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

[doc2345]

Originally posted by: lopri

PS. WOuld it be smarter to get the Corsair Ballistix PC4000 DDR500?

Whoa, gotta go to Xtreme for this, like were did these come from?

 

[Vyruz]

I'm using the A8N SLI premium board with OCZ memory, in which i made a mistake buying
i bought 2 sets of 1024 RAM OCZ gold memory (5-2-2-2 timings) in order to have 2GB, because back then, OCZ dind't have 2GB sets of their GOLD memory
so i have 4 512MB sticks in there, I got it working fine, but only after some email and phone conversations with OCZ support (HAIL OCZ support, best customer support ever, those guys really know what they're talking about), and after some timing tweaking

I heard that OCZ released their OCZ gold 2GB set recently, i might change to that one...

 

[Linearsoup]

ive got a 120 exaust fan by my psu so it could be that cranking up,its that or my psu,both 120 fans so when they rev up you know about it,gonna have to pull it all out and do some proper cable management to see if anything is plugged in wrong.strange that it only happens with ezplug in, not a big deal as im looking for an excuse to get a new psu,cheers

 

[Babbler]

Hello all,

Well, my PC has been up and running for 2 weeks now with my newly replaced memory - no problems (touch wood!). Quake 4 runs like a dream...


Now for overclocking it and getting the graphics card speed right!

Thanks for all the support,

D

 

[LegendZ28]

Originally posted by: Vyruz
I'm using the A8N SLI premium board with OCZ memory, in which i made a mistake buying
i bought 2 sets of 1024 RAM OCZ gold memory (5-2-2-2 timings) in order to have 2GB, because back then, OCZ dind't have 2GB sets of their GOLD memory
so i have 4 512MB sticks in there, I got it working fine, but only after some email and phone conversations with OCZ support (HAIL OCZ support, best customer support ever, those guys really know what they're talking about), and after some timing tweaking

I heard that OCZ released their OCZ gold 2GB set recently, i might change to that one...

Hey man, I've got the same memory as you and am having a hell of a time getting this thing stable. Right now I have timings on auto with 2.8v and I get an error on memtest but the system is "relatively" stable. I don't want relative stability though, I spent far too much on the motherboard to settle for that.

What did OCZ have you put your settings on? You could be saving me so much.

-----

Different problem I'm having...

I currently have my system set up as below and want to add an ide drive to backup onto, however, the drive I want to add has a former XP install on it along with vital files I'd like to keep. Whenever I connect the drive, the computer either hangs on boot or it attempts to load the OS off the IDE drive and ends up cycling since the drive is from a completely different machine. How can I set it up so that the computer will always boot off my SATA drives and just let the IDE be a secondary? Thanks so much.

Asus is useless, I called their tech support once before and basically got the equivilant of a shrug over the phone.

 

[Babbler]

Originally posted by: LegendZ28

Originally posted by: Vyruz
I'm using the A8N SLI premium board with OCZ memory, in which i made a mistake buying
i bought 2 sets of 1024 RAM OCZ gold memory (5-2-2-2 timings) in order to have 2GB, because back then, OCZ dind't have 2GB sets of their GOLD memory
so i have 4 512MB sticks in there, I got it working fine, but only after some email and phone conversations with OCZ support (HAIL OCZ support, best customer support ever, those guys really know what they're talking about), and after some timing tweaking

I heard that OCZ released their OCZ gold 2GB set recently, i might change to that one...

Hey man, I've got the same memory as you and am having a hell of a time getting this thing stable. Right now I have timings on auto with 2.8v and I get an error on memtest but the system is "relatively" stable. I don't want relative stability though, I spent far too much on the motherboard to settle for that.

What did OCZ have you put your settings on? You could be saving me so much.

-----

Different problem I'm having...

I currently have my system set up as below and want to add an ide drive to backup onto, however, the drive I want to add has a former XP install on it along with vital files I'd like to keep. Whenever I connect the drive, the computer either hangs on boot or it attempts to load the OS off the IDE drive and ends up cycling since the drive is from a completely different machine. How can I set it up so that the computer will always boot off my SATA drives and just let the IDE be a secondary? Thanks so much.

Asus is useless, I called their tech support once before and basically got the equivilant of a shrug over the phone.

I had lots of memor problems with OCZ.Turned out to be faulty memory. Have now had it replaced and it is running with the optimal settings in the bios with no problems. Need to email OCZ again soon though for best settings...

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: LegendZ28

Originally posted by: Vyruz
I'm using the A8N SLI premium board with OCZ memory, in which i made a mistake buying
i bought 2 sets of 1024 RAM OCZ gold memory (5-2-2-2 timings) in order to have 2GB, because back then, OCZ dind't have 2GB sets of their GOLD memory
so i have 4 512MB sticks in there, I got it working fine, but only after some email and phone conversations with OCZ support (HAIL OCZ support, best customer support ever, those guys really know what they're talking about), and after some timing tweaking

I heard that OCZ released their OCZ gold 2GB set recently, i might change to that one...

Hey man, I've got the same memory as you and am having a hell of a time getting this thing stable. Right now I have timings on auto with 2.8v and I get an error on memtest but the system is "relatively" stable. I don't want relative stability though, I spent far too much on the motherboard to settle for that.

What did OCZ have you put your settings on? You could be saving me so much.

-----

Different problem I'm having...

I currently have my system set up as below and want to add an ide drive to backup onto, however, the drive I want to add has a former XP install on it along with vital files I'd like to keep. Whenever I connect the drive, the computer either hangs on boot or it attempts to load the OS off the IDE drive and ends up cycling since the drive is from a completely different machine. How can I set it up so that the computer will always boot off my SATA drives and just let the IDE be a secondary? Thanks so much.

Asus is useless, I called their tech support once before and basically got the equivilant of a shrug over the phone.

Go into the Bios and change the boot order of your hard drives.

 

[LegendZ28]

had lots of memor problems with OCZ.Turned out to be faulty memory. Have now had it replaced and it is running with the optimal settings in the bios with no problems. Need to email OCZ again soon though for best settings...

Well with 1GB, my system is fine, it seems to only be when I use the full 2GB that things get stupid. Which makes no sense to me.

 

[XxLaSeRxX]

I guess I was lucky but I had this system up and running off the bat. I put it together and it worked marvelously. The only problem I could think of that I had was when I formatted the drives for the first time. Once I installed SP2 it crashed, happened on another comp too. But then I reformatted and installed sp2 from a cd I had from a while ago, and its running like a champ.


Specs:
Asus A8N-SLI Premium (had 1007 which ran fine. Running 1008 now. Still fine)
AMD 4200+ Dual Core Processor
BFG 7800GTX OC
(x2) 1 GIG Corsair XMS DDR400 RAM
(x2) WD Caviar SATA2 (RAID/0) HDDs
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer
Asus Vento 3600 Red Case

 

[AbRASiON]

So what's the deal, I'm reading some posts on the net saying I'll have no problems with 4x512mb sticks as long as it's only at 2T timings - other posts like this one make the board out to be a nightmare.

What's the deal here guys?

I don't care if I use 2T timings if it's only 5% difference but if it's 10 or 15... well

 

[wanderer27]

At worst you'll need to have your Command Rate at 2T.

It turns out that the the worst Memory problem mentioned on this (?) thread was the one Welfarebum had - and his problem ended up being a bad CPU (Memory Controller most likely).

Capt Caveman I believe is running 4x512Mb with no issues - he may even be at 1T, I don't remember.

EDIT:

Just looked back, Capt Caveman isn't running 4x512Mb, but he did have 4 sticks of mixed RAM running fine.

 

[gilesw]

I'm having a right mair of a system build... my psu popped so i'm now using a spare tagan 480 from work. I still get freezes when i run the f.e.a.r demo. I've memtested my ram and hd tested my raptor so i'm clueless what the problem is. I'd be suprised if the psu can't supply enough juice for a single 7800gt and a 3800 none of it overclocked. I did put a zalman 7f70cu on the gfx card , the temp reads 35 degrees.

I've now pointed a 120m fan at the nf4 chipset and the gfx card with the case totally open. Last thing i'm going to try is installing normal non 64bit windows xp to see if that works. I ran stress prime too. Only seems to be this damn game.

edit.

I've installed 32bit windows now and it seems fine. for some reason the demo of f.e.a.r kicks me out of the car too early and i can't move forward any more. I tried hammering doom3 for a while and didn't get any bsod's.
g.

 

[AbRASiON]

Originally posted by: wanderer27
At worst you'll need to have your Command Rate at 2T.

It turns out that the the worst Memory problem mentioned on this (?) thread was the one Welfarebum had - and his problem ended up being a bad CPU (Memory Controller most likely).

Capt Caveman I believe is running 4x512Mb with no issues - he may even be at 1T, I don't remember.

EDIT:

Just looked back, Capt Caveman isn't running 4x512Mb, but he did have 4 sticks of mixed RAM running fine.

Wanderer: Thanks for the response - what about frequency though - I'm aiming for the standard 400mhz?
this Pete chap seems to think it's not going to happen?
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1729637&forumid=1

Also this dude is having a heck of a lot of problems too.
http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15149 - same board I intend to buy

 

[wanderer27]

The Memory issues aren't just related to this board. It affects all MBs and is primarily related to the Memory Controller on the CPU (AMD XP64).

Newer CPU versions look to have solved this issue. Here's a thread with quite a bit of info. Initially there is some confusion as some people are using older (E3 ?) versions and some the newer (E6 ?):

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1708490&enterthread=y

If you have a newer version (probably last 2-3 months) CPU you'll probably be okay hitting DDR400.

 

[Cy6nUsX1]

I am a noob overclocker. So I learn by reading here and experimenting.

I have a "why"question.

1) I set the Jumperless Settings and DDR400 in the BIOS to AUTO then go into AI Booster in WinXP and set the multiplier to 10.5 and the clock to 213 to get an FSB speed of 852 and CPU speed of 2236Mhz. I bump the voltages up on the RAM and CPU just a bit. Then I run 3Dmark2003 and get a score of 18,880.

2) I set the Jumperless Settings and DDR400 in the BIOS to AUTO then go into AI Booster in WinXP and set everything back to Auto but set AI NOS to 105%. I run 3DMark2003 and get a score of 20,120.

Can someone explain why? I am not baffled, I just want to learn more about this.

Thanks

 

[LegendZ28]

Alright, well I finally got the compute running stable. Here's what I had to do...

To begin I reformatted both my drives and moved them from the sil image SATA ports to the nvidia ports. I killed the Raid 0 and am just running them as single drives for now... may go back to RAID 0 in the future though. I pulled out 2 of my memory sticks, so now I've only got 1 GB (more on this later). Reinstalled everything and was very careful to install the drivers and updates in the correct order.

As far as the memory, I run way too many memory heavy programs (such as the adobe suite) and games to settle for 1GB so I finally caved in and orders a pair of Corsair 1GB sticks to get back to 2GB while only using two slots. I'm going to have to sell my OCZ memory now, which is a pain.

right now, with thte 1GB OCZ sticks however, I am able to overlock my 3800+ X2 to 2.1 GHZ with pretty loose timings on my memory (which sucks), but everything is stable. When I get the ASUS Approved memory in there, I'll see if I can get more out of her.

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: Cy6nUsX1
I am a noob overclocker. So I learn by reading here and experimenting.

I have a "why"question.

1) I set the Jumperless Settings and DDR400 in the BIOS to AUTO then go into AI Booster in WinXP and set the multiplier to 10.5 and the clock to 213 to get an FSB speed of 852 and CPU speed of 2236Mhz. I bump the voltages up on the RAM and CPU just a bit. Then I run 3Dmark2003 and get a score of 18,880.

2) I set the Jumperless Settings and DDR400 in the BIOS to AUTO then go into AI Booster in WinXP and set everything back to Auto but set AI NOS to 105%. I run 3DMark2003 and get a score of 20,120.

Can someone explain why? I am not baffled, I just want to learn more about this.

Thanks

Using AUTO, it's going to be kind of hard to get a good answer on this. Very few people if any really use the AUTO settings.

On the first, you're doing HTT (Bus) @ 213, HT @ x4, Multi @ x 10.5, and Mem Divider @ 1:1 -> 2236.5 MHz CPU, 852 Hypertransport, with Memory running at 213 MHZ (DDR 426). AUTO may be changing things though, even though you're going through AI Booter.

On the second, you're doing HTT@200 (210 ?), HT @ x5 (?), Multi @ 11, and Mem Divider @ 1:1 -> 2200 (2310 ?) MHz CPU, 1000 (1050) Hypertransport, with Memory at 200-210 (fuzzy here).

If the 105% AUTO setting is working like I'm thinking, then it's obvious that the second settings with your CPU @ roughly 2310 MHz and your Memory barely slower (213 vs 210) would give you the higher score you see.

I'm just not real sure how all the AUTO stuff decides to set things, and as mentioned, it may still be over-riding what you set with AI Booster.

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: LegendZ28
Alright, well I finally got the compute running stable. Here's what I had to do...

To begin I reformatted both my drives and moved them from the sil image SATA ports to the nvidia ports. I killed the Raid 0 and am just running them as single drives for now... may go back to RAID 0 in the future though. I pulled out 2 of my memory sticks, so now I've only got 1 GB (more on this later). Reinstalled everything and was very careful to install the drivers and updates in the correct order.

As far as the memory, I run way too many memory heavy programs (such as the adobe suite) and games to settle for 1GB so I finally caved in and orders a pair of Corsair 1GB sticks to get back to 2GB while only using two slots. I'm going to have to sell my OCZ memory now, which is a pain.

right now, with thte 1GB OCZ sticks however, I am able to overlock my 3800+ X2 to 2.1 GHZ with pretty loose timings on my memory (which sucks), but everything is stable. When I get the ASUS Approved memory in there, I'll see if I can get more out of her.

Have you tested each set of sticks for Errors ? You may have some bad Memory.

Does your System run stable at stock speeds ?

What are your OC settings ?

Are you sure your Memory is rated at 5-2-2-2 and not 2-2-2-5 or something else ? If you have the first and last backwards (as you stated), then yeah, I can see why you'd have some problems.

 

[Cy6nUsX1]

wanderer27,

Thanks for your excellent explanation. I have abandoned AI Nos and have begun to make friends with nTUNE. I have succeeded in learning enough to push the system producing 20,880 in 3DMark2003.

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: Cy6nUsX1
wanderer27,

Thanks for your excellent explanation. I have abandoned AI Nos and have begun to make friends with nTUNE. I have succeeded in learning enough to push the system producing 20,880 in 3DMark2003.

AI Nos may be fine if you're not really wanting to OC much.

Most people that are going to make OC'ing worth while are going to play with the settings "tune" things in to their desires

 

[snufulufugus]

Howdy All,

I want to say hello and that this is my first post, although reading these forums has made my recent build go much more smoothly than it would have.

I seem to have had a pretty painless build last week, but I have a coupla questions:

My system is running stable for 99% of the time but sometime when I close an intesive program or try to open a program, my computer crashes on me. No BSOD, but it is annoying and I imagine it is related to my settings.

I have taken the advice I have read and not installed the NV software ide drivers or the AV capability, have both raid controllers turned off, am using channels 3-4 SATA. I have the processor timings set at Auto, and the memory set at 2-2-2-5, and then a coupla other numbers set in the memory at the default value since I don't know what those other numbers stand for. Also the BIOS is 1006, and the NV drivers are 6.65.

Sorry for the long winded description - my VCore is fluctuating at always 2 values - 1.392 to 1.408. I have no idea if I need to tweak the processor settings, or if it is a memory issue. Any ideas would be very helpful.

Thanks again for all your help with my build last week, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the system went together, and any help would be great.

 

[wanderer27]

By crashing, do you mean the Send or Don't Send message to Microsoft type errors/crashes ?

If so, I wouldn't worry about it. I get those on every Computer I use, and I use quite a few.

While some people go for the "Auto" settings I wouldn't use them, especially on the CPU side of things. My first MB wanted to "Auto" clock my CPU at well over 5000MHz

I'd set the CPU clock manually, otherwise you don't really know what it's doing or if it's causing problems.

As for VCore, I'm running mine at 1.35 (below req) and have no issues. Since we're both running the San Diego Cores, I wouldn't really about the voltages you're running at fluctuating.

BTW - welcome aboard !

There's alot of good info and support for this MB here, I think you'll like this MB.

 

[snufulufugus]

Originally posted by: wanderer27
By crashing, do you mean the Send or Don't Send message to Microsoft type errors/crashes ?

If so, I wouldn't worry about it. I get those on every Computer I use, and I use quite a few.

I appreciate the response wanderer. To answer your question, no, I am getting computer reboot-type crashes, which are accompanied by a 'click'. I am not so concerned by the click, as I have six case fans and it could be those or the power supply.

Are their any additional BIOS settings I should be aware of that need to be manually set that can create more stability for this setup? I'll try the VCore at 1.35 since you have no probs there, maybe that will help. This problem is so intermittent that it is very difficult to diagnose, I just know that it shouldn't be happening.

Thanks again.

-snuf

 

[wanderer27]

Well as I mentioned, there are four or five OC options for the CPU and Memory. I'd make sure all those are set to either Disabled or Manual.

I'd also manually set the timings for your Memory. Have you run Memtest ?

Which Drivers did you install from the Chipset Drive package ? Hopefully not the IDE, Firewall, and Forceware(?) junk.

What if any PCI cards are you using ?

Depending on what all you have, there may be a few other things to look at in BIOS.

 

[snufulufugus]

No, I havent run memtest yet, although I think I will do that tonight. I have set the memory options to manual, and set them properly as far as i can tell, but their are 3-4 additional numbers besides the 2-2-2-5 settings that I am unsure of and have left at the settings that they were at when I switched from Auto to Manual. I have also not changed any of the bus/channel speeds from their original settings. The processor is at auto currently, but as I said I will try 1.35 VCore shortly.

Not running anything in the slots but the Asus EAX800 graphics card. Do I need to worry about the EZ-plug since I am only using one card?

Also, didn't install any of the software junk (firewall, ide drivers, forceware) per the recommendations on this forum.