ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Problem...

[Tyrinon]

A friend of mine is having probs with the above titled mobo. We've been conversing through emails, and I'm about out of ideas. So I'll just copy/paste his msgs. Here goes the first msg:

First, the facts/specs:

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Mobo (version 1, latest BIOS)
AMD XP2500+ Barthon
2x 512 MB PC2700 mem
Maxtor 250 Gig HD
MSI Ti4800SE 128MB Graphics
Samsung Combo DVD/CD-RW drive
NEC 3500a DVD+/-RW drive

Windows XP Pro, SP2, fully updated
DX9.0c


THE PROBLEM:

Computer freezes after 20-40 minutes, sometimes longer, sometimes sooner. If I reduce the memory and CPU speed through the BIOS the PC will run a little longer before locking up.

No warning, no blue screen, no auto reset. It just runs until it locks up. Ran ASUS Probe and the CPU temp never goes beyond 40 degree C.

After several emails to ASUS, they keep telling me it's a problem with my CPU heatsink. After replacing it and applying Arctic Silver 3 times, it still does the same thing. btw, the case has 1x120mm fan, 3x80 mm fans, and a new and dependable 450W power supply with a 120mm fan.


REQUEST:

I suspect a faulty mobo, but ASUS support keeps saying it's not and something else must be wrong. I'll need a good arguement to squeeze a RMA out of them.

Also, please let me know if you think it's not the mobo -- maybe it's something I've overlooked.

Here I asked about the mobo temp. He replied that the temp was reported at a constant 18c. I asked more questions and recieved the following e-mail. You should be able to guess the questions from the answers. Reply msg:

Memtest86 and Prime 95 run fine without errors until the PC freezes.

Only errors are related to inappropriate shutdown due to hard reboot. No other errors in the logs -- everything runs fine until the PC freezes.

I swapped out the old PS thinking that was the problem, but the old PS was fine too (I'm using it in a 3rd PC).

The only variable is the CPU and memory clock. If I set it low, the PC will run about two times longer before it freezes. I'm currently running the PC2700 memory and XP2500+ Barthon at 100 MHz bus speed (the splash screen shows the CPU as an XP1900+ due to the downtuning, lol).

Oh, just a while ago, while fiddling around the case because the PC failed to reboot, I had to switch out the memory positions from Dual Channel mode to Single Channel to get it to restart. *sigh*

I don't know what brand memory he's using, I've emailed that question to him and am waiting on a reply. So I'll add that info when I get it. Judging from the end of this last msg about having to move the mem from DC to SC to boot the machine, my guess is that the mobo is about to push up daises. Any ideas/confirmations? Thanks for your time in advance.

 

[Tyrinon]

No need to worry about this. My friend combed through the event logs again and found probs with wuaueng.dll which is related to the Windows AU. This function was already off, but after double checking it and resetting it to stop/manual, the computer has run for a couple of hours w/o locking up. So hopefully it's cured.