ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe 1T Issue To Be Fixed Soon!!?

[ajmiles]

Hey all,

After reading the great Anandtech SLI Roundup and seeing Wesley too had problems with overclocking at 1T I asked if he might be able to get a reply from ASUS on the issue. Here's what Wesley sent back:

Adam -

My engineering contacts at Asus have emailed me that the video compatability
issues have been resolved and the fixes are in a new BIOS 1007 to be
released very soon. I was also told they believe they can fix the
overclocking issues and be very competetive with DFI. These fixes should be
in a new BIOS next week.

I will be out of the US for a couple of weeks, so you will need to look for
new Asus BIOS at their site and on Forums.

Wesley Fink
Senior Editor, AnandTech, Inc.

I think that speaks for itself.

ajmiles

 

[Shaga]

Wow, nice one!

 

[jmas]

Wow that is a great thing....looking forward to the new BIOS file!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you ajmiles

 

[cronic]

thanks for the info. thats great news. i have an a8n-sli that is very stable but not a great overclocker, and i just got a dfi sli-dr that has been a nightmare. i would love to go back to the asus if it will overclock better. Thanks for the heads up

 

[Tanclearas]

Wow! I'm still at the "I'll believe it when I see it" stage, but if it's true.... SWEET!

I guess the only comment then is did Asus only finally get on this issue because of reviews? Was it not enough that their existing, paying customers were asking for the fix?

 

[akugami]

It's amazing what can happen when you get bad press. Now, I think that SLI roundup went overboard as this board performed rock stable at stock speeds and provided decent overclocking. Provided you use a divider for the memory because it wouldn't go over roughly 240-250mhz memory at 1T timings. But if "bad" reviews on products get them to fix the bugs/kinks then I'm all for it. I've been eyeballing some Patriot 1GB sticks and if they get this fix I think I'm going to dump my value ram for 2x1GB sticks. Those 1GB Patriots are rated at 2-3-2-5 1T which is NICE. Grab a pair of them which would be about $400 and I won't ever have to worry about ram again. At least for DDR1.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: akugami
It's amazing what can happen when you get bad press. Now, I think that SLI roundup went overboard as this board performed rock stable at stock speeds and provided decent overclocking. Provided you use a divider for the memory because it wouldn't go over roughly 240-250mhz memory at 1T timings. But if "bad" reviews on products get them to fix the bugs/kinks then I'm all for it. I've been eyeballing some Patriot 1GB sticks and if they get this fix I think I'm going to dump my value ram for 2x1GB sticks. Those 1GB Patriots are rated at 2-3-2-5 1T which is NICE. Grab a pair of them which would be about $400 and I won't ever have to worry about ram again. At least for DDR1.

The LLK is $150 shipped from Monarch right now. I don't think $250 extra is worth it for 2GB personally. Also, I feel it prudent to invest so much in DDR1 at this point as you never know things will be on that front even in December. DDR2 latency is going down and even if the benefits are negligible on AMD64 the marketing might need "DDR2" associated with newer processors to be competitive. Just FYI on the Patriot LLK mostly.



Also if this 1T issue is fixed, the ASUS will pretty much be the ultimate board when you combine stability, performance and O/C together.

 

[quik]

Wow great news if thats true.... Can't wait!

 

[GuitarDaddy]

WOW! Sure hope its true! Maybe my OCZ plat. rev2 will finally get to stretch its legs

 

[ThomasE66]

I just downloaded the 1.007-002 BIOS a minute ago. I'm going to give it a try

 

[grapper]

ThomasE66 - please post your results. I am dying to try this out, but I dont have the time right now - will have to wait for the weekend. These 4400 modlues are just dying to be put to work with a higher FSB at 1T.

 

[ajmiles]

I can tell you it wasn't fixed.

1007.002 Thread

Half way down the first page are my results, it confirms 248 is the limit.

 

[MrVeedo]

that really sucks it isnt fixed. did anyone else have any luck? hey tom, nice to see you at anandtech, im veedo from over at [Hard forum.

 

[ThomasE66]

I had to go out, but now that I'm home and have eaten I'll play around some tonight. With 1.005 I was stable up to 245 at 1T; we'll see what happens tonight.

 

[grapper]

Well that is too bad . I will read the thread you linked to now. You got the impression these drivers would fix the issue from the response above, however they never expressly said it would fix the 1T issue... Can we maybe expect a fix with 1.007 final? I am still praying. BTW - while I am at it. S-ata locks, are they on all nvidia S-ata controllers on this motherboard? (1-4)

 

[cronic]

This sucks, still no 1t fix!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ThomasE66]

Well, I'm running at 260 HTT at 1T right now. So far no blue screens, but it's time for some stress testing first before I say anymore

 

[Regulator07]

kinda off topic, but do you use the awdflash version 1.09 to flash the bios, or are you guys using liveupdate?

 

[ajmiles]

I have to say that sounds unlikely, what frequency and multiplier are you using to get that? You may not have set DDR400 in the BIOS which forces a 1:1 setting on the memory.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I can confirm the 1T limit is not fixed by the 1007.002. And for me it was no good for O/C, couldn't boot to settings I've been using for months. Flashed back to 1004

 

[ThomasE66]

Originally posted by: ajmiles
I have to say that sounds unlikely, what frequency and multiplier are you using to get that? You may not have set DDR400 in the BIOS which forces a 1:1 setting on the memory.

It was set to 400, but it was not stable. It rebooted during benchmarking. I've backed way down to 251 for now. Time for more testing.

 

[cronic]

what are your system specs? more importantly what memory are you runnin. I personally can't get past 230, 1t stable on my new ocz ps4200el ddr533 platinum, or on my balliatix pc3200, either at stock timings or losened timings. i'm on 1007-02 but isn't any better than any of the bios beta or final.

 

[ThomasE66]

Originally posted by: cronic
what are your system specs? more importantly what memory are you runnin. I personally can't get past 230, 1t stable on my new ocz ps4200el ddr533 platinum, or on my balliatix pc3200, either at stock timings or losened timings. i'm on 1007-02 but isn't any better than any of the bios beta or final.

I'm running the following:

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
3500+
2x512 OCZ EL Platinum Rev 2 PC3200


Right now I have my CPU multiplier at 10.5 and my HT Multi at 4x. Memory timings are 3-3-3-7 right now. If things are stable I'll try to tighten them some, but that's pretty good for this speed. The TCCD on these are rated at 2-2-2-5 @400.

 

[ThomasE66]

Well, it ran stable for about two hours last night through various benchmarks and some gameplay. This morning however, it rebooted on me as soon as I launced Outlook Express. This was at 251 HTT, 1:1 divider, etc.

Then again, prior to this BIOS release I never got about 246 for even an hour.

 

[bneiderman]

Well, like GuitarDaddy, I can't OC like I did with 1004 either. Back I go as well.