Official DO's and DON'T for ASUS A8N-SLI (PREMIUM)

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: openwheelformula1
6.65 is in fine. Uninstall "Nvidia Drivers", there will be an option for you to click which drivers to uninstall (ethernet, sw IDE,.....) However you need to "thoroughly" uninstall SW IDE drivers by using a dedicated program. Maybe a proper windoes reinstall could help if you don't know what to do. Make sure your memory is error free using memtest. Before you change anything for the memory, try testing w/ SPD timing first.

Agreed. Re-installing Windows (with reformat) would be the best - clears out any "leftover" garbage :thumbsup:

 

[Martyuk39]

I reformatted and re-installed Windows just for the heck of it (I'd solved my previous problem). I upgraded the BIOS to 1008, and used drivers 6.66 and 78.01 without installing the IDE drivers.

1 issue I had was after installing the drivers. I got the missing or corrupt pci.sys message talked about below. I simply went into repair mode and copied pci.sy_ from my windows CD and renamed it to pci.sys and stuck it in the drivers folder and all was well

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...&STARTPAGE=1&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

I didn't do any benchmarking before (Futuremark wouldn't load - haven't tried since rebuild) but I'd swear it's flying now, much better than the first build.

 

[clarkkent333]

Don't spend time trying to take off the NB heatsink and replace the thermal tape with arctic silver. What a pain in the ass that was!

 

[lopri]

Babbler,

I had the exact the same problem as yours. If you search the forum with A8N-SLI Premium and you'll find quite a few people had similar problems. Most including myself fixed the problem with the followings;

1. If you currently did not connect the EZ-Plug (even if you don't SLI), try pluggging a molex into it.

2. Make sure all the SATA cables are firmly inserted.

3. If you're using only 2 Drives, use SATA 3/4 instead of 1/2. You can do it by installing windows using SATA 1/2, power down and switching to SATA 3/4. Or just try switching your current SATA 1/2 to 3/4. Disable SATA 1/2 from the BIOS.

4. Do not install nVidia SW Driver.

5. If all above fails, it's probably your PSU. Try a different, known quality PSU (hope you have a *good* friend) or just buy a good one. PSU is one of the most important part of the build these days and they're also a long-term investment.

Hope this helped.

lop

P.S. Does anyone know any BIOS that fixes the DANCING VCORE problem? If so, please let me know. I'm going nuts with this.

 

[Babbler]

Originally posted by: lopri
Babbler,

I had the exact the same problem as yours. If you search the forum with A8N-SLI Premium and you'll find quite a few people had similar problems. Most including myself fixed the problem with the followings;

>> Do you mean the HDD light constantly being on?? Or the loss. The light is still always on

1. If you currently did not connect the EZ-Plug (even if you don't SLI), try pluggging a molex into it.

>>> Already got power to it.

2. Make sure all the SATA cables are firmly inserted.

>> Checked that

3. If you're using only 2 Drives, use SATA 3/4 instead of 1/2. You can do it by installing windows using SATA 1/2, power down and switching to SATA 3/4. Or just try switching your current SATA 1/2 to 3/4. Disable SATA 1/2 from the BIOS.

Will do that this evening - havent switched my pc off or rebooted since the first post and its been working fine so scared to!


4. Do not install nVidia SW Driver.

>> Too late - will think about a complete reinstall but its a nightmare.

5. If all above fails, it's probably your PSU. Try a different, known quality PSU (hope you have a *good* friend) or just buy a good one. PSU is one of the most important part of the build these days and they're also a long-term investment.

>> My PSU got rave reviews and is a Hyper Type-R 580 Watt... supposed to be good quality, but who knows...?

Hope this helped.

lop

P.S. Does anyone know any BIOS that fixes the DANCING VCORE problem? If so, please let me know. I'm going nuts with this.

>> Is this the sequel to the dancing baby problem? Sorry... been a long day!

 

[Babbler]

Have finished setting up the bios now more or less as per this link. It has speeded up my boot times no end.

As for the hdd light - it would seem that having my IDE drive connected but not powered was the culprit. It is back to normal now

Now waiting patiently for 2 weeks for my fast memory to return from the returns department at uddigit! Running on 233mhz at the moment!

Think thats me sorted for now... will keep you posted but everything seems stable now with my 2 IDE drives and single SATA. If only I could stop the RAID screen pre-windows coming up and slowing the boot process...

Touch wood this is all that will go wrong now...

Thanks to all of you for your help. Going to go and benchmark my system now - then again when fast memory arrives

Regards,

D

 

[Babbler]

Have finished setting up the bios now more or less as per this link. It has speeded up my boot times no end.

As for the hdd light - it would seem that having my IDE drive connected but not powered was the culprit. It is back to normal now

Now waiting patiently for 2 weeks for my fast memory to return from the returns department at uddigit! Running on 233mhz at the moment!

Think thats me sorted for now... will keep you posted but everything seems stable now with my 2 IDE drives and single SATA. If only I could stop the RAID screen pre-windows coming up and slowing the boot process...

Touch wood this is all that will go wrong now...

Thanks to all of you for your help. Going to go and benchmark my system now - then again when fast memory arrives

Regards,

D

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: Babbler
Have finished setting up the bios now more or less as per this link. It has speeded up my boot times no end.

As for the hdd light - it would seem that having my IDE drive connected but not powered was the culprit. It is back to normal now

Now waiting patiently for 2 weeks for my fast memory to return from the returns department at uddigit! Running on 233mhz at the moment!

Think thats me sorted for now... will keep you posted but everything seems stable now with my 2 IDE drives and single SATA. If only I could stop the RAID screen pre-windows coming up and slowing the boot process...

Touch wood this is all that will go wrong now...

Thanks to all of you for your help. Going to go and benchmark my system now - then again when fast memory arrives

Regards,

D

You can disable the RAID screens by disabling them in your bios. Just disable Nvidia RAID and the Silicon Image controller.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Babbler

Originally posted by: lopri
5. If all above fails, it's probably your PSU. Try a different, known quality PSU (hope you have a *good* friend) or just buy a good one. PSU is one of the most important part of the build these days and they're also a long-term investment.

>> My PSU got rave reviews and is a Hyper Type-R 580 Watt... supposed to be good quality, but who knows...?

Hope this helped.

lop

P.S. Does anyone know any BIOS that fixes the DANCING VCORE problem? If so, please let me know. I'm going nuts with this.

>> Is this the sequel to the dancing baby problem? Sorry... been a long day!

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?head=64&page=4474

In my case, I fixed the problem switching from Enermax 701AX (also rave reviews) to Seasonic S12-600.

 

[openwheelformula1]

My Seasonic S12-500 is my favorite part in my rig.

 

[Babbler]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: Babbler

Originally posted by: lopri
5. If all above fails, it's probably your PSU. Try a different, known quality PSU (hope you have a *good* friend) or just buy a good one. PSU is one of the most important part of the build these days and they're also a long-term investment.

>> My PSU got rave reviews and is a Hyper Type-R 580 Watt... supposed to be good quality, but who knows...?

Hope this helped.

lop

P.S. Does anyone know any BIOS that fixes the DANCING VCORE problem? If so, please let me know. I'm going nuts with this.

>> Is this the sequel to the dancing baby problem? Sorry... been a long day!

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?head=64&page=4474

In my case, I fixed the problem switching from Enermax 701AX (also rave reviews) to Seasonic S12-600.

Oh great - that just made my day! I wish reviews that recommend this product would do a bit more thorough tests! . 55 quid wasted then as I cant take this power supply back now (out of 30 day trial time by 3 days). Joy! It has worried me quite a bit...

 

[lopri]

Babbler,

Try reading this discussion occured here some time ago. It might help.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1644861&enterthread=y

 

[SilentZero]

I am having crashes/freezing occuring at least 4-5 times per 24 hour cycle, with no warning and a 5% cpu usage. The memory is fine, might be a PSU issue, but not sure, or perhaps its the motherboard by itself or its relationship with the memory. Here are my stats, I would greatly appreciate any help.

AMD64 X2 4400+
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mobo
2 GB of OCZ PC-3200 Dual channel platinum ram
XFX 7800GTX 256mb GDDR3 PCI-E Video card
Hauppauge PVR-250 TV Capture card
(4) Seagate barracuda 300gb SATA HD's
(2) BENQ DVD-RW drives
(1) Floppy drive
(3) 120mm Antec Case fans
PC Power and Cooling 510 SLI-PFC ATX12V 510W


And also, I did mistakenly install that active armor garbage..is there a way to uninstall it now? Thanks.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: SilentZero
I am having crashes/freezing occuring at least 4-5 times per 24 hour cycle, with no warning and a 5% cpu usage. The memory is fine, might be a PSU issue, but not sure, or perhaps its the motherboard by itself or its relationship with the memory. Here are my stats, I would greatly appreciate any help.

AMD64 X2 4400+
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mobo
2 GB of OCZ PC-3200 Dual channel platinum ram
XFX 7800GTX 256mb GDDR3 PCI-E Video card
Hauppauge PVR-250 TV Capture card
(4) Seagate barracuda 300gb SATA HD's
(2) BENQ DVD-RW drives
(1) Floppy drive
(3) 120mm Antec Case fans
PC Power and Cooling 510 SLI-PFC ATX12V 510W


And also, I did mistakenly install that active armor garbage..is there a way to uninstall it now? Thanks.

I was having issues with random freezing and it turned out to be the PSU. Check that.

 

[SilentZero]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal

Originally posted by: SilentZero
I am having crashes/freezing occuring at least 4-5 times per 24 hour cycle, with no warning and a 5% cpu usage. The memory is fine, might be a PSU issue, but not sure, or perhaps its the motherboard by itself or its relationship with the memory. Here are my stats, I would greatly appreciate any help.

AMD64 X2 4400+
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mobo
2 GB of OCZ PC-3200 Dual channel platinum ram
XFX 7800GTX 256mb GDDR3 PCI-E Video card
Hauppauge PVR-250 TV Capture card
(4) Seagate barracuda 300gb SATA HD's
(2) BENQ DVD-RW drives
(1) Floppy drive
(3) 120mm Antec Case fans
PC Power and Cooling 510 SLI-PFC ATX12V 510W


And also, I did mistakenly install that active armor garbage..is there a way to uninstall it now? Thanks.

I was having issues with random freezing and it turned out to be the PSU. Check that.

Is there a way to test the PSU? I am not familiar with voltages and what not so it would be tough for me to go into the bios and make sense of what the readings are.

 

[lopri]

Is there a way to test the PSU? I am not familiar with voltages and what not so it would be tough for me to go into the bios and make sense of what the readings are.

While it is easy to blame PSU when it comes to A64 platform stability, it's EXTREMELY hard to imagine a faulty PC P&C PSUs. I've used them before and they're literally ROCK SOLID. Only reason I picked the Seasonic is the PC P&C was too noisy for my liking.

Said that, if you want to check your PSU, start with a voltage monitoring program. ASUS Probe has this function built into it. Under "Monitoring" tab, select "History" and record the history of each rail, along with the VCore. Note: You're not looking at the absolute value. Just look for any fluctuation. Software reading is extremely unreliable for the exact reading, but it should at least tell you if each rail is stable.

If there is no fluctuation, your PSU may be fine. I highly doubt it.

lop

 

[SilentZero]

Originally posted by: lopri

Is there a way to test the PSU? I am not familiar with voltages and what not so it would be tough for me to go into the bios and make sense of what the readings are.

While it is easy to blame PSU when it comes to A64 platform stability, it's EXTREMELY hard to imagine a faulty PC P&C PSUs. I've used them before and they're literally ROCK SOLID. Only reason I picked the Seasonic is the PC P&C was too noisy for my liking.

Said that, if you want to check your PSU, start with a voltage monitoring program. ASUS Probe has this function built into it. Under "Monitoring" tab, select "History" and record the history of each rail, along with the VCore. Note: You're not looking at the absolute value. Just look for any fluctuation. Software reading is extremely unreliable for the exact reading, but it should at least tell you if each rail is stable.

If there is no fluctuation, your PSU may be fine. I highly doubt it.

lop

Thanks for the reply. I will check it out.

 

[imported_maelstrom]

Ok, I'm a bit confused by this motherboard. I just got one last night. My rig is

X2 3800+
Asus SLI Premium
OCZ DDR600 Plat Ed.
Temporary 6600 LE until I decide what I want.
I have the new R80 Coolermaster liquid cooling contained block.

I can't seem to figure out this asus overclocking set up.

If I change the Ram timings/mhz then my CPU options get overwritten and if I change my
CPU then my ram gets set back to 266 mhz. I tried setting the Ram to 600 MHZ/w the Hypertransport to 3x. Then I would boot it up and try changing the setting in Asus Ai Booster. But if I change anything in AI booster the computer locks up and needs a reboot. Anyone give me a quick guide to overclocking with this sucky BIOS interface? WHY can't it have standard options! BTW Bios revision 1.008.

 

[Babbler]

Originally posted by: openwheelformula1
My Seasonic S12-500 is my favorite part in my rig.

Heya,

Could you tell me how much you paid for this please? Am thinking of taking my PSU back tp PC world as faulty (well, it seems to spike and mess my speakers/memory up and has had very bad reports - should never have been released!) and getting this one instead! May opt for the 600 though for future compatibility...

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Babbler
Am thinking of taking my PSU back tp PC world as faulty (well, it seems to spike and mess my speakers/memory up and has had very bad reports - should never have been released!) and getting this one instead! May opt for the 600 though for future compatibility...

Are you talking about PC P&C Turbo Cool 510? Bad reports? Where?

Originally posted by: maelstrom
If I change the Ram timings/mhz then my CPU options get overwritten and if I change my
CPU then my ram gets set back to 266 mhz. I tried setting the Ram to 600 MHZ/w the Hypertransport to 3x. Then I would boot it up and try changing the setting in Asus Ai Booster. But if I change anything in AI booster the computer locks up and needs a reboot. Anyone give me a quick guide to overclocking with this sucky BIOS interface? WHY can't it have standard options! BTW Bios revision 1.008.

First of all, forget about AI Booster. Second, in the ASUS BIOS, the CPU options you're seeing are memory dividers. So if you have DDR600 DIMMs, by selecting it you're basically running it at 4:5 ratio. (CPU:Memory) Since you have a fast memory (well, timings are another, but for now don't worry about them) you should have many possible combinations.

I can't start with the basics of overclock. You'll quickly find out through the forum FAQ, etc. Also this is a convenient tool to see what will work best for you.

lop

 

[imported_maelstrom]

I know about overclocking. What I'm asking is how does this specific MB work. It doesn't make sense to me like a straight forward setup. How does the memory divider work. It isn't just a straight forward 3:2 setting I can select. I want my board to hopefully run at 300 fsb * 8 multiplier @ 1:1 on the memory. Hypertransport set to 3x. How do I set these settings in the bios is where I'm running into trouble. If I set the memory it unsets the CPU and when I set the CPU it unsets the memory.

 

[openwheelformula1]

babbler: I got mine from Newegg but I know ewiz has the best price around. I am currently looking at s12-380watt for my new htpc setup.

maelstrom: for to run your memory 1:1 w/ the cpu, just set memory frequency at 400mhz.

 

[Babbler]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: Babbler
Am thinking of taking my PSU back tp PC world as faulty (well, it seems to spike and mess my speakers/memory up and has had very bad reports - should never have been released!) and getting this one instead! May opt for the 600 though for future compatibility...

Are you talking about PC P&C Turbo Cool 510? Bad reports? Where?

No - am talking about the Hiper Type-R 580w psu. I am really worried now after reading bout it

 

[lopri]

Like I said, check your ASUS Probe and try recording the voltage on each rail. Boot-up, start the ASUS Probe, and check the "History" tab then click "Record". It will record voltages, temps, and fan speeds. Try playing some games, or do some benchmarks. You want to see if there is any voltage fluctuation in accordance with difference loads. A 12-hour record would give you a good sense of your PSU reliability.

lop

 

[welfarebum]

DON'T BUY THIS MOTHERBOARD.

Hee hee hee! This thread is insane!... It indicates just how messed up the Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard is.

I've had my A8N-SLI Premium for almost 2 months. 2 freakin' months of trying to get this new system working. 2 months of crashing, blue screens, instability, and spontaneous reboots that come and go. I've made several trips back to the retailer to RMA parts. OCZ has RMA'd my memory. But, clearly, the motherboard design is the evil one here. Note that I swapped out the motherboard once already.

Sometimes, just when I think I've got all the problems beat and the system seems stable for a day or more, they return. This motherboard has provided me with 2 months of hell.

Here are some things I experienced and learned:

1. NVActiveArmore causes instability. Don't use it. I tried everything to get this feature to work - 6.65, 6.66, various settings, different cables, reinstall windows, etc.

2. NVFirewall corrupted my downloads. Firefox or IE would allow me to surf without any problems, but when I downloaded a file, it would be corrupted. You don't know it is corrupted until you try to run it. I finally gave up on NVFirewall and installed ZoneAlarm.

3. 4x512M OCZ Platinum Rev 2? Forget it. The system was ALWAYS unstable to varying degrees no matter if I overclocked, underclocked, threatened my PC, updated BIOS, updated drivers, etc. This motherboard only works with 2 memory sticks.

4. Overclocking in general... VERY picky motherboard. A lot of stuff didn't make sense. Certain cpu, htt, fsb, ddr frequencies would work and others wouldn't. I tried isolating overclocking parameters, but I got really weird results. I actually found that the most stable system I ever achieve was 2.4 GHz CPU and DDR333. Dropping the CPU clock while massaging settings so other clocks remained the same, would actually increase instability. It was weird.

5. BIOS. My A8N-SLI Premium is currently DEAD. While upgrading to the 009 beta BIOS today, it died. I don't get POST. It's dead dead dead. Nice, huh? I'm taking it back to the retailer tomorrow - for the 2nd time.

6. I had to install the X2 drivers from AMD. That helped with instability but didn't fix it.

7. When installing drivers and applications, I used Acronis True Image so I could easily restore to a previous good state. Otherwise, you're just one bad driver away from your whole system being unstable again and having no way out.

8. There are several other issues I've encountered and had to solve - but I forget them all. I know that I came across a thread where dual video cards were a problem. Also, the 2nd Raid controller is no good. Basically, this motherboard has been the most challenging system I've ever set up and - get this - I'm a computer hardware engineer with a 1st class honors B.A.Sc. degree and over a decade of hardware design experience! I'm supposed to be "an expert"! Ha hahahahaha...

Robert.