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

[qdemn7]

Does any know the BIOS Savior model for the board?

Never mind, they don't make one for this board. Sigh...

[Zeus...]

Yours isn't 1Mb? Mine is 32Mb.

Sorry Typo error it should off read whats your 'Mem' Limit in the BIOS

[mackanz]

Can someone try having the bios/boot detecting the drives if raid is enabled?
I have been trying all day, but it refuses to detect the drives. Tried all bios. Still the same. Once i disable the raid in bios, they get detected.

[Xyriu]

What's the best BIOS for te A8N32?

currently I have the 703...

[smurfmods]

What's the best BIOS for te A8N32?

currently I have the 703...

Stick with that. All the others are beta and buggy.

[jinu117]

One issue. The overvoltage option for 0.2v applies AFTER your cpu initializes. In my case, when I was testing for 2.7ghz dual prime stable today I found out 1.425+ doesn't have any differences in voltage for my opty 175 had to try it out and consequently did 1.225+overvolt and couldn't boot up unless I gave enough voltage (more than 1.225 in this case) or the whole thing wouldn't boot up. In my case this makes 1.425v-1.499v range useless for all the fine burning in I was planning to do. (also found out I am dual prime stable @ 2.65ghz 1.4v bios as anything higher didn't even register to begin with) It probably won't be big issue once I put it in phase but it is in lieu of some people who has had trouble booting up, etc. It probably is bios fix that can fix the issue but who knows. That v-core mod might come in handy instead of that overvolt option sooner than I thought. Other than that, it has been rock steady for me so far.

[Ic3man]

Thanks...this is just the kind of help I was hoping for! What is the default multiplier for your Opty? For my chip, it is 200 MHz x 11. Should I lower the multiplier and increase the FSB? Or just leave it at 11 and try to get the FSB back up to 238? Or should I play with both approaches? Will I have to do anything to my PCI-E clock?

Thanks again,

Mark

mine is 9x

see how far you can get with everything stock (238?) then increase the vcore by 1 notch and add another 5mhz. If it still wont boot add another notch to the vcore but dont go past 1.5 for now. If it does boot then go back into bios and raise another 5mhz and load again...keep going until it will not boot or your cpu temps go too high. If you find that increasing the vcore dosn't help at all then try relaxing your memory timings a little. (2-3-2-6 is standard so next try 2.5-2-3-6 and so on).

Remember tho that just becuase your PC boots dosn't mean it is stable, after each increase in clockspeed test for stability....but thats a whole new subject.

[HKPolice]

901 Bios feels the same as the 703 in every single way.... bugs are still present.

For ballistix users: you HAVE to disable dynamic idle cycle, and leave DDR skew at AUTO.

Update: 901 seems to have MORE bugs, I tried turning down the HTT from 280 and the keyboard stopped responding. Rebooted and tried again, same thing. I can go press + and go higher, but pressing - will cause the crash.

Flashed back to 703, bug is gone.

[mackanz]

HK,

Any chance you can test if raid works on that bios?

[HKPolice]

HK,

Any chance you can test if raid works on that bios?

Sorry, don't have any spare HDs

[Speaker4theDead]

Hi there

I'm just seeking some help in the setup of this board.

I am running it with a opty 144, so far it is running at 9x300 but not prime stable. It runs fine for 3dmark05, loops no end but cannot get sp2004 to last 30secs. running vcore at anything from 1.425-1.550 with only slight difference in sp2004 stablility. HSF is thermaltake Venus 12, PSU is thermaltake 680W, OCZ EB3500 ram. I have to run the ram through dividers obviously.

I am not sure about alot of ram timings on this board, do most people leave it at auto and change it though A64Tweaker? or do you set it via bios?

I cant get clockgen to work either, is the new chipset not being supported yet?

I want to know how I can get it prime stable at this speed. I know getting higher isn't very realistic on air (highest suicide windows bootup is 3ghz) but would be happy if I could get it fully stable at this speed. Currently I am burning in the CPU using cpuburn on K7 mode. Not sure it is helping, have run through 2 sessions with no improvements.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

Edit: cpu temp reported by pcprobe is 39-43C, i'm sure its not accurate but seems to run cool enough to touch the HSF near the base without too much discomfort.

[jinu117]

HoHoHo... just found out my bios was 0502... lol.
Time to grab new one and flash it in. Maybe it reduces some problem with v-core issues I am having... if not I will report back with full detail.

[mhorgel]

Remember tho that just becuase your PC boots dosn't mean it is stable, after each increase in clockspeed test for stability....but thats a whole new subject.

I found this out the hard way...I had my system up to 2.62 GHz with the RAM divider at 183 MHz, and the thing would generate an error during Prime95 in about 5 seconds. Also, the system could not find my PS-2 keyboard, a situation I only fixed by resetting the CMOS.

I'll try some of these ideas out right away. Thanks again.

Mark

[jinu117]

HoHoHo... just found out my bios was 0502... lol.
Time to grab new one and flash it in. Maybe it reduces some problem with v-core issues I am having... if not I will report back with full detail.

Well bios is now 703 or 702 or whatever.
Voltage reading on bios is improved significantly. I can semi-trust that voltage now.
However, there is still issue of extra voltage not being applied to boot up sequence (so even if you have 100% stable overclock with extra voltage option enabled... if you can't boot with set v-core without that extra voltage... tough luck booting it up). Not only that in case of opty 175 I have, I am basically limited to 1.4v + the additional voltage. Which basically leaves me with only option as v-core mod. So far looking good other than this as I did expect having to do v-core mod anyway. Only bad thing might be I might only end up using only 4 phase of all 8 phase power by circumventing this. If I can find happy medium, this will be very nice. Once I am done testing with my cpu on air by tomorrow, next comes asus CF board to see how that one does. I have enough reference data on current opty 175 I have it should be easy comparison really. Board is not ground taking but seems stable once the voltage issue is cleared up though.

[Marios]

901 Bios feels the same as the 703 in every single way.... bugs are still present.

For ballistix users: you HAVE to disable dynamic idle cycle, and leave DDR skew at AUTO.

Update: 901 seems to have MORE bugs, I tried turning down the HTT from 280 and the keyboard stopped responding. Rebooted and tried again, same thing. I can go press + and go higher, but pressing - will cause the crash.

Flashed back to 703, bug is gone.

I have the Ballistix Z503 kit 1gx2 and I don't see why to dissable Dynamic Idle cycle.
My memory works OK with Dynamic Idle cycle enabled.
Any more info on this?

I also think that L1 and L2 cache ECC should be enabled since this cache supports ECC.
This enables detecting and correcting errors on L1 and L2 cache.
The question is what are the default values?
On the contrary most DIMMs do not support ECC and ECC should be dissabled.

[HKPolice]

I have the Ballistix Z503 kit 1gx2 and I don't see why to dissable Dynamic Idle cycle.
My memory works OK with Dynamic Idle cycle enabled.
Any more info on this?

I also think that L1 and L2 cache ECC should be enabled since this cache supports ECC.
This enables detecting and correcting errors on L1 and L2 cache.
The question is what are the default values?
On the contrary most DIMMs do not support ECC and ECC should be dissabled.

Mine doesn't even run memtest86 without disabling and leaving the idle cycle at 16. Running 280Mhz 3-3-3-8, what are your timings etc?

Ya, we need an answer from a tech about the ECC cache values.

[physics_geek]

Any places to get asus A8N32 SLI?

[HKPolice]

901 bios is CRAP, kept crashing in 3Dmark05, I couldn't get a single clean run. Flashed back to 703: 14.4K with dual GTX. 1K improvement over the DFI NF4 and this is with PEG Link mode disabled, so the vid cards aren't being OC'd by the mobo.

[qdemn7]

Any places to get asus A8N32 SLI?

Check you local Fry's Electronics they have the board on sale at their B&M stores ONLY, not Outpost.com. I picked one up at the Arlington, Texas store. Price was $249.99 + Tax. I had the salesman do a SKU lookup, and they had < 10 at most of their stores. SKU is 4612868, and this is a Rev 1.01 board.

Also Ecost.com is selling the board for $206.94. With Free Ground shipping and a $7.95 handling fee, you can get the board for as little as $214.89. FEDX Next Day Air is only an additional $15.00. They are supposed to get some in this week or the next week. You can order and pay for it, and they will ship when it gets there.

[physics_geek]

Check you local Fry's Electronics they have the board on sale at their B&M stores ONLY, not Outpost.com. I picked one up at the Arlington, Texas store. Price was $249.99 + Tax. I had the salesman do a SKU lookup, and they had < 10 at most of their stores. SKU is 4612868, and this is a Rev 1.01 board.

Also Ecost.com is selling the board for $206.94. With Free Ground shipping and a $7.95 handling fee, you can get the board for as little as $214.89. FEDX Next Day Air is only an additional $15.00. They are supposed to get some in this week or the next week. You can order and pay for it, and they will ship when it gets there.

Thanks, but do you know any alternatives?

[Marios]

Mine doesn't even run memtest86 without disabling and leaving the idle cycle at 16. Running 280Mhz 3-3-3-8, what are your timings etc?

Ya, we need an answer from a tech about the ECC cache values.

I haven't checked yet how far may dimms can go.

I just set them at 250, 3-3-3-8, 1T, checked them overnight with memtest86+ and that's all. I have got screens for the rest of my DIMM settings (everything is manually set) that I can post here, in case that they might be of any good.

[qdemn7]

Thanks, but do you know any alternatives?

Sorry, no.

[mhorgel]

Thanks to Ic3man's advice, I have my system running SuperPi stable at 2.62 Ghz. I hav all the Overvolts enabled, VCore at 1.325 (+.2), VDIMM at 1.75 (+.1), FSB at 238 X 11, K8 to NB at 600 MHz, memory divider at 166 MHz, memory timings at 2.5-2-3-6 1T. AI Booster shows my VCore at 1.54 and my VDIMM at 2.80, but I am not sure that these readings are trustworthy.

I tried upping the FSB to 245, but the system was unstable. I then tried to loosen the memory timings to 2.5-3-3-6, and it wouldn't boot. I then reverted back to the above settings, and she's running rock stable. CPU temps are 41-43 C at idle, 45-46 C under load.

Originally, I told myself that 2.62 GHz was my goal, but with hearing reports of X2 3800's running at over 2.8 GHz, I feel I can do better. I apologize for my noobness, but I have never overclocked a system before, and I am not sure how to proceed. Is it simply a matter of trial and error? Or is there a logical progression of adjustments? Should I increase my FSB, see if the system boots, and if it does not boost VCore a notch or 2, and if that doesn't work, loosen the memory timings?

Thanks again,
Mark

[jasonh1234]

Anyone using this board with a lian-li 1000 or 1200?
I'm thinking of buying one, but since is atx inverted i would like to know if the heatpipe solution will work ok.

TIA

I'm using the V1000
Working ok. Not overclocked though. (yet)
My setup (as of this moment)
Bios version: Whatever it is that ships with the board.
Bios settings: Stock
x2 7800 GTX KO's (with 120mm fan over them) (81.95 drivers)
FX-57 with Coolermaster Aqua-gate 120
3DMark05 results (1st try) 12,829
It's been running now for about 48 hours with no problems.

[cronic]

901 bios is CRAP, kept crashing in 3Dmark05, I couldn't get a single clean run. Flashed back to 703: 14.4K with dual GTX. 1K improvement over the DFI NF4 and this is with PEG Link mode disabled, so the vid cards aren't being OC'd by the mobo.

agreed. 901 went haywire when running 3dmark05, scores were all over the place. 703 is the best way to go at the moment.