• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Trouble with new AN35N Ultra

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

GomerOfDoom

New Member
Joined
Mar 3, 2004
Location
California
Alright, so I'm a bit of a newbie. Not necessarily new to computers, but new to the Shuttle AN35N Ultra. Just got it, an AMD AthlonXP 2500+, and 512 MB of Kingston PC2700 RAM the other day. Got home, installed everything into the case no prob. Booted up my comp and installed windows (I had formatted the hard drive before installing the new hardware). While installing, I used the Shuttle drivers off the disc that came with my board. Anyhoo... got everything all loaded up and went to watch a DVD. Everything seemed to go ok, but then started getting a lot of "chop" while watching. This DVD drive and DVD media worked fine with my old setup (Asus A7V w/ Athlon T-Bird 1000), but now I am getting repeatable chop whenever I watch the DVD. The screen jerks and the sound gets glitchy. By the way, I have an LG combo CDRW/DVD drive GCC-4120B and am using PowerDVD version 3.0. (Also, I have run the DVDs in my laptop with no problem, so it's not the DVDs themselves).

My first thought is that my drivers are wrong. Thus, I have the following question:

Assuming I have a virgin installation of Windows without having loaded ANY drivers yet, what drivers should I install and in what order? There are drivers on nVidia's website, there are drivers on the disc that came with the board, and I thinhk there are Microsoft drivers somewheres... which should I use?

If that doesn't solve my problem, I'm not sure where to go, so any other ideas/suggestions are welcome.

Actually, while I'm here, let me ask a few more:

My advanced chipset features in my BIOS is showing:
Sys Performance: Optimal
FSB Freq: 166
Mem Freq: Auto
FSB Spread Spec: .50%
AGP Spread Spec: .50%
AGP Aperture: 128MB (My AGP card only has about 32MB, though)
AGP 8X: Enabled (but i'm using an old GeForce2 GTS)

All of my CPU Ratio/Voltage settings are on Auto.

Is this the best way to set up my BIOS? Short of overclocking, are there any other performance boosts I should use? SHould I change the AGP aperture size? Should I disable 8X support?
Note that the current BIOS settings yield a CPU ident of AthlonXP 2500+ (which is correct) and mem frequency of 333.

Finally (thanks for sticking with me), I've heard that the Shuttle onboard audio is crappy and steals lots of CPU cycles. Could this be the cause of my DVD probs? Even if it isn't the cause, should I put in my SBLive PCI card anyway?

Thanks for all your helps!

-GomerOfDoom
 
Welcome to the Forums G.O.D.!

1. Install SBL, yes onboard sucks up to 16% of CPU

2. Windows OS - Motherboard drivers - Video drivers - DirectX - SP1 if you use XP. Defrag between each step.

3. Expert - Aggressive - Expert - 100%\Sync - 11-2-2-2 if RAM is Cas 2.0 use Cas 2.5 if not. Disable spread spectrums and 8X support. 128mb on aperture and buffer.

4. Good Luck!

Regards, Balrog
 
I've read that the video aperture should be equal to or less than the video card's total memory but I can't remember if the mobo will let you select 16mb. I would do 32mb in your case Gomer.
 
Drivers

Thanks for your response, Balrog (and Squirly!).

So, the drivers I install right after the windows install should be the Shuttle drivers that came with my board (I'm using Win2000, by the way)? Or should they be the nVidia drivers from nVidia's website?

Also, I'm not 100% sure about what kind of memory I have. Is there a way to find out what my CAS Latency is? If I don't know the latency, should I just leave things on Auto?

Thanks a lot for your help.

-GomerOfDoom
 
Go to nvidia's web site to get more up to date. apeture size I don't think will cause any problems to where u got it now. As for the fast writes (in bios), try it off and on to see what u get . I know on most ATI cards it should be off.Also update drivers on your video card.
 
I've been using the drivers that came with the board and I run a 220FSB, so they work pretty good IMHO. I run with fastwrites enabled but try it both ways. You should download some tools to test the stability & performance of your rig at different settings\timings. Most of us use Sandra, Prime95 and Memtest86 though there are other good programs as well. I and many others use MBM5 to monitor the system specs ie: voltages, temps and fan rpms, when configuring it in the setup select SB61G and not AN35N as many of us have found this is more accurate, use Standard 4 for voltage calibration. I believe Sandra will tell you what the CAS and other specs of your RAM is otherwise look for WCPUID or WCPUZ which will do it. All of these are free downloads as well. Good Luck! Keep us posted as to how you make out. My bad on aperture and buffer, with that video card 32mb or 64mb should be fine.

Regards, Balrog
 
To find out your cas and memory you got , go into bios/advanced chipset features. there u will see ur cas and resulting frequecy for ur ram( 333=pc2700,400=pc3200 and so on). For brand, look on the chip.
 
CAS Latency and settings

THanks for all your help!

So, turns out I have mem CAS latency of 2.5 Thus, I'm wondering what my mem settings in my bios should be? EDIT: Balrog, you said to put: 11 - 2 - 2 - 2, but since I have 2.5, should this be:
11 - 2 - 2 - 2.5 ?

Putting in the SBLive and will use the original drivers at first. If that doesn't solve the problem, then I'll try the nVidia drivers.

Thanks again for the help!

-GomerOfDoom
 
Last edited:
Hey G.O.D.

It all depends on whether you're going to overclock. Your PC2700 should run at CAS2.5 with no problems, so I'd start with 11-2-2-2.5 and run a couple of loops of Memtest, if you get errors try 11-3-3-2.5. If they're new sticks I'd let it run all night to help burn them in. The difference in benchmarks between CAS2.0 and 2.5 is not much & CAS2.5 should allow you to raise your FSB to get some more performance from your CPU and memory, always keep them in sync.

As you said you just got your Barton it is most likely multiplier locked, you can try changing the BIOS multiplier setting to 10 from the default 11 to see if it is.

Your memory should default at 2.5V VDimm, if you start raising the FSB you may need to raise your VDimm to keep your memory running stable.

Heres a couple of links to give you some basic info and procedures for safe overclocking.

http://www.overclockers.com/tips645/

http://www.overclockers.com/articles740/

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1050/

Regards, Balrog
 
Balrog, So putting in a sound card will save me another 16% on CPU usage? That sounds like a good deal.
 
Hey DK!

Yeah the onboard is pretty decent though I had issues with the EAX codecs in BF1942 & Mods, which is the only game I play, so I threw my SBL back in and it works great.

The article regarding the Realtek ALC650 chip is located at the link below. While when paired with the MCP-T SB for Soundstorm its not an issue but for us folks with the MCP SB its sucks butt if you're a Gamer\OCer (IMHO), if you're not, no big deal, just DL the latest drivers from Realtek as they have improved the performance\quality quite a bit!

Regards, Balrog

Part 1
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/multimedia/display/int-sound.html

Part 2
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/multimedia/display/int-sound2.html
 
Sound

Just thought I'd update this thread. My original post was due to a "choppiness" problem while running DVDs. Well, after putting my SoundBlaster Live PCI back in and disabling the onboard audio, my problems disappeared. Thus, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the onboard audio was causing major trouble.

I'm not ready to overclock quite yet but maybe someday soon.

Thanks for all your help, everyone!

-GomerOfDoom
 
Sounds good G.O.D.!

Glad it worked out for you.

Save those links I posted and check them out when you've got a mind to.

OCing can be quite safe if you go about it right and have the patience to properly test your settings. Most of the horror stories you'll hear are from those over enthusiastic ones who cranked up the voltages and FSB to the max and wonder why they have problems.

We'll keep the light on for ya!

Regards, Balrog
 
Back