*** Official ASUS A7N8X/Deluxe (nForce2) Thread ***

[besttoxin]

i wanna oc the cpu and memory but keep the video card stable.how should i set up the AGP frequency and voltage? fix the AGP frequency to 66 or set it auto?

 

[XPgeek]

to take full advantage of Dual-Channel, make sure the 2 sticks are the same, then put them in the 2 blue slots. then u b ok

 

[XPgeek]

besttoxin, set it to 66MHz for the AGP

 

[Mark]

this may sound like a stupid question, but will i have to buy anything if i want to put 3 hard drives in my system? 2 will be for storage and the other will for the os.

 

[floccus]

Well, not if you only have one optical drive (i.e. a cd drive). There are two IDE channels on the board, which support 2 devices each, so that gives you a total of 4 drives you can connect. If you buy and SATA drive, or have adapters, you can use those two channels and you then can sue 6 drives, although this would be a much more difficult setup. You'll want to make sure that you have your OS HD on IDE0 set as master.

 

[Mark]

unfortunatly i have a burner and dvd player and i really cant get rid of either. and i dont really plan on getting any serial drives either.

 

[azkiwi]

you can still plug these into the SATA ports by using PATA - SATA adapters, but yes you'll have to buy them - about $30 a pop from NewEgg.

 

[ciscobee]

I've had three hard lock-ups in XP SP1 in the last two days while connected to the net. I have a feeling it is due to a conflict with the SATA 3112 and my US Robotics modem ... (still rocking the dial-up) ... but I have tried disabling everything and it seems to still happen. CPU temp is at a consistent 39 - 42 degrees according to the BIOS ... and here is my RIG -
============
A7N8X Deluxe Retail
AMD 1700+ from newegg (on sale)
BIOS ver. (The chip says "AN8X5 1001 G 0328 GM Y21")
2x 256 Crucial DDR 2100
ASUS 64MB DDR AGP
US ROBOTICS 5699B Modem
============

I'm a bit green to tweaking the BIOS ... so I'm not sure what my next step is. There are settings for a AC97 Modem in the bios ... is that impacting my performance? Any Help/Advice will be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[thirdlegstump]

This may have been discussed but I'm building a new rig soon and would love to know what memory modules work best with this board.

I've built one a month ago using a single stick of 512MB Crucial 2700 and also tried Kingston KVR and the damned thing was unstable at 166 so I had to go down to 133. I even had the mem timings to conservative settings and tried changing voltages to no avail. I was using a Tbred A 1700+ and had the multiplier down to 9x when I tried that. Many errors in memtest and would crash during Sandra Burn in. I hear that many nforce 2 boards have this issue but many here are getting it working solid.

I'm planning on running a 1700+ TBred B this time at 166fsb or so but need a SOLID guarantee!
Are there any 512MB PC2700 modules that don't cost $100 a DIMM that work with minimal fuss?

 

[nippyjun]

Has anyone confirmed that the current shipping version of this mobo is in fact the nforce2 400 ultra chipset?

 

[snidy1]

Originally posted by: nippyjun
Has anyone confirmed that the current shipping version of this mobo is in fact the nforce2 400 ultra chipset?

Link

 

[nippyjun]

Originally posted by: snidy1

Originally posted by: nippyjun
Has anyone confirmed that the current shipping version of this mobo is in fact the nforce2 400 ultra chipset?

Link

Actually the link you provided for monarch says that it supports 400fsb but not that it uses the 400 ultra chipset. I'm not sure if there is actually a difference.

 

[floccus]

I've had three hard lock-ups in XP SP1 in the last two days while connected to the net. I have a feeling it is due to a conflict with the SATA 3112 and my US Robotics modem ... (still rocking the dial-up) ... but I have tried disabling everything and it seems to still happen. CPU temp is at a consistent 39 - 42 degrees according to the BIOS ... and here is my RIG -

First, flash the board with the new 1003 BIOS. That fixes some SATA issues.

 

[ciscobee]

Because I have never Flashed a BIOS before ... let me ask you this .... When I flash the BIOS will I still be able to boot up as normal and all of my devices, drivers, etc ... are still available? Or will flashing the BIOS hose my current configuration? Also ... if I flash the BIOS ... will I have to setup the BIOS again? ... or does it know my current settings ... like for processor ... etc?

 

[floccus]

Ok, when you flash the BIOS, you'll lose any changes you made to it. Now thats only really a problem if you're OCed and are using different voltages, multipliers, and clock frequencies. What will happen after the flash is that the BIOS will run and determine what your processor is and set it to the proper multiplier and clock frequency. It will also identify all your drives and ram. Basically it will do everything it did when you first installed your system. You might need to disable some options you aren't using again, but for the most part, after flashing you would be good to go. Try it, and if you have any problems then come back and we'll be glad to help ya out.

 

[FingerDemon]

Thanks for the answers to my previous questions. I have one more, I haven't been able to find an answer to. I was planning on getting a flat panel display (looking at the Hitachi 174). The reviewers of the monitor say it looks better when you use a DVI connection. But since I hope to build a new machine on an A7N8X board, I wanted to know if it has a DVI connection. I must confess looking at the tech specs of the board, I just don't know what some of those things are. But I didn't see anything that sounded like a DVI connection. I was hoping to save some bucks and go with the onboard video of the board until I have some more money to buy a Video board. I assume a newer board would have a DVI or at least list it as a feature. If anyone can enlighten me on this subject, I would certainly appreciate it.

I should probably reiterate, I am a newbie to most of this stuff.

Thanks,

FingerDemon

 

[Notaeh]

Hey..I was trying to set up the SATA on my computer and i have no idea where to start. I have the connectors that came with the mobo but I cant find a place to connect them onto the hd's with. Is there some type of adapter i need? If i do..where can i find that..thanks.

 

[MARMADUKE]

Looks like the Silicon Image SATA RAID controller is DEFECTIVE?
I would RMA FASTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

LOOK!

8RDA+ @ newegg $94

 

[azkiwi]

Originally posted by: FingerDemon
I was planning on getting a flat panel display (looking at the Hitachi 174). The reviewers of the monitor say it looks better when you use a DVI connection. But since I hope to build a new machine on an A7N8X board, I wanted to know if it has a DVI connection.

This board has no integrated graphics - you'll need to buy an AGP video card. Get one with DVI output, because it does make for a better image.

 

[thirdlegstump]

so no one knows exactly which mem modules are best for this board??

 

[azkiwi]

Originally posted by: Notaeh
Hey..I was trying to set up the SATA on my computer and i have no idea where to start. I have the connectors that came with the mobo but I cant find a place to connect them onto the hd's with. Is there some type of adapter i need? If i do..where can i find that..thanks.

SATA connects to SATA drives and you have PATA drives. There are adapters (Highpoint Rockethead seems popular in one form or another) but there is disagreement over how well they perform. Some people have no trouble, some have a measurable performance increase, and some folks using them for RAID configurations have big problems. How much of this is attributable to BIOS, the adapters or the onboard RAID drivers is unclear. I for one, would love to know - my board is in transit...

 

[TwiceOver]

OK I don't know if this has been covered. 7 Pages is alot to read through even though I am sure it is highly informative and worth the read but...

My Power LED keeps blinking. I always thought this was usually due to CPU overheat (Like a notification of a heat problem by the motherboard) however my temps are fine and I am using a good HSF. So I looked at the manual and it states that the Power LED will blink when the system is in "Sleep mode or Soft-Off mode" Kinda odd when I am using the system so clearly it is not in either of those modes.

This happens immediately upon bootup, even when the system has had time to cool down and everything.

Any Ideas? I will start reading the pages.

 

[snidy1]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
so no one knows exactly which mem modules are best for this board??

Don't know about the others, but my corsair twinX is great.

 

[floccus]

My Power LED keeps blinking. I always thought this was usually due to CPU overheat (Like a notification of a heat problem by the motherboard) however my temps are fine and I am using a good HSF. So I looked at the manual and it states that the Power LED will blink when the system is in "Sleep mode or Soft-Off mode" Kinda odd when I am using the system so clearly it is not in either of those modes.

This happens immediately upon bootup, even when the system has had time to cool down and everything.

Any Ideas? I will start reading the pages.

Are you sure you have the power led attached to the correct header? Its pretty simple to connect the power led to the HD header and vice versa...

 

[TwiceOver]

Originally posted by: floccus

My Power LED keeps blinking. I always thought this was usually due to CPU overheat (Like a notification of a heat problem by the motherboard) however my temps are fine and I am using a good HSF. So I looked at the manual and it states that the Power LED will blink when the system is in "Sleep mode or Soft-Off mode" Kinda odd when I am using the system so clearly it is not in either of those modes.

This happens immediately upon bootup, even when the system has had time to cool down and everything.

Any Ideas? I will start reading the pages.

Are you sure you have the power led attached to the correct header? Its pretty simple to connect the power led to the HD header and vice versa...

Yes they are on the correct headers. It's not blinking randomly... It's on/off/on/off/on/off..........