ASUS Motherboards (For techno-wizards)

[Hokie]

I am getting rather upset with ASUS. Last year I upgraded a older system with an ASUS A7V333-x mobo and AMD Athlon 2600+ CPU. After 8 months the system died. I do not get and video or beep codes at all. I called ASUS and paid to get another MB out without waiting for my RMA'ed MB to get back to them (they call this the cross shipping option).

When I received the new MB the symptoms were the same. OK, I figure the CPU is dead. I bought another Athlon and installed it. It is still dead. I figure that ASUS sent me another bad MB. They still have not credited my $95 for the beard I returned. Now I have to call and get another RMA and ship a second board back.

I have tried all the troubleshooting techniques they recommended including electrically isolating the case, pulling the memory, and disconnecting all the drives. I also tried another power supply and checked for proper voltages on every pin. The CPU fan runs and the power button works. That is all that works.

Does anyone have any ideas or comments on ASUS?

[neverborn]

1. Wow!?

ASUS is great -- I've had two ASUS motherboards -- the A7V266-E with the dreaded VIA chipset, and now the A7V8X Deluxe -- both worked PERFECTLY.

[DS1]

2. A7M266 here has been flawless

:shrug:

[Hokie]

3. I had heard good things about ASUS

I had heard they were good. That is why I bought one and it was rock solid until last month. I had an EPOX with a K2-450 before and it locked up all the time.

[MichaelHarris]

4. I'm

SOYO motherboard all the way, got um all over the house, never had a bad one

[tridim]

5. I dig Asus boards

I've had about 4 and they've all been flawless. I'm currently using a A7N8X Deluxe with an Athlon XP 3200+. It's just a beautiful board with the exception of the SATA drive/BIOS issues (had to upgrade to a hacked BIOS to get things working smoothly). I'm starting to think that SATA sucks, but I have no idea if it's the controller hardware, the software or the drive itself.

Did you check your RAM?

[mn9driver]

8. The Silicon Image onboard SATA sucks.

I run an A7N8X DLX and next time I'll buy an add-on card for that.

[tridim]

14. Sucking SATA

I just replaced my SATA HD yesterday due to a serious problem I was having with disk errors. So far so good. Is there any specific problem you were having with the onboard SATA controller?

I'm not 100% sure my error problem was due to the SATA system, because I had a bizarre process running that I could not get rid of. I'm thinking it was a new (and yet undiscovered) virus of some sort. sysldrv.exe was the filename and it wasn't referenced anywhere in the registry, services or startup, but it pounded on my firewall all day long and could not be stopped no matter what I tried. It was a complete mystery, so I just bought a new HD and reinstalled the OS. Everything's fine now, even the old drive is working fine as a data drive.

[mn9driver]

19. sysldrv.exe has popped up before

I'm not sure what it is myself; there is some indication it might be associared with a spyware package called look2me, which is a bugger to get rid of. Try Spybot and AdAware if it comes back.

The big problem I've had with the SI controller is data corruption when running striped arrays. If there was a way to run it RAID 1+0, I could live with it, but it can't be done on this board without an add-on card. Live and learn.

[Kellanved]

6. Asus - not as good as they used to be, but the support rocks

I had a failing fan on a A7V133, complained ... and heard nothing. I started to get angry, but after a week I had a new heatsink in the mail.

3 of my four MBs are MSI, one Asus. I think my next one will be another Asus - just not their low-end brand: Asrock. Honestly: who had the idea for that name?


As to your problems: two dead MBs sounds strange , sure it isn't the PSU?

[Hokie]

7. I tried another PSU

I also checked all the voltages on the power connector.

[DS1]

9. You're using thermal paste and all that good cooling stuff right?

It's no secret that AMDs run a bitter hotter than Intel.

Just a thought, sometimes you gotta ask the obvious questions.

[mn9driver]

10. Does it power up and them power right back down?

If so, check your cpu fan connection on the mb.

[Hokie]

11. No, the CPU and PSU fan run

The CPU and PSU fans run until I hold the power button down for 5 seconds. I am using thermal paste and a good cooler (Thermaltake Volcano 9 to be exact).

I should get beeps from the speaker even with the memory and the video card pulled, right?

[BootinUp]

13. Some fans are not detected

right. Hook the video back up, keyboard, no drives. Check the manual to see how to disable the cpu fan safe detection. Should be a jumper on board to do that.

[BootinUp]

12. Never had a big problem with Asus boards

But these things can happen. Check you cpu fan connection like was suggested. Also just to be sure calmly recheck that all your components are connected inserted properly.

[BootinUp]

15. Are you sure the

cpu is the right one for this particular board? I've lost track a little, but you could have a mismatch.

[Hokie]

16. It worked for 8 months

I had no problems at all for 8 months. I ordered the case, MB, memory, and CPU from a dealer in Ohio. The board should support this CPU.

OK what is the "fan detect". Is this a jumper that I can move? How does the MB detect that the fan is turning? Is there a speed sensor on the CPU cooling fan that might be bad?

[BootinUp]

17. Either there is a jumper to disable detection

or you can press some key combination to bypass it.

I don't know why it wouldn't be detected but in the past there were some fans and motherboards that didn't get along. So the board thinks there is no fan and shuts down.

[BootinUp]

18. One other thing, reset the cmos, with the jumper

or remove the battery. I am just wondering if your fsb speeds between board and cpu don't match.

[Hokie]

20. I did that, too

I pulled the battery and moved the jumper to reset the CMOS. I looked in the manual and there is no jumper or way to bypass the CPU fan detect. It is not mentioned. You would think I would get the POST beeps no matter what. This is a jumperless MB so it should detect the CPU and set the FSB speed and CPU clock speed shouldn't it?

[BootinUp]

22. Let me look at the specs, brb. n/t

[BootinUp]

23. What version is the board and bios and what cpu? edited

Your board supports the following cpus but for 333FSB you need the bios version in the right column.

Athlon XP 2600+(333 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton) 2.01 1004
Athlon XP 2600+(333FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred) 2.01 1002
Athlon XP 2600+(266FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred) ALL ALL


http://www.asus.com/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

edit: Which cpu do you have? there are 3 2600+

[slackmaster]

21. I have almost exactly the same setup

I burned up my original Athlon 2100 CPU thermally The heat sink was all full of dust (mea culpa) and not doing its job. Replaced it with a 2600 and a much more robust CPU cooler about 6 months ago, and it's been fine.

Overall my experinece with Asus MBs has been very good.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

24. Perhaps you're looking in the wrong place

for your beep code problem. Have you checked the physical wiring connections to your case speaker? I've had more than one brand new case I had to resolder bad connections on-- why not check for a failed joint on a "used" case?

As for video, I've had mobos reject as many as four video cards in a row before finding one that would work....

[Hokie]

25. Yes.

I checked with an VOM. I could hear the speaker clicking when I measured the resistance which was 17 ohms. It is working.