Forget the ASUS A8V Deluxe

  • Thread starter Thread starter buckwheat_phd
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buckwheat_phd

You'll have to put up with what ~2300 of us did over the last few weeks
- and that was just from one supplier.

On most 64bit 939 chips, you'll get a "CPU Failed Test" voice message
from the motherboard like I did.

Go ahead, swap chips, reset MB, swap memory, reposition DIMMS, unplug
this, that and the other. But you won't get past a POST until the
board goes back to ASUS for repair. Period. This board was released
way to early, and does not lend itself well to repair.

According to ASUS tech, it's a bios problem that's WELL KNOWN. Go on -
call them - they'll tell you all about it. Some recent MB's ship with
bios ver 1007, mine was a 1008. But it takes 1009 or better for any
chance of avoiding this.

Problem is, coders who wrote the bios halted POST on any CPU it could
not fully verify. So as new CPUs hit the market like the
3400,3500,3600, 4000 etc then bios will reject it. Until you update
the bios.

But here's the catch-22. You can't update the bios until the ASUS A8V
boots or passes POST. BUTTTTT - the board will not pass POST until you
update the bios. Only ASUS does it this way - other boards will let
you update bios via the floppy regardless.

Now you can continue to play games like purchasing a bios from the
local PC guy. Or wait about 2 weeks to get one from ASUS, but they're
getting pretty well backed up on this one. And according to ASUS, the
new bios's dont fix some A8Vs at all.

Just do yourself a favor - forget ASUS for a while. TigerDirect sold
2300 of the A8V boards bundled w/the 3400 in the last 10 days. MOST of
them are coming back. So go try a Gigabyte, or Abit or something. I'm
currently looking for a 939 gaming board, and this time I'm not going
to play a cheap ass - I'll pay the xtra $$ and get a known working MB.

The net is full of angry posters over this issue. And it's going to
get a whole lot worse. If you've got one - then I suggest you just
send it back and get something else. If you've got one and it works,
then you'll be getting other voice messages like "overclocking is
illegal - system failed tests". Some A8Vs just crash at runtime.
Why did I have to get in on this at the beginning of all this? lol
 
Mine shipped with 1007 bios and I dropped in an Athlon 64 3500+ and it
booted fine

A month later I dropped in the FX-55 im running now and its been
booting everytime

Have not updatd bios to 1009 as of yet
 
Hi, have had no problems whatsoever with mine, just because you and a few
other have had issues that doesn't make it a bad board....
ChrisC
 
My a8v deluxe is completely stable. I've been running a winchester core
3000+ for 3 weeks without any problems whatsoever.
 
Hi, actually having read some post in another newsgroup I'd say that this
issue is the problem of TigerDirect in not testing whether the boards they
are selling are compatible with that processor. Asus have acknowledge that
there was compatibility problems and have issued an updated bios
accordingly. TigerDirect should get there act together....
ChrisC
 
On most 64bit 939 chips, you'll get a "CPU Failed Test" voice message
from the motherboard like I did.
Click to expand...


A8V Deluxe, 1008 BIOS, 3500+ cpu, absolutely no problem. Great board.
 
You'll have to put up with what ~2300 of us did over the last few weeks
- and that was just from one supplier.

On most 64bit 939 chips, you'll get a "CPU Failed Test" voice message
from the motherboard like I did.

Go ahead, swap chips, reset MB, swap memory, reposition DIMMS, unplug
this, that and the other. But you won't get past a POST until the
board goes back to ASUS for repair. Period. This board was released
way to early, and does not lend itself well to repair.

According to ASUS tech, it's a bios problem that's WELL KNOWN. Go on -
call them - they'll tell you all about it. Some recent MB's ship with
bios ver 1007, mine was a 1008. But it takes 1009 or better for any
chance of avoiding this.

Problem is, coders who wrote the bios halted POST on any CPU it could
not fully verify. So as new CPUs hit the market like the
3400,3500,3600, 4000 etc then bios will reject it. Until you update
the bios.

But here's the catch-22. You can't update the bios until the ASUS A8V
boots or passes POST. BUTTTTT - the board will not pass POST until you
update the bios. Only ASUS does it this way - other boards will let
you update bios via the floppy regardless.

Now you can continue to play games like purchasing a bios from the
local PC guy. Or wait about 2 weeks to get one from ASUS, but they're
getting pretty well backed up on this one. And according to ASUS, the
new bios's dont fix some A8Vs at all.

Just do yourself a favor - forget ASUS for a while. TigerDirect sold
2300 of the A8V boards bundled w/the 3400 in the last 10 days. MOST of
them are coming back. So go try a Gigabyte, or Abit or something. I'm
currently looking for a 939 gaming board, and this time I'm not going
to play a cheap ass - I'll pay the xtra $$ and get a known working MB.

The net is full of angry posters over this issue. And it's going to
get a whole lot worse. If you've got one - then I suggest you just
send it back and get something else. If you've got one and it works,
then you'll be getting other voice messages like "overclocking is
illegal - system failed tests". Some A8Vs just crash at runtime.
Why did I have to get in on this at the beginning of all this? lol
Click to expand...

IIRC, this may be an issue with that particular processor. Interestingly, I
cannot find a Socket 939 3400+ for sale today, after searching NewEgg,
MWave, ZipZoomFly and throughout Pricewatch.
I seem to recall that CPU being listed by NewEgg previously with the caveat
that it *must be purchased* with certain motherboards. I can only conclude
that NewEgg was aware of compatibility issues with that specific OEM CPU.
Sounds to me like TigerDirect (interesting reputation on resellerratings,
BTW), got a "deal" on this CPU, ignored warnings and testing and sold
problematic combinations.
My A8V has been great from first power on with a 3200+ Winchester running at
2.4 GHz. I'm there are tens of thousands of happy A8V owners with similar
results.
So, how is this an Asus problem? Sounds like (yet another) TigerDirect
problem.
 
Qoth The Raven "Dave said:
My a8v deluxe is completely stable. I've been running a winchester
core 3000+ for 3 weeks without any problems whatsoever.
Click to expand...

I don't suppose you could email me a cpu-z htm report of your system?
please? I have an identical system (ram is 3200 though) and its running like
a 2 legged dog
 
Hi, my system is also 100% stable, what info are specifically looking for?
ChrisC
 
Qoth The Raven "Chris Catt said:
Hi, my system is also 100% stable, what info are specifically looking
for? ChrisC
Click to expand...

I'm hoping to compare my current system statistics against yours to see if I
missed something, I'm sure I did something wrong
 
Hi again, what's the symptoms?
ChrisC
Highlandish said:
I'm hoping to compare my current system statistics against yours to see if
I missed something, I'm sure I did something wrong
Click to expand...
 
Qoth The Raven "Chris Catt said:
Hi again, what's the symptoms?
ChrisC
Click to expand...

the cpu tests in 3dmark05 are running very slow (1fps) when it should be
running smooth. as far as I know most settings are correct, but I might be
overlooking something, it would be handy to check against a good system
 
Hi, is that only in two of the tests, the one that uses 640x480, ship and
dragon, cos they run that slow on mine as well....
ChrisC
 
Qoth The Raven "Chris Catt said:
Hi, is that only in two of the tests, the one that uses 640x480, ship
and dragon, cos they run that slow on mine as well....
Click to expand...

yeah that one. you mean, my pc is crap on purpose? this is the best I can
get on this machine?

sigh...
 
3dmark 05 is very demanding. It is made to bench future systems as well as
the present.

What score are you getting ?
 
3Dmark05 is a very tough benchmark. in 03 and 01SE I get normal scores in
comparison to similar systems. scores that make sense, but 05 makes my box
crawl. I guess it because I 'only' have a 9600XT, a 3200 and 1Gb of ram :-)
 
Qoth The Raven "RonK said:
3dmark 05 is very demanding. It is made to bench future systems as
well as the present.

What score are you getting ?
Click to expand...

between 24-2900, running all tests on performance settings
 
Hi, I shouldn't worry too much about your scores in 3dmark05 as this
benchmark runs just as slow with my A8V,AMD64 3500, X800XT, 1g ram. If the
games you have run fine then be happy :-)
ChrisC
 
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