Asus A8N-VM CSM - problems..

[lisag]

Installed the board into an Antec Aria case with a Athlon 64 3500, a Zalman 7000B cooler, 2 x 512mb DDR333 RAM. Just testing it with case sides off and a spare CD drive and HDD drive, at the mo. Installed MCE and all updates, drivers etc. I also updated to the latest bios via MS-DOS before installing windows.

1/ There are four rear usb ports - only two of them work, and I have fitted the two front usb ports for the case, they don't work either?

2/ I have installed the AMD Cool n Quiet driver, and enabled it in the bios, and also installed Asus 'Probe' which monitors temp and fan speed - it doesn't seem to be working, the cpu fan stays at max (2500rpm) regardless of what the cpu is doing, currently at 36 degrees C.

3/ The MCE approved Nvidia driver (77.79) does not support the 6150 Nvidia GPU, so have had to install the latest XP one instead, it does seem to work ok, but it is a bit shoddy don't you think

Help?
Not even attempted to install a tv card yet..

lisa

Originally Posted by lisag

Installed the board into an Antec Aria case with a Athlon 63 3500, a Zalman 7000B cooler, 2 x 512mb DDR333 RAM. Just testing it with case sides off and a spare CD drive and HDD drive, at the mo. Installed MCE and all updates, drivers etc. I also updated to the latest bios via MS-DOS before installing windows.

1/ There are four rear usb ports - only two of them work, and I have fitted the two front usb ports for the case, they don't work either?

2/ I have installed the AMD Cool n Quiet driver, and enabled it in the bios, and also installed Asus 'Probe' which monitors temp and fan speed - it doesn't seem to be working, the cpu fan stays at max (2500rpm) regardless of what the cpu is doing, currently at 36 degrees C.

3/ The MCE approved Nvidia driver (77.79) does not support the 6150 Nvidia GPU, so have had to install the latest XP one instead, it does seem to work ok, but it is a bit shoddy don't you think

Help?
Not even attempted to install a tv card yet..

lisa

Hi Lisag, don't panic!

Point 1 - Is there a setting in the bios that has the usb disabled? Have you loaded the forceware drivers for the 410/430 mce version? (Personally I don't load the Nvidia IDE driver as this gives me CPU utilisation probs).

Point 2 - Are you using the c'n'q utility in windows and if so is the voltage changing? Is the CPU mhz running at 2000 continuously of is it moving between 1000 to 2000 (as it should).? If so then it's working. The next thing you need to do is enable the auto cpu fan control setting in the bios (on the power managment page I think). You can set this to auto or at 60-90% of the cpu speed. This will take affect as soon as you reboot. You should hear the fan speed initially increase and then die down.

Point 3 - Yes I noticed that there isn't a specific MCE graphic driver for the 6150 listed and have installed the XP version (that does list the 6150). It does work in MCE though and I'm sure it won't be long before Nvidia add this.

[phaines]

Originally Posted by lisag

Installed the board into an Antec Aria case with a Athlon 63 3500, a Zalman 7000B cooler, 2 x 512mb DDR333 RAM. Just testing it with case sides off and a spare CD drive and HDD drive, at the mo. Installed MCE and all updates, drivers etc. I also updated to the latest bios via MS-DOS before installing windows.

1/ There are four rear usb ports - only two of them work, and I have fitted the two front usb ports for the case, they don't work either?

2/ I have installed the AMD Cool n Quiet driver, and enabled it in the bios, and also installed Asus 'Probe' which monitors temp and fan speed - it doesn't seem to be working, the cpu fan stays at max (2500rpm) regardless of what the cpu is doing, currently at 36 degrees C.

3/ The MCE approved Nvidia driver (77.79) does not support the 6150 Nvidia GPU, so have had to install the latest XP one instead, it does seem to work ok, but it is a bit shoddy don't you think

1 - Both sets at the back work out of the box for me - the only thing i changed was the wake up on usb jumpers. I've have not connected the front connectors.

2 - I've not enabled c'n'q yet; I understand the BIOS need flashing to make it work. I'm planning to do this when I get the time. The only thing is that my machine is already running very cool. I'll let you know how i get on.

3 - That was a arrr moment when i did my install; if you want to change video settings you can't use the nice mce interface but other than that I have not had any problems with the XP driver that came on the motherboard CD.

Good luck getting this stuff sorted.

Cheers, Phillip

[lisag]

Thanks guys,

I have had more luck with C n Q, there were some other settings in the BIOS that I had not enabled, it is now reducing the CPU fan speed, and meeting my expectations!

Less success with the usb ports, have reinstalled the latest nvidia drivers (8.22) and checked all BIOS settings, but not a peep from any usb ports apart from the two rear ones below the firewire port. I also changed the jumpers to the S3 power setting - I guess I have a duff board? What a pain, and I am out of thermal paste

lisa

[lisag]

Well, I have tried everything I can think of and I cannot get any life out of any other usb ports. Asus UK tech support phone number puts me through to an O2 voicemail!! I have had an email reply, which was friendly but they talked me through what I had already tried.

Anyone any ideas before I send the board back?

This was the fiddliest and trickiest build I have done, and now I will have to do it again :-(

lisa

[FredG]

Re usb what does Windows device manager show - are they all listed? Are there any yellow/red icons. You could remove them and reboot to see if windows picks them up

[lisag]

Hi Fred, thanks for replying.

Device Manager is a bit odd. It lists the 'enhanced' controller which refers to usb2 rather than usb 1.1, and it lists two usb 'hubs'. In each hub it says that they are self-powered, and have 8 ports available each ??? I wish!

[FredG]

Have you deleted them and rebooted? This should help establish if the problem is hardware/software. As a matter of interest why did you choose the Aria was it very fiddley to get everything seated

BTW tks again for the help with Dell 2005 Had it replaced still got backlight issue but now with a screen 5 mths younger than the first one and no dead pixels! Top service from Dell when I finally got past the voicemail

[lisag]

Ah good news about the screen, it is good isn't it - currently playing Black and White 2 at native res of 1680 x 1050 - very nice!

I have tried that uninstalling, re-booting thing and it didn't work, I guess it is a faulty motherboard, and I need to get it replaced - bummer!

A friend had a used Aria going cheap, so I went for that - and it is really good, if I could use the usb ports! It was very fiddly getting it all in and keeping the cables tidy to maximise airflow, but I am (or will be) happy with it. Now that cool and quiet is working properly the zalman is running much slower, cpu temps are fairly low, and it is the quietest pc I have (haven't) heard, S3 seems to be working ok too, and no blue screens (yet).

lisa

[FredG]

Sorry I couldn't help hope you don't have too much hassle replacing the m/b

[Tumbler]

Lisa have you tried clearing bios by reseting the CMOS jumper/remove battery on the board after you flashed the bios? I've had simular problems on other boards with USB ports not working and it solved it. Just remember if you've tweaked your bios you'll loose all saved settings.

I second Tumbler. I had to do this on this m/b when it refused to boot after extensively fiddling with the bios settings. It's worth a go.

[lisag]

Great idea! Just gave it a try - but it didn't work :-( thanks for the suggestion though.

Lisag, I'm just retracing my steps when I setup my m/b. I thought I'd share them with you. I've set jumpers USBPW34, USBPW12, USBPW78 and USBPW56 to +5VSB (for s3 mode). Presumably you have the correct USB configuration in the bios settings set ? (page 2-27 paragraph 2.4.7 in my Asus manual?)

[lisag]

Yes, I did that too - I tried changing the jumpers back on the ports that weren't working, and have treble checked the BIOS setting, as well as clearing the CMOS - I think the fact that two of them are working is probably indicating that it is a hardware fault, rather than something not configured right? Will try and exchange the board, and hope the next one doesn't do the same.