Unofficial ASUS K8N-E thread

[xmaxx]

i am having somewhat of a similar problem as you on this board.
my specs are exactly the same as yours, except i am using stock parts and my memory is Transcend DDR400 512 * 1
Nvidia's Nforce Drivers that came with the installation CD cause some serious havoc with SP2. the moment i install the PCI BUS Master and GART Drivers, my IDE CD stops responding. i had to do a clean install and not install the NForceware.
looking at the Nvidia Site for a solution gives nothing. the most recent release of their NForce3 250 driver set doesnt even have the K8NE-dlx listed in the supported boards. i did see the SK8N, which is like the little brother of this board.
did you find any solutions. i would let it just stay this way, but w/o the PCI Bridge and the BUS Controller, when i have CDs in both my CDR and CDRW, it hangs the machine.

 

[jkresh]

anyone try the 1006.0008 bios? I may try it tomorrow, hopefully we will see the 1006 release bios soon.

 

[LocutusX]

kresh, did you try it?

 

[Maximus96]

please keep us posted

 

[jkresh]

havent tried it yet, if the final release isint out by monday then i I will try it. I have some calculations running on my machine and dont want to reboot until they are finished, which should be sometime over the weekend.

 

[imported_ST]

Hi all, been a lurker to this site and forum for a while, but have been intently observing this thread, since I am facing the same problems with the K8Ne. I am using a CH 3400+ now with 2 WD 74GB Raptors with the nVidia RAID. I can overclock my board 5% to 2310MHz, completely stable, but anything beyond that i experienc BSODs. I am fully aware of AT's article about the limitations of this board with the SATAs at 225 FSB, but I'm not even close to that yet! Although I have some crummy memory Samsung CL3's, I have tried to take this out of the equation by run 2/3 Mem clock to no avail; I simplly cannot get past 210 FSB!

Through AT and this forum, I have also purchased the OCZ Platinum Rev. 2's, downloaded the 1004 BIOS, and setup the HT to 3, and it still BSODs above 210MHz. Just as a sanity check, I borrowed my buddy's 3200 NC, and with that setup, I can get up to 220MHz FSB, although I must say my the 2420MHz performance of it with OCZ, was still less than stellar (scored below my 210MHz FSB 3400+ in various benchmarks).

So now, I'm in a bit of a quandary, on whats exactly wrong with my system. I am not necessarily out for top notch all out OC performance, but would like to get to 10% stability with my 3400+ CH. I read up on some erratas concerning CHs' memory controller, but don't think it is applicable to me. My next experiment is to get a quality Power Supply (Coolermaster Real 450W) instead of my Allied 500W and see if it makes a difference (maybe I'm power starved since i have a 6800 Ultra also)....

Any suggestions would be appreciated...

 

[beflythis]

Originally posted by: xmaxx
i am having somewhat of a similar problem as you on this board.
my specs are exactly the same as yours, except i am using stock parts and my memory is Transcend DDR400 512 * 1
Nvidia's Nforce Drivers that came with the installation CD cause some serious havoc with SP2. the moment i install the PCI BUS Master and GART Drivers, my IDE CD stops responding. i had to do a clean install and not install the NForceware.
looking at the Nvidia Site for a solution gives nothing. the most recent release of their NForce3 250 driver set doesnt even have the K8NE-dlx listed in the supported boards. i did see the SK8N, which is like the little brother of this board.
did you find any solutions. i would let it just stay this way, but w/o the PCI Bridge and the BUS Controller, when i have CDs in both my CDR and CDRW, it hangs the machine.

i have the exact same problem - i thought it was just my CDRW? (LG 16x, oldschool)

I'm using the winxp sp2 native IDE drivers... and that seems to have temporarily resolved the issue, but windows takes FOREVER to load... (i counted 27 coloured bars)..

... any more info?


also... i'm not too familiar with the intricacies of overclocking and this mobo.... i've got an amd64 3000+ with OCZ 2x512 premier series 2.5 3 3 7 RAM with copper plating heat spreaders and a thermaltake venus hsf (which rocks, btw)

right now i'm running at 220 fsb with stock voltages... (mem timings at 2.5 3 3 10), but i'd like to go higher... possibly to 2.4 + ?

suggested settings and how to change them would be wicked!

-beflythis

p.s. im also having issues with the hardware firewall... i try to change the profile (or turn it off) and i get an error msg about the profile not being found... I heard if you download the 5.10 drivers from the nvidia website, this issue is resolved... so i just uninstalled the cd drivers and am going to try this now. updates later.

 

[LocutusX]

Originally posted by: ST
I can get up to 220MHz FSB, although I must say my the 2420MHz performance of it with OCZ, was still less than stellar (scored below my 210MHz FSB 3400+ in various benchmarks).

err, sorry, I find that doubtful. there have been numerous benchmarks on the NC published and in the vast majority of the cases it beats CH of the same "rating" in benchmarks, since the 1MB cache really doesn't do much for the A64. exception would be server applications such as database manipulation.

with regards to your actual problem, i'm afraid I can't be of much help. it seems more like a CPU issue. whats important is that you find out what stepping/core revision your CPU is. If it's "C0" you are out of luck - that's the first ClawHammer stepping, it overclocks like sh!t and has poor memory performance/compatibility.

If it's "CG", then you should get decent overclockability, unless you have poor luck and get the worst chip in the batch.

As an aside, you should definitely get a brand-name power supply - I consider that a must for even the most minor overclocking!

 

[LocutusX]

p.s. im also having issues with the hardware firewall... i try to change the profile (or turn it off) and i get an error msg about the profile not being found... I heard if you download the 5.10 drivers from the nvidia website, this issue is resolved... so i just uninstalled the cd drivers and am going to try this now. updates later.

yeah, the so-called "hardware firewall" sucks. i'd wait until version 6.0 of the nforce driver set before having a look at them again. :/

 

[DigitalCCtv]

Hey everyone I just bought and waiting for my new mobo and I've been reading quote a few of the threads on the K8N-E Deluxe and I started doubting my descision. When I first get the unit I don't plan on OC except through the Auto feature but the main question I had is I have a new SATA 200G hard drive that I plan on installing and I was wondering with the BIOS problems the board was having with SATA is will it recognize the SATA or should I install an IDE drive first do all the BIOS updates and then install the SATA drive.

Thanks in advance for any input andI just wanted to mention that there is alot of really good and great information in this forum and to say thanks to everyone volunteering their time and knowledge so all of us wanna be's can learn a thing or two.

Thanks again.

This is a repost from another topic I wanted to post here originally but couldn't find it tell know. Sorry for the double post.

 

[beflythis]

what are the best audio driver versions to be using for the onboard audio?

(i.e. the nvidia 5.10's from their site, or the standalone's from the asus website, or others?)

-beflythis


p.s. whats all this about modded nforce drivers on websites? are they tweaked like dets were in the early TNT days?

 

[LocutusX]

beflythis,

assuming you are using the Realtek AC97 on-board audio, these are the drivers you should use for Win2000/WinXP:

ftp://210.51.181.211/pc/ac97/alc650/wdm_a364.exe
ftp://152.104.125.40/pc/ac97/alc650/wdm_a364.exe

Actually, I don't use that version EXACTLY - but I have always used Realtek's own audio drivers rather than Asus or Nvidia's (for the past 3 driver revisions) and they work perfectly. Heavy game player + listen to music as well.

p.s. whats all this about modded nforce drivers on websites? are they tweaked like dets were in the early TNT days?

No, people just managed to "find" more recent versions of the AGP GART / SMBus / chipset INF drivers than the ones on nvidia's website. They just put it together and call it their own package. I don't think anyone is modding the actual driver files.

 

[jkresh]

tried the 1006.008 beta, nothing different from what I see. Running prime now to test for stability changes.

 

[vinodv]

Hi,

Is the 1006.008 beta the same one as LocutusX posted earlier in this thread? jkresh, can you post a link to the bios? The asus sites I goto don't seem to have the beta??

vv

 

[LocutusX]

on the asus website, download page for K8N-E, go to the BIOS section and click "beta".

 

[robisc]

OK I am trying my board again before I try and get an RMA for it, what install order and drivers do you guys use to install this board, also which files do you use exactly, from ASUS, Nvidia or CD? BTW I am using a Raptor SATA HDD.

 

[LocutusX]

Originally posted by: Brahmzy
Any news on whether 1,3 as opposed to 1,2 helped?

Just to clear up this question that has been asked before by various people (including me):

Yes, switching your 2 dimm's to slots 1 & 3 instead of 1 & 2 will definitely improve things with this board.

When I had my dimms in slots 1 & 2 - ram timings 2.5-3-3-10-2T - best I could manage without getting errors in memtest86 (test 5) was 217mhz (htt 217, mem 1:1).

After moving the second dimm to slot #3, i could go up to 225mhz and still not get any test 5 errors! probably could go even farther, didn't have the time to check it. but whats even nicer is that at 225mhz, i can now enable 1T and it passes memtest! definitely there is a big difference, i need more time to find exactly what the limits are now...

to summarize, best mem spd for 1:1 divider:

dimms in slots 1/2: 217mhz (2.5-3-3-10-2T) - cpu spd 2170mhz
dimms in slots 1/3: 225mhz (2.5-3-3-10-1T) - cpu spd 2250mhz

note that the 225mhz is not final, i didn't have time to try the ones beyond it, had to boot into windows

as far as i'm concerned, this should be mentioned in the instruction manual


(my system: K8N-E Deluxe with BIOS 1004, Newcastle A64 3000+ CG stepping, OCZ PC3200 Rev2 512MB dimms)

 

[xmaxx]

Originally posted by: beflythis
i have the exact same problem - i thought it was just my CDRW? (LG 16x, oldschool)

I'm using the winxp sp2 native IDE drivers... and that seems to have temporarily resolved the issue, but windows takes FOREVER to load... (i counted 27 coloured bars)..

... any more info?

no, havent found anything worth talking about regarding this. i am using the native WinXP drivers as well. i was hoping someone would have used the latest release of the Forceware and seen the results.

also... i'm not too familiar with the intricacies of overclocking and this mobo.... i've got an amd64 3000+ with OCZ 2x512 premier series 2.5 3 3 7 RAM with copper plating heat spreaders and a thermaltake venus hsf (which rocks, btw)
right now i'm running at 220 fsb with stock voltages... (mem timings at 2.5 3 3 10), but i'd like to go higher... possibly to 2.4 + ?
suggested settings and how to change them would be wicked!
-beflythis

i will leave this q to the more experienced overclockers here.

p.s. im also having issues with the hardware firewall... i try to change the profile (or turn it off) and i get an error msg about the profile not being found... I heard if you download the 5.10 drivers from the nvidia website, this issue is resolved... so i just uninstalled the cd drivers and am going to try this now. updates later.

yeah the firewall issue has been resolved with the newer Forceware. the stock drivers that come with the CD dont turn the firewall on at all! d/l the new version and all shall be well.

 

[DigitalCCtv]

Bump

 

[apapnan]

I must be very unlucky!!!
Move RAM to 1,3 didn t help too.
I tried with 1x512 in slot 1 only and then added 256 in slot 3 (where I left it) but nothing changes.
So now the system runs at "best" with 2.390 GHz CPU and 400 MHz (!) DDR.
I remind that it is DDR500...
and I don t understand where the bottleneck is, it seems there are bottlenecks everywhere (CPU, RAM,MOBO?).
I can try with BIOS 1005 but dont think can help much.
What means the S3 patch in BIOS 1005 release?
Should I try with HT=2?
How can I see if the ASUS is 1.05 version?
Any more suggestion?

 

[Kador]

Ram vendors state that using 2 different sticks (I guess your 256 and 512 cannot be exactly the same) is not recommended. As an example, I tried using 2 different versions of the same product (Corsair 512 XMS CAS2 512Mb) and got a lot of problems. With identical sticks, no probs.

This could be the cause of your problem.

Being "DDR500" does mean nothing after all

 

[apapnan]

My S3 1x512 Mb DDR maxes out at about 212 MHz in slot 1 alone. Nothing changes if I add the S3 256 Mb in slot 2 or 3. I used 3.0-4-4-14 (if I rember well) or longer but it is the same.
I could give a try with the 256 M alone... just to see..
As far as I know the memory controller is on board of the Athlon, could be that the bottleneck? Or the MOBO bus?

 

[beflythis]

I'm going to try switching my RAM slots from 1 & 2 to 1 & 3 after my midterm today... I'll let you guys know how high I can get my sys going then.. (again, I'm running fine at 220 fsb with stock voltages, and OCZ premier pc3200 timings set to 2.5-3-3-10)

I get a weird prob in Doom3 that I SUSPECT is due to me not using the SW IDE drivers... (it mentions that the SW IDE drivers fix a bottleneck... i think that's what's causing my probs in doom3)

Every time i load a new level in doom3, I get performance hitches every second or 3/4 of a second (i watched my fps drop down to 30 for a split second ... at the exact same time as an audio blip.) It only lasts for a certain period of time, and then it's gone and all is well - but, without fail, it happens every time I load a new level or reload from a saved game. (caching?)

it doesn't happen in quake3 or tribes vengeance... just doom3. I've tried different resolutions and different tweaking configs (including increasing the default cache size..) to no avail.

it doesn't seem to be a driver prob, because it goes away after a while.. its not my AGP aperture is it?

-beflythis

 

[LocutusX]

Lots of things to respond to:

1. I am using the latest version of the NForce Parallel ATA IDE driver... version 2.6 or something? it works fine with all my devices. Mind you, I am still only using P-ATA for everything! 2 hard drives, 2 opticals, everything is fine. Nforce ide driver works fine with the 2 opticals - cd burning, dvd burning, dvd ripping, etc.

2. the person that was having overclock difficulties: unfortunately there are a lot of factors that could be affecting your overclock, not just the placement of your rams. And yes, the A64 memory controller is located on board the CPU. so actually increasing CPU voltage can in some instances make your memory overclock more stable. in particular, i noticed a lessening of test 5 errors (memtest) when I bumped Vcore from 1.50 volts to 1.55 volts. (but after I moved dimms to slots 1/3, all the memtest errors are gone; i could go back to 1.50 volts or leave it at 1.55 volts and try pushing memory farther).

3. Kador is right, best to use 2 identical sticks of ram... even though Socket754 Athlon64 is not dual-channel, having 2 identical sticks helps in overclocking on a board like this. less variables to have to deal with, since both dimm's will be rated for the same timings and such.

 

[beflythis]

well i didn't see that much increase... i could post at 230 fsb, but got a BSOD halfway into loading windows.... whats up with that?

im running @ 2.25 stable now (up from 2.0). mem timings are 2.5-3-3-10, with 1T rockini'.... 400mhz

my HT is at 4.... would i be able to increase my overclock by lowering that (or my multiplier) ? I thought i read about some ppl running their HT's at 3...

weirdly enough i had a dream that i read a post that said someone achieved a higher overclock by going from 400 to 333... weird eh...


advice?

-beflythis