ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Help Thread

[David M]

I am starting this thread for people who either own or are contemplating buying an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard.

The reason I started this thread is for a number of reasons. First, the user manual ASUS prints for this board is woefully inadequate. Secondly, ASUS technical support is woefully inadequate...thats if you can get someone to call you back. Thirdly, this is a very complex board which can do many many things that again, ASUS does not address adequately. Lastly but perhaps most imprtantly, it would be nice to know who in this forum owns this board so we can share ideas and help each other out with this motherboard that is becoming more and more popular each day.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of common questions about this board. What are the black and what are the red RAID sockets...what's the difference? (not explained by the manual very well). Where are the NVIDIA RAID drivers? ..and the Silicone Image RAID Drivers? (The manual does not tell you) Why did ASUS bury the drivers so deep in the mobo CD and not describe which are the nVIDIA and which are the Silicone drivers? What are the best hours to get tech support from ASUS? (The techs take your number but never return your calls.) The book never explains the complex procedure for installing Windows XP with RAID drivers and all the little tricks of the trade you must know. There are also alternatives to the screaming 8000 RPM chipset fan on this board. This board generates lots of noise with all the fans it has. I either had to liquid cool mine to quiet it down or my wife was going to divorce me with all the case fans(4), graphics card fans(2), PSU fans(2) and the chipset fan(1) all screaming for attention. My wife said my computer sounded like the airport, and she was right. I would be happy to describe how I liquid cooled mine and significantly quieted it down.

I still don't know how to overclock this board without corrupting the RAID configuration..which I did at about 15% overclocked.

Lets share ideas.

If you own this motherboard then please say so here. Perhaps you can contribute or get your questions about this board answered here...or perhaps both. Let's get to know who of us at PC Mech owns this board.

David M

[thefultonhow]

Originally Posted by David M Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of common questions about this board. What are the black and what are the red RAID sockets...what's the difference? (not explained by the manual very well).

One of the colors designates the chipset-native nVidia SATA ports, and the other designates those run by the Silicon Image controller. I haven't personally used the board, but from what I can see from this picture (yes, I know, not the same board, but it's similar enough), the black ones are the nVidia SATA and the red ones are the Silicon Image SATA.

For most people using the board, I would recommend only using the nVidia SATA ports and not the SI ones, for the following reasons:

1. The Silicon Image controller can be disabled, thus cutting down on resource usage and speeding up boot times.
2. I trust nVidia's drivers more than Silicon Image's drivers.
3. If you aren't using RAID, you don't need to load drivers in XP setup, as the SATA is chipset-native.

The exceptions are as follows:

1. If you have more than four SATA drives.
2. If you need to use a feature that only the SI controller has (e.g. RAID 5).
3. If you're overclocking (?).

I included the third reason because it's possible that the nVidia RAID controller can't take an increased FSB. I have not had any problems on my Intel 865PE/ICH5R board, but nVidia may have a different impementation. If the A8N-SLI has a PCI lock (and I think it does), the SI controller, which runs off the PCI bus, would be non-overclocked, and therefore would not have problems. However, if there is no PCI lock, I would imagine that the SI controller would be more sensitive to overclocking and thus the nVidia RAID would be a better option. I'm interested to know which controller you're using that you got a degraded volume, and, if you use the other one, whether that would have the same problem.

Originally Posted by David M Where are the NVIDIA RAID drivers? ..and the Silicone Image RAID Drivers? (The manual does not tell you)

I'm pretty sure that the nVidia driver can be downloaded here (you will have to run the installer to get the character-mode drivers, as far as I can tell). The SI driver can be downloaded here

Originally Posted by David M Why did ASUS bury the drivers so deep in the mobo CD and not describe which are the nVIDIA and which are the Silicone drivers?

My guess is that they make it a lot easier if you run their autorun application on the CD, but I can't verify it without getting a board myself. I personally get all my drivers for my P4P800 Deluxe (that aren't available from Intel, ATI, etc.) from the Asus web site.

Originally Posted by David M What are the best hours to get tech support from ASUS? (The techs take your number but never return your calls.)

When I got my first P4P800 Deluxe, it was DOA. I used email support to get them to send out a new board -- it was a lot easier than calling. Email support is much-maligned, but it's usually better than phone support because you have the troubleshooting steps written down for you, and you aren't making the company spend a lot of money for around-the-clock call centers.

Originally Posted by David M The book never explains the complex procedure for installing Windows XP with RAID drivers and all the little tricks of the trade you must know.

But that's what PCMech is for!

[GRP]

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/38623/