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

[edmundoab]

well bios version 1004 is the one that will tell you whether it is single or dual channel mode,
and, using 2 blue slots is fine, the 1004 bios version also allows your CPU internal clock an option up to 300Mhz max compared to the original 200Mhz

 

[squidman]

lol, stick em in slots 1 and 3, or 2 and 3. Sides, if u dont use onboard vga - why does dual channel matter?

 

[pelikan]

Dual channel matters to me. It gives you a 2-10% performance boost, depending on the benchmark. The way I look at it is when optimizing system performance you get a little here, and a little there and it all adds up.
You get a few percent performance boost from each of these things: tight memory timings, dual channel, optimized operating system, and optimized bios settings. Then of course overclocking is where you see the biggest performance gain.

 

[Netscorer]

---------------------------
I was considering buying this board as an upgrade from my KT266A and just have two basic questions that I would appreciate anybody from the forum answering:

1) does the IDE controller coming with the board support extra large hard drives? I have WD 180GB Special Edition, want to run it as my system drive and don't want to install external IDE controller if possible.

2) how well on-board sound works in the Home Theater setup with SPDIF to my AC3 receiver. If I want to play DIVX files with AC3 soundtrack will it be straightforward to pass AC3 to the receiver via coaxial cable? Any experience from forum members here?
------------------------------

Bump, still looking for these answers - can somebody reply?

Cheers,

Netscorer.

 

[squidman]

1) yes it does. usually it comes down to OS that doesnt support 'em.
2) hell yeah!. Yes, use a coaxial cable (RCA type) to hook it up to thge reciever. Digital audio is mighty kickass, i must say.

 

[Sappster]

Okay, I have been dealing with this issue ever since I have purchased this mobo. If you want all the specs on my system look at my Rig link. But bottom line, this is my problem.

If I ever reboot my computer if it freezes, and sometimes when I just restart it when it restarts it won't recognize my USB Keyboard. And so I have to go plug in a PS2 keyboard for it to boot. This error occurs after the memory check. Now, I have also had this problem. Sometimes it will load and everything is fine. But when my logon screen appears my keyboard won't work!! BUT, my mouse will work! This is weird because I have the Micorsoft Natural Elite Keyboard that has the 2 USB ports on the keyboard. My mouse is connected to the keyboard, and my mouse will work, but my keyboard won't. So I will have to unplug the keyboard from the case/mobo, and then replug it back in and it works. I hope this is clear because it's hard to explain. If anyone has had this problem, or can help me please reply or IM me. Thanks.

 

[Netscorer]

Thanks, squidman!

I know that OS (MS) need to be patched to support large HDs but if controller would not support 48-bit ATA LBA that would do little good.
I also sure will finally appreciate AC3 5.1 soundtracks that I have for my DIVX movies!

Cheers,

netscorer.

 

[manly]

Is Asus PC Probe accurate?

It's showing a nice 37 C reading for the CPU, but a high 58 C for the mainboard. The max. threshold for the mainboard is 60 C, at which point I guess PC Probe will warn of impending doom.

My Antec Sonata case is cool to the touch, and the air being pushed out of the back of the power supply is just lukewarm. I think everything is cool, so I'm inclined to think PC Probe is misreporting the mainboard temp?

A strange problem occurred with Windows XP installation. The "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" system type was chosen, presumably installing the ACPI HAL. However, I had some issues and reinstalled Windows, this time manually choosing the "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" system. Which system type is being detected for you guys? As far as I can tell, everything is working beautifully now. (Linux installation is still incomplete.)

Also, is it normal for FireWire (IEEE 1394) to be installed as a networking device under Windows? I thought it was a general I/O bus, not primarily a network interface.

Any advice on hooking up the 6 discrete FireWire wires in the Antec case to connect the front FireWire port to the mainboard's 8-pin header? I did connect Antec's six wires to the appropriate pins on the A7N8X Deluxe, but they aren't very secure.

 

[pelikan]

Probe shows the socket temp for the cpu. Typically the reading will be 10C below that of the diode, which can be read by MBM5.
The MB reading from Probe has been way off for the last couple of bios releases. It shows my MB at 16C, which is below ambient, so... I think Probe is definately way off on your MB and your MB temps are more than likey just fine.
My Hal was Uniprocessor. I changed that to Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC by reinstalling with APIC disabled in bios as part of my trying to get rid of sound crackling. It didn't fix the sound problem, but performance is good and I don't have any IRQ sharing, so I'm keeping it this way.

 

[mlaing33]

Help me I can't get in...

My system is...
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
AMD 2600+
Corsair 512MB PC2700 LL
Maxtor 30GB ATA100
Volcano11
Windows XP Home

First let me say that I'm not a newbie I've done quit a few MB installs. I'm not a pro but I know my way around. I have checked the basic stuff, heat, memory, power, and harddrive.

The system will get to the windows logon but quickly restarts. I don't even see the logon screen before it restarts.

I haven't gotten even one successful start.

 

[MrSavoy]

Ok I have read most of thsi thread and I dont think I was able to find a solution yet. I have a asus a7n8x deluxe MB. I got it back in late macrh and its a rev 1.04 I believe. I have an antec 1080amd case with truepower 430 watt PS. Athlon xp 2700+ cpu 1 512 sitck of pc2700 kingston ram 2 maxtor 60 gigs drives a pny gf4 ti 4200 128 8x agp all temps are within spec. Ok so a few days ago I noticed on cold boot in the morning I got this dreaded no post. What I mean is, when the machine has sat over night or sat for about an hour and completely cooled down all power comes on, all fans hard drives cd drive etc but no post. I get the monitor test on the screen and no post from the bios. Now if I wait a couple of minutes and hit the reset button it will post sometimes I have to hit reset twice and it will post. If the computer is running for hours and is nice and hot I can reboot and post every time. If the computer has been on and is hot and I shut down all power and wait say 20 minutes its still warm and I can post there too. Yesterday I useds to asus update utility and upgraded the bios to 1004. All my bios settings are stock 166 fsb and everything elese optimal etc. Only thing I changed when I put this ti4200 i about 2 weeks ago was the agp apeture to 128 instead of the stock 64.
Now I dont know if this si related but, a few days ago when this all started I had enabled system stand by in display properties in windows and I noticed after coming off standby I tried to load quake3 and it crashed. So I went and turned off system standby to never. Hasnt helped. I read on nforceshq that a few people were saying that asus sent out some bad cmos batteries with these boards but I didnt think changing the battery would help since I dont have a problem with my settings being help in the bios. All my voltages are good and within spec so I dont suspect its the PS. I dont wanna rip this thing apart and have to RMA this board thats a hughe pain in the ass. I bought this from mwave and I called them and he didnt really know how to help said I could RMA if I wanted too. before I got that dreaded route I wanted to ask here.....Please help!! Thanks.

 

[tonster181]

I think the first thing I would try is booting to safe mode, by hitting F8 after the bios posts and the scsi adapter (if applicable) finds your drives. If this works, I would try a step by step confirmation by repeating above (F8) and going to step by step confirmation. Figure out what is causing the problem, if a driver takes a long time to load, ect. and then search it out on the net. I haven't run into that problem in a very long time, or I would try to help. Anyway, try that stuff first.
You may also check your bios settings. Sometimes windows will act funny if your ram timings are cranked too low. I have actually had proggies not work because my ram timings were too low, although it would post. I'm not sure why, exactly, but I know it's true. Good Luck.

 

[tonster181]

Sappster:
Well, I can't help with the freezing issue - I have the same problem with mine. It freezes on reboot, but does fine on a cold boot.
The only thing I can think of on the keyboard issue is that with primary devices, I have noticed that the first USB slot (upper left when looking at the back of the case) never seems to lose devices. I have been told this is because the controller is directly linked to this port. I wonder if maybe you are using a 2.0 port and the windows driver hasn't loaded for it? I am just guessing here, but I would try plugging the k/b into the first USB port. See if that helps.

 

[PuterDoctor]

Got my 266MHz ram today-tried it and still have the same problem as before
bus is set to 133MHz if I short the cmos I can boot once but when the OS reboots it hangs before POST
using 1005 bios

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: pelikan
Probe shows the socket temp for the cpu. Typically the reading will be 10C below that of the diode, which can be read by MBM5.

How do I read MBM5? Also, is 37 C is good (cool) value for the socket?

The MB reading from Probe has been way off for the last couple of bios releases. It shows my MB at 16C, which is below ambient, so... I think Probe is definately way off on your MB and your MB temps are more than likey just fine.

Funny it's showing 22 C now; no idea what caused it to read 58 C earlier, or if it's ever correct.

My Hal was Uniprocessor. I changed that to Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC by reinstalling with APIC disabled in bios as part of my trying to get rid of sound crackling. It didn't fix the sound problem, but performance is good and I don't have any IRQ sharing, so I'm keeping it this way.

I've enabled ACPI, and have no problems at all with Windows. Under Linux, my wireless PC Card won't correctly load its driver. So either I have to figure out how to get it working, or buy a USB client as an alternative.

 

[squidman]

Puter, i can fell your pain (i had same crap before!). Looks like bad mobo again. Something causes a data stream loss in the north bridge. My bad luck was immense - i was building pc for a friend on a kt266a chipset. 2 abit boards had this. Asus board failed to start. Finally, i went to the strore, gave a guy the cpu, the memory and asked him to do it. He took an MSI board, and it worked! But i also got nother' cpu...
Do you have access to different cpu? Might help, to use in elimination tactic.
If not - looks like a bad mobo. Some circuit doesnt transfer data right.

As for the guys with PC probe qusetion:
Probe on my older ASUS (CUSL2) and this one showed values lower than those in BIOS. On this board, however, after flashing to 1005, they leveled off. But now, the mobo temp is 20, both in BIOS and probe.

 

[pelikan]

manly- 37C is fine for socket temp. MBM5 (Motherboard Monitor 5) is a free program that can read the temp off the diode. It's a little complex to set up correctly for the A7N8X, but it works well.

 

[Sappster]

Okay, I bought a new Athlon 1700 and put it in my computer. I have the Asus A7N8X deluxe v. 1 I O/C the CPU to 2.12GHz. I'm running Prime 95 and it's been going okay. I want to hit 2.3, but when I put my fsb to 200 computer won't boot. My temps are CPU - 48C and mobo - 37C, are these good temps? Also, VCore is at 1.675. I guess I don't have any real questions other than whether these are good temps. I hope to hit 2.3, but I don't know how I can change the multiplier and fsb to make my mobo happy.

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: Sappster
Okay, I bought a new Athlon 1700 and put it in my computer. I have the Asus A7N8X deluxe v. 1 I O/C the CPU to 2.12GHz. I'm running Prime 95 and it's been going okay. I want to hit 2.3, but when I put my fsb to 200 computer won't boot. My temps are CPU - 48C and mobo - 37C, are these good temps? Also, VCore is at 1.675. I guess I don't have any real questions other than whether these are good temps. I hope to hit 2.3, but I don't know how I can change the multiplier and fsb to make my mobo happy.

If your system is prime stable then your temps are fine.
Since you have an older revision, your MB may or may not do 200 fsb. So to find out you need to get the cpu and memory out of the equation. Set a really low multiplier and relaxed memory timings first and then see how high the fsb will go. Give your memory a little extra voltage too, maybe 2.7V. Then when you find the fsb limit, you can slowly raise your multi and vcore to find out how fast the cpu will go.

 

[sodcha0s]

Gotta ? about the temp sensors on this board. I'm using MBM5, I've got my 1700+ running @ 11x200 at 1.5v, mem @100% default volts, yadda yadda. My diode temp is 28, socket is 31 and mobo is 32. These temps seem really low to me, is there an issue with with the temp sensing on this board, or am I just this lucky? It's a revision 2.0 and I'm using an SLK800 paired with a ys-tech variable speed fan


edit: guess I should mention ambient room temp is 23c

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: sodcha0s
Gotta ? about the temp sensors on this board. I'm using MBM5, I've got my 1700+ running @ 11x200 at 1.5v, mem @100% default volts, yadda yadda. My diode temp is 28, socket is 31 and mobo is 32. These temps seem really low to me, is there an issue with with the temp sensing on this board, or am I just this lucky? It's a revision 2.0 and I'm using an SLK800 paired with a ys-tech variable speed fan


edit: guess I should mention ambient room temp is 23c

The diode temp wouldn't be lower then the socket. You have to configure MBM5 to read the correct diode. For my rev. 1.04 it was the "W83L785TS-S diode".

 

[sodcha0s]

The diode temp wouldn't be lower then the socket. You have to configure MBM5 to read the correct diode. For my rev. 1.04 it was the "W83L785TS-S diode".

That's what I'm thinking, but I set it up according to MBM's webpage. Oh well, I'm not having any problems so I'm not too worried about it....

 

[sodcha0s]

Well I did some testing, I used the W83L785TS-S. It gave me a reading of 47, which is a bit high, but more realistic, but after 20mins of q3, the temp was the same. I switched it over to W83L785TS-S diode and the temp read 32, a 4 degree increase over the 28 idle temp which seems right. Socket temp went to 33 and mobo temp to 34, which CAN'T be right, it must be the other way around at least. Oh well, like I said I'm not having any problems so I won't worry about it too much.

 

[LiquidQ]

Hi i just bought an ASUS a7n8x, and im looking for some Help/Info on the error beeps
When trying to boot up i get an endless beep tone. I have checked the memory that im using as i believe
thats what the beeps are refering to , and the memory (crucial ct6472y265 512 meg ddr 2100 ECC) seems to be fine
as i have put it back into my old Motherboard (ASUS a7m266) and it still works.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: LiquidQ
Hi i just bought an ASUS a7n8x, and im looking for some Help/Info on the error beeps
When trying to boot up i get an endless beep tone. I have checked the memory that im using as i believe
thats what the beeps are refering to , and the memory (crucial ct6472y265 512 meg ddr 2100 ECC) seems to be fine
as i have put it back into my old Motherboard (ASUS a7m266) and it still works.

Any help would be appreciated

This mb is super picky with memory. The crucial 512MB pc2700 doesn't work, I don't know about the pc2100. Do you have some other memory to try in it?