A8N-SLI Deluxe: many defective boards identified

[FastEddie]

Yes, the EZ connector. I've already had one.

 

[MrTeeny]

ok... lmao.. im getting a beer.. im so f-ing lost now. LMAO.. heheheh

How about passing a frosty one this way too, bro....'cause I'm in the same boat.

 

[jelliott]

I can always break out the Goldschlager

Ok... now.. without looking like a complete idiot, here's my thought process:

(big drink)

No matter what you buy in life, new or used, it will break. When? nobody knows.

With that said, is it "possible" that the people that have had problems with the PSU/MOBO combo, such as mine, either had bad PSU's, bad MOBOS or dont have it wired correctly?

I know, i know, sounds strange, but in theory, it's possible.

there was something else i was going to say, but i forgot it now.. lol

EDIT: i remember now..

And how many people that have these mobos, that dont post on forums, that run lets say the ocz 600 with ultras or whatever, that havent had a lick of problems..?

 

[FastEddie]

That's what I said about the OCZ600. It's the best dual rail psu on the market because it is providing the main 12v rail with 20a. You may not have any problems with 6600GT's. I think you would with 6800 Ultra's.

Not all the problems are psu related. Alot of peeps cluster flocked the os install. You can't have any stability when you have to beat the os install into submission. I've helped quite a few, via pm's, start all over in the formating and installing of their os without any CF's. And those boxes are runing pretty good, (though some of the peeps are tweakers and came back with a "It won't POST" due to playing with bios settings).

And you are right, the forums show mostly people who are having problems with the board. Hence alot of new AnandTech membership. They come to the forums to get help.

Look at the origins of this thread. A CEO of a Tech Site is rma'ing parts because they are "defective." He was using one of the worst psu's on the market and it was only providing him 15amp PEAK Max. Period! He got alot of people up in arms over nothing---i.e., you can't run this board on a single rail psu that only provides 15a on the 12v rail. His response was that it's a 450watt psu. That doesn't matter---it's the amps that mater.

 

[jelliott]

well.. im off to go get my lumps from the wife. I sat here too long, burning brain cells trying to understand things i didnt know existed in life..

My cards are here:

Tracking number
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Ship date Jan 19, 2005
STATUS: Jan 19, 2005 7:58 PM Left origin MINNEAPOLIS, MN
Estimated delivery Jan 20, 2005 3:00 PM
Service type Standard Overnight
Weight 10.0 lbs

HOPEFULLY, it will go ok..

Thanks again for the help!

 

[FastEddie]

:beer::thumbsup:

 

[chucky2]

OK, so for a power supply, how about this one:

Sparkle Power 550W Power Supply, MODEL "FSP550-60PLG" -OEM It's got 36A on the 12v rail...and 27A and 29A on the 3.3v and 5v rails respectively.

1.) Would the 36A be enough on the 12v rail?

and

2.) With all the worry about the 12v rail providing enough currrent...do we also need to worry about the 3.3v and 5v rails too?

Thanks!

Chuck

 

[Stonehenge]

Okay, if there is such a concern over the amps on the 12v rail being 25+ for an SLI rig, what are the amps (34a on an Enermax NoiseTaker v2) on the 3.3v and 5v rails used for?

Just trying to wrap my head around this.

Thanks in advance.

 

[F4810]

Originally posted by: FastEddie

Originally posted by: 83racecrew
Jelliot.....reread your thread back at BE.....SteveOCZ said that the 20A rail flows through the ATX connector and the 18A rail...is through the molex's AND the 12V aux connector (the 4 pin plug you plug into the mobo) Thats how they are getting all 38A if necessary to the mobo (zoinks 38a into the mobo !!)

It's a hell of alot. The board doesn't need anything close to that. IF the PCI-E power connector (molex converters, etc...) is coming from the 12v AUX rail, then it's taking less stress off of the 20a being supplied via the 20-pin ATX connector's 12v pin. But you aren't reducing the 100% efficiency from that second 20amp 12v rail (the ATX 20-oin connector) buy much. If that second rail had 24 or 25amp on it for the 12v, then it would give you enough headroom on that rail where you shouldn't ever see a problem with saturating or maxing out the psu.

Why would you need more that 20 amps on that rail though? Has anybody calculated how much power is needed by all the components that are powered by each rail?

What we need is to know exactly what each rail powers for definite on the A8N-SLI and then to work out what the power consumption is on each rail in a typical SLI system.

I checked the instructions for my Neopower and 15amps goes to the 4pin plug on the mobo everything else is powered by the 18amp rail. So all I need to find is what exactly that 4pin plug powers, then find out that max amps those components use, then deduct this from the 27 asus recommend for a top end system. The result needs to be less than 18amps for my PSU to be fine.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

This is very simple to prove. Anyone who has a dual rail PS, and a multimeter that reads amps and two short lengths of extra wire, you can test it.

1. Use the multi meter to identify a connector(20pin, molex, whatever) on each rail, say one is 18a and one is 16a, mark the connectors r1 and r2. Turn of the power supply

2. Take your two wires and put one into each connectors lead pin. Twist the ends of the two wires together (combining the two rails), turn the PS on and test amps on with multi-meter, see if it gives you 34a

Take a digital pic and post it here, and put this thing to rest

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
This is very simple to prove. Anyone who has a dual rail PS, and a multimeter that reads amps and two short lengths of extra wire, you can test it.

1. Use the multi meter to identify a connector(20pin, molex, whatever) on each rail, say one is 18a and one is 16a, mark the connectors r1 and r2. Turn of the power supply

2. Take your two wires and put one into each connectors lead pin. Twist the ends of the two wires together (combining the two rails), turn the PS on and test amps on with multi-meter, see if it gives you 34a

Take a digital pic and post it here, and put this thing to rest

lol, you won't get 34a. You'll get alot of smoke.

 

[MrVeedo]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
This is very simple to prove. Anyone who has a dual rail PS, and a multimeter that reads amps and two short lengths of extra wire, you can test it.

1. Use the multi meter to identify a connector(20pin, molex, whatever) on each rail, say one is 18a and one is 16a, mark the connectors r1 and r2. Turn of the power supply

2. Take your two wires and put one into each connectors lead pin. Twist the ends of the two wires together (combining the two rails), turn the PS on and test amps on with multi-meter, see if it gives you 34a

Take a digital pic and post it here, and put this thing to rest

i hope you are kidding...

 

[TheNiceGuy]

I GuitarDaddy's defence - Most people on these threads are like me - little or no computer experience (and less with the A8N-SLI). GT (and others) learned through experience that some stuff just works and some doesn't - period. So they generously shatre that knowledge (some of which even ASUS doesn't know) with us. Yet some people still go "What, man?! I don't believe you! You are lying! Reapeat that again for the 5th time! *drool*" I think he's just trying to make the point clear by using an illistration. Who cares if it's a bit off - I don't see such critics offering desperatly needed support like GT and others are.

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: TheNiceGuy
I GuitarDaddy's defence - Most people on these threads are like me - little or no computer experience (and less with the A8N-SLI). GT (and others) learned through experience that some stuff just works and some doesn't - period. So they generously shatre that knowledge (some of which even ASUS doesn't know) with us. Yet some people still go "What, man?! I don't believe you! You are lying! Reapeat that again for the 5th time! *drool*" I think he's just trying to make the point clear by using an illistration. Who cares if it's a bit off - I don't see such critics offering desperatly needed support like GT and others are.

I agree. GT is essentially correct in the premise that these types of psu's shouldn't be used with this board. I've understood what he's said each time. The problem is that peeps don't want to hear the actual message itself----that they went and spent a chunck of money based on marketing hype.

 

[squonk]

Ok I have a question but first Id like to share some testing information I discovered last night. In my post yesterday you may recall that i purpousley left out some of the hardware. Last night, upon adding the DVD ROM Reader and a floppy drive (Ultras here today not yesterday :-( again I started having boot issues on both machines. I had a hunch that most of the hardware problems with this board covering hard drives, cdroms, floppies etc.. are not due to the hardware at all. After adding a floppy and dvd reader to one machine and rebooting i would get intermitent freeze locations going into the bios or trying to boot. Even when i disconnected the two devices the issue would not go away. I tried one device at a time on the second machine and still had the same issue.

At this point I went back to what i mentioned in my last post about clearing the bios per asus manual instructions by removing battery and placing jumper on far right pins. With all power off and bios in reset mode i added the 2 devices set the jumper back to normal and popped in the battery and xp booted fine and all was working. Same thing held true for the second machine. My point here about the hardware issues reported on in this thread is that the 1002 and the 1003-006 (currently using) bios do not change IRQ's properply nor do they report the change to XP properly. Once the bios is STUCK in a bad positon ya cant get it to do anything different until ya reset it which sucks but could be a work arround for a lot of these issues until Asus releases the bios that should have come with the board out of the box. Both boxes are stable and working great still. Its just real hard to add something even as simple as a floppy (LOL) without resetting the bios. Can other folks with hardware issues try this and corarborate my findings? Also if anyone sees some other reason why this may be happening feel free to post your thoughts on this. After resetting the bios just go into it once before ya let the machine boot to change things like DDR abd disable on board sound or whatever etc... and save it again.

OK heres my question. I have PC Power and Cooling SLI Power supplies with 2 video power cables for two video cards. The 6600 GT cards in each machine dont even have power connectors on them so obviously im using the 12 volt on the board for now. When the Ultra's arrive today does it makes sense i would use the 12 volt on the board as well as a dedicated line for each card into its power adapter, or just use the two dedicated lines and dont use the twelve volt in the board? Any ideas would be appreciated!

 

[Thorsson]

You may have it there. Because I was waiting for one component I built the entire machine before booting for the first time, and did not have any issues.

Except the damn firewall...

 

[FastEddie]

squonk--yes, the shipping bios (and betas) are a bit flakey. I've had the same problem with being locked out of the bios after experimenting with ram timings (dropped out the video sync and sat there beeping). Had to clear the cmos and all was well. Such is the case with most of the boards on the market when pressing a board. Adding perifs shouldn't cause any problems with the boards allocution table normally---Asus is working on getting a new bios posted that will resolve these issues.

Take a look at page 2-15 in the manual and note the IRQ Assignment Table. It's put there so one can logically add perifs without conflicting with major onboard components. The worst offender in screwing up an allocution table are Creative sound cards---which tend to highjack hardware resources assigned to other onboard devices. Looking at this table, you see that if you are using both onboard network controllers, that an Audigy shouldn't be placed in either PCI 1 or PCI 2, but rather in PCI 3 as no other devices would conflict with it. If the marvel giglan is disabled in the bios, the either PCI 2 or PCI 3 will work. How many people do you think tried to install their Audigy in PCI 1 or PCI 2 (with both network controllers enabled in the bios)? The answer----lots of people did, and had a few problems. My point is that's why the IRQ Assignment Table is included in the manual, and if those people who had problems installing an Audigy would have taken note of this table, they wouldn't have had the problems.

For your pair of 6600GT's, it appears that the EZ Connector feeds voltage to the secondary PCI-E port, and should be sufficient for providing power to the second card. 6800 Ultra's may be another animal, but I still believe that the EZ Connector will have to be used as the board lights up the port from that connector. The power connectors on the cards themselves probably assume an assist voltage wise, as the Ultra's are power hungry.

And Thorsson---I had no issues whatever with this board, but I read the manual (as I always do) before I even took the board out of the box. I did replace the Antec True 480 I was using with a 24-pin Athena Power psu. The True 480 has a defect known to Antec, (problem on the +5vsb rail) and it's already given me problems in a couple of other systems. So I pulled it as soon as my new psu arrived. I did do a number of meter readings on the Antec and had flucuations on the 12v rail.

 

[Jack31081]

Hey all. I was linked to this thread, and after reading it all, I had to join so I could chime in.

I recently bought a new machine based around an A8N-SLI Deluxe. I initially purchased an Antec NeoPower 480W PSU. After reading this thread, I decided to RMA the NeoPower and get a TruePower 550W PSU.

However, after reading through the thread again, I'm conflicted.

The NeoPower has the dual rails, which a lot of you have said is bad for an SLI system. However, I don't have two video cards now, and the most I'll ever do with this system is two 6800GTs sometime in the future (as far as why I got an SLI board if I'm not going to go w/ 2 cards right now, it was only $5 more than the nForce4 Ultra board I originally wanted...so I saw it as a good deal with a good upgrading option for the future). Also, the NeoPower has the 2 PCI-Express connectors and a 24pin motherboard connector.

Now the Antec TruePower 550W has sufficient amperage on the +12V rail (I'm pretty sure the one I'm getting is a newer one with a max of 30A, as opposed to the older model which only goes to 24A), but it only has a 20pin motherboard connector and no PCI-Express connectors.

Now, I remember someone saying that the extra 4 pins on the 24pin connector were meant specifically for the PCI-Express slots. Is this true?

I also read that someone had trouble getting sufficient power to a PCI-Express card using the 2xmolex->6pin PCI-E adapter, but it ran fine when connected right to the PSU's 6pin PCI-E connector. Is it possible I could run into that problem with the TruePower 550?

Is the EZ-Connector on the motherboard solely for SLI setups, or does it just send more power to the PCI-Express slots? Is this used if you have a 20pin PSU and not a 24pin PSU?

Also, many of you have talked about why a dual rail PSU wouldn't work for SLI setups, but few in this thread have had actual experience using a dual rail PSU with an SLI setup. One of the few that actually does (F4810) says that both Asus and Antec say the NeoPower is good for the A8N-SLI Deluxe. To quote:

What they were saying is that what the manual states is the total amps needed to power a system of those specs and that it doesnt need to be on one rail, as no single item would draw over 15 amps on its own. As one rail powers part of the mobo and the other rail the other part and the hard drives etc there will be sufficent amps to power even the most powerfull SLI system. I am not sure how the maths work out but they seem to think that the rail that supplies the mobo has more than enough amps for what will be drawn from it and the same goes to the rail that supplies the rest of the mobo and add ons.

They sounded honest but it may be bull to get me off the phone. It did seem to make sense to me. We are assuming that the mobo on its own will need to draw more that 15amps from either of the rails.

No one responded to this post, so I wanted to know, is this accurate?

Well, I'm rambling here, but basically, it comes down to this. Is the NeoPower a sufficient PSU for the A8N-SLI Deluxe (if I'm only using one gfx card now, and two 6800GTs in the future possibly), or should I definitely use the TruePower 550 instead?

Thanks.

 

[jelliott]

i have installed my 2 BFG 6800 GT OC's today and after running 3dmark 01, 03, 05 and playing HL2, Counterstrike: Soruce and BF Vietnam, I haven't had a bit of trouble. I also have 7 case fans, 2 of which are LEDs and no stability problems so far. I will update in 24 hours after some overnight tests.

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: jelliott
i have installed my 2 BFG 6800 GT OC's today and after running 3dmark 01, 03, 05 and playing HL2, Counterstrike: Soruce and BF Vietnam, I haven't had a bit of trouble. I also have 7 case fans, 2 of which are LEDs and no stability problems so far. I will update in 24 hours after some overnight tests.

Smooth. A few hours aren't going to tell you much, other than it's handling the voltage for now. Your case fans won't add much of a load. What will is realtime use, where the psu gets taxed from load (load increases heat and lowers the performance level). You may be fine with that unit, but I wouldn't want to run a psu that close to it's max performance constantly.

Jack31081--The Tru550 will handle anything you throw at it and then some. You'll never max the 12v rail out---which is a good thing. And the way Antec makes their units, you can use a decent 20-pin to 24-pin adapter (Thermaltake makes a good one) without having to worry about burning out any of the wiring.---->

Adapter

 

[Jack31081]

Thanks FastEddie. I just needed someone to spell it out for me. Do I need the adapter? If not, what does it do exactly?

So that said, you think someone will buy my NeoPower if I post it in the Sale/Trade forum? Is there a problem with trusting new guys around here? I haven't even used it, and if I RMA it, I lose 15%.

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: Jack31081
Thanks FastEddie. I just needed someone to spell it out for me. Do I need the adapter? If not, what does it do exactly?

So that said, you think someone will buy my NeoPower if I post it in the Sale/Trade forum? Is there a problem with trusting new guys around here? I haven't even used it, and if I RMA it, I lose 15%.

If you sell it on the forum, you'll lose the same or more. It's a good unit, it's just too limiting for this application. What the adapter does is bridge the three power rails (3,3v, 5v, 12v) to the other four pins. You would probably be fine using just the 20-pin ATX connector and the EZ-Connector for a second graphics card.

 

[bradley]

Interesting to note, it has been announced that the complete line of DFI nForce4 boards will require a 24-pin connector, and won't include a 20-pin to 24-pin adapter. In other words, if you hook up a 20-pin connector and leave the last 4 empty, unlike the ASUS board, it won't function. This is a probably a good move, considering the difficulty people are encountering with SLI boards in particular.

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: bradley
Interesting to note, it has been announced that the complete line of DFI nForce4 boards will require a 24-pin connector, and won't include a 20-pin to 24-pin adapter. In other words, if you hook up a 20-pin connector and leave the last 4 empty, unlike the ASUS board, it won't function. This is a probably a good move, considering the difficulty people are encountering with SLI boards in particular.

That just shows you that the beast itself requires decent power. The Thermaltake adapter is well built. I have one here and have used it with this board. No problem with its use.

 

[MrVeedo]

Also, many of you have talked about why a dual rail PSU wouldn't work for SLI setups, but few in this thread have had actual experience using a dual rail PSU with an SLI setup. One of the few that actually does (F4810) says that both Asus and Antec say the NeoPower is good for the A8N-SLI Deluxe. To quote:

exactly. not one person in this thread that has a dual 12v rail supply has posted about taking out their multimeter and checking for dips in their 12 volt rails. all the problems seem to be automatically blamed on the power supply. i bet over half of these problems have nothing to do with the power supply, and those that do have power supply problems, are probobly using single rail with less than ~17amps on the 12 volt rail. as far as i can tell, no one has came up with real proof that these boards dont like dual rail power supplies, and no one really knows how these boards are designed to draw their current from each rail.