The whole 190GB vs 200GB has nothing to do with this FAQ, please take it to the low-tech areas

This is noob arena stuff...200GB is based on 1000K = 1MB, when in reality it's 1024K....even then it's usually rounded up. you are looking at 3% loss.

Firstly,

Hello chaps,

Been following this cracking FAQ for several weeks now and have found that many people have been experiencing similar problems to myself. Thanks a lot guys have found details in this post very helpful, big thanks to Sander and Mike for excellent Posts for setting up system.

I have been working on trying to smooth out numerous problems and trying to OC my system.
I am relatively new to Overclocking and I had tried to set the NV Performance as per Mikes FAQ but have been having problems with Blue screen of death after trying to load previous settings. Think that this is probably a memory error but may not be as the screen disappears so quick that I have not been able to read what it says.
I have tried changing all the settings, clearing CMOS having a cup of Tea etc and reverting back to default and tried to reset all the settings as per FAQ on page1 but this blue screen will not go away.
Previous to overclocking the system I had been glinches whilst playing DOOM3.

I was wanting to OC my CPU first and OC the Graphics card to get the most out of the CPU.

My sytem specs are as follows:

BIOS 1003
Chipset drivers version 6.93
I was using the 66.93 Drivers and installed the 71.81 and installed the Nvidia omega optimized 16177 drivers
Windows XP PRO SP2

A8N-SLI Deluxe
Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester with Asus Star Ice CPU Cooler
XFX Geforce 6800 GT
Tagan 480w Power Supply TG480-U01
2 * 512MB DDR400 PC3200 RAM (elixir brand) with Copper RAM Heatsinks on A2 – B2 (dual channel)
(Thought about putting in another 2 but believe this is not beneficial)
160 GB Western Digital Caviar SATA UDMA150 7200rpm 8Mb cache with Akasa Hard Disk Cooler
36 GB Western Digital Raptor 10Krpm 8Mb Cache Serial ATA HDD
19" Hyundai Image Quest L90D+ 8ms Silver/black 700:1
2 * NEC ND-3520 16x16 Dual Layer Black DVD +/- R/RW

What FSB can the board handle safely on CPU multiplier *9, can you lock the PCI slots?

I have heard that the 3000+ winnie should be able to run stable when the following setting are in place

HTT to 4
CPU multiplier *9
DRAM set at 333MHz at 1T
FSB 280 = 2.520 GHz

I have heard of people running at 3GHz with cooling does this sound possible.

Can someone explain the benefits of going for RAID array. i.e will this improve gaming experience
Would the hardrive speed be the bottleneck that I would have on this system, if so I could buy another 36 GB Western Digital Raptor and use this in RAID?

I was planning on reinstalling Windows when the new harddisk arrives and using the raptor for gaming and the OS and the Other Disk for Movies and music does this make sense?

I bought the Athlon 3000+ as I heard it was very good for overclocking and plan to upgrade in the up and coming year to include an Athlon FX55 and a second XFX 6800 GT when I plan on moving to SLI.

Sorry about the long post but thought it would be better to provide as much info as possible.

Hope someone can help me with the above questions, all help welcome

Cracking machine BTW Mike

Cheers,
DR

Have had my System for a few weeks now with no problems (Well except one which I will share below)

System is as follows

3500+ Newcastle
2 x eVGA GF6800GT
1 Gig (Dual 512) Crucial Ram (Not sure exact specs)

Every once in awhile like when I go to minimize something or maximize, My screen will just go black, comp stays running and seems like everything works, but I just reboot and comes back on fine. Just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem. I have not upgraded to the 1004 bios yet. Using 1003 at the moment.

Hi there. I am conidering upgrading from my ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe MoBo to the ASUS A8N-SLI. I don't plan on using the SLI because I am more interested in getting the 4 on-board SATA channels.

The A7N8X-D is a pile of crap when it comes to SATA. I bought the 4-channel RAID controller card from SIIG in hopes of erecting a RAID 0+1. Apparently that MoBo does not play well with RAID controller cards. It keeps trashing the data. The only way it works reliably is to attach drive as singles with no RAID. I recently created a mirrored set on the controller card, resulting in intermittent IO issues.

SO, my question is has anybody had problems with a RAID 0+1 configuration on the A8N-SLI? I so desperately want to have a stable system for a change! If there's another AMD socket MoBo that offers as many great features, 4 SATA channels, and fewer issues, please gove me your recommendation.

dr dr,

Think that this is probably a memory error but may not be as the screen disappears so quick that I have not
been able to read what it says.
>>>Start>My Computer>right click>Then Properties>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Settings>System Failure>uncheck Automaticaly Restart to see the messages.

tried to set the NV Performance as per Mikes FAQ but have been having problems with Blue screen of death after trying to load previous settings
>>>Set mem timings to 3-3-3-8 to start, and in BIOS set CPU FSB to 201 MHz PCI synchronization mode to 33.33. Start new Ntune guide on page 16. Then reduce GPU Memory Core by my increments or others specified in the guide. Still have some tweaking to do after this point.

BIOS 1003
>>>Change to 1004.001

I was using the 66.93 Drivers and installed the 71.81 and installed the Nvidia omega optimized 16177 drivers
Windows XP PRO SP2
>>>Go back to 66.93 and remove 16177 until you fix your problems.

2 * 512MB DDR400 PC3200 RAM (elixir brand) with Copper RAM Heatsinks on A2 – B2 (dual channel)
>>>Any reason for it to be on A2 and B2? A1 and B1 (blue)

Thought about putting in another 2 but believe this is not beneficial
>>>Depends on your needs, what you use your computer for.

What FSB can the board handle safely on CPU multiplier *9, can you lock the PCI slots?
>>>Ideal is 800 max 1100.

Can someone explain the benefits of going for RAID array
>>>Read the last two pages of the forum, I just explained it all.

Would the hardrive speed be the bottleneck that I would have on this system, if so I could buy another 36 GB
Western Digital Raptor and use this in RAID?
>>>No, yes.

was planning on reinstalling Windows when the new harddisk arrives and using the raptor for gaming and the OS and the Other Disk for Movies and music does this make sense?
>>>Raptors OS with programs EX: Gaming, video processing etc...
Larger one for storage.

bought the Athlon 3000+ as I heard it was very good for overclocking and plan to upgrade in the up and coming year to include an Athlon FX55 and a second XFX 6800 GT when I plan on moving to SLI.
>>>Good, you'll like your upgrade.

Sorry about the long post but thought it would be better to provide as much info as possible.
>>>The more the merrier.

Mike

Dan,

Every once in awhile like when I go to minimize something or maximize, My screen will just go black, comp stays running and seems like everything works, but I just reboot and comes back on fine. Just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem. I have not upgraded to the 1004 bios yet. Using 1003 at the moment

>>>Are you overclocked, where and by how much?

Mike

Kain,

The A7N8X-D is a pile of crap when it comes to SATA. I bought the 4-channel RAID controller card from SIIG in hopes of erecting a RAID 0+1. Apparently that MoBo does not play well with RAID controller cards.

>>>I ran a Terra Byte from my A7N8X-D with a Promise Fast Trak TX 150 4 Channel SATA RAID card RAID 0+1 and had no problems, well, none that I couldn't fix. Yes it trashed my data once! But with a fresh install of XP with card and drivers in place, it never did it again.

Take a look at the board and drives here;

Put the http:// in front of this address in your web browser.

copy and paste this after the http://
ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/thellendfamily@rogers.com/my_photos

Look at the photo album 2005-02-19, you will see the setup of my server.


The reason for this is that the forum does not accept the @ sign in a web address and it shows up very screwy.

Mike

Robert louis

Yeah, take it to the noob section man! lol

There's 8 bits to a byte, (sounds like a snack I buy at the store, bits and bytes)
1000 bytes = 1 KB
1000 KB = 1 MB
1000 MB = 1 Gig

lol

Mike

Mike, Simon, and others with memory performance issues ...

<Puts on his fire-retardant asbestos suit>

I hope this has not been discussed before. If it has, I apologize in advance ...

I am running 2x512M Crucial Ballistix in the A1, B1 (blue) slots at DDR400 with 2-2-10-2; 1T command settings and I am running reliably. Prime95 torture ran overnight without problems. I play EQ2 and Doom 3 in SLI mode all the time (when I am not working that is) and never crash or BSOD in EQ2; Doom 3 is another story.

The 2-2-2- timings are for speed; the -10- timing is to optimize bandwidth. I got these memory timings from a http://www.anandtech.com Athlon64 memory review published about a month ago.

The only memory that runs consistently faster than Ballistix at DDR400 is OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev 2; but Ballistix runs faster than OCZ at DDR488 settings ... so take your pick.

If you check the Asus site, you will see that ASUS has recently added Ballistix to their approved memory list. This stuff works ... and I hope you all don't mind (too much) if I sound a bit like our forum host on this particular issue ...

1G memory DIMMs don't work as well as 512M DIMMs do in Athlon64 motherboards because you have to relax the 1T command timing to 2T ... which makes the memory run quite a bit slower ... so you OC the memory which defeats the purpose of the 2T command timing because the memory can't react fast enough ... so your system becomes unreliable.

Also, 4x512M DIMMs suffer from the same 2T command timing issue ... except for just the right combination of DIMM sticks running at DDR400 ... I think the OCZ Platinum Rev 2. was the only memory to successfully and consistently perform in the 2-2-10-2; 1T configuration on an Athlon64 nForce3/nForce4 motherboard.

Last, and you all can verify this with the cpuZ information tool from http://www.cpuid.com, when the DRAM configuration in the 1004 BIOS uses AUTO settings, it does not use the SPD settings in your DIMM sticks, as you might think it should; rather, the BIOS uses hard-coded 3-3-8-3; 2T command timings to run your memory.

The hard-coded DRAM configuration in the 1004 BIOS just might be a contributor to some of the memory problems some are experiencing. May I suggest you use cpuZ to verify that both DIMMs are using the same SPD settings and then use those settings in the DRAM configuration?

And do I have to say, "If the SPD timings in your DIMM sticks differ, send them back; they are not a matched pair."? Nope, didn't think I would have to ...

Hope this helps ...

<Ducks to avoid the flaming replies>

Drakan,

Most of what you discussed here, in your most recent and previous posts, has been mentioned in other posts but in a different way, and maybe not all at once.

This is a forum, and the purpose of a forum is for people to exchange opinions and ideas on a particular issue(s).

What one person might not have picked up in a certain post, that same person could very well pick up in the next, such as yours.

Everybody is entitled to voice his or her opinions here, and we appreciate your input.

Mike

About sound cards ...

If you are using a PCI slot sound card, any brand that needs an IRQ, make sure you put the card in PCI slot 2. This is especially true if you are running two graphics cards in SLI mode.

You cannot use the other PCI slots because 1 and 3 share interrupts with the PCIe graphics card slots.

The ASUS user guide (pg 2-25 ... or thereabouts) illustrates PCI slot 1 sharing interrupts with PCIe graphics slot 1 (blue); but what it does NOT show is that PCI slot 3 shares interrupts with PCIe graphics slot 2 (black).

I found this out the hard way by looking in Device Manager (View by Type) after my rig started behaving badly.

I moved the sound card from PCI slot 3 to PCI slot 2 to correct the problem. Now none of my devices share an IRQ with anything else.

The only down-side is that I cannot use the SIL3114 controller anymore ... but I had that Disabled in the BIOS anyway. As Sandor and Mike have said ... why use a 150MByte interface when a 3GByte interface already exists. And as Mike (or Sandor) said, two 74G WD Raptors in a RAID0 array will saturate the PCI bus during a read-burst operation ... this is not a good thing for your PC ... trust me on this.

So, the bottom-line is, you cannot configure the A8N-SLI to run eight SATA drives; two graphics cards in SLI mode, and a SoundBlaster card. Well, you could ... but it would not run very well for very long ...

FYI, after I moved the sound card, my EQ2 frame rates went up by a significant amount and the sound did not "stutter" as it had been doing.

Hope this helps ...

Mike,

Thanks ... just trying to help out.

I searched before I posted, but got answers for every topic and could not tell which of them were under this FAQ.

I'm a noob here, so I don't want to offend any of the more experienced posters and certainly don't wish to sound like I am critiqueing the fine work I have found here.

My own rig went together rather smoothly because I took the time to read (most of) the posts here before I started building it.

Hope this helps ...

> Can someone explain the benefits of going for RAID array
> >>>Read the last two pages of the forum, I just explained it all.

What about the testing of RAID 0 done here?
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=2101

Shows little or no performance increase with RAID 0.

Jamison Roof

What about the testing of RAID 0 done here?
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=2101

Shows little or no performance increase with RAID 0.


While a score of 901 IO operations per second seems impressive, what's important to note is that two Raptors in RAID-0 only offers 20% more performance than a single Raptor in this purely disk-bound test. We have already seen how aggressive caching, pre-fetching and other such real world elements of modern day computers reduce the impact of hard drive performance on overall system performance. With only a 20% improvement in pure disk performance, this doesn't bode too well for RAID-0 offering much of a real world performance boost.

While a score of 901 IO operations per second seems impressive, what's important to note is that two Raptors in RAID-0 only offers 20% more performance than a single Raptor.

>>>My point exactly! A 20% increase to me is substantial. All the scores on their graphs displayed RAID 0 as the highest. ALL tests were performed on Intel not AMD.

We have already seen how aggressive caching, pre-fetching and other such real world elements of modern day computers reduce the impact of hard drive performance on overall system performance.

Ultra ATA/100 or Serial ATA 150 cables were used where appropriate

>>>What the, we don't even know if they used SATA all the way through!!!

>>>The trick to SLI and Windows in general, is to never give up if something doesn’t work for you.
Try things that may be from your gut instincts or someone else’s! Even go contrary to known fixes and A+ fact!
***Everybody has something a little different in his or her computer systems, just like a strand of DNA.***
Different systems, different performance. I wouldn't use the components they selected for this test, that's for sure!!!

With only a 20% improvement in pure disk performance, this doesn't bode too well for RAID-0 offering much of a real world performance boost.

>>>Would you kick at receiving an extra 20% BONUS on your pay from work?
>>>Bull, it shows good improvements in my system!!!
>>>Do you always believe what you read?

Mike

Well, I've set up my system as below:

Asus SLI Deluxe Mobo (1004 bios)
Thermaltake Purepower 560W PSU
AMD Athlon s-939 3000+
4x512MB Corsair DDR400 Value Select RAM
Leadtek Winfast PX6600GT TDH
WD Raptor 74GB

And my problem is that everytime I try and install the NVidia / Leadtek video drivers, the whole screen will turn black and I will be unable to boot into Windows unless I boot into safe mode and remove the drivers manually.
I've tried a fresh install of Windows and it still doesn't work. I've even tested the video card on another system to ensure that it isn't a video card problem. It works perfectly fine on another machine. Tried just using one stick of RAM and rotating the ram sticks over the slots, but it still doesn't solve the problem. Doubt it's a PSU problem, as as you can see, I've already stripped the system down to a bare minimum. Could it be a problem with the motherboard? I was thinking of getting the motherboard switched for a new one but I thought I'd get a 2nd opinion on this since I have to send my mobo back to M'sia and I'm currently in Australia atm.

Zhen-Jock Lau

Download 66.93 drivers, don't use your video cd drivers, this is assuming you are.

Mike

Sander,

Is there anyway you can improve on the search methods of your site? I know that because the Subject is A8N-SLI most of the time, your search works, I just mean to isolate it to a search in this section.

I noticed that when you do perform a search, it takes you to the main A8N-SLI FAQ and not individual posts within the A8N-SLI FAQ. It would help people find specific literature within this section.

Basically, search here, get an answer form here.

Mike

PS: This section has flourished to one of the largest FAQ sections "in the least amount of time" of your site and needs the DELUXE treatment. Lol

71.84 BETA Drivers are now available from Nvidia and the good news is Nvidia through these drivers now support 60 new SLI Applications and 2 New SLI rendering modes. These are the drivers i've been waiting for.

Download them here.
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html

I have 2 problems with these drivers though, one is it won't let me overclock at all (not even 1Mhz) and i used to run them dead set stable at Ultra speeds (I have 2 6800GT's) and the other is my Idle Temps have gone up to 66c and 63c, they were in the mid to high 40's before.

Check out the new list of SLI games here.
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_sli_certifiedapps.html

More drivers, GREAT!

Mike

I've tried the 66.93 drivers from Nvidia already, heck I've even tried the beta 71+ drivers as well.

What makes me think it's a hardware problem is the fact that when I attempted to install Windows XP x64, I get the same black screen problem during the setup phase when it tries to detect the devices on the machine. I assume it's trying to detect the video card or something at that point.