Well, I’ve gotten the new power supply and it sure has helped. Here is where I am:
# System runs stably at 198MHz, but won’t pass Prime95’s validation suite. Backing down the memory to 191MHz seems to make the system super stable. I’m guessing that it is the cheap RAM that is the problem. The system won’t run stably at all at 200MHz even with the CPU running at 166MHz.
# It sure does run hot! Motheboard Monitor and Superfan both report temperatures of 75-77 degrees C when running flat out overclocked at 191MHz FSB. The thermal limit is just 85 C,. This is for the sensor on the CPU die. The socket reading is more like 50 degrees C. I’m not clear on how accurate these readings are, but it does run hot. I’m using the Thermaltake Silentboost, which is very quite BTW.
# Antec TruePower 550. Wow, this is a super quite unit. It monitors itself and turns its fan on as needed. The Enermax 350 that I had was supposed to be motherboard controlled in terms of fan speed, but it always ran flat out on the ASUS A7N8x.
# Disk runs very hot when spinning. The new Western Digital WD2500PB has a thermal sensor in it that the system can read. Gets as hot as 55 degrees C when it is defragging. Don’t know what the thermal maximum is, but it is too hot to touch when jamming away.
# Overlclocking of the video card is also stable running at 455MHz Ramdac and 815 MHz for the video memory. This is compared with a normal 300/700 system.
# Benq FP991. Got this monitor. Wow, it is amazing. Running it in portrait mode. The 19 inch monitors are just right for a full page display. Still not as elegant as the old Radius monitors on the Macs (whcih would sense when you pivot them), but pretty neat.
# Next steps are to power up the Promise RAID controller. This will give me a sense as to whether it is this controller that is causing IDE to hang. Rerun stability tests
# Also installed a USB 2.0 connector set in place of the floppy. This will make it easy to put a USB floppy in for emergency booting and also to stick a USG Flash drive in for personal data.
ASUS A7N8X-X Update
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5 responses to “ASUS A7N8X-X Update”
Hi i recently bought a asus a7n8x-vm/400 mobo and ive been having the same issues i have a massive 480 watt power supply and it still reboots numerous windows reinstallations and driver updates and it still crashes even new corsair xms memory wont prevent it form rebooting im returning this mobo to the store tomorrow asus has lost me as a customer and now msi will get my money. I think i figured out that asus dosent use the seperate 12volt power jack for the processor therefore putting all the load on the main 20pin atx connector and causing the powersupply to fail which in turn reboots the computer. I figured this out because when im gaming it ususlly reboots in 3-5 min after palying this leads me to belive the power supply crumbles under high load with all the voltage going through the 20pin ATX connector.My specs:
Amd Athlon 3000+ Baton Core 512kb L2cache
Radeon 9800pro
1gb corsair xms ram pc2700+
1 80gb Samsung Hd on Ultra-dma 100
creative sound blaster audigy 2
zonet wireless pci card
sony cd/dvd burner
What exactly did you do to make this work?
I have the A7N8X-X version.
ASUS ASUCKS: lots of problems with that damn mobo! ASUS has lost a costumer
Interesting that you had these IDE problems. Mine have disappeared largely with a new power supply and also tuning down the memory from 200MHz (it is supposed to run this fast) to 191MHz where it is now stable.
On another machine (a Shuttle SB61G), I’ve found the same problem. Even with Kingston HyperX memory it won’t run stably at 200MHz. Needs to slow to 190MHz to run properly.
If you don’t run Prime95 though, you never see these errors.
I went through this with the A7N8X-Deluxe. IDE would cut out. A new (SATA) drive helped, new memory helped, a new power supply helped, but all of this was marginal–nothing made the board stable. I RTAed the motherboard and will be shying away from ASUS for a while: or at least away from this popular line of boards.