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

[Zeus...]

Don't know, I tried to change the title of this thread to "Asus A8N32-SLI General OC Discussion" but for some reason it doesn't work.

Can we get a mod to sort it out or something?

[jcniest5]

Mustang, it seems you are the only to have gotten a rev. 1.02. So far no one else has gotten one even those who just received theirs a few days ago. Perhaps you are the luckiest one of all.

[Smalltimer]

Mustang, it seems you are the only to have gotten a rev. 1.02. So far no one else has gotten one even those who just received theirs a few days ago. Perhaps you are the luckiest one of all.

I checked with my supplier here in Canada and he emailed me back saying there was no mention or sign of rev x.2 anyheres on his lists to date. But if I could confirm that, I would RMA mine now and wait it out!

Not very sure that its verified though.

[Smalltimer]

Mustang, it seems you are the only to have gotten a rev. 1.02. So far no one else has gotten one even those who just received theirs a few days ago. Perhaps you are the luckiest one of all.

I checked with my supplier here in Canada and he emailed me back saying there was no mention or sign of rev x.2 anyheres on his lists to date. But if I could confirm that, I would RMA mine now and wait it out!

Not very sure that its verified though.

[jcniest5]

I checked with my supplier here in Canada and he emailed me back saying there was no mention or sign of rev x.2 anyheres on his lists to date. But if I could confirm that, I would RMA mine now and wait it out!

Not very sure that its verified though.

Do you have problem with yours? Or are you doing this just to see if you could get a rev. 1.02 to verify what Mustang and I have been posting about? Well, if you are willing to do that for this purpose, that's great! Hmmm....one thing for sure as of right now, it's a complete mystery...

[Smalltimer]

Do you have problem with yours? Or are you doing this just to see if you could get a rev. 1.02 to verify what Mustang and I have been posting about? Well, if you are willing to do that for this purpose, that's great! Hmmm....one thing for sure as of right now, it's a complete mystery...

ActuallY I have been thgrough quite a bit with my A8N32-SLI but things are looking much better now. My only lasting problem is that sometimes my system stutters or slows down when my HDD is doing certain activities (very strange).

I requested an RMA for it thinking it might be defective but, to be honest I have not spent enough time trying to reproduce the problem to isolate the cause so I won't go as far as saying its deffective.

if there was a new rev. out within my 30 day preriod, I think I would return mine just to have piece of mind with it.

[jcniest5]

Smalltimer, you may already have done it, but have you tried different HD(s)? Is it (or are they) SATA or PATA HDs?

[jcniest5]

Mustang, if I could bother you just one more time. Can you look between the CPU socket and first DIMM (memory slot) and see if you can find anything printed there. It seems like most users are reporting that this is the place where the rev. number is printed following the board name (ie: A8N32-SLI Rev. 1.01). If you have time, could you look there and see if you can tell us anything otherwise. Sorry to be such a pain for ya. Hehehhe...LOL.

[Smalltimer]

Smalltimer, you may already have done it, but have you tried different HD(s)? Is it (or are they) SATA or PATA HDs?

Its on my todo list except recently I lost one of my two HDD's in a raid0 setup. I never got to test those on my A8N32 though. I purchased replacements along with this setup and so I only have these ones to use atm. (not raid)

But I plan on picking up a larger capacity drive for storage in the near future. I think I will try another brand and test out that theory. Also on my todo list is to remove the xfi card and see if the problem persists, I don't know why but I keep getting a feeling that the xfi continues to conflict with my motherboard in some ways even though it is a revised model from creative with updated rom and heatsink.

last night I downloaded a 340mb torrent, when it was finished and the bt client checked the file, my dual core spiked to 100% load and my mouse was moving around in jerks. I checked the file afterwards and it was not corrupt. But after I rebooted the system, upon booting the system was sluggish for a few seconds (jerky mouse cursor again) then it was normal again.

I had an A643200+ which I did the same sort of work as this one on, never had this happen to me, even on 3GB DVD torrents. So it really makes me wonder about my setup.

The mystery continues...
The only thing that bothers me is that my 30 day return or echange period will end soon and I am worried that I might find out my board has a defect or something after it ends. Still not to sound totally negative, for the most part the system works pretty smoothly. never crashes in gaming thus far, so I really shouldn't complain!

[dustybyrd]

i've read all the posts, whew that was a lot

Here is my system:

Revision 1.01 written on the A8N32-SLI...

170 Opt @ 2.8ghz (10x280, with 1.325v+0.2v overvoltage, 2x 100% Prime95 stable overnight with small and large FFTs)
Thermaltake Big Typhoon

2x 1gb Patriot -LLK pc3200 2,3,2,5 timing memory at 2.9v, 233mhz, 2.5,2,3,5,10,11,3 settings---2T

4x SATA hard drives none on the Silicon controller

2x DVDRW's

2x evga 6800gs's in SLI at 525/1200 each

3x Flat Panels (2-19", 1-21" wide screen)

SoundBlaster Audigy SE

Fortron 700 Watt Epsilon power supply

Lian Li v2100+ case

4x 120mm fans on rheostat

Floppy + Zip

Temps:

Room 20-22C
Mobo 36-44C (depending on speed settings)
CPU 33-54C (depending on speed settings and 100% full load=54C)
Hard drives 33-38C

i have had the A8N32-SLI now for about 3 weeks and here are my thoughts and experiences (thanks for the thread) and at the end suggestions:


1) Got the ThermalTake Big Typhoon, because I knew it would fit!

2) Gave up on BH-5 because >3.3v VDIMM is not possible, even with mod

3) Use the CnQ with 1.35-1.55v (speeds of 1.4-2.8ghz) vcore---set at 1.325+0.2 overvolt

4) Will try the CrystalCPUID to manually set the speeds and voltages (I already do this with my Dell 600m laptop for 30-50 minutes more battery life or a 15% overclock as well, if needed

SUGGESTIONS:

a) I have NEVER had to clear the CMOS on this board manually....although I HAVE had the CMOS Checksum errors (many times, when trying to overclock the BH5 RAM)----what I have found is that if you just turn off the system (sometimes by pressing the power button for 4 sec), wait a few seconds and power back on, the system automatically boots up at failsafe settings (10x200=2ghz)---and if it didn't work the first time, I waited a few more seconds and tried again---then it worked----one time I did hold down the insert key while booting---but I don't think it's required, since most of the time I don't and it still boots with failsafe settings

b) I use the 1103 bios that came with the board, and after testing all limits of components I found that I get NO stability issues with this board at all, ever!----BUT, I did sometimes get the no-warm reboot issue when I set the voltage at less than 1.3v in the bios (with or without the 0.2 overvoltage enabled), if it was overclocked past 2.75ghz

c) I have used 6600 and 6800 Nvidia cards in SLI with 84.21 drivers and they work great! ~50% increase in 3dmark scores with SLI enabled in both cases


Thanks again!

[Smalltimer]

Just curious, you didn't mention what sound card you were using if any.
I'm picking on the creative xfi for compatibility issues is why I ask.

[Black Phoenix]

Mustang, it seems you are the only to have gotten a rev. 1.02. So far no one else has gotten one even those who just received theirs a few days ago. Perhaps you are the luckiest one of all.

I also had rev.1.02. So far no problems at all...

[jcniest5]

I also had rev.1.02. So far no problems at all...

Hey Black Phoenix, where do you find your revision number? Is it in between the CPU socket and memory slot 1 or is it on a white sticker taped to a PCI (or PCI-E) slot? Please tell us where you found it. Thanks alot!

[Black Phoenix]

After i had investigated more, my board has a sticker between the cpu an memory slot 1 that covers the 1.01 inscrition on the board. After some detail mine is version 1.01... Not 1.02, looks like or Asus or the shop had cheated on me....

EDIT: After some hardware scanning sigs software it's confirmed. Version 1.01...

[dustybyrd]

Just curious, you didn't mention what sound card you were using if any.
I'm picking on the creative xfi for compatibility issues is why I ask.

oh yeah, just fixed that (Soundblaster Audigy SE)

and also, I mentioned that written on the board is Rev. 1.01

[jcniest5]

After i had investigated more, my board has a sticker between the cpu an memory slot 1 that covers the 1.01 inscrition on the board. After some detail mine is version 1.01... Not 1.02, looks like or Asus or the shop had cheated on me....

EDIT: After some hardware scanning sigs software it's confirmed. Version 1.01...

Awh...so sad. But what did you see that made you think yours was a 1.02? That may be the same for Mustang?

[Smalltimer]

Awh...so sad. But what did you see that made you think yours was a 1.02? That may be the same for Mustang?

I second that, I am also leaning towards the lack thereof rev. 02 since my supplier is a big Asus dealer and has received no product updates as of yet. Since they have large retail outlets in both the US and Canada I feel pretty safe saying its a reliable source.

Well in a weird way its best there isn't one just yet
Now we can all rest easy knowing we didn't buy second rate products just yet

[Titus]

I received my A8N32-SLI RMA a few days ago...and it still is Revision 1.01

[dustybyrd]

does anyone have a confirmed 1.02 revision?

[Black Phoenix]

Awh...so sad. But what did you see that made you think yours was a 1.02? That may be the same for Mustang?

The sticker near the printed name A8N32-SLI on the board have the magic numbers written rev 1.02 but under it is the printed on the board rev 1.01: Because of that i had used some MB identify program to see which rev it was... Is confirmed: Rev 1.01...

[Crashtack]

It's possible the board is a 1.02. They don't need to do a re-layout and new silk screen to change some component on the board. Just change what's needed and slap a sticker on it.

I just got mine yesterday form Newegg. I'll check it when I get home.

[cronic]

man, its like deja vu, seems like we rewound the clock about 6 months with this debate.

i was wishfullly thinking that there would be a majic bios that fixed at least the warm boot, but if there IS a new revision that would be cool, I guess.

[Black Phoenix]

A revision and a new bios and i will be glad...

[Crashtack]

The board I recieved yesterday from Newegg is a rev 1.01.

[shmadz]

I was having all kinds of weird problems that I blamed on this board, but I think I may have found the real problem so I thought I'd share.

My issues have been strange and somewhat counter-intuitive. Prime stable 8 hrs overnight and then crashing in two seconds at lunch. Stable all night friday and then won't even boot on saturday. Also it seemed like more voltage was making it LESS stable!??!

For example I would start to OC the ram at stock volts and 3-3-3-8 and it would go to 240 and then start to see errors. Not bad, so let's up the voltage and try to reach 245, 2.65v - nope, 2.7v - no, 2.75 - nothing. I tried loosening the timings but no luck. The really weird thing was that at 2.7v I would see errors at much lower speeds. It even corrupted windows, twice. I would set a conservative overclock that should have been stable(9*260 with ram at /166) and start priming and go to work and when I get home, black screen and windows will no longer boot at any setting.

I noticed that the voltages were really fluctuating but I didn't worry too much cuz many were saying the same, but what really made me think was the fluctuations increased when I enabled cpu over-voltage when most agree that it improves the situation(decreases fluctuations). So I started paying close attention to voltages and I verified that when I add voltage to ANY setting, my stability goes down... I have a 600w PSU so I start blaming the board and getting real mad and trying to figure out how to RMA or if I could swap for a DFI or something... and then I read Ic3man's prophetic words from like 20 pages back... "check everything"

So then the light comes on and I take one of the really expensive powerbars from work and plugged it in and guess what, "site wiring fault". I checked all the plugins in my apartment and of course the only one that lights up red is the one by my desk Now, I haven't had a chance to test fully but the voltage fluctuations have diminished and early OC efforts are bringing much more normal and predictable results (2.6v=240 ; 2.65=244 ; 2.7=250+ haven't gone past 250 yet)

I really should have realized the problem earlier, but my old P3 ran on that plugin without any problems, so I didn't think it was the power. In hindsight the P3 probably draws 1/5 of the current of my new rig so the voltage problems most likely weren't showing up under light load. I'm a little worried that the dirty power affected lifetime of my hardware (mostly the ram and mobo chipsets) but mostly just happy that everything now works.
btw, the board is a beauty, some quirks but that just gives it personality.