I am a happy man!!!

Dear friends,

I am a proud owner of an Asus a7n8x Deluxe 2.0 MB!
Yeah baby! This monster really rocks. My previous spec was an athlon 1300, 512mb and the reliable ecs k7s5a.

Now I've got the following

athlon xp2600+ fsb 333
2x512mb pc2700
geforce4 ti4200 pine

I've got some considerations though. I'd like to hear your opinions:

1. Memory sticks are Mitsubishi.... Any good?

2. At first boot the bios recognized the xp2600 as 1600. So I had to set the multiplier to 12.5x. Now it's xp2600+. Memory timings are 8-4-4-2.5. Can this be improved?

3. I had some trouble installing WinXP Pro. After the initial installation process (when the system is rebooted), the screen went blank. I reset the machine twice, to no avail. I had to power down the whole thing, wait 10 seconds and power it up. Then installation resumed and finished ok. Also, when I exit BIOS, sometimes the computer doesn't boot (just blank screen). I have to reset the machine. My BIOS is 1003. Comments?

4. I couldn't install sp1 cause I don't have it. Is sp1 really necessary? (I'm not concerned about Internet security, just gaming performance)....

5. The following is the installation sequence of important drivers after WinXp was installed.

5.1 nForce drivers that comes with the CD (it installed the usb2.0 SP).
5.2 nForce driver 2.45
5.3 Detonator 43.45
5.4 dx9.0b (no prob if after detonator???)

6. I won't reinstall games. For example, Wolf ET is running fine... What about other games that use the ID engine?

7. I had to disable Sata (jumper on mb). Otherwise WinXP wouldn't install the MCP audio driver.......

8. My Computer -> Properties -> Device Manager -> Unknown Devices -> USB Controller.... Is this correct??? My usb mouse is working fine. How do I know if USB2.0 is enabled? Sorry about this silly question....
Your comments are very welcomed.
Thank you very much.

Mito said:

Dear friends,

I am a proud owner of an Asus a7n8x Deluxe 2.0 MB!
Yeah baby! This monster really rocks. My previous spec was an athlon 1300, 512mb and the reliable ecs k7s5a.

Now I've got the following

athlon xp2600+ fsb 333
2x512mb pc2700
geforce4 ti4200 pine

I've got some considerations though. I'd like to hear your opinions:

1. Memory sticks are Mitsubishi.... Any good?

2. At first boot the bios recognized the xp2600 as 1600. So I had to set the multiplier to 12.5x. Now it's xp2600+. Memory timings are 8-4-4-2.5. Can this be improved?

3. I had some trouble installing WinXP Pro. After the initial installation process (when the system is rebooted), the screen went blank. I reset the machine twice, to no avail. I had to power down the whole thing, wait 10 seconds and power it up. Then installation resumed and finished ok. Also, when I exit BIOS, sometimes the computer doesn't boot (just blank screen). I have to reset the machine. My BIOS is 1003. Comments?

4. I couldn't install sp1 cause I don't have it. Is sp1 really necessary? (I'm not concerned about Internet security, just gaming performance)....

5. The following is the installation sequence of important drivers after WinXp was installed.

5.1 nForce drivers that comes with the CD (it installed the usb2.0 SP).
5.2 nForce driver 2.45
5.3 Detonator 43.45
5.4 dx9.0b (no prob if after detonator???)

6. I won't reinstall games. For example, Wolf ET is running fine... What about other games that use the ID engine?

7. I had to disable Sata (jumper on mb). Otherwise WinXP wouldn't install the MCP audio driver.......

8. My Computer -> Properties -> Device Manager -> Unknown Devices -> USB Controller.... Is this correct??? My usb mouse is working fine. How do I know if USB2.0 is enabled? Sorry about this silly question....
Your comments are very welcomed.
Thank you very much.

Click to expand...

Mem should be running the same as your fsb, and around 6322 or so. Try tightening the mem, and download a newer bios for your board. Make sure you use the one for the v2 board... Lower your multi and raise the fsb to 180-200 X 10 and then raise that a bit at a time. You should see some good results.

Flash to the 1005 bios. Most are having better success with it.

that ram isnt the best if you truly wanna get a better OC you'll have to fork out money for some faster ram =d

Nice setup, Couple things

Get the 44.03 drivers, found to have better luck with these

Download the Asus V1005 for bios

Mem timings are decent, are you going to run dual channel or single? On an AMD board many people say there is really only a 5-10% increase

USB 2.0 is auto, the board is standard with 2.0 but can be backwards compat. with 1.1

At first boot the bios recognized the xp2600 as 1600. So I had to set the multiplier to 12.5x. Now it's xp2600+. Memory timings are 8-4-4-2.5. Can this be improved?

Click to expand...

Sure the FSB jumper on the MD ain't set to 100 FSB ?

I just realized that the xp2600 is fsb266. I'm gonna kick some ***.

dkv3c.

Mito said:

I just realized that the xp2600 is fsb266. I'm gonna kick some ***.

dkv3c.

Click to expand...

lol

Mito said:

I just realized that the xp2600 is fsb266. I'm gonna kick some ***.

dkv3c.

Click to expand...

lol with ppl with a 400+bus speed sorry i cant see it

Steven4563 said:

lol with ppl with a 400+bus speed sorry i cant see it

Click to expand...

Hi, I ordered the 333 version and they installed the 266. I am ****ed off! Somebody is gonna die!

;o)

So I guess you are not "A Happy Man" any longer?

Sorry, I had to .

if i'm not mistaken...you need xp service pack 1 to enable usb 2.0

you don't need the sp1 at all. Usb 2.0 drivers are included in your asus driver cdrom.

blasto said:

you don't need the sp1 at all. Usb 2.0 drivers are included in your asus driver cdrom.

Click to expand...

Are you sure? When I installed my Asus A7N8X-Deluxe 2.0 it said that USB 2.0 would require XP SP 1.

yeah I'm sure because I did it.. Run the asus driver cd and click the usb 2.0 driver link there a readme file will describe how to load the driver.
Simply After loading nforce drivers and the QFE fix go to device manager and select the update driver for the usb 2.0 and locate the files from asus cd(X:\Drivers\USB2\XP) .

orion25 said:

So I guess you are not "A Happy Man" any longer?

Sorry, I had to .

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm still happy. This setup is very good. Asus is a good mb.

orion25 said:

Are you sure? When I installed my Asus A7N8X-Deluxe 2.0 it said that USB 2.0 would require XP SP 1.

Click to expand...

The "hotfix" that's included and installed before the nForce drivers is actually part of sp1. (microsoft: q312370)

Mito said:

I just realized that the xp2600 is fsb266. I'm gonna kick some ***.

dkv3c.

Click to expand...

ehhh heh heh heh, U said ***...

266? and kick A%$ too?

I'm just gonna sit here and watch awhile.


Happy Trails,

Tweaker

U Really need the SP1.

"and that's all I got to say about that!" (Forrest Gump)

Tweaker