Asus A8N-E overclocking...issues.

Specs:

Asus A8N-E
AMD64 x2 3800
2Gig OCZ PC4000 XTC
XFX 7800GT (Stock speed)
Enermax 480Watt P/S
Maxtor 40Gig IDE HDD
Seagate 200Gig SATA HDD
LIte-On 52x48x52 CD burner
Sony 16x DVD-ROM
Onboard sound
Onboard NIC
Hauppauge PVR-250
Windows XP-Home
Windows XP64 (Will be uninstalling this soon)

The problem, with pics!

So, I decide that I have had this board long enough, and have been running just fine at stock settings, and that it is time to crank it up a notch. Well...I didn't get much of a "notch" out of this board. I can hit 220Mhz just fine, but anything past 220, and the board "hangs" here:




Here is other pics to give you an idea how I changed the values:



As I stated previously, changing the CPU Frequency value to anything past 220 is no go. Only using whole multipliers, and have upped the voltage to both the memory, and CPU with no effect. I've tried disconnecting the IDE devices, no change, still hanges at the first screen seen in the first picture. I've changed memory placement, no change. I've moved the SATA drive around, no change. I've disconnected everything (all drives) and it STILL HANGS...grrr.



I have even dropped the Memclock index value to 333 to see what would happen...nothing...what the hell? My case doesn't run very hot, mid 80's, and the CPU runs at around 35c. Now I know that with the cooling that I have now, I won't hit some insane numbers, but this isn't important to me right at the moment, as I am in the process of building a two stage phase change liquid chiller and I want to use this board for my first run, but if I can't figure out what the hell is wrong, then I will have to buy another new board to test. Can anyone offer any kind of suggestions?

Maybe I should have gotten a DFI board instead...

EDIT: Stupid thing that I forgot to mention is that I can use the dashboard thing in windows, and I can overclock with no hitch...but the program itself makes the system unstable, even just running it stock it screws up windows something terrible.

Bump...anyone?

My A8N-E rocks...running my SD 4000+ @ 2.9 1.55v. Best mobo ive had, and ive had the a8n32-sli deluxe, and the a8n-sli deluxe

The main thing that I like about it is that the bios is straightforward.

what's the week code on your CPU? i've ran 2.8 but i keep it at 2.5 with no problems, i'm not sure what else to tell you but good luck

try messing with your Volts 1.3 - 1.4

Ok, I have learned something interesting.

What version BIOS are you two running? I discovered by using CPUID that when I make a change in the bios,it IS NOT effecting the settings at all. The BIOS says its changed, but when I get to windows, its still at default timings...WTF? When I reboot and go back to the bios, every is as I left it...i.e. changed settings are still there, etc...

1011.004 is the version that I am running, I need to downgrade, but the Asus updater will not allow that even with BIOS downgradeable checked, it says its an incompatible EEPROM type...crap.

EDIT: I also verified this using memtest 86+ - it shows all the info, but what do you know? The settings are still the same, 200Mhz FSB, same CPU speed (Even though when going into the bios it IS reporting the change, but nothing else is...)

This Asus board can kiss my white ass. I used clockgen AND the program from Asus that makes adjustments on the fly and they both SAY they changed the numbers, but when I use another program to look at what is going on, (Sandra...etc) the scores are even lower then stock, and its reporting no OC what so ever, in fact since I cranked down the multiplier (the only OC related BIOS adjustments that actually fu**ing works) to get the higher FSB frequencies, all programs are reporting my cpu only running at 1600, 8 x 200...GRRRRRR.

A DFI board is being ordered today, thanks for marketing me a crappy stock running board at an enthuist price Asus.

I'm so glad you posted this thread. I'm having the exact same problem with my Opteron 165!

I could change the settings to anything but nothing actually changes.

The first few made were buggy. You can only OC with the earliest bios. I'm not sure why some boards can OC with later bios versions.

I sold it to someone who was not going to OC and picked up a refurb DFI LP for $80 at newegg.

Hi!

I saw your message about your A8N-E overclocking issues and decided to register so I can maybe help you.


I have the same board and had the same issue. I am going to guess you have the floppy drive disabled? I did and it caused the exact same issue when I tried to go beyond Cpu frequency of 220.

As dumb as it sounds, give it a try (if you still have the board). I enabled it (even though no floppy drive in the machine) and it fixed the issue.

Ok I'm going to resurrect this thread in hopes of solving this same issue.

I just bought this board for a friend of mine paired with an X2 3800+ Manchester and I am having this exact problem.

If I try to set any setting over stock it hangs on that same screen. If I raise the FSB or something to overclock the CPU then reboot into memtest, it still says it's stock!!!!

This board runs great at stock settings, I've even managed to get it overclocked using Clockgen. I got it all the way up to 2.8Ghz in windows and it was running stable, but if I go and set those options in the bios, it hangs

I can't update the BIOS with Winflash cause the new 1013 bios I get it says it's "not a bios .rom", I can't install the Asus updater to get a new bios because it gives me a .DLL error and says "THERE'S NO ASUS BOARD INSTALLED!!!" WTH!?!?

I've read that people are having even more issues when they do update to the 1013 BIOS so I'm pretty leery of doing that.

I should have just bought a DFI board first off. I've always ever had DFI buards and they are awesome. I had a DFI Lanparty nForce 2, Lanparty nForce 4 Ultra-D right now with my Opteron and it's smokin'

But I thought this board would be a nice stock board that would overclock some without a hassle. I've tried everything. Changed every voltage setting, all the ram timings/settings, HTT, PCI lock, etc...

The only thing I noticed is that I did disable the Floppy, but I've reloaded factory defaults and I don't know if I disabled it again.

Can anybody give me a hand here? Should I just ditch this board?

Can anybody link me to a DFI Lanparty nForce 4 Ultra-D? Used or whatever?

You guys are remembering to drop the HT multi to 4x or 3x, right?

Sounds like you're doing 220 x 5 = 1100

Gotta keep it at or under 1000Mhz.

Winter said:

You guys are remembering to drop the HT multi to 4x or 3x, right?

Sounds like you're doing 220 x 5 = 1100

Gotta keep it at or under 1000Mhz.

Click to expand...

Yep, I tried 4x, 3x, and 2x. Did not help.

Okay, how about the PCIE lock? Enabled or no? And which of the SATA ports are you using?

Something is definitely wrong here. I had the board and was able to get a good overclock (275 MHz FSB) out of the thing prior to purchasing my LanParty.

kunsunoke said:

Okay, how about the PCIE lock? Enabled or no? And which of the SATA ports are you using?

Something is definitely wrong here. I had the board and was able to get a good overclock (275 MHz FSB) out of the thing prior to purchasing my LanParty.

Click to expand...

PCI-E lock was tried at Auto and 33.33Mhz.

I'm not positive on the SATA port, I think he plugged it into the bottom one. That's a thing we didn't try either.

I was also thinking something was wrong because I always here how good people are overclocking their chips in their Asus boards but this one is such a lemon it's not even funny, it's frustrating.

I don't mind if the board doesn't overclock well, but when it won't overclock at all that's when I want to throw it out the window.

okay first update your bios if you haven't already. to the latest.

set HTT multipler to 3x.

set 1T/2T memory timing to 2T.

i have this board for my sister's rig, and once i changed the memory timing to 2T i was able to hit 300fsb on my old 3000+ venice. hope this helps if any. also don't be afraid to bump the vcore to 1.6v if you have anything BUT stock cooling.

EDIT: on the nForce4 boards, all the SATAs are lock so thats not the problem. it was on the nForce3s as stated earlier in this thread.

I have been over clocking a long time, I had an A8N-E and tried nearly everything I could think of along with as many recommendations as possible in trying to max out my Opteron 144. After switching to a DFI board (everything else the same) I was able to get far more from the CPU and it was more stable. There are some people who have had success, but my research and my own personal experience lead me to beleive that by and large, these boards just don't like to run at the high clock speeds, regardless of settings.

- Adam

aiya said:

okay first update your bios if you haven't already. to the latest.

set HTT multipler to 3x.

set 1T/2T memory timing to 2T.

i have this board for my sister's rig, and once i changed the memory timing to 2T i was able to hit 300fsb on my old 3000+ venice. hope this helps if any. also don't be afraid to bump the vcore to 1.6v if you have anything BUT stock cooling.

EDIT: on the nForce4 boards, all the SATAs are lock so thats not the problem. it was on the nForce3s as stated earlier in this thread.

Click to expand...

As I said just a few posts up, I've tried all the HTT multipliers.

The command rate was defaulted to 2T so I left it there.

Maybe you also missed the part where I said that I tried updating the BIOS but could not, so yeah.

I had trouble with my A8N-SLI Premium,I would raise or lower my Cpu frequency in the BIOS,but it would not change in windows. My problem was Ntune. I set it to start with a profile I made and that what it did. When I got rid of the that profile windows had the same cpu frequency that I set in the BIOS. Hope this helps.

Try running bios 1006 or 1008. Downgrade using a floppy in pure dos to go back to an older bios.This worked for me. Mine is running all stock voltages and 1T timings at 255 x 10 on a venice 3200 w/corsair xms3200c2 ram.
Ive never had a problem with o/clocking at all on this board.Enabling the floppy has worked for alot of people...very wierd...
Ive had my fsb up to 275 with a divider too and memory at 2t...

wesleys_dad said:

Try running bios 1006 or 1008. Downgrade using a floppy in pure dos to go back to an older bios.This worked for me. Mine is running all stock voltages and 1T timings at 255 x 10 on a venice 3200 w/corsair xms3200c2 ram.
Ive never had a problem with o/clocking at all on this board.Enabling the floppy has worked for alot of people...very wierd...
Ive had my fsb up to 275 with a divider too and memory at 2t...

Click to expand...

I would be happy to try other BIOSes but this computer has no floppy drive, and the 1013 bios while trying to load in Winflash gives the error that it's "not a bios.rom", but it is a .rom file.

I'm going to have to try this floppy thing, it would be nice if that was the key.

Could I perhaps get a link to some of the other bioses?

To you who cant update your bios because you dont have a floppy drive.
i had the same problem, but found that i could make a USB-memorystick bootable og make a bootable CD with the updater and bios located on it.
it helped me update the bios, but did not help me with the same problem that you all had...
i set my HTT to 4x, enabled floppy drive, set my pc3200 ram to 333Mhz and FSB to 230Mhz

Now my 3500+ is running at 2530Mhz stable.
had it running at 240Mhz but i crashed after 25min. of gaming WOW.
im using watercooling but my fans are set to a minimum to keep noise at its lowest.


so, just put the bios and updater on a bootable CD or USB

I had to RMA my AN8-E after two years and it took nearly six months to do that. They gave me back a AN8-SLI SE which means worse on board sound all-in-all a poor deal for me. I just got it to post last week after trying three sound cards and four sticks of Ram. Finally tried a different slot and it fired right up. So the slot closest to the CPU is bad. I'll just use the outboard slots and live with it. I don't want to go thru the ASUS RMA Ordeal again.