Asus A7N266-VM Blank screen problems

tifkat · 13th October 2002, 8:55 AM

Hey guys,

I'm building two little boxen (one for me and one for a friend) and I thought I'd venture into AMD/uATX land.

I bought 2 x Asus A7N266-VM boards as they seem to be pretty sweet boards. I bought one 1300MHz Duron, and 1 x 128MB DDR (PC2100 / 266) I'll buy the 2nd CPU/RAM next pay

But all is not well. When I set everything up, and power up, all the fans and drives spin up, but nothing happens. No display, no beeps, no smoke. Nothing.

I tried the 2nd board. Same problem. Took the boards into the shop I bought them from and the cpu tested ok in a different board. A 750MHz athlon gave the same "no one's home" performance on both boards.

Also I'm using an Aopen H340D case which comes with a "P4 180W power supply". I wondered if maybe the power was insufficient, but with using a normal ATX (300W I think) PSU it had the same issue. Infact with the standard ATX PSU, the board would power on immediately after the kill switch on the PSU was turned on. No need for the soft switch. On the H340D the board stayed powered off until I hit the soft switch.

I found a bunch of people here who seem to have the same issue and there is some 'controversy' as to whether the manual has the jumper selection correct or not. My boards came with the jumpers in the left/left position which is _NOT_ the supposed 133/133 default setting but 100/133 (CPU/RAM) which should be right for my Duron/PC2100 RAM (The duron does use a 100MHz FSB right?)

I only have 1 stick of DDR RAM in the board but I'm thinking this shouldn't affect the board POSTing at least.

Unfortunately I left both boards with the shop, so I can't dick around any more this weekend, but I was wondering if anyone has had any issues like this and could suggest a way to get these boards up and running? It seems odd that both boards would be dead.

tifkat

Bravo · 13th October 2002, 5:27 PM

Test the FSB jumper in both positions. I have had no problems with 3 of these boards i've bought for my friends/brother.

tifkat · 13th October 2002, 5:58 PM

Do you have one handy? Or can you tell me form memory what FSB/RAM setting you are using and which Jumper settings they correspond to?

I'm going to take my case to work tomorrow and the CPU and RAM and go get one of the boards and try to get it working. I just know it's going to take forever for them to get onto their supplier, and get a response.

tifkat

Bravo · 13th October 2002, 7:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tifkat
Do you have one handy? Or can you tell me form memory what FSB/RAM setting you are using and which Jumper settings they correspond to?

I'm going to take my case to work tomorrow and the CPU and RAM and go get one of the boards and try to get it working. I just know it's going to take forever for them to get onto their supplier, and get a response.

tifkat

I had no problems running 133mhz bus speeds on these boards. I have a Duron 1ghz in my Brother's A7N266-VM board, which is running 1.33 @ 1.75v.

With regards to troubleshooting help for you, i cant say i'd be very helpful. I am one in a handful who have had no problems with these boards

idosillythings · 13th October 2002, 10:17 PM

I was just about to buy one of these to.

Hmmmm hopefully it was a one off.

tifkat · 14th October 2002, 11:12 AM

Ok, well I went and picked up one of the boards this morning, and I hooekd it all up. Dead. Changed the jumper settings, and I got it to work.

The manual says the settings I have set are CPU/DRAM = 133/100. But I can say now it says Duron 1300MHz so the CPU is running at 100MHz. I have to confirm the RAM speed, but I'm betting it's 133MHz. So if you buy one of these, don't believe the manual re the FSB/RAM speed setting.

The board actually has solder pads for 2 more 3-pin jumpers, and one of r these has a hard wired join between 2 pads. I'd say they wrote the docs and changed the board and then changed the docs but got it wrong. (Especially since there's no CMOS reset jumper and the manual claims ther is one, and there's a Chassis Intrusion jumper which the manual says nothing about at all.)

Install of XP tonight to confirm the board works and wcpuid screenie to show ram and cpu speeds.

I wish I had a 133MHz FSB cpu to try all the combos and post results.

tifkat

tifkat · 14th October 2002, 7:56 PM

Looks like Asus have got their act together.

Here is an insert for the CORRECT mainboard bus speed settings. The page listing this url wouldn't show on the weekend.

This sucker is running kinda hot (57 degrees last time I checked) but the install of XP seems to be going ok.

tifkat

tifkat · 15th October 2002, 7:24 PM

I got XP Installed ok and running nicely last night. The TIM which was on the stock cooler was pretty ineffectual. I had temps of up to 59 degrees celcius. This may be due to the fact that the cooler had been on and off about 6 times.

I replaced this pink TIm with some standard Unick paste. Temps dropped to around 45 degrees.

Next I started my linux install. I'm a slackware man myself, and I was really disappointed when the cd-rom failed to mount during the install. I tried a few different things, including a different cd (I was installing slackware 8.1 btw) but with no luck. I called it a night and this morning I tried installing RedHat 7.2. I actually got an entire install done. When I installed the unified audio and network driver though, I was again stumped. The driver loads ok, and the eth0 interface comes up ok. I even see the light on the hub flashing for the ping, but all I got was "Destination unreachable' (yes I had the correct route setup and all that). This is clearly a case of the hardware thinking it's working, but not.

I tried lots of things, and the day was wearing on. The cpu was now hitting 57 degrees (this in the middle of the day today as opposed to 8 or 9pm last night when the pink TIM was getting 59)

So I tried to re-install XP, because I knew that worked. But alas the XP install began to fail also. I decided there was nothing for it, opened the case and took off the AMD cooler, and replaced it with my un-used Swiftech MCX370.

This was around 4pm so still plenty of warmth in the day. The cpu temp dropped below the mainboard temp to around 37 degrees. Now I have a problwm. With the swifty installed, I've got about 5 or 6 mm gap between the intake of a monster 7000rpm TT fan and the case wall! this H340D is going to me modded very soon now.

The XP install flew by and bolstered by my success I thought I'd try the slackware install again. Success! It installed without a hitch. I put it down to the temperatures. Now with the switfy running there is a fair breeze flowing past the passive heatsink on the north bridge chip, and the PSU fan is no longer fighting for the air as it did when the AMD cooler was in. There's about 15mm gap from the cooler fan to the PSU fan.. not a good setup I gather.

So after I got the linux install working, including working network with the unified drivers, I remembered I'd left the VGA shared memory at 32MB. After a reboot, and lowering it to 8MB (the lowest setting as I'm using this thing headless for now) I was astounded to note the network no longer working. Reset and up the shared memory agina, and whallah the network is back. This would explain (most likely) why the etwork was failing in RedHat. I'm willing to bet the cdrom not mounting in slackware was also due to the shared RAM being set to 8MB.

I wonder how much time I would have saved today had I kept the 32MB VGA shared memory setup all along.

Hope this helps someone with their future install on a new A7N266-VM board.

tifkat

StarType · 16th October 2002, 1:32 PM

Yes the original manual has the FSB jumper set to the wrong pin config.. see the updated version at Asus..

Ive used my mobo in a small m-atx case with only 180w and it powers up fine..

A 300w P4 PSU would be better though..

I would also advise you get d/l the latest Nforce drivers from Nvidia and use them instead of the Asus's ones on the cd..

chestRcopRpot · 16th October 2002, 4:15 PM

When i set mine to 8Mb graphics it corrupted the hdd. I though wtf and put in my 80gig. Yep you guessed it, lost everything again..... it was saying hdd was 18Tb when i was trying to format it on 2k install :/

After about 50 failed xp and 2k installs i put video back to 32 and everything worked again.

freaky shit.

tifkat · 16th October 2002, 5:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by StarType
Ive used my mobo in a small m-atx case with only 180w and it powers up fine..

I would also advise you get d/l the latest Nforce drivers from Nvidia and use them instead of the Asus's ones on the cd.. [/B]

Powering up isn't an issue with this 180W PSU. Heat is the biggy here. I'm going to leave my swifty on and cut a hole in the case. I can live with the noise. I'm building one for a friend though, and I don't want to be subjecting her to such noise though. I guess I'll get a bigger heatsink (Swiftech MCX462) and put a slower fan on it and set it all up in a slightly different case (Aopen H450 most likely)

I've got the latest Linux drivers and they're working fine with the VGA shared memory set to 32MB. The fact that the VGA shared memory affects the IDE and the network is a concern. I'll probably put another 256MB stick in to bring the board to 512MB installed.

chestRcopRpot you have my sympathies

This is more or less what I went through yesterday with my linux installs. One thing that had me stupmed was using a WD 7.5GB hdd previously setup as slave. I set it to master, and after I did the original install of XP it stopped recognizing the disk! Alas, the disk _also_ has a (jumperless) setting for "single" drive. Once I realised this, the disk worked perfectly everytime. I'd say my issues with mounting the CD were also caused by the <32MB shared VGA memory thing too. That's really dodgy.

tifkat

idosillythings · 16th October 2002, 7:58 PM

You wont need the best cooling if your not overclocking (which is usually the case with these boards, but hey this is overclockers australia I guess).

tifkat · 16th October 2002, 8:02 PM

Hmm.. I disagree. But I disagree on the grounds that I'm using an Aopen H340D case. The cpu is so close to the power supply that the PSU fan is sucking away the air the cooler wants. Also air is failing to flow past the North Bridge's passive Heatsink. It all ends up with a very warm box (and it's not ever summer yet!)

The CPU was running at about 57 degrees yesterday and the system temp was around 45.

After putting the swifty on the cpu now reaches a whopping 37 and the system around 40.

tifkat

13th October 2002, 8:55 AM	#1
tifkat Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 95	Asus A7N266-VM Blank screen problems Hey guys, I'm building two little boxen (one for me and one for a friend) and I thought I'd venture into AMD/uATX land. I bought 2 x Asus A7N266-VM boards as they seem to be pretty sweet boards. I bought one 1300MHz Duron, and 1 x 128MB DDR (PC2100 / 266) I'll buy the 2nd CPU/RAM next pay But all is not well. When I set everything up, and power up, all the fans and drives spin up, but nothing happens. No display, no beeps, no smoke. Nothing. I tried the 2nd board. Same problem. Took the boards into the shop I bought them from and the cpu tested ok in a different board. A 750MHz athlon gave the same "no one's home" performance on both boards. Also I'm using an Aopen H340D case which comes with a "P4 180W power supply". I wondered if maybe the power was insufficient, but with using a normal ATX (300W I think) PSU it had the same issue. Infact with the standard ATX PSU, the board would power on immediately after the kill switch on the PSU was turned on. No need for the soft switch. On the H340D the board stayed powered off until I hit the soft switch. I found a bunch of people here who seem to have the same issue and there is some 'controversy' as to whether the manual has the jumper selection correct or not. My boards came with the jumpers in the left/left position which is _NOT_ the supposed 133/133 default setting but 100/133 (CPU/RAM) which should be right for my Duron/PC2100 RAM (The duron does use a 100MHz FSB right?) I only have 1 stick of DDR RAM in the board but I'm thinking this shouldn't affect the board POSTing at least. Unfortunately I left both boards with the shop, so I can't dick around any more this weekend, but I was wondering if anyone has had any issues like this and could suggest a way to get these boards up and running? It seems odd that both boards would be dead. tifkat Last edited by tifkat; 13th October 2002 at 9:03 AM.

13th October 2002, 10:17 PM	#5
idosillythings Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Camperdown, NSW Posts: 1,298	I was just about to buy one of these to. Hmmmm hopefully it was a one off. __________________ "Do I detect a hint of cinnamon?"

14th October 2002, 11:12 AM	#6
tifkat Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 95	Ok, well I went and picked up one of the boards this morning, and I hooekd it all up. Dead. Changed the jumper settings, and I got it to work. The manual says the settings I have set are CPU/DRAM = 133/100. But I can say now it says Duron 1300MHz so the CPU is running at 100MHz. I have to confirm the RAM speed, but I'm betting it's 133MHz. So if you buy one of these, don't believe the manual re the FSB/RAM speed setting. The board actually has solder pads for 2 more 3-pin jumpers, and one of r these has a hard wired join between 2 pads. I'd say they wrote the docs and changed the board and then changed the docs but got it wrong. (Especially since there's no CMOS reset jumper and the manual claims ther is one, and there's a Chassis Intrusion jumper which the manual says nothing about at all.) Install of XP tonight to confirm the board works and wcpuid screenie to show ram and cpu speeds. I wish I had a 133MHz FSB cpu to try all the combos and post results. tifkat Last edited by tifkat; 14th October 2002 at 11:17 AM.

14th October 2002, 7:56 PM	#7
tifkat Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 95	UPDATE Looks like Asus have got their act together. Here is an insert for the CORRECT mainboard bus speed settings. The page listing this url wouldn't show on the weekend. This sucker is running kinda hot (57 degrees last time I checked) but the install of XP seems to be going ok. tifkat

15th October 2002, 7:24 PM	#8
tifkat Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 95	Another Update I got XP Installed ok and running nicely last night. The TIM which was on the stock cooler was pretty ineffectual. I had temps of up to 59 degrees celcius. This may be due to the fact that the cooler had been on and off about 6 times. I replaced this pink TIm with some standard Unick paste. Temps dropped to around 45 degrees. Next I started my linux install. I'm a slackware man myself, and I was really disappointed when the cd-rom failed to mount during the install. I tried a few different things, including a different cd (I was installing slackware 8.1 btw) but with no luck. I called it a night and this morning I tried installing RedHat 7.2. I actually got an entire install done. When I installed the unified audio and network driver though, I was again stumped. The driver loads ok, and the eth0 interface comes up ok. I even see the light on the hub flashing for the ping, but all I got was "Destination unreachable' (yes I had the correct route setup and all that). This is clearly a case of the hardware thinking it's working, but not. I tried lots of things, and the day was wearing on. The cpu was now hitting 57 degrees (this in the middle of the day today as opposed to 8 or 9pm last night when the pink TIM was getting 59) So I tried to re-install XP, because I knew that worked. But alas the XP install began to fail also. I decided there was nothing for it, opened the case and took off the AMD cooler, and replaced it with my un-used Swiftech MCX370. This was around 4pm so still plenty of warmth in the day. The cpu temp dropped below the mainboard temp to around 37 degrees. Now I have a problwm. With the swifty installed, I've got about 5 or 6 mm gap between the intake of a monster 7000rpm TT fan and the case wall! this H340D is going to me modded very soon now. The XP install flew by and bolstered by my success I thought I'd try the slackware install again. Success! It installed without a hitch. I put it down to the temperatures. Now with the switfy running there is a fair breeze flowing past the passive heatsink on the north bridge chip, and the PSU fan is no longer fighting for the air as it did when the AMD cooler was in. There's about 15mm gap from the cooler fan to the PSU fan.. not a good setup I gather. So after I got the linux install working, including working network with the unified drivers, I remembered I'd left the VGA shared memory at 32MB. After a reboot, and lowering it to 8MB (the lowest setting as I'm using this thing headless for now) I was astounded to note the network no longer working. Reset and up the shared memory agina, and whallah the network is back. This would explain (most likely) why the etwork was failing in RedHat. I'm willing to bet the cdrom not mounting in slackware was also due to the shared RAM being set to 8MB. I wonder how much time I would have saved today had I kept the 32MB VGA shared memory setup all along. Hope this helps someone with their future install on a new A7N266-VM board. tifkat Last edited by tifkat; 15th October 2002 at 7:42 PM.

13th October 2002, 5:27 PM	#2
Bravo Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 10,051	Test the FSB jumper in both positions. I have had no problems with 3 of these boards i've bought for my friends/brother.

13th October 2002, 5:58 PM	#3
tifkat Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 95	Do you have one handy? Or can you tell me form memory what FSB/RAM setting you are using and which Jumper settings they correspond to? I'm going to take my case to work tomorrow and the CPU and RAM and go get one of the boards and try to get it working. I just know it's going to take forever for them to get onto their supplier, and get a response. tifkat

16th October 2002, 1:32 PM	#9
StarType Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Briz SE Posts: 190	Yes the original manual has the FSB jumper set to the wrong pin config.. see the updated version at Asus.. Ive used my mobo in a small m-atx case with only 180w and it powers up fine.. A 300w P4 PSU would be better though.. I would also advise you get d/l the latest Nforce drivers from Nvidia and use them instead of the Asus's ones on the cd.. __________________ \|\|HegStar Technology=PC Hardware/Case Mods\|\|My PCDB\|Business PC\|XP2100\|A7V266-E\|512 OCZ DDR\|Dual 40g's\|64mb GF2Ti\|Dvd\|Cdrw\|Zip\|12 Fans\|Dual Neons\|\|LAN PC\|XP1800\|A7N266-VM\|Onboard Everything\|WD 40Gb\|256 DDR\|LG Combo Cdrw/dvd\| What more could you ask for? ICQ# 120834317 or R U Looking for a copy of "BF 1942 "Road to Rome" Email Me! Successful Trades: AvalonArdy, Retribution,

16th October 2002, 4:15 PM	#10
chestRcopRpot Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Townsville, QLD Posts: 2,715	When i set mine to 8Mb graphics it corrupted the hdd. I though wtf and put in my 80gig. Yep you guessed it, lost everything again..... it was saying hdd was 18Tb when i was trying to format it on 2k install :/ After about 50 failed xp and 2k installs i put video back to 32 and everything worked again. freaky shit. __________________ folding

16th October 2002, 7:58 PM	#12
idosillythings Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Camperdown, NSW Posts: 1,298	You wont need the best cooling if your not overclocking (which is usually the case with these boards, but hey this is overclockers australia I guess). __________________ "Do I detect a hint of cinnamon?"

16th October 2002, 8:02 PM	#13
tifkat Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 95	Hmm.. I disagree. But I disagree on the grounds that I'm using an Aopen H340D case. The cpu is so close to the power supply that the PSU fan is sucking away the air the cooler wants. Also air is failing to flow past the North Bridge's passive Heatsink. It all ends up with a very warm box (and it's not ever summer yet!) The CPU was running at about 57 degrees yesterday and the system temp was around 45. After putting the swifty on the cpu now reaches a whopping 37 and the system around 40. tifkat