*** Official ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4) Thread ***

[wildcatts29]

yes in sata1 black port and yes set to 1st boot in the hard drive section. i have used the driver floppy with the nvidia raid drivers. i have tried 2 different versions of windows and i was on bios 1002 now im on bios 1003 and same problem. i do the windows install i hit f6 for drivers and i hit s and pick the 2 nvidia drivers then i format the hard drive then it copies all the files then it restarts i leave the xp cd in it goes through post (yes bios sees it) then it says hit any key to boot cd (i dont) i wait and as soon as the time is up for the cd boot it says "error loading operating system" i have tried cloning my drive i have tried loading from scratch i have tried with drivers i have tried with out. now if i leave the hard drive in and boot to my eide drive windows sees the drive and i can use the drive but i can not install windows and boot to it. im going crazy!!!

ok helpful info i hope:
bios reads the drive as: 1st SATA Master disk: CHS, ATA 133, 40002mb
the drive is a western digital WDC WD400JD

wildcat

 

[Thorsson]

Originally posted by: AlexBmur
I just wanted to report that the issue with Maxtor drives and NCQ has been solved with the latest Nvidia ForceWare drivers 6.39. I just installed the drivers and they enabled NCQ on my DiamondMax 10 drive by default, and I have not had any problems at all (last time I tried enabling NCQ I couldn't even get into Windows). Also I am running bios 1002.

I went to the NVidia siet and no sign of these drivers. Do you have a link?

 

[iscsidude]

Wildcat,
Why are you installing the NVRAID drivers during Windows install if you have a single drive? I'd try again without the F6. You didn't by chance set up NVRAID in the BIOS as well did you?

 

[iscsidude]

Originally posted by: Whitewolf
For anyone that didn't see tha other topic, nvidia has released the nforce4 drivers in their website. They are the 6.39. Please try them as soon as possible and let's hope they fix the issues we are having especially the one with the NCQ drives like the Maxtor.

Info: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21081
Download: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_winxp_6.39

Thorsson, See Above.

 

[RichardIII]

iscsidue: I have never installed newer Nvidia chipset drivers over existing ones. Do I need to uninstall the current ones, or just blast ahead?
BTW, I have just one eVGA 6800 ultra which seems to be working fine, but I can't figure out if I should plug in the EZ-plug or not? Should I?
Thanks,
Rich

 

[vlad4]

According to the installation hints at NVIDIA's site, you need to uninstall the display drivers. (go figure).

Anyway, I uninstalled all NVIDIA drivers, then installed chipset then display drivers. Seemed to work fine.

 

[iscsidude]

Rich,
I just blasted ahead and overwrote the existing ones. Maybe that is why I had problems afterwards and I just reinstalled Windows from scratch. After the 6.39 drivers, I started having the audio go on and off, several BSOD's, rebooting for no apparent reason, etc. I'm going to stick to the NVIDIA drivers on the ASUS CD. I had no problems with them. You could be right on with the idea of uninstalling the old drivers via Device Manager before installing 6.39.

I also have just one 6800 Ultra and I went ahead and plugged in the EZ-Plug. Figure it can't hurt and I won't be forgetting to plug it in when I get the second Ultra.

 

[iscsidude]

Originally posted by: vlad4
According to the installation hints at NVIDIA's site, you need to uninstall the display drivers. (go figure).

Anyway, I uninstalled all NVIDIA drivers, then installed chipset then display drivers. Seemed to work fine.

Hmmm. That would explain why I had problems. I certainly didn't think to uninstall the DISPLAY driver before installing a CHIPSET driver.

I also had Norton Anti-Virus running which is another installation tip in that link. I know. RTFM.

 

[RichardIII]

OK thanks guys. I don't have long before I get banned anyway. I just realised I asked the question about the EZ plug twice...
Once outside the "official" SLI thread.....
Gotta run....

Thanks,

Rich

 

[runestone]

Originally posted by: wildcatts29

ok helpful info i hope:
bios reads the drive as: 1st SATA Master disk: CHS, ATA 133, 40002mb
the drive is a western digital WDC WD400JD

wildcat

Your Wd is an ata drive, I'm confused. Perhaps you can try downloading the utility from the drive manufacturer to wipe drive via floppy? Then start clean with only that drive in comp.
You should not have to load the raid drivers for the Nvidia ports-they will detect sata as long as you are not setting up in raid.

 

[robman123]

The new 6.39 drivers seem to be working fine on my board - including with NCQ turned on with my Barracuda 7200.7 w/NCQ drives. With the drivers from the Asus CD I got file system corruption pretty quickly after turning it on..

 

[iscsidude]

Robman,
A couple of questions.
Did you uninstall your Windows Display Device Drivers before the 6.39 update?
Did you have any anti-virus software running.
Are you running Raid to those Barracudas?

Thanks.

 

[wildcatts29]

ok i will try without f6 again but if i remember right it did the same thing. no i dont have any raids set up anywhere. i was told by asus to use the floppy disk with raid drivers on it. i would call them back but they are closed on weekends. but even if i call them back im expecting them to say that they dont know so i will call them monday if i dont figure it out. but gona try without f6 1st.

update: ok i tried without the f6 and using drivers and still same stupid error. im beginning to hate SATA.

BTW: thanks for the help so far.

wildcat

 

[runestone]

29, I doubt asus will be much help. Your sata drive SHOULD be detected ; what bios you using?

 

[RichardIII]

OK, back to the EZ-plug question. I have a 6800 Ultra which has its own power plug (6 pin PCIe) on the back. That is plugged in. I do not have the EZ-plug connected, but I'm not sure if it should be or not, or if it makes no difference. Shouldn't the manual tell me this for sure. Yes, it bloody well should. :| I think it's absurd that we all have this "powerful" motherboard and nobody knows the definitive answer to this question.
I am going to send an e-mail to ASUS and ask the question, but in the meantime, does anyone here at Anandtech have any contacts there?
Don't even mention PEG_LINK mode.....

Rich

 

[armygeorge]

"AIBooster fail to install IO driver" is a message I get when trying to install this program. I am new to OC-ing and want to install all the "bonus" software that made this a "deluxe" MOBO. I am also having trouble with the 6.39 drivers, but found wonderful info here this morning...I got about eight more hours to play before the game

 

[RT2]

Here's my A8N experience..
I had never had any problems with this board..
i have the rig that is in my sig, and its VERY stable with the 1004.001 bios on 265fsb * 10..
htt is 4, timings are 2.5 3 3 7 T2, 1:1, i can get stable to 268FSB, but 269 fails prime after 20 minutes.
never had any SATA problem with each of my drives, and soon i'll change the mem to some nice G.skill 4800 and get some more OC at 2 2 2 5 T1 timings
What is this NCQ option u guys are talking about? tried to search for it in hardware properties..didnt find something related. I'm also using Nforce4 drivers 6.39
my vid card is Gigabyte 6600GT the 'D' version (forgot to add it to my Sig), its overclocked to 585/1250, 65K in Aquamark03, 33sec in SuperPI 1MB.
I really don't get it how come some of the people here can't get over 250FSB, i could get over 250 with the 1003 bios as well..
btw, my antec 430 is 20 pins, with no adapted to 24, works awesome!

 

[armygeorge]

Great news, the nForce4 6.39 installed and runs fine, BUT I did have problems and followed the guidance here. First, NVIDIA ForceWare Network Access Manager told me that the "installed version is not the same as the current setup," so I uninstalled the NVIDIA Netowrk Manager from Add/Remove Programs and restarted XP (I initially went looking to uninstall NVIDIA drivers in Device Manager ... YIKES!) Second, I disabled Norton Firewall. Everything (as of this date/time stamp) seems to be working absolutely fine. I still have to work on the AIBooster. This place is great...{whisper} shh, I can't believe there's no subscription fee...JINX!

 

[MrVeedo]

Originally posted by: RT2
Here's my A8N experience..
I had never had any problems with this board..
i have the rig that is in my sig, and its VERY stable with the 1004.001 bios on 265fsb * 10..
htt is 4, timings are 2.5 3 3 7 T2, 1:1, i can get stable to 268FSB, but 269 fails prime after 20 minutes.
never had any SATA problem with each of my drives, and soon i'll change the mem to some nice G.skill 4800 and get some more OC at 2 2 2 5 T1 timings
What is this NCQ option u guys are talking about? tried to search for it in hardware properties..didnt find something related. I'm also using Nforce4 drivers 6.39
my vid card is Gigabyte 6600GT the 'D' version (forgot to add it to my Sig), its overclocked to 585/1250, 65K in Aquamark03, 33sec in SuperPI 1MB.
I really don't get it how come some of the people here can't get over 250FSB, i could get over 250 with the 1003 bios as well..
btw, my antec 430 is 20 pins, with no adapted to 24, works awesome!

you might want to think twice about getting some more new memory, you are not going to get 1t timings over 245-250htt with this board. we are hoping it will be fixed with a new bios revision.

 

[danlvii]

Hi mate,
Unfortunately I'm having the same problem with this board, and I would like to mention is not the first one that I've tried. My first board blew my PSU up as well, a beautiful TAGAN U01 480W, I had to RMA both, and then I could not wait I went to the high street shop and bought a new TAGAN 480 PSU and a new mobo A8N SLI DELUX (S.H.I.T.). When I got home I installed everything in a beautiful chieftek case, I use a AMD 3200+ WINCHESTER, and one asus 6600 GT 128 mb, also my mem is corsair 3200 xl 2-2-2-5 matched pair 2*512mb.I spend till now about £1400 on everything and all that I get is a blank screen, and just the bloody green led on the board, NOTHING ELSE-FROZEN. I?m searching the net for about 1 week to find solution to this disaster but no one seems to have it. I?ll go 2morrow back to the shop and I?ll make a big fuss about it.

 

[armygeorge]

I have four fans in my system and need help setting the monitoring process. The Asus PC Probe program shows these settings...

MONITOR SUMMARY (RPM)
CPU Fan: 980
Chipset Fan: 8400
Chassis Fan: 0

The CPU fan is the Zalman fan and I can go from 980 - 1750 RPM using the little black regulator that's attached with a 24 inch wire cable. How does the Zalman's speed compare to AMD's OEM fan that came with the FX processor? What other options do I have with this Zalman?

The chipset fan speed stays constant...is this the fixed fan located between the two graphics cards on the MOBO?

The chassis fan (which I'm thinking is the case fan) has its power cords built into a molex connecter and cannot plug into the A8N's CHA2-FAN connector located next to the CPU FAN connector at the top. Can I (should I) monitor this fan?

Now the Enermax PSU also has a fan (with variable speed) but I can't seem to find a way to monitor its speed. Is this possible/important? Maybe jusy always leave it set on the highest RPM setting?

Finally, PC Probe shows useless fan monitor graphs that have a huge Y axis (0-10,000 RPM) to monitor a fan running between 900-1800 RPM. The horizontal line of my fan speed sits 1/8" below the lowest grid line?! Can I change these graphs? The chipset fan runs 2000 RPM ABOVE the max limit on the graph!!!

Thanks again folks ArmyGeorge

 

[Thorsson]

Originally posted by: danlvii
Hi mate,
Unfortunately I'm having the same problem with this board, and I would like to mention is not the first one that I've tried. My first board blew my PSU up as well, a beautiful TAGAN U01 480W, I had to RMA both, and then I could not wait I went to the high street shop and bought a new TAGAN 480 PSU and a new mobo A8N SLI DELUX (S.H.I.T.). When I got home I installed everything in a beautiful chieftek case, I use a AMD 3200+ WINCHESTER, and one asus 6600 GT 128 mb, also my mem is corsair 3200 xl 2-2-2-5 matched pair 2*512mb.I spend till now about £1400 on everything and all that I get is a blank screen, and just the bloody green led on the board, NOTHING ELSE-FROZEN. I?m searching the net for about 1 week to find solution to this disaster but no one seems to have it. I?ll go 2morrow back to the shop and I?ll make a big fuss about it.

Two boards and two supplies. Motherboard blew the PSU? I'm thinking OE is the most likely explanation.

 

[byMaX]

I'm stable up to 265, too, with 2T and 1:1 (otherwise I can go to 315 or more), but even if it's a little overclocked, PCI cards are ruining my life and nervs... As soon as I'm on net, via my ISDN PCI card (I have two of them so I tried both), it's unstable and I get random crashes. Now, I use RightMark CPU utility to downclock to ~1000 MHz while online, but it's prime stable when I'm offline even at 265... I tried multiple slots, and I've tried to hold PCI clock to host, CPU and 33.33MHz, and it's the same... Hope new bios will solve this.

 

[Van Damme]

guys i got a

amd 64 3500+ 90nm with star ice cpu cooler
2x raptor raid 0
1x200gig sata
asus A8N-SLI
6800gt x1
audigy 2
cooldrive 3 and 5
4 80mm fans

and a 20 pin x-connect 500w psu

will this power supply be okay with this? is there anyone else with this PSU and mobo?

thanks

 

[RT2]

better you to get some non generic 430-500, 24 pins PSU, though i think it will work fine with this one..
here it works great with antec 430 TP 20 pins..but then again, get a nice non generic with 24 pins