Official Asus A8N-SLI Premium Thread

mrochester · 7 Oct 2005 at 12:05

I just got my A8N premium and my X2 4400+ ive flashed to 1007 BIOS i think, well the newest one thats not a beta, how can i tell if both cores are working? I dont think they are

Check task manager without Windows and you should see two processor windows.

The IPB · 7 Oct 2005 at 13:27

Mmm not working as i thought, ive been advised to reinstall windows so ill see if that gives me any luck, needed a re format anyway so gives me an excuse to do it.

Zico · 7 Oct 2005 at 15:13

Dkore-DeX said:
Mmm not working as i thought, ive been advised to reinstall windows so ill see if that gives me any luck, needed a re format anyway so gives me an excuse to do it.

Just to double check, if you are using XP Home then you won't see a 2nd CPU, only XP Pro is dual CPU capable.

The IPB · 7 Oct 2005 at 16:30

Ive got XP pro, so in home edition will it only work as a single core then? Or will it work dual core but onyl show as one?

Zico · 7 Oct 2005 at 16:38

Dkore-DeX said:
Ive got XP pro, so in home edition will it only work as a single core then? Or will it work dual core but onyl show as one?

Only Pro and the 64bit versions of XP work with multiple cpu's. Home edition would work with a dual core cpu installed but the OS would only see a single core.

XP Pro should definitely find the dual core cpu in the Devices list. It will also display this in the Task Manager section. From the Task Manager you can also individually assign different processes to individual cores.

mmj_uk · 7 Oct 2005 at 16:41

bigredshark said:
I'm not sure this has been answered already in the thread, and it's about to become an issue for me.

does the board work ok with 4 sticks of memory (corsair XMS 1GB CAS2 to be specific, i have 2 but i want to another two in for 4gb) I'm not expecting it to run at 1T but I've heard of problems running 4 sticks of memory in some AMD boards. anybody know?

*mutters about not having this problem with intel*

The general concensus is that the boards aren't the problem, but A64's memory controller are pretty pants with 4 sticks. To be totally honest why on earth should you need 4GB of ram? 2GB is more than ample.

mrochester · 7 Oct 2005 at 22:45

Only Pro and the 64bit versions of XP work with multiple cpu's. Home edition would work with a dual core cpu installed but the OS would only see a single core.

XP Home shows both processors.

Zico · 7 Oct 2005 at 23:42

mrochester said:
XP Home shows both processors.

Well it might be able to see it, but it won't support the use of any more than a single processor.

mrochester · 8 Oct 2005 at 00:05

Well it might be able to see it, but it won't support the use of any more than a single processor.

No it does indeed use both processors.

Zico · 8 Oct 2005 at 00:42

mrochester said:
No it does indeed use both processors.

Take a look here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx

Scroll down to the part which mentions Scalable processor support.

**Edit**

XP Home does not have SMP support.

mrochester · 8 Oct 2005 at 01:00

XP Home does not have SMP support.

Yes, but this refers to XP Home not supporting more than 1 processor socket. If you happen to have 2 processors within a single socket, it's fully supported by XP Home.

The IPB · 8 Oct 2005 at 11:53

Thanks for all the help everyone it's now running.

bigredshark · 8 Oct 2005 at 23:16

mmj_uk said:
The general concensus is that the boards aren't the problem, but A64's memory controller are pretty pants with 4 sticks. To be totally honest why on earth should you need 4GB of ram? 2GB is more than ample.

because I can is one reason, because I can afford to and it's a logical upgrade is another, and because when i'm editing photo's I sometimes *only* have 600mb of memory free. I'm just curious if it'll work, from what you're saying it won't on any board? I thought I'd heard that some boards worked better with 4 sticks than others?

mmj_uk · 9 Oct 2005 at 12:04

It's just all a bit of gamble using 4Gb on A64's.

You'll definitely have to use 2T but even then you may still get stability problems even at stock (PC3200) speed.

mrochester · 9 Oct 2005 at 14:11

It's just all a bit of gamble using 4Gb on A64's.

A friend of mine tried to fill all 4 memory slots with 512mb sticks with his Venice based A64. It just wont have it. Even though each pair works perfectly seperately, it just wont take all 4 sticks of RAM at the same time.

Khai · 9 Oct 2005 at 16:35

bigredshark said:
I'm not sure this has been answered already in the thread, and it's about to become an issue for me.

does the board work ok with 4 sticks of memory (corsair XMS 1GB CAS2 to be specific, i have 2 but i want to another two in for 4gb) I'm not expecting it to run at 1T but I've heard of problems running 4 sticks of memory in some AMD boards. anybody know?

*mutters about not having this problem with intel*

I have 4Gb of RAM (two 2Gb Corsair kits) working fine. I had to use Windows x64 for it to recognise all of it though. And you're right, it won't work at 1T regardless of what settings I try.

ted34 · 9 Oct 2005 at 19:21

im only running 2 x 512 and to get stable above 240fsb i have to use slots a2 and b2. this was the same on an exact same comp build (a8n prem, 3700, corsair 2 x 512 4400). thought it was psu but now using tagan 530w and hasnt made any difference. i know some of the dfi boards had problems with corsair memory so i guess it must be something along the same lines. as for using 4 sticks i think will be a gamble and dont really see why manufacturers put 4 slots in on boards that are obviously going to be o/c

Aram · 9 Oct 2005 at 23:46

Hopefully this is the right place for a little help, I just spalshed out on:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-111-AS)
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS)
Leadtek GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-065-LT)
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6L250S0 SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-021-MD)
Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)

Came with BIOS 1005 and I've not done any overclocking or other messing about, just used all the standard stuff as provided in the boxes (I'm also actually using the AMD stock cooler atm)

Put everything together and it worked 1st time, XP Pro installed fine and I though (foolishly) all was well. Then I started installing the provided drivers and it all went horribly wrong....constant hanging at the XP loading screen on bootup, boot disk errors, blue-screening, total refusal to re-instal XP (would hang @ 10 -15% of file copy stage) - generally falling over like a no swearing bloke on an icy evening

I played around with the ram, PSU and everything else and finally got it working by using an old ATA100 80GB IDE HD - seems stable atm but I want to use my new SATA drive god damn it! I can't (yet) be 100% sure the drive isn't at fault but as i'm far from an expert can anyone offer any suggestions or do maxtor drives just not mix with this mobo?

Also are the provided drivers ok or is it worth seeking out others (and if so which ones)? - I'd really prefer not to flash the BIOS tho (it scares me)

tutu · 10 Oct 2005 at 00:52

I would suggest flashing to the latest stable BIOS. ASUS update is very straightforward to use (windows flasher).

Disable whatever you do not use (e.g. RAID, Serial, Parallel, second LAN) to save those IRQs.

Delete the partition. Do a clean install of Windows XP (SP2 integrated). Install nforce 6.66 or later and then reboot. Install your other (latest) drivers then goto windows update.

I would not use the drivers on the discs, they are usually out of date. It wouldn't hurt to try a different SATA cable.

Sumanji · 10 Oct 2005 at 01:44

Aram: As above really. Flash to the latest 1008 BIOS and install the latest chipset drivers which are 6.66 I think. Don't worry about flashing it's easy

Cheers,

Suman

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