Issue with ASUS A7V266-E and RAM

[akwarner]

I have a weird issue with my A7V266-E. The first one I got would fail to boot with DIMMs installed in both slots 1 and 2. The DIMMs that I have are two sticks of Crucial PC2100 DDR ordered directly from Crucial based on what their web site said was the correct part for this motherboard. After some trial and error I discovered it would boot with only slot 1 occupied. I returned it and got a replacement. The replacement would boot with slots 1 and 2 occupied but it would do some spontaneous reboots on me after only having been on for a short time. While researching that issue, I discovered the VIA chipset/Nvidia Gforce3 issue. Since I also have a Gforce3 Ti 200 I pursued that as being the problem I was having. However it got to the point that I was getting spontaneous reboots even if I was sitting in the CMOS setup screen before I had even loaded the OS. I took out the memory in slot 2 and the machine would stay up with Windows XP and no VIA 4-in-1 or Nvidia drivers loaded. Video was dog slow but the system would stay up.

I eventually tried loading old Nvidia drivers to try and bump up my display speed and was able to get a stable system with the 22.80 drivers. The 23.11 ones just made the system unstable. On a lark I put the second DIMM into the third slot and the system has continued to stay up and is stable. Yesterday I read a post that talked about the voltage selection on JP1 and JP2 being set too high on certain boards. Mine had come set to 2.8 and I had changed it to 2.65 since the manual said that 2.65 was supposed to have been the default. The post I read suggested changing it to 2.5. I did and moved the DIMM back to slot 2. The system came up and seemed steady for all of 10 minutes and then it spontaneously rebooted. I moved the DIMM back to slot 3 and it was steady again.

I am using a Powmax 300 watt power supply. Cards are a VisionTek Gforce3 Ti 200 in the AGP slot, a SoundBlaster Audigy in PCI slot 3 and a Linksys 10/100 NIC in PCI slot 4. Processor is an Athlon XP 1800+. I am wondering if I should return this board again or if there is a different issue. I am at BIOS level 1005b4. The DIMMS test fine with the various software testing that I have done. I've swapped which ones are in which sockets and it boils down to they work in 1 and 3 and do not work in 2. Seems odd to get two boards in a row with a messed up slot 2.

Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

A.

 

[GEShields]

beta bios.....

 

[Gorillaz]

ak...I seem to be having the same problem. Have you figured out what was wrong?

G_z

 

[Paladin]

That sounds absolutely odd. 2 boards with bad slot 2s??? hmmm, maybe Asus made a bad batch. But, is that bios the beta bios that's floating around??? I'm using slots 1 and 2 with 256 MB DIMMS (for 512) from Crucial, unbuffered, not registered.
XP comes with the 4-1 drivers built in, no need to go get the latest.

 

[boa]

I am having the exact same reboot problem. And yes, I am using mem slots 1 and 2. I'll change to 1 and 3 and let you know the results. BTW: I and using the 1005 bios and w2k

 

[Gorillaz]

i got a new 512MB Crucial DDR because I thought my stick might have been bad, but I seem to be having a similar problem....it tells me it has to dump physical memory after a while. Maybe the problem's with my OS (Win XP Pro) I might re-install and see what happens.

 

[boa]

I have tried using slots 1 and 3. did not help
I checked the memory voltages (see 5 on page 20). My voltages were set to 2.8V!!!
I have not gotten the system to boot since Thought I had a way of not loading the Promise ATA/Raid stuff at the beginning (Advanced -> PCI Configuration -> Load Onboard ATA BIOS -> Disable), but it messed up the hard drive.
I tried doing a w2k repair but it says the "hard disk is new or has been erased".

I am REALLY unhappy with this board. I think it is time for those three little letters that put a smile on your face... RMA

 

[xylem]

I have a question for those of you who are having trouble with the board. I bought 2 of these motherboards: 1 had a metal latch for seating the cpu, and the other had a plastic latch. In the board with the metal latch, I am using 2x256 crucial sticks rock solid with a GeForce3 and SBLive 5.1. In the board with a plastic latch, I am running a high quality 512mb stick, with a GeForce3 and SBAudigy, and that board locks up regularly and also has *problems* rebooting. I suspect that the board is having trouble with the 512 stick, as I have read that there were issues with the 266-E and 512s, but I wonder if the latches signify some other difference in the 2 boards? Please post what type you have and whether you are having memory/lockup issues and let's see if there is a connection.

 

[CiNcRoN]

Hello,
Yeah I get the sort of problem but get blue screens with PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

Ok here is the deal with my setup.

Asus A7V266E AMD Athlon XP 1600+ @ 1.4GHz.
Crucial 2 sticks of 256MB pc2100 DDR cl 2.5 total of 512MB RAM
Creative labs A2 Geforce 2 GTs 32MB
duel boot system
1 20GB maxtor partioned into 2 10GB each 1 fat32(win98se) other ntfs(storage) primary promise controler
1 40GB IBM ntfs (winXP) secondary promise controler.
the rest of system specs don't really matter.

Anys I had this system running great. Untill I had a friend that I had a stick of pc2700 ocz memory that I wated to buy from him to have a total of 768MB of ram. Any ways I installed the ram and booted up and nothing my system would not boot up. So I took the ocz ram and still my system would not boot tried for hours all sorts of configurations. then I took my system to my friends computer store where I bought the motherboard. And had it all tested the motherboard ram and cpu. Tried my mobo with different cpu and ram nothing wouldn't boot up. Then tried a brand new exact same model board asus a7v266e. And my system started up fine this time for the meantime. Then after I took the pc home I would boot up and try to play some quake3 and my system crashed with a blue screen with this error PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA . So I rebooted and when I booted the bios said that I only had 384MB installed and rebooted finaly said 512MB installed. Then took ram stick (a) out of the system. and lefted stick (b) in the system and nothing system wouldn't boot then tried stick (a) back and it booted fine and is stable hmm no problems then ad stick (b) tested at my buddies shop. That stick wouldn't boot in any system either. So took that stick (b) back to the buddie that sold it to me and he said that he can have it sent back to manufacture and he had another stick, I then replaced the stick (b) with stick (c) exact type of memory. Took stick (c) home and installed it and booted fine was happy again. But I started quake3 again up for some more testing. And once again the old PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA errors with other errors. Kept poping up again. So I took the working stick (a) out of the system and tried stick (c) by it self and would just get errors same as before. Then put stick (a) back and it works fine.
Now I don't know if all the sticks are badd or not im going to have to try some different sticks of ram and test it out also have my ram tested on different systems with both sticks installed see what kind of results I get. But I still don't know what th problem is for sure cpu or ram I know it's not the mobo since I just had it replaced.

 

[bluesky]

Man, I have the same problem with this board.
I already installed XP pro several times. It's still crashing once or twice a day.
And displaying the messages page fault, or physical memory dump.

I have 3 sticks of Crucial ddr 2100 for 768mb. Yes, this is my second a7v266e board.
The first one was working a day, then didn't post anything.
Mine has the metal latch.

The funny thing is this board was working for a month without any problem.
I tested the ram w/software, which Crucial recommed, and it didn't find any problem.

I was thinking it might the psu until I see this thread.

 

[boa]

mine has the plastic latch. It just won't boot at all now. I tried reinstalling w2k and it says the hd fails?!? I guess that is possible, I'll try the hd in another system later.

My Theory:
The i/o voltage at 2.8V damaged something. This was the default setting (I had not noticed). My case is very well ventilated and a sk6 W/ artic silver heat sink. But 2.8V is quite high.

 

[bluesky]

Asus posted bios 1005 and it's supposed to fix an issue with Samsung ram.
I also saw Crucial is sold with Samsung chips(at least from Bestbuy).
Anyone has a stick of Crucial with Samsung chips

 

[Gorillaz]

mine has the metal latch. this is really getting on my nerves right now. I thought my memory stick might've been the problem...got a 256MB NEC then replaced it with a 512MB Crucial. Tried different slots, but keep getting the page error and dump of physical memory. What OS are you guys running. I'm running Windows XP. The blue page suggested that I removed hardware or software. I re-formatted my HD, reinstalled XP, took off all hardware except video card and RAM and let it run. I'm starting to wonder if the problem's not the RAM but the MOBO or the OS. You can't imagine how frustrating this is. Anyone that's had this problem and fixed it, please post. I think I've tried almost everything. I got a new power supply (400W) too, 'cause I thought the 300W wasn't enough. Maybe an updated BIOS would help.

G_Z

 

[CiNcRoN]

I'm using a valcano 7 heat sink and fan by ThermalTake. It has a medal clip.

 

[Gorillaz]

I've got a Swiftech MCX370-0A (heatsink and fan combo) all aluminum construction.

I'm not overclocking and I've got no stability. HELP!!!

 

[Gorillaz]

okay, so I downloaded bios 1005 that is supposed to fix the issue with samsung ram, but i don't know how to update my bios.

please post easy to follow step-by-step instructions on how to do this. Thanks

G_Z

 

[bluesky]

I just flashed to 1005.
Hope it fixes this damn problem.


Hey Gorillaz.
Manual page 45.
If you use WinXP, right click A drive from Explorer, and choose format,
you'll have an option to make startup disk, then delete autoexec.bat and config.sys.
Download aflash.exe to the diskette in A drive.
Download the bios image file, then unzip the file to the diskette.
Follow the procedure on the manual.

Good luck.

 

[Gorillaz]

flashed BIOS to 1005...will see what happens

 

[boa]

Something I noticed in the bios
When I was in the bios on the setup page, it would sometimes have garbage listed for the any of the drives. I saw this on each of the three drives. I tried doing "AUTO", etc. If it was messed up, I could not get it cleared up. However, during POST, the drives would always be listed correctly!

just to add info to the growing list of tries...
I am not (nor have I ever overclocked with this board)
the flash upgrade to 1005 did not help me at all.

win2k sp2/ntfs
I have two sticks of crucial 256mb.
1.4 tbird with sk6 and artic silver
upgraded from 300W to a ENERMAX EG651P-VE 550W --- no help
kryo II video
3com 905b 10/100 net card
maxtor d740x 80gb (mstr on ide 1)
plextor 24x cdrw (mstr on ide 2)
pioneer dvd (slave on ide 2)
nothing on promise ATA/RAID
3.5 floppy
EXECELLENT, and I do mean EXECELLENT ventilation (even on back of board!!!)

 

[Gorillaz]

flashed BIOS, but to no avail. I've given up! It seems as if all of us have problems and the only thing we have in common is the motherboard...therefore, by occam's razor I've decided that the mobo's the problem. I give up! Anyone have success, email me @ boombasteke@yahoo.com

G_Z

 

[WhiteWizard]

I got the Infinite loop and the memory fault. The infinite loop gonne with Via 4in1 4.73(a) and the memory problem was fixed setting the bus to 133Mhz instead of 140Mhz, eheheh.
But then again, I don't want to talk about Win2k, I think this mobo works better with WinXP. Remember the problem with the AGP and Athlons of the Win2K, my guess is that at least that is fixed in XP.
My memories were set at 1.80V and I lower the voltage to 1.65V as that was figure in the manual as "default", the guy that set the mobo before me (its second hand) must have some problem and was messing with the board.
I think your problems must be related to the gForce3, did you try to raice the AGP strength in BIOS to "DA" instead of auto?, did you disable Fast Writes in BIOS, check your video card manual and see if there are any incompatibilities with some BIOS settings. Disable BIOS shadow and all the like.
Don't forget last nVidia drivers and Via 4in1 4.73(a). Check your processor temp to be lower than 60C, and by the way, do you try with another processor?

 

[bluesky]

I got a boot volume overload, then I have to run chkdsk to log on Windows.

WhiteWizard.
Did you upgrad Promise controller driver to the new A7v133 driver from Asus, and is it working fine?

 

[xylem]

cincron that is interesting that your computer posted recognizing only 384 mb of 512... I had exactly the same thing happen with the computer I built for an employer, but it was with a single 512mb chip. In my computer I run 2x256 crucial pc2100 cas 2.5 (same as you) and my system is solid as a rock, never noticed any memory issues, probably the best motherboard I've ever used. This is bizarre that some boards are having the issue and others are not... How many of us have installed the VIA 4in1 drivers? I have not installed them in my computer (the stable one...). By the way, I have run both 2K and XP on mine and they were both equally solid.

Oh two more things. I do have the onboard sound disabled on my machine as it was definitely causing issues at high front side bus speed. It is also disabled on the unstable machine though. More important: who is using Athlon Tbird, and who is using Athlon XP? I have Athlon XP running in stable machine and Tbird is running in the unstable one.

 

[CiNcRoN]

Yeah I'm runing what came on the cd with the mobo. (via 4in1 drivers)
Maybe If I update the drivers if in not runing the latest.

 

[WhiteWizard]

What I did was a little bit... brute. When I had the A7V133 I had the Promise Driver for Win2k, since I installed one of the first WinXP PRO that hit the market. Each time I boot, and error "Promise Filter Driver not compatible" and then disabled by WinXP, followed by redetection of the Promise Chip, but WinXP only takes "Win2000 Promise Fastrack Controller", after 2 moths I get the updated file promisxp.exe from ASUS, but WinXP refuse to take the WinXP driver, it wants a new version of the allready installed Win2000 drivers. I could't fix this. So I reinstall WinXp with the F6 key pressing procedure and the new WinXP Promise drivers, all whent perfect, A7V133 working perfect.
So... I just replace my A7V133 for the A7V266-E, since is the same Promise Chip, same BIOS revision, its the same thing, but with DDR memories. I had to reinstall Detonator drivers and Via 4in1 4.73a, but it work perfect, as perfect as the A7V133.

A7V266-E
Athlon t-bird 1.2B @ 1301Mhz (9.5x137Mhz)
512Mb DDR PC2100 unbranded
CL Anihilator II
CL Live! Platinium
2xIBM Desktar 15Gb on RAID 0
Win XP Pro (OEM)

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