Hi

I am hoping to purchase the Asus Motherboard P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP at:
ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP AiLifestyle Series - Motherboard - ATX - iP965 - LGA775 Socket - UDMA133, Serial ATA-300 (RAID), eSATA - 2 x Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b, 802.11g - FireWire - High Definition Audio (8-channel) / ASUSTeK COMPUTER P5B DELUXE/WIFI-

Does anyone know please if this should come supplied with the necessary SATAII drivers? There is a reference to "Drivers and Utilities" within the specifications.

Also would they be on a floppy drive? I have just read that "the installation process specifically looks at the A: (floppy) drive for the updated drivers. This is a limitation imposed by the installation routine. You cannot load the drivers using any other media".

If they do not come with the motherboard then I am not sure where to look for them. I went up to the Asus website but did not make a very good job of locating them and would be grateful if someone could give me a specific link, should they know it.

Many thanks.
David

Hi. The driver CD should contain all the drivers you'll need to get the board up and running. For the most part, on most motherboards, a current version of Windows XP with Service Pack 2 will find/recognize your SATA/SATA2 interface just fine, and installing a third-party driver from a floppy will be unnecessary. I know of a lot of people that use the board you are talking about, and none have mentioned any problems with it, and have not mentioned needing to install SATA drivers separate from the Windows installation.

This used to be a problem when SATA first came out, but I think now, with newer BIOS and OS's, it's not so much a problem anymore.

If you do need to install drivers for it, the ASUS Driver CD that should come with the motherboard has a utility on it for you to create a floppy driver disk that you'd use during the Windows XP installation--and I believe there is a guide on the CD that will tell you what you need to do as well--I think...

Let us know how it goes, and if you run into problems, please don't hesitate to ask.

EDIT--you'll need access to a separate computer that has a floppy drive so you can create the driver disk from the CD.

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (@2.6 GHz)
2x1GB OCZ Spec. Ops. PC3200
ASRock Dual939-SATA2
Antec TruePower 550 watt PSU
80 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
300 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
120 GB Maxtor ATA/133 7200 rpm
ATI Radeon x1950 Pro

Excellent response guyladouche, extremely clear and very much appreciated.

Whilst I am writing can I ask you for an opinion. During the last 2 hours or so before I received your posting I had been having second thoughts on the motherboard I referred to in my posting.

You see I do not get involved in WiFi or installing two ATi graphics cards such as in Crossfire. The heatpipe or VRM cooling and 8-phase power circuitry - well perhaps not for me... In addition the alternative I have been looking at costs around £80 including VAT whereas the the Deluxe/Wi-Fi AP costs around £111 including VAT.

On cooling anyway, I have just purchased the Antec P180B black case and I feel it is a reasonably spacious mid-tower with a good array of cooling fans and PSU chamber is situated at the bottom of the case, so perhaps this will take care of the better features that are missing in a small way. Incidentally, (I read this from the outside of the case!!) - it only arrived today and it is still in the box. I am gathering things slowly and leaving the things that I feel I might still change my mind on till last.

Would you mind from your experience having a look at:
ASUS P5B-E AiLifestyle Series - Motherboard - ATX - iP965 - LGA775 Socket - UDMA133, Serial ATA-300 (RAID), eSATA - Gigabit Ethernet - FireWire - High Definition Audio (8-channel) / ASUSTeK COMPUTER 90-MBB550-G0EAYZ
which is the Asus P5B-E and does not have so many features obviously, but as I don't need them would this alternative board do you think be a good choice and it is cheaper.

Thanks for your work on this, and also of your offer to help on the "drivers" issue if I get stuck later. Will certainly come back.

David

That board is also great, but I think it's overclocking performance might not be as good as the deluxe version. It is still a good overclocker though. However, overclocking aside, it is still a great motherboard. However, I only have a couple minutes at the moment--I'll take a closer look at the link and let you know more about it later this evening when I'm at home.

In addition, I didn't notice what type of CPU cooler you'll be using--is it the stock Intel Core 2 Duo cooler? It is a fine stock cooler, but I would recommend buying some Arctic Silver 5 thermal grease because it is a much more efficient thermal conductor than many other types of thermal compounds, and will help to keep the CPU much cooler--on average it drops temperatures by at least 5 degrees Celsius.

Okay, I'll take a look at that board more in a few hours. But I have not heard anything bad about it, and know many people that use it. It's a very good alternative to the deluxe, which has a lot of unnecessary features in my opinion, and why bother paying for them?
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This user added the following:
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I took a closer look at that board, and reviews about it, and they're all pretty good. Basically the P5B-E board is a cut-down version of the deluxe board (minus the wifi, second PCI-E slot, and a couple other insignificant things with respect to building a fully-functioning computer).

A few weeks back I was going to start a C2D build myself, and was going to get the P5B-E (couldn't remember that when I wrote my previous response), or a DFI board. I decided with the P5B, and then I decided that building a new computer now, given my current one, would have been a waste.

So I'd say go for it!

__________________
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (@2.6 GHz)
2x1GB OCZ Spec. Ops. PC3200
ASRock Dual939-SATA2
Antec TruePower 550 watt PSU
80 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
300 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
120 GB Maxtor ATA/133 7200 rpm
ATI Radeon x1950 Pro