Asus A7V Satisfaction Survey

[jonnyGURU]

<< ... are these physical changes to the board? >>



Yes.

 

[Engineer]

Revison 1.01.P fixed the LED issue with the ATA66 IDE ports..

 

[Diagnonsense]

Does anybody have a good BIOS set-up suggestion for this board? I too am having all sorts of SBLive problems. I am also using an Adaptec 2930U scsi card ...and the driver for it is loaded fine...but I keep coming up with PCI mass storage controller found upon boot up and system info says the driver is not loaded? I talked with Adaptec and they said something about embedded controller on the board? Anybody know anything?

 

[Diagnonsense]

Does anybody have a good BIOS set-up suggestion for this board? I too am having all sorts of SBLive problems. I am also using an Adaptec 2930U scsi card ...and the driver for it is loaded fine...but I keep coming up with PCI mass storage controller found upon boot up and system info says the driver is not loaded? I talked with Adaptec and they said something about embedded controller on the board? Anybody know anything?

 

[TRiGG3R]

I have a A7V revision 1.01 with 1004a bios flashed running fine. After some weeks of fight i have it under total control now. The problem is just the hdd led that doesn't work with the ata66 controller.

 

[Dyflam]

I thought this was interesting reading after having purchased the A7V and not having a successful boot yet. A7V Bash

 

[Citadel]

Received my A7V revision 1.02 and no boot. I tried many troubleshooting steps such as clearing CMOS, changing power supply, Video cards, RAM, ect. First time in four years I have ever had a board DOA. Not very impressed with this ASUS board. On the other hand, my CUV4X has been rock solid.

 

[M00T]

I'm satisfied.

 

[MooseKnuckle]

Mass storage controller has to do with ATA-100, I do believe. In the manual, I saw a reference to that effect.

 

[Diagnonsense]

Yes that is what I have heard from another...and I went to Promise web site...downloaded the driver...ried to install it when it found PCI mass storage controller upon start up...and it still said &quot;cannot find driver&quot;!! It does not have any affect on anything toher than it steals an IRQ from me...and like this board has any to spare.

 

[jello]

I've had mine up and running for 5 days or so now w/o any problems. First computer I've ever built too. Got a GeForce DDR, Maxtor 30gig, Duron 600 @ 800, and the regular assortment of other junk. Do be warned about the boot time though. I reinstalled windows once because it started taking so long to boot I thought it had hung. After about the 5th driver or so it just started taking a hella long time, outta the blue. Turns out it was fine, just hitting this spot where it pauses completely (ctrl-alt-del doesn't do anything, num/cap/scroll lock don't respond) for 1.5-2 minutes.

Great other than that though!

 

[Deftone]

I'm satisfied. After I replaced the first one that was defective.

 

[Citadel]

Seems like there is ALOT of defective ones out there. Plus, this board seems to not be as IRQ friendly like the K7V.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Hmm... That doesn't make sense Citadel. Both the K7V and A7V use the VIA 686A Southbridge. All PCI goes through the Southbrige. I can't see how the board can/should differ in that respect.

 

[cirrus1]

well the system is listed below. Only thing bothering me is, that i've got the 1.01 ver. that doesn't light the hd led on the standard ide controller. Otherwise it's running rocksolid

 

[Citadel]

Johnny:
Very true but the Promise ATA 100 Controller screws up the IRQ sharing.

 

[Citadel]

Johnny:
Very true but the Promise ATA 100 Controller screws up the IRQ sharing. Especially when using 4 PCI devices.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Hmm... Strange. I've used both on board Promise and the PCI card on the 686A southbridge with no issue.

All the on board Promise is is the PCI FastTrak card solder down to the motherboard.

 

[gotbeef]

Did all of your A7V's come with a DIP switch that lets you adjust the clock multiplier?

 

[DOOPYLOOPY]

I recently got my A7V it comes with Dipswitches and no audio. I only got it about a week ago so I'd assume it's a fairly recent revision, at least 1.02. It is running the 1003 bios i think. It is too damn fast when it boots up that i barely get to see any of the posting information. Or get a chance to press Del to enter the bios. It detects my IBM ATA100 HDD fine and then goes into loading windows but pauses for about a minute when it displays the windows bitmap then back to what is underneath. I think this is just after it sets the SBLive! SB16 DOS Emulation up.

After this pause it continues and takes me to my login. Is this pause &quot;natural&quot;? I must say that so far i reckon the board is running superbly. I really haven't had any troubles at all. I've even got a USB mouse running out of my keyboard. I don't know if that should have any troubles but it seems cool to me! Finally I don't need a really long mouse cord.

PS: How do I know for sure which revision my motherboard is? Oh and which socket should i be connecting the little MPC cable from my SB Live to my Pioneer? I think it only fits into one but i was wondering if this was the digital or analogue slot. Or am i totally on the wrong track here.

THanks!

 

[jonnyGURU]

Citadel! I finally got an A7V today that no matter what, I couldn't install a SB Live! couldn't even see the damn cards (tried three). Tried a Yamaha and it worked flawlessly. The PC also has a NIC and a PCI modem. I guess some of the boards are just touchy. I called Asus and they said there was no record of such a problem in their database! Hahahaha!

Oh well. Guess 50% of the boards will do the SB Live and 50% wont!

 

[Citadel]

I wish that was my only problem. Yes you are right though, those YMF 724's seem to do the job nicely when the SB Live or MX 300 doesn't. My main issue with the A7V (After I resolve the DOA) is the IRQ management. I plan on running:
ASUS V7700, SB Live, 2 NIC's, 30 GB Maxtor, 20 GB IBM (Hopefully on the Promise 100), Plextor CD/RW, Zip 100, and Pioneer 16X DVD. 256 MB of PC133 from your company (Are they CAS 2 or 3?). And as you know, T-Bird 750 with GORB. Hope I don't stress my Sparkle 300 to much. Damn, sometimes you just need two computers to do what you want......... Oh and btw......I tried firing mine up with just a video card (Both AGP and PCI) and .............poof.......nothing.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Well, trust me. MOST of the boards aren't like this (I exaggerating with the 50% thing because of what everyone was saying). This is the first one I've seen myself that did this thing with the SB Live!

 

[Diagnonsense]

I found that my soundbastard live card will grab an IRQ and work if I disable the PNP option in the BIOS but as soon as I enable it...it does not work and the System Information for windows shows that it is not on the list of IRQ's. What do you make of that?

 

[Diagnonsense]

That is the PNP operating system....in the BIOS