*** Official ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4) Thread ***

[Dream Operator]

After installing the zalman northbridge heatsink, I no longer have my sec IDE. My usb cd-rom shows up, but not my dvd-rom and dvd burner. I did try a new cable. The drives are not in the bios, and obviously not in windows. I left the power supply connected during the install, though I did hit the switch.

Anybody had issues like this?

 

[cronic]

TRIPP 17 I'M WITH YOU. I have tinkered with this board for a month. Its OK, BUT its no overclocker. I repeat, it sucks for overclocking. It really is a shame. This is the 4th asus motherboard i have owned and the 3rd asus video card. I have been completly happy up until the A8n-SLI. Don't get me wrong it will preform to factory spec all day long, but it is a terrible overclocker. Unfortunatly I didn't buy this board to run at stock settings. I give up. the boards going on ebay tonight. I just preordered the DFI LAN PARTY NFORCE 4 SLI-DR. due in on March 2nd. I will keep you guys up to speed on my results with that board. Thanks for all your help in this forum.

 

[Gavin77]

Originally posted by: epiieq1
So I've been reading the posts for awhile now and have got my system setup. It's running without any errors, and I've got the RAID functioning just fine. I've run into one major issue though. I did a direct install of Windows XP with Service Pack 2. I can't get any of the onboard USB 2.0 ports to work as USB 2.0. They're all listed as 1.1. Anybody have a similar problem? Any suggestions? I'm currently running the 1003 BIOS.

Thanks,
epiieq1

I had the same USB driver issue with my new ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard. There was still a question mark in device manager after I went through all the driver cd installs AND windows update..with all updates including SP2 of course. To fix it, go to device manager, right click the usb device in question and select update driver. Then say yes to search windows update for drivers, and it will install the correct driver for USB 2.0

Gavin

 

[kayble]

Originally posted by: kki000
Kayble, i had more or less the same problem and the consensus was to update the bios. When i went from 1002 to 1003 this went away for the most part. When i tried to overclock it, i ran into some of these again. What some ppl here noticed is that the a8n seemed to undervolt the cpu. The default should have been 1.5 but the actual reading read something like 1.478 or so. Im running at 1.525 and it registers slightly above 1.5.
Have u tried giving yer cpu some more juice? try 1.525, its only a little above spec, maybe you have a sensitive cpu that doesnt like what the asus is sending by default.
Good luck,
K

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunatley it didnt work as I cannot save anything to the bios so I can't save the change to increase the cpu vcore voltage...

 

[imported_2x]

With the northbridge fan, if I went to remover the grill that covers the fan and the heatsink tilted/rocked in place, then sprung back into position while I was removing the screws, does this mean I broke some thermal seal and the seal cannot be redone without taking the whole thing off or will it just reseal itself once it gets hot? Hope that makes some sense.

 

[imported_starfury6]

Does anyone have this board running with dual 6800 Ultras and an OCZ 520W Powerstream PSU running okay at default speeds? I have that setup and I am getting major artifacts in 3d apps I can only put down to power since I have had no stability problems and I believe I have adequate cooling. I'd like to know how you have connected the board, drives and cards up with which cables from the PSU. That would at least help me track down my problem. At the moment I can't even get through 3dmark05 and the 1003 bios doesn't appear to be on the FTP anylonger (which makes me think I wont use it even if I find it, it must have been yanked for a reason).

 

[imported_starfury6]

Temps aren't that bad actually. Idles top card at 43 and idle lower card at 41.

 

[on2wheels]

I can't get past an XP installation hang at the EULA (F8 does nothing).

Everything in my system is new, but I've got my old W2K box for debug, so I've started narrowing the unknowns. I'd appreciate any sage advice at this point. Here's my debug history...

1. New XP OEM SP1 CD, I used F6 and installed the NV mass storage, NV RAID, and SIL RAID drivers from the support CD (EULA hang)
2. OEM SP1 CD, I didn't hit F6 (EULA hang)
3. Took out the SATA drives, formatted IDE drive and didn't use F6 (EULA hang)
4. Made boot CD and updated the BIOS to 1003 and tried #1,2,3 again (EULA hang)
5. Made boot CD and updated the BIOS to 1004-001 and tried #1,2,3 (EULA hang)
6. Ran Memtest86 on both DIMMS 100% successfully (EULA hang)
7. Tried 266MHz DIMMS from old system (EULA HANG)
8. Used Seagate DiskWizard to successfully configure, read, and write to SATA and IDE drives (EULA hang)
9. Put IDE drive in old system, and tried XP SP2 CD (EULA hang)
10. Booted W2K on old system, and loaded XP SP2 CD (graphics works, looks fine)

Q1. What does XP do after you hit F8 (agree to the EULA)?
Q2. Does XP require a working ethernet port to install?
Q3. What should I try next?

Shannon

 

[MeatHead88]

Clear your CMOS by unplugging the power, take battery out of mboard, switch CMOS Reset jumper, wait 10 min, put battery back in, put CMOS jumper back the way it was, plug power in.

Give that a shot and let us know...

 

[Shaga]

Originally posted by: on2wheels
I can't get past an XP installation hang at the EULA (F8 does nothing).

Be sure you have enabled f-keys, "f-keys", it's button on keyboard which activates f1-f12 keys. You don't need to press f-keys for windows-based installation(*pointing at win2000*) and you might have a keyboard driver enabling it automatically.

Might help you..

 

[tmchow]

Originally posted by: on2wheels
I can't get past an XP installation hang at the EULA (F8 does nothing).

Make sure you disabled "Bios Antivirus" (not sure exact wording in yoru Asus bios). This used to cause problem with other motherboards, not sure why. Solution is to disable it, do install and re-enable after.

 

[imported_starfury6]

Bios 1003 has solved the problems. I just hope it doesn't drop the Maxtor SATA after a few reboots like it has other peoples.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=595558

Thats more like it 9353 in 3dmark05

The loading screen for 3dmark still got 'wobbly' when it reached the 2 cpu tests but there was not one iota of texture tearing or artifacting and the temps were fine under the load:

57C CPU
42C Chipset
52C Card 1
42C Card 2

 

[imported_starfury6]

Funny this wobbling effect, definitely CPU related, it happened during the cpu tests on 3dark03 too. Maybe the core voltage is running low or something. Everything else is rock solid.

 

[Whitewolf]

For people having trouble going beyond the 220 HTT (FSB) make sure your HTT multiplier is actually set to what you have configured in the bios. All these days I had mine on 4x in the bios and couldn't get beyond 220 and today I found out via nTune that it was set to 5x thous ignoring the bios setting. I reflashed my bios (I have 1004.001) making sure that the cmos is deleted (either do the battery-jumper trick or just do the flash with asusupdate which has an option to clear cmos) and ti got fixed. I can now run up to 310 HTT!

 

[ryoanji]

Whitewolf, many thanks for observation. I am presently stuck at 235 HTT. Indeed, when I flashed to 1004 beta I was able to go as high as 340 HTT. But my problem was that with 1004 bios I could not run memory at the divider and 1T at the same time! Can you? What is the highest HTT you can run your memory at 1T? Also, AI booster seemed to report "FSB" always correctly, i.e. HTT x LDT multi...

Thanks a lot

 

[shredder016]

Ryoanji, when I forced 1T timing I also had to back off considerably on mem speed, either by HTT or reduce mem mult to DDR 333. AT 2T timeing I was HTT 274, DDR400 (so mem @ 274), now I'm HTT 274 DDR 333 (so mem's @ 224) and she's stable. I've got CAS# Lat at 2 but all others auto (2 3 3 7 10 18 1T).

I've got a question, I'd like to experiment with cpu multipliers above 9, but my BIOS max's out at 9, is there something I need to download to mod this setting? I've got the latest beta bios 1004.001.

You mentioned
"AI booster seemed to report "FSB" always correctly, i.e. HTT x LDT multi..."
did you mean incorrectly? For me AIBooster incorrectly reports FSB of 1420 (SB 274x4=1100) and HTT of 355 (SB 274). I guess above a certain HTT it just gets whacky?

 

[Whitewolf]

I have more info on the HTT multiplier. I was fine running 4x with 241 HTT (964 total) but when I rebooted without changing anything, nTune reported that the multiplier was set by itself (!!) to 3x (I repeat I didn't change anything/ not even entered bios). I rebooted and entered bios and saw that my 4x setting was intact so definately the bios setting of 4x doesn't work. I cleared cmos as described in the manual (battery/jumper method) and I reentered all my info. Now whatever I set the multi it stays at 5x. This was unacceptable with my HTT (241) so I lowered it to 200, entered windows, flashed bios with asus update ( "clear the cmos" option enabled) and then rebooted. I reentered my info and this time the 4x multi worked. I tried rebooting and to no suprise the same thing happened, the HTT multi as reported by nTune was 3x. I will let it stay that way as I can't do anything. It's definately a bios bug (let's don't forget this is a beta bios) that will be fixed :/

To summarize my findings:
1) It's better to flash from windows (asusupdate) as it's the only way to make the HTT multi change from 5x to 3x (4x does not work!). The regular cmos reset (battery/jumper) keeps it locked in 5x all the time at least for me and my 1004 bios.
2) Trust only nTune for the total HT bus. I know nTune sucks for OC but it's pretty good for this information. In all my above experiments the Ai Booster reported the HT bus as the "HTT multi set in bios" x "current HTT". As of writing this, nTune reports 3x241=723 and Ai Booster 4x241=964. Obviously someone is lying here and based on the above paragraph it's definately nTune telling the truth.

@ryoanji
If I understand correctly you are asking what my maximum HTT is with memory at 1T. That is 241 to 245. I can boot in 245 but it's not stable and I get errors in memtest. However with 241 it's stable both with spi 32M and prime.

 

[Whitewolf]

shredder016 with regular A64 cpus you can't increase the cpu multi. You can only decrease it. This is allowed by AMD so that the cool and quiet feature can work (it lowers your multi automatically if you have it enabled). On the other side the FX cpus can change the multi in both ways. Fair enough I guess.

Oh and you beat me to the Ai Booster thingy

 

[ryoanji]

Many thanks. I will try nTune when I will get home. Ai Booster definitely has as many bugs as crappy Asus bios.

My problem is that with 1003 final I cannot post above 235. When overclocking from Windows with Clockgen, the way system freezes at 235-240 makes me think that PCI locks are not functioning. It is either "freeze" and Windows reports on the next boot that display adaptor cound not complete ... etc or BSOD with nvraid at fault. (I drop CPU multi to 5 and mem to DDR200 1/2 divider to take it out of equation).

If I flash to 1004, I can raise HTT to 340. But, I cannot run memory at a divider and at 1T at the same time, at all. Neither at 193, nor 167, nor 218 1T etc.

Crappy Asus BIOS! :frown:

P.S. And it is not the PSU issue

 

[shredder016]

Guess I've been lucky then, I'm able to set HTT multy to 4X in BIOS and verify it with N-Tune, and I'm able to run memory divider at DDR333 and 1T.

Settings:
HTT: 274
HTT Mult: 4x (so 1100 FSB)
Mem Dvdr: DDR333 (so mem @228)
CPU Mult: 9 (so 2466 mhz cpu)
Dram @ 2 3 3 7 10 18 1T
BIOS 1004.001 beta

So I'm pretty happy with this, but want to experiment with slower latency, faster speed memory settings. This way I can max out the CPU because it can take 2.6 Ghz, the trade off will be memory at CAS2.5 and 2T timing (which I've heard is bad for athlon 64, i.e. slow)

 

[ryoanji]

Why then you do not try droping CPU multi to 8, raising HTT to 325 and using 2/3 mem divider to give you mem at 217 which I am sure you can run at a very tight timing of 2225? EDIT, also can you do HTT 289 5/6 divider with mem running at 241? You *should* be able to get it with 1T. Just use cas 2.5 and left all else on auto. I have seen people do that on a8n. Good luck

 

[shredder016]

Thanks, I'll give that a try (HTT 325, mem dvdr 2/3). Regarding running mem at 241 with 1T, I'm pretty sure that didn't work but I'll have to double check. What I don't remember is if I'd forced CAS to 2 at the same time. What is 1T,2T anyway? Does it have much effect on memory and/or system performance? Is it more improtant than the various latency values?

 

[F4810]

Originally posted by: Whitewolf
I have more info on the HTT multiplier. I was fine running 4x with 241 HTT (964 total) but when I rebooted without changing anything, nTune reported that the multiplier was set by itself (!!) to 3x (I repeat I didn't change anything/ not even entered bios). I rebooted and entered bios and saw that my 4x setting was intact so definately the bios setting of 4x doesn't work. I cleared cmos as described in the manual (battery/jumper method) and I reentered all my info. Now whatever I set the multi it stays at 5x. This was unacceptable with my HTT (241) so I lowered it to 200, entered windows, flashed bios with asus update ( "clear the cmos" option enabled) and then rebooted. I reentered my info and this time the 4x multi worked. I tried rebooting and to no suprise the same thing happened, the HTT multi as reported by nTune was 3x. I will let it stay that way as I can't do anything. It's definately a bios bug (let's don't forget this is a beta bios) that will be fixed :/

To summarize my findings:
1) It's better to flash from windows (asusupdate) as it's the only way to make the HTT multi change from 5x to 3x (4x does not work!). The regular cmos reset (battery/jumper) keeps it locked in 5x all the time at least for me and my 1004 bios.
2) Trust only nTune for the total HT bus. I know nTune sucks for OC but it's pretty good for this information. In all my above experiments the Ai Booster reported the HT bus as the "HTT multi set in bios" x "current HTT". As of writing this, nTune reports 3x241=723 and Ai Booster 4x241=964. Obviously someone is lying here and based on the above paragraph it's definately nTune telling the truth.

@ryoanji
If I understand correctly you are asking what my maximum HTT is with memory at 1T. That is 241 to 245. I can boot in 245 but it's not stable and I get errors in memtest. However with 241 it's stable both with spi 32M and prime.

I think you are right. There is a problem with the 1004.01 bios in relation to the HTT multiplier. I ran at 1:1 memory CPU multi x 10 and HTT x4 and could not oc over 232mhz. However on earlier bios versions I could get up to 240 @ 1T. Aibooster and bios says x 4 but I think its actually x5. This makes sense as 232x5 = 1160 HTT which is close to the max HTT I see most people getting before errors. When I change to HTT x3 in bios I could then OC over 232x10.

Great spot. I think this needs to get out as a lot of people say this bios is no good for O/Cing but I am now getting the best OC's so far.

 

[imported_CMBurns]

Hi all. I built a system with an A8N-SLI board and although it is running nicely, I have a few annoying issues.

Hard:
A8N-SLI
Athlon 64 3500+ (winchester).
4x512 A-DATA DDR500.
2x300 GB SATA Maxtor DiamondMax 10 (Model: 6B300S0)
250 GB PATA Western Digital (Model: WD2500-JB)
MSI 6600GT

Notes:
- No overclock. CPU running at 2200 MHz (11x200).
- Memory running as DDR400 (200x5). Timings=2.5-4-4-7. CR=2T.
- The SATA drives are connected to the nforce4 controller, as they support NCQ.

BIOS:
1002, as all newer versions I've tried drop the SATA drives at startup.

Soft:
Windows XP Pro SP2.
nForce Standalone kit 6.39 WHQL audio, ethernet, SMBus, IDE drivers.
ForceWare 66.93 WHQL graphic drivers.
Athlon 64 Processor driver 1.1.0.18 (for Cool'n'Quiet)

Notes:
- As I readed NCQ might cause data corruption, I did disable it. When installing the nforce4 drivers, it was enabled by default, and unchecked it just after the installation finished.

So, system is stable, I mean Prime95 stable, memtest86 stable, video encoding stable and stable when playing games (with the gfx card overclocked to 575/1200).

BUT...

Problem 1 : Data corruption with Cool'n'Quiet active

I enabled Cool'n'Quiet. It seemed to work, as it changes the CPU multiplier according to the CPU load, producing four CPU speeds, from 1000 to 2200, but I get data corruption when copying files.

I'm 100% sure about this. I detect data corruption using a SHA1 script to test file integrity. When copying files from one disk to another or inside the same disc, data corruption appears. I set the energy profile to 'always on' and repeat the operation as many times as you want and no corruption occurs. This happens in all discs, SATA and PATA.

I'd like to use Cool'n'Quiet, but I can't

Problem 2 : System hang when a HD has to wake up from sleep

If I tell Windows to put discs to rest after some minutes of inactivity, it does it, but when I access the disc again and it is supposed to wake up, the systems hangs. I mean it just freezes, so I have to reset it manually. I don't get any error in the event log.

I'd like to get those two things fixed, as they are useful. Next step will be overclocking, but I have the SATA dropping problem of newer bioses. Ah!, and also enabling NCQ, but I'd prefer to fix Cool'n'Quiet first.

Well, I think that's all. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Shaga]

Originally posted by: CMBurns
Problem 1 : Data corruption with Cool'n'Quiet active

I enabled Cool'n'Quiet. It seemed to work, as it changes the CPU multiplier according to the CPU load, producing four CPU speeds, from 1000 to 2200, but I get data corruption when copying files.

I'm 100% sure about this. I detect data corruption using a SHA1 script to test file integrity. When copying files from one disk to another or inside the same disc, data corruption appears. I set the energy profile to 'always on' and repeat the operation as many times as you want and no corruption occurs. This happens in all discs, SATA and PATA.

I'd like to use Cool'n'Quiet, but I can't

I assume that you are using default/auto in bios for jumperfree menu? Right, if you are.. Try to choose settings manually, you may choose "auto" but one thing you have to note, lock pci to 33.3mhz. It's not locked if you use auto/default. This might help you out, I think.