A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard problem

[Nocturnal]

Ok I have a really weird problem. I currently have:



ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe

AMD 64 3200+ Winchester

512MBx2 Crucial Ballistix DDR SDRAM PC3200

Western Digital 74GB Raptor

Maxtor Maxline 10 300GB hard drive

Antec P160 case

Antec 550W True Power PSU

eVGA 6800GT



***SYSTEM IS NOT OVERCLOCKED***



Ok, anytime I even touch any little setting such as remove a hard drive or
plug in my usb ports to my motherboard, the computer stops responding and I
have to reseat the ram or change them around until it finally boots.



I thought it was the bios so I updated it to the newest which is like the 10
bios or whatever.



Also, is it normal for one dimm to get hotter than the other? The only way
I can get my computer to boot into Windows now is if I put one stick of
memory in and only one stick. Also it can't be in the memory slots where
the dual channel is activated (blue memory slots).



What could be causing these problems?



Again, one memory dimm is getting hotter than the other.



I've tried two sets of memory so far and the same thing occurs. I want my
system to be able to add and remove hardware without having to go through
reseating the ram each and every time. Any and all advice is greatly
appreciated.

 

[Paul]

Ok I have a really weird problem. I currently have:

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD 64 3200+ Winchester
512MBx2 Crucial Ballistix DDR SDRAM PC3200
Western Digital 74GB Raptor
Maxtor Maxline 10 300GB hard drive
Antec P160 case
Antec 550W True Power PSU
eVGA 6800GT

***SYSTEM IS NOT OVERCLOCKED***

Ok, anytime I even touch any little setting such as remove a hard drive or
plug in my usb ports to my motherboard, the computer stops responding and I
have to reseat the ram or change them around until it finally boots.

I thought it was the bios so I updated it to the newest which is like the 10
bios or whatever.

Also, is it normal for one dimm to get hotter than the other? The only way
I can get my computer to boot into Windows now is if I put one stick of
memory in and only one stick. Also it can't be in the memory slots where
the dual channel is activated (blue memory slots).

What could be causing these problems?

Again, one memory dimm is getting hotter than the other.

I've tried two sets of memory so far and the same thing occurs. I want my
system to be able to add and remove hardware without having to go through
reseating the ram each and every time. Any and all advice is greatly
appreciated.

Perhaps you can provide a little clarification. The hard drive
change was made with all power off (computer unplugged) ? Or are you
hot-swapping SATA drives ? Is this a "refusal to POST" after
changing hardware with the power off ?

One thing I noticed the other day, in looking at pictures of both
versions of the A8N-SLI board, is there are no USBPWxx headers. It is
possible the USB ports are always running off +5VSB, and perhaps when
you hot plug a USB device, that is temporarily upsetting +5VSB ?

Some Asus BIOS have had trouble with boot order, where every time a
drive goes missing or is added, it screws up the boot order, and you
have to go into the BIOS and select the disk you want again. I take it
that is not your problem, and your problem is more fundamental than
that.

As for RAM temperature, if you run two sticks in dual channel mode,
they should have exactly the same temperature. If you run two
sticks in single channel mode (B1 and B2), then one stick will get
hotter than the other. Memory chip temperature is a function of
what kind of operation is being done on a particular clock cycle.
If a DIMM is idle, except for the odd refresh cycle, the memory
runs cool. If you did nothing but back-to-back reads to the memory,
it would get hot-as-hell. With sticks in B1 and B2, it really depends
on whether the OS is loaded in low or high memory, as that would
determine which stick gets "the business". If you have an application
with a large memory footprint (say Prime95 testing all the memory),
you might find the DIMMs getting pretty close to being equally hot.

Memory heating can be enough of a problem, that some Northbridges
actually have DIMM thermal management features. The intention of that
feature was, software could set a threshold as to what percent duty
cycle would get the memory too hot, and then the hardware would
respond by slowing down the number of transactions per second to
the memory. This is an open-loop control method, that doesn't measure
the actual memory temperature, and a smarter approach would have
been to put a thermistor on DIMMs, so the hardware could check for
overheated memory.

From the 875P datasheet - an example of DIMM thermal management...

*****
5.2.7 Memory Thermal Management
The MCH provides a thermal management method that selectively reduces
reads and writes to DRAM when the access rate crosses the allowed
thermal threshold. Read and write thermal management operate
independently, and have their own 64-bit register to control
operation. Memory reads typically causes power dissipation in the
DRAM chips while memory writes typically causes power dissipation
in the MCH.
5.2.7.1 Determining When to Thermal Manage
Thermal management may be enabled by one of two mechanisms:
* Software forcing throttling via the SRT (SWT) bit.
* Counter Mechanism
*****

I just found this one on the Intel site - and you wonder why certain
apps slow down. And the best part is, the throttle function is not
documented in the datasheets. Only that passing reference above,
is what a typical Northbridge datasheet has for information.

http://www.intel.com/technology/itj...t06_interface_materials/p05_system_memory.htm

So, snip out my crap, and explain your symptoms in more detail.

Paul

 

[Nocturnal]

I didn't hot swap the drive. Also, when I attempted to put the two memory
modules into the non-dual channel mode dimm slots the computer froze up
after a short time. It was longer than the time when I had them both in the
dual channel memory dimm slots. I'm going to try and flash my bios back to
an earlier bios to see if this alleviates the problem.

 

[Nocturnal]

Paul,

I just flashed the bios to the newest beta available which is 1012-03 I
believe and so far so good. I got farther into Windows that I've ever been
able to since last night with the memory in the dual channel memory slots.

Any idea what would cause this to occur? Especially with a brand new
finalized bios such as 1011?

Like I said I have a pair of 512x2 Crucial Ballistix memory modules and it
isn't overclocked. I don't even know if they're automatically running on
dual channel memory mode or if I have to assign it to run in dual channel
memory mode.

If you have any other tips or ideas, shoot them my way. I'm about to try
and torture the system to see if it's stable or if it was just a flaw. I'm
hoping the system is stable as the memory modules are fine if I put them in
one by one.

Here's hoping this bios fixed things!

 

[Paul]

Paul,

I just flashed the bios to the newest beta available which is 1012-03 I
believe and so far so good. I got farther into Windows that I've ever been
able to since last night with the memory in the dual channel memory slots.

Any idea what would cause this to occur? Especially with a brand new
finalized bios such as 1011?

Like I said I have a pair of 512x2 Crucial Ballistix memory modules and it
isn't overclocked. I don't even know if they're automatically running on
dual channel memory mode or if I have to assign it to run in dual channel
memory mode.

If you have any other tips or ideas, shoot them my way. I'm about to try
and torture the system to see if it's stable or if it was just a flaw. I'm
hoping the system is stable as the memory modules are fine if I put them in
one by one.

Here's hoping this bios fixed things!

First thing I'd do is get a copy of CPUZ and check the hardware
settings. Verify that everything is running at the proper speed.
You should also have a look at the memory timings, and see if
the BIOS did the right thing when it read the SPD on the
Crucial DIMMs.

There has to be an explanation there somewhere.

Paul

 

[Nocturnal]

Paul,

Just thought I'd update you. Since the last time I wrote the system has
been 100% stable, no quirks or freezes whatsoever. That sucks that the
"final" bios of 1011 didn't even work properly. Oh well. Thanks for the
tips though I truly appreciate them.

 

[Paul]

Paul,

Just thought I'd update you. Since the last time I wrote the system has
been 100% stable, no quirks or freezes whatsoever. That sucks that the
"final" bios of 1011 didn't even work properly. Oh well. Thanks for the
tips though I truly appreciate them.

Not every BIOS is a winner. That's why there are so many of them

Paul

 

[Mark A]

Paul,

Just thought I'd update you. Since the last time I wrote the system has
been 100% stable, no quirks or freezes whatsoever. That sucks that the
"final" bios of 1011 didn't even work properly. Oh well. Thanks for the
tips though I truly appreciate them.

All software/firmware has bugs. The 10 bios versions before 1011 had bugs,
which is why 1011 was released. So it is not reasonable to assume that 1011
is perfect either.

 

[Pete M Williams]

Paul,

Just thought I'd update you. Since the last time I wrote the system has
been 100% stable, no quirks or freezes whatsoever. That sucks that the
"final" bios of 1011 didn't even work properly. Oh well. Thanks for the
tips though I truly appreciate them.

Before you flash again, have a look here:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=364790&page=1
It offers advice on peoples experiences with the different Bios revisions.

Also look here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.aspx?catid=29&entercat=y
There are many ongoing threads about the board.

 

[Bonami]

I didn't hot swap the drive. Also, when I attempted to put
the two memory
modules into the non-dual channel mode dimm slots the computer
froze up
after a short time. It was longer than the time when I had
them both in the
dual channel memory dimm slots. I'm going to try and flash my
bios back to
an earlier bios to see if this alleviates the problem.

I just sent a New ASUS A8n SLI Deluxe back and they’re Replacing the
board because I had the same problem as you,and if you look at your
BIOS Revision number it will most likely be 1008,and that Revision was
bad!!For whattever reason I’m not sure,I just know they didn’t even
Hesitate to Replace it!! They had Problems with that board!! 8) By
the way,my Problems were Identical to yours!!