Anyone have a A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard?

[Najum Hussain]

Anyone have one and if you do what do you think? anyway i can get the
max performance out of it?

Naj

 

[tecknotot]

I have one and think its great... and i only have 1 video card
too....it has alot of other features that will be utilized very soon.

 

[Najum Hussain]

Im using a Asus EAX800 XT Extreme PE as my graphics cards. Ive set the
PEG at Auto at the moment Performance is amazing il use the SLI sometime
in the future. but i need to start utilizing the features on it as well.
Do you use any sound card?

Naj

 

[tecknotot]

No, Im currently using the built-in sound card because I had an Audigy
1 and I thought the on-board had newer and better functionality.

But I dont get sound in Half-LIfe 2 unless I change it to 2 speakers
and still trying to figure out why. Do you have Half-Life 2?

 

[Najum]

I have half life 2 and have updated it using the new catalyst drivers.
Its very smooth and i play at high res. Ive never used the onboard audio
codec i disbaled it in order to use the my own sound card Soundblaster
audigy z platinum pro. So far so good no problems.

Naj

 

[Robert Hancock]

No, Im currently using the built-in sound card because I had an Audigy
1 and I thought the on-board had newer and better functionality.

But I dont get sound in Half-LIfe 2 unless I change it to 2 speakers
and still trying to figure out why. Do you have Half-Life 2?

The onboard sound on the A8N-SLI Deluxe is basically just 8-channel AC97
audio, nothing special. Most sound cards will probably have more features.

 

[RJT]

Anyone have one and if you do what do you think? anyway i can get the
max performance out of it?

Got one with a PCIe 6800GT - super. Just the one card for now, SLI comes
later. It's a great mobo if you ask me, just one prob: the nForce
firewall seems to block certain websites... can't seem to fix that. And
it keeps prompting me to disconnect my SATA drives in a raid array. But
that seems to be normal.

RJT

 

[Nom]

No, Im currently using the built-in sound card because I had an Audigy
1 and I thought the on-board had newer and better functionality.

But I dont get sound in Half-LIfe 2 unless I change it to 2 speakers
and still trying to figure out why. Do you have Half-Life 2?

Disable the onboard sound (it's just Ghetto-Spec AC97) and use your
much-better Audigy 1.

 

[fsda]

Anyone have one and if you do what do you think? anyway i can get the
max performance out of it?

Naj

I have had nothing but stability problems with mine. This is with a
plenty big enough power supply (Enermax EG701AX) and four sticks of
Kingston RAM (2GB total) right off the official Asus Memory QVL list. No
overclocking.

I'm running an AMD FX-55 with factory heatsink.

I have a big Silverstone case with huge fans - temperatures are very low
inside the case and cooling works very well.

Can't figure out why I have so poor stability.

Originally, with a single eVGA 6800GT PCIe card, I would get a hardware
lockup about once a day. The lockup seemed to always be accompanied by
a repeating sound. I'm mostly playing Half-Life 2 and Microsoft Flight
Simulator 9.1 right now, so usually the lockups occured there, but I did
get at least one lockup when web browsing, accompanied by a repeating
sound that happened to be playing at the time. Oh yeah, also got the
same crash in Need for Speed Underground 2.

I have an Adaptec 2940UW, a Maxtor ATA/133 card, and a Sound Blaster
Audigy 2 ZS card. Using the XP SP2 drivers for the first two cards, and
the lastest Sound Blaster drivers.

Meanwhile, my second eVGA 6800GT arrived, and I of course installed it
and went SLI.

Now I get even more frequent crashes - several times a day. These
crashes do not involve repeating sound. I've hardware locked twice now
during initial loading of Half-Life 2 (loading the actual program, after
the "Valve" advertisement), but there was no sound repeating - just a
hardare lockup. I've done less game playing due to trying to
troubleshoot the problem, so most of my crashes now occur during
standard Windows browsing, or while the computer is just sitting there.
These usually start with massive video corruption - i.e. the screen is
all scrambled. This is followed by the screen going completely black
and the machine totally locking up (i.e. Windows XP is frozen at that
point. I have used NT/2000/XP enough to recognize when the video driver
is simply crashed and the rest of the machine continues to run. That is
not the case here - once the screen goes black, the computer is totally
frozen).

Suspecting a hardware conflict, I removed the Adaptec and Maxtor cards,
and this did not help. I then removed the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS and
uninstalled it's software, so that now all I have installed are the two
video cards. I reactivated the motherboard sound system.

I still get the same crashes described above - i.e. video corruption
followed by black screen and complete hardware lock, even with nothing
but the two eVGA 6800GT cards installed.

So far, I am very unhappy with this system. I feel like I "gold
plated" all of my hardware, and tried to buy the best components
available, so it's not like I skimped and went with a marginal power
supply, case cooling, etc.

I'm not sure what to try from here.

I've been using BIOS version 1002, and the release Nvidia drivers.
Since going back to the baseline configuration has not helped, I'm not
sure what to try next.

My only next options are:
1) Remove the second 6800GT and go back from SLI. I hate the idea of
doing this, for obvious reasons (i.e. the expense of this system just to
get SLI).
2) Start trying the Asus BETA BIOS versions.
3) Try the latest Nvidia BETA drivers.

I'm never a fan of BETA drivers and BIOS, but I'm getting desparate....

 

[Nom]

I have had nothing but stability problems with mine. This is with a
plenty big enough power supply (Enermax EG701AX) and four sticks of
Kingston RAM (2GB total) right off the official Asus Memory QVL list.
No overclocking.

I'm running an AMD FX-55 with factory heatsink.

I have a big Silverstone case with huge fans - temperatures are very
low inside the case and cooling works very well.

Can't figure out why I have so poor stability.

Originally, with a single eVGA 6800GT PCIe card, I would get a
hardware lockup about once a day. The lockup seemed to always be
accompanied by a repeating sound. I'm mostly playing Half-Life 2 and
Microsoft Flight Simulator 9.1 right now, so usually the lockups
occured there, but I did get at least one lockup when web browsing,
accompanied by a repeating sound that happened to be playing at the
time. Oh yeah, also got the same crash in Need for Speed Underground
2.

I have an Adaptec 2940UW, a Maxtor ATA/133 card, and a Sound Blaster
Audigy 2 ZS card. Using the XP SP2 drivers for the first two cards,
and the lastest Sound Blaster drivers.

Meanwhile, my second eVGA 6800GT arrived, and I of course installed it
and went SLI.

Now I get even more frequent crashes - several times a day. These
crashes do not involve repeating sound. I've hardware locked twice
now during initial loading of Half-Life 2 (loading the actual
program, after the "Valve" advertisement), but there was no sound
repeating - just a hardare lockup. I've done less game playing due
to trying to troubleshoot the problem, so most of my crashes now
occur during standard Windows browsing, or while the computer is just
sitting there. These usually start with massive video corruption -
i.e. the screen is all scrambled. This is followed by the screen
going completely black and the machine totally locking up (i.e.
Windows XP is frozen at that point. I have used NT/2000/XP enough to
recognize when the video driver is simply crashed and the rest of the
machine continues to run. That is not the case here - once the
screen goes black, the computer is totally frozen).

Suspecting a hardware conflict, I removed the Adaptec and Maxtor
cards, and this did not help. I then removed the Sound Blaster
Audigy 2 ZS and uninstalled it's software, so that now all I have
installed are the two video cards. I reactivated the motherboard
sound system.

I still get the same crashes described above - i.e. video corruption
followed by black screen and complete hardware lock, even with nothing
but the two eVGA 6800GT cards installed.

So far, I am very unhappy with this system. I feel like I "gold
plated" all of my hardware, and tried to buy the best components
available, so it's not like I skimped and went with a marginal power
supply, case cooling, etc.

I'm not sure what to try from here.

I've been using BIOS version 1002, and the release Nvidia drivers.
Since going back to the baseline configuration has not helped, I'm not
sure what to try next.

My only next options are:
1) Remove the second 6800GT and go back from SLI. I hate the idea of
doing this, for obvious reasons (i.e. the expense of this system just
to get SLI).
2) Start trying the Asus BETA BIOS versions.
3) Try the latest Nvidia BETA drivers.

I'm never a fan of BETA drivers and BIOS, but I'm getting
desparate....

Assuming you've already run MemTest overnight, to eliminate your RAM, and
Prime95 overnight to check CPU/RAM stability, then the instability can only
really be caused by your video card(s).
I'd swap out the 6800s and run a PCI video card for a few days to be sure.
I'd also remove two of the Memory sticks, just to eliminate the
too-many-sticks-at-too-higher-speed problem that seems to plague most modern
chipsets.

 

[fsda]

Assuming you've already run MemTest overnight, to eliminate your RAM,
and Prime95 overnight to check CPU/RAM stability, then the instability
can only really be caused by your video card(s).
I'd swap out the 6800s and run a PCI video card for a few days to be
sure. I'd also remove two of the Memory sticks, just to eliminate the
too-many-sticks-at-too-higher-speed problem that seems to plague most
modern chipsets.

Actually, thank you for the suggestions. I have not yet run MemTest
overnight, nor Prime95 overnight. I will try to find these through
google...

Note that I am new to the AMD platform. While I was impressed with the
whole "memory controller integrated into the CPU" thing, I have to say that
now I am longing for a Northbridge memory controller.

I really wanted 2GB, and I wanted to only use two of the four DIMM slots to
allow for future upgrading. But reading that the DIMM configuration is so
finiky, and that you can't use really fast timings when using all four
DIMMs, I decided to go with something off the official Asus QVL. The only
2GB configuration that Asus has on the QVL are the 4x 512MB Kingston config
- I bought the exact Kingston part number that Asus recommended.

I did notice that the motherboard went to 333MHz memory speed, even though
these are DDR400 sticks. I forced them to 400MHz in the BIOS. I now read
on the Asus site FAQs that the motherboard will automatically slow down to
333MHz when four DIMMs are used, although they also say you can force it to
400MHz and that this should be fine when using QVL memory (which I am). I
am going to be pissed if it ends up that I'll have to run at 333MHz -
what's the point of a FX-55 and SLI in this case? Plus, then I might as
well have gone with non-QVL memory and left two DIMM slots open...

I was running an old PCI Matrox Millenium II for a while while initially
setting up the machine (i.e. before I could get my hands on a 6800GT). I
didn't have any hardware lockups at all at that point, although I also
could not stress the system as much with that old PCI card (i.e. no games,
screensavers, etc.), and I didn't really use the system a lot until I got
my 6800GT.

I have noticed that the "hardware lock with repeating sound" occured with a
single 6800GT and the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, while once I went SLI I
just get a system freeze, and it's not associated with sound (with or
without the Sound Blaster installed).

Today the system froze again on a screensaver (DirectX, but not 3D - the
Michelangelo one from MS Plus!), with no repeating sound and no screen
corruption.

Now I am trying the system at 333MHz memory, instead of forcing it to
DDR400, to see if that works.

I'll try the stress tests, too, although I'm not sure how I'll know if it
causes the crash - right now I get the crashes with no "stress test". So,
how will I know that the "stress test" is causing the crash?

Thanks again for your advice.

 

[Nom]

Actually, thank you for the suggestions. I have not yet run MemTest
overnight, nor Prime95 overnight. I will try to find these through
google...

Note that I am new to the AMD platform. While I was impressed with
the whole "memory controller integrated into the CPU" thing, I have
to say that now I am longing for a Northbridge memory controller.

I really wanted 2GB, and I wanted to only use two of the four DIMM
slots to allow for future upgrading. But reading that the DIMM
configuration is so finiky, and that you can't use really fast
timings when using all four DIMMs, I decided to go with something off
the official Asus QVL. The only 2GB configuration that Asus has on
the QVL are the 4x 512MB Kingston config - I bought the exact
Kingston part number that Asus recommended.

I did notice that the motherboard went to 333MHz memory speed, even
though these are DDR400 sticks. I forced them to 400MHz in the BIOS.
I now read on the Asus site FAQs that the motherboard will
automatically slow down to 333MHz when four DIMMs are used, although
they also say you can force it to 400MHz and that this should be fine
when using QVL memory (which I am). I am going to be pissed if it
ends up that I'll have to run at 333MHz - what's the point of a FX-55
and SLI in this case? Plus, then I might as well have gone with
non-QVL memory and left two DIMM slots open...

I was running an old PCI Matrox Millenium II for a while while
initially setting up the machine (i.e. before I could get my hands on
a 6800GT). I didn't have any hardware lockups at all at that point,
although I also could not stress the system as much with that old PCI
card (i.e. no games, screensavers, etc.), and I didn't really use the
system a lot until I got my 6800GT.

I have noticed that the "hardware lock with repeating sound" occured
with a single 6800GT and the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, while once I
went SLI I just get a system freeze, and it's not associated with
sound (with or without the Sound Blaster installed).

Today the system froze again on a screensaver (DirectX, but not 3D -
the Michelangelo one from MS Plus!), with no repeating sound and no
screen corruption.

Now I am trying the system at 333MHz memory, instead of forcing it to
DDR400, to see if that works.

I'll try the stress tests, too, although I'm not sure how I'll know
if it causes the crash - right now I get the crashes with no "stress
test". So, how will I know that the "stress test" is causing the
crash?

Thanks again for your advice.

From that, I suspect your problems are being caused by the GFX card(s) or
the Memory.

Take two sticks of memory out, and see what happens.

Take the 6800(s) out, stick the Millenium PCI in, and see what happens.

 

[fsda]

From that, I suspect your problems are being caused by the GFX card(s)
or the Memory.

Take two sticks of memory out, and see what happens.

Take the 6800(s) out, stick the Millenium PCI in, and see what
happens.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried setting my DDR400 to "Auto" in the BIOS, which runs it at
333MHz. Still got a lockup, although almost 24 hours later. This time
between lockups certainly makes this tough to troubleshoot...

I'm going to try the latest beta version of the video drivers from the
Nvidia site first. If that doesn't work, I'll start swapping out video
cards and memory sticks. This'll be a long and frustrating road...

 

[Nom]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried setting my DDR400 to "Auto" in the BIOS, which runs it at
333MHz. Still got a lockup, although almost 24 hours later. This
time between lockups certainly makes this tough to troubleshoot...

That's what Prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm and MemTest
http://www.memtest.org/ are for ! Both will put your CPU and Memory system
under 100% load - meaning any failures should show up within 15 minutes or
so.

Use the same method to test GFX stability - loop 3DMark05
http://www.futuremark.com/ and rthdribl
http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/ for a while.

I'm going to try the latest beta version of the video drivers from the
Nvidia site first.

Dodgy drivers normally result in a Blue Screen Of Death crash. If things are
just freezing up, it's almost certainly some sort of hardware/stability
issue, as above.

If that doesn't work, I'll start swapping out
video cards and memory sticks. This'll be a long and frustrating
road...

Nah, it'll be easily solved

 

[Paul]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried setting my DDR400 to "Auto" in the BIOS, which runs it at
333MHz. Still got a lockup, although almost 24 hours later. This time
between lockups certainly makes this tough to troubleshoot...

I'm going to try the latest beta version of the video drivers from the
Nvidia site first. If that doesn't work, I'll start swapping out video
cards and memory sticks. This'll be a long and frustrating road...

Some info here. Your board may not be that much different than
the review board:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041123/sli-performance-04.html

Paul

 

[fsda]

(e-mail address removed) (Paul) wrote in

Some info here. Your board may not be that much different than
the review board:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041123/sli-performance- 04.ht
ml

Paul

Thanks - yes I had seen this. The talk about not being to run the
fastest DDR400 memory at the lowest memory latencies. But I didn't get
low latency RAM - I picked Kingston RAM off the QVL. And I am not
pushing the memory latency settings - I left everything to Auto in the
BIOS (and CPUz correctly reports that the timings match the memory
specs).

 

[fsda]

That's what Prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm and MemTest
http://www.memtest.org/ are for ! Both will put your CPU and Memory
system under 100% load - meaning any failures should show up within 15
minutes or so.

Use the same method to test GFX stability - loop 3DMark05
http://www.futuremark.com/ and rthdribl
http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/ for a while.


Dodgy drivers normally result in a Blue Screen Of Death crash. If
things are just freezing up, it's almost certainly some sort of
hardware/stability issue, as above.


Nah, it'll be easily solved

Thanks again for the advice. I will use the programs you recommend and
embark on a set of tests to see if I can find the hardware problem.
Give me a few days to report results.

BTW, the latest beta Nvidia drivers did not help. I once again returned
to the machine after about 18 hours of up-time to find it frozen again.

I've not pulled two of the four memory sticks (leaving in the two
6800GTs in SLI mode), and will see what happens in the next 24hrs.

It'll probably be this weekend before I can do the stress testing, but
hopefully it'll point me in the right direction.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[fsda]

Thanks again for the advice. I will use the programs you recommend and
embark on a set of tests to see if I can find the hardware problem.
Give me a few days to report results.

BTW, the latest beta Nvidia drivers did not help. I once again returned
to the machine after about 18 hours of up-time to find it frozen again.

I've not pulled two of the four memory sticks (leaving in the two
6800GTs in SLI mode), and will see what happens in the next 24hrs.

It'll probably be this weekend before I can do the stress testing, but
hopefully it'll point me in the right direction.

Thanks again for your help!

OK, just using the computer as usual, but removing one of the 6800GT cards,
and going back to single card operation, the computer has now gone 24 hours
without a freeze. I'll let it go another 16 or so just to make sure, then
start the "brutal" tests. Should see if this is an SLI issue...

 

[fsda]

Thanks again for the advice. I will use the programs you recommend
and embark on a set of tests to see if I can find the hardware
problem. Give me a few days to report results.

BTW, the latest beta Nvidia drivers did not help. I once again
returned to the machine after about 18 hours of up-time to find it
frozen again.

I've not pulled two of the four memory sticks (leaving in the two
6800GTs in SLI mode), and will see what happens in the next 24hrs.

It'll probably be this weekend before I can do the stress testing, but
hopefully it'll point me in the right direction.

Thanks again for your help!

Took two sticks of RAM out - still locked up (after about 15 hours).

Now I put the stick back in, but pulled out the second 6800GT. I.e. I
am "removing SLI" to see if that stabilizes the system.

Thanks

 

[fsda]

Took two sticks of RAM out - still locked up (after about 15 hours).

Now I put the stick back in, but pulled out the second 6800GT. I.e. I
am "removing SLI" to see if that stabilizes the system.

Thanks

OK, I've been running the system now for 3 days straight with no
lockups. Trick was removing SLI and going with a single 16x PCIe
6800GT. This is with all my DIMMs installed. I've even run Prime95 for
at least 12 hours, with no lockups or errors at all.

Note that with both of my eVGA 6800GT cards installed in SLI
configuration, I'd never get to 24 hours before a hardware lockup.

Since I've made the machine as bare-bones as possible, it's pretty clear
that my system is stable when NOT running in a SLI hardware config.

So... now I guess it's time to put the second 6800GT back in, go back
into SLI config, and see what happens.

What is bothering me is that if SLI brings back my hardware freezes,
there's really nothing else I can do or remove to make the system more
stable - everything has already been pulled... And I already tested SLI
with only two DIMMs (instead of four).

So, put me down on the list as one with an unstable Asus SLI system...