a7n8x lockup

arcterex · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 30 Sep 2002 Posts: 109

Hi there. I just got my A7N8X (dx) up and going under my gentoo install (formerly a k7-900). The only bad thing that I've seen so far is a couple of random hard lock ups (numlock key not working). At the time I was downloading from usenet and watching video. The first time it locked up as I started watching a video with mplayer while downloading, then again a bit later when I came back in and told pan to "resume" and as it started downloading again it locked up right then.

I'm using the 3c59x driver for the first NIC on the board. I'm not sure that it's either mplayer or the video, but I was playing ut2003 earlier for a while with no problems (at high settings) so I don't think it's a matter of the system being taxed too much.

Using the 2.4.21-ac (whatever the latest in stable is), with the i8xx sound drives (not nvaudio), and the nvnet drivers are installed but not loaded. The nvidia glx/kernel drivers are loaded. I haven't had a chance to see if there is a way to properly duplicate this yet, as I'm in the middle of doing the hardware shuffle....

System specs:
xp2500+
gforce4 ti4200
ide drives
1G DDR333 ram
Dual monitor

I know it's not much to go on, but any thoughts or similar experiences would be appreciated.

*edit*
Well, it seems to be stable now. Not sure what was up, but I did some of the same things (lots of network traffic, playing videos) and had no problems...

shira · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 27 Aug 2002 Posts: 122

I too am having some random lockups with this board

I tried the 2.5.70 kernel and that locked up quite frequently even with acpi off, now I'm on xfs-sources 2.4.20-r3 and I still get a lockup or two

I'm compiling preemptible kernel out right now to see if that helps

if anyone has had stabiliy probs with the a7n8x and know how they fixed them I would appreciate it if you could post what you did

jagerman · Posted: Sat May 31, 2003 10:14 pm Post subject: Re: a7n8x lockup

When using the onboard 3com network card, I kept getting "eth0: transmit timeout" errors in dmesg, and my network craps out. I popped in a PCI version of the card, and it works perfectly. I haven't tried the nvidia network card, but my friend did with this same board and got some other weird errors.

He was getting a lot of errors with the board when he first bought it - network errors, hard crashes all over the place, and then finally hard drive corruption - and so he RMA'd it. The replacement had the same problem with the network cards (transmit timeouts) so he gave up nForce and bought a KT400 board instead. I grabbed it, and aside from the network problem, haven't had any trouble.

That said, I'm not very impressed with this board - I can't overclock the FSB, for instance. With my old EPoX 8K3A I used to be able to overclock to a 175 or more MHz FSB, with my memory set to CAS2. With this one, with the exact same memory, I can't make the memory go any faster than about 138, CAS2.5. Additionally, the board has a wretchedly horrible BIOS save bug, where about 1 time in 10, changing the front side bus and saving your BIOS settings will crash the BIOS and leave you with a fux0red BIOS. The only way to fix it was to buy another nForce2 board, and perform a hot BIOS chip swap :twisted:

(I had to buy a BIOS extractor), and reflash the BIOS in a different board (in this case, a ASUS A7N8X non-deluxe)

. It had to be another nForce2 board - for some reason, it refused to flash on any other motherboard.

eziril · n00b Joined: 15 Apr 2003 Posts: 28

I'm having a bit of stability trouble, but mine seems to stem from the serial ata drives i'm using. gss-sources here.

shira · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 27 Aug 2002 Posts: 122

I seem to have solved the stability probs now with xfs-sources with acpi and preempt off

jiriki · n00b Joined: 28 Apr 2003 Posts: 17

i have also lockup problems with this board, using gaming-sources. I'll also try out to turn off preemptive kernel tonight and report if it's working. But what about ACPI? I still want my system to power down automatically if i "poweroff" - any other possibility to do this?
_________________
System Specs:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Athlon XP Barton 2800+
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
2x Maxtor 80GB

sweede · n00b Joined: 02 Jan 2003 Posts: 45

I have that board, an XP 2500 gig-o-ram and have no issues with any feature of the board (except SATA, gentoo-sources does not have driver for it)

i dont have acpi (linux has horrible support for it), i do have preempt. i use gentoo-sources and use the supported audio driver (i810? or something) and nforce-net network driver.

dont use the 3com nic on the asus board, the nvidia nic is far better/faster.

1) you can overclock the board to 250mhz before bios 1004, 233 mhz with bios 1004. you just have to make sure the settings are on user-defined. if you cannot overclock, i suggest you read the manual again as there is instructions on where/how to do this. I have safely overclocked to 200mhz @11.5 fsb

2) your bios crashing issue? that can be easily fixed if you have another (preferably duron) proc lying around (they're 20$ or so). just pop that in and it will reset the bios to default. another trick is to change the FSB jumper from 333/266 to 200mhz, power up the board, then power off and switch it back. I would also suggest you update to the latest BIOS revision as it seems to no longer have this problem.

If you have a revision 2.0 board, http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/selectftp.aspx?l1_id=1&l2_id=10&l3_id=23&m_id=1&f_name=an8d1004.zip

If you have a revision 1.03, 1.04, and 1.06 only. http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/selectftp.aspx?l1_id=1&l2_id=10&l3_id=23&m_id=1&f_name=an8d1004.zip

taskara · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 11:48 am Post subject:

I haven't had any hard lockups, but I am using vanilla sources.. nothing else seems to run properly for me...

btw I overclocking my barton 2500+ (1.8ghz) to 2.4Ghz @ 200fsb (cas 3-2-2-2-T1)
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jagerman · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 6:11 pm Post subject:

sweede · n00b Joined: 02 Jan 2003 Posts: 45

change System Performance to 'User Defined' that will allow you to change the FSB setting.

Change CPU Freq Multiple Setting to user defined and you change change the CPU Multiplier.

be sure to update your BIOS.

taskara, what kind(brand, etc) of memory and Cooling do you have ?

taskara · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 9:47 pm Post subject:

jagerman · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:30 pm Post subject:

jagerman · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:39 pm Post subject:

jiriki · n00b Joined: 28 Apr 2003 Posts: 17

i disables preemptive kernel and acpi. My system is still unstable.

Any more suggestion what i could do now?
Memory is ok, memtest didn't find any error.
_________________
System Specs:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Athlon XP Barton 2800+
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
2x Maxtor 80GB

jagerman · Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:58 pm Post subject:

jiriki · n00b Joined: 28 Apr 2003 Posts: 17

i havn't triet prime yet...but should i test it with windows or linux? Because Linux is already unstable, should i try it in windows? If it also fails there, i REALLY know it can't be the hardware.
_________________
System Specs:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Athlon XP Barton 2800+
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
2x Maxtor 80GB

eziril · n00b Joined: 15 Apr 2003 Posts: 28

I solved some of my stability issues, by changing the processor in my kernel to use XP GCC>31. Fixed any issue that caused a hard lockup. Still having problems with opengl and my radeon though.

arcterex · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 30 Sep 2002 Posts: 109

Wow, completely forgot about the xp gcc >31 setting in the kernel config. I'm just recompiling now to see if that helps. I've been ok for a bit using gentoo sources, but a couple of hours ago I had a hard lockup. Might have been heat related though (my office is about 180 right now

).

On the ACPI issue, could someone enlighten me as the difference between acpi and apm, and why I would want one vs the other? I have acpi compiled and acpid running, bu tno idea what to do with them? Will it automagically shutdown for me if I hit the power button or something (been meaning to try, haven't got around to it)? I don't really use power management for things like spinning down disks and whatnot, but I'd like to know what acpi (even in it's less than perfect state) will do for me.

Thanks all!

taskara · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2003 8:48 am Post subject:

shira · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 27 Aug 2002 Posts: 122

taskara · Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2003 10:25 pm Post subject:

it's under "processor type and features", the third or so menu.
[img:26a9cc6dfd]http://www.penguinitis.com/images/cpukernelsetting.jpg[/img:26a9cc6dfd]
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Kororaa install method - have Gentoo up and running quickly and easily, fully automated with an installer!

shira · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 27 Aug 2002 Posts: 122

taskara · Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 8:45 pm Post subject:

according to eziril

I think it will help

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Kororaa install method - have Gentoo up and running quickly and easily, fully automated with an installer!

xachris · Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 8:47 pm Post subject:

i'm running the xfs-sources 2.4.20-r3 on my A7N8X Deluxe (Rev. 2.00) without problems.
at kernel "Processor types and features" i only use: Machine Check Exception and MTRR support

i had problems with the Preemptile Kernel.... :cry:

Try to do a BIOS update - this may help. I had several random non definable errors (segentation faults...) with BIOS 1003 - now i use 1005.

xachris · Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 9:48 pm Post subject:

sorry i forgot

at kernel "Processor types and features" i only use: Machine Check Exception and MTRR support

i also enabled "Symmetric multiprocessor support" - but i only have a single machine. if i uncheck this i get no bzImage :cry:

_________________
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
AMD AthlonXP 2500+
1 GB RAM
80 GB WesternDigital
GeForce FX5200