[edraket]

Ok..
I bought some new hardware this weekend.

Asus p4s8x motherboard
P4 2,4 Ghz cpu
WD 80 GB 8mb Cache harddrive
512 MB pc2700 ram
new case

In this I put my old geforce2 gts.

I try to install xp..I get a bluescreen consistently.

I replace the geforce with an old matrox mystique that I had laying around in a box somehwere.

and XP installs like a breeze.

But the whole thing still doesn't work. The system just reboots out of nowhere every few minutes.

By now I have put the geforce back in..

It still does the reboot thing.

The motherboard recognises everything automatically so no jumpers that could be wrong. I really have no idea what could cause this. This is the second time I type this (notebook so can save it every ten seconds)

This system is so fucking fast. It just won't run for more than a few minutes.
I guess something is broken or something..but what???
Does anyone have any ideas?
The whole thing is pretty instable anyways..Internet explorer crashes constantly.

This is just so depressing.

[HawkOne]

Hi there, sorry to hear you're having trouble with your new dreamrig, I just searched for "Asus p4s8x instability" on Google and unfortunately it seems you're not the first to have problems with this board. Here's what I found in the first link displayed from a review by extremetech

"Conclusion
In the end, a promising motherboard is once again marred by stability issues, even with conservative memory timing. We know that it is possible to build solid product using SiS chipsets -- after all, the Shuttle SS51G ran flawlessly during all our testing. If Asus can deliver a BIOS that will solve the stability issues we encountered, this could be a great motherboard. But until the instability we encountered is resolved, you should probably avoid the P4S8X"

System instability is usually due to overheating processors (did you put the (heatsink on properly?), is the processor seated properly, RAM chips not seated or configured properly, are all fans running fine, or what you seem to have figured out, grumpy hardware such as your videocard ...

Is your RAM in one 512 module or in 2x256, if the latter is the case try swapping the modules, try running your system with either one on its own, if all that fails or you have only one RAM chip, try to look into memory timing, maybe there is info available online for your particular brand of RAM (you did get good brand name RAM I hope, it is usually worth spending some extra cash for renowned brands ) after checking and double checking all those, try various component driver and bios upgrades or maybe even downgrades ... look around for your motherboard manufacturers forum ... or somewhere other users might have encountered the same problems ... The Geforce cards are as you surely know VERY common, so unless it has suddenly become faulty, it is pretty unlikely that any new motherboards are not compatible with the Nvidia cards ......

Good luck to ya' anyway ...

[ November 03, 2002: Message edited by: HawkOne ]

[Dr. Bang]

I think i know the EXACT problem. Your CPU is too hot, and when it reach a certain temperature, the computer must be rebooted for it to cool down.

Check your Bios setting, find the part where it let you adjust computer restart temperature. I set mine to 70C, so in case my computer runs too hot, the computer automaticly restart just for safetly reason.

[Dr. Bang]

"The whole thing is pretty instable anyways..Internet explorer crashes constantly.
This is just so depressing. "


A definite sign of overheatin CPU, should can a new heatsink. I remembered my IE start to crash so often all of a sudden, when i turn off my computer and turn it back again, it wont come up. Then i open my computer and discovered that the Heatsink fan failed, it burned my whole motherboard, luckily not the CPU.

GET A NEW HEATSINK NOW.

[edraket]

Thanks guys,

I went to asusboards.com and as it turns out this board is an unstable fucker. It is fixed by flashing it with a new bios. Which I did..but this supposedly costs you in terms of performance. They say you can send it back and have it fixed so you can run the old bios and stay stable. So I think I will try to do that. Unfortunately I am going away to germany for the rest of the week so things will have to wait. Grrr

I installed asus probe (motherboard checker thingy) and that did keep on bitching about mt cpu fan not running fast enough. I will go check what my cpu heat is..

[edraket]

er..you are talking celcius right?
I don't think my cpu has ever gone above 40. You scared me there. I remembered seeing it on 95 degrees..but thats fahrenheit.

[Frost]

Luckily for you, motherboards aren't all that expensive considering the other components. You can always get a better one when you come back. Good luck.

[Pat]

I have exactly the same motherboard and love it. The only problems I had involved a grounding issue when I installed it in my case. I think the metal template ASUS included for the rear plugs was grounding out somehow. I simply refit it and everything booted fine.

BTW, I'm running Win2K --which may be why I'm having so few problems. I've noticed a common thread to people having problems with this baord center around "I tried to install Windows XP..."

You might want to check that you're not having an issue with the 8X AGP Port. It's incompatible with older AGP graphics cards and will cause the motherboard to not boot or the system to run goofy. That's part of the price you pay for being bleeding edge I guess. Older 3.3 volt cards will not run on the board.... they have to be the newer 1.5 volt cards. As near as I can tell, most cards manufactured in the past few years should be ok --but time of manufacture is no guarantee. There's a red LED on the motherboard which will light when you attempt to boot the board with an incorrect AGP card.

You may also wish to investigate the possibility that your RAM is bad or incompatible. I installed 1 gig of Corsair XMS 2700 and had no problems. However, a friend used Samsung DDR and his machine was unstable. We figured it was some kind of arcane timing issue. If you can borrow a different stick from a friend it'd be worth testing. Lastly, while it does seem to support DDR 3200+, it's an undocumentented feature and unstable for most.

Best of luck,

-Pat

[ November 03, 2002: Message edited by: Pat ]

[Dr. Bang]

Celcius yeah, my AMD always runs at 50 or so.
WELCOME BACK PAT I MISS YOU.


Spekng of which, any body knows why my explorer.exe always use 90% of my CPU power for the last few hours?

[Dr. Bang]

you said something Tom Carter?!

[gigatron]

Hey congratz on the new system, I feel sorry that you are betrayed by asus, they usually making great mobos. Hopefuly you get everything working right.

I wish to ask a similar issue (now this will sound amuzing), I have this old computer a cyrix233 and like.. i can't install any operating system without some sort of error, I am assuming its a bad controller or memory or something but i dunno... Its an ancient but I want to make it into something useful. Like.. I tryed to even install DOS and had problems. I wana install Linux on it but each time i install there are problems when copying files, on random it doesn't copy something. But the major distros it seems to fail at the second stage install when copying to the RAM disk (only has 64MB of RAM actually 60-62MB since onboard video uses 2MB-4MB). Just wondering if anyone has any idea. I first thaught it was the cd drive, but i tryed my plextor in it, and nope, i also recently tryed a different disk (got an older baby) and NOOOPE. Nothing worked. Couldn't actually format the disk i tryed it stuck on 99%. OOK anywho whats up just in case I am lucky and someone might know. The motherboard, i found the site its some no name cheap taiwanese no-name company, no bios updates or anything (AMIbios dates 96 i think). So ya heheh I really wana make it into a little machine for brief tasks like networking, mp3 box, file transfers, chat/browser access when unable to do so on main machine, etc... Thanks

[HawkOne]

@ Dr. Bang

here's a little info on whats up with your explorer hogging 90% ... this info comes from the WinCustomize site http://www.wincustomize.com/msgboard.asp?id=71392

[B0b]

get urself some extreme cooling for your CPU (P4's can run a little hot), make sure ur PSU has enough wattage..

and AMD's have always run in the high 55's nothing to worry about its when they start hitting the 65's you need to start thinking of gettng some extra fannage..

as for XP, if thats the only OS you got then fine, but if you have a choice between 2K + XP i'd choose 2K every time..

[edraket]

heja
thanks for the tips everyone. I ended up just returning the whole thing and getting an asus p4b533.
I just didn't feel good about getting something and having it run like shit. Luckily the store didn't give me any hassle and just gave me a different one. This one has been running smooth from the first second.

I did test the memory and all the likes. On asusboards.com there was enough info on what to try before you give up : )

And btw... germany was ultimately cool. My school took us to 11 museums in four days. It was like...an art lovers paradise.

[lalPOOO]

one question, you spend all this money, buy some good components (I'm actually considering buying pretty much which you just bought, only different)
but whats the deal with the geoforce 2 gts?
are you waiting for the nv30 or are you just cheap?

[edraket]

the geforce is what I had. It works fine. I don't do games so I don't see the point in getting a new graphics card (if I had the bucks for that anyways)
I'd like one of course. But its not worth the money. If I could I'd rather spend that on some more ram.

[lalPOOO]

fair enough....

that really is a problem though, the whole non game playing, but you probably work for a living and all so I guess that excuses it.....

wait, who the hell am i kidding, games are more important than any of that shit.