In an effort to make finding information about the ASUS A7N8X easier for all forum members, please post and discuss your issues, problems, experiences, rants, raves and FAQs here.
AnandTech Moderator
AnandTech Moderator
*** Official ASUS A7N8X/Deluxe (nForce2) Thread ***
- Thread starter AnandTech Moderator
- Start date
Hmmmm... I had this idea for the ArsForum... anywho... I gots me the A7N8X delux in my system right now so start up the questions and I'll see what I can do.
BTW, I am currently working on a FAQ for this board that I hoped to finish by the end of the week... So I look forward to seeing what I can lear from this about what to post.
BTW, I am currently working on a FAQ for this board that I hoped to finish by the end of the week... So I look forward to seeing what I can lear from this about what to post.
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
- 10,518
- 271
- 136
Just to get things started....
Go to the nForcersHQ forums for a huge database of information on the ASUS A7N8X motherboard, in addition to every other nForce2 motherboard in existence. Specifically, go here for a large list of ASUS A7N8X reviews, in addition to just about every other nForce2 review on the net, and here for a forum completely dedicated to the ASUS A7N8X. I even post there occasionally.
By visiting these forums you may not even have to post a single word to find what you're looking for regarding the ASUS A7N8X.
Go to the nForcersHQ forums for a huge database of information on the ASUS A7N8X motherboard, in addition to every other nForce2 motherboard in existence. Specifically, go here for a large list of ASUS A7N8X reviews, in addition to just about every other nForce2 review on the net, and here for a forum completely dedicated to the ASUS A7N8X. I even post there occasionally.
By visiting these forums you may not even have to post a single word to find what you're looking for regarding the ASUS A7N8X.
Thanks, Mods, for setting this up. And thanks Evan Lieb for the links.
I just installed this mobo so the timing is excellent!
I just installed this mobo so the timing is excellent!
I guess I'll start answering questions about the board again. Answering the same question 10x a day gets old :disgust:Here's my opening tip:
Flash your BIOS before you tweak ANYTHING. Most preferred 1002.001, but 1002.A is excellent as well. Currently using 1002.A as its provided me the best results so far.
Chiz
I appreciate y'alls willingness to answer questions! I attempted a clean install of Win XP Pro on a new system consisting of Athlon XP 2800+ Barton on A7N8X deluxe, bios revision 1002, 2 each Corsair XMS series low latency PC3200 DDR SDRAM in slots 1 and 3, Asus CRW-5224A CD-RW, Western Digital WD1200JB 120 GB hard drive, Alps 3.5" floppy drive, Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro video card, standard PS2 mouse & keyboard. The Windows installation partitioned the entire drive using NTFS, copied Windows files as usual, attempted first reboot on hard drive, and failed with message "Error Loading Operating System". Attempted reformat (both "full" and "quick") and reload several times, same result.
Per Microsoft Knowledge Base article referencing this error message, I suspected a possible bios issue, so downloaded An8b102a.sip bios file from Asus site. When unzipped the file comes out as An8b102a.awd (is that .awd extension correct?). Tried to start flash utitity from startup screen using alt+F2, but when utility screen came up, the cursor appeared to be ABOVE the white box that would normally display the entered text, and I could not type any file names in the box. Exited out of flash utility and downloaded awdflash.exe from Asus onto bootable floppy (formatted in Win98). Ran flash utility from floppy, everything looked good initially, saved original bios to filename old.awd (following naming convention of bios file obtained from Asus site), typed "y" to execute flash, and computer locked up. Scared me silly, I thought the bios chip was toast, but when I hit reset switch, everything came back up as before. I've attempted the flash several times now, both from alt+F2 and from bootable floppy, with same results as above.
I next attempted an install of Win98 on this system, which went off fine - no errors, no difficulty. I deleted all partitions and reformatted in FAT32. Only issue with this install is that Windows hangs on shutdown, and Device Manager has a category for Other Devices showing the yellow question mark. This category lists two PCI Ethernet Controller, two PCI Multimedia Audio Device, one PCI System Management Bus, and one PCI Universal Serial Bus - could this be cleared up by installing the NVidia drivers off the CD included with the motherboard?
Questions: 1) Why does flash utility fail from alt+F2?
2) Why does flash fail from bootable floppy using bios file An8b102a.awd? Personally, I'm guessing it's the wrong file extension. Anyway, I've been hunting around to find another copy of the 1002a bios, but no luck (and it looks like nforcehq is down, I can't get it to come up).
3) Why would WinXP Pro install formatted to NTFS fail on initial reboot, while install of Win98 goes off fine?
I'd really appreciate any suggestions, I was kind of looking forward to playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein on this baby this weekend.
Thanks,
Gary
Per Microsoft Knowledge Base article referencing this error message, I suspected a possible bios issue, so downloaded An8b102a.sip bios file from Asus site. When unzipped the file comes out as An8b102a.awd (is that .awd extension correct?). Tried to start flash utitity from startup screen using alt+F2, but when utility screen came up, the cursor appeared to be ABOVE the white box that would normally display the entered text, and I could not type any file names in the box. Exited out of flash utility and downloaded awdflash.exe from Asus onto bootable floppy (formatted in Win98). Ran flash utility from floppy, everything looked good initially, saved original bios to filename old.awd (following naming convention of bios file obtained from Asus site), typed "y" to execute flash, and computer locked up. Scared me silly, I thought the bios chip was toast, but when I hit reset switch, everything came back up as before. I've attempted the flash several times now, both from alt+F2 and from bootable floppy, with same results as above.
I next attempted an install of Win98 on this system, which went off fine - no errors, no difficulty. I deleted all partitions and reformatted in FAT32. Only issue with this install is that Windows hangs on shutdown, and Device Manager has a category for Other Devices showing the yellow question mark. This category lists two PCI Ethernet Controller, two PCI Multimedia Audio Device, one PCI System Management Bus, and one PCI Universal Serial Bus - could this be cleared up by installing the NVidia drivers off the CD included with the motherboard?
Questions: 1) Why does flash utility fail from alt+F2?
2) Why does flash fail from bootable floppy using bios file An8b102a.awd? Personally, I'm guessing it's the wrong file extension. Anyway, I've been hunting around to find another copy of the 1002a bios, but no luck (and it looks like nforcehq is down, I can't get it to come up).
3) Why would WinXP Pro install formatted to NTFS fail on initial reboot, while install of Win98 goes off fine?
I'd really appreciate any suggestions, I was kind of looking forward to playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein on this baby this weekend.
Thanks,
Gary
The biggest problem I've been having right now is with my cd writer. I cannot get it to work w/ this board. Everything is set up the same way it was w/ my old system. When I boot up I see a bunch of ????? next to the writer name. I've tried many different settings and it still won't work...
Rather than this, this board is awesome.
Rather than this, this board is awesome.
Touchmyichi, which cdrw do you have? There might be a compatibility issue going on between the bios and the drive.
Aslo, see if you can get it to be recognized as just a general optical device. I had to do that on my old PIII.
Aslo, see if you can get it to be recognized as just a general optical device. I had to do that on my old PIII.
gd or anyone for that matter with this mobo ~
How does an ati 9700 pro work on it ? I play all kinds of games... mainly counterstrike online, dugeon siege...hitman2 etc etc. I bought a 9500pro a while ago but returned it due to the walls in counterstrike maps constantly jittering back and forth whenever I would move. Back then I had an ABIT NV7-133R. I'll soon be up to date with this particular asus board, with corsair xms 2700 2-2-2-5 ddr (dual 256) and a barton 2500+, and my prometeia chiller. Any ati 9700pro luck with this combo ? I'm giving up on nvidia since their benchmarks are neck to neck with ati and they had plenty of time to recoup from their surprise @ss whooping. If you're using a 9700pro give me the manufacturer too if it's not ati. Thanks !
How does an ati 9700 pro work on it ? I play all kinds of games... mainly counterstrike online, dugeon siege...hitman2 etc etc. I bought a 9500pro a while ago but returned it due to the walls in counterstrike maps constantly jittering back and forth whenever I would move. Back then I had an ABIT NV7-133R. I'll soon be up to date with this particular asus board, with corsair xms 2700 2-2-2-5 ddr (dual 256) and a barton 2500+, and my prometeia chiller. Any ati 9700pro luck with this combo ? I'm giving up on nvidia since their benchmarks are neck to neck with ati and they had plenty of time to recoup from their surprise @ss whooping. If you're using a 9700pro give me the manufacturer too if it's not ati. Thanks !
Touchmyichi, I just found this on the nForcersHQ forum FAQ, maybe it'll help:
"Q. I have trouble with my CDRW/DVDRW. I always get errors when burning, it worked fine on my previous motherboard what?s wrong?
A. First, make sure you have an ASPI layer installed. This is necessarily for burning CD's in windows. You can get the latest ASPI layer from Adaptec. Proceed to the second step if your burner still does not work.
Second, make sure you don?t have the IDE drivers from package 2.00 installed (as detailed above). Proceed to the third step if your burner still does not work.
Third, make sure your CDRW/DVDRW is set as a master, either on the primary or secondary channels. Proceed to the fourth step if your burner still does not work.
Fourth, set it to PIO mode for the time being. Sorry I don?t have anything further about this yet. "
Sounds good, at any rate. Good luck!
"Q. I have trouble with my CDRW/DVDRW. I always get errors when burning, it worked fine on my previous motherboard what?s wrong?
A. First, make sure you have an ASPI layer installed. This is necessarily for burning CD's in windows. You can get the latest ASPI layer from Adaptec. Proceed to the second step if your burner still does not work.
Second, make sure you don?t have the IDE drivers from package 2.00 installed (as detailed above). Proceed to the third step if your burner still does not work.
Third, make sure your CDRW/DVDRW is set as a master, either on the primary or secondary channels. Proceed to the fourth step if your burner still does not work.
Fourth, set it to PIO mode for the time being. Sorry I don?t have anything further about this yet. "
Sounds good, at any rate. Good luck!
I've noticed in several forums that this board has a tendency to die after making changes in the BIOS. It will hang on exit then fail to POST. Then people will manually reboot and that's the end of the MoBo.
I noticed, with my board, that sometimes, not all the time, there will be a long delay when exiting the BIOS. It appears to hang but will eventually exit and reboot normally. After reading about all the no post problems after BIOS change I decided that it's better to wait it out than to reset manually.
Hope this helps others avoid grief.
I noticed, with my board, that sometimes, not all the time, there will be a long delay when exiting the BIOS. It appears to hang but will eventually exit and reboot normally. After reading about all the no post problems after BIOS change I decided that it's better to wait it out than to reset manually.
Hope this helps others avoid grief.
(Note: I'm bringing this issue over and letting my thread die.)
I just updated my bios from 1001.G to 1002 and everything is working fine.
However, the system still won't even POST unless the FSB is set to 133MHz and the multiplier on "Auto." In other words, my Athlon XP 2100+ seems to only like default speeds on this mobo. I ran this chip, with the same two 512MB sticks of Samsung PC2700 DDR SDRAM, with an FSB as high as 147MHz on an MSI KT3 Ultra mobo. Why the difference?
I just updated my bios from 1001.G to 1002 and everything is working fine.
However, the system still won't even POST unless the FSB is set to 133MHz and the multiplier on "Auto." In other words, my Athlon XP 2100+ seems to only like default speeds on this mobo. I ran this chip, with the same two 512MB sticks of Samsung PC2700 DDR SDRAM, with an FSB as high as 147MHz on an MSI KT3 Ultra mobo. Why the difference?
Doomer, that's a known issue with all nForce2 boards. Simple workaround is to change only 1 setting at a time and to "save" first and then "save and exit". It seems the nForce2 boards are rather untraditional in the way they handle BIOS changes, as they actual write to flash rather than just the CMOS on exit. Cowdog provided a link on the issue from another thread from AoA forums.
Dan, what version 1002 are you using? 1002 with no extensions is 1002 "Final" I believe, and still isn't the best available. 1002.001 Beta was the best for a long time, but I've been using 1002.A (latest) and I've gotten even better results with it. Search nForcersHQ for a link to .001 or .A. Also, if you are tweaking settings, change everything to user defined and set everything to optimal at first. Set FSB freq. to 100% or "sync" and tweak 1 or 2 things at a time. Also, save before save and exit as mentioned above. I kinda figured early on that the BIOS didn't like having to exit and saving at the same time, because when I did, it would display some funky ASCII chars along with the last change I made in the BIOS. Also, I've found that FSB settings that are too aggressive or too high for your memory to handle can result in system hangs as well. Try keeping everything nice and relaxed (optimal, relaxed timings, cpu interface at optimal etc.) until you get a successful post and then tweak from there.
Chiz
Dan, what version 1002 are you using? 1002 with no extensions is 1002 "Final" I believe, and still isn't the best available. 1002.001 Beta was the best for a long time, but I've been using 1002.A (latest) and I've gotten even better results with it. Search nForcersHQ for a link to .001 or .A. Also, if you are tweaking settings, change everything to user defined and set everything to optimal at first. Set FSB freq. to 100% or "sync" and tweak 1 or 2 things at a time. Also, save before save and exit as mentioned above. I kinda figured early on that the BIOS didn't like having to exit and saving at the same time, because when I did, it would display some funky ASCII chars along with the last change I made in the BIOS. Also, I've found that FSB settings that are too aggressive or too high for your memory to handle can result in system hangs as well. Try keeping everything nice and relaxed (optimal, relaxed timings, cpu interface at optimal etc.) until you get a successful post and then tweak from there.
Chiz
My cd burner is a old adaptec 8x. It worked fine, but its pretty slow. Do you think it will help if I replaced it? I tried some of the things that gdc said, except set it to primary, I'll try that now. Alright thanks to everyone who is is helping.
Success! Thanks, chizow!
I flashed to 1002a and saved as instructed. Now I'm able to increase the FSB. (Running at 1.8GHz now in the first, easy test.)
Changing the multiplier still has no effect so my 2100+ must be locked.
I flashed to 1002a and saved as instructed. Now I'm able to increase the FSB. (Running at 1.8GHz now in the first, easy test.)
Changing the multiplier still has no effect so my 2100+ must be locked.
Hi Dan,
Where did you find the 1002A? I've downloaded from Asus, but the file won't flash. Also, should it have an extension of .awd when unzipped? I was expecting a .bin, but that's not what's in the file.
Thanks,
Gary
Where did you find the 1002A? I've downloaded from Asus, but the file won't flash. Also, should it have an extension of .awd when unzipped? I was expecting a .bin, but that's not what's in the file.
Thanks,
Gary
i just bought the a7n8x delux today for 150 on newegg. i bought 256mb crucial pc2100. my question is that im praying that the a7n8x delux supports pc2100 plz somone tell me it does pm me plz!!
SKORPI0
Lifer
- Jan 18, 2000
- 18,409
- 2,318
- 136
Get 1002A.bin here
Unzip, save on floppy, reboot, Alt+F1, type 1002A. Wait for Bios to upgrade, then exit. Turn off system (unplug power cord), Reset CMOS.
PC2100 (DDR266) is supported, but PC2700 (DDR333) would be ideal if you plan to overclock. It would give you enough "breathing room" to go to at least 166FSB.
1, why would you need to unplug the computer and reset for just a bios upgrade and 2, I don't think you need the AWDFlash if you are going to use the Alt+F2
i have no plans of overclocking the a7n8x is for my 2nd rig im on an xp2800 rite now so i dont need to oc
PC2100 will work, but I believe the 2800+ chips are default 333MHz Athlons, so the multiplier will reflect that accordingly. I'm not sure if the FSB will default to 166MHz and run your RAM async at 133MHz or not though. For best results you'll want to run your mem/fsb synchronously, so that means running at 133/133MHz, which means you'll have to raise the multiplier to obtain your "stock" clockspeeds.
Dan, glad it worked for ya
My only major knock on this board is the BIOS it ships with and the lack of quality updates for it. Its really a trial and error process when their BIOS are released, and after that its word of mouth as to which one yields the best results. Users that don't know where to look are kinda left in the dark in that regards, which could be really frustrating. Also, you guys should try out the AsusUpdate utility. I've found it to be excellent and always upgrade my BIOS with it. Beats the cold dark confines of DOS and I avoid the pain of having to prep a boot disk. Btw, I'm pretty sure the version of Award Flash with alt-F2 is busted. The version on Asus' site is apparently the only one that will work.Chiz
Skorpio, thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!
I had already found the 1002a.bin over at nForcersHQ, where I also learned I should reset the bios to defaults before attempting to flash. I'd tried it a couple of times already, and it would never flash. Well, after flashing this last time, everything looked good - saved old bios, utility said it was actually updating the bios, the works. Got to the end, and it said hit F1 for reset - and that was it. I hit F1, and my monitor went dead, the seek light came on on the CD-RW for a couple seconds, and that was all she wrote. Hit reset on the box, same thing. Ack! I've killed the bios! OK, deep breaths, go eat some popcorn....
Anyway, while I was munching on popcorn, I found your post, went back and powered down, pulled the plug, popped the battery, used the reset jumper, and voila! I'm up and running! I really, really appreciated the tip - I'd probably be camped on the phone with Asus tomorrow morning if you hadn't dropped that little pearl of wisdom.
Now, if I can just get Windows XP pro to load....
Thanks again, and have a great week,
Gary
I had already found the 1002a.bin over at nForcersHQ, where I also learned I should reset the bios to defaults before attempting to flash. I'd tried it a couple of times already, and it would never flash. Well, after flashing this last time, everything looked good - saved old bios, utility said it was actually updating the bios, the works. Got to the end, and it said hit F1 for reset - and that was it. I hit F1, and my monitor went dead, the seek light came on on the CD-RW for a couple seconds, and that was all she wrote. Hit reset on the box, same thing. Ack! I've killed the bios! OK, deep breaths, go eat some popcorn....
Anyway, while I was munching on popcorn, I found your post, went back and powered down, pulled the plug, popped the battery, used the reset jumper, and voila! I'm up and running! I really, really appreciated the tip - I'd probably be camped on the phone with Asus tomorrow morning if you hadn't dropped that little pearl of wisdom.
Now, if I can just get Windows XP pro to load....
Thanks again, and have a great week,
Gary
what is the difference between .001 and A?
Are cold boot issues resolved? I could push my FSB a lot higher if for the fact if I go above 166 FSB (even 167) the system won't post...I have to let it warm up or something...and then it says "oc error" and I have to enter the bios and the settings are correct (though I have to save, exit and hope it boots)
Are cold boot issues resolved? I could push my FSB a lot higher if for the fact if I go above 166 FSB (even 167) the system won't post...I have to let it warm up or something...and then it says "oc error" and I have to enter the bios and the settings are correct (though I have to save, exit and hope it boots)
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