A8N-SLI Owners

[J-Mag]

From your specs, I assume you are running 4 x 512MB modules. From Xbits labs "When four memory modules are in use, the memory controller of the Athlon 64 can only support DDR400 SDRAM with the slower 2T timing. Moreover, if the four installed modules are two-sided, the speed of the memory subsystem will be dropped to DDR333 even with 2T timing." http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3800_3.html
If you want to run 2GB of memory I would suggest you get 2 x 1GB memory modules.

Although you could just wait for hte new E0 stepping from AMD, they are upgrading the mem controller so it can handle 4dimms at ddr400, fyi.

 

[J-Mag]

POSSIBLE GOOD BETA BIOS FOR BOTH OVERCLOCKING AND NCQ HARD DRIVES!!

Okay, yes I'm kind of excited.


Anyway, I found this by going to an ASUS FTP site, figured out if the ASUS auto update utility is using FTP sites, why not type that in as a URL?

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket939/A8N-SLI Deluxe/

Doesn't show up if you got to ASUS' normal URL to download, just this way, and not even with the update utility, one has to manually go to ASUS' FTP site. Anyway, it's BIOS 1003.007. I've rebooted twice using NCQ hard drives, no problems. I'll intentionally reboot a half dozen times in a row to see if I get one. Either way, I'll post an edit and say yes it did drop my NCQ drives and I rolled back to 1002, or no it didn't.

Oh, and I OCed past a 210 FSB, and it had a PCI lock setting.


EDIT: No, this bios isn't any better then 1003.008 or 1003.006. Don't use if you have NCQ drives!! Like the other betas, it dropped my hard drives.

Probably a good BIOS for people without NCQ drives, though.

Damn, you got me all amped up for a sec reading your post, until I came to the Edit part

I have been using my DiamondMax 10 300GB as my main XP install. It runs great but only with 1002. ( I have a backup install on an olfd6gb IDE, and jeezus is there a pereformance difference... with the DiamondMax10 i can boot in like 1/10th the time (seriously))

How many times did you reboot b4 it lost your drives?

I know it is a weird issue b/c whenever I used the Beta BIOSes it would work for a few reboots, but then the drive wouldn't be detected

Thank god this board allows booting from USB devices though... cause I have all the BIOSes on a USB key...

 

[Tripp17]

I dont understand why everyone is having problems with their harddrives. What is the difference between my rapter and yours? Mine works so good, overclocked or normal. Maybe i can help if you tell me the diferences between the hardrives we have.

 

[J-Mag]

I dont understand why everyone is having problems with their harddrives. What is the difference between my rapter and yours? Mine works so good, overclocked or normal. Maybe i can help if you tell me the diferences between the hardrives we have.

I dunno wtf the deal is...

I have 5 SATA devices... The Beta Bioses will detect in loadup: My 36gb Raptor, Both of my 120gb WD drives, My Converted IDE 250gb (its got an IDE to SATA adapter hooked up)...

But they have serious problems detecting my Maxtor DiamondMax 10 for some reason...

I have also heard about issues with diamondmax 9's but I don't have one so I can't confirm.. It migth just be that they don't have many people with Maxtors in TW where Asus is, so it doesn't come up as an immediate prob...

Tripp: I just PM'd u, btw...

 

[Arvig]

I dont understand why everyone is having problems with their harddrives. What is the difference between my rapter and yours? Mine works so good, overclocked or normal. Maybe i can help if you tell me the diferences between the hardrives we have.

Also answering J-Mag's question in this, even though I didn't quote him. With 1003-007, they detected it twice, and from what I can see dropped only one of my two NCQ drives.

Tripp17, it's NCQ. For whatever reason, the beta BIOSes don't support it, even though 1002 does APPARENTLY. My hypothesis is that 1002 never activated the NCQ function, and that they are trying to get it to work, along with whatever other fixes they are doing in the betas, thus that's why it's dropping NCQ hard drives.

Obviously I'm just guessing here, could be 1002 supported NCQ, and they are doing other tweaks that's killing the use of NCQ in the betas, but want to test the other fixes first before they restore that. I've seen others, with both Maxtor & Seagate NCQ drives have this problem, either they get dropped immediatly, or get dropped after a couple reboots.

For what it's worth, 1003.007 shows up as a download now, not just via going to their FTP site, just looked.

 

[Tripp17]

Whats NCQ.......its not sata? Is it what the servers use? Does it go at 10,000 rpms? I know your thinking if i dont know that, how could i ever help you?? Well, i was thinking that since i had problems at first and now im golden that maybe i could tell you the settings i have in my bios and compare them. See if something dumb is causeing the problem, ya know? I just wanna help if i can.

 

[VashTheStampede21]

a while ago (while i was researching what i should put into my new pc) i stumbled across a post about maxtor sata hard drives not working properly with some sata products, apparently this was because they were bridged ata 133 devices, rather than native sata, maybe this is still true, and its something supporting real sata, but not "faked" sata (and no i dont mean external pcbs)

i think the sata thiing was an incompatability with an asus a8v - on scan's (www.scan.co.uk) website, but dont qoute me on it - as they no longer seem to sell them

maybe just related to a single motherboard, but may not be

something along the lines of this.....

"Like all other designs save only Seagate's Barracuda series, the MaXLine Plus II utilizes an onboard parallel-to-serial bridge. Though converters usually exact a performance penalty, high-level performance should remain the ultimate arbiter. All other things being equal, if a bridged design outperforms another that uses a native setup, it should be the obvious choice- as always, it's bottom-line rather than module-level performance that matters most."

taken from

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200309/200309147Y250M0_1.html

maybe they still do it like that??? cant be all that old with a 250 gig drive....


my drives are these: 2 of each....
http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,645,00.html
http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,647,00.html

i made sure after reading lots of threads about ncq, that scan had given me the right drives, and there they are.....

they have worked perfectly since minute one of power on

 

[Arvig]

Whats NCQ.......its not sata? Is it what the servers use? Does it go at 10,000 rpms? I know your thinking if i dont know that, how could i ever help you?? Well, i was thinking that since i had problems at first and now im golden that maybe i could tell you the settings i have in my bios and compare them. See if something dumb is causeing the problem, ya know? I just wanna help if i can.

NCQ drives are also SATA. NCQ stands for "Native Command Queuing". No, it has nothing to do with RPM's, NCQ allows for multiple commands to be addressed by the hard drive at the same time...or something, I'm feeling lazy right now. So...go do a google search on "NCQ" or "Native Command Queuing". Or go to Seagate or Maxtor's site, I'd suspect/assume one or both of them would have a technical paper of some sort in PDF format that you could download.

I will say this, between having NCQ and 16mb buffers on my Diamond Max 10's, they benchmark as fast in SiSoft Sandra 2005 as two 74gb Raptors, both as single drives and in a RAID 0. Basically they are fast in a different way the Raptors...Raptors are fast due to the high RPM's, my hard drives are fast due to how they handle data, and having a large buffer, 16mb. Their RPM's are "only" 7200.

So again, the reason Tripp17 that your drives are fine with the beta BIOSes is because your Raptors were made before anyone started putting NCQ on any drives. Any non NCQ drive is probably fine with the beta BIOS. It's not a BIOS setting, has NOTHING to do with that that I can tell, I have no extra BIOS settings in my BIOS regarding NCQ, it's just something they are doing to the beta BIOSes that makes NCQ drive not function with the NVidia SATA ports. AGAIN, 1002 is fine with them, any 1003.00x beta isn't, or hasn't been on my end.

Err...not to be rude, but I won't answer this again.

EDIT: Here, using Newegg's listing, I have two of these drives: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-358&depa=1

Left margin there's a little link marked "product link". I guess you could click on that and go from there.

 

[Tripp17]

Thanks.......

 

[J-Mag]

Vash:

I know for a fact that the DiamondMax 10's are native SATA. It was really only the first couple generations of SATA drives that were bridged...

Here's a quote from Maxtor's Website:
"Serial ATA drives are based on an integrated, single-chip native SATA solution, DiamondMax 10 drives"

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...roducts/ATA Hard Drives/Desktop/DiamondMax 10

Anyway I think the issue isn't necessarily the NCQ drives, but MAXTOR NCQ drives and possible maxtor SATA drives in general (obviously they work fine on other motherboards...)

 

[Praxi]

Just to keep others updated, my error wasn't due to the motherboard (not really anyways) like asus thought when I called them. One of my sticks of ram was bad, and I did try different ram, but I left it set it DDR400 when it was PC2700.

 

[Arvig]

Anyway I think the issue isn't necessarily the NCQ drives, but MAXTOR NCQ drives and possible maxtor SATA drives in general (obviously they work fine on other motherboards...)

No, I've heard of people having problems with Seagate NCQ drives and the beta BIOSes, so I do think it's NCQ in general. Not Maxtor.

 

[VashTheStampede21]

yeah, it was just a thought, i knew i'd seen it somewhere.

in that case its probably the hard drives firmware then, and not the board


think about it, it possibly could just be that.....

if you and someone else have different firmware and one isnt compatable, and its the most widely available firmware, then it may just be that, if a fwe people have got them working, which i'm sure there are a few of us that have not had any problems, where as most will, we may be using identical motherboards, but have a different revision of the actual drive

possible, yes, probable, maybe, just a thought....

 

[J-Mag]

yeah, it was just a thought, i knew i'd seen it somewhere.

in that case its probably the hard drives firmware then, and not the board


think about it, it possibly could just be that.....

if you and someone else have different firmware and one isnt compatable, and its the most widely available firmware, then it may just be that, if a fwe people have got them working, which i'm sure there are a few of us that have not had any problems, where as most will, we may be using identical motherboards, but have a different revision of the actual drive

possible, yes, probable, maybe, just a thought....

I agree, I actually sent an email to Maxtor about the possibilities of firmware updates on the diamondmax 10 lins and I didn't even get a responce


All I know is almost EVERYONE with a Maxtor NCQ drives has probs with the BETA BIOSes (and actually the Final 1003 too(WTF! how can they call it final?!!?!?), I did some testing with it last night and it also looses the ability to detect my drive)

But, most of the people I have seen with the Seagate drives such as yourself, vash, theirs work fine.. hrm?

 

[Arvig]

I agree, I actually sent an email to Maxtor about the possibilities of firmware updates on the diamondmax 10 lins and I didn't even get a responce


All I know is almost EVERYONE with a Maxtor NCQ drives has probs with the BETA BIOSes (and actually the Final 1003 too(WTF! how can they call it final?!!?!?), I did some testing with it last night and it also looses the ability to detect my drive)

But, most of the people I have seen with the Seagate drives such as yourself, vash, theirs work fine.. hrm?

Although I still think it's NCQ in general, I guess it doesn't matter too much...it dropped my drives too.

Oh well, I rolled back to 1002. Now I get to sit back and wait for one or two more boards to come out. Way I see it, worst case is THEY also drop my drives, I'll have to do a reformat anyway, and I try out the Silcon Image ports on them. Slight lean toward the DFI board right now.

As an aside, although I haven't rebooted since to see if it will do this, I set my FSB higher then 210 when I was in 1003. Forgot to set it back down to 210. It let me boot without an error higher then 210, and CPU-Z confirms I'm at the FSB I set. So...maybe 1003 has it's purpose in a stupid way, one can flash to it with the drives disconnected, set a decent overclock, save, disconnect the hard drives, reflash to 1002, reconnect the hard drives and keep an overclock.

Cumbersome...stupid trick too, especially with Clockgen making it a bit easier for at least a one shot overclock...but hey, might as well get SOMETHING out of the socalled final BIOS.

Does make me wonder what they did do to cause this.

 

[Arvig]

Different subject, so I'll take the liberty of doing two posts.

For comedy relief purposes, I just sent this letter off to ASUS. Last time I did, they just gave me a non-answer in "Engrish" and told me to roll back to 1002. Let's see what happens now that 1003 is out. Only edit is to remove my e-mail address and real name from the letter...sorry, don't like e-mail or snail mail spam.

>Hello,

I wrote ASUS with this problem once before. I have two Maxtor Diamond Max 10 hard drives connected to the NVidia SATA ports. My hard drives support NCQ. The problem is with ANY bios after 1002, INCLUDING the new Final BIOS 1003, the NVidia SATA ports refuse to see my hard drives! 1002 will see them, but as you know there other BIOS options are limited.

My questions are as follows:

1) Is ASUS working on fixing this? I know MANY others have the same problem with NCQ hard drives, or at least Maxtor Diamond Max 10 hard drives.

2) Why won't BIOS 1003, which IS a Final BIOS, allow my NVidia SATA ports to see my hard drives?

3) Why will BIOS 1002 actually allow the NVidia SATA ports to see my hard drives?


Please let me know ASAP, your answer will determine if I keep this motherboard, or RMA it for a refund and switch brands!

Thank you in advance for your reply...<

1st EDIT: And before some random person goes all politically correct for mentioning "Engrish", I'm simply commenting. And no, not saying anyone in this thread so far would flame me for lack of P.C.

 

[poach]

Before I posted this I read all previous posts.

So let me get this strait, no A8N-Sli board will recognize HD's with NCQ unless you are using bios 1002, in witch case you can not overclock past 210mhz FSB (including on "final" 1003 bios) correct?
What problems are there with bios 1002 apart from the O'Cing one mentioned above?
My A8N-sli deluxe arrives on Tuesday along with 2x Seagate Sata NCQ drives, will 1002 be the best bet for a hassel free assembly?
Also is there any word on ASUS fixing the NCQ problem with the 1003 bios or in future release?

p.s: this is a great thread

 

[Arvig]

Before I posted this I read all previous posts.

So let me get this strait, no A8N-Sli board will recognize HD's with NCQ unless you are using bios 1002, in witch case you can not overclock past 210mhz FSB (including on "final" 1003 bios) correct?
What problems are there with bios 1002 apart from the O'Cing one mentioned above?
My A8N-sli deluxe arrives on Tuesday along with 2x Seagate Sata NCQ drives, will 1002 be the best bet for a hassel free assembly?
Also is there any word on ASUS fixing the NCQ problem with the 1003 bios or in future release?

p.s: this is a great thread

Correct. But, on a lark I just looked to see if 1003 was still up, or if they already added a 1004.001 or whatever the next hypothetical beta would be called, and 1003 has been pulled back down. If that means they are reworking 1003 to fix this, or if it's been pulled off of the server (or at least from general access) on accident, I don't know.

And, I'm not as certain that Seagates are as plagued with the problem. I'm almost 100% Certain Maxtor NCQ's are, mine are anyway. I've seen posts where people with Seagate NCQ's were also, but seen some where people have gotten NCQ's working with a BIOS newer then 1002.

EDIT: Major problem with 1002 is that it doesn't like a FSB of 210 without using a third party utility like Clockgen. You CAN set past 210, just next time you reboot it will halt as if there's an error on POSTing, and if you have the speach reporter enabled it will report "SYSTEM FAIL DUE TO CPU OVERCLOCK". One can go into the BIOS and set an OC higher then 210, save and POST fine, but everytime after a reboot one will get such an error. So I guess if you don't mind going into your BIOS each and every time you boot up, or using something like Clockgen, you can still OC past 210 with 1002.

Other problem, is that it's hit and miss if the PCI bus is locked with 1002, there's only a setting for the PCI-E bus, the 1003.00x betas and 1003 Final have a setting to lock the PCI bus. I THINK setting the PCI-E bus to 101 and setting the main CPU overclock setting to manual (and maybe a FSB of 201 even if not overclocking) will lock it, though. There's other settings missing from 1002, like some memory timing settings that's in the 1003's also for instance, but that's it in a nutshell.

 

[jacuzz1]

Granted I have not read the entire thread (Foot ball game on) so this may be a repeat but the 1003 is a cluster fuck on my rig. Intermitant loss of nv raid controller , loss of video every other boot up , loss of sli capability, failure to detect second video card, random lock ups and finaly my kid canceled a 3dmark5 run with the Doom3 profile running (dont ask) and the entire os self destructed. it took me 12 hours to get it stable enough to reflash back to 1002 were i am staying fpr te forseable future. lol

 

[Arvig]

Granted I have not read the entire thread (Foot ball game on) so this may be a repeat but the 1003 is a cluster fuck on my rig. Intermitant loss of nv raid controller , loss of video every other boot up , loss of sli capability, failure to detect second video card, random lock ups and finaly my kid canceled a 3dmark5 run with the Doom3 profile running (dont ask) and the entire os self destructed. it took me 12 hours to get it stable enough to reflash back to 1002 were i am staying fpr te forseable future. lol

Saw a shortened version of this on another post about our boards.

I didn't have 1003 on long at all, just long enough to watch it drop my NCQ drives, but well...if this is typical, I can see why they yanked this so called "final" BIOS. I think for people without NCQ drives, 1003.006 or 1003.007 was more stable!

Which reminds me, if you want 1003.007, that is still up under beta BIOSes from their download center.

Oh well...maybe in a day or three they will re-release a final (or a beta 1003.011? They were up to 1003.010 I think...) and I'll go from there, got a week or three, until the DFI and/or MSI come out...although I am halfway considering some advice that someone else gave, advice that I called lame at the time I must admit, and ditching my NCQ hard drives for a couple Raptors.

 

[poach]

Other problem, is that it's hit and miss if the PCI bus is locked with 1002, there's only a setting for the PCI-E bus, the 1003.00x betas and 1003 Final have a setting to lock the PCI bus. I THINK setting the PCI-E bus to 101 and setting the main CPU overclock setting to manual (and maybe a FSB of 201 even if not overclocking) will lock it, though. There's other settings missing from 1002, like some memory timing settings that's in the 1003's also for instance, but that's it in a nutshell.

O.k this is the thing I not getting, what is the deal with the pci bus being locked or unlocked?
Noobi question I know, but everyone needs to learn sometime.

 

[Arvig]

O.k this is the thing I not getting, what is the deal with the pci bus being locked or unlocked?
Noobi question I know, but everyone needs to learn sometime.

Okay, if the PCI bus is locked at 33 FSB, then when one raises the FSB of the CPU (or HTT or whatever it is on an AMD 64 ), it stays at 33 FSB, and doesn't raise with the CPU. If it's unlocked, it goes up with the CPU FSB, and if it gets too high will start causing data corruption on hard drives, since they are expecting a 33 FSB PCI bus and will start getting in a sense "overclocked' for lack of a better term. I know this board is PCI-E, but apparently the NForce 4 chip is still on the PCI bus that the legacy PCI slots use.

Someone can explain it a lot better, but it basically boils down to unlocked PCI bus, sooner or later your hard data will get corrupt and you'll have to reinstall Windows. I've OCed on a board that had no PCI bus lock, and took...maybe three to four days? A mild OC on an unlocked board is possible, as long as you're not roughly around a 220 FSB or so, that has always been about when on most boards that are unlocked I've hit a wall so to speak.

I guess with an unlocked CPU it's not as big of deal if hitting a high FSB isn't the way you're going to overclock, and you're just going to raise the multiplier.

 

[VashTheStampede21]

possibly off topic

but can the second sli port be used for 1x standard pci-e stuff if not in sli mode


or have i misunderstood the manual

if it is its a nice thing to have


thanks for answering

 

[Arvig]

possibly off topic

but can the second sli port be used for 1x standard pci-e stuff if not in sli mode


or have i misunderstood the manual

if it is its a nice thing to have


thanks for answering

I would assume so. Not like I have anything PCI-E other then graphics cards to play with, and I didn't try setting it to single graphics card then putting one into the secondary x16 slot to see what happens, but yes I got that impression.

As an aside, it looked like from a screenshot of the owner's manual of the DFI, that when it's in SLI mode, it's x1 port between the cards is actually shut off, but the x4 above the primary x16 slot is on at a full x4. I didn't download the DFI's owner manual from their site, just looked at a post from another forum from someone who managed to get the board early.

 

[AthlonXP]

cant you use the silicon image controller if I get a 200gb seagate with ncq??? All its going to be is a dump drive for my documents, music and such

 

[Tripp17]

To Arvig.....i really didnt mean to piss you off if i did with my advice. I just think it would be in your best intrest to ditch the NCQ drives and go for rapters. Or, get a new motheboard.....it will cost about the same both ways. I do feel very strongly that no one should have to ditch or replace anything on an expensive motherboard, and a top of the line motherboard. Thats really unexceptable. But whats worse, having no harddrives show up and no playing games or buying new hardware and doing what your supposed to be doing.....enjoying your hardware you paid so much money for. I wish i could voice my opinion to Asus, but they will never get it or care. I love there products, they are the best in the business, but they need to really start working overtime on this board with a PERFECT bios for everyone and Nvidia needs to pull there head out of there ass and get some WHQL drivers for there Nforce 4 boards and while they are at it, some decent SLI WHQL drivers too!

 

[LittleMe]

Maybe people can just start pushing asus to include an add-on sata raid card that supports NCQ. I'm sure one could be found and bundled cheaply. Heck, Gigabyte is including an 802.11b/g card.

 

[Arvig]

To Arvig.....i really didnt mean to piss you off if i did with my advice. I just think it would be in your best intrest to ditch the NCQ drives and go for rapters. Or, get a new motheboard.....it will cost about the same both ways. I do feel very strongly that no one should have to ditch or replace anything on an expensive motherboard, and a top of the line motherboard. Thats really unexceptable. But whats worse, having no harddrives show up and no playing games or buying new hardware and doing what your supposed to be doing.....enjoying your hardware you paid so much money for. I wish i could voice my opinion to Asus, but they will never get it or care. I love there products, they are the best in the business, but they need to really start working overtime on this board with a PERFECT bios for everyone and Nvidia needs to pull there head out of there ass and get some WHQL drivers for there Nforce 4 boards and while they are at it, some decent SLI WHQL drivers too!

Eh, no problem. To be honest, I've been debating buying two Raptors and selling these drives as slightly used at a possible loss on eBay now, or seeing if Newegg will take an RMA without a restocking fee...which I doubt, since there's nothing wrong with them. I'll decide sometime tonight probably...hell, might do both, get different hard drives and switch motherboards, but if I do switch boards I'll let let's say the DFI be out for a week or three before I do, make sure no-one else is going through what I am with this ASUS.

 

[Tripp17]

Good call, im waiting as well. If asus comes around with a bios that fixes the "lock" on overclocking past 240/245, then ill stay put, if not ill wait and see who has the best Nforce4 motherboard and go with them.

 

[Arvig]

Good call, im waiting as well. If asus comes around with a bios that fixes the "lock" on overclocking past 240/245, then ill stay put, if not ill wait and see who has the best Nforce4 motherboard and go with them.

One thing I saw, when I flashed to the 1003 "Final" that was pulled off of ASUS' site is that the PCI lock setting stayed at 33.33, since I had set it there with one of the beta BIOSes. I of course couldn't keep 1003 Final since it also dropped my drives, but my point is that I suspect that if one sets something like that, that an earlier BIOS keeps the setting even though it doesn't have the line to set it, if that makes any sense...at least as one doesn't clear the CMOS when flashing back and forth.

Otherwise, since with one of the betas and with the 1003 "Final" I set the PCI lock to 33.33, I think that even though I rolled back to 1002 which doesn't have a line to do that, it's still on. I'd bet that if I do change hard drives and then flash to a beta 1003, that I'd still see the PCI lock set for 33.33.

 

[poach]

O.k. here is the deal
I have just plugged in me asus A8N sli deluxe with my x850xt pe, and apon boot it just garbles the display!
You can still see what is on the screen, but there are colored, flashing squares and different characters.
I have plugged the pci-e power plug in and every other mobo plugs eg. 12v and 24pin power supply.
I've made sure that the pci express SLI card is facing towards the primary video card slot like it should be, and is showing one single card like it should.
Any suggestion’s as to what is causing it?

 

[complex]

sounds like a video card problem, i would rma the parts

also why did you get an sli board if your not goign to use sli but instead use the x850?

 

[Arvig]

O.k. here is the deal
I have just plugged in me asus A8N sli deluxe with my x850xt pe, and apon boot it just garbles the display!
You can still see what is on the screen, but there are colored, flashing squares and different characters.
I have plugged the pci-e power plug in and every other mobo plugs eg. 12v and 24pin power supply.
I've made sure that the pci express SLI card is facing towards the primary video card slot like it should be, and is showing one single card like it should.
Any suggestion’s as to what is causing it?

Not as such, no. I guess all I can suggest is to try the obvious, like reseating the card. Also, make sure the monitor plug is seated well into the video card, just in case.

I am running two cards in SLI mode, so in the BIOS instead of setting the SLI setting to "auto", I just went ahead and set it to SLI. Maybe set it for "single card" (or whatever it's called) in the BIOS also?

You probably didn't plug in the four pin molex near the video card, and I doubt this would help since you shouldn't have to, not with a single card and a 24 pin power supply, but you could always plug that in just to do it.

I admit I'm just coming up with random ideas here...but well...why not?

Oh, is it always garbled, like when it first posts, or just garbled in Windows? If it's just Windows, is it garbled in Safe Mode, or only when booting normally and the Catalyst driver is engaged? And what driver are you using, I know your card is pretty new, but the driver could still be a month or two old, Catalyst 5.1 is on ATI's site. I have had a card ship with a CD that had drivers that were actually too old to support the card once, I guess the factory just kept on pressing their "generic driver disk" without updating it. So I never use the driver on the CD-ROM that came with the card anymore, even with a card that's new on the market.

 

[Kaizer]

I had started a thread a while back in another section of the board.. hoping some of you may have an idea of whats going on with my buddies system.

First.. things were a little odd right out of the box. According to the manual the SLI chip/card thing on the board was supposed to be set to Single, however, the double side was plugged in. The manual was not very clear on which of the 2 ports to use first. The one closest to the cpu.. or the furthest. Oh well. Thats not the real issue at hand.

After installing the sound driver, and the nvidia chipset drivers, he loses the ability to install ANYTHING from a CD/DVD Drive. Everytime he tries to install anything, it claims his drive is full. Its a brand new 120gb drive with only the os on it.. and one game. We installed the one game before installing the other drivers. (after 5 reformats he just wanted to play 1 game). Ive scoured the websites, and as far as I can tell, his issue is unique.

 

[jacuzz1]

First of all chipset drivers first, second disable sound in cmos on boot up. Add sound drver after everything , including all windows updates but before the video driver. Video driver last reboot and enable sound in cmos.

By the way before you do all of this shut down, unplug remove the battery and then use the reset jumper on the mobo next to the battery then do what i said.


The blue slot is the main slot if single card dude lol , thats why its blue, My board came with the card in dual mode as well.

 

[Arvig]

I have another thread posting the 1004.001 beta drivers, but anyway I've rebooted four times so far, and it hasn't dropped my NCQ hard drives.

Will edit if they do, but if I don't, assume they are not. They also add a setting in the hardware monitor to ignore CPU fan speed RPM's, so good for people who are/want to watercool, or are using low RPM 120mm fans on their heatsinks.

If they drop my hard drives, I'll edit this post, but as of now assume they didn't.

Here's the link to the BIOS if you don't want to hunt down my thread:

ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/Socket_939/NVIDIA_Chipset/nForce4_SLI/A8N-SLI_Deluxe/

EDIT: Well, it took five reboots, but on the fifth reboot, it DID drop one of my two drives.

Screw it, I'm ordering two Raptors. Get to see how strict Newegg is on restocking fees, since the NCQ drives are otherwise okay. If they are, I guess I can risk eBay, seems like individual parts almost always goes for more then it's worth there for some reason.

 

[AthlonXP]

dam that sucks man.

 

[Arvig]

dam that sucks man.

Eh, it happens. If I was more patient, I'd wait the week or two for the DFI board, but I'm not. That and I'm worried that it might have the same NCQ problems. With luck I get most or all my money back on these NCQ drives and thus it's an even trade to go to the Raptors anyway.

In fact...I may start a new thread asking people about that...

 

[poach]

It is garbeled on the startup screen, so much so that I cant install windows, the vid card is not using any drivers because they cant be loaded.
What is the deal with RMA-ing parts? I've never needed to do it before.
The only 4 pin connector on the card is yellow and I have no plug to fit it.

 

[Arvig]

It is garbeled on the startup screen, so much so that I cant install windows, the vid card is not using any drivers because they cant be loaded.
What is the deal with RMA-ing parts? I've never needed to do it before.
The only 4 pin connector on the card is yellow and I have no plug to fit it.

I didn't mean on the card. I mean the four pin connecter near the card. It's a four pin Molex plug, the "ez plug" as ASUS calls it.

The idea is to provide more power for a two video card setup and/or for someone using a 20 pin power supply, so you SHOULDN'T have to use it. But, I was just suggesting plugging a molex plug into that just in case...might as well try it and see what happens, you won't hurt it.

You'll want to check the policy of the store you got the card from, but usually with an RMA you just have to contact them, they will have a link in their customer service section of their webpage, either instructions of what to send them in an e-mail, or a form to send them online. They will give you instructions of what to do, how to repack it, and maybe something to print out or type up to put with the package. Mail it to them, then they contact you and probably give you a number kind of like an order or tracking number you can check on their site to see each day how far along they are with the RMA. When they finish the process of testing it, you'll get an e-mail indicating if they are replacing your card, have repaired it and are sending it back, or didn't find anything wrong and thus are just shipping it back to you, and then get a tracking number as if you ordered from them.

If that's vague...well...it is kind of since each store is slightly different. Err...just like I said, look it up on their site, usually it's somewhere kind of obvious, or in a customer service section on their site.