A7N8X Deluxe v2.0 Trouble after bios flash to 1007 (Long)

[Don Reese]

I figured I'd start a new post rather than continue on my memory
controller post, since the troubles have nothing to do with that
original question.

Since I flashed my A7N8X Deluxe rev2.0 from the 1003 to the 1007 bios
in preparation for a new SATA drive install, my system has begun
randomly crashing after about an hour of use. (In a game, outside of
the game it has only crashed once, after about 5 hours of use.)

Here is all that I have done in trying to track down the problem, in
the order that I did it (near as I can recall).

Ran Memtest86 for 19 hours (went to bed and checked it after work the
next day), showed 34 or 38 passes and no errors.

Unchecked the Restart on error option in WinXP so I could see the
reason for crash on the BSOD. After doing this I only got the BSOD
once after this, and it listed an ATI driver file. After that, the
video has either just locked completely, gone black screen (monitor
light blinking green/amber on LCD), or the system rebooted.

Uninstalled the ATI drivers and control panel and installed the newest
at the time. I should note I reinstalled DirectX after driver changes.
My system still crashed after same period of use - about 1 hour, then
about 15 minutes later after reboot. After this crash, I took the side
off of my case and blew fan on the innards. Also took this opportunity
to check CPU, video card, and power supply for dust and blew out what
little I saw. Again, the system last one hour before it crashed.

ASUS Probe showed CPU temp around 40C after playing the game, crashing
and rebooting. MB temp showed 30C at most. This was constant through
all my problems.

Checked ATI site, and found newer drivers, so uninstalled and
reinstalled them. No luck

Uninstalled ATI drivers, removed Radeon 9700 Pro and installed new
Radeon 9800 Pro. Reinstalled drivers and control panel.Sytem lasted an
hour of in-game time and crashed.

Removed the Antec 380w Truepower supply that came with the case and
installed an Antec 550w Truepower supply. System lasted longer now,
about 1:30 before it crashed.

Reinstalled the chipset drivers, using the ASUS version which had been
working just fine until the bios update.

System lasted 1:30 again before the crash. The almost to the minute
timing is odd, but I can't think of what may cause it. (Am running
AdAware and Spybot to see if something is trying to call home and
causing this crash, or just some trojan may be causing it. Ran a full
system scan with Norton and nothing was uncovered.)

If anyone can think of anything else to try, I'm certainly all ears.
Seems I spent $300 on a new supply and video card I didn't need.
(Though I now have better units in place, and know the old ones are
useable. )

About all I haven't done is reinstall the monitor drivers. I wonder if
they can be a cause of a crash? The crashes have varied from reboots,
to just black screens or lockups after installing the new video card.
(Meaning, no reboots with the new card in place. Yet.)

One last mention on the ASUS probe. It shows the CPU and MB temp now
averaging about 42 after installing the new power supply. Also, all
the voltages seem a hair low, but they were with the old unit too. I'm
wondering about Vcore, though. Is it supposed to be 1.6 or 1.7? Probe
shows it at 1.696, and I am not overclocking. (Could this have been
changed somehow with BIOS upgrade?)

Sorry this got so long. Seems like quite a mess just to be able to use
a SATA drive, I know. Too late to say, "Should have stuck with an
IDE".

Thank you all for reading, and thanks to those of you with any ideas
to share with me.

System Specs:
A7N8X Del. 2.0, 1007 Bios
Athlon XP 2500+, never overclocked.
1g Kingston PC2700 Ram
ATI 9800 Pro
Samsung 191T Monitor
LiteOn DVD/CD-RW combo
LiteOn CDRW
Floppy
Western Digital 120GB IDE Hard Drive
Onboard sound
Onboard LAN (3com in use)
Antec Sonata case, 120 fan in back, no front fan with this unit.

Thanks again.

Don

 

[Don Reese]

Snipping some to clear up some statements

ASUS Probe showed CPU temp around 40C after playing the game, crashing
and rebooting. MB temp showed 30C at most. This was constant through
all my problems.

This was 40C and 30C after playing. Usually showed 23C for MB and
maybe 35C for CPU at idle.

System lasted 1:30 again before the crash. The almost to the minute
timing is odd, but I can't think of what may cause it. (Am running
AdAware and Spybot to see if something is trying to call home and
causing this crash, or just some trojan may be causing it. Ran a full
system scan with Norton and nothing was uncovered.)

Nothing other than usual cookies found by AdAware and Spybot.

One last mention on the ASUS probe. It shows the CPU and MB temp now
averaging about 42 after installing the new power supply. Also, all
the voltages seem a hair low, but they were with the old unit too. I'm
wondering about Vcore, though. Is it supposed to be 1.6 or 1.7? Probe
shows it at 1.696, and I am not overclocking. (Could this have been
changed somehow with BIOS upgrade?)

Poorly worded. CPU is now idle at 42C, MB shows 28C. Highest CPU got
after playing the game was 47C.

I looked up the standard vcore and see it should be 1.65 (which it
shows in the BIOS. I set it to auto, tried Menu, saw the 1.65 set, so
set back to Auto and saw it selected 1.65. Probe is showing it at
nearly 1.7 but I have read enough here to know that ASUS Probe isn't
the most accurate program.

Thanks again.

Don

 

[Ben Pope]

Snipping some to clear up some statements


This was 40C and 30C after playing. Usually showed 23C for MB and
maybe 35C for CPU at idle.


Nothing other than usual cookies found by AdAware and Spybot.


Poorly worded. CPU is now idle at 42C, MB shows 28C. Highest CPU got
after playing the game was 47C.

I looked up the standard vcore and see it should be 1.65 (which it
shows in the BIOS. I set it to auto, tried Menu, saw the 1.65 set, so
set back to Auto and saw it selected 1.65. Probe is showing it at
nearly 1.7 but I have read enough here to know that ASUS Probe isn't
the most accurate program.

Try going back to 1003, does that fix it? What about 1005?

Could always make your own BIOS which consists of an older base version with
the newest SATA BIOS if all else fails. (See my FAQ)

I take it you have Win2K/XP and the 4.24 drivers loaded?

Ben

 

[Ben Pope]

the voltages seem a hair low, but they were with the old unit too. I'm
wondering about Vcore, though. Is it supposed to be 1.6 or 1.7? Probe
shows it at 1.696, and I am not overclocking. (Could this have been
changed somehow with BIOS upgrade?)

Do you run MBM5?

What does that have to say about your minimum voltages? Can you list your
3.3, 5 and 12V minimums here?

Ben

 

[Don Reese]

Do you run MBM5?

What does that have to say about your minimum voltages? Can you list your
3.3, 5 and 12V minimums here?

Ben

I haven't tried going backwards in the BIOS. And I have visited your
site but still don't trust myself to make my own bios.

I downloaded and installed MBM5 and the voltage readings are:

3.3 = 3.28
+5 = 4.95
-5 = 4.98
+12 = 11.37
-12 = 11.88
Core0 = 1.7
Core1 = 1.68

I can see by this that for some reason the vcore is about .05 higher
than it is supposed to be, but I'm not sure whether that's high enough
to cause any instabilities.

Since it is running, here are the temps.

Case 28C
CPU Diode 43C
CPU Socket 43C

Fan readings seem much higher than what ASUS Probe reports, and I
can't seem to make any divider adjustments take. I'll be happy to know
they're still spinning and look at relative changes rather than actual
numbers there.

Thanks again,

Don

 

[Ben Pope]

I haven't tried going backwards in the BIOS. And I have visited your
site but still don't trust myself to make my own bios.

I downloaded and installed MBM5 and the voltage readings are:

3.3 = 3.28
+5 = 4.95
-5 = 4.98

All fine

+12 = 11.37

Borderline/pushing your luck. Should be ±5% which would be min of 11.4V

-12 = 11.88
Core0 = 1.7
Core1 = 1.68
Fine.

I can see by this that for some reason the vcore is about .05 higher
than it is supposed to be, but I'm not sure whether that's high enough
to cause any instabilities.

Nope, just a marginal heat rise and if anything, more stabilty, assuming
temps aren't like 90°C or something.

Since it is running, here are the temps.

Case 28C
CPU Diode 43C
CPU Socket 43C

Fine, but unusual for socket temp to equal diode temp unless you were
running it at full load and just backed off. That shouldn't be a steady
state situation, but not a problem, just unusual.

Fan readings seem much higher than what ASUS Probe reports, and I
can't seem to make any divider adjustments take. I'll be happy to know
they're still spinning and look at relative changes rather than actual
numbers there.

Thanks again,

Don

All looks ok, except for your +12V, which is marginal.

Ben

 

[Minotaur]

I figured I'd start a new post rather than continue on my memory
controller post, since the troubles have nothing to do with that
original question.

Since I flashed my A7N8X Deluxe rev2.0 from the 1003 to the 1007 bios
in preparation for a new SATA drive install, my system has begun
randomly crashing after about an hour of use. (In a game, outside of
the game it has only crashed once, after about 5 hours of use.)

Here is all that I have done in trying to track down the problem, in
the order that I did it (near as I can recall).

Ran Memtest86 for 19 hours (went to bed and checked it after work the
next day), showed 34 or 38 passes and no errors.

Unchecked the Restart on error option in WinXP so I could see the
reason for crash on the BSOD. After doing this I only got the BSOD
once after this, and it listed an ATI driver file. After that, the
video has either just locked completely, gone black screen (monitor
light blinking green/amber on LCD), or the system rebooted.

Uninstalled the ATI drivers and control panel and installed the newest
at the time. I should note I reinstalled DirectX after driver changes.
My system still crashed after same period of use - about 1 hour, then
about 15 minutes later after reboot. After this crash, I took the side
off of my case and blew fan on the innards. Also took this opportunity
to check CPU, video card, and power supply for dust and blew out what
little I saw. Again, the system last one hour before it crashed.

ASUS Probe showed CPU temp around 40C after playing the game, crashing
and rebooting. MB temp showed 30C at most. This was constant through
all my problems.

Checked ATI site, and found newer drivers, so uninstalled and
reinstalled them. No luck

Uninstalled ATI drivers, removed Radeon 9700 Pro and installed new
Radeon 9800 Pro. Reinstalled drivers and control panel.Sytem lasted an
hour of in-game time and crashed.

Removed the Antec 380w Truepower supply that came with the case and
installed an Antec 550w Truepower supply. System lasted longer now,
about 1:30 before it crashed.

Reinstalled the chipset drivers, using the ASUS version which had been
working just fine until the bios update.

System lasted 1:30 again before the crash. The almost to the minute
timing is odd, but I can't think of what may cause it. (Am running
AdAware and Spybot to see if something is trying to call home and
causing this crash, or just some trojan may be causing it. Ran a full
system scan with Norton and nothing was uncovered.)

If anyone can think of anything else to try, I'm certainly all ears.
Seems I spent $300 on a new supply and video card I didn't need.
(Though I now have better units in place, and know the old ones are
useable. )

About all I haven't done is reinstall the monitor drivers. I wonder if
they can be a cause of a crash? The crashes have varied from reboots,
to just black screens or lockups after installing the new video card.
(Meaning, no reboots with the new card in place. Yet.)

One last mention on the ASUS probe. It shows the CPU and MB temp now
averaging about 42 after installing the new power supply. Also, all
the voltages seem a hair low, but they were with the old unit too. I'm
wondering about Vcore, though. Is it supposed to be 1.6 or 1.7? Probe
shows it at 1.696, and I am not overclocking. (Could this have been
changed somehow with BIOS upgrade?)

Use MBM or even better Speedfan 4.13, both are superior and Speedfan
also controls the COOLBIT on the nForce2 chipset. That shall help with
cooling when the system is idle a lot!

Sorry this got so long. Seems like quite a mess just to be able to use
a SATA drive, I know. Too late to say, "Should have stuck with an
IDE".

Thank you all for reading, and thanks to those of you with any ideas
to share with me.

System Specs:
A7N8X Del. 2.0, 1007 Bios
Athlon XP 2500+, never overclocked.
1g Kingston PC2700 Ram
ATI 9800 Pro
Samsung 191T Monitor
LiteOn DVD/CD-RW combo
LiteOn CDRW
Floppy
Western Digital 120GB IDE Hard Drive
Onboard sound
Onboard LAN (3com in use)
Antec Sonata case, 120 fan in back, no front fan with this unit.

Thanks again.

Don

Tried Drivercleaner3 to remove all traces of the ATI drivers before
re-installing them? I would do that with the nVidia drivers aswell,
clean then re-install. No problems here with the same board with 1007, I
did change to 1007UBER with the latest SATA drivers shortly after however.

A few things you can check in the BIOS too.
RAM should be set at 100% manualy in sync. Check your RAM is auto
configuring correctly, with the timings for it. Make sure AGP Fast
Writes is OFF aswell. Lastly you could also try raising the RAM voltage
from 1.6 to 1.7V.

Good luck,

Minotaur (8*