Stay away from the A8N32-SLI

S

systemlines

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 24, 2004
Messages
84
This build has been a complete nightmare, cant even install xp... pool errors acpi errors..windows blue screens right at setup. New Bios didnt help matters at all, pretty much considering this board dead after about one days use :rolleyes: , whata waste. Passed the months exchange point from the retailer.. damnit I apologize if I sound like im venting but im choked because my previous intel board served me well. Oh well lesson learned.
 
uhhh, that sounds like a classic case of "you used incompatible ram".

You could try different things.

Try one stick of ram, or try other ram. or try seeing your ram specs and setting them manually (i.e. ram voltage).

but yeah, that's a good board from what i hear... try some corsair ram.
 
I have 2 a8n32 sli boxes and both run perfectly? Post up your problems in the a8n32 build database post.
 
mine has been rock solid since day one with an Opteron [email protected] ..(sometimes 2.6ghz depending on summer heat)

prolly a simple bios setting might fix your woes


[F]old|[H]ard
 
One board out of thousands had a problem. SHUN THEM ALL. :rolleyes:

Shitty power, bad RAM, a bad CPU, the list goes on.
 
I know that one defective motherboard doesn't make them all defective, but Asus charges a huge premium. In nearly every canned anandtech benchmark, you see that an asrock/cheaper alternative board clocks as well, and is as stable as the top asus board it was compared to at the time with all the bells and whistles.
 
not a bad board but does have its quirks. Try the 1205 BIOS as earlier ones were hit or miss. I went from the shipping BIOS of 905 to 1205 and haven't had any issues yet. I would definitly checkout the buid database as suggested.
 
My BAD...Coffee before i post from now on!

...my apologies i read M2N-SLI Deluxe...

heh...:eek:
 
I apologize if I sounded a little harsh to crap on the board but I wasnt expecting so many problems. I will take your advice as well and add this to the a8n32 board and see what I can pull up there.

I will start will the components but keep in mind that most of these parts are verified to be working since they were from a previous build.

OCZ Modstream, Hyper X, 2 IDE WD, one set to cable select, the other to master. 2 Seagate 320's (ncq) and an X2 4800 and an x1900xtx.

So far I have been able to install Windows sucessfully one time, however saw multiple floppy drives in device manager and had ie scripting errors at first launch. Then the cursor started to studder and lockup. Thought it was a bad install so proceeded to install windows a second time where it locked up at registering components, tried again this time was getting a message stating that the board was not acpi complient, then tried it again this time bad pool header (using the raid drivers supplied of the disk). So basically windows installed twice both having scripting errors and now currently cannot install windows at all. Is there something im missing? this seems pretty DOA. I did try updating the bios to 12 with no avail, like the above poster had said.
 
when i installed my GFs system last week (a8n vm csm and x2 3800), it found 2 floppy drives, but after i updated the thing, it corrected itself and hasnt had any problems since.
 
Yes it can be a bit tempermental. To load windows with the A8N32 you need to disable everything you can, including USB. Use an old PS2 keyboard and mouse. Disable APM. and plug in only the drives that you will be loading the OS on, no others. You''ll be OK if you do this.
 
jubrany said:
when i installed my GFs system last week (a8n vm csm and x2 3800), it found 2 floppy drives, but after i updated the thing, it corrected itself and hasnt had any problems since.
Click to expand...


eh there talkiing about the A8N32-SLI not the asus a8n-vm csm, although i have tht board and detects a floppy i dont have one :S but thats a different story
 
systemlines said:
OCZ Modstream
Click to expand...
Which model? The 520W only has 28A on the +12V, and the 450W has even less at 26A. You've got an X1900XTX, which is a very +12V-hungry card. I think you could've made a better choice in terms of power -- what you got is basically an outdated modular PSU that barely meets ATX12V v2.0 specification.
 
I will say this...my build of the A8N32 was a nightmare...same issues you are having. BSOD, ACPI errors, etc.

Finally, this is what I did to resolve it (and no, it wasn't chucking the board).

Created a custom install of XP SP2, slipstreamed the SATA drivers and forced ACPI Multiprocessor (I have an X2).
Cleared CMOS by jumper and battery removal.
Entered Setup and disabled MIDI, GAME, SERIAL. Left EPP at default.
Changed RAM timings to spec (not default)
Setup boot drives appropriately.
Disabled floppy, and *all* removable storage
Left USB as is, but only had the mouse and kbd plugged in.​

The machine runs solidly now. No BSOD, no ACPI errors...

HTH
 
Its the 520 version... thanks for the advice. I thinking at this point it might be a bios setting for the ram. I have some samsung ram kicking around, going to try those sticks as well.
 
I too have had numerous issues with my a8n32-sli. It would be stable for two weeks and
then all of a sudden decide to be flaky for a week. Sometimes games would run fine,
sometimes they would crash. I tried endless amounts of different components, yet there
was just no making it happy. This past weekend I went and got a $39 ECS nforce4 board.
I took the exact same parts that were running in the a8n32-sli and put the ECS in, and
the ECS board has been rock steady since XP was installed. Absolutely no errors during
the build either. Maybe I had a bad Asus board, but atleast I am not pulling my hair out
anymore. Come to think about it, some of my older Asus boards (nforce 2, etc) have not
been the most stable either. My new ECS system is now in my Sons room and my
a8n32-sli is in a box in the garage. For my new main system, I built an AM2 box around
the new Gigabyte nforce 590 motherboard. It has been a joy to build as well. Rock solid,
and no errors at all during the XP build.
 
i had no major issues with my a8n32, maybe i was one of the lucky ones :)
 
It's a quirky board fo sho, but mine has also been rock solid as well. I've also flashed the BIOS up 3 times and reformatted twice. The dual core & chipset driver updates have actually improved my performace from day one quite substantially.
 
OK, happy to report that I did end up getting the system to install windows, I had to enable support for the silicon image device then windows managed to install. So far so good right now. I also wanna take the time to thank the people for the input, and faith lol and recommendations you guys had. I did end of going to the a8n32 build thread and did make me realize how touchy this mainboard can be. I wouldnt doubt it like the above poster said about the mainboard may not like this ram. Hopefully asus will continue to improve the board with bios updates ect. The only minor glitch in the install so far has been the addition of an extra floppy device (this happened before by enabling an unecessary sata port) this time happened when the amd optimizer patch was ran. Interestingly enough iv managed to fix this event from happening a few times and may fix it again for next time by installing the amd driver before the optimizer patch. Who knows... still think this board is pretty touchy tho, and thanks to the poster that said the PS might be the issue, but so far so good. Havent seen any scripting errors yet, think that might have something to do with the updated nforce drivers..lets hope so.
 
My experience with this board x 2 has been pretty good. I didn't run into any "non-ACPI compliant bios" reported in the past, but I was running a slipstreamed copy of XP pro w/ sp2. The only real problem or complaint I have with this board is the craptastic onboard sound. A $200 mobo should have decent sound. Both of my boards gave lots of static, so I disabled the onboard and got a couple of mid-range Turtle Beach sound cards and life has been good. (Until I saw Conroe, but that's another story and several hundred dollars spent :eek: )
 
Just wanted to point out another observation, if you leave the driver disk in and try to remove the secondary floppy it keeps coming back. Removed it one more time and ejected the cd then boom it doesn't install. Its odd because I have seen it as dual 3 inch and one as 5 inch floppy. Who needs dual core when you have Dual Floppies!
 
fsh42na said:
My experience with this board x 2 has been pretty good. I didn't run into any "non-ACPI compliant bios" reported in the past, but I was running a slipstreamed copy of XP pro w/ sp2. The only real problem or complaint I have with this board is the craptastic onboard sound. A $200 mobo should have decent sound. Both of my boards gave lots of static, so I disabled the onboard and got a couple of mid-range Turtle Beach sound cards and life has been good. (Until I saw Conroe, but that's another story and several hundred dollars spent :eek: )
Click to expand...

The sound issue can be corrected by muting the 'PC Speaker' in the Windows Volume Control.
 
TheWikipediaPwnzJ00 said:
That's Asus for you. Blow a load on a $200 motherboard and it performs like the $80 ASrocks.
Click to expand...

my $70 asrock is incredibly solid, thanks :)
 
Methos said:
The sound issue can be corrected by muting the 'PC Speaker' in the Windows Volume Control.
Click to expand...


Thanks - this is why I lurk the forums :)
 
I had this board before the one in the sig and i did get a few problems with it and it was some ACPI compatibiliaties, you had to be very specific on the BIOS and configurations before it would let you boot.
 
I heard the ACPI issue can happen if you disable the Parallel port in the BIOS for some reason, because i had the same issue and it worked for me cause i would usually go into the bios before i installed and disable COM and LPT ports since i didnt use them.

I just downloaded and flashed to the latest non-beta bios the other day Rev. 1303 (released 8/6/06) that fixed my issue with SLI i was getting crappy scores in 3dmark after the flash its been good. Also just installed a nice Zalman copper CPU fan (after figuring out how to easily get the back plate off the mobo without damaging the board)
 
i just rma'ed mine. Overheating, usb and boot issues. I tried everything I know and a few friends to get this board running correctly. I hope the new one is better. I am not going to knock asus yet. My P-4 800E deluxe was rock solid. Now the tech support, well I dont think they have any!
 
TheWikipediaPwnzJ00 said:
That's Asus for you. Blow a load on a $200 motherboard and it performs like the $80 ASrocks.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree with you there, Asus makes the best boards availble.
 
NulloModo said:
I have to disagree with you there, Asus makes the best boards availble.
Click to expand...
some of their boards rock, some suck. as a general rule of thumb, asus + intel = :), while asus + amd = :(
though the asus am2 offerings are shaping up to be a bit better than their 939 counterparts. guess the amd engineers got a budget increase :p
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
some of their boards rock, some suck. as a general rule of thumb, asus + intel = :), while asus + amd = :(
Click to expand...
I've never had a problem with the Asus AMD boards... though I wish I could say the same for boards like the P4S8X.
 
Its not the mobo makers fault but the chipset was to blame, hopefully all these new things are sorted on the 590 Chipset. Asus are one of the best mobo makers with so much variety to choose from , also emailed them once about a problem and got a email back the next day , so thats customer service for you.

I have tried about 6 different Asus boards in the last 7 months , some for me and some for customers , i would recommend them to anyone.

As a buyer for components you should take precaustions in what you buy and see if your chipset has no problem with it and if that is sorted then you should be ok.

Also the a8n32-sli has three year warrenty replacement which is one of the best things about it. The board it self look georgous and no doubt about it.
 
I had a lot of pool errors and such and after some research i discovered it was cause i disabled the parallel (and serial?) ports.

Enable them back and see if that works.
 
TheWikipediaPwnzJ00 said:
That's Asus for you. Blow a load on a $200 motherboard and it performs like the $80 ASrocks.
Click to expand...
This statement made me mad, asus has made most of the best mobo's ive used. then i saw he was banned. instant sweet justice. like others have said it sounds like you have incompatible hardware somewhere, and probably ram
 
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