A8N SLI Premium - Is the EZ Plug Required?

J

JD03Cobra

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 4, 2005
Messages
392
I am only running 1 EVGA 7800GT card. I am assuming I don't need to use the EZ Plug but I am not totally sure.

For some reason my PC wont post when rebooting from Windows. I have to shut down the motherboard from the rear main switch, turn it back on and then it will then boot back up. Im wondering if its power supply related.

Note: Im using a thermaltake 480W with a 20Pin Connector. Motherboard Bios is version 1009, stock settings...No overclocking yet.

A8N SLI Premium
AMD 3700 San diego
Corsair XMS 3200 C2 (4 -512meg)
EVGA 7800 GT (OC - 470, 1100)
WD 10,000 RPM
 
If you only have a 20pin connector, i would highly suggest the EZ-Plug because it will give you the extra power you need. I just hate how they positioned the EZ-Plug to badly, it should be closer to the ATX2.0 connection.
 
I personally do not use it, because it's not required, and would be a pain to route more cables over there.
 
Irishllama said:
I personally do not use it, because it's not required, and would be a pain to route more cables over there.
Click to expand...

Yeah, exactly, i hate having that cable going cross the mobo, but i need it because of SLI.
 
I thought you didn't need the EZ-Plug if you had both video cards powered witha PCIe connector. . .
 
lockheed2266 said:
If you only have a 20pin connector, i would highly suggest the EZ-Plug because it will give you the extra power you need. I just hate how they positioned the EZ-Plug to badly, it should be closer to the ATX2.0 connection.
Click to expand...


Wrong...
EZ Plug will not take the place of a 24 pin connector.
The EZ Plug is a assist to SLI. Nothing more, if you don't have 2 cards in SLI, you don't need to put a moxel in the plug.
 
So if you have SLI and two PCIe power connectors you do NOT need EZ PLUG yea?
 
Your right...The EZ plug is not required and did not solve my problem (won't post after a reboot from Windows or from the Bios). This board is pissing me off. :mad:
 
trust_no1 said:
I thought you didn't need the EZ-Plug if you had both video cards powered witha PCIe connector. . .
Click to expand...

I'm not sure...I think you need botht the PCIe and the EZ-Plug...when I was running a P4N Diamond a little back...I had massive instability until I plugged the EZ-Plug in...at that time I thought that PCIe was enough.
 
JD03Cobra said:
Your right...The EZ plug is not required and did not solve my problem (won't post after a reboot from Windows or from the Bios). This board is pissing me off. :mad:
Click to expand...

That doesn't mean it's not required
 
If you run SLI you MUST use the EZ-Plug to get enough juice to run the cards and SLI. Thats right in the owners manual.

I think your problem is in the PSU to the MB. The SLI premium has a 24 pin PSU connector and I think you arent getting proper supply to the MB with only 20 pins. I tried my SLI Deluxe with a 20 pin PSU and it wouldnt even boot. Get a better PSU, and use the EZ-Plug. The Plug may not solve your boot issue but if left out WILL cause video corruption in SLI set-ups.

The EZ-Plug IS NOT needed for single card apps.

Back when I had a 20 pin PSU, I talked to PC Power and Cooling about just this issue. They said that if you dont power your 24 pin board correctly, you will very likely run into all sorts of problems, especially in SLI. Bottom line, I think you need an ATX 2.0 Power supply, probably good to getan SLI ready model, too.
 
Thanks for the feedback....I did RMA the board but I have a feeling it may be the PSU. But remember the system is extremely stable when running in Windows XP Sp2. Even playing BF2 all night long. It's only on the re-boot of windows or from the Bios that it won't reboot. You would think that if it was the PSU was a problem I would have stablity issues in Windows. I figured my PSU was enough to run my setup.

Either way I will be bummed out if I need to purchase a new PSU.
 
My Gigabyte K8N PRO SLI board comes with a 24 pin power connector, but they specifically say in the manual that using the traditional 20pin connector is fine and also have a little sticker over the extra pins so you don't plug in the 20pin connector wrong.

Does your manual say it's OK to use a 20 pin power supply?
 
this might sound stupid, but why not use one of them 20 to 24 pin convertors? I know most boards don't require it, but it helped my friend's built alot.
 
When it reboots, does the screen stay black (No BIOS Display) and is there a POST code beep? Also, while on the subject of PSU's, is the 4 pin power connector next to the CPU and Chassis Fan header plugged in?

-E
 
MaxBurn - No the manual says the 20pin connector is fine. I would imagine this would depends on the rest of my system components such as my video card.

VulturEman - I have heard mixed reviews on using the 20-24 pin converters. If my next board has the same results I might go this route before purchasing another PSU.

MrE - When rebooting the screen goes blank and never posts (No post code beep). All fans and drives are running but again never posts. Sometimes I have to shut down the power from the main power supply but not consistently. All bios settings are saved so no issues there. Yes I have the 4 pin power connector is plugged in. Again my issue is not booting up but re-booting from Windows or from the Bios.
 
Continuing on this trend, do you happen to have any USB drives attached to the system? If my iPod is in the Dock when I reboot, my machine wont POST so I am curious as if there is an issue with USB being bootable. I turned that feature off in my BIOS and it got rid of this POST issue. Also, do you have everything set to Automatic in the BIOS for both your RAM and CPU, or, are you doing any sort of overclocking?

Besides USB, your PSU MIGHT be the culprit. Some power supplies have been known to have Warm boot issues when supplying proper 12v rail on reboot. Just a thought.

-E
 
My mouse uses USB and that's it. No other USB ports being used. I even unplugged all components leaving only the processor, video card and ram plugged in and the system will still not reboot/post from the BIOS. At this point I have not touched the BIOS at all. Everything is system default.

I get my new board today (same one). I will follow-up with results tonight. I appreciate all the feedback!
 
I RMA'd the board and received my new A8N SLI Premium. Unfortunately I am having the same reboot problem. The only thing I can think of is to replace the PSU with a 24 Pin. This freak'n sucks a*s. :mad:
 
Those of you who are saying the EZ Plug is not required are probably right... BUT!

Without the EZ Plug connected, my BFG 7800GTX wouldnt clock up very well. Plugging the EZ Plug in got me a lot more stability at high clock speeds. Also seemed to help the CPU, although not to the same extent.

-Cameron
 
JD03Cobra said:
I RMA'd the board and received my new A8N SLI Premium. Unfortunately I am having the same reboot problem. The only thing I can think of is to replace the PSU with a 24 Pin. This freak'n sucks a*s. :mad:
Click to expand...
Sorry man, but it does indeed sound like a PSU problem. I don't think its that you need a 24 pin so much as your current PSU has an issue during reboots. The 12v rail probably dips too much and the ASUS regulators on the motherboard no likey. :(

-E
 
If my iPod is plugged in to one of my front USB ports with this board it will not post, usually.

And if it does, it tries to boot from it, so try and unplug it.
 
The post was a mite confusing so i must ask, have you tried plugging in the EZ- Plug? If not, why not try that. Otherwise i have had issues also with my usb drive being connected, and when i unplug it it boots fine. Therefore, im with mre on the whole usb deal.
 
I downloaded the A8N32-SLI Manual in preparation for my build tomorrow (it arrives tommorow) and was somewhat confused by this as well.

I look forward to reading the answers here.

-Larry


JD03Cobra said:
I am only running 1 EVGA 7800GT card. I am assuming I don't need to use the EZ Plug but I am not totally sure.

For some reason my PC wont post when rebooting from Windows. I have to shut down the motherboard from the rear main switch, turn it back on and then it will then boot back up. Im wondering if its power supply related.

Note: Im using a thermaltake 480W with a 20Pin Connector. Motherboard Bios is version 1009, stock settings...No overclocking yet.

A8N SLI Premium
AMD 3700 San diego
Corsair XMS 3200 C2 (4 -512meg)
EVGA 7800 GT (OC - 470, 1100)
WD 10,000 RPM
Click to expand...
 
So do we still not have a definite answer?

If you have PCI-E power connectors to both cards do you use the EZ_PLUG anyway?

Is there a stability improvement or is this providing more power than needed and thus taking away from other rails?

The manual is ambiguous because it doesnt say NOT to plug it in if you have auxiliary power to the cards, it just says if you do NOT have auxiliary power (the pci-e connectors) and you are running SLi then you MUST use EZ_PLUG.

So..
if you don't have SLi don't use the EZ_PLUG
if you have SLi and no PCi-E power, then use EZ_PLUG
if you have SLi and you have PCi-E power, then ???
 
It might be a good idea to contact asus on this one, my manual says pretty much the same thing, which is nothing.
 
I need someone to test something for me if any of you would. Would anyone with an single card either a 6800/7800/x1800/ something along those lines and is overclocked. For example someone with a single 7800GT at around 490/1100 clocks test with the EZ plug and then with out and see if there is any stability issues when overclocking with one card. Thanks
 
roaf85 said:
I need someone to test something for me if any of you would. Would anyone with an single card either a 6800/7800/x1800/ something along those lines and is overclocked. For example someone with a single 7800GT at around 490/1100 clocks test with the EZ plug and then with out and see if there is any stability issues when overclocking with one card. Thanks
Click to expand...

I'll gladly test it with my oced 6600GT. Hopefully I can get a bit more out of it if I do this...but you'll find out soon enough.
 
I decided to do it tonight. I'm going to give the following data:

This will all be coming from my Leadtek 6600GT in Stock (550/1120) and OC (580/1220)... (For all you that don't know, a normal 6600GT is 500/1000)

And then, with the EZ-Plug in, I will re-oc everything to test for increased/decreased OC.
I will also test if the 580/1220 is 1. stable and 2. at a lower temp

ATI Tool .25 build11 will be logging all of my stable OC temps. I'm mainly interested if the more stable OCs will result in a lower temp when running the trials of Lost Coast.

I usually OC until I see perceptible artifacts. We'll see what happens :p

Results:

1. Stock Leadtek temps in Lost Coast w/ no EZPlug....Average=64C
2. OC Leadtek temps in Lost Coast w/ no EZPlug....Average=76C

1. Stock Leadtek temps in Lost Coast with EZPlug....Average=65C
2. OC Leadtek temps in Lost Coast with EZPlug....Average=70C, but lots of artifacts at end...

For anyone that thinks these result might be flawed, I basically ran Lost Coast as fast as possible with ATITool logging every 5 seconds. I'd pretty much get 120 temp logs every time with a +/- 5 range.

A difference (for me) of 6 degrees is quite dumbfounding. It seemed to have lowered the temps, but I did get artifacting.

On a side note, my 6600GT doesn't have the 6pin power plug on it...someone might get different results on one that does.

To answer the previous poster, I didn't get a stable OC after adding in the EZPlug...but, as I just stated, someone that has the 6pin SLI connector on their card might get different results.

I'm going to retest these results tomorrow night to confirm this oddity in my data.
 
JD03Cobra said:
I RMA'd the board and received my new A8N SLI Premium. Unfortunately I am having the same reboot problem. The only thing I can think of is to replace the PSU with a 24 Pin. This freak'n sucks a*s. :mad:
Click to expand...

Alright guys...I went out and purchased a new BFG 600W SLI certified power supply (24pin included) to give this thing more juice. It did NOT solve my reboot issue. It did reboot a few times which it never did before but still not consistently. So I have the same problem on two motherboards (Both A8N SLI Premium). It cant be the board. All I can think of is the ram or possibly the video card which is a long shot in my opinion.

Tonight i'm going to pull out the 2 gigs of ram (4 - 512) and just put 1 in. The other thing I didn't do is try to hook up the EZ Plug even though I don't need it.

For those who are asking I don't have anything USB plugged in except for a mouse. My last resort will be to send back the A8N SLI Premium again and get the deluxe. I can't believe how much time & money I have wasted on this...:mad: :mad: :mad:
 
JD03Cobra said:
Alright guys...I went out and purchased a new BFG 600W SLI certified power supply (24pin included) to give this thing more juice. It did NOT solve my reboot issue. It did reboot a few times which it never did before but still not consistently. So I have the same problem on two motherboards (Both A8N SLI Premium). It cant be the board. All I can think of is the ram or possibly the video card which is a long shot in my opinion.

Tonight i'm going to pull out the 2 gigs of ram (4 - 512) and just put 1 in. The other thing I didn't do is try to hook up the EZ Plug even though I don't need it.

For those who are asking I don't have anything USB plugged in except for a mouse. My last resort will be to send back the A8N SLI Premium again and get the deluxe. I can't believe how much time & money I have wasted on this...:mad: :mad: :mad:
Click to expand...

You've certainly wasted time, but not money. Your PSU, if anything, might have been apart of half of the problem. I'd now say that your mobo is the problem. btw, why RMA it and get a deluxe? Just ask for another premium...(believe me...it's alot nicer imo...and i own a deluxe)

btw, your ram might be causing the problem. I'd definently try that ram removal idea first. Take it down to 1gig and see what happens.
 
This might sound stupid, but did you try a different HDD?

Might be the HDD that is crashing you.
Or your Master Boot File (or whatever it's called)
I had a corrupted MBF after an OC and had to use windows XP disk to install a new MBF so I could boot.
 
VulturEMaN said:
I decided to do it tonight. I'm going to give the following data:

This will all be coming from my Leadtek 6600GT in Stock (550/1120) and OC (580/1220)... (For all you that don't know, a normal 6600GT is 500/1000)

And then, with the EZ-Plug in, I will re-oc everything to test for increased/decreased OC.
I will also test if the 580/1220 is 1. stable and 2. at a lower temp

ATI Tool .25 build11 will be logging all of my stable OC temps. I'm mainly interested if the more stable OCs will result in a lower temp when running the trials of Lost Coast.

I usually OC until I see perceptible artifacts. We'll see what happens :p

Results:

1. Stock Leadtek temps in Lost Coast w/ no EZPlug....Average=64C
2. OC Leadtek temps in Lost Coast w/ no EZPlug....Average=76C

1. Stock Leadtek temps in Lost Coast with EZPlug....Average=65C
2. OC Leadtek temps in Lost Coast with EZPlug....Average=70C, but lots of artifacts at end...

For anyone that thinks these result might be flawed, I basically ran Lost Coast as fast as possible with ATITool logging every 5 seconds. I'd pretty much get 120 temp logs every time with a +/- 5 range.

A difference (for me) of 6 degrees is quite dumbfounding. It seemed to have lowered the temps, but I did get artifacting.

On a side note, my 6600GT doesn't have the 6pin power plug on it...someone might get different results on one that does.

To answer the previous poster, I didn't get a stable OC after adding in the EZPlug...but, as I just stated, someone that has the 6pin SLI connector on their card might get different results.

I'm going to retest these results tomorrow night to confirm this oddity in my data.
Click to expand...

Do you hardlock at all when you overclock the video card? I guess I was trying to see if maybe overclocking and the hardlocking I was having was a result of not enough power. That is odd you get artifacts when you add the easy plug. Have you tried overclocking more without the ez plug? I mean just to the point or hard locking, if that happens before temperatures enter the red. If it does I would like to see if adding the ez plug then stablilzes it.
 
JD03Cobra said:
I am only running 1 EVGA 7800GT card. I am assuming I don't need to use the EZ Plug but I am not totally sure.

For some reason my PC wont post when rebooting from Windows. I have to shut down the motherboard from the rear main switch, turn it back on and then it will then boot back up. Im wondering if its power supply related.

Note: Im using a thermaltake 480W with a 20Pin Connector. Motherboard Bios is version 1009, stock settings...No overclocking yet.

A8N SLI Premium
AMD 3700 San diego
Corsair XMS 3200 C2 (4 -512meg)
EVGA 7800 GT (OC - 470, 1100)
WD 10,000 RPM
Click to expand...


I am having the same problems as you... When I reboot my computer, wheter it's overclocked or not, I need to hold down the off button and turn it back on. It really ticks me off that everytime I get a computer upgrade, there is always something wrong... I have a power supply that has the 24 pin (in signature)... I even swapped CPU's and tried the opteron 144 wondering if it might be a CPU issue... I doubt it's my raptor. I know it's getting enough juice, cause I have hardly anything plugged in, and I never bother with that e-Z plug cause that didn't help at all... This is my first asus board and I think it looks hot, but other than that... it's ticking me off. I should have went DFI or MSI. :-(
 
roaf85 said:
Do you hardlock at all when you overclock the video card? I guess I was trying to see if maybe overclocking and the hardlocking I was having was a result of not enough power. That is odd you get artifacts when you add the easy plug. Have you tried overclocking more without the ez plug? I mean just to the point or hard locking, if that happens before temperatures enter the red. If it does I would like to see if adding the ez plug then stablilzes it.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about mad amounts of artifacts....I got scared when about 3/4th of my screen was green and blue.....ugh...

It almost did lock up once, but I kicked it out of it.
 
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