A7N8X-VM/400 - it's official, Asus' most memory fussy mobo (long)

[fred]

A7N8X-VM/400 - it's official, Asus' most memory fussy mobo

Careful when using this mobo with integrated graphics (which was probably
why you wanted to buy it). Memory timings when system memory is
shared with the integrated graphics processor are far tighter than when a
plugin agp card is used.

I'm running cheap & cheerful 400MHz ram at 333MHz and figured the
underclocking would leave me a healthy timing margin. It does, 24hrs of
memtest86 and 12hrs of Prime95 suggest it's solid, but run anything
graphics intensive, like a movie, and it falls flat on it's face. Symptoms are
typical of interaction between graphics & system accesses, corrupted
stripes in the display, then the inevitable crash as a crucial area of system
mem is corrupted. Ok, I've got cheap memory, but use a plugin agp card
and it's solid as a rock - seems a little unfair.

Asus uk tech support are patient & helpful, but basically they say go &
buy premium memory, which memory you ask, as there is currently no
approved memory list for this board. He suggests I visit my friendly local
retailer and try premium memory brands until I find one that works.

After a long call (friday afternoon) the support guy's resolve falters; he
says:

1. This board was never intended for public sale
2. It was produced at the request of large OEMs to satisfy the need for
simple, fully integrated boxes.
3. It is their most memory fussy board ever.
4. When the pet OEMs ran into memory problems they were asked which
memory they would like to use and the board/bios was tweaked to suit.
5. There is no publicly available list of the memory that this board has been
tweaked to work with.
6. A user tweakable bios is not in the pipeline for this board

I'm not prepared to take the risk of buying more memory without a
guaranteed fix so I'm using the known fix of a plugin agp card. It is now
solid, cheap memory and all.

Thought I'd make life simple this time, pay the premium, buy the big name
and go for integrated graphics, I won't be making that mistake again.

 

[Paul]

A7N8X-VM/400 - it's official, Asus' most memory fussy mobo

Careful when using this mobo with integrated graphics (which was probably
why you wanted to buy it). Memory timings when system memory is
shared with the integrated graphics processor are far tighter than when a
plugin agp card is used.

I'm running cheap & cheerful 400MHz ram at 333MHz and figured the
underclocking would leave me a healthy timing margin. It does, 24hrs of
memtest86 and 12hrs of Prime95 suggest it's solid, but run anything
graphics intensive, like a movie, and it falls flat on it's face. Symptoms are
typical of interaction between graphics & system accesses, corrupted
stripes in the display, then the inevitable crash as a crucial area of system
mem is corrupted. Ok, I've got cheap memory, but use a plugin agp card
and it's solid as a rock - seems a little unfair.

Asus uk tech support are patient & helpful, but basically they say go &
buy premium memory, which memory you ask, as there is currently no
approved memory list for this board. He suggests I visit my friendly local
retailer and try premium memory brands until I find one that works.

After a long call (friday afternoon) the support guy's resolve falters; he
says:

1. This board was never intended for public sale
2. It was produced at the request of large OEMs to satisfy the need for
simple, fully integrated boxes.
3. It is their most memory fussy board ever.
4. When the pet OEMs ran into memory problems they were asked which
memory they would like to use and the board/bios was tweaked to suit.
5. There is no publicly available list of the memory that this board has been
tweaked to work with.
6. A user tweakable bios is not in the pipeline for this board

I'm not prepared to take the risk of buying more memory without a
guaranteed fix so I'm using the known fix of a plugin agp card. It is now
solid, cheap memory and all.

Thought I'd make life simple this time, pay the premium, buy the big name
and go for integrated graphics, I won't be making that mistake again.

Strings I found in the 1001 BIOS. The same strings are in the 1002 BIOS.
I don't see anything to suggest a PC3200 stick is getting special
treatment, just the -6 (PC2700) sticks listed below. Presumably
other sticks are adjusted according to the contents of their
SPD (for better or worse). You can find these with a hex editor -
I couldn't get AMIBCP to accept the ROM files.

NT5DS16M8AT-6 Nanya 128MB PC2700 DDR
NT256D64S8HA0G-6 Nanya 256MB PC2700 DDR
MPMA82D-68KX3-MAA Kingmax PC2700 memory 128MB
MPMA82D-68KX3-MBA
MPMB62D-68KX3-MAA Kingmax PC2700 memory 256MB
HYS64D32300GU-6 Infineon PC2700 memory 256MB
HYS64D64320GU-6 Infineon PC2700 memory 512MB
NT512D64S8HB1G-6 Nanya 512MB PC2700 DDR

I checked a A7N8X/VM 1009 BIOS and it has the same module part
numbers in it, all except the last one.

This page has a memory table at the bottom. Note this is not for
the VM/400 board and does not imply the same memory would be
"special" in any way. I only mention this if you want to
discuss this table with your Asus tech support guy.

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x-vm/overview.htm

Under the circumstances, I think your workaround, an AGP card,
is the right one. Virtually any AGP card will have better
performance than the integrated graphics, and the AGP card
isn't stealing bandwidth from the memory controller, so you'll
get a (very slight) performance boost when doing normal
computing.

As for the rationale for why the board was produced - no OEM
requested this board. Asus just floods the market with every
chipset they can lay their hands on. Chip makers produce reference
motherboard designs, helping to reduce the work that Asus has
to do to bring a board to market. And, if the board or chipset
turns out to be a flop, Asus tries to sell them anyway. In
cases where a design is prematurely withdrawn from the market
(P4S8X), you won't get a swap for another model, to replace
whatever isn't working properly. So, I don't think there
is any "high minded" intent with respect to what boards they
produce.

(For the less than stellar boards, most home users will tire
of returning the boards under warranty and either crush the
board with a hammer or throw it in a dusty corner of the room.
And, the more unscrupulous home users will Ebay the board to
the unsuspecting noob.)

HTH,
Paul

 

[Callas]

A7N8X-VM/400 - it's official, Asus' most memory fussy mobo

Careful when using this mobo with integrated graphics (which was probably
why you wanted to buy it). Memory timings when system memory is
shared with the integrated graphics processor are far tighter than when a
plugin agp card is used.

I'm running cheap & cheerful 400MHz ram at 333MHz and figured the
underclocking would leave me a healthy timing margin. It does, 24hrs of
memtest86 and 12hrs of Prime95 suggest it's solid, but run anything
graphics intensive, like a movie, and it falls flat on it's face. Symptoms are
typical of interaction between graphics & system accesses, corrupted
stripes in the display, then the inevitable crash as a crucial area of system
mem is corrupted.

I have the same problem.

I very recently bought the parts to build a budget PC for a friend. I
am using the integrated graphics card on the motherboard.

I bought two sticks of 256mb 333 MHz Corair Value Select RAM. Using
both or either of these sticks gives memory corruption on the display
and either a lockup or a BSOD after a short time - a few minutes.

I then took a 256mb 200 MHz Crucial Technology stick out from my PC and
tried that; no problems. (However, I've not tried running video; just
installing software.)

I think it unlikely that *both* sticks of Corsair memory are broken. It
may be that this is indeed a motherboard issue. This will be extremely
annoying because I have already built the PC, installed and configured
Windows and application/network/utility software. If this is a
motherboard issue, ASUS' reputation with me will have taken a serious
knock - I used to think they were reliable and I bought their boards,
accepting their ASUS' generally higher prices, because of this.

Anyways, I will return the RAM and try replacements. If they also fail,
then I will be confident the RAM is not at fault. Then it will be a
case of returning the motherboard and buying an alternative.

 

[Andrew J]

1. This board was never intended for public sale
2. It was produced at the request of large OEMs to satisfy the need for
simple, fully integrated boxes.
3. It is their most memory fussy board ever.
4. When the pet OEMs ran into memory problems they were asked which
memory they would like to use and the board/bios was tweaked to suit.
5. There is no publicly available list of the memory that this board has been
tweaked to work with.
6. A user tweakable bios is not in the pipeline for this board

I'm not prepared to take the risk of buying more memory without a
guaranteed fix so I'm using the known fix of a plugin agp card. It is now
solid, cheap memory and all.

Thought I'd make life simple this time, pay the premium, buy the big name
and go for integrated graphics, I won't be making that mistake again.

I never dreamed ASUS would release a board with a BIOS that did
nothing. For $20 less the Biostar M7NCG 400 does everything. I am able
to run Gold Dragon RAM on the A7N8X-VM400 but with no overclocking
abilities the board is useless to me.

 

[Giuseppe Carmine De Blasio]

won't be making that mistake again.
Get an Abit mobo. They rock!

 

[fred]

Strings I found in the 1001 BIOS. The same strings are in the 1002 BIOS.
I don't see anything to suggest a PC3200 stick is getting special
treatment, just the -6 (PC2700) sticks listed below. Presumably
other sticks are adjusted according to the contents of their
SPD (for better or worse). You can find these with a hex editor -
I couldn't get AMIBCP to accept the ROM files.

NT5DS16M8AT-6 Nanya 128MB PC2700 DDR
NT256D64S8HA0G-6 Nanya 256MB PC2700 DDR
MPMA82D-68KX3-MAA Kingmax PC2700 memory 128MB
MPMA82D-68KX3-MBA
MPMB62D-68KX3-MAA Kingmax PC2700 memory 256MB
HYS64D32300GU-6 Infineon PC2700 memory 256MB
HYS64D64320GU-6 Infineon PC2700 memory 512MB
NT512D64S8HB1G-6 Nanya 512MB PC2700 DDR

I checked a A7N8X/VM 1009 BIOS and it has the same module part
numbers in it, all except the last one.

This page has a memory table at the bottom. Note this is not for
the VM/400 board and does not imply the same memory would be
"special" in any way. I only mention this if you want to
discuss this table with your Asus tech support guy.

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x-vm/overview.htm

Under the circumstances, I think your workaround, an AGP card,
is the right one. Virtually any AGP card will have better
performance than the integrated graphics, and the AGP card
isn't stealing bandwidth from the memory controller, so you'll
get a (very slight) performance boost when doing normal
computing.

As for the rationale for why the board was produced - no OEM
requested this board. Asus just floods the market with every
chipset they can lay their hands on. Chip makers produce reference
motherboard designs, helping to reduce the work that Asus has
to do to bring a board to market. And, if the board or chipset
turns out to be a flop, Asus tries to sell them anyway. In
cases where a design is prematurely withdrawn from the market
(P4S8X), you won't get a swap for another model, to replace
whatever isn't working properly. So, I don't think there
is any "high minded" intent with respect to what boards they
produce.

(For the less than stellar boards, most home users will tire
of returning the boards under warranty and either crush the
board with a hammer or throw it in a dusty corner of the room.
And, the more unscrupulous home users will Ebay the board to
the unsuspecting noob.)

HTH,
Paul

Thanks for your most insightful comments, they encouraged me to have
another look at the problem but without further success. I'd like to take it
further but it's taking too long for me to work on it without being paid.

Thanks for the introduction to AMIBCP, a shame it won't accept the files.
Word of warning to aspiring downloaders of this prog, the crazyape page
on stormforce claiming to be the repository of AMIBCP has malware in the
link to v7.51.03 which tries to install a premium dialler if it is accessed with
javascript/activeX enabled. When accessed without these enabled, the true
prog is downloaded so I doubt the user was aware of the malware (popup
ad?), but I have raised a complaint anyway.

Well spotted on the string search. I had seen the recommended memory
on the VM variant, but just wasn't prepared to pay the premium price for
what was not a performance critical application, thinking I would detune in
the bios if necessary - oops. My thoughts are much as this guy's, a
system builder with similar problems:
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?s=d14d45fbfc26ad5abcc
675c4bbae45e1&threadid=67997

The video card was an easy fix for me (Generic GeForce4MX 440 8xAGP)
and at 31GBP I didn't squeal too much at the extra expense - certainly
cheaper than a couple of sticks of premium 256M at today's prices.

Next time I will dig a bit deeper before committing, more haste, less
speed.

Ta,

 

[fred]

I have the same problem.

I very recently bought the parts to build a budget PC for a friend. I
am using the integrated graphics card on the motherboard.

I bought two sticks of 256mb 333 MHz Corair Value Select RAM. Using
both or either of these sticks gives memory corruption on the display
and either a lockup or a BSOD after a short time - a few minutes.

I then took a 256mb 200 MHz Crucial Technology stick out from my PC and
tried that; no problems. (However, I've not tried running video; just
installing software.)

I think it unlikely that *both* sticks of Corsair memory are broken. It
may be that this is indeed a motherboard issue. This will be extremely
annoying because I have already built the PC, installed and configured
Windows and application/network/utility software. If this is a
motherboard issue, ASUS' reputation with me will have taken a serious
knock - I used to think they were reliable and I bought their boards,
accepting their ASUS' generally higher prices, because of this.

Anyways, I will return the RAM and try replacements. If they also fail,
then I will be confident the RAM is not at fault. Then it will be a
case of returning the motherboard and buying an alternative.

Sorry to hear you have the same problem, but relieved that I am not having
finger trouble. This guy is a system builder and has still had major probs:
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?s=d14d45fbfc26ad5abcc
675c4bbae45e1&threadid=67997

You may wish to copy my quick fix of the video card as mine cost only
31GBP - it won't take long in time expended to pay for that. I used a
generic GeForce4MX 440 8xAGP which I think uses the same engine as
the onboard video. I hated to make the onboard video redundant but now
that I have it working, those qualms are completely forgotten. Just to be
sure though, my system was rock steady with video acceleration turned
off, memtest86 clean for 12hrs & prime95 crash free for about the same. I
wouldn't rely on this fix otherwise.

HTH

 

[fred]

Get an Abit mobo. They rock!

Sadly my hindsight goggles were broken in a recent accident ;-/

 

[Stephen SM WONG]

So, how do you run your 400MHz RAM at 333MHz? I'm curios.
There's almost nothing one can tweak in the BIOS, in terms
of timing.

I can't agree more the board is fussy. Mine is an older
version A7N8X-VM, and I'm consider to buy a replacement main
board, say a Gigabyte or something. Anyway, I'd owned more
than 10 Asus main boards, A7N8X-VM is the only one make me
disappointed, I was thinking that it was a bad sample. But
it does give me quite some headache.

My 2 cents.

Stephen Wong @ Hong Kong

 

[zzipper]

A friend of mine bought one of these as well, his fix was if you use the
onboard graphics use only one stick of ram. Dual channel only seems to work
if you install an AGP card. He had no problems at all with it once he was
using a single stick.

 

[fred]

So, how do you run your 400MHz RAM at 333MHz? I'm curios.
There's almost nothing one can tweak in the BIOS, in terms
of timing.

I can't agree more the board is fussy. Mine is an older
version A7N8X-VM, and I'm consider to buy a replacement main
board, say a Gigabyte or something. Anyway, I'd owned more
than 10 Asus main boards, A7N8X-VM is the only one make me
disappointed, I was thinking that it was a bad sample. But
it does give me quite some headache.

My 2 cents.

Stephen Wong @ Hong Kong

Hi Stephen,

VM/400 only supports 333MHz mem max so it defaults to 333 even when
you put in 400MHz memory. I'm thankful for that small bit of sense in the
bios rather than some 'not supported' beep message. I think your VM (not
/400) did support PC3200 at the full 400MHz, albeit a limited range of
qualified memory.

This is my first Asus & probably my last. If I need to iron out problems with
little support from the mfr, I'd prefer not to pay a premium for the privilege.
I'll take my chances on the cheapies in future.

If I do any further playing with this board it may be by reprogramming the
profile of the EEPROM on the memory sticks - as a round about way
fooling the bios into making timing changes. Don't ask me how yet, it's just
an idea ;-)

 

[fred]

A friend of mine bought one of these as well, his fix was if you use the
onboard graphics use only one stick of ram. Dual channel only seems to work
if you install an AGP card. He had no problems at all with it once he was
using a single stick.

Made no difference to my setup, memtest86 was error free with the two
256M sticks for a good 12hrs and prime95 stable for about the same with
onboard graphics but with acceleration turned off . There appear to be no
hard & fast rules, other than that the memory is right on the edge on this
one.

 

[Callas]

A friend of mine bought one of these as well, his fix was if you use the
onboard graphics use only one stick of ram. Dual channel only seems to work
if you install an AGP card. He had no problems at all with it once he was
using a single stick.

This didn't work for me. One stick, Corsair Value Select 256mb 333MHz,
failed in exactly the same way as with two sticks.

 

[petersj]

I have a problem with this board which may be unrelated, but then
again...

I am using two sticks of Kingston 256Mb value ram and an Athlon XP2200+.
When the computer is first started-up the cpu temperature as reported by
the BIOS fluctuates wildly, like: 23C, 45C, 44C, 97C, 2C, 26C, 42C, 50C,
109C (these are examples of the reported temps in Celcius once a
second). Of course the ASUS C.O.P. protection cuts-in and turns off the
system. Obviously these temperatures are not what's really happening
with the CPU - there's no way it can fluctuate that rapidly.
And yes, I've re-seated the heatsink with new thermal compound, used
bigger fans on the heatsink, etc, etc.
Using a single stick of ram instead of two gave no improvement.
If the computer manages to run a few minutes without the C.O.P.
switching it off, the cpu temperature reporting in the BIOS stabilises
at around 45C. This indicates to me that something on the motherboard,
ram or CPU is stabilizing and that it is an elctronic problem rather
than thermal.

Any clues as to what's going on please?

 

[fred]

I have a problem with this board which may be unrelated, but then
again...

I am using two sticks of Kingston 256Mb value ram and an Athlon XP2200+.
When the computer is first started-up the cpu temperature as reported by
the BIOS fluctuates wildly, like: 23C, 45C, 44C, 97C, 2C, 26C, 42C, 50C,
109C (these are examples of the reported temps in Celcius once a
second). Of course the ASUS C.O.P. protection cuts-in and turns off the
system. Obviously these temperatures are not what's really happening
with the CPU - there's no way it can fluctuate that rapidly.
And yes, I've re-seated the heatsink with new thermal compound, used
bigger fans on the heatsink, etc, etc.
Using a single stick of ram instead of two gave no improvement.
If the computer manages to run a few minutes without the C.O.P.
switching it off, the cpu temperature reporting in the BIOS stabilises
at around 45C. This indicates to me that something on the motherboard,
ram or CPU is stabilizing and that it is an elctronic problem rather
than thermal.

Any clues as to what's going on please?

First of all, this is not my area of expertise, but here is my best shot:

The rapid fluctuations in reading suggest that this is not a problem with
your heatsink (or memory), but a fault in the CPU temp sensor or in the
mobo monitoring chip/connections. I don't think there is anything more you
can do other than RMA the board/cpu. Try the CPU in another board or
another CPU in the mobo to narrow down the fault.

You may get more help by stating a new specific thread or by doing a
google groups. My quick search suggests that all modern Asus/AMD
boards use the same 'COP' mechanism, so there should be plenty of info
out there.

HTH

 

[Peter]

Careful when using this mobo with integrated graphics (which was probably
why you wanted to buy it). Memory timings when system memory is
shared with the integrated graphics processor are far tighter than when a
plugin agp card is used.

I'm running cheap & cheerful 400MHz ram at 333MHz and figured the
underclocking would leave me a healthy timing margin. It does, 24hrs of
memtest86 and 12hrs of Prime95 suggest it's solid, but run anything
graphics intensive, like a movie, and it falls flat on it's face. Symptoms are
typical of interaction between graphics & system accesses, corrupted
stripes in the display, then the inevitable crash as a crucial area of system
mem is corrupted. Ok, I've got cheap memory, but use a plugin agp card
and it's solid as a rock - seems a little unfair.

Asus uk tech support are patient & helpful, but basically they say go &
buy premium memory, which memory you ask, as there is currently no
approved memory list for this board. He suggests I visit my friendly local
retailer and try premium memory brands until I find one that works.

After a long call (friday afternoon) the support guy's resolve falters; he
says:

1. This board was never intended for public sale
2. It was produced at the request of large OEMs to satisfy the need for
simple, fully integrated boxes.
3. It is their most memory fussy board ever.
4. When the pet OEMs ran into memory problems they were asked which
memory they would like to use and the board/bios was tweaked to suit.
5. There is no publicly available list of the memory that this board has been
tweaked to work with.
6. A user tweakable bios is not in the pipeline for this board

I'm not prepared to take the risk of buying more memory without a
guaranteed fix so I'm using the known fix of a plugin agp card. It is now
solid, cheap memory and all.

Thought I'd make life simple this time, pay the premium, buy the big name
and go for integrated graphics, I won't be making that mistake again.

I'm just trying to put a system together with one of these boards too.
I have formatted the hard drive and get halfway through Windows XP Pro
installation, and the system just reboots, then the message "setup is
restarting" appears and it's back to "39 mins to go".
Thiis is the first thread I have looked at regarding this board, so will it
be the cheap and cheerful memory that's causing this as well? (I
deliberately bought 333 and not 400 because I read that the onboard graphics
preferred 333).

Peter

 

[fred]

I'm just trying to put a system together with one of these boards too.
I have formatted the hard drive and get halfway through Windows XP Pro
installation, and the system just reboots, then the message "setup is
restarting" appears and it's back to "39 mins to go".
Thiis is the first thread I have looked at regarding this board, so will it
be the cheap and cheerful memory that's causing this as well? (I
deliberately bought 333 and not 400 because I read that the onboard graphics
preferred 333).

Peter

This forum entry is a fair summary of the current situation with this board:
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?s=d14d45fbfc26ad5abcc
675c4bbae45e1&threadid=67997

Perhaps try a run of memtest86 overnight to see if you have any chance of
making it work. If it doesn't run clean then that would be a good excuse to
rma the whole lot and start again with another mobo - hopefully you bought
all the bits from the same retailer.

 

[Peter]

This forum entry is a fair summary of the current situation with this board:
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?s=d14d45fbfc26ad5abcc
675c4bbae45e1&threadid=67997

Perhaps try a run of memtest86 overnight to see if you have any chance of
making it work. If it doesn't run clean then that would be a good excuse to
rma the whole lot and start again with another mobo - hopefully you bought
all the bits from the same retailer.

Thanks for that Fred. In the end I returned the generic memory and bought
"Crucial" instead. Needless to say it is now running flawlessly.
Thanks for your reply.

Peter