"Asus nFORCE2 (thread retitled)"

[Pjotr]

Originally posted by Mikee
What actually was done that is killing these poor defenseless mobo's?

I'm running mine with BIOS "C" then jumped to "G" and it is working fine.

As far as I know it has happened to both C and E versions. G is too new for any real reports, I think.

What happens is that you press F10 for Save and Exit and then press Y for Yes, or press Enter, it reboots but all goes black. Nothin happens. On power cycle fans spins, but no VGA comes on. Clearing CMOS doesn't help.

This is very rare and it seems highly random. The changes made in BIOS when this happens range from lower FSB from 194 to 193(!), disabling floppy disk, disabling AC97 modem etc. It seems it has little to do with what you do in BIOS, it is more than you are just saving BIOS and it fails to write itself correctly. It is *possible* that one can avoid this by waiting 3 seconds after pressing F10 before you press Yes, but there is no evidence of this.

I do know from my board that before it died, settings didn't always take effect. For example, I upped my FSB to 180 from 175 and saved and exited. Then when I boot the POST screen says 175 still (CPU freq), so I go into BIOS and it says 180 in BIOS! I had to save three times for it to take effect. It happened with other settings also. Never during my 12 hours with the board did it behave unstable, it was running 100 % stable at all times before dying, even with fast RAM timings.

Basically, I think it can happen to anyone at any time. It's just that we all have different ways of using our motherboards. Some go into BIOS once every 5 minutes for two days to setup the board, others never go into BIOS. Some type quick and save and exit quick, other take it slow. One guy I read about RMAd two board and when the third died on him, he threw it in the garbage bin.

I will not make much BIOS changes with my new board next week until ASUS releases a fix for this. Noone has gotten any reply from ASUS about this issue. One guy got a reply that you can buy a replacement BIOS chip for 26 USD plus shipping.

[Celerator]

Thanks for the encouragement, Damir.

Any other suggestions from forum experts?

[Mikee]

Thanks Pjotr....good information to have.

Well I went back to Bios "C" and am just gonna hang with this for a while I guess. After spending a long time setting this up with Koolance cooling of CPU, Northbridge, Radeon card, & two HD's, and all the other setup I listed in this thread, I don't want to deal with starting all over with a new MOBO.

[DJ_Datte]

Mikee, question, wont that be pretty hot for the koolance if thats all on the same loop ?

/Damir

[Iceprizm]

I got the same koolance setup. Overclocked my cpu reads 39 c. I got my rig to boot at 200 mhz sync'ed, 11.5x resulting in 2305.21 mhz. This seems to be my best. No matter what I do it wont start at 12.0x. I was wondering how much vcpu is too much Im at 18 now.

[cuci]

Pjotr, thanks for your answer......very precise.Thanks !


I am a "litle" disappointåd from ASUS.....
A long time i have a hesitation - Epox or Asus, and here it is - the wrong choice

[DJ_Datte]

you *could* run 2.05 pretty safely, to run more, prommie or such is recommended. But 2.05 is okay for TbredB's it seems.

/Damir

[Mikee]

Iceprizm...I went with this Koolance PC2-901 Tower, but which temp indicator is giving you that reading? The BIOS monitor? If you are getting that reading with the Koolance top display CPU probe (or the Winblows Asus Probe), what CPU cooler block did you use? And have you tried setting the top fans to continuous blow (setting #3). If I use that high-blow cooling (instead of normal #2), my CPU Koolance/Digidoc/Asus Winblows Probe all drop to 21-22 C even with Sandra stress testing running for an hour. This is with my XP 2700+ A7N8X 1101-E, 185 @ 13x (I'm still with a locked CPU) and Corsair XMS 3500 256 (2 strips) + 512 strip and settings of 6-3-3-CAS2

DJ, I checked into that issue about how many cooling block items in series can you run...and this is perfectly fine. I have 8 temp probes with the Digidoc, including one I put under the CPU cooler block on the other side from the one used for the Koolance, and both read the same +/- 1 degree C as the Asus Winblows Probe. The bios monitor uses the actual on-die temp, so is the most accurate, but I can interpolate the 36-39C what the BIOS is reading by adding 10-11 degrees to my Asus Probe, or Digidoc, or Koolance system probe.

They tell you that the water is circulating so fast that it is not a problem. Also, the first cooling block out of the top radiator is the CPU, so it is getting the coldest water. Plus I used the more expensive Gold Water Block, and meticulous AS-3 application as the interface compound for CPU, NB, & Radeon.

I went with the Koolance Tower cause I have all the drive bays filled with the Audigy Plat, Plextor 40x, Sony DRU 500a, Digidoc, & PC Geiger. Also, I put in a 120mm fan on plexy door window with two outflow 80mm fans blowing out back, and also got 8 of these small heatsinks and attached them with Arctic Alumina Epoxy on the four 1 cm square FSB chips, and on the four Radeon chips.

The Koolance is also nice cause it has two pumps in case one fails, warning alarms, multiple radiator fan cooling settings, and ties into your PS shutoff for an automatic shutdown if CPU temp rises to a level you decide is too high. I didn't want to take chances with top of the line components...and with what I heard about the water condensation dripping down with a Pelltier or other refrigeration setup....this rig lets me sleep at night.

The funniest thing is you have to mix up this thick paste and squeeze it out all over the bottom of your HD's to improve thermal transfer to the HD water cooling plate. It was hard to imagine that it was a good thing smearing this goop all over the bottom of them....but it is obviously working well, and my buried digidoc probe on the main C:\ WD 1200-JB HD never reads higher than 28 C no matter what I'm doing.

Oh it was also funny as hell when I was filling the water reservoir, my wife came in and asked "why the hell are you pouring water into your computer?"

[sysfailur]

Originally posted by Celerator
This is my first post here. I'm old to computers (8088s), but new to OC.

I've learned a great deal from reading this thread. Thanks to all who have contributed to my learning!

I'm putting together a new system described below:

Antec 1080 AMG w/ TruePower 430 PS
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
AMD 2600+ 333fsb
2 x 512MB Corsair CAS2
Innovatek water cooling kit
ATI 9500Pro
Yamaha CRW-F1

Questions:
1) I'm considering going SATA but I wonder if one can boot from SATA as this is unclear in the MB manual. I'm thinking of the Seagate SATA drive. Anyone booting from SATA?

2) I'm puzzled about whether a range of multipliers will be available with an unlocked CPU. Some seem to have a range of settings available with unlocked CPUs. What can I expect from my chip?

Any other suggestions to a novice system builder appreciated!

Well, I don't believe you CAN unlock the 2600+.... cus the 5th L3 is connected. You already have 5.5-12.5x if you don't mod the cpu.

[Celerator]

Well, I don't believe you CAN unlock the 2600+.... cus the 5th L3 is connected. You already have 5.5-12.5x if you don't mod the cpu.


__________________
So the 2600+ 333fsb chip is unlocked already. I thought I'd seen some users with multiples > 12.5 with this chip.
Thanks,

[sysfailur]

Originally posted by Celerator
Well, I don't believe you CAN unlock the 2600+.... cus the 5th L3 is connected. You already have 5.5-12.5x if you don't mod the cpu.


__________________
So the 2600+ 333fsb chip is unlocked already. I thought I'd seen some users with multiples > 12.5 with this chip.
Thanks,

You can't use higher than 12.5x though w/ a 2600+, but you can use everything up to 12.5x. W/ a 2400+ if you don't unlock it you can use what... 15x as the default multiplier? That's maybe how you're seeing higher mults.

[DJ_Datte]

Mikee, justa FYI...

On the A7N8X Series, both normal and Deluxe, the Asus probe is about 20 degrees lower then the real CPU Core Temp.

The only , and I mean only, correct temp is the one that shows up in Bios. So I would recommend you to run Prime 95 or Seti or just play something demanding, and then suddenly reboot and go into bios and check your temps. If it says there 39, you are great off, but somehow I have a strong feeling it will be saying 60C

/Damir

[Mikee]

Well, I think I saw the Lord....and it was good.

I took off my Koolance Gold water cooling block, used the wire in the socket trick to unlock my XP-2700+ and cut the L-12 3rd bridge, slapped some more AS-3, cleared the BIOS (Using 1001"E") and VOILA....just like downtown...booted into default BIOS reading of 100mhz.

I then began the march up...still not really knowing what the hell I was doing...but got all the way to 211 x 10 into Winblows, took Sandro memory readings (& snapshot) at 3261/3060. I went up to the max vcore of 1.85, timings of 5-2-2-cas2T, DDR volt of 2.7, AGP freq. of 75. My Koolance cpu temp/Asus Winblows Probe/Digidoc next to the CPU all said 25C after 30 mins, even with the Sandro stress testing.

I didn't have any winblows corruption (other than winblows usual level of corrupt designing in general) after running at 211x10 for an hour, including playing some BF1942 for 30 mins. I then starting freaking out (for no real reason) and rebooted to see the BIOS monitor CPU temp which said 39C.

I thought I better not press my luck, and wussed out and went back to my current setting of 200x11 Timings of 6-3-3-2 Backed down the volts to 1.75, AGP set at 75 MHz and DDR voltage of 2.7

Of all my 8 digidoc probes, the only one that was sort of high during any of this was the one I taped onto the side of the memory in slot 1 which peaked at 38C at the highest during the Sandro stress testing.

It was definitely stable at 207x11 & 204x11.5 but I had to drop multiple to 10 and increase voltage to 1.85 to have it work at 211x10 again, I really am not too sure on how to vary all these to find the best settings, but I think this turned out really good for having cut my first bridge, and testing out this Koolance rig.



Here's all my stuff again: Koolance Tower (cooling blocks in series of CPU ( gold block model with AS-3)==>NB (AS-3)==>Radeon (AS-3)==>two WD 1200-JB & 1800-JB (with some thermal transfer paste goop slopped all over the underbellies of these HD's), A7N8X Bios 1001-E, XP-2700+ modded by the wire in the socket & cut L12 3rd bridge with straight edge razor (no blood), two 256 sticks corsair xms 3500 & one stick 512 xms 3500, ati-radeon 9700, audigy platinum, Vantec Stealth 520 PS, 120mm Panaflow on side door intake fan & two 80mm Panaflow outflow in back, 4 of these Tweakmonster heatsinks on FSB & 4 more on Radeon memory chips (with Arctic Alumina Epoxy), 3rd Maxtor 5400 160gb HD, Plextor 40x, & Sony DRU 500a burners, Digidoc-5, PC Geiger, and some blue cold lights and plexy side panel window. Oh and I'm using Winblows-2k Pro with Nvidia 2.0 & Catalyst 3 drivers. Did I forget anything?

[sysfailur]

Mikee are you using the onboard sound @ 211mhz? B/c mine gives out @ 204mhz :\

[Mikee]

no...i disabled it cause I wanted the audigy plat front plate for several things

[DJ_Datte]

I am almost ready to cry, am I the only person in the world that cant get the asus stble at more then 195 .... well, if I run a nVidia card, its stable / semistable up to 204, but not a mhz more...

/Damir

[sysfailur]

Originally posted by Mikee
no...i disabled it cause I wanted the audigy plat front plate for several things

Affirmative

[Mikee]

DJ, I was real careful to immediately go two times from the 211x10 right to the bios temp, and it was 39 both times. I watched it a while and it fluctuated between 38-40C. I then turned on the koolance radiator cooling fans on their high settings and it dropped to 36-37. I think using the Koolance, and the Gold CPU block with AS-3 is the answer on that temp.

[DJ_Datte]

heh Mikee, I dont have CPU temp problems, mine are about 16C , mine is that I cant get a stable bus

/Damir

[RickCain]

Nice overclock Mikee!

Once Abit starts to ship the NF7-S with the mounting holes I'm going for it again. Since I can't mount my TC-4 w/o mounting holes it's aircooling for now.

I hope to see my 2600+ go to 238 x 10

[Mikee]

Cool Rick...let me know.

DJ, I was just responding to you saying above that it wasn't as high as the 60C that you thought it would be. Maybe I got confused by what you meant:

The only , and I mean only, correct temp is the one that shows up in Bios. So I would recommend you to run Prime 95 or Seti or just play something demanding, and then suddenly reboot and go into bios and check your temps. If it says there 39, you are great off, but somehow I have a strong feeling it will be saying 60C

[Banshee]

To Brave:
I noticed you use the OCZ EL PC3500 memory. Is it running ok? Did you have boot issues? This is supposed to be an overclocking beast, and it has 4.5ns rather than 5ns or 6ns like the highly priced Corsair mem. Did you reslove the flickering issue? Does this happen if you do not overclock? This mem is not on the ASUS approved list for this mobo per this link:
http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=...eluxe&langs=01
Mabey thats why the flickering.
Also, check out this link on mem shootout. The OCZ blazes the rest, and is one of the lowest priced. I think Corsair is all hype and thus is way overpriced. It may be good and stable but probably no better than most. Especially when I read many have had issues with some Corsair memory per their message forum.

http://www.ocprices.com/index.php?re...action=reviews

http://www.houseofhelp.com/v2/forumd...hp?forumid=128

[Brave]

Finaly someone answer me

The Flickering only shows up above 198 fsb.

The memory runs very stable...like a BIG ROCK..at 198 fsb without problems. Im at 100% Full Load for 3 days at 198 fsb. No problems.

I notice that some times when i reboot, the bios recognise my system at 100 FSB with 7x Multiplier = 700 mhz
I Press CTRL+ALT+DEL and then...198 fsb again.

My Bios its 1001E by default. Asus FTP site only have 1001D for my board (Non Deluxe Version). Should i flash it to 1001D ?

[CyNix]

how many of you can hit 200 smoothly???

[sysfailur]

Originally posted by CyNix
how many of you can hit 200 smoothly???

I can--I run 200 24/7 so as to keep my sound working... @ 204mhz sound gives out so I leave it @ 200mhz for now.