Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe strange problems

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Thurlow

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
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System specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
Corsair XMS DDR2 800 (x2) @ 5-5-5-12
Antec Truepower 550
Sound Blaster Audigy 2
Thermalright XP-90 Heatsink
eVGA 7900gt KO
WD Caviar 250gb HD (SATA)

With everything at stock the system runs fine. When I overclocked the FSB to anything past 220 the system would not boot. After playing with some memory settings I got it to boot and run seemingly stable at stock voltage. At that point the system would not reboot correctly though, and I had to manually shut it off and turn it back on.

After a few "reboots" I went into CPU-Z and my processor was back to stock settings. Where do I go from here? I planned on getting the processor to around 2.6ghz, but I suppose I could be content with 2.4. Should I try putting the memory into different slots or something? I'm lost here. Thanks ahead of time.

Also the BIOS are updated to the latest version, and every patch and driver is installed that I can think of.
 
Well, I've been tweaking my 5000+ on that same mobo..

- Set your HT links to 3x. (both)
- Set the HT voltage to 1.5v. (both)
- Up the vcore voltage
- Up the memory voltage

The faster you go, the more voltage you need.
 
Not too sure where I can specify that both hypertransport links and voltages, but I did change the setting where I found it in the BIOS.

HT was upped to 1.5 volts and 3x, Voltage for the CPU was upped to 1.45 and Voltage for Ram upped to 2.0 Volts.

Tried to reboot with that but no luck... from messing around all day, it seemed that the ram has been the weak spot, so I went in and relaxed it as much as possible.. DDR 400 speed, 6-6-6-18 timings and it booted fine and seemed stable enough with a few super PI runs.

Should I keep upping ram voltage and try to get some lower timings? Or is this combination just not going to work at such high FSB speeds.
 
Nope not yet vfrex. I was hoping to be able to get to 240FSB and leave it there for a while, so I'm trying to get everything working at that point.

I just gave things another shot, upping ram voltage up to 2.3 and moving timings to 5-5-5-12, which is what the ram is actually rated at. Still no boot at 240FSB.

In addition, it seems that every reboot at 240FSB fails.Windows shuts down, but the computer just sits at a black screen and the BIOS never comes back up. I'm not sure if its related or not, but its annoying and shouldnt be happening I imagine.

I'm not sure how high I can push voltages safely, but I have a good amount of cooling all over, so I don't believe heat will be a major issue. What are the highest levels I should be pushing Ram, Chipset, HT, and CPU voltages to?
 
I'm on the M2N-E, and I have the same issue with softboots above a FSB of 225. Blackscreen, no post. Trying to figure out now if everybody using the M2N boards are hitting the same barrier.
 
I suspect that is has something to do with the RAM and motherboard. There must be some setting or tweak that can fix this? Surely others have come up against problems like this and gotten past them. Anyone have any idea what's going on here?
 
I have an M2N-SLI and noticed that when the motherboard is overclocked that sometimes I get cold-boots with soft-resets. I just use hard-reset then and it's back on track. I also noticed that first time you set the new overclock, it doesn't post. Then you just press hard-reset, then it posts. Check if your memory is set to 1T (if so set it to 2T).

Mine is currently at 250 FSB stable at stock voltage (memory divider at DDR667 which puts the memory close to 800 MHz). I booted it up to 275 MHz and 300 MHz which required 1.5V (the latter making it 2.7 GHz CPU frequency) but didn't test much because I want to replace this bad stock cooler first. Since the AM2 cooler lineup is a bit scarce and I'm tired of waiting for the adapter brackets so I can use the 939 coolers, I might opt for the Mini Typhoon with a different 92mm fan (Thermaltake A2017 with a speed controller sounds acceptable). Big Typhoon (the new VX version is AM2 compatible) seems a bit too large and Blue Orb II (which also has a new edition with AM2 adapter) too heavy. I'd be the happiest if Zalman finally released that adapter so I can mount the 7700AlCu since I'd like to ensure that the mainboards heatpipe chipset cooling gets deseved attention.
 
Alright I'll try it with 240fsb. I'm new to overclocking and I'm not sure what you mean by memory divider. How at 667 is it close to 800mhz?
 
Well AMD AM2 DDR2 ram is quad pumped... So running a FSB of 200 gives you a memory bandwidth of 800mhz (get it? Quad pumped = multiplied by 4 ;)). (simplified explanation of course). If you set your FSB to 240, your memory is actually running at 960mhz because of the 4x pumping... That's alot to ask of your RAM... a huge 160mhz over stock. What a divider does is, allows you to run a higher FSB without forcing your ram to run at such high speeds.

Running the 667 divider will, in all reality allow your RAM to run at 796mhz (almost the rated 800) but your processor at your multiplier x 240... Because, the difference between the 800 and 667 divider is about 17%... 83% of 240 x 4 = 296. Of course, you could always run your FSB at like 242 to make up for the extra 4 mhz you're losing on your ram vs the stock configuration.

I bet with a bit more voltage, you could run at 247 x multiplier @ the DDR667 divider. Your ram would be going at about... 820mhz (20 over stock, thus the need for a bit more voltage) but allow your processor an extra 70mhz... (which you'll never notice in real life). Depending on what dividers are available, you might be able to push to 270FSB with a lower RAM divider (533? Forgive my DDR2 noob-ish knowledge) and still get your cpu to post at about 2700mhz, your ram at 700-900mhz...
 
Arcygenical... wow, what can I say. You just explained ram dividers the best I've ever heard it, and now I finally understand. (assuming you are correct because it makes sense to me) Thank you. :)
 
Arcygenical said:
Well AMD AM2 DDR2 ram is quad pumped... So running a FSB of 200 gives you a memory bandwidth of 800mhz (get it? Quad pumped = multiplied by 4 ;)). (simplified explanation of course). If you set your FSB to 240, your memory is actually running at 960mhz because of the 4x pumping... That's alot to ask of your RAM... a huge 160mhz over stock. What a divider does is, allows you to run a higher FSB without forcing your ram to run at such high speeds.

Running the 667 divider will, in all reality allow your RAM to run at 796mhz (almost the rated 800) but your processor at your multiplier x 240... Because, the difference between the 800 and 667 divider is about 17%... 83% of 240 x 4 = 296. Of course, you could always run your FSB at like 242 to make up for the extra 4 mhz you're losing on your ram vs the stock configuration.

I bet with a bit more voltage, you could run at 247 x multiplier @ the DDR667 divider. Your ram would be going at about... 820mhz (20 over stock, thus the need for a bit more voltage) but allow your processor an extra 70mhz... (which you'll never notice in real life). Depending on what dividers are available, you might be able to push to 270FSB with a lower RAM divider (533? Forgive my DDR2 noob-ish knowledge) and still get your cpu to post at about 2700mhz, your ram at 700-900mhz...
Click to expand...


That was a great explanation. Thanks it makes sense to me now. You see I had planned on getting a Core 2 Duo system all summer, and I don't know much about AMD overclocking. I will try some of those settings right now.
 
Alright I went into the BIOS, set the memory to DDR2 667 (this effectively sets the divider right?), and the timings to 5-5-5-12 which is stock. I upped the RAM voltage to 2.0 from 1.9. I gave my cpu 1.3 volts and set the FSB to 240. The HTT link is at 3x and another HTT setting I have is at 18. When I exited out of the BIOS I got a single beep followed by a double beep. After this occuring twice I held the power button and turned the computer off. I turned it back on and it booted successfully, the only problem is that I go into CPU-Z and the FSB is at 200 and the CPU has a voltage of 1.2ish, which is even lower than it came at stock (1.28 I believe). What has happened here I have no clue. Must something be changed or is my motherboard just messed up?

I probably should have just posted a picture of the CPU-Z...sorry :rolleyes:
 
Thurlow said:
Alright I went into the BIOS, set the memory to DDR2 667 (this effectively sets the divider right?), and the timings to 5-5-5-12 which is stock. I upped the RAM voltage to 2.0 from 1.9. I gave my cpu 1.3 volts and set the FSB to 240. The HTT link is at 3x and another HTT setting I have is at 18. When I exited out of the BIOS I got a single beep followed by a double beep. After this occuring twice I held the power button and turned the computer off. I turned it back on and it booted successfully, the only problem is that I go into CPU-Z and the FSB is at 200 and the CPU has a voltage of 1.2ish, which is even lower than it came at stock (1.28 I believe). What has happened here I have no clue. Must something be changed or is my motherboard just messed up?

I probably should have just posted a picture of the CPU-Z...sorry :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I and many other m2n-sli/e owners experience the same problems. If i overclock to 2.2ghz and reboot normally, my computer will just die which then i would have to power down/power up again for it to work again, but then i would get a bios failure msg and all bios setting would go back to default. It can get quite annoying. Some users usually just press the reset button if the computer dies @ reboot which temporary solves it but can be a hassle. I believe this is a bios problem?

Hopefully a new bios from Asus will resolve this cold booting problem.
 
Well that's somewhat comforting, at least it isn't just me. I don't want to RMA the board and rebuild the computer. Aside from the overclocking problem I like it a lot. I'm able to boot at 225 fsb and my ram runs at 900mhz effectively. Just to make sure, do you know specifically where to change the CPU voltage off the top of your head? I thought it was the VCore option, but putting it to 1.3 volts in the BIOS translated to a 1.2 in CPU-Z, although the rest of my BIOS settings were saved correctly. Thanks
 
i overclocked my 4000+ to 2.8GHz, if i remember correctly the highest my mobo would go was 320-340FSB i really didnt go in and find the exact ammount but its somwhere up there, what stopped me from going higher was the heat in my current cooling solutions...stock >_>

anyway i cranked my ram down to the lowest settings, when i asked for help someone told me i was running at 1:1 divider so i dunno. but im blazing fast at 2.8Ghz and benchmarks look good. in sisandra it passed the FX62. ive also run different modes of prim95 for 10+ hours and no errors.

hope that helps, i love this mobo and i hope you will....i wish i would have got the EPP ram though to go with it.

cpuzle2.png


also those boot messages are there to save you from bad settings, if you have that much of a problem with it when you find a stable overclock save the settings and load it when you reboot.

also just put the ram to the lowest settings i think its 447 not quite sure, but it makes the ram way more flexable which is what makes the system crap out and if you get into deep crap be sure to know how to reset the cmos.
 
M2N32 I believe that this may be making the difference. Correct me if I'm wrong though. Also if I had saved the BIOS settings and rebooted, I believe that I would just get the single beep followed by a double beep. If the BIOS wasn't reset then I couldn't boot into windows...I don't believe.

Is the CPU temperature in speed fan "Temp 1" or "Core"? If it's Temp 1 I might need to reseat my heatsink....
 
yea the 32 might make a difference >< i read it to fast. although i think there almost nearly identical. some how i managed to flash my bios with a M2N Bios and it went to hell, had to pay 5 bucks to get a new bios chip, wonder what would happen with a m2n flashed with a m2n32 bios :) eh prolly end up paying 5 bucks as well.

but i think i spoke to soon, lol i put in my other vga card since i fixed it and it wouldnt boot @ 2.8 for some odd reason, lowered it to 2.7 and it worked fine, ran some benchmarks. i got 8099 in 3dmark06 :) ill mess around with it later.

well if you get the error message it gives you the option of pressing F1 or DEL, pressing f1 boots into windows and resets the bios back to original settings and Del lets you edit the bios some.
 
M2N32 has a northbridge added for additional SLI lanes so BIOS crossflashing is not very wise :)

I just want to add that when I overclock my computer, save the bios settings and exit, it reboots but hangs without any beeps. Then I just use hard reset and it's back on. Then I get an error message but it doesn't reset the bios, IMHO. If I press F1 it tries to load Windows with the oc settings and if I press del, I can save just the settings again and this time it reboots fine.

If I got beeps, that would mean it encountered some error (meaning some part is holding it back, like memory perhaps) it resets the BIOS because when I overclocked it on 275 FSB with default CPU voltage, it didn't work, but I didn't have to clear CMOS, just reset it and it brought back the previous or default values (not sure which).
 
Thurlow said:
Alright I went into the BIOS, set the memory to DDR2 667 (this effectively sets the divider right?), and the timings to 5-5-5-12 which is stock. I upped the RAM voltage to 2.0 from 1.9. I gave my cpu 1.3 volts and set the FSB to 240. The HTT link is at 3x and another HTT setting I have is at 18. When I exited out of the BIOS I got a single beep followed by a double beep. After this occuring twice I held the power button and turned the computer off. I turned it back on and it booted successfully, the only problem is that I go into CPU-Z and the FSB is at 200 and the CPU has a voltage of 1.2ish, which is even lower than it came at stock (1.28 I believe). What has happened here I have no clue. Must something be changed or is my motherboard just messed up?

I probably should have just posted a picture of the CPU-Z...sorry :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I see you have an X2 4400+. It has an 11x multiplier. With 240 FSB it would put it at 2800 MHz which is around FX-60 level :) I believe you should increase your CPU voltage to 1.45 or 1.5 and then try again. Or, to see that it's indeed CPU that's holding you, try it with 1.3V but lower the multiplier to 10x (2400 MHz). When you set it and it hangs without any beeps, just reset it, when you get the message, enter the BIOS and save the settings and it should work.

Make sure you set the 1T/2T command rate timing to 2T because it might also be holding you back.
 
I have an X2 4000+, it's just that I've overclocked it to 220 FSB stable. I will try to up the CPU voltage and start her up. I know it isn't the RAM holding me back as it runs at 450mhz on stock voltage, and I have it running closer to 800 when I try to OC to 240. I am also kind of worried about this temperature thing. Do Asus Probe II and my motherboard have it wrong? The "core" temp on speed fan seems more accurate to what the temps should be with my cooling.
 
Upping the voltages has no effect at 240 FSB and beyond as far as I can tell. I can boot at 2.3ghz with a 667 RAM divider, but the computer ended up freezing so I brought it back down to 2.2. CPU-Z is not showing me my correct voltages..and I still don't know about my temps. Anyone with any knowledge on this subect?
 
i have the same problem with cpu-z. the voltages arent showing correctly and no program really works with the new mobo (m2n32 and m2n i suppose ._.) ive tryed changing cpu-z settings but it either shows 1.4 or 1.3, i cant control my fan speeds at all because no program detects them, and i dont like the asus probe much.
 
For Speedfan on my ASUS M2N32-SLI, Temp1 at the top is my processor temperature. It is pretty darn accurate. But, if you want a better reading, CoreTemp works better.
 
Core temp is telling me about 30C and 32C currently for my cores. Speedfan "Core" temperature falls right at 31C for the most part. According to these programs I idle in the high 20s and I've never seen 40. Could they be right?
 
Run a Prime95 stress test and see what it gives you.. if you are on air, overclocking, and still getting super low temps not even above 34c.. there is something wrong, especially if you are running Prime and your temps aren't even going up. That to me would indicate a bad sensor. At idle, 28 to 34 would be fairly normal. I'd expect more in the 32 range though.
 
Ran it and I'm getting about 42C on load in both programs. I'm pretty sure this is my processor temperature. Temp 1 is at 50C so I certainly hope it's not that.

It seems that my overclocking problems with the motherboard are due to poor support on Asus' part. I am finding threads with exactly the same problems all over the place with both the M2N-E and SLI Deluxe models.

Now my question to hardforum is, should I RMA the board and go through building the computer over, and reinstalling everything? I really don't want to do this and I leave for college next Friday. Will Asus pull through with a BIOS update to fix these problems?
 
Thurlow said:
I have an X2 4000+, it's just that I've overclocked it to 220 FSB stable. I will try to up the CPU voltage and start her up. I know it isn't the RAM holding me back as it runs at 450mhz on stock voltage, and I have it running closer to 800 when I try to OC to 240. I am also kind of worried about this temperature thing. Do Asus Probe II and my motherboard have it wrong? The "core" temp on speed fan seems more accurate to what the temps should be with my cooling.
Click to expand...

I don't get this RAM thing. What do you mean by "it runs at 450 MHz at stock"? Divider is set to DDR400 with 225 FSB? Did you try setting the RAM to this DDR400 divider and setting the RAM voltage to 2.00V and then setting the CPU voltage to 1.5V, Command Rate at 2T and then 240 FSB? If this doesn't work, then I would say it's the CPU that doesn't overclock well. BTW, I assume you have the 304 version of the BIOS, right?

I also get some strange readings from Asus Probe especially (like it always gives me a different voltage reading) but I'm satisfied with my board. It worked on 300 FSB with no problems and I read a post from a guy who reached even the 400 FSB mark. The only issues I'd like to see fixed are the occasional cold-boot issues
 
I mean that it runs at DDR2 900mhz effectively at the stock voltage of 1.9. This is when I have the FSB at 225 and the divider at 800. It isn't the cpu holding me back, I'm 95% sure I'm having the same issues other M2N users are having booting with over around 225 FSB. There's a thread at anandtech devoted to the problem.
 
Thurlow said:
I mean that it runs at DDR2 900mhz effectively at the stock voltage of 1.9. This is when I have the FSB at 225 and the divider at 800. It isn't the cpu holding me back, I'm 95% sure I'm having the same issues other M2N users are having booting with over around 225 FSB. There's a thread at anandtech devoted to the problem.
Click to expand...

I only found a thread with M2N-E. Can you give me the link?

I still don't see your answer regarding the Command Rate you have set (1T or 2T) and the BIOS you're using (you have to put the latest 304 version).

As you can see, this board is quite nice:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=102595
 
I am posting in the M2N-E topic. There isn't one just for the SLI Deluxe. The command rate is 2T, and yeah the board might be quite nice if you get one that can go over 225 FSB. You see I can boot it at 230 FSB, but then the computer won't restart. When I power it down and start it up, the processor settings reset themselves.
 
Ok sorry for all of my posting/double posting, but I have now booted the computer at 260FSB, but the memory divider apparently has to be at 400 to do so. I am going to mess with it and see if I can get it to come up.
 
It must just be an M2N-E problem.. cause with my M2N32-SLI at an 800mhz ram setting, I was able to run at 250htt just fine.
 
w1retap said:
It must just be an M2N-E problem.. cause with my M2N32-SLI at an 800mhz ram setting, I was able to run at 250htt just fine.
Click to expand...

What are your voltages and timings? And what about the HT multiplier...and that other HT setting right below it. I just realized I'm not all too sure what the HT multiplier even does.
 
Theres a new bios revision 0307 out for the M2N-SLI.

Anyone wanna give it a try?
 
macro6 said:
Theres a new bios revision 0307 out for the M2N-SLI.

Anyone wanna give it a try?
Click to expand...

Really? Finally. 304's been the only option pretty since I bought the board two months ago. I'll try it when I get home. Tnx for the info.
 
Thurlow said:
Ok sorry for all of my posting/double posting, but I have now booted the computer at 260FSB, but the memory divider apparently has to be at 400 to do so. I am going to mess with it and see if I can get it to come up.
Click to expand...

Sorry for being so boring with this, but what BIOS are you running?

Regarding the HTT, just be careful it doesn't go too much beyond 1000 and it should be find. 4x with 260MHz should work with no problems.
 
macro6 said:
Theres a new bios revision 0307 out for the M2N-SLI.

Anyone wanna give it a try?
Click to expand...

I just checked the official pages but find no trace of it, neither did I find it on google. And it's not 1st of April, either.
 
It seems that these are BETA BIOSes leaking through the OCZ support forum. I myself bought OCZ Gold DDR2-800 for this board and it wouldn't work. After waiting for a week for a new BIOS from Asus or some adequate support from OCZ, I RMA-d the memory and took Corsair 6400C4. I had to take 2 GBs at once but I would have anyway, sooner or later.

Anyway, there was a mention of some problems with 0402 BIOS regarding overclocking so this BIOS is a no go. I guess that's why it's not on official pages yet. I don't have any problems with my board (besides occasional cold-boots) so I don't feel brave/adventerous/stupid/whatever enough to try it. Plus, when I flashed to 0304, Windows redetected most of devices and it had to reinstall drivers so there's an additional possibility of something going wrong (when I flashed to 0304 and rebooted, the Windows wouldn't boot from my Maxtor anymore; went out and bought a Hitachi which encountered the same problem; fixed it by putting the DVD-RW to Master after a lot of nerves lost and time spent for multiple reinstallations of Windows).
 
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