Asus A8V, Did I make a mistake?

  • Thread starter Thread starter signmeuptoo
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signmeuptoo

Guys, what with reading so many posts of people having trouble with the
Asus A8V motherboard, and especially with the AMD 64 Winchester version
processors I am getting scared that I bought the wrong board, that I
should have purchased the DFI Lanparty board or something. I didn't
know about the DFI board when I made the purchase, and I am locked in to
owning this board as the return policy ended a week after I got it
(comptuer show, family member bought it for me so I had to jump on the
opportunity to get a board, so I made the best guess that I could).

I haven't yet built with the board yet, as I don't have the money for
the CPU and RAM.

The board is the Version #2 (what it says on the silk screen of the
board itself) A8V Deluxe.

Are most people doing ok with this board and I am just seeing the worst
because that's what gets posted, the problems that is? Are you guys
seeing a normal amount of problems with this board compared with the
average of other boards, especially AMD Socket 939 boards?

How much am I going to hate myself for not getting a DFI Lanparty board?

Signed,

Fearful in WaterWorld Land.
 
I have an A8V Rev 2 board. It's my first AMD based system.

I've had good luck with it, but I have a Newcastle CPU. You ought to be OK
if the BIOS on your board is sufficiently new. For CPU support, see:

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

It looks like with some CPUs, you could boot the machine with a single DIMM,
which would permit you to flash the BIOS to a newer version. The FAQ for the
mainboard:

http://www.asus.com/support/faq/faqmodel.aspx?ModelName=A8V Deluxe

suggests that all you have to do is update the BIOS, but whether this would
be possible with a Winchester CPU installed, I don't know.

A good thing about the board is that it runs a pair of unmatched 512 MB
DIMMs (Samsung chips) with a small overclock (220 MHz) at 2.5-3-3-8, which
isn't bad at all.

The only trouble I've had with it is the odd cold boot problem, which is a
minor annoyance. (I've seen it before, on an Asus P4PE 100% Intel system.)
Recent beta BIOSes (10.3 is the latest I've tried) have made them rarer.

Maybe the performance of an nForce3 based mainboard would be better than a
Via K8T800Pro system (like the A8V), but some reviews I've read suggested
that the differences are minor.

In other words, don't fret. If you want to feel better about the A8V, check
for problems with the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. (I think that is, or was, more
common than the DFI product with the same chipset.) I went with the A8V
because I had just bought a Geforce 6800GT (AGP) card, and wanted a
mainboard upgrade that supported it. (Intel was pushing PCI Express.) No
regrets.

Address may be scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
You should be fine. I'm running a Winchester 3200 on a Rev2 A8V Deluxe,
bought them two weeks ago, no problems at all. The transition period as the
Winchesters were first coming out is when I heard about problems. It was
simply a case of bios versions. There were still some boards in stores that
was one revision below what is needed for the Winchesters, once they're
flashed it's fine. If you bought it in January or later I think you're past
this issue. The bios revision needed is 1007 or higher.
 
signmeuptoo said:
Guys, what with reading so many posts of people having trouble with the
Asus A8V motherboard, and especially with the AMD 64 Winchester version
processors I am getting scared that I bought the wrong board, that I
should have purchased the DFI Lanparty board or something. I didn't know
about the DFI board when I made the purchase, and I am locked in to owning
this board as the return policy ended a week after I got it (comptuer
show, family member bought it for me so I had to jump on the opportunity
to get a board, so I made the best guess that I could).

I haven't yet built with the board yet, as I don't have the money for the
CPU and RAM.

The board is the Version #2 (what it says on the silk screen of the board
itself) A8V Deluxe.

Are most people doing ok with this board and I am just seeing the worst
because that's what gets posted, the problems that is? Are you guys
seeing a normal amount of problems with this board compared with the
average of other boards, especially AMD Socket 939 boards?

How much am I going to hate myself for not getting a DFI Lanparty board?

Signed,

Fearful in WaterWorld Land.
Click to expand...

I've been running a NewCastle 3500+ on a Rev1 A8V Deluxe for about a
month now and it's working fine. The only problem I had was that at first it
wouldn't POST, because the BIOS was Rev 7 but needed to be Rev 9 to
work with the 3500+. Took me a few hours to figure that was the problem,
but after that it's been a sweet board.
 
CapeGuy said:
I've been running a NewCastle 3500+ on a Rev1 A8V Deluxe for about a
month now and it's working fine. The only problem I had was that at first it
wouldn't POST, because the BIOS was Rev 7 but needed to be Rev 9 to
work with the 3500+. Took me a few hours to figure that was the problem,
but after that it's been a sweet board.
Click to expand...
How did you flash it if it wouldn't post? Can that be done?
 
CapeGuy said:
Boot to DOS from a floppy.
Click to expand...
Well, then it would have posted. A POST is a Power On Self Test, and it
is the first thing a computer does. If a computer won't P.O.S.T., it
cannot run any O.S., running an O.S. is known as booting, right? A POST
let's the system recognize what the BIOS commands it do to operate and
subsequently look for an OS. If a system won't POST fully, then a
person would have to physically pull the BIOS chip, and EEPROM it with
the updated BIOS. At least that has been my experience over these last
many years, but maybe Asus and other companies now have it to where a
motherboard can do a partial post that allows for burn-in of an updated
BIOS. I wonder about this.
 
Well, then it would have posted. A POST is a Power On Self Test, and it
is the first thing a computer does. If a computer won't P.O.S.T., it
cannot run any O.S., running an O.S. is known as booting, right? A POST
let's the system recognize what the BIOS commands it do to operate and
subsequently look for an OS. If a system won't POST fully, then a
person would have to physically pull the BIOS chip, and EEPROM it with
the updated BIOS. At least that has been my experience over these last
many years, but maybe Asus and other companies now have it to where a
motherboard can do a partial post that allows for burn-in of an updated
BIOS. I wonder about this.
Click to expand...

Chapt. 4 of the manual explains that.

Bill
 
Guys, what with reading so many posts of people having trouble with the
Asus A8V motherboard, and especially with the AMD 64 Winchester version
processors I am getting scared that I bought the wrong board, that I
should have purchased the DFI Lanparty board or something. I didn't
know about the DFI board when I made the purchase, and I am locked in to
owning this board as the return policy ended a week after I got it
(comptuer show, family member bought it for me so I had to jump on the
opportunity to get a board, so I made the best guess that I could).

I haven't yet built with the board yet, as I don't have the money for
the CPU and RAM.

The board is the Version #2 (what it says on the silk screen of the
board itself) A8V Deluxe.

Are most people doing ok with this board and I am just seeing the worst
because that's what gets posted, the problems that is? Are you guys
seeing a normal amount of problems with this board compared with the
average of other boards, especially AMD Socket 939 boards?

How much am I going to hate myself for not getting a DFI Lanparty board?

Signed,

Fearful in WaterWorld Land.
Click to expand...

Running all good here. Using a Winchester 3500, and when I purchased
the rev.2 board it had BIOS 1.8, but I never experienced any problems
booting and installing XP. I also managed to overclock it (stable) to
10.5x245 using 2x512 Cosair TwinX @ 3-3-3-8...anything above that for
me is a no go (prime and memtest errors above 247 HTT).

The only problem I am getting is that I cannot run AGP x8 with my
Radeon 9800pro...it causes lock ups, so I have to run AGP x4.
 
Hi, solution - don't read any posts unless you have an issue, you're
forgetting that only those who do, have. Myself, I have a stable and quick
system much the same as you are purchasing.....
ChrisC
 
I just built my new system with a AV8 Mobo with AMD 64 3000 cpu.. runs fine
with no probs.. now as to which core my cpu has that I really dont know.
 
signmeuptoo said:
Guys, what with reading so many posts of people having trouble with the
Asus A8V motherboard, and especially with the AMD 64 Winchester version
processors I am getting scared that I bought the wrong board, that I
should have purchased the DFI Lanparty board or something. I didn't
know about the DFI board when I made the purchase, and I am locked in to
owning this board as the return policy ended a week after I got it
(comptuer show, family member bought it for me so I had to jump on the
opportunity to get a board, so I made the best guess that I could).

I haven't yet built with the board yet, as I don't have the money for
the CPU and RAM.

The board is the Version #2 (what it says on the silk screen of the
board itself) A8V Deluxe.

Are most people doing ok with this board and I am just seeing the worst
because that's what gets posted, the problems that is? Are you guys
seeing a normal amount of problems with this board compared with the
average of other boards, especially AMD Socket 939 boards?

How much am I going to hate myself for not getting a DFI Lanparty board?

Signed,

Fearful in WaterWorld Land.
Click to expand...
Mine has been running now for the past six months and being on around
50 to 60 hours a week and so far has never given me any problems.
 
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