A8N-SLI Owners

new bios out? sweet. let me know how it ends up working out for you, im off to see if i can find some info on it.
 
Veedo said:
new bios out? sweet. let me know how it ends up working out for you, im off to see if i can find some info on it.

I think it was feeding more voltage than the old version, probably an accurate amount of voltage now. I haven't had any more problems since I dropped it down a bit. Prime95 has been running for about an hour now *keeps fingers crossed*
 
I agree with you. Mainboard with BIOS 1004.001 is running great, even with my Maxtor Diamondmax NCQ.
NCQ corruption was caused by old Nforce driver. Version 6.39 is ok.
However BIOS 1003 has problems with Maxtor SATA NCQ drives. Drive connected to Nvidia SATA ports don't initialize properly at system power on. On SIL ports everything was ok
 
Heres my story with the A8N-SLI ... I bought two of them, making dual machines for me and my wife, to be identical :) FX-53 chip, and hyperx 2-2-2-5-1T PC3200 ram. eVGA 6800 ultra's. (one each, cant afford 2 quite yet :)

They both installed fine, booted up fine, installed windows fine, but then just started locking up randomly. sandra memtest on one machine would lockup 3/4ths of the way through every single time. on that machine I had to reduce the cpu multiplier from 12x to 10x to stabilize it. after a few days of running I had to drop the other one down to 11x to stabilize it too! in most cases I had to reduce the mem voltage to 2.6 too, (seems odd, right?)

I swapped the cpu's and got exactly the same results, so it wasnt the cpu's. swapped the ram, no change. swapped the power supplies, (one is antec tru550 and the other is a mad dog 550) and aside from reporting slightly different voltages, still, no change!

Obvious problem, the motherboards...

Anyway, I went out and got two neo4 platinum sli boards, and have been running rock stable at 2-2-2-5-1T on both with the standard 12x multiplier. they still run stable at about 205mhz FSB but really cant boost them much beyond that before they start failing out, but that's fine, if it can't overclock too much, at least it runs stock 100%, the a8n's were nothing but nightmares for me.
 
ThomasE66 said:
I think it was feeding more voltage than the old version, probably an accurate amount of voltage now. I haven't had any more problems since I dropped it down a bit. Prime95 has been running for about an hour now *keeps fingers crossed*

Update: Prime95 was still going strong this morning at a 230mhz bus speed.
 
Bassalisk said:
Heres my story with the A8N-SLI ... I bought two of them, making dual machines for me and my wife, to be identical :) FX-53 chip, and hyperx 2-2-2-5-1T PC3200 ram. eVGA 6800 ultra's. (one each, cant afford 2 quite yet :)

They both installed fine, booted up fine, installed windows fine, but then just started locking up randomly. sandra memtest on one machine would lockup 3/4ths of the way through every single time. on that machine I had to reduce the cpu multiplier from 12x to 10x to stabilize it. after a few days of running I had to drop the other one down to 11x to stabilize it too! in most cases I had to reduce the mem voltage to 2.6 too, (seems odd, right?)

I swapped the cpu's and got exactly the same results, so it wasnt the cpu's. swapped the ram, no change. swapped the power supplies, (one is antec tru550 and the other is a mad dog 550) and aside from reporting slightly different voltages, still, no change!

Obvious problem, the motherboards...

Anyway, I went out and got two neo4 platinum sli boards, and have been running rock stable at 2-2-2-5-1T on both with the standard 12x multiplier. they still run stable at about 205mhz FSB but really cant boost them much beyond that before they start failing out, but that's fine, if it can't overclock too much, at least it runs stock 100%, the a8n's were nothing but nightmares for me.


V-core baby V-core. The issue with the ASus is that it undervolts and over reports the v-core/ If you had boosted the v-core slightly you would have smoothed right out.
 
mmmnope, dont think so, I set the memV everywhere from 2.6 to 2.75 and the vcore everywhere from 1.4 to 1.875, and itworked worse the higher I set the V's! I was actually MOST stable with mem at 2.6 and vcore at 1.4!
 
jacuzz1 said:
V-core baby V-core. The issue with the ASus is that it undervolts and over reports the v-core/ If you had boosted the v-core slightly you would have smoothed right out.

The 1.004 release BIOS seems to have fixed that, at least for me. I wound up over volting and had to back off.
 
ThomasE66 said:
The 1.004 release BIOS seems to have fixed that, at least for me. I wound up over volting and had to back off.

thanks for the info , I will back it down if and when i go 1004
 
I plan to keep the boards tho, and build two more systems with them, tho with lesser CPU's and memory. as far as I know the physical boards are fine though I did hear mention of a revision 2 possibility? Was that just going to be bios changes or an actual physical change perhaps? Anyone know?
 
Bassalisk said:
Heres my story with the A8N-SLI ... I bought two of them, making dual machines for me and my wife, to be identical :) FX-53 chip, and hyperx 2-2-2-5-1T PC3200 ram. eVGA 6800 ultra's. (one each, cant afford 2 quite yet :)
...
, the a8n's were nothing but nightmares for me.

I think your problem was memory settings, Vdimm or Vcore
Did you tried different memory settings? [Auto] in DRAM settings doesn't work properly
 
aye, I tried 2-2-2-5-1T, 2-3-2-5-1T, 2-3-3-8-2T etc etc.. all without much diff. the ram is rated for 2-2-2-5-1T, none of those settings made much of a difference, I could still never get the clockrate of the CPU back up to it's default of 12X
 
whats the best ram timings / mem speed for this board, i have corsair twinx xlpro 3200 1024mb ram , currently running at 210 mhz (420ddr) @2.2.2.5, would higher mhz and higher timings be better overall?

for instance, 220mhz and 3.3.3.6 or something

got a 3500 winnie in this board, and wanna get it higher than 2310mhz

thanks for help
 
VashTheStampede21 said:
whats the best ram timings / mem speed for this board, i have corsair twinx xlpro 3200 1024mb ram , currently running at 210 mhz (420ddr) @2.2.2.5, would higher mhz and higher timings be better overall?

for instance, 220mhz and 3.3.3.6 or something

got a 3500 winnie in this board, and wanna get it higher than 2310mhz

thanks for help

I'm running TCCD memory at 2-3-3-5 at 230mhz. So far so good. I'm not sure where the sweet spot is yet, I'm still putting this system through it's paces and tweaking.
 
Long time reader, but this thread finally made me register. It seems that in this forum, as well as other forums I visit, people seem to be having problems with the A8N-SLI, and unfortunately for me this was my first choice for an SLI board should I choose the SLI path on my next motherboard. Anyway, I checked out Asus' website and seen that the latest BIOS they have is 1006 (official release) and 1007 (beta release). I would like to know if these BIOSes fixed any of the problems you guys are having. From the reviews this board looks very good, but all these problems have me considering spending the extra money on a DFI board.
 
The 1007-002 fixed my problems with the Maxtor NCQ drives but I didn't try any other versions between 1007-002 and 1004. None of the others say anything about NCQ though. And from what I've heard the problems with 1T timing when OCing above 235 or whatever it is, is still there.
 
Well I'm putting my system together this weekend and I'll let you guys know how it turns out. I am not going to be overclocking it for awhile I don't think. I want to make sure it's stable and everything is in good running order first.
 
Arvig said:
Actually, unless they changed them recently, I don't think Raptors have NCQ, that's why you can use them with the beta bioses. My drives aren't raptors, they are Maxtor Diamond Max 10's, which have NCQ, thus I'm stuck with BIOS 1002 for now.

Raptors have tagged command queing like a SCSI drive. They do not support NCQ.
 
Hi,

I am having the same Raid 0 install issue is list earlier in the posts. I am running with BIOS 1006, enabled NVidia Raid and all Sata drives, setup Raid with F10 and drive is seen fine. I start the XP Pro install hit F6 and and S when requested and check the NVidia Raid Class Driver and NVidia NForce Storage Controller from the NVidia Raid Driver Disc I made off the MB CD. Both files get loaded I hit enter and Setup continues to load files. I get to the partition screen (Using 2 74 Gig WD Raptor Drives connect to NVidia Sata 1 and 2) the option shown is 141816 MB Disk 0 at Id 1 on bus 0 on nvraid [MBR] is highlighted I hit enter adn format the partition suing the NTFS file system only option there.

It shows C: Partition1 and then I get this blue screen:

Setup cannont copy the file: nvraid.sys. Options to retry press Enter and make sure XP CD is in CD-Rom. Or skip file. I hit enter and the file can not be found. I understand as it is the file that came off the NVidia Raid Driver Floopy I Made. I can not go any further. If I skip files XP continues to load and I reboot but I get an exception error with drives. Might be a virius and run CDKDSK /F. I have done everything I can think of and cant get this Raid 0 to work and continue loading XP.
 
petersondm said:
Hi,

I am having the same Raid 0 install issue is list earlier in the posts. I am running with BIOS 1006, enabled NVidia Raid and all Sata drives, setup Raid with F10 and drive is seen fine. I start the XP Pro install hit F6 and and S when requested and check the NVidia Raid Class Driver and NVidia NForce Storage Controller from the NVidia Raid Driver Disc I made off the MB CD. Both files get loaded I hit enter and Setup continues to load files. I get to the partition screen (Using 2 74 Gig WD Raptor Drives connect to NVidia Sata 1 and 2) the option shown is 141816 MB Disk 0 at Id 1 on bus 0 on nvraid [MBR] is highlighted I hit enter adn format the partition suing the NTFS file system only option there.

It shows C: Partition1 and then I get this blue screen:

Setup cannont copy the file: nvraid.sys. Options to retry press Enter and make sure XP CD is in CD-Rom. Or skip file. I hit enter and the file can not be found. I understand as it is the file that came off the NVidia Raid Driver Floopy I Made. I can not go any further. If I skip files XP continues to load and I reboot but I get an exception error with drives. Might be a virius and run CDKDSK /F. I have done everything I can think of and cant get this Raid 0 to work and continue loading XP.

Tell us more about your machine specs. What processor are you using? (Shouldn't matter but any information helps) what ram modules are you using? What timings are you running? What power supply are you using? Are you overclocking at all? If so what are those settings?
 
petersondm said:
Hi,

I am having the same Raid 0 install issue is list earlier in the posts. I am running with BIOS 1006, enabled NVidia Raid and all Sata drives, setup Raid with F10 and drive is seen fine. I start the XP Pro install hit F6 and and S when requested and check the NVidia Raid Class Driver and NVidia NForce Storage Controller from the NVidia Raid Driver Disc I made off the MB CD. Both files get loaded I hit enter and Setup continues to load files. I get to the partition screen (Using 2 74 Gig WD Raptor Drives connect to NVidia Sata 1 and 2) the option shown is 141816 MB Disk 0 at Id 1 on bus 0 on nvraid [MBR] is highlighted I hit enter adn format the partition suing the NTFS file system only option there.

It shows C: Partition1 and then I get this blue screen:

Setup cannont copy the file: nvraid.sys. Options to retry press Enter and make sure XP CD is in CD-Rom. Or skip file. I hit enter and the file can not be found. I understand as it is the file that came off the NVidia Raid Driver Floopy I Made. I can not go any further. If I skip files XP continues to load and I reboot but I get an exception error with drives. Might be a virius and run CDKDSK /F. I have done everything I can think of and cant get this Raid 0 to work and continue loading XP.

Have you configured the array in the nvidia raid setup screen? (F10 at the prompt)
 
THanks, Ok here is info:

AMD FX55
A8N-SLI Deluxe
Neo Power 480 Power Supply
2 WD 74 Gig Raptors connected to the NVidia Sata 1 &2.
2 BFG OC NVidia 6800 GT's
2 Gig 512 x 4 Mushkin PC3200 Enhanced Memory (Nothing Fancy)

Installing OEM Version of XP SP1 Pro.

Not Over Clock all standard settings.
Setup the Raid via F-10 in NVidia setup and it seen as one large drive, also set it up as a bootage drive. Have NVidia Raid enabled and all raid drives as well in BIOS.
Tried with BIOS 1004 and 1006. Also tried the files that Windows is looking for after Partitiioning the Drive to a CD but no luck there. Oh I made the Raid Driver Disc from the ASUS CD provided with MB. One odd thing with that CD is it wont open I have to manually go in and find the files and run the make disc option from there. During the install when I hit F6 and S it seems to access the floopy fine and gather the drivers it needs to see the drivers so it can partition them.

I am trying the 1002 BIOS again formatted the Hard Drive as one roughly 140 gig drive did a skip for all the NVidia files and allowing XP to finish copying files to formatted and partitioned drive and see what happens.
 
petersondm said:
Hi,

I am having the same Raid 0 install issue is list earlier in the posts. I am running with BIOS 1006, enabled NVidia Raid and all Sata drives, setup Raid with F10 and drive is seen fine. I start the XP Pro install hit F6 and and S when requested and check the NVidia Raid Class Driver and NVidia NForce Storage Controller from the NVidia Raid Driver Disc I made off the MB CD. Both files get loaded I hit enter and Setup continues to load files. I get to the partition screen (Using 2 74 Gig WD Raptor Drives connect to NVidia Sata 1 and 2) the option shown is 141816 MB Disk 0 at Id 1 on bus 0 on nvraid [MBR] is highlighted I hit enter adn format the partition suing the NTFS file system only option there.

It shows C: Partition1 and then I get this blue screen:

Setup cannont copy the file: nvraid.sys. Options to retry press Enter and make sure XP CD is in CD-Rom. Or skip file. I hit enter and the file can not be found. I understand as it is the file that came off the NVidia Raid Driver Floopy I Made. I can not go any further. If I skip files XP continues to load and I reboot but I get an exception error with drives. Might be a virius and run CDKDSK /F. I have done everything I can think of and cant get this Raid 0 to work and continue loading XP.


This is going to sound REALLY weird but bare with me. When I first started I had the same problem. I downloaded the drivers from MSI's site for the NV RAID. Created the disk still had the problem. Pulled my floppy drive out and sat it on it's side so it was vertical problem went away. Tried 3 different drives and 2 different cables and I still had to have it that way. I don't understand it but thats the way it was for me.
 
Well not sure if this is a good sign but the coping of files to the windows installation folder is taking a long time been working 15+ minutes now. If this doesnt work I think I will just install as standard Sata Drive the downside is the money spent on 2 Raptor drives for Raid 0 to just use one of them. Honestly not sure how much of an increase I will see in Raid 0 with 2 Raptors compared to just using one Raptor.

The only other option is to use the other Silicon Image Raid array.

I do haev another question though. The Neo 480 PS has a deadicated fan cable for power I connected all my case fans to it and PS has a connector you run to the MB and somehow it controls the fans but I cant find any real info on how or if I can see what the fans are doing.

Well after letting the computer run and install the OS to the partitioned drive (this took hours very odd) I get this message:

Line 0 of the hivedef.inf is corrupted. Setup cennot continue. Grr

Oktried one more time installed everything had to skip all the NVidia files after the partition in order for OS files to be copied. Files where copied fine. I remove the OS disc system restarts and I get this:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or dard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is porperly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for dard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:

***STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF789E640,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x000000000

These are new WD 74 Gig Raptor drives. They are the OEM version purchased from Newegg so just came in electrostatic bag and I left the jumpers in positoin 1&2.

I did the same install using the Silicon Image Raid instead everythng went the same as the NVida but I actually got to the Windows XP loading screen and BAM I got the same exact error list above word for word. I disabled USB just in case due to having card readers on my monitor. I have taken all RAM out and tried it one at a time and in pairs and still no good. I have no idea who to call on this one ASUS or Monarch Computer who I bought the MB-CPU prebuilt combo from? This is just not making any sense at all.

Gonna try to just install on one of drivers in non raid mode and see what happens. :mad:
 
You have a system memory problem that is causeing this

and by the way you dont go slave /primary on sata drives regarding jumpers. You leave them as is
 
Thanks I left the jumpers as they came. When you say a memeory issue you mean the RAM I have installed?

Using Mushkin Dual Pack 184-Pin 1GB (512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
Non Ecc
Unbuffered
Cas 2.5
Voltage 2.6

Got it from NewEgg Model Number 991145.

Looking a custoner review he bought on pack worked fine and a second months later and cant get system to boot now.

I swapped out all the memory and tried just using one DIMM at a time and I still get the same Setup cannot copy the file: nvraid.sys and all other Raid files make sure XP CD is in CD ROM. Again doing F6 and the NVidia Dirvers are taken off the floopy fine I can see both hard drivers as one partition when I go and format them but to continue it seems these files are needed and I have no way to gettting them to where they need to be it seems.

Well I disabled all Raid and just installed XP Pro with same setup using just one WD 74 Gig Raptor using the NVidia Sata 1 and everything seems to work fine. No errors or problems so it seem I cant do anythng Raid on this machine. I will wait till tomorrow to call for some kind of support for this issue.
 
I just got this board yesterday... Installed my two raptors raid0 on the nvidia controller fine.
What I would do is low level format each drive then build your raid again. Remember under F6 to install the raid driver and the nvidia mass storage driver. Hope this helps.. Im loving this board already!
 
petersondm said:
Thanks I left the jumpers as they came. When you say a memeory issue you mean the RAM I have installed?

Using Mushkin Dual Pack 184-Pin 1GB (512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
Non Ecc
Unbuffered
Cas 2.5
Voltage 2.6

Got it from NewEgg Model Number 991145.

Looking a custoner review he bought on pack worked fine and a second months later and cant get system to boot now.

I swapped out all the memory and tried just using one DIMM at a time and I still get the same Setup cannot copy the file: nvraid.sys and all other Raid files make sure XP CD is in CD ROM. Again doing F6 and the NVidia Dirvers are taken off the floopy fine I can see both hard drivers as one partition when I go and format them but to continue it seems these files are needed and I have no way to gettting them to where they need to be it seems.

Well I disabled all Raid and just installed XP Pro with same setup using just one WD 74 Gig Raptor using the NVidia Sata 1 and everything seems to work fine. No errors or problems so it seem I cant do anythng Raid on this machine. I will wait till tomorrow to call for some kind of support for this issue.



Mushkin is very sensitive to volage. Adjust it up a knotch and make sure your not undervoltig the cpu, you memory contoller would be affected
 
Has anyone else had problems trying to install XP-64 with RAID 0 on the NV controller? The driver disk is missing the 2 .cat files and copying the ones from the 32-bit drivers did not help at all ( was suggested on another board). It just blue screens right before welcome screen after setup completes and reboots. Everything works fine for XP pro.
 
Have you tried pulling the newest drivers from nvidia site and putting them on a floppy? They are still beta drivers but they list raid drivers in them.
 
As much as I hate to admit this, No, I haven't. But I will tomorrow night and I will let you know how it turns out.
 
EDIT:

Problem fixed. :) This baby flies (went from PIII 886HZ) to AMD3500+ I am one happy noob!

1 more question. I pluged my external HD via 1394EEE and its not showing up anywhere?
 
No it's not why... but please get a Raptor or something, because that drive is the current bottleneck of the system.

Try booting your system in safe mode (F8 after the POST screen) and disabling some of your PCI cards etc... 1 at a time. Or better yet, remove all unnecessary items out of your system and put them back in 1 at a time. Trial and error may help you find the problem.
 
JL_Audio_User said:
EDIT:

How did you resolve it?

Problem fixed. :) This baby flies (went from PIII 886HZ) to AMD3500+ I am one happy noob!

1 more question. I pluged my external HD via 1394EEE and its not showing up anywhere?



How did you fix it? Drivers or voltage?
 
jacuzz1 said:
How did you fix it? Drivers or voltage?

1. The fact that I thought I could take a HD with an OS installed on another MOBO and just "Plug n Play" makes me feel like a moron :rolleyes:

After changing the boot order, did a full re-install of the OS installed the MOBO drivers and all the other drivers. per the x-cellent advise of the [H]ard forum.

Even with this piece o'crap HD this system is flying :) . I'm very happy with my A8N-SLI.
 
Sorry guys, if this problem was already discussed here -dont have time to look through all pages.
I have A8N-SLI (non deluxe) bios 1005-02 beta, 3000+ Winchester @2.35 Ghz (with 2x512MB DDR400)

With 2x512 MB memory i can overclock HTT uptoo 350+ Mhz

But with 2x1Gb DDR 400 modules max HTT speed is mere 230MHz . Changing DRAM speed downto 100Mhz (DDR200), CPU and HTT multipliers, memory timings and Voltages does not help at all : 230-240 -Unstable, >240 -lock after POST .Memory is good and was tested to work at least at 240Mhz 1T (DDR480)

If somebody is using 1Gb modules, how far can you overclock ? Do you have the same problem?

By the way, memory is set to 2T automatically regardless what i set in bios.

Thank You
 
Well, I bought this board, the Premium one, and a AMD x2 4200+ CPU toghether with a kit of two Kingston 512Mb memory and a Hiper Powersupply Modular Type R Modular (PSU) 580W. The mem's are certified and tested by Asus to work with this board.

Everything works fine - untill I got home last night from work and find out that my computer isn't even powered on, and I ALWAYS leave my computer on since I'm using it waaay to much :D haha.

Anyway, power on button doesn't "work". Not a damn thing happens. The LED on the mobo says it has power, but nothing happens when pressing the power on button.
I try with another old 20-pin PSU from Chieftech (340W), just to see if anything happens. Well, yes. The CPU fan starts to spin, but I can't boot since it only has 20-pins :( I've heard about a 20-pin -> 24-pin converter earlier in this thread, I think I'll have to check that out.

Anyway, I'm hooking up the PSU (the Hiper) to my old setup, nothing happens. So I think the PSU is fooked up. But how could this happen? Since so many have had so much trouble with this board, may the board itself destroyed the PSU somehow?

The weird thing is that the LED on the mobo, telling if it has power or not, is lit. This happens on both boards, but the power on button doesn't work. I've tried to clear the CMOS as well, but without any result :(

Does anyone know what could have happen while I was gone? For the record my dad surfed the net for 10 minutes a few hours earlier, so around 11PM everything was fine. But around 4AM the power button doesn't even work...
 
What's the spec of your machine?

The only thing I can think of is that the machine was pulling more than the PSU could handle for extended periods of time and it burned out. Just a guess mind, you could just be unlucky and have had a faulty capacitor in it.
 
Not the board as such but all the other stuff that might be drawing power, sata, ide, gfx cards, etc it does all mount up if its a heavy system and a low Amperage rating on the 12v rail.
 
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