Asus a8n-e..

[Nlight95]

Originally posted by: Dariel
hi everybody,

i was scanning this forum for a while now to no end...

Already solved my DVD drive (PATA Benq 1620) messing up boot. Disabled nVidia's PATA driver ;-) thanks to whoever pointed that out anyways!

Now - all of a sudden - I get up in the morning to find my computer seems to be in standby. With PS/2 wake disabled, both keyboard and mouse seem to wake up the board.

...but past POST I get a black screen - windows seems to be loading in the background (HDD led indicates this), but no visuals. how come???

Now what gives me the creeps is - yesterday the machine was just fine. Haven't got time to mess with it in the morning before going to work but will give it a major bash tonite - so if anybody got ideas?

Haven't done any major OCing, haven't tried flashing my BIOS yet. It's a cheap lame setup [450 $ in total] I'm doin for my wife - so she stops messing up my primary rig so any quick trick appreciated (she'll kill me if I down it for more than one day

heeeeeelp!

D.

The 350w PSU may be a problem if it's an el cheapo unit. It's not the lack of power (though 350 is really borderline), it's usually due to insufficent current on the 12v rails. I may be running into the same problem, and I have a 430w Enermax.


I upgraded to the 1013 BIOS and I probably shouldn't have because now I have more problems than I did before with the 1011. It's amazing that a company with ASUS' reputation has really had problems with this board.

 

[Nlight95]

Does anyone know if it's possible to flash to an earlier BIOS?

I ask because >stoopid< me flashed to the 1013 BIOS but the 1011 BIOS was much less problematic for me.

 

[cool]

Flashing back is possible. If the flash tool refuses to though, then there's usually a parameter to append to the command line to force it.
All command line parameters should be listed with awdflash.exe /?

I've been using the 1013 for a couple of days and no complaints here. Everything's smooth...

 

[corsa]

Hey just wondering if anyone has done the Sli mod on their AN8-E, or if its still possible?

 

[Nlight95]

You sure its not a rev1 board? The rev2 boards suck with overclocking IMO, actually they just kinda suck.

It's a rev 2 board. Just bought it (4/6) at Newegg.

 

[Nlight95]

Originally posted by: werty316
I hope he doesn't run it at 1.7V 24/7. I am still waiting for EndGame to prove he can overclock 1:1 past 230-240Mhz with the A8N-E.

The A8N-E limits my A64 3000 vcore to 1.550 max. I've got it at 233.6, 1T (333DDR mode/285 CPU Frequency) but I have to do more testing to see if it's stable. This is really ridiculous. This is sad because the GSkill Extreme Series 2x1GB DDR500 is capable of very high numbers on a GOOD motherboard:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=5760
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=75199&highlight=gskill

The A8N-E is REALLY holding me back. I'm just going to sell it and pick up an Ultra-D. I think ASUS is really overrated and though I've emailed them three times to get my motherboard registered (the ASUS web site says the S/N is invalid yet it is right off the box) and they have never responded. I'm quite upset about the whole scenario.

 

[Nlight95]

Originally posted by: corsa
Hey just wondering if anyone has done the Sli mod on their AN8-E, or if its still possible?

You must be thinking of the DFI LanParty Ultra-D because it has two PCI-E slots but uses the NF4 Ultra chipset, which doesn't natively support SLI but DFI "engineered" it to. There's actually a software utility that will open up SLI on the board but I don't know if it still works. Nvidia has really cracked down on DFI because it undercut the sales of their more expensive SLI boards, so now the second PCI-E slot has been relegated to alternative display functions. Nvidia is reportedly designing their new drivers to disable the SLI functionality.

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-273-1.htm

As for the A8N-E, it is physically impossible for it to support SLI as there's only one PCI-E slot available.

 

[Nlight95]

Originally posted by: cool
Flashing back is possible. If the flash tool refuses to though, then there's usually a parameter to append to the command line to force it.
All command line parameters should be listed with awdflash.exe /?

I've been using the 1013 for a couple of days and no complaints here. Everything's smooth...

The Alt-F2 method prevents flashing back to a previous BIOS. As you suggested, I may just have to boot from a floppy and use awdflash.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Joy, now I'm getting "A Disc Read Errror Has Occurred, press Ctrl+Alt+Del" errors every once in a while when I try to start it. When I don't get those, either the blue Windows XP loading bar goes indefinitely, it hangs, or [sometimes] just works. And I've gotten BSODs for nvata.sys three times this past week, so I uninstalled the stupid nVIDIA IDE drivers.
Seems to me like the nForce 3 (K8N) was ALOT more stable than the nForce 4 (A8N-E).

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124
Joy, now I'm getting "A Disc Read Errror Has Occurred, press Ctrl+Alt+Del" errors every once in a while when I try to start it. When I don't get those, either the blue Windows XP loading bar goes indefinitely, it hangs, or [sometimes] just works. And I've gotten BSODs for nvata.sys three times this past week, so I uninstalled the stupid nVIDIA IDE drivers.
Seems to me like the nForce 3 (K8N) was ALOT more stable than the nForce 4 (A8N-E).

Without a doubt, nF3 was more stable than nF4 is.

The loading bar going forever is annoying as hell. I determined that if I just turn my machine on and walk away from it (to keep myself from getting frustrated), it'll eventually boot up. I counted the loading bar one time, and it cycled 78 times before windows loaded. I haven't figured out exactly what it is that does that, but it does it less often when I have no USB devices connected.

 

[Nlight95]

** delete me **

 

[Nlight95]

These are some consistent problems I keep hearing about the A8N-E.

1. You MUST have your FDD enabled to avoid problems

2. When overclocking, if you want to avoid slow downs on your SATA drives use header 3 and/or 4 (not 1 or 2). Note: If you also run and IDE hard drive and want to boot to your SATA, you will have to change the order in the Hard Disk Drives menu in the BIOS to make sure your SATA is listed as the first drive. The reason is because the BIOS automatically changes the hard drive boot order if you use anything other than SATA header 1 on the mobo.

3. At 1T the memory bus tops out anywhere between 220-230.

I've done exhaustive testing and always run into Stress Prime 2004 errors. Currently I'm getting errors at 225. Now before anyone says anything about my CPU, when I drop the FFT size to 8K in SP2004 it'll run overnight with no problems. I've tested the core and it will easily go to 2600. You have to isolate them problem. Whenever you run Prime95 or SP2004 you have to drop the FFT size. Doing this tests primarily the CPU.

There's a good guide for Prime95 testing here:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/prime95/prime95.html

4. ASUS has dropped the core voltage options to 1.550v in the later BIOSes.

To put it plainly, the A8N-E is a well-built product and will run reliably if you stick close to the default BIOS settings and do mild overclocking (the exception here is the FDD problem , which really needs fixing). At stock speeds it performs very well against other offerings.

 

[Nlight95]

Now onto my question...

I can't get the BIOS to flash to a previous version. I've tried the Alt-F2 method; booting from a floppy & using awdflash; booting from the ASUS CD & using awdflash; the ASUS Update utility; hell, I've even tried clearing the CMOS but all it did was clear the date & time.

Can someone please tell me EXACTLY how to flash back to an earlier BIOS?

I'd like to know what method you chose (boot from floppy, CD, in Windows), what utility (awdflash or third-party), and the previous BIOS revision and the one you changed to.

I'm using rev 1013 and no matter what I've tried I keep getting the error that the BIOS I'm trying to flash is invalid.

 

[e30]

Originally posted by: aqlumen

Can someone please tell me EXACTLY how to flash back to an earlier BIOS?

i'm using asus update V6.07.01 for windows, before flashing, go to options and activate "bios downgradable". works fine for me.

(with later versions of asus update i had problems flashing older bios)

 

[rox1co]

wuts the max FSB u guys hit

i'm getting an opteron 165 n i need to hit 300x9 to get 2.7

when i had the X2 3800+ i couldn't get past 285x10

 

[Nlight95]

Originally posted by: rox1co
wuts the max FSB u guys hit

i'm getting an opteron 165 n i need to hit 300x9 to get 2.7

when i had the X2 3800+ i couldn't get past 285x10

Currently I'm running 292x9 on my venice 3000 core, but it's only stable by using DDR266 more with a 1T command rate. I can run the memory bus up to 310 but the chipset fan gets very hot at that speed, despite my having decent case temps (31-32C).

As a result, my memory is running at 183MHz, 3-3-3-6. I know 183 sounds slow, but it's the only way I can run my core past 2600 while having the memory stable. I can go to 2T and run quite a bit higher but performance really takes a nosedive at 2T. The G.Skill ES DDR500 is easily capable of 250@1T on many other mobos.

Like several posters here and in other forums have repeatedly said, this board will not run above 230 at 1T, if that. That's why I'm dumping it for a DFI LanParty Ultra-D.

By the way, you are really taking a risk by running the memory bus at 300 unless you have a third party cooler on the northbridge. The stock hsf is known to go bad pretty easily--just do a search and find out for yourself.

 

[rox1co]

i'm thinking of dumping it too for a Ultra-D

thanks for the input

 

[DidlySquat]

Originally posted by: GeekDrew

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124
Joy, now I'm getting "A Disc Read Errror Has Occurred, press Ctrl+Alt+Del" errors every once in a while when I try to start it. When I don't get those, either the blue Windows XP loading bar goes indefinitely, it hangs, or [sometimes] just works. And I've gotten BSODs for nvata.sys three times this past week, so I uninstalled the stupid nVIDIA IDE drivers.
Seems to me like the nForce 3 (K8N) was ALOT more stable than the nForce 4 (A8N-E).

Without a doubt, nF3 was more stable than nF4 is.

The loading bar going forever is annoying as hell. I determined that if I just turn my machine on and walk away from it (to keep myself from getting frustrated), it'll eventually boot up. I counted the loading bar one time, and it cycled 78 times before windows loaded. I haven't figured out exactly what it is that does that, but it does it less often when I have no USB devices connected.

Me too !!!! like one out of four boots takes 2-3 minutes instead of the usual 5 seconds in the windows loading screen......This doesn't happen in Linux, nor have I seen it happen with any other motherboard, nForce4 or otherwise. You all should realize by now that ASUS is POS company.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
You all should realize by now that ASUS is POS company.

I wouldn't go that far. I've used several ASUS products without any issues at all, and I know that there are others that swear by ASUS. I do think that this motherboard line is flakey, at best, and is definitely hurting their corporate image (if only on a small scale).

 

[DidlySquat]

Isn't it funny that we pay $200 for a top of the line product, only to have more problems with it than with a cheap off the shelf motherboard ? and later to discover that the supposedly top of the line product is not anyomore cause even asus realized it was flawed and released a new version ? This just goes to show it's better to buy tried and tested products rather than jump of the bandwagon of a new one promising to be state of the art (but with bugs). I just can't believe I spent so much on this inferior mobo which created a level of service worse than my old celeron mobos.

 

[rox1co]

this mobo (a8n-e model) was $200 when it first came out?

 

[DidlySquat]

no i'm talking about the a8n-sli deluxe which was the first nForce4 mobo, first SLI mobo, first pci-e mobo for athlon 64. Supposedly an enthusiast overclocker mobo. And supposedly state of the art, top of the line of asus nf4 motherboard line up. How things have changed. Now it's defunct, discontinued, problematic. Asus did us wrong here, I just want to laugh in the faces of the MORONS who over paid for this POS - many paid in excess of $300 in the first couple of months. I also mocked them, until the super villain GuitarDaddy with his moronic enthusiastic misinformation about the board convinced me to buy it for $200. I hope he gets hit by a truck.....

 

[sandeep108]

The delayed boot times are usually on account of some Sata-2 drives (maxtor/hitachi) ncq incompatibility. Check your event logs.

To put it plainly, the A8N-E is a well-built product and will run reliably if you stick close to the default BIOS settings and do mild overclocking (the exception here is the FDD problem , which really needs fixing). At stock speeds it performs very well against other offerings.

I tend to agree with this and do feel that $200 is a bit too much, otherwise it is a pretty decent and stable board.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: sandeep108
The delayed boot times are usually on account of some Sata-2 drives (maxtor/hitachi) ncq incompatibility. Check your event logs.

I experience the boot time delays most of the time when I boot my system. I'm running Seagate SATA2 drives; nothing abnormal is being logged.

 

[Nlight95]

Originally posted by: sandeep108
The delayed boot times are usually on account of some Sata-2 drives (maxtor/hitachi) ncq incompatibility. Check your event logs.

To put it plainly, the A8N-E is a well-built product and will run reliably if you stick close to the default BIOS settings and do mild overclocking (the exception here is the FDD problem , which really needs fixing). At stock speeds it performs very well against other offerings.

I tend to agree with this and do feel that $200 is a bit too much, otherwise it is a pretty decent and stable board.

The SATA header issue when overclocking is not just a problem with ASUS boards. Jarred Walton over at AnadTech noted this in his excellent A64 overclocking Guide:

"We also recommend switching your SATA hard drive to port 3 or 4 (or one of the extra ports) once Windows is installed. SATA ports 1 and 2 generally don't behave well when you begin overclocking beyond a certain threshold, and with the drivers installed, Windows should boot fine whether your primary drive is connected to port 1 or 3 or something else."


source: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2548&p=7