Strange behavior from an ASUS A7V600 mobo

After assembling the system and making sure that the CPU temp did not peak
over normal levels (stays steady at 119F) I booted up memtest-86 V3.00 in
order to test all the memory. The memory tests ran fine and did not detect
any errors.

Now, to install Windows XP. I have the CD-DVD ROM drive set as secondary IDE
controller slave, and I have a WD SATA drive as Master on Channel 0.
However, when I boot from the Windows XP CD, I get the prompt booting from
CD, and no further response. I see no IDE controller activity via the front
panel light, nothing.

OK, so I unplug the SATA drive and I put a regular EIDE drive connected on
primary IDE controller as master. Now I can boot from the Windows XP CD and
install the OS. Except that when it starts setting up the devices, I get an
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Stop 0x0000000A BSOD. I've tried to install Windows
XP multiple times, and I get this error most often, while I've only received
one STOP 0x0000004E PFN_LIST_CORRUPT BSOD.

Now, from what I've researched on the Internet, when you get a
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD, a device driver tried to grab an IRQ higher
than what it should have. Could this be the onboard Gigabit Ethernet? A
STOP 0x0000004E PFN_LIST_CORRUPT BSOD, it's usually bad memory. But if
that's the case, why did the memory test pass? I've made sure to get good
memory for the system:

Crucial 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 4T - OEM
Speed: DDR400(PC3200)
Type: 184 Pin DDR SDRAM
Error Checking: Non-ECC
Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
Cas Latency: 3
Support Voltage: 2.6V
Bandwidth: 3.2GB/s
Organization: 32M x 64 -Bit
Warranty: Lifetime
Model#: CT3264Z40B.4T

The other thing that bothers me is when I try to boot from the CD with just
the SATA drive in, that it freezes when the CD is just starting to boot.

The goal that I want to get to is to have the SATA drive installed and be
the main boot disk. There will be at least 2 OSs installed there, and a
third separate Linux installation an EIDE disk, probably as a slave on the
primary IDE. I'll have a DVD-ROM as master on primary, a CD-RW as master on
secondary, and a DVD-RW as slave on secondary.

Any advice that you can offer about booting with just the SATA drive
installed as well as the Windows XP installation issues would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,

Erik.

Kony,
Thanks for the hint.

OK, so I changed the Memory Frequency BIOS from 400 to 266 MHz (lowest),
and memory timing was already to SPD, so done. Try again. I plugged in the
SATA drive again, and booted with the XP CD.
Boot from ATAPI-CD-ROM, No Emulation (waited at least 30 seconds no 'Press
any key to boot from CD' prompt)

Disconnected the power to the SATA drive. Rebooted, and now XP installation
proceeds normally with a successful installation. Installed all the drivers
for the SATA Raid (which I don't plan to use) as well as the Gig-Ethernet
card, display (ATI), ASUS probe, etc.

Installed XP SP1 and then web based updates (oh God! 76 MB of patches and
updates! Well, I'm glad that I'm on a cable modem at least! I'll do that
later). Installed SETIAtHome to produce a compute load on the system.
Installation went fine.

Flipped the memory speed back up to 'Auto' to see if the system is now
stable. It's not. Seems like SETIAtHome causes the system to crash with a
BSOD (which I can't see due to an instantaneous reboot in spite of having
that turned off in XP). Also seems like the ATI Radeon drivers have fallen
back to software rendering. Updating with the latest from the ATI web site.

Switched memory speed from 'Auto' to 333 MHz. See if this stabilizes things.
If this Motherboard cannot sustain 400 MHz FSB speed, it'll have to go back
(or the memory will have to). I already have a system that runs at 266 speed
and 333 is not that much of a gain (basically what I had 2 years ago).

Will keep everyone informed as to how things proceed.

Erik.

"kony" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 13:25:58 -0500, "Erik Ch. Ohrnberger"
wrote:

After assembling the system and making sure that the CPU temp did not
peak
over normal levels (stays steady at 119F) I booted up memtest-86 V3.00 in
order to test all the memory. The memory tests ran fine and did not
detect
any errors.

Now, to install Windows XP. I have the CD-DVD ROM drive set as secondary
IDE
controller slave, and I have a WD SATA drive as Master on Channel 0.
However, when I boot from the Windows XP CD, I get the prompt booting
from
CD, and no further response. I see no IDE controller activity via the
front
panel light, nothing.

OK, so I unplug the SATA drive and I put a regular EIDE drive connected
on
primary IDE controller as master. Now I can boot from the Windows XP CD
and
install the OS. Except that when it starts setting up the devices, I get
an
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Stop 0x0000000A BSOD. I've tried to install
Windows
XP multiple times, and I get this error most often, while I've only
received
one STOP 0x0000004E PFN_LIST_CORRUPT BSOD.

Now, from what I've researched on the Internet, when you get a
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD, a device driver tried to grab an IRQ higher
than what it should have. Could this be the onboard Gigabit Ethernet? A
STOP 0x0000004E PFN_LIST_CORRUPT BSOD, it's usually bad memory. But if
that's the case, why did the memory test pass? I've made sure to get good
memory for the system:

Crucial 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 4T - OEM
Speed: DDR400(PC3200)
Type: 184 Pin DDR SDRAM
Error Checking: Non-ECC
Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
Cas Latency: 3
Support Voltage: 2.6V
Bandwidth: 3.2GB/s
Organization: 32M x 64 -Bit
Warranty: Lifetime
Model#: CT3264Z40B.4T

The other thing that bothers me is when I try to boot from the CD with
just
the SATA drive in, that it freezes when the CD is just starting to boot.

The goal that I want to get to is to have the SATA drive installed and be
the main boot disk. There will be at least 2 OSs installed there, and a
third separate Linux installation an EIDE disk, probably as a slave on
the
primary IDE. I'll have a DVD-ROM as master on primary, a CD-RW as master
on
secondary, and a DVD-RW as slave on secondary.

Any advice that you can offer about booting with just the SATA drive
installed as well as the Windows XP installation issues would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,

Erik.

Underclock the system to lowest supported FSB (probably 100MHz) and
synchronous (same) memory bus speed, with conservative (high numbers)
timings or "auto", "SPD", memory timings in the BIOS.

With the system underclocked, try to replicate the error condition(s).

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 19:19:53 -0500, "Erik Ch. Ohrnberger"
wrote:

snip

Flipped the memory speed back up to 'Auto' to see if the system is now
stable. It's not. Seems like SETIAtHome causes the system to crash with a
BSOD (which I can't see due to an instantaneous reboot in spite of having
that turned off in XP). Also seems like the ATI Radeon drivers have fallen
back to software rendering. Updating with the latest from the ATI web site.

MIght be a power supply problem. What make/model power supply? Have you
taken voltage readings during heavy load?


Switched memory speed from 'Auto' to 333 MHz. See if this stabilizes things.

Set memory speed to synchronous setting, same speed as FSB... Not just for
testing, but use.

If this Motherboard cannot sustain 400 MHz FSB speed, it'll have to go back
(or the memory will have to). I already have a system that runs at 266 speed
and 333 is not that much of a gain (basically what I had 2 years ago).

It's probably not the motherboard. "Could" be, but failing any reports of
similar issues with the board I'd suspect the memory or power supply.
Memtest may not catch all errors, sometimes a module barely stable will
pass memtest86 but err in windows, especially if you didn't run memtest86
for at least a dozen hours. Another test with memtest86 might be to
manually raise FSB speed to 5% over desired value, test at that speed.
For my systems I insist that it test stable at higher than actual speed at
which it'll be used, regardless of whether it'll be running overclocked or
not.

snip

MIght be a power supply problem. What make/model power supply? Have you
taken voltage readings during heavy load?


The Power supply is a Cogen 350 W, Model 250 X1.


Switched memory speed from 'Auto' to 333 MHz. See if this stabilizes
things.

Set memory speed to synchronous setting, same speed as FSB... Not just for
testing, but use.

I'm not sure where in the BIOS to set this. Nothing obvious pops out at me.

If this Motherboard cannot sustain 400 MHz FSB speed, it'll have to go
back
(or the memory will have to). I already have a system that runs at 266
speed
and 333 is not that much of a gain (basically what I had 2 years ago).

It's probably not the motherboard. "Could" be, but failing any reports of
similar issues with the board I'd suspect the memory or power supply.
Memtest may not catch all errors, sometimes a module barely stable will
pass memtest86 but err in windows, especially if you didn't run memtest86
for at least a dozen hours. Another test with memtest86 might be to
manually raise FSB speed to 5% over desired value, test at that speed.
For my systems I insist that it test stable at higher than actual speed at
which it'll be used, regardless of whether it'll be running overclocked or
not.

I did run memtest-86 V3 for at least 28 hours without fail at the 400 MHz
FSB setting hence my assumption that the memory was up to 400 MHz FSB. I'll
try the 5% increase in FSB for a stress test. It sounds like the right thing
to do at this point in time. I think that you are wise in your testing
standards.
I set the CPU External Freq to 205/43, which the BIOS says is 410 MHz.

Back to memtest! Let you know how it works out.

Well, OK, if you say so (a new power supply is pretty cheap insurance I
figure)

But I watched the voltage for around 10 minutes: (Seems stable to be, ASUS
probe never alarmed)
With SETI: WO SETI:
12.544 4.73 3.216 1.728 12.608 4.757 3.216 1.728
12.608 4.73 3.216 1.728 12.544 4.73 3.232 1.728
12.672 4.757 3.216 1.728 12.672 4.757 3.232 1.728

Again, thanks very much for your insight and advice.

Erik.

"kony" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 20:21:57 -0500, "Erik Ch. Ohrnberger"
wrote:

snip

The Power supply is a Cogen 350 W, Model 250 X1.

Replace the Codegen, even if it isn't the current problem (which it likely
is), it may be soon enough, even damaging the board.

You don't need more than 350W but that PSU isn't even worth 250W.

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 10:15:23 -0500, "Erik Ch. Ohrnberger"
wrote:

Well, OK, if you say so (a new power supply is pretty cheap insurance I
figure)

But I watched the voltage for around 10 minutes: (Seems stable to be, ASUS
probe never alarmed)
With SETI: WO SETI:
12.544 4.73 3.216 1.728 12.608 4.757 3.216 1.728
12.608 4.73 3.216 1.728 12.544 4.73 3.232 1.728
12.672 4.757 3.216 1.728 12.672 4.757 3.232 1.728

Again, thanks very much for your insight and advice.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up...

Your power supply is inadequate on it's 5V rail, so to increase that 5V
voltage it's also increasing the 12V rail. Even though ATX specs allow a
pretty large % deviation in voltage, in reality the faster newer system
have larger, faster changes in current, are more susceptible to low
voltage, slow response.

All (that I've even seen) power supplies regulate the 5V rail. It should
be very close to 5V. A poorly adjusted power supply, or one with a part
or two with bad tolernace, might have a 5V rail slightly too high or low,
that's not necessarily a sign of a problem, but the 12V rail should also
reflect this, not be drifting in the opposite direction.