A7N8X and Athlon 1800+: cold boot issues

Hi all!
Since I changed my previous A7V8X motherboard with my last A7N8X one I experienced some cold boot issues.
What I want to mean is:
Once with my previous motherboard i was able to chose any multiplier greater than the default of mine 1800+ cpu.
Now if I want to go a little up than 11.5 my A7N8X motherboard refuses to make a cold boot and it forces me to enter in the bios and to re-save all the params that I choosen before. Only in this manner I can make the system going at the multiplier I want to.
It seems that there is a kind of protection and it does not allow to make a cold boot with a too "strange" configuration.
Any idea about it?
I was going to forget...my motherboard is a 2.0 revsion and it is a standard one...no raid ctrl is soldered on it =]
Thanks in advance.

try incressing the fsb with default mutiplicator
i had 1800 with bord and i can boot with it 220 *11
vcore 1.85 with pc 4300
try those setting

Hi, thanks for your reply makaka...but the same thing happens when I try to pass the 205 mhz value.
So if I want to have "clean" cold boots I have to be stuck @ 11.5*205 mhz.
Increasing FSB I can reach a nice frequency of ~2500 using 1.75 volts but I always have to enter into the bios and re-save all the settings.

change that ram timing to 11 not 6 it probably be faster also have u tested with prime95 at them settings in sig ?

It did not help...same thing...anyway thanks for the suggestion.

I've heard of similar things happening with other a7n8x boards... Appears to be a design/bios flaw with the board itself, though i think the problem was a bit more serious in the reported cases in amdmb forums. Also, i think it was a much more frequent problem in the earlier revisions of the board.

As a fix, i'm sorry but i don't know that there is one... Jsut a quick question, when the BIOS menu is forced, are all your other settings reset, along with the fsb/multi settings?

Here's a fellow who may have gone too far with similar problems as yours, michael.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=263707

I believe the "bios savior" mentioned as a possible fix is more a preventive measure and is only used when actualy corruption occurs...

Hi mfjonny...the problem I am going to see every time I turn on my computer is only a waste of time.
I am going to try to explain what happens in a very simple manner...
When I set the FSB to 200 mhz and I leave the default multiplier (11.5x) I can do cold boots normally...I switch on the system and it starts.
When I try to pass the default multiplier, so for instance when I set it to 12x my system can't do a cold boot...the system starts and nothing happens...no beep-coded messages come from the speaker built in on the mobo...
I only have to shut-down the system and then restart it. When I do so the system starts with safe-settings so I have to enter in the bios and to reset my previous settings like the 12x multiplier and the 200 mhz FSB.
When I save the choosen before settings, only then I can boot my system with the "bumped" settings.
The same thing happens when I try to pass the 205 FSB value.
However till now I never had any bios corruption.

aaaahhhhh, i see now.

though sorry to say, i have no enlightened information to help you out...

does this happen at EVERY instance?

I've heard of the vcore mod fixing this. The current theory is the a7n8x seems to use the default voltage for a chip when first starting up, regardless of what the cmos says.

This is good if you have crappy stock cooling and upgrade from a palamino to your chip, and don't know/remember to clear the cmos because this way you will not send 1.85 volts straight through a 1.5 volt chip with inadequate cooling.

The thing with asus boards is they are a big manufacturer and always try to make things idiot proof. Bad news and extra work for us.

The fact that your chip defaults to only 1.5 volts can obviously accentuate this problem. I don't have a problem with booting my chip at those frequencies, but it defaults to 1.65. So if you did the vcore mod and only added about 0.15 volts over the bios setting, then you too would get 1.65 volts on a coldboot and that could fix your problem.

Its just occured to me that modding the chip itself to show a default vcore of 1.65 may help. I don't know what bridges this would involve, so I'll look into it.

Edit: vcore mod here if your interested.

Thanks for the information...I was guessing something similar but I could not believe that Asus still had this kind of problem.
It was well known that a couple of years ago Asus was building their motherboards with a not so robust circuit-layout...this kind of problem seems to go on...
However...just yesterday I rebooted my system for the third time saving again all the settings as I wanted before and the system started to cold boot properly.
Now my system cold boots @ 208*11.5 and this is "enough" for me =] ...circuits mysteries =]
Talking about all the v-mods that are floating around instead, I can assure you that modding the circuit layout of any motherboard with kind of trimmers, potentiometers and fixed resistence it can only increase voltage instability...I am talking about all the experience I had...so my opinion is: leave it as it is...it only does 80%...well...let it be enough.
Thanks again everybody.

Its hard to say if its a problem with the board, really. At least without defining which perspective one is coming from.

From Asus' perspective, it is a problem if unknowledgable users fry their chips by overvolting them right after an install. Certainly the unknowledgable user agrees.

Of course, the overclocker roll's his eyes and just wants a mobo he can control.

The thing is, I believe Asus wants your board to cold boot at default voltage. Its not really instability if that's what's supposed to happen.

Volt mods are definitly a personal choice, I havn't used the vcore mod but the vdd and vdimm mods have been incredible on my a7n8x-e. I think your overclock is great, many can't even get that, its a sweet chip you have. I'd like one, then I could ditch my tornado and still be happy , I wouldn't need nearly as many volts to hit~2.4ghz.

Hi Artisan...I am only certain of this: my previous A7V8X m.b. always booted normally even with so high voltages...I changed it with the latest one and I discovered it was not so better than the previous I had.
Surelly it is not my intention to make another motherboard change =]
About the chip...I have to say I am very happy of it...once I launched it @ 2505 mhz and it worked very well but the voltage I was forced to use was too high.

Here is a link that will help you use a wire trick or other method to make your chip default to a higher voltage. Having it default even just to 1.6-1.65v could solve your cold boot trouble.