Asus A8N32-SLI initial impression....WOW!

[CrashOv3r1De]

Guys my room ambient is 30C and the chipset temp is around 47C. Will there be any problems getting watercooling for chipset this is too damn hot. I am considering getting the wc for my xfx 7800gtx 512 as well. i got a modded ls comming in during next week i hope, if not the week after and this is about 15-20C colder than a norm vapo.

Any suggestions for me. case is pc65b cant really fit custom wc in this, got 2x74gb raptors and a floppy and a bunch of cables which are in my ide drive rack. i think i need koolance exos or some crap

[lowdog]

Dude, where do you live and can't you open the window? To have your MB still be only 32° your case must be a wind tunnel!

Sydney Australia and it summer atm and it's hot!

MB was 32C this morning and it's now 38C. No my case isn't a wind tunnel, I just have a small desktop fan blowing onto the mobo with the side off the case.......it's summer.

[thinkingbear]

No my case isn't a wind tunnel, I just have a small desktop fan blowing onto the mobo with the side off the case.......it's summer.

LOL, I have to do the same thing when it is summer here because my home "office" is upstairs and catches the setting sun on two walls. Plus having 4 computers running Einstein@Home 24/7 adds bit o' heat. With the rest of the house kept about 23° C by the AC it easily gets over 27° C in here in summertime with the AC on. So yeah, side off, fan on m8!

[Marios]

I saw a previous post of mine to check my temps and I had 29/39 degrees Celsius under load and overclocked.
Ambient room temp was 22 degrees.
1.36 vcore.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=770

This was with a totally open case, with no extra fans at all.
CPU fan was a panaflo on an XP120 working at full speed (and noisy).

Now, with w/c CPU, I have 33/37 degrees C idle temp (usual Internet activity) and 33/42 under stress.
1.50 vcore.
249Χ11=2740 MHz, PCMark05 6538.



The case (see my sig) is closed and my PC is working 24/7.
Four 120 mm case fans run at 1200 rpm and the special ASUS fan for cooling the chipset in installed (because of w/c).
I did remove the heatsink from the mosfets north to the CPU, to replace the stock paste with Arctic silver.
The pins were not glued in my case and I removed them easily.
I saw something really strange there.
The paste was a piece of textile glued on the aluminium heatsink.
It was very hard to remove all the glue from the heatsink.
I was a bit afraid to replace the textile.
I thought it might work as an electrical insulator.
Any way, I have no problems at all with Arctic silver.

This is my mobo here (click for a full size pic).



The full load temps are not the actual full load temps, since the screen shots were taken a few seconds after the end of the benchmarks .

[Cisco]

under the Memory Configuration settings in the BIOS there is an option called "Hardware Memory Hole"...set that to Disabled

I knew where that setting was...at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Problem is, it won't do any good unless you're running a 64-bit operating system.

But hey...wtf do I know? Here's a company with more credibility than a cat with a melon on its head and their PDF explaining it all:

http://techfiles.de/dmelanchthon/pre...emory_hole.pdf

[lowdog]

I knew where that setting was...at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Problem is, it won't do any good unless you're running a 64-bit operating system.

But hey...wtf do I know? Here's a company with more credibility than a cat with a melon on its head and their PDF explaining it all:

http://techfiles.de/dmelanchthon/pre...emory_hole.pdf

That PDF says that a memory hole may be a thing of the past soon and it was written in May 04..........looks like the hole still exists and is going strong.

[stone_cold_Jimi]

I did remove the heatsink from the mosfets north to the CPU, to replace the stock paste with Arctic silver.
The pins were not glued in my case and I removed them easily.
I saw something really strange there.
The paste was a piece of textile glued on the aluminium heatsink.
It was very hard to remove all the glue from the heatsink.
I was a bit afraid to replace the textile.
I thought it might work as an electrical insulator.
Any way, I have no problems at all with Arctic silver.

Marios, exactly the same here - it was like a strip of fabric tape with phase-change pad on it. Like you, I replaced it with AS5.

[CrashOv3r1De]

Can someone please answer if it is possible to watercool the motherbord chipset on the a8n32-sli dlx. I heard somewhere that it is very difficult on this mb. Let me know.

[Jailer]

Can someone please answer if it is possible to watercool the motherbord chipset on the a8n32-sli dlx. I heard somewhere that it is very difficult on this mb. Let me know.

It is very difficult due to the CPU and northbridge proximity. I was going to install active cooling (crystal orb x 2)to the northbridge and southbridge because of my Lian-Li v2000 and it doesn't fit with a waterblock. My maze 4 makes contact with the northbridge cooler. Plus there is a cap very close to the northbridge that limits space also. Also the spacing between the attachment pins is rather tight. I ended up putting the stock heatpipe back on and placed 2 80mm fans blowing on the northbridge and soutbridge as well as the small asus mofset cooler to bring temps back in line. They got very hot under load without and air blowing on them.

Long story short, aside from a small custom made chipset block you'll have to find something very small to cool the northbridge.

[CrashOv3r1De]

That sux. Best bet would be to get my vapo installed on cpu asap and then i can use the optional fan that came with the mb and put it on the heatpipe cant do it now or else it will disrupt cpu hsf airflow

[CrashOv3r1De]

I think this can work

http://www.frozencpu.com/ex-blc-208.html

Will that go for the SB and NB or just NB or what

[Cisco]

That PDF says that a memory hole may be a thing of the past soon and it was written in May 04..........looks like the hole still exists and is going strong.

Yup...and it'll keep going strong until we all transition to 64-bit OS's. Once that happens the BIOS won't have to play it safe any longer by assigning memory addresses below the 4GB boundary for graphics cards, SATA RAID, network cards, and so on.

If you're running XP 32-bit and the BIOS has settings that allow you to move all the hardware addresses above the 4GB boundary so there's no conflct with physical RAM and the OS uses a hack like the /PAE switch... well, then you run into this:

PAE availability doesn’t eliminate 4 GB limitation. On the contrary, it raises other 32-bit problems. The largest is that all software must explicitly program for and use the PAE extensions. This will affect applications, operating systems, hardware device drivers and hardware itself. Software is still running in 32-bit mode, not 36/40 bit mode and registers and native data types are still 32 bits.

And this...

The next thought might be: Doesn’t a 64-bit CPU with 64-bits of address space solve this? Well, unfortunately, the answer is no. Despite that Opteron™ can address up to 1TB of memory and can run in 64-bit mode, it doesn’t solve the problem since the BIOS does not know which Operating System the machine will boot and must map all devices below 4GB for compatibility reasons.
As long as the BIOS must support 32-bit Operating Systems, the missing memory will still be an issue.

Almost makes you want to run XP-64, doesn't it? Well not quite for me yet...64-bit drivers are still a problem for a lot of HW and only one "real game" so far--HL2 (and only a few days ago at that) has an XP-64-native version.

Our HW is just getting ahead of the OS and apps at the moment. Only when a 64-bit OS becomes the standard that everything--HW & apps--must run on (August 1, 2006 is the latest rumoured date for that to happen) will all this transitional crap go away. Even then, you'll still probably see some legacy stuff that won't like addressing HW above the 4GB boundary.

[Jailer]

I think this can work

http://www.frozencpu.com/ex-blc-208.html

Will that go for the SB and NB or just NB or what

I would get the dimentions of it first before purchasing. You really won't be able to go with anything that has a bigger footprint than the stock block that is on the northbridge.

[safan80]

I think this can work

http://www.frozencpu.com/ex-blc-208.html

Will that go for the SB and NB or just NB or what

it was designed to work with the a8n-sli series of motherboard if the chipsets are the same size I wouldn't see why not.

[oqvist]

Hi guys. After reading two many issues with the Expert it looks like I am ready to take on this one maybe.

If it´s available somewhere???

But how many PCI slots can you use? I am probably getting silencers on both my 7800 GT cards. I need minimum 1 slot free preferrable two? Maybe I can squeeze one in the middle of the SLI cards?

Also do you think there will be any problems fitting an Vappo evaporator head on it (A64 for XE)...

As for power connectors I should be able to use my 510 deluxe right even not the SLI version... But for testing purposes since it doesn´t have the 8-pin connector right? Just one standard 4 pin or do I need two 4 pin apart from the 24-pin?

And is there much issues with this? Is it a better overclocker than the old version?

[Ditchy]

It's a Windows 32-bit thing...you won't get that with XP 64-bit or Vista. It has to do with the video ram occupying, the same address space as the MB ram.

With 4GB of ram installed and 2X 7800 256's Windows will only report 2.75 GB...in your case it would report 2.25GB.

But yours is the first case I've seen of the video RAM eating into space below 2GB. Didn't think that could happen.

Look in the ASUS site under the A8N32 FAQ...it's the first item.

Just out of curiosity, add the /3GB switch to your boot.ini...Widows addresses 4GB of virtual ram...by default it keeps 2GB to itself and releases 2GB for use. The /3GB switch changes that so it will release up to 3GB. Just curious if that will force it to manage the RAM differently and give you back your 2GB.

Microsoft KB article about /3GB

First off, hello all!,

This does not seem to be anything to do with the OS at all. I have exactly the same problem, 2gig ram with 2 512mb gfx cards. the *BIOS* (not the os) reports only 1264MB ram available. The OS then simply mirrors what the BIOS is telling it. I have win64 installed as well as win32 and it makes no diff. You could have any OS or even no OS at all and would still see the same problem. It defo seems to be a BIOS issue, a really wierd one at that.

Paul.

[Cisco]

First off, hello all!,

This does not seem to be anything to do with the OS at all. I have exactly the same problem, 2gig ram with 2 512mb gfx cards. the *BIOS* (not the os) reports only 1264MB ram available. The OS then simply mirrors what the BIOS is telling it. I have win64 installed as well as win32 and it makes no diff. You could have any OS or even no OS at all and would still see the same problem. It defo seems to be a BIOS issue, a really wierd one at that.

Paul.

Yeah, it seems to be a "BIOS + two 512 cards issue" 2 X 256 cards reports 2 GB as 2GB...both BIOS and OS. Add that extra 1/2 Gig of video memory and all of a sudden the BIOS seems to map some of it down at the lower 2 GB of memory address space. I find it hard to believe that the MB resources, sound card, etc. take up 1.5 GB of address space - two 256 cards + all the BIOS stuff = no problem below 2GB. Now add just 512MB more and all of that extra 512 seems to be below 2GB...doesn't make sense.

[lowdog]

First off, hello all!,

This does not seem to be anything to do with the OS at all. I have exactly the same problem, 2gig ram with 2 512mb gfx cards. the *BIOS* (not the os) reports only 1264MB ram available. The OS then simply mirrors what the BIOS is telling it. I have win64 installed as well as win32 and it makes no diff. You could have any OS or even no OS at all and would still see the same problem. It defo seems to be a BIOS issue, a really wierd one at that.

Paul.

My bios reports 2gig installed and 1.5gig usable. Wonder if Asus is aware of this issue with 2x512mb cards and 2gig ram installed???

Using bis 1009 here.

[dave_graham]

i've got my orders in on this board...i think i might grab one out of my stock..LOL...

it's a FANTASTIC board.

dave

[Marios]

DID YOU KNOW?

The latest 1009 BIOS supports the 500/400 divider.
I have double checked it and it works.
Now I can set my CPU at 200X11=2200MHz and the dimms at DDR500 (250MHz).

CPUz, Sandra and CBId report a frequency of 130MHz
But when I run Sandra's Memory Bandwidth I get a real boost compared to a 200MHz (DDR400) BIOS setting.
I need to increase the CPU vcore to 1.4 to be stable with the 500/400 divider though.

One more trick.
We can enable 2 burst beats in BIOS.
This only works with a rev E CPU, unbuffered DIMMS and memory in dual channels (128 bit interface enabled).
We need to dissable 2T and enable 32-Byte Granularity for 2 beats bursts to work.

EDIT
I have calculated my DRAM speed to be
244.44MHz Dram speed at 200MHz HTT
245.67MHz Dram speed at 201MHz HTT
246.89MHz Dram speed at 202MHz HTT
...................................
250MHz Dram speed at 205MHz HTT
and so on.

We may also use the 466/400 divider
This one gives
220MHz Dram speed at 200
....................
250.8MHz Dram speed at 228 (228x11=2508MHz CPU speed for a 4400+)

We may well use this trick along with AiNOS.
AiNOS works like Cool n Quiet.
We set a base CPU speed and the OCing X% we want
This way we work at a base CPU speed and on load we get up to an X% boost
Example
We may set the base speed at 2280Mhz with a 10%=2508MHz AiNOS OC. The CPU works at 2280MHz and goes up to 2508MHz according to the CPU load. The memory with a 466/400 divider gets up to 250.8MHz max.
AINOS works seamlessly and instantly.

And the last one
It is better to enable the L2 cache and the DCACHE (L1) scrub function in BIOS.
This way the memory controller scrubs the memory to prevent the build up of soft errors.
Each scrub event corresponds to:
• 64 bytes for the DRAM scrubber.
• 64 bits for the data cache scrubber.
• One single L2 cache line tag address for the L2 scrubber.
With an Athlon 64 4400+ we have 64KbX2 L1 cache and 1024KbX2 L2 cache ECC.
Both have 64bytes on each line.
Now this memory is scrubed from errors in time intervals we set in BIOS.
For example, if we set the L1 Data Cache BG Scrub to 40ns this means that the whole L1 cache is scrubbed every 40us.
This is too often I think.

[lowdog]

First off, hello all!,

This does not seem to be anything to do with the OS at all. I have exactly the same problem, 2gig ram with 2 512mb gfx cards. the *BIOS* (not the os) reports only 1264MB ram available. The OS then simply mirrors what the BIOS is telling it. I have win64 installed as well as win32 and it makes no diff. You could have any OS or even no OS at all and would still see the same problem. It defo seems to be a BIOS issue, a really wierd one at that.

Paul.

Hey Paul, your 2 x 512mb card wouldn't happen to be Leadtek cards would they.....because mine are.

I just came across a thread where someone else had the same issues with the A8N32 and two Leadtek 512mb cards....seems the bios on the Leadtek cards was the culprit, he flashed to the Evga bios and the problem was solved.

[lowdog]

Can confirm it's a bios issue with the Leadtek card's bioses, just flashed the card's bioses to the Nvidia reference bios and now the mobo is showing 2gig installed and 2gig useable and windows is showing 2gig as well.

All Fixed. Jeeeeez the things we have to go through, eh!

[lionel57000]

hello

somebody has a complete tutorial and help about overclocking of this mobo ?

[wifi]

hi all
i have this mobo and all it is all right so far except this problem :
when i boot up a system with a dvd player on board i saw the first screen that starting windows and the windows never start cz i got a blue screen and the system automatically restarts.
when i boot without any dvd or dvd-r player on board everythink is fine and i have no problem at all .
i had try everything like memory changes and memory slots, different dvd players ,4 ide cables , 2 psus 480w and 550w each , 2 graphic cards one ati and one nvidia , and the problem still here
what can i do to solve this problem? it is the bios flashing?? or something like bios settings??
plz helppp

here is my system
x2 3800+
a8n32 sli deluxe bios 1009
2x1g mushkin xp 4000 (try also kingston hyperx and a geil memory stick at all slots separate and pair)
leadek 6800gt 256mb (try also x800gto 256mb)
2x 74g wd raptors raid0 nvidia raid
plextor dvdr( try also pioneer dvd player ang lg dvd player)
os winxp + sp2
psu: tagan 480w easycon series (and try also antec true power 550w)

[oqvist]

Oh crap. Just the other day you could at least preorder for 200$ but now it´s 240 and backorder everywhere...

But I have heard rumours that you can put an X Fi Card in there somewhere with a SLI setup? But I guess with two vga silencers that is just impossible? Maybe I has to go expert anyway