Problem running ASUS A7N8X motherboard

Maybe the MoBo is shorting, unscrew it and then re-screw it back to the case.
Re-check the power on and reset button cables.

H

Look here :

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21110372/00000050-Blue-screen-in-Windows-XP.html

First post was regarding your  00000050 error.
Now in this case i would use the old "minimal config" method : disconnect everything not needed, and boot; you should at least get a POST screen.
Aminimal config : take out all the boards and disconnect devices, so you start with 1 HDD, 1 Ram stick, cpu, vid card, kbd+mouse

Im currently unscrewing the motherboard to see if its shorting, in response to your second post i have tried the minimal config and the problem is im not even recieving apost screen the monitor simply stays in the standby position, however i know that it works.

Are you using the same processor???  I have run numerous A7N8X and A7N8X-E motherboards, some with the Radeon 9700 Pro without too much of a problem.  The only stickler is the A7N8X-E with a 3200+ processor.  Even with Kingston HyperX memory, it is unstable at the correct settings and will intermittently blue scheen.  I have 7 of these and I have to pull the speed from 200 to 166 in the bios, dropping it to a 2500+ to make it work.  Always make sure if moving processors, you clean then and the heatsink and apply the appropriate Thermal Grease.

after unscrewing and rescrewing in the motherboard there was still nothing so i tried un connecting everything from the power supply except the mobo and it turned on as i reconnected everything to the power supply it has carried on working too so at least now power is entering the machine. However there is still no post screen coming upi on boot. would the processor affect this?

oh and yes i am running the same processor

I would check the jumper as kcarrim said, also have you taken out the memory and tried to power it on without that to see if you get any beep codes?

The ram in the computer is DDR400 (I didnt mention that in the question), I have tried turningn on without the RAM and there are no beep codes. With regards to the CPU protection that would still not stop the post screen not displaying would it not, it would simply display an error message.

I have tried changing the jumper with no change also thanks.

Hi,
  I've tried removing the heatsink and fan and powering on with just the CPU but the omputer simply cuts the power and the CPU wasnt hot to touch after(must be the COP) there was no power cut when I had the heatsink and fan off will this eliminate the CPU being blown.

A final resort. Try another CPU or test your CPU in another board. The problem seems to be coming from your CPU. It could be damaged.

I have two computers with the same motherboard.  Both had a similar issue at one time.  For one of them it turned out to be a bad BIOS version.  Asus makes wonderful motherboards but their support is very poor.  I'm currently using the 1.10 BIOS revision.  Do not use the flash utility that comes with the motherboard.  Use the one that is built into the BIOS.

The second board ended up being a driver problem during the install.  At the beginning of the Windows 2K/XP installation, you have to hit F2 and insert a floppy with the SATA drivers.  This is assuming that you are using a SATA drive of course.  This took me quite a bit of time to figure out.  I didn't believe that to be the problem since I installed WinXP once before without it.  Very weird.

Anyway, I hope my experience helps you out.  Good luck.

Also, make sure the RAM is in the correct slots.  Unlike some other ASUS motherboards, the A7N8X-E numbers the slots differently.  The slot closest to the PS is like Simm A2 or B1, the Middle is A1 and the other yellow closest to the edge of the board is A2 bor B1.  For 2 Simms, they want the 2 Yellow slots.  I had to look up the placment in the MB and then go back to the other page to see which slot was named what.

If you motherboard has a faulty bios, check your warranty. http://www.asus.com.tw/support/english/techref/warranty/index.aspx

Right now i've tried replacing the old motherboard because even thpough it blue screened using it all the time at least i used to get a post screen from it. However this will not post a screen either now so I'm going to buy a new CPU and to see if this is the problem. I did notice however that the old mainboard did beep, (this is checking the ram is it? as without the ram the board emitted a continuous beeping) this doesnt happen with the new main board. I would also like to add thart as well as the same CPU I also used the same RAM and AGP graphics card. Is it possible the graphics card could be the cuprit or would you stay with the assumtion of the CPU.

Thanks for all the replies Matt

Try a cheap pci card, or try the card on another system.

Try dropping the speed in the Bios.  I have 7 of these with 3200+ processors and it fixed it for them.

I'll ask for a share for the time and effort expended.  I do have 7 that had the same problem, and gave logical steps that led to my resolution on all the boards.

If dropping the speed is a solution, what is the point then in having a fast cpu?? Is this not related to incorrect FSB or multiplier settings?? PCB 1.06 or earlier version need BIOS update.

It can be manually set by moving jumpers on the mainboard. See here > http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x-d/jumper.htm
The jumper when set to 1-2 pins (default), enable support for Front Side Bus 333/266. When set to pins 2-3, it sets support for FSB 200 only. It also has support for Socket A for AMD Athlon™ XP/Athlon™ / Duron™
Thoroughbred/ Barton Core. If you are using DDR400 ram with a Athlon 2500+ 333FSB processor, the ram will run at 333 and not at 400, except if the mainboard has manual setting in bios to have the ram run at 200Mhz (DDR400).

Please check the cpu speed setting.

The author asked if anyone else had similiar problems or can help.  I have been dealing with this exact motherboard since it came out, putting out 4 at my previous employer and when I wrote this, 7 at this job.  Since then, I have deployed another 13 of them.  I have run the gambit of updating all the the newest, latest and greatest Bios.  I have used different speed CPU's.  I have purchased different memory, Kingston, Viking, Kingston HyperX 2.5cl, HyperX 2 cl, Generic, etc.  In most machines I use ATI 9600XT Video cards, but some have the 9200 and 2 in particular the 9700 pro, just like the author is running.   Soooo, I do have a wealth of experience with this board.  I have submitted the problem to ASUS, but have not received any feedback from them when I inquire. The predecessor, A7N8X did not suffer from this problem.

What I have found is First, make sure you have a power supply capable of running the board.  I am using Antec 480w power supplies on the machines I use.  Then, the RAM needs to be in the correct slots.  This board is marked a little differently, so you can't just put a stick in the first slot.  In fact the first RAM slot is the middle one.  Second, when I put in a true 2500+, 2600+, 2800+, or 3000+ processor, the board runs as advertised and is rock solid.  When putting in 3200+ processors, (7 with this type at this job and 1 at the last job), I have found each and every one of them was unstable.  This ran the gambit of blue screens while trying to install XP to getting XP Loaded and experiencing lockups and blue screens when running programs or just sitting their idle.  I have tried various BIOS settings to fix this, including caching and RAM settings, however the ONLY thing that would make the machine run properly and stable was to drop that speed setting from 200 to 166.

I don't like it any more than the next person that my 3200+ processors on these boards run slower, but they are stable and most people or applications won't be able to tell the difference between a 2500+ and a 3200+ processor performance.  I do like the board, so in my latest batch, I bought a bunch of 2800+ and they run just fine.  In over 27 years of doing this and over 8 years of working on ASUS boards, I have never run across a problem like this before or not been able to fix it.  I do have a couple of exact duplicate machine's like the author's, so I do have a lot of hands on hours on this exact problem.

Respect!!
I was just wondering, Barton 3000+ and 3200+ are both 400fsb processors. If setting the fsb and muliplier manually, does the mainboard detect the correct cpu speed? If not i conclude that this mainboard is not 400FSB cpu compatible!!

i'm sorry about the lateness of the reply but now i have finally bought (and recieved) a new CPU and am going to try that. again I apologise but it has taken three weeks to get the CPU which was paid for. I will post as soon as i have tested the new CPu in the board.

In regard to checking the CPU setting this appears to be fine

Thank Matt.

Hi. thanks for all the help on the subject. It seems that the CPU was the problem after all and now the computer is functioning fine. however the original monitor now refuses to work. I know that this was not the problem initially because the computer is running on a second monitor that i used to test for this problem ealier. Could the monitor have gone as a result of any othe problem or is this just coincidence. I know this proberly isnt the case but i though i should ask for completeness. Once again thanks for all the help.

Matt

Coincidence.  Do you get anything out of the monitor during boot?  If not, check both the data and power cables.   It seems just bad luck that one went out after the other.

I upgraded my pc about 6 weeks back. This is what happened to me:

Coincidence
First i bought a new case and transferred everything into the new case. A was having Abit KD7 mainboard and Athlon 1700+
After booting the system, i realized that the cpu temp was way to high. I checked the fans and connections and found nothing wrong. I thought the PSU was causing this, so i put my old psu back. The problem was just the same. I couldn't even use the system for 3 minutes. The cpu temp was around 78C. I removed everything from the case and put it back into the old one. Now the pc won't even come on. My cpu had died!!! So, i bought an AMD Sempron 2500+ with Asrock mainboard. I started the new board with only fan,cpu and ram but after 2 minutes the system was dead. My PSU has died as well!!!

samccarthy
"Soooo, I do have a wealth of experience with this board"
" I do have a couple of exact duplicate machine's like the author's, so I do have a lot of hands on hours on this exact problem."

I'm not being sarcastic, but i did mention from my first post to replace the cpu. I have been using AMD processors for 8 years and i do have a lot of experience with them!!

Thanks for all the help. I thought that it would be coincidence but thought it would be better to ask rather than experience any more problems. One final question, what could have caused the cpu to go. As far as i was aware it never overheated and seemed to run everything fine. The fan too has never stopped working either. I kno that the error message was something to do with trying to access the cache so i assume that it must be this area that must have started the problem. Does this soulnd reasonable?

Finally points wise i will split the points between Kcarrim and samccarthy as they were the two witht hte most help for my situation .

Thanks again matt

You could have gotten a faulty processor, or if it was not a boxed one you possibly might have gotten one that was restamped for a hight speed after it left the factory.  There was a problem with that for awhile from some not so honest distributers.  It could be that it picked up a little static charge somewhere along the way.

Glad you got it fixed and thanks for the split.

Did you buy this complete system or did you build it yourself? Do you know if the processor was overclocked?

There are many possible reasons why a processor can appear to have failed. In the real world, outright processor failures are very rare, especially if the processor has worked in the past (unless we are talking about a very old CPU, more than ten years of age). If the processor works for the first month that it is installed, it will probably last for five or more years, as long as it isn't abused. Problems with processors are far more likely to be misconfigurations, overheating problems, or misdiagnoses of other failed components.

A heatsink is a heatsink is a heatsink: WRONG . Gone are the days of the metal/aluminum heatsink with a plain fan. These might work with older socket 7 type CPUs but WILL NOT work with current generation socket CPUs.
Never power up a system if the CPU's heatsink is not installed. This WILL damage the CPU and possibly the motherboard also.
Always use thermal compound when installing the CPU heatsink. Contact with CPU and heatsink is not enough for adequate thermal transfer. Thermal compound ( or thermal grease ) is an integral part of the CPU/heatsink installation. Also, this may sound idiotic, if the heatsink comes with thermal compound and has protective tape, REMOVE the tape before
installing the CPU. Installation with protective tape/film will cease heat transfer to heatsink.
NEVER install the heatsink at an angle. This is probably the root cause of most CPU failures. By doing so will greatly increase the chance that the heatsink is not making proper contact with the heatsink and therefore reduce thermal transfer from CPU to heatsink. Never apply and pressure on the heatsink during installation. Only pressure that is to be applied should be on the
retention clips. Don't take for granted that installing a heatsink is one of the simplest tasks when building a new system. With these new CPUs, a little too much pressure on CPU, improper alignment of heatsink, no/not enough thermal compound will eventually cause a CPU to fail. Always make sure that you are operating the correct cpu speed.

I have not seen more than a handful, probably fewer, of AMD CPU failures in, I estimate, more than a thousand installations. I have seen about that many Intel CPU failures/bugs as well. I have seen more Cyrix failures than either of the above and have installed far fewer of them than either of the above. Most CPU failures are caused by improper installation (electrostatic procedures, bent/broken pins, gorillas, extreme overclocking etc...

What does excessive heat do anyway? Probably less than you imagine, since a CPU's failure increase is a direct function of the number of thermal cycles and the CHANGE in temperature above ambient. One of the two mechanisms of failure is called "thermal fatigue" a misnomer since it is metal fatigue.

The second failure mechanism deals with absolute temperature. For each ten degrees C, chemical reactions double in their speed. This doubling is roughly accurate when referring to leakage currents. Leakage currents represent heat sources and further increase junction (CPU) temperatures.

Yes i have built the machine myself however i have never overclocked the processor and it has run fine for about two years it was only when i began to get blue screen error messages and began to notice the computer running a little slow that i checke the stop message meaning and found out it pointed to a cache, which i assumed would mean on eon the motherboard and so upgraded that which is where the question begins. Also thermal compound was there and the heat sink was approriate size. Hope this helps thanks matt.

flynny,

      You said earlier you would split the points between kcarrim and myself for all the help.  Did you change your mind?

I agree. Samccarthy should have gotten some points.

i'm sorry i thought i did split them did i not? i thought i'd given 150 points each is this not the case? i'll email them and try and sort it out.

Once again thanks for the help.

flynny

Thank you

You did split them, but only with kcarrim

Thanks again