The *Official* Asus A7N8X (Deluxe) Thread

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: cyclones
Many thanks so far.
Battery was at 2.80 Maxwell replaced with 3.20.
WESTERN Digital WD400 loaded with XP Pro fails to boot with or without jumper set to slave.
ATA 100 and ATA 133 Round cables have been tried .
Bios 1002.001 has been tried against the 1001G and failed to load. (have downloaded another version to try tomorrow)

When downloaded.......was in "Winzip via Gozilla. Unpacked to 512K and put on fully screened and surface checked floppy.
(See I do read all replies)
If I have not slit my throat by then....joke ....I need it for the cider!

The Alt + F2 with the Bios update get there ....eventually.......but gives me a screen with the legend.....
"File Name to Program"
Whatever.... I put in results in ......"Source File Not Found".....and tips me back to paranoia feelings.

System is only an XP2000 virgin with 512Crucial 2700

Any help ..........or cider , welcome!

TIA

Did you try setting your WD drive to Single Drive (assuming it's solo on its own cable)? That's been helping a lot of folks. Also, when you name the BIOS file by name, don't forget the " .bin" or whatever the suffix is.

 

[cyclones]

Thanks.
The file name would only take 4 letters or digits.
Unzipped the file just read 1002.001 , so would only take digits 1002.
What sort of entry should it look like........ when I finally get a good bios copy.

When I took the master jumper pin from the WD400 and booted after the battery change it did
bypass the bios setup......... for the one and only time so far.
Unfortunately it also came back to Error PXE-E61.
Will Asus give out the error codes for "Post Execution Errors".
These terms are sounding more like "St Quinten Prison" Death Row soundbites from a
bad movie or the "Blue Screen of Death".

I'am beginning to feel that this choice of board was not my finest decision.
Do these folk "Asus" make anything for NASA ?

Cheers for now

 

[mechBgon]

The PXE error is due to your system attempting to boot from the network. Refer to page 52 of your manual for the Boot Options menu and make sure to take LAN out, and I think you'll be free of that. You can also pres ESC at the POST screen and you'll soon get a boot menu that allows you to order a boot from floppy, CD, HDD and any other viable option.

I suspect the problem with the BIOS zip files is that there is a period in the filename "1002.001". It would ordinarily have a .BIN file extension (confirmed, I just downloaded the official an8d1002.bin BIOS file). So the full filename is probably 1002.001.BIN but whoever's uploading it is inadvertantly changing it to a 1002.001 file in the process.

 

[magomago]

interesting...through LIVE update it accepted the file (i specifically paused thinking I needed a BIN) 1002.001

I don't think the actual extension is that important because in the end it is going to scan the bios file to make sure it is real anyways...

 

[cyclones]

Thanks .
My fuller reply is below or above this one.
Have been downloading more stuff from the ASUS site.
Signed up and registered with them.
Surprised that the customer satisfaction indicator only go's
down to 60% !!!
Cheers

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: magomago
interesting...through LIVE update it accepted the file (i specifically paused thinking I needed a BIN) 1002.001

I don't think the actual extension is that important because in the end it is going to scan the bios file to make sure it is real anyways...

I think just sticking .bin on it in place of the .001 would be equally as good. Anyway, gotta go to bed here... good luck guys.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

Replacing my battery solved my booting issues! My new battery tested 3.246V. The 100Mhz post as well as the "reset trick" having to boot are gone, at least for the two cold boots I tested it for.

Hopefully the battery won't drop down to around 3.0V any time soon as my problems would likely come right back then.


It angers me that such an expensive mobo would have a cheap POS battery in it that quality control didn't even catch :|
Makes me have a little less respect for Asus...

 

Stupid question. Does the latest BIOS let you change the multiplier on Tbred A's? I flashed this morning and noticed all of the sudden I can change the multiplier on my 2200+ Tbred A and it actually effects the running proc speed. It's kind of kludgy, I can always clock down and sometimes if I put the multiplier to auto it will clock down until I cold boot. I have not clocked up yet, mainly because I have no clue what my multiplier is supposed to be (12.5?).

I am going to play with it some more right now, just wondering if anyone else noticed.

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by: dwell
Stupid question. Does the latest BIOS let you change the multiplier on Tbred A's? I flashed this morning and noticed all of the sudden I can change the multiplier on my 2200+ Tbred A and it actually effects the running proc speed. It's kind of kludgy, I can always clock down and sometimes if I put the multiplier to auto it will clock down until I cold boot. I have not clocked up yet, mainly because I have no clue what my multiplier is supposed to be (12.5?).

I am going to play with it some more right now, just wondering if anyone else noticed.

The 2200 should be 13.5 I think. 1800 mhz / 133 = 13.5 (roughly)

 

Originally posted by: Shockwave

The 2200 should be 13.5 I think. 1800 mhz / 133 = 13.5 (roughly)

Cool, thanks.

It definitely allowed me to change the multiplier on my A. Really strange, I didn't think it was possible. I have to play around with it some more tonight.

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: alchemize
OK I got mine all setup and flashed the bios, a few odd behaviors I can't figure out:

1) In BIOS, all 3 fan readings are 0 RPM. When I enter windows, the Asus probe seems to monitor the RPM's correctly?
2) Possibly related, my HAC-V81 fan only reads between 1800 and 2200 RPM when I adjust it. I can see it spooling up when I adjust it...how can I verify this isn't a fan problem? It should go up to 4500 RPM?
3) Is there any other way to reset the CMOS without having to pull the battery each time? man it makes overclocking a pain

OK here are my results so far:
PC2100 Samsung 512MB Generic PCB
TBred A 1700+ (thanks Newegg )
Able to take it to 143Mhz x 12.0 for 1711Mhz, default voltage. Should I boost the voltage and try 12.5?

So I got 300 Mhz out of it...not bad. Obviously the RAM is holding me back some...waiting for prices to drop more.

Bumping my questions, anyone have some ideas?

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

Nevermind about the battery fixing things. Came home today and my PC wouldn't POST until I manually reset it. Then it booted at 100Mhz and i didn't press DELETE fast enough to enter the BIOS. Restarted thorugh windows and my PC wouldn't even boot then! So AGAIN I had to hold the button, and this time I entered/exited the BIOS so I'd post at my FSB speed. I haven't checked to see if the battery voltage dropped already.

Time to email Asus? RMA?

I sure better not have to RMA... it'd be an enourmous pain in the arse and hours of wasted time.

 

[tcbakerkw]

Hopefully, this hasn't been asked and answered a hundred times (I didn't see it anywhere) ....When I tried to flash the bios on my A7N8X Deluxe, the Flash utility comes up, however I could not "type" the file name in the box! It was like my keyboard wasn't working. I then tried what they (Asus) said in there manual...using a bootable floppy, switching to C: and typing AWDFLASH /iq AN8D1002.bin...got a bad command error. What am I doing wrong?

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

I can tell you how I flashed...

I too had to use a bootable floppy. When your system starts make sure it is set to boot by floppy first in the BIOS. Then put in a Windows boot disk (windows can make these if you don't have one). Once you get to the command prompt make sure you type "A:" to change to your disk drive (its usually A anyhow). Here's the command like I use:

AWDFLASH.EXE BIOSNAME.BIN /CC /CD /CP /R /PY

The / commands do stuff like clear cmos, reset when done, etc. There's a list of what they all do somewhere... use google and look for AWDFLASH commands.

 

[tcbakerkw]

Thanks for the info, where do I get the AWDFLASH.EXE utility to put on the floppy? Also, I tried an aflash.exe utility and I got the error message "can not find bios hook"...or something like that.. I have flashed bios before and never ran into this much trouble...Have you ever heard of the keyboard not working when you use the bios utility (ALT-F2)? It's not a USB keyboard..plain old PS2.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

"where do I get the AWDFLASH.EXE utility to put on the floppy?"

www.asus.com just look around there, downloads section or something

When I use ALT + F2 I also can't type anything. Not sure if my latest BIOS flash fixed it or not, haven't checked.

 

[magomago]

I think it gets to a point where after so many tries/errors it might be a bad board. I'm guessing theNovember production (I bought mine end of december but it was part of the november batch) might have been a bad batch because I sent mine in early and it did come out to be a lemon...

And suprisingly it took a week and 5 days including the time i took to ship and receive it to get it back. Perhaps their customer service is getting better?



Also:

I'm currently runnign 166*9.5 = 1580 mhz and whenver I try the 10x multiplier windows loads up with a blue screen (it'll go to splash screen..and then it'll go to this) saying "error with OS bla bla bla bla" but when I lower it right back down to 9.5 its fine. Should I up the juice to the processor? I'm cool (27Idle and 35 load in Asusprobe so i'm guessing add 10 degrees to get the actual readings from the core) and their isn't anything that seems it wouldn't let it work....


And one more thing. I got a new mobo and REAL ram (Crucial pc2700) and I'm still occaisonally getting "read memory errors". I can post several pics if you want. It happens to IE often, all the timein Counterstike when I'm playing botmatches (but its fine on the net), and once on AIM. If anyone has any ideas i'd love you forever

 

[cyclones]

Thanks for all advice so far.
Finally put the bios update in.....1002.001 beta. The cursor in the "FilenameBox"was not at the beginning
of the box and having become "eyeball glazed" after too long at the screen failed to spot this until the
following day! Thats why I cold not type in the filename. It worked by only typing in .......1002.bin
The software picked up the 001 extension all by itself.

Removed the jumper pin from the Western Digital WDC400 and finally I was through to the XP Pro system
on the disc.
This gives all the variations of booting the system.......which all fail !!!

Tells me all sorts of stuff like run Chkdsk/F......on a nice big "Blue Screen of Death ".
Any one know what the helpful info on the screen means.......its like this......

oX 0000007B
oX F8968640
oX C0000034
0X 00000000
oX 00000000

 

[touchmyichi]

You guys are just to cool to flash from windows.... Really it worked fine. Give it a try.

 

[brandonm]

I just ordered a A7N8X Deluxe. I hope it works out fine for me (I never had an Asus board, but I know they are good). It is replacing my MSI K7 Master (which is a good board too). It will only have a 1.2Ghz and in it for now. I will probably get a new CPU within the next few weeks.

 

[dock444]

I'm a newb here. Just built up a puter w/ A7N8X deluxe board, XP 2600+ w/ 333FSB and 512mb PC2700(2x256). Everything worked fine from the get go with the included 1001G BIOS. The only thing it didn't detect or set correctly was the CPU frequecny. It defaulted to 100 but I changed it to 166 and saved and exited and it held the setting. So my 2600 is running 2.08, which is down slightly from the older 2600 which ran at 133 with a 16 multiplier, giving 2.13. Anyway, here is my questions. I have no idea what to set the memory timings at. They are currently whatever was assigned as default. I want to run the system in synch but can I have more aggressive memory timings without upping the FSB? I'll edit this post when I get home and list the exact timings I currently have in the BIOS if anyone wants to advise me. By the way, these are two OEM sticks of PC2700 memory. They do have Samsung chips on them but I didn't examine very close. Definitely no XMS, although I did put copper heatspreaders on them just for Shi*s and giggles.

OK, here are my memory settings in the BIOS:

memory timing- optimal
Active Precharge Delay-7
RAS to CAS- 3
RAS precharge delay-3
CAS latency-2.5T

Do I stand any benefit by changing these?

 

[magomago]

First of all, the 1001G will continue to reset your FSB until you switch bioses...that is what happened with me - my 1700+ kept going down to to 100mhz FSB and the computer kept saying "System failed overclock" or something to that effect and all dissapeared wth the 1002.001 bios.

want to run the system in synch but can I have more aggressive memory timings without upping the FSB?

What do you mean? Your FSB is set at 166(333mhz) - by the look at your ram timings it already seems as if you are running your ram at 166mhz(333mhz) so you are in sync.
Atleast my Crucial pc2700 ram is currently set at that ("preformance timings" set it at 166mhz for me))...if it was at 133mhz you probably would have had tighter timings...


But I wouldn't worry since it seems that you are running in sync anyway...if not pop up Asusprobe (or another utility if AP doesn't tell you the info) and check the FSB yourself

 

[magomago]

Guys, here are screenies of my error:

The first is this":

Error 1
Error 2

I got just Zeus for 10 dollars from my friend (He didn't want me visiting his constantly playing it He is one of those who are really wary over liscensing and wouldn't let me borrow it) and it always gives me this error...including the EXACT same numbers...


Anyone help me out? The first is moreof a random error...My setup is listed in my sig and I've RMAd both Mobo and RAM.

The odd thing is that all tests (including 36 hours of Prime95) pass without a hitch (I can even encode anime now unlike before) but apps (namely counterstrike, IE, AIM, and now this) are crashing...

I've got updated drivers...my dets are at 40.XX...i have the 1002.001 bios...

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by: magomago
Guys, here are screenies of my error:

The first is this":

Error 1
Error 2

I got just Zeus for 10 dollars from my friend (He didn't want me visiting his constantly playing it He is one of those who are really wary over liscensing and wouldn't let me borrow it) and it always gives me this error...including the EXACT same numbers...


Anyone help me out? The first is moreof a random error...My setup is listed in my sig and I've RMAd both Mobo and RAM.

The odd thing is that all tests (including 36 hours of Prime95) pass without a hitch (I can even encode anime now unlike before) but apps (namely counterstrike, IE, AIM, and now this) are crashing...

I've got updated drivers...my dets are at 40.XX...i have the 1002.001 bios...

Sounds like my funny problem. I can run 166*11 and pass CPUBurn with error checking and Memtest86. Run a game and it wont go 15 minutes before lue screening. Drop down to 133*x and its fine. Doesnt like the 166 on the FSB for some dumb reason. Still working on it.
Anyways, you mgiht try backing your FSB down a bit (If its not at 133 that is) and see what happens. Thats just a wild guess on my part.

I'd also disable one of the Lan's, unless you rusing both. No sense loading it up.
I'd also remove that warez copy of Nero.

 

[magomago]

It isn't a warez copy. It came bundled with my LITEON 48x24x48x burner :\

As for 133, i left it on 166 for bandwith reasons (I encode some anime).....

And it still did this in 133...which pisses me off....