A7N8X - My tale of woe

[Pjotr]

I disconnected everything, CPU, RAM the works. I took the battery out and moved the CMOS jumper overnight, no change. I've sent the card back today, getting a replacement, but prolly not until after Xmas.

But I love the board, it was totally stable up to 180 MHz, I didn't try higher before it died. It has all the features I want, including dual LAN, great 5.1 audio onboard (no brackets needed), no NB fan, distance between AGP and RAM slots for easy installation, ATX connector in the right place etc etc. Also came with great software, PC-Chillin anti-virus, video editing software, video recoding software, MP3 ripper and WinDVD software! Has SATA for my next HD, has Firewire for cameras etc.

 

[Chris431]

There's something bizarre about the 180s & this board. The sole time I had any problems was when I upped the memory to ~187mhz (asynchronous). That resulted in the only time I had to clear the CMOS. I subsequently went up to 200mhz with no probs (asynchronous). I believe reading elsewhere of others having problems with the 180s on this board. Strange.

Chris

 

[Pjotr]

Well, it wasn't when changing the FSB, it was when I went in and disabled Firewire and some other things. It's just the Save BIOS function that is buggy. Like when I was at 175 MHz FSB and then change to 180, it still booted up 175, I verified with WCPUID. Then I go into BIOS and it says 180! So I save again and it boots 175 again. I go into BIOS, changes some other things and save again and THEN it booted 180 MHz. It's like sometimes it doesn't write BIOS correctly, or fails to use the written data and eventually it didn't save anything sensible, the board can't POST and even clearing CMOS doesn't work.

 

[Regalk]

I have tried just about every FSB above 166 to test its stability and the only thing I found is when you push the cpu too hard there is a cold boot problem. As soon as I bring it down a bit everything is OK. All FSBs work. AT 196x9.5 and 189 x 10 my Tbred 1700+ works flawlessly. Above that cold boot problem. This board rocked since the day I bought it approx. 3 weeks ago no complaints at all except tthat the BIOS is a bit funky but then its beta. Perhaps this is why so many people have problems - Asus releasing the board with a Beta bios.