XP3200+ / A7N8X Deluxe Problems

[Jason]

Hi all!

Just built ny new computer for university, and im having a few problems.
Specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ with SLK800 HS and 35cfm fan @2.19GHz
Asus A7N8X Deluxe PCB2.0 with build 1006 bios
Corsair XMS PC3200 2x512MB TwinX (not LLPT)
HIS Excalibur Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Audigy 2 Platinum ex
Adaptec AHA2940U2W SCSI host adapter
IBM Ultrastar 36Z15 15Kr 18.6GB
Quantum Atlas 10K III 73GB
Plextor Plexwiter Premium

I set everything up, and installed a fresh copy of XP Professional, and then
downloaded and installed all the latest drivers for my hardware. There were
no major teething problems initially, but as i begun to install software and
try to use the computer I noticed some very strange things happening:
1) CRC errors on disk reads. Both the hard drives and the SCSI controller
have been used in my old system as the OS and extra hard drives with no
problems at all. The errors happen randomly, along with file corruption
notices. However, if you retry the operation then sometimes it works. Wierd.
2) Very slow installs. When I try to install some games, such as SOF2, the
install process is incredibly slow. HDD activity is low, the CD light is on
continuously, and the install goes at a snails pace. The load on the cpu is
about 2%, and the ram / pagefile are 850mb free and 12mb used. It's as if
the CD is running at 1x just to spite me - the noise from it is certainly
not very much.
3) Slowdowns like you used to get in win98 when the system runs out of ram
and gets locked in pagefile reads/writes. It happens ocasionally and
completely randomly.
I get plenty of general glitches too, like services not starting, errors in
programs etc... wierd stuff.

Any ideas?

Jason

 

[Doughnut]

So the A7N8X is the version 2 and officially supports 200fsb cpu's? Just
asking cos my mates A7N8X Deluxe is the nforce 2 chipset and not the Ultra
400 which does support the 200fsb cpu's.

doughnut

 

[me]

So the A7N8X is the version 2 and officially supports 200fsb cpu's? Just
asking cos my mates A7N8X Deluxe is the nforce 2 chipset and not the
Ultra 400 which does support the 200fsb cpu's.

doughnut

I am using an XP 3200+ 400 fsb CPU with my A7N8X-DLX and it works perfect.
The non-deluxe model also supports 400 fsb CPU.

 

[Artur Butryn]

I had similar problem. My registry file was getting corrupted and once a
week I had to restore the system from backup. Also copying large files and
than comparing them showed that there were differences, usually it was just
one or two bytes in 700Mb file. I exchanged MB, CPU and even the PS but
problem was bad memory module! I replaced it an now it works just fine 4
weeks already.

Artur

1) CRC errors on disk reads. Both the hard drives and the SCSI controller
have been used in my old system as the OS and extra hard drives with no
problems at all. The errors happen randomly, along with file corruption
notices. However, if you retry the operation then sometimes it works.

Wierd.

 

[i'm_tired]

So the A7N8X is the version 2 and officially supports 200fsb cpu's?
Just asking cos my mates A7N8X Deluxe is the nforce 2 chipset and not
the Ultra 400 which does support the 200fsb cpu's.

Even the Rev 1.4 now supports 200 mhz FSB (and higher) now. It happened two
or three BIOS revisions ago for Asus, anyway.

 

[Jason]

Interesting what you say about bad memory... I adjusted the latencies in the
bios to the ones on the manufacturers spreadsheet and it made only a very
little difference. I have no other PC3200 RAM that I can try the computer
with... do you think i should exchange the ram for some new sticks?

Jason

 

[Akvatoid]

you can get my revision 1.04 up to 230mhz

 

[JCM]

If you are using any form of cooling software that invokes the primary
cooling bit for the A7N8X-Deluxe, you will likely experience disk
corruption.

Jeff M.

 

[AJ]

The option is in the BIOS he just has to dig a little.

Even the Rev 1.4 now supports 200 mhz FSB (and higher) now. It happened two
or three BIOS revisions ago for Asus, anyway.

I have the 2.0 DLX, BIOS 1003. I'm running a 2500+ at 400FSB giving me
a 3200+. Win98SE runs rock solid 24/7 and never gets above 44C.

 

[foamy]

I have the 2.0 DLX, BIOS 1003. I'm running a 2500+ at 400FSB giving me
a 3200+. Win98SE runs rock solid 24/7 and never gets above 44C.

When you start up does it say " memory frequency is @ 200 mhz
in dual channel mode " ?

I've been trying to get mine to run @ 400 but I'm so clueless about the
bios settings, and I've heard mention of this gets doubled and that.....
I'm baffled.

Does anyone have a site which walks you through the bios, explaining
and suggesting settings ? The manual is useless to me.

Jim

 

[AJ]

When you start up does it say " memory frequency is @ 200 mhz
in dual channel mode " ?

I never saw that. Lock the RAM to 100% in the Bios for stability. One
stick must be in the first and one in the third slot get dual mode
with two sticks. Since my Sandra memory scores are over 3000 I know
mine is running dual mode. Otherwise you'll be lucky to hit 2700.

 

[foamy]

I never saw that. Lock the RAM to 100% in the Bios for stability. One
stick must be in the first and one in the third slot get dual mode
with two sticks. Since my Sandra memory scores are over 3000 I know
mine is running dual mode. Otherwise you'll be lucky to hit 2700.

Can you tell me what that setting is labeled in the bios ?

Is it the FSB frequency ratio where you get the option to
set it to .5, 1.0 etc ? [ none of which are 100% ].

Does 0.5 and 1.0 mean 1:2 and 1:1 ? Mine is currently set to 0.5.

Thanks

Jim

 

[AJ]

I never saw that. Lock the RAM to 100% in the Bios for stability. One
stick must be in the first and one in the third slot get dual mode
with two sticks. Since my Sandra memory scores are over 3000 I know
mine is running dual mode. Otherwise you'll be lucky to hit 2700.

Can you tell me what that setting is labeled in the bios ?

Is it the FSB frequency ratio where you get the option to
set it to .5, 1.0 etc ? [ none of which are 100% ].

Does 0.5 and 1.0 mean 1:2 and 1:1 ? Mine is currently set to 0.5.

Not those. I don't know about them. Mine are at .5.
Advanced Chipset Features- System Performance- User Define- Memory
Frequency- 100%.

That Locks the CPU FSB in sync with the RAM. Even if you run stable
without them locked, performance can be awful with them out of sync.
My system would not run right until I made that change. At post mine
shows "Memory 200FSB".

 

[Ed]

I never saw that. Lock the RAM to 100% in the Bios for stability. One
stick must be in the first and one in the third slot get dual mode
with two sticks. Since my Sandra memory scores are over 3000 I know
mine is running dual mode. Otherwise you'll be lucky to hit 2700.

Can you tell me what that setting is labeled in the bios ?

Is it the FSB frequency ratio where you get the option to
set it to .5, 1.0 etc ? [ none of which are 100% ].

Does 0.5 and 1.0 mean 1:2 and 1:1 ? Mine is currently set to 0.5.

Not those. I don't know about them. Mine are at .5.
Advanced Chipset Features- System Performance- User Define- Memory
Frequency- 100%.

That Locks the CPU FSB in sync with the RAM. Even if you run stable
without them locked, performance can be awful with them out of sync.
My system would not run right until I made that change. At post mine
shows "Memory 200FSB".

ADVANCED CHIPSET FEATURES
=========================
CPU External Freq. MHz [200]
CPU Frequency Multiple Setting [Menu]
CPU Frequency Multiple [11.5x]
System Performance [User Defined]
CPU Interface [Agressive]
Memory Frequency [100%] <<< that one?

 

[AJ]

ADVANCED CHIPSET FEATURES
=========================
CPU External Freq. MHz [200]
CPU Frequency Multiple Setting [Menu]
CPU Frequency Multiple [11.5x]
System Performance [User Defined]
CPU Interface [Agressive]
Memory Frequency [100%] <<< that one?

Yes.

 

[Caroline]

If you are using any form of cooling software that invokes the primary
cooling bit for the A7N8X-Deluxe, you will likely experience disk
corruption.

Jeff M.

Sorry, could you elaborate on this a bit?

TIA

Caroline

Caroline Picking, (e-mail address removed)
Milton Keynes, England.

 

[R_Supp]

Always check out the RAM if data isn`t being copied faithfully to the hard
drive. It sometimes is that the RAM is not compatable with the mobo and of
course it is sometimes a dodgy stick of RAM.

If you are using any form of cooling software that invokes the primary
cooling bit for the A7N8X-Deluxe, you will likely experience disk
corruption.

Jeff M.

Sorry, could you elaborate on this a bit?

TIA

Caroline

Caroline Picking, (e-mail address removed)
Milton Keynes, England.

 

[wedge]

It's may be too late for this to be of use to you, but I just finished
building a new A7N8X DELUXE system. I experienced the EXACT symptoms you
describe here, although I used IDE instead of SCSI drives:

- Check your primary device jumper configuration. Mine is a single WD
120GB, which I had jumpered to the master position. The system
immediately bogged down as if "just to spite me", and software installs
crept s-l-o-w-l-y along and seemingly hung the system. Removing this
jumper restored system performance during boots, s/w installs, etc. In
general the thinking is, if the device can be ID'd as the master without
a jumper, the system seems to like that. Please note tho - jumperless
headers may only work in a single device configuration.

- Did you use the UDMA 80 conductor cable, or the corresponding
appropriate quality SCSI cable?

- Did you have any problems or confusion installing the nVidia drivers?
I did because my board was a refurbished one ($59 at newegg.com --
sweet!!). Since refurbs don't come with anything but a bare board,
finding all of the correct drivers was difficult at first as I had
trouble locating ASUS's DELUXE support page (I landed at their A7N8X
page initially). As a result of my initial error slogging, I believe I
eventually installed a driver that stepped on some of my earlier (and
correctly installed) drivers. This is the point where the system locked
up during an upgrade to Internet Explorer v6 (a definite no-no).

After that it was just plain ugly. BSOD's a plenty. Horribly disfigured
menu bars, failed CD read attempts, etc...

A complete repartitioning, OS install, and clean driver install went
beautifully. I usually consider the first new system build attempt to be
a major 'learning experience', and I take notes every step along the
way. Maybe I've just been lucky, but none of the problems I've
experienced on the dozens of system build projects I've completed were
ever caused by faulty RAM. The closest I've come to RAM issues were
sticks that needed to be reinserted firmly, or maybe in a different
combination. I find that I have usually been the cause of all of my
problems...

~8^)