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

[MePopeye]

Hello,
I am working on building the system below and would like your suggestions for the memory settings in the bios. I am using 2g Corsair XMS (twin 1 gig sticks-CMX1024-3200C2PT) and I have read through this topic (well most of it). Any suggestions or ideas for BIOS settings is solicited and welcomed .. as is a suggestion for a good video card. At this point I am not planning on going SLI due to heat issue (case is in a cubby hole in desk = little circulation). I do not plan on any OCing. Thanks in advance!


AMD 4000+ WinXP32 Pro
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
2g Corsair XMS (twin 1 gig sticks-CMX1024-3200C2PT)
WD3200KS SataII
Video Card = ?? maybe 7800gt or gtx
Sound card ????
Antec p180 ??
Enermax Liberty 620
NEC DVD/Burner
Old Klipsch 4.1 Promedia speakers

 

[Clydeman72]

Please bear with me as this is my very first post on these forums. Usually I post on other forums, but there seems to be quite a good knowledge base on the A8N-SLI.

I built my computer over this last weekend. Below I have listed my specs:
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800
OCZ Gold Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 500 (PC 4000)
XFX 7900 GT
Thermaltake Soprano (w/ clear side)
Enermax 535 W PSU
NEC-3550A DVD Burner
Maxtor Maxline III 7V250FO 250 GB 7200 RPM Sata 3.0 GB/s
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Zalman CNPS9500 LED 92mm

So as I said I built the system over the weekend. The only issue was the PSU. I had ordered an Antec SP-500. Some of you are probably familiar with the issue of this PSU not putting out 5V on the 5V+ line. Who knows whether the fault lies with Antec or Asus (for not design their boards to take less than 5V on this line). Anyway I went to Fry?s and bought a Enermax 535W PSU). After installing this everything ran fine. I then installed windows and updated all the drivers and everything. On Monday I did some benchmarking and ran Far Cry for a while. In total the computer seemed to be running fine for about 5 or 6 hours total. Then on Tuesday morning my wife turned the computer on, then left the room for a while. After coming back, the computer would not turn on.

So I went over to my friends house to try to do some trouble shooting. He also has an A8N series mobo, but is running a Pentium. I am not exactly sure which model. He also has the exact same Zalman fan. We opened up the case and took a look at what was happening. We reset the PSU and noticed that when power was applied the case fan and Zalman CPU fan would jump or twitch (but not rotate).

Anyway here are the steps we went through in our trouble shooting:

• 1. Put my system at barebones (mobo, GPU, PSU) ? same problem, the fan would only twitch or jump.
  2. Put my Zalman fan on his system ? the system would power up (and the fan would spin for 1-2 seconds) then shut down immediately.
  3. Put his Zalman fan on my system ? everything started up but very shortly after startup there was a strong burning smell (we think coming from the fan). We quickly turned everything off (for fear of doing damage). We put his Zalman back on his system and it still seemed to be working fine.
  4. Hooked my barebone system up to his PSU (with my Zalman) ? had the same problem as item 1 (twitching of the fan).

So here are my conclusions (please correct me if I am wrong):
1. The Zalman fan is bad.
2. My PSU is working correctly.

My questions are:
1. Did the Zalman go bad as a result of something else (I am thinking the mobo)?
2. Can a bad cpu fan alone cause these symptoms?
3. What would cause the burning smell when my friend's Zalman was used with my system?

Later today I am going to take the Zalman fan back to Fry?s for a new one. I will try the new one with my system. I might also try the stock AMD cpu fan on the off chance that the Zalman fan could be causing the problems.

Any thoughts? I would appreciate any suggestions.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: MePopeye
Hello,
I am working on building the system below and would like your suggestions for the memory settings in the bios. I am using 2g Corsair XMS (twin 1 gig sticks-CMX1024-3200C2PT) and I have read through this topic (well most of it). Any suggestions or ideas for BIOS settings is solicited and welcomed .. as is a suggestion for a good video card. At this point I am not planning on going SLI due to heat issue (case is in a cubby hole in desk = little circulation). I do not plan on any OCing. Thanks in advance!


AMD 4000+ WinXP32 Pro
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
2g Corsair XMS (twin 1 gig sticks-CMX1024-3200C2PT)
WD3200KS SataII
Video Card = ?? maybe 7800gt or gtx
Sound card ????
Antec p180 ??
Enermax Liberty 620
NEC DVD/Burner
Old Klipsch 4.1 Promedia speakers

I had that very same memory in my system before I went with some OCZ DDR500. The best I could get it to run was 2.5-3-3-8-1T with the rest of the settings at whatever the SPD put there initially. Don't even try for CAS2, I could boot into windows no problem but Prime95 and SuperPi would fail on one core or the other randomly as a result.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Clydeman72
Please bear with me as this is my very first post on these forums. Usually I post on other forums, but there seems to be quite a good knowledge base on the A8N-SLI.

I built my computer over this last weekend. Below I have listed my specs:
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800
OCZ Gold Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 500 (PC 4000)
XFX 7900 GT
Thermaltake Soprano (w/ clear side)
Enermax 535 W PSU
NEC-3550A DVD Burner
Maxtor Maxline III 7V250FO 250 GB 7200 RPM Sata 3.0 GB/s
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Zalman CNPS9500 LED 92mm

So as I said I built the system over the weekend. The only issue was the PSU. I had ordered an Antec SP-500. Some of you are probably familiar with the issue of this PSU not putting out 5V on the 5V+ line. Who knows whether the fault lies with Antec or Asus (for not design their boards to take less than 5V on this line). Anyway I went to Fry?s and bought a Enermax 535W PSU). After installing this everything ran fine. I then installed windows and updated all the drivers and everything. On Monday I did some benchmarking and ran Far Cry for a while. In total the computer seemed to be running fine for about 5 or 6 hours total. Then on Tuesday morning my wife turned the computer on, then left the room for a while. After coming back, the computer would not turn on.

So I went over to my friends house to try to do some trouble shooting. He also has an A8N series mobo, but is running a Pentium. I am not exactly sure which model. He also has the exact same Zalman fan. We opened up the case and took a look at what was happening. We reset the PSU and noticed that when power was applied the case fan and Zalman CPU fan would jump or twitch (but not rotate).

Anyway here are the steps we went through in our trouble shooting:

• 1. Put my system at barebones (mobo, GPU, PSU) ? same problem, the fan would only twitch or jump.
  2. Put my Zalman fan on his system ? the system would power up (and the fan would spin for 1-2 seconds) then shut down immediately.
  3. Put his Zalman fan on my system ? everything started up but very shortly after startup there was a strong burning smell (we think coming from the fan). We quickly turned everything off (for fear of doing damage). We put his Zalman back on his system and it still seemed to be working fine.
  4. Hooked my barebone system up to his PSU (with my Zalman) ? had the same problem as item 1 (twitching of the fan).

So here are my conclusions (please correct me if I am wrong):
1. The Zalman fan is bad.
2. My PSU is working correctly.

My questions are:
1. Did the Zalman go bad as a result of something else (I am thinking the mobo)?
2. Can a bad cpu fan alone cause these symptoms?
3. What would cause the burning smell when my friend's Zalman was used with my system?

Later today I am going to take the Zalman fan back to Fry?s for a new one. I will try the new one with my system. I might also try the stock AMD cpu fan on the off chance that the Zalman fan could be causing the problems.

Any thoughts? I would appreciate any suggestions.

Clydeman72, you and I have eerily similar setups. But I am still using an Antec SP II 500W and right now ASUS Probe II is reporting 4.92V on the +5V line. Apparently this is within spec as my system is totally stable (tested and abused for weeks).

As to the CPU fan. Yes, a bad CPU fan can cause those problems. If your BIOS is set up to power down your system when no RPMs are detected then it would certainly do what you are seeing. And Zalman is a world class manufacturer, but sometimes stuff happens and even they can produce defective items. Do what you said you are going to do and get a new one. If that one does the same thing I'd try the stock cooler. If it still does the same thing, perhaps the fan header for your CPU is bad.

While you are at Fry's, you might want to pick up a Zalman cooler for your video card. I have the same exact card and that cooler is pretty dang noisy. If you value quietness from your PC (I figured you did with a Zalman CPU cooler) then you will want one for your GPU also. I replaced the stock cooler with a Zalman VF700 CU and I'm happy once again.

Good luck.

ps - if you finally get your CPU cooler working, your mobo and RAM work very well at 250HTT with the memory at 1:1 (Memclock index of DDR400 is 1:1). I'll bet you can get an easy 2.5GHz out of your CPU.

 

[Clydeman72]

I thought I would follow up, to close the loop and hopefully help anyone in the future that might have similar symptoms to mine.

Megatomic was right it was the Zalman fan and only the Zalman fan. Everything seems to be running smoothly now that I have replaced the fan with a new Zalman.

But I would add that if you are considering getting an A8N-SLI, I would steer clear of Antec power supplies for the time being. I talked to the guys at Fry's and they were aware of the problem as well. They said there was a lot of Antec PSUs that have this problem. I have no idea how big the lot is (or the manufactured dates). Just a warning, take it for what it is worth.

I ordered my SP-500 (along with my other components from Newegg).

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: MePopeye
Hello,
I am working on building the system below and would like your suggestions for the memory settings in the bios. I am using 2g Corsair XMS (twin 1 gig sticks-CMX1024-3200C2PT) and I have read through this topic (well most of it). Any suggestions or ideas for BIOS settings is solicited and welcomed .. as is a suggestion for a good video card. At this point I am not planning on going SLI due to heat issue (case is in a cubby hole in desk = little circulation). I do not plan on any OCing. Thanks in advance!


AMD 4000+ WinXP32 Pro
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
2g Corsair XMS (twin 1 gig sticks-CMX1024-3200C2PT)
WD3200KS SataII
Video Card = ?? maybe 7800gt or gtx
Sound card ????
Antec p180 ??
Enermax Liberty 620
NEC DVD/Burner
Old Klipsch 4.1 Promedia speakers

I think this is a combo that you have to set your ram timings in the BIOS.
2-3-3-6 and 2.75 Volts.
Video card? Be sure to check both the Hot Deals forum and the Anandtech Real-Time Pricing page(s).

 

[JT1]

Any recommendations for setup of the following system (list below)? This site seems to have plenty of data and seems very helpful. Thanks in advance!

 

[JT1]

Also, should I install my Creative Audigy 2 sound card? If not, what is compatible with the A8N SLI Premium?

 

[openwheelformula1]

my Audigy 2 works perfectly in pci slot 2 in myPremium. Dont use slot 3 cause it shares the same IRQ with graphic card no matte what.

 

[JT1]

thanks openwheel!

 

[JT1]

curious, not looking to overclock. What BIOS should I install? I see a beta 1011.006 on ASUS's website?!?

 

[JT1]

Any feedback on the below list I compiled from this thread would be appreciated. Seems the basic recs (not including overclocking) from this forum can be summarized by...

Use a solid power supply

VCore stable at 1.4

Corsair memory (TWINx2048-3200C2PT) seems to need a little more juice than others? bump up your dram voltage to at least 2.7v or 2.8v

INITIAL INSTALL
Don't update the BIOS until after everything is up and running right first. You may even decide you dont' need to update BIOS.

Get the Chipset Drivers off the ASUS site. But, don't install the IDE Drivers from the Chipset Driver package (Windows handles everything fine). Version 6.65 is what you'll want, the 6.66 just have added support for 2003/Server, which you don't really need.

Also don't install the Firewall and Forceware (something like that) drivers as they too cause problems. It will ask if you want to install the Firewall & Forceware (something like that), select NO and continue.

In BIOS turn off the NVRAID and Silicon SATA controller under the Onboard Device Configuration Menu. Leave the SATA options alone under the menu with other Hard Drive settings.

If you are going to install your OS on your SATA, unplug the power from the IDE so the XP CD won't try to install on the IDE. Once you've got XP installed, you can plug the power back to the IDE (System off of course) and everything should come up fine. You can then format the IDE Drive through XP's Disk Management if it's not already Formatted/Setup.

I'd also set the OC options to Disabled or Manual as the case may be. Do not use AUTO setting.

Sound about right??

 

[Jdog1718]

You should be fine with the 1009 bios. It should come stock on the current retail boards. It everything you want to use works, theres no need to try the beta. Everything above seems about right, atleast thats basically what I followed while doing my build. When you use the manual settings, you will have to actually set some things to their correct value. Setting my Corsair XMS Twinx2048 (2-3-3-6 1T) from AUTO to MANUAL puts it at 3-3-3-8. Good Luck.

 

[brynis]

Thanx alot for very good advise in this thread : ) Its been givin me rock solid stability since 10.oct!

I now seek some advise on how to get my stock rig a little faster without putting out a lot of money. I know that my ram isnt to recommend, but it has been running rock solid in my system ; )

Easy OC - what are the easiest thing to try without comprising too much stability?

 

[Megatomic]

Good lord, how much longer is ASUS going to wait before finalizing an official BIOS for this mobo? It's been a month and a half since they released the last beta....

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: JT1
Any feedback on the below list I compiled from this thread would be appreciated. Seems the basic recs (not including overclocking) from this forum can be summarized by...

Use a solid power supply

VCore stable at 1.4 [/quote]

Correct.

Corsair memory (TWINx2048-3200C2PT) seems to need a little more juice than others? bump up your dram voltage to at least 2.7v or 2.8v

Every stick is different so test, test, test. For first boot I'd give 2.7~2.75V for those Infineon sticks. Make sure you use blue slots if using 2 sticks.

INITIAL INSTALL
Don't update the BIOS until after everything is up and running right first. You may even decide you dont' need to update BIOS.

Correct. BIOS 1009 is decent, too.

Get the Chipset Drivers off the ASUS site. But, don't install the IDE Drivers from the Chipset Driver package (Windows handles everything fine). Version 6.65 is what you'll want, the 6.66 just have added support for 2003/Server, which you don't really need.

Also don't install the Firewall and Forceware (something like that) drivers as they too cause problems. It will ask if you want to install the Firewall & Forceware (something like that), select NO and continue.

Wrong. There now is a version 6.70 on NV site. Get that version and while installing you will see 4 square boxes at the beginning, first one is the chipset driver, second ethernet driver, third IDE driver, fourth on-board sound driver.

Uncheck the IDE driver and sound driver. Just install the chipset driver (SM Bus driver) and ethernet driver. It will start the installation proceduer - and in the middle of somewhere, it will ask "Do you want to install.... NV Firewall and Network management?" or something like that. Click "No" After that the installation proceduer should be done, but for some reason if you see "Do you want to install NVidia IDE driver...", click No.

In BIOS turn off the NVRAID and Silicon SATA controller under the Onboard Device Configuration Menu. Leave the SATA options alone under the menu with other Hard Drive settings.

Correct.

If you are going to install your OS on your SATA, unplug the power from the IDE so the XP CD won't try to install on the IDE. Once you've got XP installed, you can plug the power back to the IDE (System off of course) and everything should come up fine. You can then format the IDE Drive through XP's Disk Management if it's not already Formatted/Setup.

Not sure because I didn't use IDE drives (except optical)

I'd also set the OC options to Disabled or Manual as the case may be. Do not use AUTO setting.

Correct. Not only the auto-OC'ing is such a small increase (like.. 2%~5%? or is it 2%~10%?), but also it screws up other setting (especially memory). In other words, since ASUS doesn't know how to properly write codes or anything, the chances are when the BIOS OCs the CPU 3%, it will use a divider like 1:2 so that it induces a false-positive experience to a user. A friend of mine built an Intel rig with an ASUS board and bragged about his CPU running 5% faster with A.I. NOS or whatever, so I took a closer look at the configuration and found the board is running memory at half the speed. I did not say anything to my friend.

 

[duinator]

Originally posted by: AppaYipYip
My A8N SLi Premium is driving me INSANE guys, I could reallly use some help.

It seeems that it ran flawlessly with my A64 Venice core 3200+, with a nice stable overclock to 2.5GHz, well since I upgraded to a dual core Opteron 175 this board has been going batty. I did a complete format/reinstall of winxp pro and I am using the most current chipset drivers 6.70. I am using the 1009 bios (which I flashed before putting this dual core opteron in). My problem is this:

My CD-Rom drives are completely unreadable! It will work just fine when booting but in windows, it will not read them. Well, it will at random. I have done 6 (yes 6!!!) format/reinstalls of windows over the past two weekends, to no avail. Can someone post the exact order in which I should install my system drivers AFTER doing a clean wipe for WinXP?

I had no such problems with my last setup, with the A64 3200+ venice. Something about this dual core chip is driving the computer insane.

Hey, this is my first post and the first thing I want to say is what a great forum this is...my premium was giving me nothing but hassles but I may have found a solution finally. I will go into that in another post but for now just let me ask if you have followed the advice here and not installed the nForce SW IDE drivers? I believe they were causing my drives to dissapear.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: duinator
Hey, this is my first post and the first thing I want to say is what a great forum this is...my premium was giving me nothing but hassles but I may have found a solution finally. I will go into that in another post but for now just let me ask if you have followed the advice here and not installed the nForce SW IDE drivers? I believe they were causing my drives to dissapear.

There is a very good chance that it's a PSU problem.

 

[amaskedman2]

I have had nothing but trouble with my setup. I rma'd the mobo, and video card. I swapped out the ram, disabled the IDE. Right now, im about to cry and at my wits end. I have been building my own PCs since 286s were out, and this is the worse experience ever.

It crashes in WOW all the time, and often in windows while surfing. I swapped out the ram for some 333mhz and that didnt help. I have a very big PSU, which seems to test as stable. I dont know what to do next. Nothing appears to be overheating.

This is my setup:

A8N-SLI premium
AMD x2 4400+
2 x 1G G.Skill Ram 2.5-3-3-6
eVGA 7800gtx with ACS
2 Samsung Spinpoint P (I think P) drives in RAID
Enermax Liberty 620 PSU
X-Fi Fatility (in slot 1)
Sony CDRW
Memorex DVD Dual Layer
Stock CPU cooler
Gigabyte Aurora case (very nice)

If anyone can solve my problem, ill send them $50, no ******.

 

[Megatomic]

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles amaskedman2. I have a few questions for you:

1. Have you tried shifting the RAM around in different slots? Try slots 2 and 4 or vice versa.

2. What voltage is your RAM running at? You may need to bump it up a little.

3. What voltage is your CPU running at? Again, you may need to bump it up a little.

4. Do you have the latest official BIOS loaded on your motherboard?

5. Have you tried moving the sound card down to the second PCI slot from the bottom? There are potential IRQ conflicts that can arise from having a sound card in the wrong PCI slot. I have my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum in that very slot and it shares no IRQ with any other component in my system.

6. Does your X-Fi have the newer firmware? The X-Fi cards that were released to retail at the products' launch had a conflict with NF4 motherboards. If you do have one of those unfortunate cards, Creative Labs will RMA it and send you one with the newer firmware that works fine with NF4 motherboards.

7. What version are your drivers? Do you have the latest official drivers from NVidia loaded? For you motherboard, that would be Forceware 6.70 and for your videocard that would be Forceware 84.21.

8. Your components look really well specified. What are your temperatures? CPU, motherboard, GPU, etc... You can use ASUS Probe for most of the temps. and a program like Everest Home Edition to show you the GPU and HDD temperatures.

9. What are you voltages like? +12V and Vcore are the two culprits leading to instability the most. What you set in the BIOS is not necessarily what you actually get.

Sorry to hammer you with so much right away, but those things are IMHO the most likely to be causing you the problems you are having with your computer. Hopefully one of those questions will lead to you fixing your system. :thumbsup: Good luck.

 

[RideFree]

I note you have the Enermax Liberty 620 PSU.

Have you tried another PS in conjunction with this board?
I'd take it one step at a time, integrating the components into the system.

Like you, I've been rollin' my own since '85. Once, it was a bad cable that made me tear my hair out. I say that to let you know that nothing is too insignificant to overlook.

PS I have this board and it was one of the fantastic installs in my memory.

 

[pklostguy]

i have a similar rig and I haven't finished putting it together. Right now it is sitting outside the case until I am happy enough with it to go through the hassle of installing it in the case and adding usb devices, second DVD drives etc.

So I think I have the same problem as everyone on this thread. I can get the system to start up, usually, it doesn't like to POST when I restart. The problem starts when I try to use windows. Before you ask I have tried wiping the HD and loading 2k, XP and now I am using X64, no difference. I am also on my second MOBO. ANYHOW windos will run for a random amount of time before deiding to stop. It may stop while it's connecting to the network, or it may wait until I have a couple IE windows open. It doesn't crash to the BSOD, although I do get the 0x00000009 screen sometimes, not so much now though.

So far I have done the following after reading through this thread many...many times:

• I have manually changed the RAM timings and dropped them down to 3-3-3-8 just so I can work on other stuff.
  
  The voltage was moved up to 2.8 on the RAM too.
  
  I didn't install the SW driver or the NVidia stuff as recommended.
  
  BIOS is 1009
  
  Almost smashed the entire stup on at least 5 but surely no more than 25 occasions.

I have built rigs before and this is the only time where I have had to go through thiis much of a hassle and not have anything to show for it. I even started scouting out other NF4 boards online, but it seems that every single one of them has issues, and since I don't feel like playing "which board is the least F'd up" I decided against buying a new board. Well if anyone can think of anything I have missed please tell me.

 

[dawza]

Pklostguy- not to state the obvious, but have you tested your memory (i.e. memtest, or Prime)? If so, have you tried different memory slots or running with a single stick (I assume you are running 512x2 from your sig)?

Have you tried lowering the memory speed to DDR333 or lower to see if that helps with stability?

The screen you refer to- is it a quick flash of a BSOD that occurs (sometimes) before the system decides to reboot? If so, this is reminiscent of a RAM problem I was having with the A8N-SLI board, which I corrected by loosening the timings (this problem, as I recall, was most prominent when I was accessing the network for some strange reason). Your memory timings look loose enough, so perhaps it is a bad stick of memory and/or a bad memory slot?

 

[RideFree]

pklost,
Sounds possibly like a heat issue.
Check the thermal connection between the H/S & CPU.
BTW, what H/S are you using, stock?

 

[MrCoyote]

I just ordered this board. I noticed Asus website says to update chipset driver to V6.65, before you update BIOS to 1009. What happens if the board comes with BIOS 1009? Can I still do a fresh install of WinXP Pro? Then update driver after the o/s install? Or does the chipset driver need to be slipstreamed?