ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe trouble - it quit POST-ing

[govern1]

Always go bigger! It also depends on how much you can spend. I'm a PC Power and Cooling guy, personally, but they are expensive ($230-$250 depending on the website). You do get what you pay for, however. I've heard a few good things about the new Thermaltake 680. I think newegg has it in stock.

Shawn

 

[Insomniak]

I'm running an Enermax 460 Whisper II witha the rails as follows:

12v = 33A
5v = 35A
3.3v = 35A

I plan to run an A8N-SLI Deluxe (coming Monday) on this PSU. I picked it particularly because of the strong rails. A few questions, since we seem to have shifted to PSUs:

1) This has an ATX 1.3 20-pin plug. I know I can plug this into the 24 pin power connector and the board should work fine, but will this cause less power to be delivered to the system?

2) Is this PSU beefy enough for the system I plan to build? Specs:

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (.09nm Winchester)
1GB (512x2) Mushkin Basic Green PC3200
LeadTek Geforce 6600GT PCIe
Samsung 52/32/52/16 CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive
120 GB Western Digital HDD 7200RPM 8MB Buffer IDE
Sound Blaster Live
Vantec Nexus Fan Controller
1x80mm Case Fan
1x120mm Case Fan


Note that the case fans are powered through the Vantec fan controller, which itself recieves a single 12v lead.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Plug some speakers into the green jack on the onboard sound riser, and see if you get any post messages

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I'm running an Enermax 460 Whisper II witha the rails as follows:

12v = 33A
5v = 35A
3.3v = 35A

Your 5v rail is a little low, but your 12v is fine. You should be smooth with this psu.

 

[slime uk]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
Plug some speakers into the green jack on the onboard sound riser, and see if you get any post messages

Yep - tried this - not at first I have to admit, but then I thought that if the BIOS had reset to defaults (I am still not sure if this has happened or not!), then the annoying voice might be trying to tell me something - so I did try this - nothing! I reckon the mobo has had it. We in the UK don't seem to have a phone number to call for Asus - we are instructed to fill in a technical support form - which I have done - don't expect any reply until Monday or Tuesday earliest

 

[slime uk]

OK - the latest info - I tried to reset BIOS like sal said and this didn't work on first boot - but then I did take memory out before doing as sal suggested. I then put 1 stick back in (slue slot, B2 I think) and tried to boot and I got System Failed VGA test via speakers. This is the first I have had out of this board for nearly a week!

I then went out and bought a Tagan 480W PSU - I like the look of this by the way and a shop up the road had one in stock (the best they sell). Now back to nothing...

Gonna try swapping that single/dual monitor PCB round (currently set to single card) over to dual card...

Thanks for all the replies so far by the way

 

[slime uk]

Well it seems that one in every 30 odd boots I get sound saying System Failed VGA test. One stick of memory, or two - but only after I reset BIOS like sal says and maybe not on next boot after doing that but on the 2nd try. I have only had this with the selector at single card - dual card or selector card missing I can't seem to get the message or any POST sounds! One other thing - I only seem to be getting this with a old PCI graphics card. As soon as I try my XFX 6600GT, I have not had the error as yet - no POST either.

I guess the board must be broke - or something is VERY intermittent.

Any other ideas??

Thanks

 

[FastEddie]

Have you tried a single stick of memory in the B1 dimm slot?

 

[slime uk]

I have tried a single stick in the B slot (blue one - can't remember if that is B1 or B2).

I seem to be getting somewhere as I can now more regularly get it to POST (still not too often mind you) and even saw the ASUS logo so I hit delete but it froze (still said hit del to enter setup) again. Switched off and back on - nothing again. Switched PSU off, cleared BIOS, switched PSU back on and got it to POST again, hit del and got in to setup this time - had about 2 mins in BIOS looking around before it completely froze on me again - had to switch it off. Again, it has not posted since.

Do you think my memory is not getting enough voltage - or is BIOS ver 1002 a waste of space. I noticed that Cool n' quiet is actually set to AUTO and not disabled by default - wish I'd had time to disable it and save BIOS! Maybe my BIOS is corrupted? A fresh save may be the answer if the system will POST and let me in for long enough!!!

This is doing my head in!!

 

[slime uk]

Still no joy - it still only posts 1 in 30 times. Anyone any other ideas - still waiting for ASUS to contact me

If I do get in BIOS, should I up memory voltage or CPU voltage? Having said that I bet it won't save and then won't post until I reset BIOS again.

Thanks.

 

[JonGalt26]

Just to throw in my two cents. I've read the reviews for years on this site but never browsed the forums hence my first post.

My current setup:

A8N-SLI (1003.5 beta drivers)
AMD 64 3500+
Antec Neopower 480 Watt
(2) XfX GF 6800 GT
1 gig (2 sticks) corsair xtremem low latency pc3200
Maxtor 300g diamondmax 10 sata
SB Audigy 2 ZS
XP Pro SP2

After struggling for days with the same POST problems that have been brought up, I wanted to ask a couple of questions. (the questions are at the end of the boring speech)

I thought i was in the clear until last night when i had to clear the cmos once again. (Mine clears fine just by turning the PSU off, discharging any residual "Juice" (by hitting the on switch on the case) and using the jumper to reset. (I use a pair of needle nose pliers cause i had to come up with a solution to repeatedly clearing my cmos and it was too hard w/ tweezers and a pain in the ass to remove the vid cards.)

First off, the first 2 times i turned on NCQ on the hardrive I couldnt even get into safe mode with windows, just the BSODeath. of course i had to reformat the drive and start over each time. (windows wouldnt restore nor repair)
I learned my lesson with the Maxtor NCQ and the nforce 4 chipset.
Can anyone else turn on NCQ? (After I "ghost" my drive perhaps i'll try again)

So after I learned lesson 1 I figured I was in the clear. -wrong-

I got the BSODeath (Not to be confused with BSODisks) again. The nice thing about this BSODeath was that after i rebooted the puter wouldnt POST. After numerous tries I figured I would try clearing the CMOS and then windows loaded - woohoo. Perhaps this is a driver / bios problem then.

This also made me wonder if all i had to do before was clear the CMOS and perhaps it wasnt an NCQ problem? (I'm still wondering that so any help would be appreciated)

So with this new info i started to update all my drivers. I updated the video drivers to the nVidia 67.02 Beta. as well as the soundcard drivers and dowloaded the beta bios 1003.5 (but didnt flash the bios yet).
On a side note, i now hate creative. they had 10 updates which asked for 10 reboots (after each was installed) and because of my newly acquired skittishnes i chose to reboot)

Once i had to clear the cmos I decided to update the bios with the beta drivers, after flashing i had to clear cmos again to get it to boot.
Everything was working fine (well kinda fine, i added an ide harddrive to get some files and had the HD jumper settings wrong, which forced a cmos clearing)
Everything seemed to work like a charm, finally, for the past week until last night when I had to clear the CMOS once again. this time w/o an apparent reason.

In my reading of this thread and many others on other forums there have been a few things brought up: the 1003.005 Beta Bios. the problems with Maxtor NCQ & the nForce4 chipset. (there seems to be a problem with the maxtor HD and the MSI board as well) and lastly the damn soundcard.

I plan on reflashing the bios now to 1002

So I guess here are my official questions after that long boring speech. Thanks to those who read this far.

Will turning on NCQ screw everything up again?
Should i just use the onboard sound? (i have logitech z-5500 digital speaks and would prefer to use the audigy )
does anyone thing its just a bios version issue?
Which video driver version do you recommend?

Thanks!
Jason
Jongalt26

 

[FastEddie]

Leave NCQ disabled, until nVidia comes out with a Unified Driver which address NCQ on the NF4.

Always try to get a stable system before updating and flashing anything. Stay with the 1002 final bios until you get things working. Leave the Audigy out of the mix until you get things working. Manually set the cmos options for your XMS Corsair memory and voltage for same to 2.75v.

 

[magicone]

To slime uk :

I see you have a skystar2 with your A8N. I have the same card and mobo.
I have tested several pci slots, several drivers (from 4.2.3 to 4.3.0) and I have always blue screens in windows :
Machine check exception
STOP : 0x0000009c ( 0x00000004, 0x80545ff0, 0xb2000000, 0x00070f0f)
When I disable the skystar2, my system becomes 100% stable.
Before all your problems, your skystar2 was working fine ?

 

[slime uk]

To magicone,

Thanks for the reply - nice to see someone else with a SS2 card!! To be honest, it isn't mine! a m8 had it before and he never had any probs with it (not our mobo though!).

I didn't get the STOP error you got - but maybe similar because the mouse went all jerky and then the PC froze when I ran that TechnoTrend prog - the one that sits in the systray with a red/green icon.

What revision card you got m8? - I have 2.3

Have you got a DiSEqC motor? What plugin do you use to drive it? Do you the modified driver (SkyNet.SYS) file? What PSU do you have as I have read that the SS2 driving DiSEqC 1.2 can be a little power hungry! Did you have cool n' quiet enabled as I have read the SS2 and DiSEqC 1.2 can cause probs??

What DVB-Viewer prog do you use? ProgDVB etc?

Cheers,
Slime

 

[JonGalt26]

Fast Eddie:
Thanks alot bro!
Jongalt

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: slime uk
To magicone,

Thanks for the reply - nice to see someone else with a SS2 card!! To be honest, it isn't mine! a m8 had it before and he never had any probs with it (not our mobo though!).

I didn't get the STOP error you got - but maybe similar because the mouse went all jerky and then the PC froze when I ran that TechnoTrend prog - the one that sits in the systray with a red/green icon.

What revision card you got m8? - I have 2.3

Have you got a DiSEqC motor? What plugin do you use to drive it? Do you the modified driver (SkyNet.SYS) file? What PSU do you have as I have read that the SS2 driving DiSEqC 1.2 can be a little power hungry! Did you have cool n' quiet enabled as I have read the SS2 and DiSEqC 1.2 can cause probs??

What DVB-Viewer prog do you use? ProgDVB etc?

Cheers,
Slime

I use TH 1020a (redcard) with MT. Planned on setting this up this coming weekend, but may play with it a little while tonight. I know the redcard works with A64.

JonGalt26 Keep us posted of your progress.

 

[slime uk]

@JonGalt26

Good luck m8 - sounds like you are having weird BIOS clearing weirdness too. I did read your entire post but didn't have anything to offer other than what I have also read on here - Audigy probs etc. And that funny setting on SATA drives (not got any of these myself) that doesn't seem to work too well (or at all??!) with NF4. Good luck...

@FastEddie

You lost me m8!!! What is a redcard - not heard of that card - is it expensive - I am not sure I'll ever trust the SS2 card in my rig again - having said that magicone must be OK with his in his rig - OK so it causes STOP errors (not good) but at least he can still boot if it is disabled - I have not managed to boot since installing it. Can you tell me more about this sat card - does it DO everything that the SS2 does - can you use DiSEqC 1.2 (USALS) motors with it and with MT can use all the "usual" software to get "everything" if you get me??!!

I am going to have to send the mobo back. Asus have come back to me by mail and said that it sounds like the mobo is "fried" - but they didn't know I have now managed to get it to POST every now and then. If it WAS fried, how come every now and then it POSTS - all be it it never gets past the POST. I give up with it! I don't like mysteries!

 

[FastEddie]

A TwinHan 1020a pci Sat card (DVB). MT = MyTheatre. Yes on the software. Get's everything!

 

[bwentzel]

I upgraded my power supply to a new Thermaltake 680w PSU. Very nice. Highly recommend it. Didn't fix the problem with the firewire ports, but system seems to be stable.

 

[magicone]

Originally posted by: slime uk
To magicone,

Thanks for the reply - nice to see someone else with a SS2 card!! To be honest, it isn't mine! a m8 had it before and he never had any probs with it (not our mobo though!).

I didn't get the STOP error you got - but maybe similar because the mouse went all jerky and then the PC froze when I ran that TechnoTrend prog - the one that sits in the systray with a red/green icon.

What revision card you got m8? - I have 2.3

Have you got a DiSEqC motor? What plugin do you use to drive it? Do you the modified driver (SkyNet.SYS) file? What PSU do you have as I have read that the SS2 driving DiSEqC 1.2 can be a little power hungry! Did you have cool n' quiet enabled as I have read the SS2 and DiSEqC 1.2 can cause probs??

What DVB-Viewer prog do you use? ProgDVB etc?

Cheers,
Slime

My card is a rev2.3 as yours. I have no diseqc motor. I've tried a lot of drivers, original ones and modified ones by saar. I have blue screens with all of them.
I have a 550W PSU (Tagan). Cool n' quiet is enabled. I will try to disable it. Maybe it will help.
I've tried to upgrade to bios 1003-6 but it isn't better.
Usually I'm using MyTheatre 3.
Regards.

 

[majwalrus]

I can't even get my a8n deluxe to power up the power supply fans or cpu fan. Green LED light indicating power is on, tried 2x PS switches, 2x 400W power supplies, nada nothing. Also of note, the one i'm building for my flatmate - exact same problem (different chassis, but same make of power supply).

Spec:

A8N-SLi Deluxe
Athlon64 3500+ (not winchester)
1GB (2x 512MB Geil Aluminium cooled DDR400)
XFX GeForce 6600
2x 160GB Maxtor DiamondMax UDMA150
400W Power supply. (24 pin)

Even tried disconnecting everything to see if it would give me some form of error. Nope, nothing.

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: majwalrus
I can't even get my a8n deluxe to power up the power supply fans or cpu fan. Green LED light indicating power is on, tried 2x PS switches, 2x 400W power supplies, nada nothing. Also of note, the one i'm building for my flatmate - exact same problem (different chassis, but same make of power supply).

Spec:

A8N-SLi Deluxe
Athlon64 3500+ (not winchester)
1GB (2x 512MB Geil Aluminium cooled DDR400)
XFX GeForce 6600
2x 160GB Maxtor DiamondMax UDMA150
400W Power supply. (24 pin)

Even tried disconnecting everything to see if it would give me some form of error. Nope, nothing.

Connect your case speaker to the speaker header, clear the cmos on the board, then try again.

 

[bwentzel]

More problems:
Last night, while I was surfing the net, I got a weird message from the AI Booster app - something in Chinese and saying "Checksum Error. Click OK."

Seemed to be no big deal. System worked fine. Until I turned it on this morning. Took 1+ minute for the "Detecting IDE Devices" to find the drives. Not good. Seen that problem before whenever I try to change any setting in the BIOS besides disabling features.

Then it tried to boot up into XP. Got the wonderful faded Starting XP screen and a hung system.

Last time this happened before I sent it back to the vendor, it eventually let me into XP after 15-20 reboots. Not this time. HOSED!

Called ASUS. Gave me the run around saying "it couldn't have been the BIOS, has to be the memory. Check the memory. Check it! Is it on the QVL?"

Yes, it's on the QVL. Corsair says they have checked it out on this mobo. And I still can't get the built in firewire to work. I bought a PCI firewire card and that works like a charm.

Anyway, I am RMA'ing my second A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo back to the vendor. 3rd time better be a charm or I'm going MSI when they come out.

 

[Lentic]

I am having basicly the same problem with my ASUS A8N. The board worked fine for me once I cleared the BIOS after i got it. Instaled Windows a second time after doing tons of stress tests and graphial benchmarks. The reinstall worked but when i left for school and came back windows had blue screened. So far no amount of a CMOS clearing has been able to get it to actually POST. It powers on but I don't get any video and no POST beep. This is my second board ... I guess Im going to have to RMA this one as well. If ASUS can't do any better than this when the MSI, DFI or Abit boards come out I will be switching.

If anyone comes up with any good fixes I would love to hear them. Thanks.

Also I have noticed that on my first reboot after a CMOS clear on BIOS 1003-005 that it detects my 3500 as a 4000 MHz chip it detects it correctly after another reboot but I was wondering if this was contributing and if anyone else was having this prob.

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: Lentic
I am having basicly the same problem with my ASUS A8N. The board worked fine for me once I cleared the BIOS after i got it. Instaled Windows a second time after doing tons of stress tests and graphial benchmarks. The reinstall worked but when i left for school and came back windows had blue screened. So far no amount of a CMOS clearing has been able to get it to actually POST. It powers on but I don't get any video and no POST beep. This is my second board ... I guess Im going to have to RMA this one as well. If ASUS can't do any better than this when the MSI, DFI or Abit boards come out I will be switching.

If anyone comes up with any good fixes I would love to hear them. Thanks.

Also I have noticed that on my first reboot after a CMOS clear on BIOS 1003-005 that it detects my 3500 as a 4000 MHz chip it detects it correctly after another reboot but I was wondering if this was contributing and if anyone else was having this prob.

What powersupploy are you using?