Could my A8N Sli Premium be Dying?

[Kaos_Drem]

I have an asus a8n sli premium like the thread suggests, and i was wondering if the nvidia gigabit lan can die and die slowly causing problems for the rest of the system. My computer has been hard locking, and well i switched to the marvell gigabit and now it is fine.

 

[cam966251]

I have an asus a8n sli premium like the thread suggests, and i was wondering if the nvidia gigabit lan can die and die slowly causing problems for the rest of the system. My computer has been hard locking, and well i switched to the marvell gigabit and now it is fine.

How long as it been since you did a reformat?

 

[MantisIT]

The Lan on that board is funked. Don't be suprised/worried I've had (and I'm sure a good handful of others) the same problems. I noticed using the NFORCE Ethernet Port it would run for a while then just stop working.

After I installed Marvell Yukon drivers and switched ports it was fine. However I don't own the ASUS board anymore as the ethernet was 1 Issue I've had with their board(s). Switched over the EPOX and I have had 0 problems.

 

[Kaos_Drem]

its been since july, but i don't really want to have to back up everything on my c: drive right now, and i don't understand why out of the blue it would just decide to stop working.

And it is weird because i can't really use my marvell port at the college i go to because i get randomly disconnected and it loses its ip. But with the nvidia it stays connected, but now if i throw too much data through the nvidia port it freezes my comp.

 

[MantisIT]

Just do yourself a big favor and either toss that board in the garbage or sell it. I'm almost certain you'll be more then satisfied with a different brand of motherboard. Asus sucks.

If you don't want to do that I suggest calling them up (and waiting for 3 hours for their tech rep. to get to you ).

 

[.::MAGE::.]

I haven't had a problem with the Nvidia controller or the Marvell controller but there are some issues to be aware of.

First one installing some of the utilities off the CD is bad make sure you download and install the latest chipset drivers from Nvidia do not install nvfirewall or armor this will cause problems. The Asus programs to overclock the board in windows and bios settings caused weird problems for me so I didn't install those or Nvidia ntune software. I have everything installed from the chipset drivers and video drivers default works like a champ. I have around 5 USB devices connected for giggles even no problems.

One more thing I had another issue with creative sb audigy card and the beta drivers making the asus utilities such as bio update and some stability crash everything. This was a known problem so I don't know if it caused problems with the others which I removed as well. It just goes to show that alot of times our issues we experience are caused from the most unlikely suspects and do not reflect our hardware's ability.

 

[Appa]

Asus sucks.

If you don't want to do that I suggest calling them up (and waiting for 3 hours for their tech rep. to get to you ).

Anyway, that board is an excellent motherboard, however you may need to reinstall your nForce 4 drivers or you might have recieved a bad board. I had to RMA my A8N SLi Premium because I did recieve a bad board. I spoke to a level 3 tech at Asus (and I did not wait 3 hours for a tech, more like 20 minutes) and he informed me that I did recieve a bad board. You can call their RMA department and they will take care of you.

 

[kirbyrj]

Definitely stay away from the Network Access Manager with Nvidia. While it's a good idea, it just corrupts downloads and causes NIC's not to work.

 

[Kaos_Drem]

i did not install the nv firewall or any of the useless overclocking things, because i am versed enough in that kind of security and overclocking to not need it, i have an xfi so i don't think the audigy plays a role. And for the time being im not going to throw it away or sell it because it is perfectly stable right now, im just confused as to why now of all times the computer would start hardlocking when i use the nvidia lan port.

Oh well i guess if it comes down to it i will RMA but i really don't want to do that, because then i will have to get my new board to recognize the 13 harddrives like i have gotten this one too. and that my friends is a bitch especially since one of the drives is running jbod raid.

 

[decapitator]

MAGE Do you have any issues with the heatpipe on your Asus installed the way it is in your case??

I haven't had a problem with the Nvidia controller or the Marvell controller but there are some issues to be aware of.

First one installing some of the utilities off the CD is bad make sure you download and install the latest chipset drivers from Nvidia do not install nvfirewall or armor this will cause problems. The Asus programs to overclock the board in windows and bios settings caused weird problems for me so I didn't install those or Nvidia ntune software. I have everything installed from the chipset drivers and video drivers default works like a champ. I have around 5 USB devices connected for giggles even no problems.

One more thing I had another issue with creative sb audigy card and the beta drivers making the asus utilities such as bio update and some stability crash everything. This was a known problem so I don't know if it caused problems with the others which I removed as well. It just goes to show that alot of times our issues we experience are caused from the most unlikely suspects and do not reflect our hardware's ability.

 

[.::MAGE::.]

MAGE Do you have any issues with the heatpipe on your Asus installed the way it is in your case??

No I have alot of airflowing through the case and the XP-120 with a panaflo sits right over the heatsink near the CPU perfectly drawing air over it.

True thing that I noticed happen to me is I hooked everything up outside the case on my desk just the mobo laying out in the air everything installed everything made sure all parts worked etc etc and the heatpipe was actually hotter meaning I could touch it and basically burn my finger when it was laying horizontally in the open air.

In the Lian Li with the three case fans (panaflos) it's cooler way cooler.

EDIT: this was when i bought everything at first and it arrived of course not as of right now. Oh and my PC is very quiet which surprised me considering I thought I had a higher cfm panaflo but they aren't that loud.

 

[decapitator]

Thanks MAGE.

 

[zoinks]

Just do yourself a big favor and either toss that board in the garbage or sell it. I'm almost certain you'll be more then satisfied with a different brand of motherboard. Asus sucks.

If you don't want to do that I suggest calling them up (and waiting for 3 hours for their tech rep. to get to you ).

excellent advice. keep 'em comin'.

been using nvidia port with no probs since august.

if it were me, i would reformat before blaming mb. i would be suspicious of adware/spyware, or some driver issue. if it still has problems then you have at least tried to troubleshoot. could also be something with the school connection since you've mentioned your issue with the marvell port.

btw: i have my hard drive in 2 partitions. save all importnat stuff to my d drive and that makes a c reformat way less painful.

 

[MantisIT]

Just face it, the A8N Sli-P (with the heatpipe disaster) is a terrible board.

I've tallyed about 4 boards from them and the only good thing I can say about the company itself is that they handle RMA's pretty well. That's it.

I own a fairly decent case at the moment that has 3 120MM fans (in/out/cpu) and the bridge with the heatpipe on it still overheated. (Pc wasn't even overclocked)

I see they've revamped the board and put a fan there instead, least that's a plus. However that leaves the Networking problem here. Whenever I booted into windows after formatting I'd install the drivers for the motherboard (Nforce Drivers : Ethernet, IDE, ect) and the Nvidia Ethernet port would work for a couple of days until out of no where, *flop* stops working. The Marvell port is the only reliable port on the board imo, once connected to that it worked fine.

To sum it up: Asus boards themselves, if they work right, are alright. With my experiences, I've gone through 4 of their boards: all deemed factory faults

-2x P4C800 bad south bridge(s) <-- once they worked they were pretty nice
-1x A8N SLI Deluxe Network Controller Error and Ram Port Errors (they said there were parts missing from the ram ports)
-1x A8N SLI Premium Northbridge basically malfunctioned (to corruption) due to the heatpipe not functioning correctly on a non OC system. The failsafe(s) that were supposed to work didn't. (Comp usually powersdown if there's a problem but it didn't detect it unfortunately).

If you're curious many people have had the same problems.

Alot of the newegg reviews deemed
"Other Thoughts: I did not install the firewall software included due to other people having problems with it."
- And of course that dreaded heatpipe.

 

[freddiepm61]

I have the A8N-SLI and it is dandy, even though there were lots of probs with the board in the beginning, my one was fine.

I do agree that they do RMA well, had a socket A, and RMA it after about a year. had a new one within about a week i think...tis because they are so big.

f