*** Official ASUS A7N8X/Deluxe (nForce2) Thread ***

[Hikari]

Unfortunately for me, I can't run at 200mhz, even w/the latest bios on my 1.04 rev. 195 runs just fine, but I -still- have sound flake out on me sometimes. I guess I'm just out of luck....

What is the best CPU I'm most likely going to be able to use if I'm stuck w/195 as my top end? Sort of sucks since I have a gig of the 2-2-2-6 t1 corsair low latency ram...

 

[edmundoab]

Originally posted by: Hikari
Unfortunately for me, I can't run at 200mhz, even w/the latest bios on my 1.04 rev. 195 runs just fine, but I -still- have sound flake out on me sometimes. I guess I'm just out of luck....

What is the best CPU I'm most likely going to be able to use if I'm stuck w/195 as my top end? Sort of sucks since I have a gig of the 2-2-2-6 t1 corsair low latency ram...

yeah, kinda unlucky I guess,

as for me, i was a little lucky as I managed to touch 200 Mhz,
but thats as far as I could go, even by testing 202 Mhz,

the system crashes and the bios just won't POST
had to reset the CMOS and tried it again a couple of times with imcrements of 5 instead...
still DIED....

oh well, guess the board just won't take more than 200 for me... ;o(

 

[Jeff7181]

Trying to update my BIOS so I can use a Raptor drive when I get one in the next couple weeks... instructions for creating a bootable floppy on Asus's site don't work. Tried my own and it didn't seem to work right, so I decided not to go try it and possibly have it poop out in the middle and leave me with a dead board. So now I'm trying Asus Update... but ftp.asus.com has too many users connected, the only one I can download from is ftp.asuscom.de... but that's in a different language... if I download that, will my BIOS be in a different language, or still in english?

 

[FingerDemon]

My newbie installed board is working pretty well. I haven't tried to OC anything. But I have a couple of problems that I'd love input on.

1) I was having trouble with my MS Intellimouse Explorer "Wired" mouse prior to building this machine. The behavior is the USB seems to go dead for a while then comes back. It happens intermittently. Deadly for gaming. I thought it might have been the old machine's USB ports, so I put it in the A7N8X Deluxe machine and am now having the same problem. But on Microsoft's website they say ASUS motherboards don't provide enough power to the USB and their mouse won't work on it. Is this still true? Wouldn't ASUS have fixed this for their newest A7N8X Deluxe product? Before I get in an argument with a MS tech support, I want to know a little more about this if possible.

2) I still can't figure out how I can hook up the front panel audio without removing those jumpers on the pins. (See earlier post for details) Has anyone else set up their front audio panel? I believe I have the right cables for it to work, but I'd have to remove two jumpers currently in place on board.

3) I have an Antec TruePower 380 PS and one extra case fan. No matter how I hook up the fans (including the processor fan) ASUS probe can not see one of them as spinning. I got latest ASUS Probe version and tried moving cables, but that just switches which fan it says isn't working. I currently have the blue lead from the power supply going to the three pin connection marked PWR_FAN1. I have the processor fan lead going to the connector marked CPU_FAN1. And the case fan only hooks up to a big four plug power connector, so I have that connected to one marked FAN ONLY. It is the processor fan that doesn't seem to be seen. Could the CPU_FAN1 connection be bad?

Any help or insights into any of these problems would make this newbie very happy and appreciative.

Thanks,

FingerDemon

P.S. I sent an e-mail to ASUS about the Fan problems, but I think I must have sent it to one of their foreign operations. So, there is no telling if they could read it. Not surprisingly, I haven't gotten a reply.

 

[edmundoab]

Originally posted by: FingerDemon
My newbie installed board is working pretty well. I haven't tried to OC anything. But I have a couple of problems that I'd love input on.

1) I was having trouble with my MS Intellimouse Explorer "Wired" mouse prior to building this machine. The behavior is the USB seems to go dead for a while then comes back. It happens intermittently. Deadly for gaming. I thought it might have been the old machine's USB ports, so I put it in the A7N8X Deluxe machine and am now having the same problem. But on Microsoft's website they say ASUS motherboards don't provide enough power to the USB and their mouse won't work on it. Is this still true? Wouldn't ASUS have fixed this for their newest A7N8X Deluxe product? Before I get in an argument with a MS tech support, I want to know a little more about this if possible.

2) I still can't figure out how I can hook up the front panel audio without removing those jumpers on the pins. (See earlier post for details) Has anyone else set up their front audio panel? I believe I have the right cables for it to work, but I'd have to remove two jumpers currently in place on board.

3) I have an Antec TruePower 380 PS and one extra case fan. No matter how I hook up the fans (including the processor fan) ASUS probe can not see one of them as spinning. I got latest ASUS Probe version and tried moving cables, but that just switches which fan it says isn't working. I currently have the blue lead from the power supply going to the three pin connection marked PWR_FAN1. I have the processor fan lead going to the connector marked CPU_FAN1. And the case fan only hooks up to a big four plug power connector, so I have that connected to one marked FAN ONLY. It is the processor fan that doesn't seem to be seen. Could the CPU_FAN1 connection be bad?

Any help or insights into any of these problems would make this newbie very happy and appreciative.

Thanks,

FingerDemon

P.S. I sent an e-mail to ASUS about the Fan problems, but I think I must have sent it to one of their foreign operations. So, there is no telling if they could read it. Not surprisingly, I haven't gotten a reply.

to your question no.2

YES I do face the same problem as if the CPU fan is not detected,
I am using Panaflo, and somehow Asus Probe does not detect that the fan is spinning,
and blinks with the message "CPU fan below trash hold"

i guess its ok...

 

[Poglish]

Please, please, please HELP!

I'm a first time poster on AnandTech, but I've read the forums for quite a while. I've been having a very peculiar problem with my new A7N*X Deluxe 2.0, and I was hoping someone, anyone, could help me.

My system appears to run fine, with no problems whatsoever, here is my set-up:

AMD 2600+ (333 FSB)
2x Mushkin High Performance Black PC 2700 512MB 2-2-2
Radeon 9700 PRO 128MB DDR
Plextor CD-R PX-W1210A
Seagate ST360021A

Here is my problem:

I often play games using direct-connection with a friend of mine, but since I set this system up, I've been having a very peculiar problem. It started happening first with Rise of NAtions, but I re-installed AOE2: The Conquerors and the same type of thing happened. A few minutes into the game, Rise of Nations, my machine starts to dramatically slow down. I have my framerates displayed, and they got from about 75 down to 10. This only last a second or two, then they jump back up to 75, etc. This happens continually and I can't figure out what would be causing it. When I play the game single player, I can load the screen with units, have huge battles, etc. without any slow-dows at all. At the very most, I may drop to 65 FPS, but that's pretty rare in and of itself.

Can anyone think what on earth could be causing a problem like this? I'm inclined to think it's network related, but I wanted to know if anyone has experienced anything similiar or can think of what may cause the problem?

Thanks in advance,

Poglish.

 

[Anonemous]

Originally posted by: Poglish
Please, please, please HELP!

I'm a first time poster on AnandTech, but I've read the forums for quite a while. I've been having a very peculiar problem with my new A7N*X Deluxe 2.0, and I was hoping someone, anyone, could help me.

My system appears to run fine, with no problems whatsoever, here is my set-up:

AMD 2600+ (333 FSB)
2x Mushkin High Performance Black PC 2700 512MB 2-2-2
Radeon 9700 PRO 128MB DDR
Plextor CD-R PX-W1210A
Seagate ST360021A

Here is my problem:

I often play games using direct-connection with a friend of mine, but since I set this system up, I've been having a very peculiar problem. It started happening first with Rise of NAtions, but I re-installed AOE2: The Conquerors and the same type of thing happened. A few minutes into the game, Rise of Nations, my machine starts to dramatically slow down. I have my framerates displayed, and they got from about 75 down to 10. This only last a second or two, then they jump back up to 75, etc. This happens continually and I can't figure out what would be causing it. When I play the game single player, I can load the screen with units, have huge battles, etc. without any slow-dows at all. At the very most, I may drop to 65 FPS, but that's pretty rare in and of itself.

Can anyone think what on earth could be causing a problem like this? I'm inclined to think it's network related, but I wanted to know if anyone has experienced anything similiar or can think of what may cause the problem?

Thanks in advance,

Poglish.

I would probably say the network coding for the game is bad IMHO since you can play the game real well single player but in multiplayer it goes kerplunk.

edit: Did you try asking this in the Rise of nations tech support forum?

 

[tlemmon]

nevermind.. returned the board

 

[PuterDoctor]

Got my replacement CPU today
hooked it up and was able to get in the BIOS after a couple of tries(it reads my memory's SPD as 200MHz and tries to run at that)
was able to boot into windows several times.
I then made the mistake of going into the bios again and disabling the 3com network controller-it doesn't like that at all,it wont even give me the option of getting into the BIOS now-it just says memory failed-before I had to tell it to run the memory at 133
any ideas?
Think I will try shorting the battery as soon as I find the manual

 

[azkiwi]

power off
unplug the power cord
take out the CMOS battery for a few minutes
clear CMOS jumper
perhaps wait a few more minutes - some people have said leave it all unplugged for 15 minutes

plug it in and power up
go to the bios and revert to a known stable configuration.

not sure what bios you have but consider flashing to 1004 or 1005 as this seems to cure a host of ills

 

[infinite012]

I have A7N8X Deluxe rev 1.04 and I had GeIL PC2700 ULTRA (1x512MB). For some reason the GeIL doesn't/didn't like to run at 166MHz FSB. I tried this stick in another motherboard (ECS K7AMA and A7V8X) and it ran fine for hours on end. Is there something wrong with the nForce2 and GeIL or is it just my stick is bad with 166MHz?

Just a side note: The k7ama doesn't run 166MHz, but the a7v8x does. Also, the RAM runs fine at 133MHz so I'm guessing that it's a RAM problem and not a nForce2 problem.

 

[azkiwi]

from the (many) posts I have read on the A78NX I would say the single most problematic issue is with memory. Problems attributed to power supply and heat may also be exacerbated (or caused) by memory issues. I think much of it has been corrected with the last couple of bios releases, but overall this board seems to be picky about RAM - especially when over-clocked. Those running high end RAM seem to have fewer problems and better results - this could be explained variously (those willing to pony up for high-end RAM probably have higher quality components throughout, and of course you expect better performance from high-end gear).

I have heard of problems with all the name brands but mostly with 2100 and 2700 and mostly select chips within that brand and in very limited cases.

Try running one stick at a time
make sure you are running at 100% and not by SPD or asynchronously
try relaxing the timings a bit
try running memtest on it
run the latest bios - especially if you have a less than rev 2.0 board

 

[baddreams]

I am having issues getting my sound system to work.

I have a Boston Accustics sound system that ahs a single digital line to go to the OUTPUT of the MOBO. However, no matter how hard I try or different setting I attempt to use I can't get the speakers to work.

I can plug in my headphones and those fire right up.

Anyone have some ideas of suggestions on how to get this thing cranking sounds?

 

[infinite012]

Originally posted by: azkiwi
from the (many) posts I have read on the A78NX I would say the single most problematic issue is with memory. Problems attributed to power supply and heat may also be exacerbated (or caused) by memory issues. I think much of it has been corrected with the last couple of bios releases, but overall this board seems to be picky about RAM - especially when over-clocked. Those running high end RAM seem to have fewer problems and better results - this could be explained variously (those willing to pony up for high-end RAM probably have higher quality components throughout, and of course you expect better performance from high-end gear).

I have heard of problems with all the name brands but mostly with 2100 and 2700 and mostly select chips within that brand and in very limited cases.

Try running one stick at a time
make sure you are running at 100% and not by SPD or asynchronously
try relaxing the timings a bit
try running memtest on it
run the latest bios - especially if you have a less than rev 2.0 board

I actually have the corsair twinx package (2x256MB) for DCDDR in my board right now because of the memory issue, but I still have the GeIL and I want it to work in my computer!!! It worked perfectly fine in my friends computer with A7V8X with SPD and not 100%. He's running a 2400+ (133x15) and stated motherboard. I went over to his house, popped in the RAM and BOOM! It's perfect. Works like a champ! So how do I get it to do this in mine? Or would I have to run it in sync with the CPU (200MHz right now......400DDR.......).

Gotta love these Tbred B's.

Okay, about the timings: I set them to 1+ above SPD (which is 2-2-2-5) so it was at 3-3-2.5-6 and it still didn't work. Memtest also gave me a buhjillion errors at 100%...in my board...not my friends board.

 

[zodder]

Originally posted by: baddreams
I am having issues getting my sound system to work.

I have a Boston Accustics sound system that ahs a single digital line to go to the OUTPUT of the MOBO. However, no matter how hard I try or different setting I attempt to use I can't get the speakers to work.

I can plug in my headphones and those fire right up.

Anyone have some ideas of suggestions on how to get this thing cranking sounds?

I'm having the same problems with a set of BA7500s. They play perfectly thru my TBSC using the vera-jack, but I'd like to check out the onboard sound, too, as a comparison. Any help would sure be appreciated.

 

[mrchan]

okay, somebody help! i've had this problem with 2 different asus a7n8x deluxe boards, a rev 1.04 and a rev 2. tried winxp and win2000.

install windows (XP + 2000)- everything works fine
install SP - everything works fine
install nforce2 drivers (tried asus + nvidia) - machine wont shut down, i get a BSOD, memory dump, and a reboot. what am i doing wrong?

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
XP 1700+
Geforce 2 GTS (Also used TNT2 just to check)
512 MB Generic PC2100 DDR

if i JUST install windows, and the SP then everything works (except for the nforce2 stuff obviously) and I can OC my chip and memory to 12.5x166. but after the nforce 2 install then i get the BSOD even if i am not OC'ing the chip/memory.

What do I do?

 

[azkiwi]

make sure the nvidia drivers are out of your system - they are bad. Nvidia has detailed instructions posted on how to get rid of them.

I think you need to install XP SP1 before the Asus Nforce drivers and perhaps a service pack for W2K beforehand. I use W2K Sp3 and had no troubles at all with the Asus drivers.

 

[infinite012]

Does anyone know how to fix my problem?? Yes? No?

Problem: PC2700 not running at PC2700 due to repeated system failures. Do you think GeIL covers this in their warranty?

 

[mrchan]

well i reinstalled xp, sp1 then did the nforce2 drivers one by one, that seemed to work. thanks!!

 

[PuterDoctor]

Ok I messed with this board almost all yesturday and most of today,if I wanted to boot then I had to short the CMOS every time.
I tried updating the bios to 1005 and now it will not do anything at all even if I clear its CMOS
I can't even get into the bios screen
I am extremely displeased with this board-this is the second one I have had-the first one was the same way.
Any ideas before I try to send this board back(will cost me additional money in shipping which I am not at all happy about).

 

[Maleficus]

Alright i'm having a lot of problems and no solutions it seems.

I just upgraded my rig to:
A7N8X-DX Rev 2
2800+
GeIL DDR 400 (Golden Dragon ) 512mb
GF 4 Ti4400 (leadtek)
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
3com 3c905c
Toshiba DVD 16x
Lite-on 32x12x40
WD 80 gig SE
Mitsumi Floppy


A. it always says Floppy Disk(s) failed on startop and the floppy drive works in another machine and the cable is fine
B. System is not performing up to snuff imo 3dmark03 score of ~1500
C. I have this insanely irritating sound bug in Half-Life where i get this static and crackling and echoing and general bugginess (through my TBSC mind you ) and i know the card works fine cause i have been using it in my old system never had any problems.

I cant figure out why it is acting like this, clean install of Win2k all patches etc etc applied latest Asus Nforce2 drivers.

:\ any help is greatly appreciated

 

[mrchan]

flip the floppy cable over on the floppy drive side of it so the tab faces downward. fixed the floppy error for me.

 

[TabsAZ]

I just experienced an extremely aggravating PC building episode this evening with the A7N8X Deluxe at the center of all the problems... Unless someone here can perform a miracle for me, it's being RMA'd back to newegg tomorrow in exchange for a Gigabyte or Epox Ultra 400...

My brother is going off to college in August and asked me to help him build a PC:

I selected and bought the following componets:

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (333 FSB)
Volcano 11 HS/fan (HUGE!) w/AS3 paste
2X 512MB Corsair PC3200
ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro
Antec Case/350W PSU
Samsung 120 GB HD ATA133
LiteOn 52X CD-RW
Pioneer 16X DVD

Everything went together just fine - was really impressed with the number of features on the board etc...

Turned it on, went into the BIOS, set everything up... CPU freq was set at 100mhz, bumped it to 166, shows the correct 2.16Ghz. Reboot and launch XP Home setup from the CD boot. Everything goes fine up until the phase after the first reboot when I suddenly started getting strange "Failed to lauch X installer" errors that I've never seen before durring the device installation phase - among the things i saw for X were hdc, CDROM, and keyboard. Shortly after getting these messages, I got a stop error that crashed the setup... Reformatted again - same thing. Finally, for some reason the third try worked and XP installed. I got into the OS, started setting up drivers, etc - all of a sudden, the machine just reboots spontaneously on its own. I had the Nforce drivers, the Catalysts, and SP1 (already in the CD install) all the updates from WU. It's basically doing this anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes after booting. Everything looks right to me as far as settings - CPU/video temp is fine etc...

I've seen a similar problem on two separate A7V266-E's that my best friend had last year - not able to run CPU full speed, stop errors in XP setup, rebooting etc. He switched it out for a Soyo Dragon and it's worked flawlessly ever since.

What is the deal with ASUS boards and why am I have so much trouble with em? This board had absolutely stellar reviews on ever hardware site I went to and by all accounts it was the one to get - is no one else having these kinds of problems? (especially the reviewers?!) I personally think there's somethign at play with the way ASUS BIOSes work, because of what I saw with my friends system after he swapped it for the Soyo - the chipset was the same, same CPU, same RAM etc - only that was different was the BIOS coding.

Anyhow - can anyone here relate to this situation and offer any advice? My brother really wants his computer up and running (he spent a lot of money on it!) and I'm of the mind to think that I'll probably have the same problems if I exchange for the same board. The Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro or the Epox 8RDA3+ both look like solid alternatives and I'd be inclined to go with one of those (leaning toward the GB) unless someone can tell me for certain what's goign on here and how to fix it.

Thanks!
Ryan

 

[baddreams]

Originally posted by: TabsAZ
I just experienced an extremely aggravating PC building episode this evening with the A7N8X Deluxe at the center of all the problems... Unless someone here can perform a miracle for me, it's being RMA'd back to newegg tomorrow in exchange for a Gigabyte or Epox Ultra 400...

My brother is going off to college in August and asked me to help him build a PC:

I selected and bought the following componets:

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (333 FSB)
Volcano 11 HS/fan (HUGE!) w/AS3 paste
2X 512MB Corsair PC3200
ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro
Antec Case/350W PSU
Samsung 120 GB HD ATA133
LiteOn 52X CD-RW
Pioneer 16X DVD

Everything went together just fine - was really impressed with the number of features on the board etc...

Turned it on, went into the BIOS, set everything up... CPU freq was set at 100mhz, bumped it to 166, shows the correct 2.16Ghz. Reboot and launch XP Home setup from the CD boot. Everything goes fine up until the phase after the first reboot when I suddenly started getting strange "Failed to lauch X installer" errors that I've never seen before durring the device installation phase - among the things i saw for X were hdc, CDROM, and keyboard. Shortly after getting these messages, I got a stop error that crashed the setup... Reformatted again - same thing. Finally, for some reason the third try worked and XP installed. I got into the OS, started setting up drivers, etc - all of a sudden, the machine just reboots spontaneously on its own. I had the Nforce drivers, the Catalysts, and SP1 (already in the CD install) all the updates from WU. It's basically doing this anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes after booting. Everything looks right to me as far as settings - CPU/video temp is fine etc...

I've seen a similar problem on two separate A7V266-E's that my best friend had last year - not able to run CPU full speed, stop errors in XP setup, rebooting etc. He switched it out for a Soyo Dragon and it's worked flawlessly ever since.

What is the deal with ASUS boards and why am I have so much trouble with em? This board had absolutely stellar reviews on ever hardware site I went to and by all accounts it was the one to get - is no one else having these kinds of problems? (especially the reviewers?!) I personally think there's somethign at play with the way ASUS BIOSes work, because of what I saw with my friends system after he swapped it for the Soyo - the chipset was the same, same CPU, same RAM etc - only that was different was the BIOS coding.

Anyhow - can anyone here relate to this situation and offer any advice? My brother really wants his computer up and running (he spent a lot of money on it!) and I'm of the mind to think that I'll probably have the same problems if I exchange for the same board. The Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro or the Epox 8RDA3+ both look like solid alternatives and I'd be inclined to go with one of those (leaning toward the GB) unless someone can tell me for certain what's goign on here and how to fix it.

Thanks!
Ryan

Been there done that!

I did this;
Only attach the bare esentials first.

1. Hook up one CD/ROM
2. Hook up one HD
3. Hook up one floopy
4. Install one memory chip

Boot up system and load OS. Once all of that is done and everything checks out fine then you can go load the MOBO drivers.

Then run the ASUS Update utility and get BIOS 1005. Load that.

THen reboot

Go into the BIOS and make one change at a time and save and exit.

On reboot go back into BIOS and change your processor settings to the correct freq. save and exit

Go back into BIOS and change your memory to AUTO as well. Exit

I had to do all my changes one at a time was the only way to get the board to accept the changes and stop crashing.

I then went back in and loaded all the MOBO drivers rebooted

Ran Windows update

loaded video card drivers

Ran DX9.0a update

This was the only thing that worked for me.... (still no sorround sound from my BG7500G though!!

My CPU now post at 2800+ as it should (AMD 2800+) setting 166Mhz with 13.5 multiplier (don't add to 2800 but it works!

Memory settings are 200Mhz with single channel (Banks 1 and 2 set with 512Mb of PC3200)

CD/RW and DVD now both work

Zip250 and Floopy both work

Two 40Gb HD now both work

Good Luck!

 

[Yossarian451]

Originally posted by: Maleficus
Alright i'm having a lot of problems and no solutions it seems.

I just upgraded my rig to:
A7N8X-DX Rev 2
2800+
GeIL DDR 400 (Golden Dragon ) 512mb
GF 4 Ti4400 (leadtek)
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
3com 3c905c
Toshiba DVD 16x
Lite-on 32x12x40
WD 80 gig SE
Mitsumi Floppy


A. it always says Floppy Disk(s) failed on startop and the floppy drive works in another machine and the cable is fine
B. System is not performing up to snuff imo 3dmark03 score of ~1500
C. I have this insanely irritating sound bug in Half-Life where i get this static and crackling and echoing and general bugginess (through my TBSC mind you ) and i know the card works fine cause i have been using it in my old system never had any problems.

I cant figure out why it is acting like this, clean install of Win2k all patches etc etc applied latest Asus Nforce2 drivers.

:\ any help is greatly appreciated

I have the same sound problem occur but I run through my onboard sound.... I would like to know a solution as well.