Official DO's and DON'T for ASUS A8N-SLI (PREMIUM)

[wanderer27]

Looks like you almost have the same Memory as I do, so you shouldn't really have any problem getting it to work.

Now if you're going with 4 modules you'll have to use the 2T Command Rate. This is an AMD Memory controller issue, not an ASUS issue. It applies for all MBs. Even so, some people still have problems getting 4 sticks to work, and it's not just ASUS MBs that have this problem.

Hey, I started out on the old TRS-80 stuff. When it comes to getting a new MB with a new Socket and new Chipset, I think we all return to being Noobs for awhile

 

[Ice9]

Originally posted by: wanderer27
Looks like you almost have the same Memory as I do, so you shouldn't really have any problem getting it to work.

Now if you're going with 4 modules you'll have to use the 2T Command Rate. This is an AMD Memory controller issue, not an ASUS issue. It applies for all MBs. Even so, some people still have problems getting 4 sticks to work, and it's not just ASUS MBs that have this problem.

Hey, I started out on the old TRS-80 stuff. When it comes to getting a new MB with a new Socket and new Chipset, I think we all return to being Noobs for awhile

Wow, is that documented fact? To be honest, that stinks. A 2T command rate really cuts your memory performance down.

 

[wanderer27]

It's mentioned on several threads around here somewhere. Here's one:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1678737&enterthread=y

 

[mechBgon]

I don't know how much or what my RAM should be but I guess that 1.65V or 1.7V shouldn't be a problem.

Uhhh.... try 2.75V-2.8V

 

[virtualrain]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman
I forgot to mention, the one issue that I've found with the beta bios 1008.003(which some don't have) is that my highest vcore setting is 1.45v. But like I mentioned, it's actually 1.49v which still allows me to oc up to 2.75ghz.

Hey Capt... On the older Bios's one of the things I noticed is that the Vcore fluctuates a lot. For example, I could set to 1.475V and it would fluctuate from 1.425 to 1.5V. I think this was affecting long-term prime stability for me.

Any observations on that?

Also, one other test that would be nice if you could report on is to suspend your PC to RAM and then see what the Vcore is after you wake it up. On mine, I would suspend at 1.475V and it would wake up at 1.425V.

Thanks,
VR.

PS - As per the topic of this thread, I've got a perfectly good system running as below even with the Vcore problem. (1.475V works fairly well for me).

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: virtualrain

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman
I forgot to mention, the one issue that I've found with the beta bios 1008.003(which some don't have) is that my highest vcore setting is 1.45v. But like I mentioned, it's actually 1.49v which still allows me to oc up to 2.75ghz.

Hey Capt... On the older Bios's one of the things I noticed is that the Vcore fluctuates a lot. For example, I could set to 1.475V and it would fluctuate from 1.425 to 1.5V. I think this was affecting long-term prime stability for me.

Any observations on that?

Also, one other test that would be nice if you could report on is to suspend your PC to RAM and then see what the Vcore is after you wake it up. On mine, I would suspend at 1.475V and it would wake up at 1.425V.

Thanks,
VR.

PS - As per the topic of this thread, I've got a perfectly good system running as below even with the Vcore problem. (1.475V works fairly well for me).

Hey Virtualrain. In regards to vcore fluctuation using bios 1008.003, it appears to fluctuate a little bit, between .01-.02v.

In regards to suspend my PC to RAM, do you mean have my PC go into Hibernation? Not sure what you're asking.

CC

 

[Pl0p]

This is what I have now and the "* will become" is what it's gonna be in the end. The RAM is updated and runs fine. Did two memtest 3.2 win for 200% on 813Mb per memtest. My timings: 2.5 3 3 8 1T.. so i'm quite happy. Although CPU-Z says it runs at 201Mhz? Shouldn't that be 400?
I can recall that my 3DMark05 did 10100 points and i'll check what I get now.

AMD X2 64 4400+ Toledo
=>http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/details.aspx?opn=ADA4400DAA6CD
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
=>http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=15&l3=148&model=539&modelmenu=1
Antec TRUECONTROL 550PEC
=>http://www.antec.com/ec/productDetails.php?ProdID=07555
*will become PC Power & Cooling, INC MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE PSU: TURBO-COOL® 850 SSI
=> http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=T85SSI
Corsair 4x512 = 2 * twinx1024 3200XLPRO cl2225
=>http://www.corsair.com/corsair/products/specs/twinx1024-3200xlpro.pdf
*will become 2x1GB = 1 * twinx2048 3200C2 CL 2336
=>http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/products/specs/twinx2048-3200c2.pdf
2 x MSI NX7800GTX 256Mb @ SLI
=>http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=NX7800GTX-VT2D256E&class=vga
2 x RAID0 PATA Western Digital Raptor 36Gb 10000RPM
*will become 2 x RAID0 SATA Western Digital Rator 74GB 10000RPM 8MB
=>http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=65&Language=en
Sound Blaster Audigy 1
*will become X-Fi Fatality FPS
=>http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=14000
Lian Li V1100 Alu Black
=>http://www.silverpcs.com/product/CS_PCV1100b
Plextor 716A
=>http://www.plextor-europe.com/products/px-716a.asp?choice=PX-716A
Plextor 40/12/40A
=>http://www.plextor-europe.com/products/px-w4012a.asp?choice=PlexWriter 40/12/40A

Suspend to RAM is ACPI S3 I think. This is indeed hybernation. S1 is sleep to HDD. The thing is everything will get minimal power to be able to kick back in when you wake it up and you're RAM will be getting juice all the time. I've never trusted this very much, but I do think this works perfectly now.

 

[wanderer27]

DDR = Double Data Rate, so 200MHz Bus -> DDR400, or your 201MHz = DDR402 :laugh:

So it's working okay now ?

Lian Li Case, this isn't one where your MB is mounted "upside-down" is it ? I've heard people having cooling problems with this board if it's mounted that way - don't know why.

Video Cards - six pin connectors plugged into each Card and one four pin (like a HD power plug) plugged into the EZ-Plug on the MB by the Video Cards ? The EZ-Plug gets overlooked alot, and it's a must for SLI'd Video Cards. Even if you're not running SLI, it's a good idea to have this plugged in.

 

[virtualrain]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Hey Virtualrain. In regards to vcore fluctuation using bios 1008.003, it appears to fluctuate a little bit, between .01-.02v.

In regards to suspend my PC to RAM, do you mean have my PC go into Hibernation? Not sure what you're asking.

CC

That would indicate the fluctuation is perhaps a bit better - although it may be board/system dependent.

I think the appropriate term for suspend to RAM is "Standby"... In Control Panel > Power Options > Advanced, you can have your power/sleep button activate this mode if you want or ask you what to do. Hibernate is suspend to disk and that's not what I was wondering about. If its too much trouble, don't worry... I'll check it out soon enough.

Thanks.

 

[Pl0p]

My rig is working fine now. It's been running prime95 the whole night, at least for about 10hours. My timings are now at: 2 3 3 8 1T, i've tried the 2 2 2 6 1T without changing voltages.
What I noticed though is that video performance is quite poor I guess. I'm only getting 3DMark05 at 9895 now. With the other 2 x 512Mb 2-2-2-5 2T 0.05V extra it would go at something over 10k in 3dm05. I might retry the old 4x512Mb which sustaines the low latencies better, but need more juice I think to get them stable.

I'm first going to do the video card mod where I put a 80mm fan on heatsink, put them to auto clocking dependant on temp.

The LIAN LI upside down case is not soo good as you might think it be. The logical flow of air has been inverted. This is not soo bad, although your lower temps won't be as low, the higher won't be as high. The only bad thing about it is that exit fans should be built on top and the intake fans at the bottom, now as you can see with the PCIe/PCI slots being at the top you cannot put any exhaust fans on the back top of your case and I have to create one at the full top (there is no room if I don't wat to give up a PCI slot) or put one in the side panel at the top and there is enough room for one!. I only have to drill a hole in the sidepanel for it.
EDIT: i opened my case... the heat of the two 7800GTX's is too much and it cant go anywhere, it sticks around my dvd and cd drive and around the vid cards themselves. I'm going to change this setup. The standard fans in the case do not have straight openings but fit onto a the grating of the case which causes the airflow to be lowered. Gone open those as well.


edit: 10378 now... why it changed? Gone write each and every setting down this time

 

[mechBgon]

1) you can put 87-octane gas in a Dodge Viper. But if you're smart, you use what it's made for. And you can run your fancy Corsiar RAM on 2.6 volts, but if you're smart... yeah. Give it the 2.8 volts already, guy.

2) heatpipe coolers are usually orientation-specific. If you have a case that puts the mobo upside down, then the heatpipe isn't going to work as designed. It will be transferring heat from the low end to the high end. And as you discovered, that case has other issues. Get an Antec P180 or something.

 

[Pl0p]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
1) you can put 87-octane gas in a Dodge Viper. But if you're smart, you use what it's made for. And you can run your fancy Corsiar RAM on 2.6 volts, but if you're smart... yeah. Give it the 2.8 volts already, guy.

Are you serious about the 2.8? 2.7V seemed a lot already, but I dare, but 2.8 would kill it, won't it?

Originally posted by: mechBgon
2) heatpipe coolers are usually orientation-specific. If you have a case that puts the mobo upside down, then the heatpipe isn't going to work as designed. It will be transferring heat from the low end to the high end. And as you discovered, that case has other issues. Get an Antec P180 or something.

Damn hell I havent thought of that!!! Now you tell me and I do understand this very good!!! There's some more other bad sh** about that: it's just underneath the PCIe X16/X8SLI, so there is no room for sticking a cooler on it I was thinking of gluing with those 2 components pastes from artic which I have hear. DAMN HELL stupid m3h.
/me is heading back to the drawing board
Edit: What is the max temp. this bridge can have? I've got a UltraCool II Digital which which i'll use to monitor the temps on it.... Prolly crashing on that one then. Thanks for pointing this out to me!!! The setup is good for one thing though: my graka's have their chips on top now and my coolers go well with it . I'll try to up some pics.

 

[openwheelformula1]

"Ram Guy" at corsair support forums always recommends 2.75 for the xms series. Anything under 2.9 is perfectly safe unless you have absolutely no airflow. Going over 2.9v will void Corsair's warranty, which btw just like almost all manufacturers is a life time warranty.

Do not install your a8n sli premium upside down period. The nf4 mcp can take the high temperature, but not that extreme. Someone stated that the heatpipe block turning "red" after gaming.

 

[mechBgon]

You cannot monitor the temperature of the southbridge using software. Get the silly thing turned right-side-up and change the title of your thread to something closer to "noOb v. Asus A8N-SLI Premium" (no offense, but "Official Do's and Don'ts" this ain't ).

 

[Pl0p]

Originally posted by: openwheelformula1
"Ram Guy" at corsair support forums always recommends 2.75 for the xms series. Anything under 2.9 is perfectly safe unless you have absolutely no airflow. Going over 2.9v will void Corsair's warranty, which btw just like almost all manufacturers is a life time warranty.

Do not install your a8n sli premium upside down period. The nf4 mcp can take the high temperature, but not that extreme. Someone stated that the heatpipe block turning "red" after gaming.

My UltraCool II Digital is installed and I had stuck the temp sensor right on top of the "fanless" chunk of metal-do-nothing-for-my-up-side-down-mobo and guess how much it went: 80°C... I couldn't bear to see that so I immediately shut it down and started doing some modding... got it back to 60°C no load. Is the on-board sound integrated in the MCP? Does the traffic to the PCI and PCIe passes through the MCP? I do think the NVlan uses/passes through the MCP doesn't it? Will using the Marvell network card release some of the pressure on the MCP? -no need to answer, i'll find it in the white papers-

btw. i'm logging all what I'm doing:
http://users.skynet.be/pl0pie/ , there are some cruel modding pictures in there

 

[mechBgon]

If I were you, I would get that P180 on order and lay your present case on its side as a temporary measure, so the mobo is laying horizontally, slot side up.

 

[moto316]

Im putting together a new system now and I was wondering if I should slipstream my nvidia drivers into my winxp install. Im going to be slipstreaming sp2 into the xp install for sure but I dont know if its good to put the drivers on the same disk. I plan on doing this with nLite. The drivers I plan on installing are the nvidia 6.66 drivers and the 77.77 forceware drivers. Should I just go straight to the 81.26 forceware or wait until its an official driver? I plan on leaving out nvfirewall and nvarmor because i know it has issues, and the nv ide drivers ive heard bad things about,are there anyother tips you guys can give me to get a simple install. And one more thing, i want to update my bios to the 1008 version, ive heard that youre supposed to install the nv 6.66 drivers first before you do this or else things will go wrong, is this true? And does anyone know a good guide that shows you what its like installing the nv drivers together with winxp?

 

[Capt Caveman]

FWIW - I just reinstalled Windows XP on my system after creating a new RAID 0 as my boot drive. My bios is beta 1008.003 and had zero issues installing the Nvidia 6.66 drivers(including SW IDE drivers but not ActiveArmor of Firewall).

 

[Rudee]

I have a question for you folks. I have this board in a Sonata II case with a front panel audio port. I'm unable to get audio out of the front panel (headphones). I installed the Realtec sound drivers but I'm not sure if I need to install those as I am using my Audigy 2 soundcard. Any tips? Do I even need to install the Realtec driver if I'm not using the onboard audio?

 

[virtualrain]

Originally posted by: moto315
Im putting together a new system now and I was wondering if I should slipstream my nvidia drivers into my winxp install. Im going to be slipstreaming sp2 into the xp install for sure but I dont know if its good to put the drivers on the same disk. I plan on doing this with nLite. The drivers I plan on installing are the nvidia 6.66 drivers and the 77.77 forceware drivers. Should I just go straight to the 81.26 forceware or wait until its an official driver? I plan on leaving out nvfirewall and nvarmor because i know it has issues, and the nv ide drivers ive heard bad things about,are there anyother tips you guys can give me to get a simple install. And one more thing, i want to update my bios to the 1008 version, ive heard that youre supposed to install the nv 6.66 drivers first before you do this or else things will go wrong, is this true? And does anyone know a good guide that shows you what its like installing the nv drivers together with winxp?

nLite is the best tool for setting up a slipstream install CD.

Here are some tips for slipstreaming 6.66 RAID drivers into the install...
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=51140

Of course, you can use nLite to slipstream pretty much anything, including nV drivers or any other drivers you want.

 

[Rudee]

Originally posted by: Dragon41673
My rig is working in my sig, currently at 2640 prime stable (12x multi with 220htt). No issues other then Vcore isn't being reported correctly in software

How did you get a 12x multi when the board tops at 11?

 

[Dragon41673]

the board will max out at what the cpu does. Some cpu's max at 11, where as ones like my 4800+ go 12x

Someone correct me if I am wrong...it is cpu specific...correct?

 

[Capt Caveman]

Yes, you are correct Dragon.

 

[Rudee]

Originally posted by: Dragon41673
the board will max out at what the cpu does. Some cpu's max at 11, where as ones like my 4800+ go 12x

Someone correct me if I am wrong...it is cpu specific...correct?

Oops, I was mistaken, you are indeed correct.

 

[camotec]

I am also running this motherboard, solid as a rock at 2.6ghz etc. and have not experienced any problems with about 7 different brands of memory including,
Corsair,Amicroe,Geil,OCZ,Kingston & Crucial.

Infact I haven't had a problem with this board at all, maybe i have just been extremly lucky but ASUS have always been pretty good with mobos.

Cheers
Ben