage settings, good chipset, ATX, and pretty much anything else that might be optional, like the Socket 7 itself...(yes I'm a bit ticked by this whole thing; it said "hardware monitoring" and it said thermal monitoring. I apparently missed the "optional" next to the hardware monitoring.)
So, if I do get this part, anyone know if the existing hardware would recognize it once it's soldered on? I wonder, because there is a chip present on the board that is for Health Monitoring, according to the manual. Please help if you can, I'm going through too many motherboards; maybe I'll learn to be more careful when buying. Someday...

[scotter]

have you tryed the board yet as I've bought 6 P5-A mobo's so far and all of them came with the probe's make sure your looking at the right thing as there are a few solder points where your looking http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
I say plug it in, up fire it up go into bios and see what it says http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif bet it works and your looking at the wrong thing http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Jeff7]

OK, you're right - it is still able to monitor temperature. I'm still puzzled though. The picture points to a black square component and it is labeled as Thermal monitor. On the motherboard though, that component isn't there - just solder pads. I also looked for any thermistors - none either. Epox uses little blue thermistors - easily visible; maybe one of those SMD components under the processor is it.
There's a problem now: the setup before was:
Primary Master: Maxtor 6.4GB
Primary Slave: Samsung 2.54GB
Now, if I try to use the Samsung drive, it is correctly identified by BIOS, but once it finishes detecting all the IDE devices on bootup, it just freezes. I tried changing the HDD block mode between HDMAX and Disabled - neither had any effect. I don't know what that particular setting does though. Any suggestions?

[scotter]

jeff leave the HDD block mode on HDMAX if you are using fat 32 with large Hard drivers like you have
as for the samsung try setting it up as the master on the secondary controler or as a slave to your CD-ROM on the secoundary
I have run into the problem of some hard drives from diff manufactures not liking to work togather on the same IDE
I set mine up with the primary hard drive alone on the primary ide
then cd-rom master on the secoundary
and my 2nd hard drive as the slave on the secoundary ide http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
hope some of this helps http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Jeff7]

The Samsung drive works fine - no damage. At least, it works on another computer. I tried a Quantum 2.5GB drive in place of the Samsung, as Primary slave - it locked the system. So, did some switching around. Setup originally was:
Pri M: Maxtor 6.4GB
Pri S: Samsung 2.5GB
Sec M: Acer 50x
Sec S: 2x2x6 CD-RW
Now, it is this:
Pri M: Maxtor 6.4GB
Pri S: Acer 50x
Sec M: Quantum 2.5GB
Sec S: 2x2x6 CD-RW
And everything works. That thing with Windows detecting drives even when BIOS doesn't, two problems with that:
1. I will need access to all drives in DOS.
2. Sometimes I want the drive to be disabled for one reason or another. But Windows finds it anyway. Unplugging it seems to be the only way to really disable something, as long as the IDE drivers are installed.

Thanks for your help! Everything is working great now. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif