HUGE Asus A7V problems :(

[xyyz]

I bought a 900mhz Thunderbird and then i had to decide on an MB... I had a tough time picking between the Asus A7V and the Abit KT7... well I decided to save a few bucks and go for the Asus, 'cause I didn't have an immediate need for the RAID abilities, eventhough something inside me really pushed me to fo with the Abit board (great past expereinces with them).

Well I got the board plugged everything and powered up... well NOTHING happened. I was pissed... so I tried pulling everything outta' it trying to figure out what was causing the problem. Anyways, I still haven't found the problematic component, but I was able to get the unit to power up by pulling everything out execpt for the floppy, an Adaptec 3940UW scsi card (has a 4.3 gig segate baracuda sca80 version... with the sca80-68pin adapter attached... and a plextor ultraplex 40x wide) and the last thing connected is a the Annihilator 2 card.

anyways... I am able to get it to boot, but it's super unstable. I on occasion i see some garbled asci charcters on screen... and I need to power down and then back up to sort it out.

Most of the time the system freezes and I cant do anything.

After it does it's POST and junk I can't get it to boot off of the SCSI CDROM eventhough it detects a bootable CDROM (win2k pro). I've even tried to boot the system off a floppy but that doesn't work either... if it does start reading the floppy... the system will freeze.

I've never had this sorta problem before so any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[xyyz]

oh here are the details that might help...

AMD Thunderbird 900mhz
Asus A7V
2x128mb ram (1 samsung and 1 micron w/ecc)
Adaptec 3940UW SCSI card
Creative Labs Annihilator 2
Plextor Ultraplex 40x wide CDROM
Seagate Baracuda 4.3gig SCA80 (with sca80-68pin converter)

Items that aren't connected
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Intel Pro100 NIC
Seagate Baracuda 9.13gig SCA80 (with sca80-68pin converter)
Seagate Medalist Pro 6.0
Deskstar 75gxp
Yamaha 8424S CDRW

The power supply is 250 Watts made by enlight corp... I know that everyoen says that the PS outta be 300 Watts... but this fullfills the requirements that Asus gave for their board.

Any help would be appreciated...

 

[paulip88]

Try remounting the heatsink. Some socket A sinks are a bit tricky. The first time I installed mine I had some crazy instability problems, but then I found that I didn't mount it flat, which scraped up things a little.

 

[xyyz]

I've tried that... tried it just now.

Things have become worse.

Someone else suggested that the fact I had the thermal take and then applied the thermal grease to it, it might have caused a heat problem.
I cleaned off all the thermal paste leaving only the thermal tape.

Now I'm having problems getting the thing to post.

Sometimes I can go into the bios other times I can't. Now i've noticed heavy screen garbling in the bios menus this happens a few seconds before the system hangs.

 

[xyyz]

here's a new problem...

when I check the VCORE voltage settings... they fluctuate between 1.82-1.87v. Shouldn't the voltage be 1.75v?

I've tried lowering the voltage setting through the bios, but that the VCORE remains the same.

 

[ogn]

The Vcore readings on the A7V are higher than what it states in the BIOS. You set it to 1.75, it'll read 1.8+. Just a quirk with this board. Try switching your ram around or even going down to 1 stick. This board can be picking about the ram you're using. Also, make sure that the SCSI card isn't sharing with the AGP card.
After reading through your post again...I think it may also be the PSU. With all those peripherals you have in there, you really do need a 300W. Doesn't it make since that you can boot farther without those in. You should be able to add all your cards and it'll work. Just leave out any HDD and CDRoms you don't immediately need. Each of those are taking 12V.

 

[ogn]

Note: If you tried adjusting the VCORE when the mb is still in jumperfree mode, I don't think it'll do anything. That may be why your adjustment had no effect on the VCORE.

 

[xyyz]

You seem to know alot more than the Asus tech support guy who wasn't at all helpful.

He suggested I try switching to the jumper mode (which kinda annoys me because I did pay for the jumperless feature). I tried powering up again, and I have the same problems. I guess it is a board quirk because even after I changed the voltage through the bios the hardware monitor still reports the VCORE @ 1.82v.

The guy from Asus kept harping on the fact the processor is running way too hot, and I agree but it's still running at least 25C under the die max of 90C.

I'm really thinking about changing the power supply, but I am having this problem with the MB, RAM (1 stick now), 2 case fans, the floppy drive and the video card. 250 W should be able to handle this w/o any problem right? :/

 

[zion]

I had similar problems. Checked the temp of my CPU in Bios and it was over 170!
REMOVE the thermal tape and use only some heatsink compiund and I have dropped temp by 60 degrees!
The "tape" seemed to be more like some piece of plastic.

 

[jsm]

I have had the same issue with the Asus A7V. I cannot even get the thing to boot. I push the power button and no response. I use the same hardware and setup on my Abit KA7 and I have had no issue with booting.. though the Abit KA7 does not work with my Ultra160 SCSI cards. But, that is a topic for another post.

I feel your pain.

 

[xyyz]

Zion,

what HS are you using... the chrome orb? if so, does the processor make contact with the heatsink it you remove the thermal tape?

Jsm,

What have you done with your Asus board?

-----------------

Well, I tried what I was told. But, still no difference. I called the Asus people again... lemme just get in that their tech support people are morons. They don't seem to have a problem with the fact I can't get VCORE lower than 1.82 (tried to work with the jumpers and bios to fix this). They pretty much told me to deal with it. To try to "cool" it in other ways. I didn't pay to deal with all this crap. I paid to deal with a board that had good reviews from a company that was *supposed* to be the best MB maker.

I bought this product from these guys because the Abit product was a bit much and the Asus board offered the same features minus the RAID which I didn't need (forgive me for forsaking you Abit... you've always been good to me... how could I have been blinded by this!).

Anyways, I've decided to return the board hoping that this is a defective board and that I'll be sent a replacement. I hope the board is defective because if it isn't Neutron Comp is gonna charge me 3x the amount I paid to "place the board on the testing bench."

Let's see what happens now.

 

[DaddyG]

ZION, your supposed to remove the plastic protective covering from the thermal compound !! LMAO

 

[TonyRic]

I had many problems getting MY A7V (when I first installed it) to post, get video, etc... Here is what I found out... The A7V had TIGHT AGP AND PCI slots... Make sure ALL CARDS ARE PROPERLY SEATED!!! This fixed my problems...

 

[Phuz]

Hey man. I have an A7V as well, and i too found its VERY tight fitting. You REALLY have to push them in, its a very sharp sounding click. Also, TO avoid conflicts with your mX300 which i had, make sure you have:
Promise controller drivers ready VERY quick.
Asus 4 in 1 drivers

 

[dmcgoy]

kt133 mb have HUGE probs with win2k. i couldn't get my rig to function with win2k so i went with win98 and it works great now. you should take off the thermal tape and use thermal grease, also.

gl

asus a7v
tbird 800@945
cl annihilator2
other stuff...

 

[blammo22]

dmcgoy,

Win2K runs considerably more stable on my setup than Win98SE does... Install was also no problem (make sure you have the latest Win2K drivers for all your stuff).