ASUS M2N-E IS A HORRIBLE BOARD

[Talcite]

I was building a system for a friend, and we decided on the asus m2n-e as the system board.

BAD CHOICE!

I have had problems with it from day 1. First the ram was incompatible. Infact, every stick of ram in the computer shop was incompatible. I had to reflash to the latest bios and then try certain sticks. I finally found one that worked. Ontop of all this, other users have had problems with being unable to run their ram at 1.8V and at rated speeds.

Now i'm having another problem. Windows is unstable if a webcam is plugged in at bootup. It restarts a few seconds after logging in. I've tried everything short of experimental bios versions. (I don't want to go back to the ram problem.) I can leave the webcam unplugged during log on, then plug it in after everything and it works ok. Other users have had the same problem with a logitech pro5000. Mine was a logitech fusion.

Now my backup software, Acronis trueimage workstation v9.1 won't restore the backup image. It goes to a black screen and the keyboard freezes after restarting.

I'm at my wit's end. I don't know what to do inorder to fix my problems. I'm never going Asus again. I even paid more for this board just because it was ASUS. I recently bought an D975XBX instead of the P5W DH. There was absolutely no support for this from ASUS and there's been nothing but headaches from the first second I assembled this system. Bios updates have been slow and far apart.

 

[DaveSimmons]

That's too bad, their A8N-E has been 100% stable for me since I got it in April.

I wonder if you still have a RAM problem causing this? Have you made a bootable Memtest CD to check the RAM outside of Windows?

 

[n7]

I've been hearing horror stories abounding with this mobo all over too, which isn't surprising.

Asus has crap QC these days it seems except for their highest end mobos, & even their best (like my A8N32) have issues.

 

[Talcite]

I have build and sold over 30 systems with A8N-Es in them. That's the only reason I went with the M2N-E. It was a great board, other than the fan on the northbridge, that tends to die prematurely, but a simple aftermarket solution fixes it.

I've tried the ram though Prime95. I ran it for 10 hours stable. I havn't used memtest outside of windows yet. I'll try that next chance I get.

 

[Talcite]

Oh yeah, so are there any solutions for the USB restarting problem? that's pretty urgent since i'm heading off soon.

 

[Ike0069]

I too have read about many problems with this board. Because of all the problems, I went with a Gigabyte board for a friend's build.

You might be better off cutting your losses and goind with a different MB as the M2N-E needs some serious support from ASUS that they seemingly are hesistant to give.

 

[capricorn]

Sorry to hear you had problems with your M2N-E. I just built one with an AMD 3800+ AM2 (Retail), 2x1GB Patriot Dual Channel DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) at 4-4-4-12 (PDC22G6400LLK) and an eVGA 256-P2-N554-AX Geforce 7600GT graphics card. The first thing I did was flash to the latest BIOS from Asus, which may have resolved problems that I would have otherwise run in to. This system seems to be very stable.

I had to set the voltage for the memory to 1.95V (the max the board supports) to get Memtest86 to run consistently without errors, but the memory recommends 2.1V anyway. I let Memtest86 run for 12 full passes and there were no errors. I also ran 3DMark03, 3DMark05, and Battlefield 2 (the latter one for several hours) with no problems. BF2 seems to be a good load test program. I've had systems pass all the usual tests and crash after 15-20 minutes of BF2.

My only real complaint about the board is the lack of any onboard Firewire ports and that the DDR voltage doesn't go to 2.1V. (A lot of DDR2 memory seems to like this voltage.)

 

[bigboxes]

RMA?

 

[Talcite]

I can't RMA because there's no "definite" problem that can be directly attributed to the motherboard. I also can't return it because it's been longer than a week since my friend's bought it.

I just hope Asus pulls it's damn act together and releases some godsend of a bios version.

In the meantime, don't anyone buy this board, it's a damn sour lemon.

 

[Tweak155]

I just had a 5 day old Asus A8N - VM CSM die on me. I switched to a board manufacturer i've bought from before. I remember Asus used to be top name way back in the 266 era but I read reviews on the board I bought and apparenty i'm not the only one with crap problems.