A7N8X-Dlx 1.04 board at 400mhz?

[Sam]

I've had my trusty A7N8X-Dlx version 1.04 board for over 18 months
now. So far it works perfectly. I've decided to swap out my old AMD
2400+ (266mhz) with a Barton 3200+(400mhz). I'm also swapping out my
old DDR2700 memory for Crucial DDR3200 RAM. I have the latest 1008
BIOS (new as of 6/18/04).

Are there any "gotcha's" that I need to know about before installing
all this? I'm really not into overclocking so I plan to run everything
at their normal speeds.

Thanks.

Sam

 

[Paul]

I've had my trusty A7N8X-Dlx version 1.04 board for over 18 months
now. So far it works perfectly. I've decided to swap out my old AMD
2400+ (266mhz) with a Barton 3200+(400mhz). I'm also swapping out my
old DDR2700 memory for Crucial DDR3200 RAM. I have the latest 1008
BIOS (new as of 6/18/04).

Are there any "gotcha's" that I need to know about before installing
all this? I'm really not into overclocking so I plan to run everything
at their normal speeds.

Thanks.

Sam

You might have to back off on the clock a bit. Some of those boards
will do 185MHz, but won't go all the way to the 200MHz clock needed
for FSB400/DDR400 operation. If you are one of the lucky ones, then
you don't need to do anything. If it only does 185MHz, then there
is a volt mod for the CM3708, but to do that requires some knowledge
of electronics. Maybe you could RMA the board to Asus, explaining
it won't work right with your Barton FSB400 chip.

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9237
http://www.champion-micro.com/datasheet/Analog Device/CM3708.pdf

The cpusupport page says you need at least BIOS 1004.
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

HTH,
Paul

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Mon, 21 Jun 2004 09:20:22 -0400, Paul scribbled:

You might have to back off on the clock a bit. Some of those boards
will do 185MHz, but won't go all the way to the 200MHz clock needed
for FSB400/DDR400 operation. If you are one of the lucky ones, then
you don't need to do anything. If it only does 185MHz, then there
is a volt mod for the CM3708, but to do that requires some knowledge
of electronics. Maybe you could RMA the board to Asus, explaining
it won't work right with your Barton FSB400 chip.

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9237
http://www.champion-micro.com/datasheet/Analog Device/CM3708.pdf

The cpusupport page says you need at least BIOS 1004.
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

HTH,
Paul

My main concern was instability. As long as the system is reliable,
I'm not going to sweat a couple of Mhz one way or the other.

The new 1008 BIOS does have one intriguing item:

Update FSB400 romsip table

I'm not sure what this means, but hopefully it will allow the board to
run correctly at 400mhz. But, that's just a guess.

Sam

 

[Bender]

My A7N8X-DLX v1.04 has a 3200+ for several months with the same estability
that when has a 1333 MHz

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Mon, 21 Jun 2004 23:05:24 +0200, Bender
scribbled:

My A7N8X-DLX v1.04 has a 3200+ for several months with the same estability
that when has a 1333 MHz

That's good to hear. Thanks for your response.

Sam

 

[edde]

I've had my trusty A7N8X-Dlx version 1.04 board for over 18 months
now. So far it works perfectly. I've decided to swap out my old AMD
2400+ (266mhz) with a Barton 3200+(400mhz). I'm also swapping out my
old DDR2700 memory for Crucial DDR3200 RAM. I have the latest 1008
BIOS (new as of 6/18/04).

I've had my A7N8X DLX 1.04 for over 1 year, and ever since bios 1004 came
out which officially gave support for 400FSB, I've been able to run 100%
stable at 400FSB with no voltage changes or mods, all default voltages.
I think when people report problems, it's because they have crappy ram
and/or powersupply.
I have 2x512MB OCZ PC3200 Dual Channel memory and Enermax 350W PSU.

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Mon, 21 Jun 2004 22:22:10 -0500, edde scribbled:

I've had my A7N8X DLX 1.04 for over 1 year, and ever since bios 1004 came
out which officially gave support for 400FSB, I've been able to run 100%
stable at 400FSB with no voltage changes or mods, all default voltages.
I think when people report problems, it's because they have crappy ram
and/or powersupply.
I have 2x512MB OCZ PC3200 Dual Channel memory and Enermax 350W PSU.

I have pretty much always used Crucial RAM, and I've never had a
problem due to it. They also guarantee that it will work on this
board. (Knock on wood.) I have an Antec 430 watt power supply which
has been rated pretty highly. I have the latest nVidia 4.24 drivers
as well.

As I've said, right now the system seems pretty solid with no hardware
related problems at all. However, you just never know what could
happen when you start messing with things.

Sam

 

[Henning]

| Sometime on, or about Mon, 21 Jun 2004 22:22:10 -0500, edde scribbled:
| -zip-
| I have pretty much always used Crucial RAM, and I've never had a
| problem due to it.

Same here. Also Crucial.

Henning

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Fri, 02 Jul 2004 14:20:12 +0200, Henning
scribbled:

Same here. Also Crucial.

Henning

Although my system seems to be pretty stable and no normal programs
have crashed, I did run into one problem. Testing with Prime95 causes
an error within 3 minutes. Backing the CPU and memory back down to
185mhz solves the problem. So, what do I do now? I want to run things
at the full 200mhz, not 185.

Sam

 

[JBM]

Sometime on, or about Fri, 02 Jul 2004 14:20:12 +0200, Henning
scribbled:


Although my system seems to be pretty stable and no normal programs
have crashed, I did run into one problem. Testing with Prime95 causes
an error within 3 minutes. Backing the CPU and memory back down to
185mhz solves the problem. So, what do I do now? I want to run things
at the full 200mhz, not 185.

Sam

What BIOS are you using? My A7N8X couldn't do better that about 185
until I flashed the BIOS to ver 1008 now its working at 200FSB with no
problems. But I haven't run any tests like memtest86 or prime95 on it.

Jim M

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Fri, 2 Jul 2004 18:22:43 -0600, JBM scribbled:

What BIOS are you using? My A7N8X couldn't do better that about 185
until I flashed the BIOS to ver 1008 now its working at 200FSB with no
problems. But I haven't run any tests like memtest86 or prime95 on it.

Jim M

I have the 1008 BIOS too. That's probably why my system appeared to be
stable and work at 400mhz. Memtest86 ran fine for about 2 hours.
However, prime95 failed miserably within 2-3 minutes every time I
tried.

Sam

 

[JBM]

Sometime on, or about Fri, 2 Jul 2004 18:22:43 -0600, JBM scribbled:


I have the 1008 BIOS too. That's probably why my system appeared to be
stable and work at 400mhz. Memtest86 ran fine for about 2 hours.
However, prime95 failed miserably within 2-3 minutes every time I
tried.

Sam

I just tried to run prime95 and it failed
Fatal error: Rounding was 0.5, Expected less than 0.4
is the error I get.

Jim M

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Fri, 2 Jul 2004 19:52:02 -0600, JBM scribbled:

I just tried to run prime95 and it failed
Fatal error: Rounding was 0.5, Expected less than 0.4
is the error I get.

Jim M

That's the exact same error I got. However, since normal programs and
games seem to work fine, I've kept it running at 400mhz. But, I don't
know if I have a ticking time-bomb or not.

I wonder if this would be justification for an RMA of this board? It
was advertised as being able to run at this speed. I've written to
Asus, but no response at all.

Sam

 

[Kylesb]

| > I just tried to run prime95 and it failed
| > Fatal error: Rounding was 0.5, Expected less than 0.4
| > is the error I get.
| >
| > Jim M
|
| That's the exact same error I got. However, since normal programs
and
| games seem to work fine, I've kept it running at 400mhz. But, I
don't
| know if I have a ticking time-bomb or not.
|
| I wonder if this would be justification for an RMA of this board? It
| was advertised as being able to run at this speed. I've written to
| Asus, but no response at all.
|


Yes, you have a ticking time bomb, no telling when/where the system
instability will give you fits. I always get a creepy feeling if
prime95 can't run for a good spell. Should a failure occur related to
HD activity, you could corrupt your registry, as a simple example of
how things can go bad. If you have backups, you can feel just a bit
more secure, however, should the HD driver muck things up due to
instability, your HD could get trashed in an instant.

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Sat, 3 Jul 2004 03:23:35 -0500, Kylesb
scribbled:

|> I just tried to run prime95 and it failed
|> Fatal error: Rounding was 0.5, Expected less than 0.4
|> is the error I get.
|>
|> Jim M
|
| That's the exact same error I got. However, since normal programs
and
| games seem to work fine, I've kept it running at 400mhz. But, I
don't
| know if I have a ticking time-bomb or not.
|
| I wonder if this would be justification for an RMA of this board? It
| was advertised as being able to run at this speed. I've written to
| Asus, but no response at all.
|

Yes, you have a ticking time bomb, no telling when/where the system
instability will give you fits. I always get a creepy feeling if
prime95 can't run for a good spell. Should a failure occur related to
HD activity, you could corrupt your registry, as a simple example of
how things can go bad. If you have backups, you can feel just a bit
more secure, however, should the HD driver muck things up due to
instability, your HD could get trashed in an instant.

Ack!! I don't need that. I've just reduced everything to 185 (370mhz).
However, I'm really disappointed in this MB since I thought it was
supposed to do 400. I'm even more disappointed in Asus since they've
never responded to any of my emails either. Has anyone had any luck in
contacting them and getting any satisfaction in a situation like this?

Sam