Asus A7N8X and 3GB

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sascha Kolberg
  • Start date Start date
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Sascha Kolberg

hello everyone,

I've just upgraded my WindowsXP to Vista. For the installation I had to
remove one of my three memory sticks allready, because the Vista CD wouldn't
boot with all three installed the sophisticated green activity indicator
would just stop at some point. Now, after the upgrade the same applies to the
installed Vista System. It doesn't boot with 3 GB. No error message most of
the time, that is in one of ten times I get a STOP (0x000000C5) bluescreen.

My System:
Board: A7N8X Deluxe 2.0
CPU: AMD AthlonXP 3000+
RAM: 3 X G.SKILL PC3200 1GBNS
Grafik: Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 512MB

What I've done so far:
1) Power supply is sufficient.
2) Memory sticks tested and ok.
3) Bios is up to date
4) Both Windows XP and Linux work fine with 3GB
5) there are to updates for Vista available, that would fit
KB925528
KB929777
However, both should be included in SP1 (which is installed) and none can be
installed manually (Message is something like: 'The update is not valid for
your system').

I am aware of the fact, that my board is quite old, but overall my setup
should be sufficient to run Vista decently. I've seen a couple of users with
this problem, but no solution so far.

After a bit of research, my guess is that windows vista probably stops
driver loading as a prepercussion because the chipset drivers for nForce2 are
not fully supported and therefore something might go wrong. Is that at least
near to the truth?
If so, just for testing, is there a way to make vista a bit more brave?

Or just restrict memory adress space for drivers to the lower (obviously
less suspicious) 1 GB or 2 GB? (other than 'BCDEdit /set RemoveMemory 1024',
which is what I've currently set to boot Vista without having to remove 1
stick)

Thanks alot in advance
Sascha
 
Hi Sascha,

Two things I would try:

1) See if a BIOS update is available, there may be some quirks that need to
be addressed.

2) Vista sometimes encounters timing issues with older boards and ram that
are nearing the board's capacity. Try stepping it down a notch or two
manually with all 3 sticks installed.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
 
Thanks for the fast reply!

1) There is no newer Bios for my hardware. My Board is "ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
Hardware revision 2.0". Installed is bios verison 1008. ASUS offers only a
bios version 1009 for earlier hardware revisions and it fixes only a problem
with the onboard SATA controller on those boardsn that I never encountered.
So bios is up to date.

2) Meanwhile, that was already suggested in another forum, and so I tried it
out (CPU and RAM at both 133MHz and 166MHz) without any change.

I'm not willing to give up yet, although I'm completely out of ideas.
 
Hi,

Well, as you stated, the chipset isn't fully supported so there may be
nothing you can do to use all 3GB. Sometimes with older hardware you just
have to live with the limitations. I use that same board in an older system
that I turned over to my teen daughters several years ago, I wouldn't have
even tried putting Vista on it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
 
Sascha Kolberg said:
Thanks for the fast reply!

1) There is no newer Bios for my hardware. My Board is "ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
Hardware revision 2.0". Installed is bios verison 1008. ASUS offers only a
bios version 1009 for earlier hardware revisions and it fixes only a
problem
with the onboard SATA controller on those boardsn that I never
encountered.
So bios is up to date.

2) Meanwhile, that was already suggested in another forum, and so I tried
it
out (CPU and RAM at both 133MHz and 166MHz) without any change.

I'm not willing to give up yet, although I'm completely out of ideas.
Click to expand...

A BIOS update might be in order for this board anyway if one exists. They
don't always specify every change that was made.

Wondering if perhaps Vista is detecting a non-existent 4th memory slot
(chipset capability versus actual installed hardware) and trying to run the
memory interleaved. That could disable the 3rd bank or cause crashes when
Windows tries to use memory space from the 3rd and missing 4th bank. You
could try disabling the BIOS setting (if it exists) for resources controlled
by OS to let the motherboard configure the hardware devices itself.
 
Your M/B (I have 3 of them) will not work with more than 2 slots populated
in dual RAM mode. So, I also live with only 2 gig of RAM to use.
 
That board/revision & bios can still have problems with the sata controler,
as I discovered, and confirmed with Asus tech, which led me to replace it.
 
Thanks for all the help!

I think I've tried everything possible and I think DirectX 10 (which was my
original motivation) is certainly not worth all that trouble. I'm going to
reinstall Windows XP which worked great with all 3 sticks. May be, the day
will come when DirectX 10 will be available for XP, maybe not.
I'm just a bit sad, that parts of my hardware are to old for current windows
systems (yes I tried windows 7 Beta ;)), while other parts are to new to be
fully supported by windows xp. Thus, my choice is either 3 GB of RAM and only
DX9 or only 2 GB of RAM and DX 10.

Farewell Vista
 
According to the Asus website (the FAQ) you have to have the memory set at
the correct voltage.

quote:
The issue may be related to the voltage setting of your memory modules. The
standard operating voltages of DDR2 and DDR3 memory modules, as defined by
JEDEC, are 1.8V and 1.5V, respectively. However, some of the memory modules
require higher operating voltage than JEDEC's standards. In such case, the
memory may sometimes not be able to function properly without enough
voltage.

When you encounter instability issue, please first check the operating
voltage of your memory modules, and please manually set the memory voltage
accordingly in the BIOS.
 
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