Asus A8V Stability Problems

[MoodyMan]

I built a system around one of the Asus A8V rev2 boards that came bundled with the wi-fi card.

Everything has been pretty smooth so far with my new system (see below) and I haven't had much cause for concern with the motherboard. However I have recently added a 2nd s-ata hard drive and a dvd-rom to make burning dvd / cd's easier.

Unfortunatly I have been having some weird issues with everything just freezing for around 4-5 seconds unable to move mouse cursor, keyboard, etc even hard disk drive activity ceases then everything goes back to normal with no error messages etc. This can happen at anytime - it has even happened in the BIOS setup screen. I have done the following to try and fix the problem. Doing a google search for (a8v freezing) shows that I am not the only one having these issues.

1. Flashed to 1003, 1006, 1007, 1008 beta1 & 1008 beta2 bios running on stock settings - still freezing.
2. Increased Vdimm to 2.8 and Vcore to 1.55 neither worked.
3. Ran memtest for 24hrs on my overclock settings with no errors
4. Ran prime for 24hrs with no problems

After doing 3 & 4 I am pretty convinced that it's not my overclock thats the problem especially given that after flashing to all currently available bios's and booting up with stock settings the freeze problem was still occuring.

The only thing that *I think* has worked was to disable my new dvd-rom. I'm still not 100% but I haven't had a freeze since doing this yesterday afternoon.

Any suggestions other than RMA'ing the board? I am considering buying an ABIT AV8 but i'll miss having 4x sata ports (am I right in thinking only the ASUS A8V comes with 4?)

 

[AtomSmasher]

I've got an A8V Rev 2 & thought that revision was only available without WIFI. Are you sure yours is really a rev 2 (does it say that revision # silkscreened between the pci slots ?).

I'm also running a 3500+ processor but have a 6800GT video board, 1GB OCZ 3200EB memory & an OCZ 520 Watt supply. Those are the only differences. I've seen no stability problems of any kind. The couple of things I can think of:

- The 3700EB takes a higher than default (2.5) voltage. I think the 3700 is up around 2.8. I would thinkg the Ram voltage should be set to this in any event.

- What's the 12 Volt current rating on the NeoPower ? My OCZ is 32 or 33 Amps. Before this I had an Antec 550 Watt TruPower that only put out 24 Amp max & had issues. Other people on forums (pcper) have indicated the same. Lots of 12 volt juice is needed & a P.S. that only supplies around 20 Amps or so might not be enough. Especially if you'r running a power hog like the 6800 series video cards.

- Not really a rev 2. As I indicated before I thought all the WIFI's were the older (1.02 ?) revision board & you could only get the rev 2 if you bought the non-wifi version. I think the older ones came in a green box while the non-wifi rev 2's came in a white box.

- AS

 

[MoodyMan]

Originally posted by: AtomSmasher
I've got an A8V Rev 2 & thought that revision was only available without WIFI. Are you sure yours is really a rev 2 (does it say that revision # silkscreened between the pci slots ?).

I'm also running a 3500+ processor but have a 6800GT video board, 1GB OCZ 3200EB memory & an OCZ 520 Watt supply. Those are the only differences. I've seen no stability problems of any kind. The couple of things I can think of:

- The 3700EB takes a higher than default (2.5) voltage. I think the 3700 is up around 2.8. I would thinkg the Ram voltage should be set to this in any event.

- What's the 12 Volt current rating on the NeoPower ? My OCZ is 32 or 33 Amps. Before this I had an Antec 550 Watt TruPower that only put out 24 Amp max & had issues. Other people on forums (pcper) have indicated the same. Lots of 12 volt juice is needed & a P.S. that only supplies around 20 Amps or so might not be enough. Especially if you'r running a power hog like the 6800 series video cards.

- Not really a rev 2. As I indicated before I thought all the WIFI's were the older (1.02 ?) revision board & you could only get the rev 2 if you bought the non-wifi version. I think the older ones came in a green box while the non-wifi rev 2's came in a white box.

- AS

My board is etched rev2 in between the PCI slots. I think the first of the rev2's still came with the wi-fi bundle as it came in a white box.

According to Antec the 12v rating of the NeoPower is 15A+18A which I assume is 33A?

I will try boosting the Vdimm to 2.8 but i'm running out of options here other than rebuilding with a different motherboard (bought an Abit AV8 3rd Eye today).

EDIT:

Just had another freeze after raising Vdimm to 2.8. One last thing I'm going to do is to hook up 2nd cd-drive to the 2nd ide port instead of running them both of the same one. If that doesn't work I'm rebuilding with the Abit AV8 - SICK OF FOOLING WITH THIS BIATCH NOW

 

[AtomSmasher]

Originally posted by: MoodyMan
However I have recently added a 2nd s-ata hard drive and a dvd-rom to make burning dvd / cd's easier.

The NeoPower has 2 separate 12 volt rails. Try changing your power configuration so the drives are all isolated on one rail. Adding a hard drive & dvd-rom (2 more motors) might be pulling 2 much current & causing the hangs. I was looking at those supplies when I picked up my OCZ but figgured one rail with a really big capacity might be better than 2 with only medium outputs.

 

[Ironmanstl]

I dont have stability problems at all but,

perhaps reinstall the via 4in1s
is your dvd sata or ide?
I know you can't put a sata cd/dvd on either the promise or the via controller,
don't remember which right now... it says in small print in the manual

It sounds driver related to me or their is a conflict with something

so this problem wasn't there before you installed your additoinal drives?

 

[MoodyMan]

Both my DVD-rom and DVD-R are IDE.
I have tried reinstalling the via 4in1s done 3 clean format complete reinstalls.
I know that my system was 100% stable when I first built it.

Since then I added the X800XT PE to replace the 9800XT I had. I didn't notice any freezing problems however they may have been as there was only a few days in between upgrading video and adding 2nd HD and the DVD-rom.

I rebuilt my system again last night with an ABIT AV8 board and the freeze problem was still there. So beginning to think problem is releated to the via chipset not liking some aspect of my system (most probably the video card). Although it could also be the PSU but i'd have though 480w would have been ample.

Atomsmasher what do you mean by 2 seperate 12v rails and isolating the drives on one rail - do you mean plugging them all in with the same cable?. Right now I have one cable powering my 2 hard drives, the fan only connecter plugged into my case fan, another cable powering only my video card and a 3rd cable powering my 2 dvd drives and floppy disk..... would i be better off using extensions cables and plugging all my storage devices into the one cable??

Solutions I am thinking of trying now are:

a) Install XP SP2 but do not install Via agp drivers per http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=13&threadid=59005&enterthread=y

b) Swap HD's around and install XP on Hitachi HD to rule out problem with raptor causing freezes

c) Buy an nForce 3 based motherboard, probably the MSI Neo2 and rebuild.

d) Replace video card don't really want to do this took me long enough to get my hands on the damn thing.

e) live with the random freezes

This is getting depressing

MoodyMan

 

[Squally Leonharty]

Well... I'm not sure if this will help since I don't see anything about gaming in this thread, but have you tried disabling FastWrite in the BIOS? Even in normal environments, FW tends to cause trouble on some, if not most, graphics cards and/or motherboards.

Just a suggestion, though. >_o

 

[imported_Harbinger]

I have the same board , Rev2.0 bundled with WiFi card and antenna. The box is indeed grey-ish instead of Rev1.x Green-ish. And I though as well that Rev2.0 would be no wifi. I ordered the board (thinking it should be 1.x) and surprise-surprise , its 2.0 That trully made my day

 

[Squally Leonharty]

Same thing happened to me as well. I really hoped the motherboard would be of revision 2.00, because that was poorly indicated on the online store where I got it from. I even contacted the helpdesk and they said they couldn't check because "the motherboards are selling too fast". xD Anyhow, upon arrival I noticed it had a white box, so w00t! It was revision 2.00.

Edit: Except that I didn't get WiFi and antenna. Oh well.

 

[MoodyMan]

I rebuilt with the abit AV8 mobo but the freeze problem is still occuring HELP

 

[Squally Leonharty]

Well, it's a bit hard to troubleshoot this, but try the following:

- Use a spare graphics card (nVidia or ATI, doesn't matter, as long as it fits on the motherboard; remove one from another computer if needed). If the freezes don't occur anymore, then it's your X800XT OR your PSU.
- Disconnect all HDDs and optical drives not needed for XP to run. If there are no more freezes, then either your PSU couldn't handle all of the components OR one of the devices are faulty.

Now we need to rule out these possibilities. That's going to be hard.

- Insert the X800XT graphics card in another computer and disconnect all non-vital HDDs and optical drives on that computer. If there are freezings occuring, then it's the graphics card. Otherwise you need check the PSU or the devices in the computer that's causing problems.
- With the spare card still inserted in the bad computer, connect one optical drive and start it up. If there are no freezings, continue with adding one device at a time and checking if it freezes. When it does freeze, the last connected device is faulty OR the PSU can't handle the device.
- To test this, take out the "faulty" device and test it in another computer. If there are freezings, then it's the device. Otherwise it's the PSU.

I hope this works. And I do hope you have another computer, because you will need it for the tests. Otherwise have a friend help you with your problem by lending you his computer.

 

[geom]

Hi all,
i have the same probs with A8V Deluxe, A64 3500+ and kingston memory 2x kvr400x64c3a/512 which is on the qualified asus list.
My vga card is an old Geforce4 MX 440 64MB which it works fine in my old pc.
I cannot even install windows (any version) in dual channel configuration on IDE or SATA disk. I tried all possible combinations with SATA and IDE controllers.
I have a Zalman 400B-APS with 18amps on 12VDC+. Is this the part that causes the problems ?