Weird A8N5X

[gearhead13]

I bought an a8n5x and have it installed with an 3800x2. Supposed to be a regular nforce4 chipset with 800 fsb from what i read. Well, the box says 1000 HT on it. On the post screen it says bios version 1003 and the bios chip says 1003 on it ??? Asus website has newest bios as 0902 or something. I am happy with the 1000 instead of 800 but dont like the idea of having some kind of frankenstein board. I should have gotten the a8n-e or sli board. The ocing on this board sucks because you cant change the ram timings and the cpu config together, if you try to change both one of them goes back to auto.
I am running 4 ram sticks for now and thought it would be ok because the newer A64 chips are supposed to run 4 sticks at 400 MHz, but it clocks them at 333. Not that bad because my regular ddr400 at my higher clock makes the ram run at 385 or something. With two sticks they run at ~450 and they cant take it. Should i send the board back? Is my cpu an older one that wont run 4 sticks at 400? Cpuz shows it as an bh-e4 manchester.

[kingzzz]

umm dunno what ur problem is... i got the same board, i just restarted, went into bios changed my ram timings and saved settings, restarted went back to bios my oc is still there at 250x10 and ram setting has changed to the one ive just set. have u made sure both of the options are on manual?

[gearhead13]

what bios/board revision do you have?

[kingzzz]

0902

10char

[jedipimp]

Originally Posted by gearhead13

I bought an a8n5x and have it installed with an 3800x2. Supposed to be a regular nforce4 chipset with 800 fsb from what i read. Well, the box says 1000 HT on it. On the post screen it says bios version 1003 and the bios chip says 1003 on it ??? Asus website has newest bios as 0902 or something. I am happy with the 1000 instead of 800 but dont like the idea of having some kind of frankenstein board. I should have gotten the a8n-e or sli board. The ocing on this board sucks because you cant change the ram timings and the cpu config together, if you try to change both one of them goes back to auto.
I am running 4 ram sticks for now and thought it would be ok because the newer A64 chips are supposed to run 4 sticks at 400 MHz, but it clocks them at 333. Not that bad because my regular ddr400 at my higher clock makes the ram run at 385 or something. With two sticks they run at ~450 and they cant take it. Should i send the board back? Is my cpu an older one that wont run 4 sticks at 400? Cpuz shows it as an bh-e4 manchester.

i just got my board the other day. it's bios is 1003 as well. probably means that it's loaded with the latest revision?

i found it super easy to OC on this board. i am running a 3000+ venice on it, and it's oc'd to 2070.83, 920FSB, 230 X 9 (running prime95 right now to see if i can push it further). i am running 4 512 sticks of DDR 400 at 333.

edit :

okay -- i am now testing it at 2.25GHz -- stable so far.

i upped my vcore and dram voltage. HT is at 1000MHz, 250MHz x 9, HT is at 4

[gearhead13]

The asus site doesnt list a 1003 bios revision, so if i need to update bios what do i do? Im having board stability problems with my x2 3800 at 2.4. I dont like having a board thats not normal/unknown.
jedipimp:
Where did you get your board? I am wondering if it is asus putting these bios chips in or the retailer? I got mine from ncix.

[Omastar]

As a general rule of thumb, don't ever use 4 sticks of RAM or more unless you're working with a workstation that utilizes a server board. The onboard memory controller in A64s simply becomes overloaded when you have 4 sticks of RAM, the bandwidth transfer is just too bloated, and this is likely why you're clocking back to DDR-333. The motherboard isn't helping matters, either. It's a pretty low-end s939 board, and a better bet would be the Asus A8N-SLI, as it's really cheap now (sub $100). I doubt the BIOS version is your problem.

If you're running 4x512MB sticks, don't. 2x1GB in dual channel will yield better performance and run at spec.

Actually, I'm beginning to think your mobo is limiting you the most. The on-die memory controller was more problematic with the Clawhammer core, where DDR-400 would be clocked back to DDR-333 if all 4 RAM slots were populated or if the RAM wasn't running in dual channel, or some such nonsense. But since yours is a Manchester core, try a different mobo, and report the results. Also, the HTT should be 1000 (200*5), not 800.

[gearhead13]

I was frustrated with the stability problems, so I flashed it to 0902 bios latest official bios from asus site, no problems. I seem to be able to change ram and cpu oc setting together, which was a big problem for me not being able to run with a divider. testing stability and oc now.
I am running 4 sticks of 512 pc3200 I really need to pick up a dual 1 Gb ddr500 set. 1 gig is just not enough for some games. I am going to try and send this board back if i can and get an a8n-e or a8n-sli . I just dont know if I need sli. Would 2 7600 gt in sli would be any better than one 7900 gt, it seems the prices are coming down and whether i can still get the same 7600 gt to go with the one i have
The htt is 1000 at stock, I read that normal nforce4 chipsets (not ultra) ran at 800

[Omastar]

Ah, right, that mobo is just regular nForce4. I thought the 800 HTT bus was all nForce3 though. Hmm. I connected it with s754 for some reason.

I dunno about the board, though. I'd rather have something with better OC capibilities, but *shrugs*. I always read that the DDR-333 thing resulted from an overloaded memory controller or something.

As for 2 7600GTs, don't bother. One 7900GT would be your best bet, as you could stick another 7900GT in there later (assuming you send the A8N5X back for an SLI mobo), but the most I'd go for at the moment is 1 7900GT, or if I had money burning a hole in my pocket, one 7950GX2, but any huge SLI solutions this close to DX10 seems kinda stupid. Although the supposed power consumption of DX10 cards is something to be wary of, unless you want to make a dedicated circuit just for your computer in the breaker box.