ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe trouble - it quit POST-ing

[bwentzel]

Has anyone else seen their A8N-SLI quit POST-ing? It will hang at detecting IDE drives and it will hang upon the initial XP screen. The XP startup screen is barely visible. I'm running beta BIOS 1003.005.

I finally got into XP by enabling SMART HD monitoring. At least, that's the last thing I changed before it let me in. I had never had it enabled before. I had reset all settings in the BIOS to the default settings and nothing. I had also removed all devices but the boot drive with the same results.

I had ordered the mobo from ZipZoomFly before Christmas and paid $259 for it. I called last night for an RMA and saw online that the board was now $199. I ordered a new board and told the lady I want to return the old one. She said that was faster than waiting the 7-10 days for the RMA.

So, now I'm waiting for the new mobo to see if it works OK. A proper system burn-in will be in order this time around!

 

[JMag]

Originally posted by: bwentzel
Has anyone else seen their A8N-SLI quit POST-ing? It will hang at detecting IDE drives and it will hang upon the initial XP screen. The XP startup screen is barely visible. I'm running beta BIOS 1003.005.

I finally got into XP by enabling SMART HD monitoring. At least, that's the last thing I changed before it let me in. I had never had it enabled before. I had reset all settings in the BIOS to the default settings and nothing. I had also removed all devices but the boot drive with the same results.

I had ordered the mobo from ZipZoomFly before Christmas and paid $259 for it. I called last night for an RMA and saw online that the board was now $199. I ordered a new board and told the lady I want to return the old one. She said that was faster than waiting the 7-10 days for the RMA.

So, now I'm waiting for the new mobo to see if it works OK. A proper system burn-in will be in order this time around!

Which hard disk was your XP install on? The Maxtor SATA2? I know my DiamondMax 10 has had some serious issues running in this board, although it works fine in my other machine. It seems when I have the drive in with other devices it causes POST problems. It works better if it is hangin out by itself with no other SATA or IDE drives...

 

[bwentzel]

I'm using the Hitachi 160gb IDE drive for my boot drive. While not as fast as the Maxtor drive, i'm saving the space on the Maxtor for video production. I'm going to get another 300gb Maxtor this summer so I can capture video to one of them and output the dvd images to the other using Pinnacle Studio 9.

I'm really starting to wonder if the SMART HDD monitoring may have something to do with the problem. I will investigate further this evening when I get home from work, but in the meantime, ZipZoomFly has packaged my new mobo and I should get it tomorrow.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I had the same problem. Although mine was self inflicted. I crashed the system really hard trying to overclock above 2.6ghz with my 3200, and upon rebooting I had exactly the same issues you are describing.

I got it back (after several hours), by reseting the CMOS jumper, reformatting the HD (thats right!), doing a fresh install of windows, and reloading all my apps. I think something got corrupted on the boot sector of the HD.

If this is your problem, replacing the board may not fix it. You may be forced to reformat the drive.

 

[lorelevitt]

Originally posted by: bwentzel
Has anyone else seen their A8N-SLI quit POST-ing? It will hang at detecting IDE drives and it will hang upon the initial XP screen. The XP startup screen is barely visible. I'm running beta BIOS 1003.005.

I finally got into XP by enabling SMART HD monitoring. At least, that's the last thing I changed before it let me in. I had never had it enabled before. I had reset all settings in the BIOS to the default settings and nothing. I had also removed all devices but the boot drive with the same results.

I had ordered the mobo from ZipZoomFly before Christmas and paid $259 for it. I called last night for an RMA and saw online that the board was now $199. I ordered a new board and told the lady I want to return the old one. She said that was faster than waiting the 7-10 days for the RMA.

So, now I'm waiting for the new mobo to see if it works OK. A proper system burn-in will be in order this time around!

I've seen the same problem when I upgraded to the beta BIOS that you are using. It even stopped recognizing a SATAII PCI card that I had inserted. This drove me crazy for a day (as it was intermittent) until I reflashed with the original 1001 bios. ALL problems then went away and everything has been working without a hitch. It's obvious that ASUS is rushing their beta bioses out the door without sufficient testing. The beta bios' so far are crap for stabillity.

Lore

 

[Vedder323]

So... they let you do this? Are they giving you money back for the dead board?

 

[bwentzel]

The phone rep said as long as there is an identifiable problem with the mobo (said they would test it), they will refund the original purchase price. And as I was purchasing a replacement, she said that would be acceptable as a method of returning the mobo. They get to use my money for a few days and in return, I get some of it refunded.

I haven't tried to overclock the mobo at all. And I'm not 100% certain that the bios flash had an affect on the mobo's ability to POST. If it was a bios upgrade that trashed the mobo, there would be more people reporting on it.

It takes about 10-15 reboots, resets, power cycling to actually get into XP. It often doesn't even come up with the ASUS logo screen. Just sits there. Hit reset, then I get the logo and then it hangs. Reset, power off and I might get to the faintly visible XP startup screen. It's frustrating.

 

[rauskis]

Hello everybody!

I ran into similar POST problems right after I flashed my BIOS to beta 1003.005.
Sometimes my monitor didn't even get any signal and computer didn't start up. Sometimes I got to the ASUS POST screen and everything froze right there and I wasn't able to get to BIOS setup > keyboard wasn't working! And few times I managed to get into Windows normally. I tried almost everything (plugged out all devices and cables etc.) after I realized that the problem might have been in the beta bios. I reflashed back to 1002 (using floppy disk, ASUS CD-ROM Crash Free BIOS Utility seems to work only for corrupted BIOSes) and all the problems were gone! So before you blame your board, check your bios version! =)

A little piece of advice for everyone: DO NOT FLASH TO BETA BIOS 1003.005, VERY UNSTABLE!


----------------------
*Rauski @ Finland*
----------------------
- Windows XP (SP2)
- ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
- AMD Athlon 64 3200+
- XFX GeForce 6600GT x 2
- TRANSCEND 1GB DDR 400MHz KIT
- WESTERN DIGITAL Caviar SE 200GB SATA
- HITACHI Deskstar 180GXP 120GB IDE x 2
- LG GSA-4160B DVD-ROM
- ANTEC Sonata Piano Black (380W TruePower PSU)

 

[spearsd]

Yes, 1003.005 seems a bit hot-headed.

I can confirm this EXACT same behavior with 1003.005. The system seemed to function absolutely fine with SLI (despite taking diggers under heavy load, another story) until I tried replacing my Cosair with higher speed memory. Immediately upon replacing the Corsair memory I couldn't get the system to post unless I hit delete a ton of times, in which case I saw the pretty post splash screen but it would just hang with the message "entering setup" at the bottom. I eventually had to remove two PCI cards to get at my CMOS jumper and clear it. Upon powering up, I was able to get into bios and adjust settings and all seemed great.

After I started jacking around with overclocking settings, I noticed strange freezes during post splash, after initial splash, and black screens after windows splash, or blue-screens during windows boot splash; all these with completely workable cpu/mem settings. I tried replacing the power supply, using default non-oc settings, but nothing worked. It seemed to become worse until I could no longer boot the damn thing reliably. I could have removed my pci cards again and reset the cmos; yes, probably would have worked, but after seeing this thread I simply went back to 1002 and all seems well.

I think 1003.005 works hard to earn its title of "beta" ;-) So, all you guys tweaking away out there beware of 1003 betas as they might try biting you in the ass. Running just fine now on 1002 and will be receiving OCZ PowerStream 600 tomorrow morning before I start the OC dance again.

side-note: Brilliant placement of the cmos jumper / battery by the way under the PCI slots... not. Also, great placement of the NForce chipset fan sandwiched right between two 3 heat producing SLI graphics slots.. not! Despite the probs I've experienced; my overall experience with the board had been just perfect up until last night. Oh, well.

-spearsd

Originally posted by: rauskis
Hello everybody!

I ran into similar POST problems right after I flashed my BIOS to beta 1003.005.
Sometimes my monitor didn't even get any signal and computer didn't start up. Sometimes I got to the ASUS POST screen and everything froze right there and I wasn't able to get to BIOS setup > keyboard wasn't working! And few times I managed to get into Windows normally. I tried almost everything (plugged out all devices and cables etc.) after I realized that the problem might have been in the beta bios. I reflashed back to 1002 (using floppy disk, ASUS CD-ROM Crash Free BIOS Utility seems to work only for corrupted BIOSes) and all the problems were gone! So before you blame your board, check your bios version! =)

A little piece of advice for everyone: DO NOT FLASH TO BETA BIOS 1003.005, VERY UNSTABLE!


----------------------
*Rauski @ Finland*
----------------------
- Windows XP (SP2)
- ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
- AMD Athlon 64 3200+
- XFX GeForce 6600GT x 2
- TRANSCEND 1GB DDR 400MHz KIT
- WESTERN DIGITAL Caviar SE 200GB SATA
- HITACHI Deskstar 180GXP 120GB IDE x 2
- LG GSA-4160B DVD-ROM
- ANTEC Sonata Piano Black (380W TruePower PSU)

 

[bwentzel]

Glad to see other people experiencing the same trouble. Ok, actually not glad for their misfortune, but glad to see that maybe it wasn't something else wrong with my system.

I sent the mobo back to ZZF with bios 1003.005 loaded on it. Wonder what they will say/do about that....hmmmm

 

[jlambvo]

How many of you are using PCI cards with these problems?

I've been intermittently getting the same problems, but seemingly ONLY with my Audigy 2 ZS installed (in any of the PCI slots). Sometimes I'm able to boot back into XP (then it works fine), sometimes it hangs at different points in the boot, other times it POSTs but there's no video signal, and once in a while it won't even POST. It actually seems to get progressively get worse if I keep resetting. If I leave it off for a while it actually seems to get better for some reason. Under the worst circumstances I've had to remove the Audigy, disconnected the mainboard power connecter, and discharge the CMOS for 5-10minutes. Then as long as the sound card is not installed it seems to work fine, overclocking or not.

I'm currently running at standard speeds, Audigy 2 installed an working, 1003.005 BIOS, without a hitch (yet) though some people seem to have it working for a few days at a time before it crashes again. I've also heard people suffering this trying to use PCI devices even with the 1001-1002 release BIOS.

 

[bwentzel]

No PCI cards installed in my system.

Now I'm getting another problem. I'm using the 1002 BIOS and can't get my firewire camcorder to be recognized by XP. Device Manager sees the IEEE 1394 controller, but not the camcorder. The camcorder works just fine in my old PC, because I just tested it. I have enabled the PCI IEEE 1394 device in the BIOS, otherwise XP wouldn't see it. I'm using XP SP1, not 2 as there are definite problems with that.

 

[slime uk]

Hi,

I can't get mine to POST - Here's what happened...

This was the easiest system I have ever built and it worked great for about 1 week. I then swapped my Hauppauge WinTV-Nova (Satellite) PCI card (was working fine!) for a Technisat Skystar2 Satellite PCI card (in same slot). I uninstalled WinTV Nova driver (from Dev Man) and then all software (from C/P, Add/Remove s/w), shut down PC and then removed one and put the other in. Switched PC on, went into BIOS and switched on Cool 'n Quiet (why did I do this - I don't know - I know...NEVER make more than one change at a time!!!). Then booted Windows XP Pro (SP2) and it asked for drivers, pointed it to latest Technisat Skystar2 drivers (alreday downloaded from web) and all OK. Installed their software and rebooted. Windows started up OK and then I started up their app and locked onto a sat signal and card was working. Then within 20 secs, mouse started to jerk all over screen and before I could do anything system hung - no CTRL/ALT/DEL or nbr-lock. Switched PC off and back on, windows booted fine with no errors or warnings. Everything looked OK. Strarted up the sat card app again, PC powered itself off. Started it back up and went into BIOS to switch off Cool 'n Quiet, but PC powered off again. Turned it back on to go back into BIOS, but it hung on "Entering Setup...". It has not POSTed since.

I immedietly tried to remove PCI sat card - still no POST. Then I removed all IDE devices (thinking maybe using too much power?), nothing. Removed graphics card, nothing. Removed memory, nothing. Removed everything except CPU, nothing. Cleared BIOS using jumper many times, nothing - even tried leaving jumper 10 mins, 20 mins, nothing.

Thought PSU maybe gone, laid old mobo (ABIT KT7A-RAID) out on desk, with a PCI graphics card, no devices, just graphics card, memory, CPU, and it POSTs fine. Removed graphics card, BIOS beeps at me as I expected.

I am trying to get the BIOS to beep at me on the new mobo - nothing - it feels like I can't clear BIOS - I have removed battery (and power cord) as their manual says - nothing.

The mobo powers on - well fans all spin, and 3 lights on keyboard flash as soon as I power it on, but no BIOS beep(s). Even tried with the memory, and a PCI graphics card just in case - nothing.

Any ideas??!!

Thanks

Edit -> By the way - I have not overclocked this at all - all settings still on AUTO in BIOS. Was still running BIOS that shipped - 1002? Board rev is 1.02. PSU is a Q-TEC 400W Dual fan Gold and only provides 16A on the +12V - but system was working fine for 1 week and this PSU still works on old mobo. That's why I wasn't trying to over-clock and I always planned to get a better PSU before SLI'ing! Plus the manual says a low end system must give > 17A but that is still with 2 6600GT's - I only have one.

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: slime uk

Edit -> By the way - I have not overclocked this at all - all settings still on AUTO in BIOS. Was still running BIOS that shipped - 1002? Board rev is 1.02. PSU is a Q-TEC 400W Dual fan Gold and only provides 16A on the +12V - but system was working fine for 1 week and this PSU still works on old mobo. That's why I wasn't trying to over-clock and I always planned to get a better PSU before SLI'ing! Plus the manual says a low end system must give > 17A but that is still with 2 6600GT's - I only have one.

The boards are power hungry. The bare minimum on nf3 based boards was at least 24a of the 12v rail. Now nf4 boards may be utilizing a little less power, (more efficient), but 16a is way low, even running a stripped down configuration. How this complicates your issue is how do you know whether or not your powersupply isn't causing the problem?

I use the Vision Plus and it's a hog when it comes to power requirements!

 

[sal69]

got the same board an all i can say:

i tried it with my sb-live card (pci) but xp always hung up. So i use onboard sound now and it works fine.

but if i enable q-fan the board wont post.

but asaf to reset the bios, switch the cmos jumper, boot, turn off switch the jumper back -> done.

sal

 

[bwentzel]

Running the 1002 BIOS, I thought I would give the AI NOS a try. Lock up city. Couldn't get into Windows. Nothing until I changed the BIOS settings back to default.

I'm guessing it was the PCI lock problem.

 

[slime uk]

Originally posted by: sal69
got the same board an all i can say:

i tried it with my sb-live card (pci) but xp always hung up. So i use onboard sound now and it works fine.

but if i enable q-fan the board wont post.

but asaf to reset the bios, switch the cmos jumper, boot, turn off switch the jumper back -> done.

sal

Hi Sal,

Are you saying I should actually try and boot the pc with the jumper moved to clear cmos? I thought you had to remove battery and power lead, switch the jumper and leave for 10 secs (some people are saying more like 10 mins as 10 secs did nothing!) and then switch jumper back, re-insert battery and then finally connect power lead back up. Then try booting - this I have done many times and it does feel like BIOS is not clearing!

Please can you explain (explicitly in steps??!!!) exactly what you mean? M A N Y T H A N K S !!!

 

[govern1]

Even though you may not be booting from the DiamondMax 10 hard drive, make sure that NCQ is disabled in XP on that drive. I do not use my for booting, I only use it for games, but if NCQ is enabled, my entire system acts up. Sometimes it won't boot, it will just hang at the XP screen. Disabling NCQ on the Maxtor fixes this.
Jut something to look at.

Shawn

 

[JMag]

Originally posted by: govern1
Even though you may not be booting from the DiamondMax 10 hard drive, make sure that NCQ is disabled in XP on that drive. I do not use my for booting, I only use it for games, but if NCQ is enabled, my entire system acts up. Sometimes it won't boot, it will just hang at the XP screen. Disabling NCQ on the Maxtor fixes this.
Jut something to look at.

Shawn

What BIOS are you using in conjunction with you DiamondMax10 drive?

 

[tretneo]

I had similar issues with this system when trying to OC. System would stop posting. OS on HD would get corrupted and stop booting, had to use cmos jumper a bunch of times. Once I stopped trying to Overclock and just focus on getting the system stable I got everything working just fine. I am running Stock CPU timings, DDR400 w/ 2-2-2-11-1T timings with no instability and using onboard LAN, Firewire and Sound with no troubles. Whenever I try to overclock either with multi or clock freq. I get major problems.

tret

 

[govern1]

I'm using the 1003-005 beta. I also tried it with the 1002 bios.

Shawn

 

[bwentzel]

Tretneo, what OS are you using? XP? SP1 or SP2?

Everytime I try to change the memory timings, I get the hard drive corruption issues as well as the inability to see the IDE primary channel. This is my 2nd A8N-SLI deluxe board. Rev 1.02.

 

[tretneo]

XP SP1, 1003-005 Bios, revision 1.02 board

tret

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: bwentzel
Tretneo, what OS are you using? XP? SP1 or SP2?

Everytime I try to change the memory timings, I get the hard drive corruption issues as well as the inability to see the IDE primary channel. This is my 2nd A8N-SLI deluxe board. Rev 1.02.

What powersupply are you using? I seen alot of issues that are powersupply problems these past few days, not just here but on alot of the other BBS as well. This technology won't work with a POS 400W or POS 450W powersupplies that cooks 20A or 21A on the 12v rail. What are the symptoms? BSOD's, bios settings that won't save, reboots when detecting the dma pool data, etc.

 

[bwentzel]

I'm using a Thermaltake 420w PS. I'm wondering if that's enough for everything I have in the box. I'll pick up bigger PS and see if that makes a difference.

Should I go 500 or 550?