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

[DanStp]

I sold my A7N8X, and I am getting a new Version 2.0. Can I just put this in my case or do I need to do anything with Windows XP? How close is this to the old version 1.4? Will windows see the MB chipset and bios the same, or since the chipset is updated will it detcect them differeently? I know the Vs 2.0 uses a different bios.

Has anyone done this upgrade from Vs 1.4 to 2.0 of the MB with WIndows XP?

Thanks in advance

 

[floccus]

It will work fine. Because you're still using the nForce2 chipset, in fact you're using the same board again, Windows won't notice any difference. The BIOS works below the OS so that won't mean anything. So yeah, just install it, it'll be fine.

 

[Eapiel]

Thought I might be able to get an answer on this thread.
I first bought an AMD 2100+ Tbred and 256 MB Corsair 2100 Ram. While I was waiting for my newly ordered Asus A7N8x Deluxe to show up, I stuck the 2100 and Corsair ram in my Abit KR7-A Raid MB with quite a few PCI devices and of course video card. I was easily able to push up to 180 FSB on the Abit and found it most stable at 175 with average cooling. This yielded almost a 2300 mhz speed and dramatically improved performance.
After I got the new motherboard installed, and ran it at stock speeds, I tried overclocking the exact same chip and Corsair Ram but now it's a terrible overclocker. I cannot go past 150 FSB without computer locking or rebooting. I thought it might be some mystery setting in the bios but I can't find anything on this site or elsewhere to help.

New CPU
Antec 330W true power
Asus A7n8x deluxe rev2.00
Radeon 9500pro
Win 2000 pro

Old CPU
Generic 300W cheapie
Abit KR7-A Raid (now running 1800+)
Radeon 8500 retail
SB live
Dlink Ethernet adapter
Win 2000 pro

As you can see I am running no extra peripherals on the Asus other than the video card, which should be locked at 66mhz in the Bios if I have it set at 66 (right?). There are no PCI devices hooked up. I am using the onboard audio and lan.

I am extremely disappointed with my lack of overclocking ability. Can someone point me to a thread or website that goes step by step for the bios? Or do I have a bum board? Thanks in advance.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Originally posted by: Eapiel
Thought I might be able to get an answer on this thread.
I first bought an AMD 2100+ Tbred and 256 MB Corsair 2100 Ram. While I was waiting for my newly ordered Asus A7N8x Deluxe to show up, I stuck the 2100 and Corsair ram in my Abit KR7-A Raid MB with quite a few PCI devices and of course video card. I was easily able to push up to 180 FSB on the Abit and found it most stable at 175 with average cooling. This yielded almost a 2300 mhz speed and dramatically improved performance.
After I got the new motherboard installed, and ran it at stock speeds, I tried overclocking the exact same chip and Corsair Ram but now it's a terrible overclocker. I cannot go past 150 FSB without computer locking or rebooting. I thought it might be some mystery setting in the bios but I can't find anything on this site or elsewhere to help.

New CPU
Antec 330W true power
Asus A7n8x deluxe rev2.00
Radeon 9500pro
Win 2000 pro

Old CPU
Generic 300W cheapie
Abit KR7-A Raid (now running 1800+)
Radeon 8500 retail
SB live
Dlink Ethernet adapter
Win 2000 pro

As you can see I am running no extra peripherals on the Asus other than the video card, which should be locked at 66mhz in the Bios if I have it set at 66 (right?). There are no PCI devices hooked up. I am using the onboard audio and lan.

I am extremely disappointed with my lack of overclocking ability. Can someone point me to a thread or website that goes step by step for the bios? Or do I have a bum board? Thanks in advance.

Seems like a common issue with Nforce2 boards...hence the reason I posted my question as to which memory modules work best at 166/333Mhz. I just ordered a 512MB Corsair XMS LLPT DIMM. Hopefully that'll work at 166/333. Crucial and Kingston haven't worked for me at those speeds. I also just ordered the Epox board to try out. I'll let you know how it goes once I get em. It'll be tested with a Tbred -B- 1700+XP.

 

[hagbard]

I'm getting weird temperature readings:

CPU: never over 40c in bios or MBM
Motherboard: MBM usually around 13c!!!! Bios is around 22c.

This has been with the 1002 and 1003 bios.

Now, the air coming out of the back is pretty warm. I have a fan in front, one in back and two from the power supply (Enermax 300 watt), and a Volcano 9. Is the sensor defective?

A7N8X deluxe ver. 2
XP2100+ P
ATI AIW7500AGP
ATI Xpert128
Mushkin level 2 PC2700
Western Digital 100GB

 

[azkiwi]

Hagbard - I am by no means expert here, but have been reading all the A7N8XD threads in anticipation on my board arriving. THe great majority of good overclocks I see are with 2700, 3000 or faster memory. Several threads mention this board (chipset?) is picky about RAM - sonm eof which has been alleviated with later bios and board revisions. I would suggest you try some faster RAM if you can.

 

[floccus]

Actually, the temps are usually reported really weird depending on what you use to check them. Also, your temps don't sound bad. The core itself will be a lot hotter than the board itself. Also, the thermal diode isn't very good at detecting the true temperatures so take what you see for a grain of salt.

 

[Zorro]

What is the best bios to use now 1004 or what ?
I have a amd 2400 cant even get it to adjust fsb to 10x15
what are the best settings for the amd 2400 and do i need to do anything to the board to unlock it


and how do i turn off the Sata search when booting up ?

Thanks

 

[XRdirtHead]

zorro
there is a jumper just below your battery...its on pins 1 and 2. if you change it to 2 and 3 your computer won't search for the sata on boot up....
I downloaded the new bios file but am waiting for someone else to try them out....

 

[floccus]

The latest gold BIOS is 1003. It works fine so feel free to flash up to it. Just be careful not to screw up and ruin the board. That doens't seem to be as much an issue as before, but its always an issue when flashing a BIOS that it will fail.

 

[hagbard]

What about the 1004 bios? Its says "final"?

 

[XRdirtHead]

It didnt sound like floccus knew about the new bios....
LINK

 

[DanStp]

Upgrading to Version 2.0 A7N8X.

I thought I would share this with the board. I went from a Vs 1.04 to a 2.0 today. WIndows sees alot of new hardware when you boot. I had to reinstall my ATI Video Drivers, but other than that it was an easy upgrade. I am running Windows XP and a 2100 Tbred @ 2200, 11 x 200. This board runs much cooler the esp the north and southbridges. And it hits 200 mhz much easier, and is much more stable at 200 mhz, now I can run it 24/7 @200 mhz. In short I think ASUS fixed all the bugs with this one.

 

[floccus]

It didnt sound like floccus knew about the new bios....

Apparently I not. I checked last week so either I didn't see it or my mind has quit and has left for the summer already.... which is bad with finals and papers still to come...

 

[XRdirtHead]

OK who's going to try out these new bios and give us the skinny....WHERES CHIZ?!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Wigwam]

is this 1004 bios a beta or a final release? it seems awfully soon after the 1003final - is there a major problem they had to adress? i cant find the bios let alone a list of fixes on th global site but admittedly havent looked at the german site [i think new bioses seem to be posted here first]

i concur: WHERE IS CHIZOW?!

 

[rickn]

the 1004 doesn't mention beta on asus website. the listed fixes are

1. Fix A7N8X system fails to resume from S3 when using ATI RADEON 8500DV AGP VGA card
2. Added "Dual Channel mode" or "Single Channel mode" string on POST screen
3. Update CPU frequency table up to 300MHz in BIOS setting

 

[chizow]

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been active in this thread the last week or so....PlanetSide Beta has kept me occupied in all of my free time since I got in last weekend. Its good to see you guys are answering each other's questions tho. I tend not to tweak just for the sake of tweaking; I really tweak and upgrade in anticipation of that next game that sucks away 3-4 months of my life at a time. I think I've found it.

Anyways, I downloaded 1004 a few days ago; it was featured on nForcersHQ a few days ago and is listed on the German FTP site. I didn't see it on the Global or N. America sites, so that's probably why some of you missed it. It looks to be final, but its well known that Asus takes a bit of time to get all of their FTP sites updated. I haven't bothered trying it, but I may give it a shot if PS's servers go down at some point this weekend. It seems Rev 2.0 is pretty resilient on the BIOS side of things; its similar to 1001.E for Rev 1.4 where a simple cold boot would fix any POST problems after a BIOS edit. This could change for 1004 though, so if you do flash, just take the normal precautions when editing your BIOS and you should be OK (change a few things at a time, save, save and exit, and adjust the FSB slowly.)

If you guys have any issues that haven't been answered for a while and aren't in this thread, PM me. I read through here sometimes but don't reply, but I'm pretty good about getting back to PMs.

Chiz

 

[rickn]

1004 is on their taiwain website now

 

[nippyjun]

I read through all the messages but didn't find a clear answer on this:

What is the best order to install the software for an a78nx deluxe mobo?

Is it:
1. Winxp
2. Video drivers
-DX9
3. winxp sp1
4. UDP drivers
5. USB 2.0 drivers (do these need to be installed ?)

Thanks.

 

[rickn]

winxp
sp1
nforce2 drivers
dx9
vid drivers

so on and so on

 

[Wigwam]

can someone please confirm if it is necessary to install the usb2.0 drivers that are listed separately on the asus site in addition to the UDP and if so what do they do?
i assume you do need to otherwise why would they post it!

also, just bought the board [rev 2.0] but unfortunately cannot build for a few days so making use of the time to get info clear
can somone tell me what bios rev ships with the this revision and if 1003 is it necessary to upgrade to 1004 if i dont intend to o/c above 200mhz...yet

 

[qquizz]

Originally posted by: Wigwam
can someone please confirm if it is necessary to install the usb2.0 drivers that are listed separately on the asus site in addition to the UDP and if so what do they do?
i assume you do need to otherwise why would they post it!

also, just bought the board [rev 2.0] but unfortunately cannot build for a few days so making use of the time to get info clear
can somone tell me what bios rev ships with the this revision and if 1003 is it necessary to upgrade to 1004 if i dont intend to o/c above 200mhz...yet

FYI: I just got my rev2 board about 2 weeks ago. It came with 1003 bios. I just used the drivers from the cd that came with it and everything has been flawless so far. I havent used a USB2.0 device though, just a regular USB connection

 

[rickn]

Originally posted by: Wigwam
can someone please confirm if it is necessary to install the usb2.0 drivers that are listed separately on the asus site in addition to the UDP and if so what do they do?
i assume you do need to otherwise why would they post it!

also, just bought the board [rev 2.0] but unfortunately cannot build for a few days so making use of the time to get info clear
can somone tell me what bios rev ships with the this revision and if 1003 is it necessary to upgrade to 1004 if i dont intend to o/c above 200mhz...yet

no need for the usb 2.0 drivers if you install sp1

 

[MARMADUKE]

Chiz...
This guy ( sianof ) PM me about 3 times to help him set up his new asus nforce2 mobo, I must be famous around anandtech ? anyway we got it to boot up, and then he wanted to know what to do in bios? please give him PM and tell him I sent ya, I know nothing about the Asus except that my Epox is better!

Hey..
I got my new 8RDA+ C1 mobo with spdif 5 pin output and it did 220 stable out of box and 240 after I did artic silver epoxy reset of NB & SB but I got windows error system32 corrupted? how could that happen with my pci lock? Nvidia IDE drivers? what do you think?