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

[JamesHighwest]

Okay, I have incompatible RAM. So my question is what should I look for? Currently I'm looking to upgrade to NEC brand with the following information:

* Module Size: 1GMB
* Package: 184-pin DIMM
* ECC Registered
* Feature: DDR-333, PC2700
* Configuration: 128Meg x 64 (128x4 Chip)
* DIMM Type: Unbuffered
* Error Checking: Non-parity
* Speed: 7.5ns
* Voltage: 3.3V
* SDRAM Timings:CL=2.5

Will this work? If not then can anyone give me a link to a site that can give me specifics about RAM compatibility?

Thank you in advance.

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: JamesHighwest
Okay, I have incompatible RAM. So my question is what should I look for? Currently I'm looking to upgrade to NEC brand with the following information:

* Module Size: 1GMB
* Package: 184-pin DIMM
* ECC Registered
* Feature: DDR-333, PC2700
* Configuration: 128Meg x 64 (128x4 Chip)
* DIMM Type: Unbuffered
* Error Checking: Non-parity
* Speed: 7.5ns
* Voltage: 3.3V
* SDRAM Timings:CL=2.5

Will this work? If not then can anyone give me a link to a site that can give me specifics about RAM compatibility?

Thank you in advance.

That won't work because its registered. If you want pc2700 CL 2.5 ram you should go to crucial.com and search for ram specifically for the a7n8x.

 

[pcmax]

all 3 slots filled, still dual channel, anybody can confirm both dual channel and dual channel performance please let me know.

Thanks,

max

 

[Pilsnerpete]

I wanted to let everyone know that nVidia's software IDE drivers STILL don't work [for me]. The problem only reared its ugly head after about an hour or so of America's Army (great game btw), when it would crash (blue screens, black screens, flashing black screens, gpf's, etc.). It didn't seem to affect rtcw or other games I play, though.

So after a couple days of fruitless troubleshooting--moving my soundcard around, reinstalling its drivers, un-overclocking the pc and video card, I finally tried reinstalling the 3.13's without the sw IDE. That fixed it.

I thought they had this issue fixed since they added it to the unified driver package again. So wrong! I honestly don't know if this applies to all nForce2 boards, but go ahead and try them if you like; just remember that you did it, so you know where to look if trouble starts.


[edit]: OK, I'm going to go ahead and admit I may be wrong about this. I thought I uninstalled the nforce2 3.13's and reinstalled everything over, without the sw IDE; however, device manager still appears to contain the same nVidia nForce2 IDE controller. I guess I should get a bit more organized and thorough as it pertains to my oc'ing techniques. I changed the AGP aperture size to 512 and disabled fast writes also. Fast writes need to be disabled in BIOS for my pc to run. I'm going to lower the aperture again and see if I get a higher framerate.

 

[raystorm]

Hello folks.. just wanted some advise here about ram. I will be able to pick up some pc 3200 ram (512mb) soon and took a look at crucial's and kingston's stuff. Now I noticed that the CL rating for the crucial is 3 while the kingston is 2.5. Any real performance difference due to the CL rating?? Also noticed that the Crucial is only $84.99 while the kingston is $115! A bit of a price difference there... any real reason why I should choose the kingston over the crucial?
Thats in advance for those who reply.

Here's the link to the ram sticks:

Crucial

Kingston

 

[JOHNGALT99]

just upgraded my system with a new board the system is as follows:

xp2500+ @ 3200+ with bus and memory at 2*200 400mhz

two 256 mb cruial pc2700 ram chips

asus ASUS A7N8X-e

powercolor 9600 pro

cooler master aero 7 + heatsink fan

what are the best ram setting for this board? or should i just use the preset optimal or agressive settings?

thanks

 

[Wigwam]

Originally posted by: JOHNGALT99
just upgraded my system with a new board the system is as follows:

xp2500+ @ 3200+ with bus and memory at 2*200 400mhz

two 256 mb cruial pc2700 ram chips

asus ASUS A7N8X-e

powercolor 9600 pro

cooler master aero 7 + heatsink fan

what are the best ram setting for this board? or should i just use the preset optimal or agressive settings?

thanks

well since you're using PC2700 which theoretically shouldnt work at ddr 200 [at least not reliably], i would think that anything more than lax memory timings wont work - not sure if i would risk aggressive timings cos i cant see it making THAT much difference......

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: JOHNGALT99
just upgraded my system with a new board the system is as follows:

xp2500+ @ 3200+ with bus and memory at 2*200 400mhz

two 256 mb cruial pc2700 ram chips

asus ASUS A7N8X-e

powercolor 9600 pro

cooler master aero 7 + heatsink fan

what are the best ram setting for this board? or should i just use the preset optimal or agressive settings?

thanks

I would make a CD or floppy with memtest86 on it. Go into bios and set your ram timings then boot into memtest86 and run test 5. If it passes then its safe to go into windows without corrupting files. Then run prime95.
Try 3-3-3-6, 2.5-3-3-6, 2-2-3-6 and 2-2-2-6 (you can try 7-11 instead of 6 to see if you get better performance or stability).
Also use max vdimm (2.8V).

 

[Dustswirl]

You may want to check this

 

[dmcowen674]

Anyone have this happen to their board yet?

I clicked on a Java link to download the Mars Rover Video and my machine froze. When I re-booted all my CMOS settings were gone and had to tweak all the settings all over again.

 

[rwlnd]

I have a problem and I hope someone can help.
Sometimes it will get to detecting the drives and just stop. Have to either control alt delete to restart or reset. Most of the time when playing a game it will restart. Sometimes when playing a game it will go to desktop. Sometimes when playing a game it will just freeze up too. Then again sometimes it will just restart just beause it wants to I guess. Thought it was maybe the 120 gb harddrive so I tried to run powermax on it and it will not run it. Also really slow booting up. Just a while ago it restarted when I tried to do my e-mail. Nothing was really stressing it out. Temp runs at the most 44C just after a game. Only running at 2100 mhz so not overclocked very much memory set at agressive. Have no clue what could be wrong with it hope someone has some ideas. Was reading another forum and there was alot of people with A7N8X boards that were getting stuck when detecting ide drives. Wonder if it is the motherboard most of them rma'd them or switched to another brand of board. Ran memtest for over an hour and no errors on memory.
Hope someone can help very frustrated right now.
Thanks in advance for anyone that replies.



Have A7N8X non deluxe motherboard rev 2.0 bios version 1006
Athlon xp 2600 333
Water cooled with Danger Den Maze 4
Two sticks 512mb Corsair xms pc3200
Maxtor 60 gb and Maxtor 120 gb hard drive
Lite on 52x cd rom
Lite on 52x24x52x cdrw
Powercolor geforce 4 ti4600
soundblaster live 5.1
Enermax 465 power supply

 

[rwlnd]

Hey never mind motherboard died on me will have to rma it.

 

[Wigwam]

anybody else had a problem with ram in a particular dimm slot giving errors?? i was getting all sorts running my pc3200 at 200MHz by spd, and assumed it was my ram, but after i ram 11-3-3-3 at 2.8v and still got loads of errors and i decided to test 1 dimm at a time. Luckily i mistook slot 3 for slot 1 and tested both dimms in slot 3 at spd ie 8-3-3-2.5 at 2.6v; no errors in memtest in 5 passes

i then tested in slot 1 and loads of errors in tests 5 and 6 [what i was getting all along]
then slot 2 - 1 error with 1 dimm in test 6 in 10 passes.

so now running dual channel slots 2/3 [with no errors overnight after 15passes at 200, so now back in synch with my cpu]

so....slot 1 works fine upto 166mhz but gives errors at 200mhz. is this a cause for alarm? i am not sure if this is worthy of an rma.....

 

[Bobbarry]

IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT.

I have assembled my first computer with the following:

Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X (MB NFORCE2 A7N8X-UAY 400Mhz ASUS RT)
CPU: AMD 2600/333 ATHLON XP BARTON R
Memory: CORSAIR 512MB TWINX512-3200C2 RT
Video Card: VGA ATI RADEON 9600XT 128M 8X
Hard Drive: Western Digital 80GB WD 7200RPM 8MB WD800
Disk Drive: Sony CDRW/DVD CRX300E/A
Floppy: Alps 1.44MB DF354H068F
Operating: Windows XP Home w/SP1a

Turned it on and everything seems to be working fine. Installing Windows XP went without any problems.

My objective naturally is to have all the components work at their maximum capacity. I am not interested in overclocking, if I understand the term correctly. BIOS apparently was able to recognize all the component parts. Does that mean they are all operating at capacity or is intervention on my part required?

I am brand new to this and not exactly sure what I should be looking for. Is there a next step here or has the system done all the work for me? I'm feeling a little stupid, but I would rather ask the question before I go doing something stupid .

 

[Wigwam]

Originally posted by: Bobbarry
IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT.

I have assembled my first computer with the following:

Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X (MB NFORCE2 A7N8X-UAY 400Mhz ASUS RT)
CPU: AMD 2600/333 ATHLON XP BARTON R
Memory: CORSAIR 512MB TWINX512-3200C2 RT
Video Card: VGA ATI RADEON 9600XT 128M 8X
Hard Drive: Western Digital 80GB WD 7200RPM 8MB WD800
Disk Drive: Sony CDRW/DVD CRX300E/A
Floppy: Alps 1.44MB DF354H068F
Operating: Windows XP Home w/SP1a

Turned it on and everything seems to be working fine. Installing Windows XP went without any problems.

My objective naturally is to have all the components work at their maximum capacity. I am not interested in overclocking, if I understand the term correctly. BIOS apparently was able to recognize all the component parts. Does that mean they are all operating at capacity or is intervention on my part required?

I am brand new to this and not exactly sure what I should be looking for. Is there a next step here or has the system done all the work for me? I'm feeling a little stupid, but I would rather ask the question before I go doing something stupid .

not really sure what you meant about the above but just in case you havent done any of the following:
#1 set memory frequency to 100% so that it runs at 166 with the cpu rather than 200mhz; tighten the ram timings to 6-2-2-2
make sure that the hardware is using the nividia drivers suppplied with the UDP on the cd rather than the xp driver [except for the usb2, which will use the xp sp1 drivers]; i picked up here to disable the on-board stuff in the bios during os install until UDP is installed, and then turn them all so that they are recognised by the nvidia drivers not the older xp ones; if you dont do this method i guess a quick visit to device manager is worth a check.

otherwise looks like you are set to go forth and play

 

[Bobbarry]

Originally posted by: Wigwam

Originally posted by: Bobbarry
IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT.

I have assembled my first computer with the following:

Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X (MB NFORCE2 A7N8X-UAY 400Mhz ASUS RT)
CPU: AMD 2600/333 ATHLON XP BARTON R
Memory: CORSAIR 512MB TWINX512-3200C2 RT
Video Card: VGA ATI RADEON 9600XT 128M 8X
Hard Drive: Western Digital 80GB WD 7200RPM 8MB WD800
Disk Drive: Sony CDRW/DVD CRX300E/A
Floppy: Alps 1.44MB DF354H068F
Operating: Windows XP Home w/SP1a

Turned it on and everything seems to be working fine. Installing Windows XP went without any problems.

My objective naturally is to have all the components work at their maximum capacity. I am not interested in overclocking, if I understand the term correctly. BIOS apparently was able to recognize all the component parts. Does that mean they are all operating at capacity or is intervention on my part required?

I am brand new to this and not exactly sure what I should be looking for. Is there a next step here or has the system done all the work for me? I'm feeling a little stupid, but I would rather ask the question before I go doing something stupid .

not really sure what you meant about the above but just in case you havent done any of the following:
#1 set memory frequency to 100% so that it runs at 166 with the cpu rather than 200mhz; tighten the ram timings to 6-2-2-2
make sure that the hardware is using the nividia drivers suppplied with the UDP on the cd rather than the xp driver [except for the usb2, which will use the xp sp1 drivers]; i picked up here to disable the on-board stuff in the bios during os install until UDP is installed, and then turn them all so that they are recognised by the nvidia drivers not the older xp ones; if you dont do this method i guess a quick visit to device manager is worth a check.

otherwise looks like you are set to go forth and play

Thanks Wigwam

I noted (in Phoenix - AwardBIOS) that Memory Frequency is set to Auto. Also noted on booting up memory frequency is 100%. Thus it appears to be as you suggested. You recommend ram timings 6-2-2-2. Am I correct this refers to:
SDRAM Active Precharge Delay
SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay
SDRAM RAS Precharge Delay
SDRAM CAS Latency

They are currently 4-2-2-2T. I have to look a little harder to figure out how to change them since the current settings do not allow access to the numbers.

What got me started on this is Windows shows my chip running at 1.14GHz. I anticipated a higher speed based on the specs from AMD.

As a specific example of what confuses me: I bot all the components with FSB of 333. When I look in BIOS the "CPU External Frequency" is 100MHz, which I believe translates to 200MHz for this board. In this case should I be setting this to 166 to get FSB of 333?

 

[Conor026]

Your CPU external frequency should be at 166.

In advanced chipset features, change "Memory Timing" to User-defined to set the Timings manually.
Your timings at 2-2-2-4 are unbelievable but is it reliable they nearly seem to low, if you do have stability problems change them to 2-2-2-6 or 2-2-3-5. but if its stable fire away

 

[Bobbarry]

Thanks Conor026. Set it to 166.
The system has been steady as a rock, so I will leave the other settings alone.

Two questions:

When looking under System (in Control Panel), Windows says I have an AMD processor running at 1.14GHz. Is this an accurate number or just a number they put in based on the chip installed?

One other setting is "Graphics Aperture Size" currently set to 64M. Does this have to do with the amount of memory I have on my video card (128) and should I be adjusting same?

 

[Pacinamac23]

I am looking at getting either this board or the Abit NF7-s Rev 2 but I am having trouble deciding which one to get.

Basically, my options for the Asus boards are as follows:

A7N8X-E Deluxe 160.98
A7N8X-VM 120.98
A7N8X-X 100.98
A7N8X 128.98
(canadian prices)

Obviously, the VM version is not an option because it is basically a small form factor type of mobo.

Anyway, I have a 2500+ Barton (older, unlockable) and 512 of Crucial PC3200 DDR. Since I do not have dual channel memory I really do not need the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset because I cannot use that feature. I don't need SATA or firewire either.

What I am wondering is, should I just go with the a7n8x-x or with the a7n8x version. I am confused as to what the major differences between the two are. Is one an Nforce 2 Ultra 400 and the other just the non-ultra 400? When comparing the Ultra to the non-Ultra with just 1 memory stick being used, is there any difference in performance?

Also, are each capable of locking the PCI/AGP dividers? The PCI/AGP dividers have been big problems for me in the past in terms of overclocking capabilties.

 

[LordAccord]

<< dangit >> I am having a cruddy problem with my AN78X regular, rev 1.04 bios 1007 -- XP 2600+ barton (1910, 11.5x166) -- Corsair XMS PC3200C2 2x 512mb sync 166 5-2-2-2

Readers digest synopsis:

We had a fire alarm go off this morning, so per the usual I shut down normally, unlocked and removed my mobile rack hdd and took it with me outside. Luckily there was no fire, but anyhow... I come back in put the drive in and boot, and happen to glance at my CPU screen and it says AMD Athlon XP 1150mhz, memory at 100mhz. And I'm just like... wth? I check BIOS and first thing I see is the mobile rack HDD reporting with |\ lol. So I turned off, checked cables, remounted, and booted. Still the same thing, but the HDD reported correctly. I check my advanced settings and they are all correct! same thing i have been running stable with for 2 weeks! I clock it down to instigate a change in setting. Nothing, still 100, but this time in AUTO detect of the CPU multiplier it reads 13!!!

Naturally, I clear BIOS and reset everything. Nothing. I clear again removing all cables and parts and resetting everything but the CPU... heh... and again same thing, this time AUTO for CPU multiplier reporting 13.5!!!!!

I am stuck at 1150 and the system obviously boots, but I have no clue why the sudden problem just from shutting down, taking out the HDD, and putting the HDD back in. Could I have shorted something? I mean. It's such a ludicrous problem to me, I take that hard drive halfway across the country and put it back in w/o problems... take it outside and have my system go wacko.

Any advice or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Kory

 

[Cr1tic]

i have an asus a7n8x deluxe mobo and my integrated sound does not work and i dont understand why anyone no how to fix this prob?

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: Cr1tic
i have an asus a7n8x deluxe mobo and my integrated sound does not work and i dont understand why anyone no how to fix this prob?

Is it enabled in bios?

 

[Cr1tic]

what would it be called...becuase i enabled just about everything...

 

[compfreak999]

did u install the drivers?

 

[shleepy]

Hello, all! I'm helping my friend build a new XP3200+ system with an A7N8X-X mobo. It's a budget system, so my question is the following: Where can I get some CHEAP pc3200 RAM (512MB's) that works relatively well on this mobo? By cheap, i mean like under $85 (including CA tax and shipping)? Thanks a lot for your suggestions and/or links!