Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe GR

[imported_tornado]

I am seriously considering investing in an Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe GR mainboard for my
AMD X2 6400+ CPU and 4 GB of corsair memory. I will be using Windows XP home Sp2.
Any thoughts on the M2N-SLI?

 

[rhyx]

That's a fine board to use. I have been using it fine with Windows XP for a while now.

 

[SPQQKY]

Still have one of those boards running. Takes whatever I throw at it. Probably one of the best AMD boards ever made IMO.

 

[celsoluthier]

Very stable board!

 

[KevinOC]

It's probebly one of the best Nvidia chipset boards in SLI now.

 

[Mister4x4]

I'm quite disappointed. I bought this board for a friend about a year ago, built the system, and he had crash issues once he got some stuff installed and kicked off WoW. Each time it crashed on him, it would roach the MBR. The first crash I witnessed was while installing SP2. But I've since seen it without SP2 as well.

Original build:
ASUS M2N SLI-Deluxe
AMD Athlon64 5000+
2GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR2-667
ASUS GeForce 8600
Maxtor 500GB SATA-II HDD
Lite-On SATA CD/DVD-RW w/ Lightscribe
Antec 500w PS
WinXP SP2

I found it disappointing that the vendor spec'd the RAM would work fine if bundled with this CPU and Mobo. Once I opened the book, I noticed the mobo really wanted high-end RAM to work. I pressed on with the RAM I'd ordered and it ran great... as long as nothing taxed the machine, apparently.

When it crashed, it would cause the 'mup.sys' error (Windows hangs on restart because of this). Sometimes it would wipe out the boot sector information altogether. I recovered his data, took the machine back, and left it on the bench until a few weeks ago.

I decided to run the machine for myself, so I snagged some Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 2x2GB and a new media center case and a multi-function front panel. (I needed the horsepower to run UT3, since my ASUS A8N-VM w/AMD64 3500+ and 1GB RAM wouldn't quite do it). I also flashed to the latest BIOS and d/l'd the latest drivers offered - so any 'out-of-the-box' issues should've been addressed, I would think. I'm not an over-clocker, so everything in the BIOS is pretty much running on 'Auto.'

It ran great for exactly 2 weeks - everything I threw at it was doing well... never crashed once. Until last night when I declared this machine was stable since it had been running for two solid weeks. It had run UT3 (and my other games) like they were supposed to. I also run some graphics apps and build websites - so no issues with OfficeXP (FrontPage), DreamWeaver, Photoshop10, PaintShop Pro X, Firefox 3.x, or anything - usually with Winamp running in the background. Not 30 seconds after my comment, it BSOD's and killed the boot sector. I'm only trying to gracefully recover WindowsXP because of the week's worth of e-mails I'd trusted this machine to handle (I hadn't completely migrated from my 'old' machine yet).

Currently, the machine won't boot XP, or even any of the recovery CDs I have: WinXP Bart PE - hangs on PE Loading 'waiting on RamDrive'; Winternals ERD - claims to fix a registry entry, then won't come up after rebooting; XP Recovery Console using 'CHKDSK /P /E' and 'FIXBOOT' didn't solve anything either; even WinXP 'Reload/Repair' didn't solve it. I've even tried reinstalling XP 'leaving the file system intact' and no joy.

So - I'm at the point of formatting 'C' and installing XP. But I honestly believe I'm going to dump this mobo and pick up a similarly spec'd MSI product. Pisses me off - I really like ASUS.

Since this is only the 5th post in this thread, I'm guessing people have been avoiding this mobo like the plague (especially after the 'love-fest' in the ASUS M2N-E thread).

I'm not going to make a purchase just yet. If anybody's got any advice or suggestions on how to make this board work, I'd be receptive... like I said, I've still got my 'old' machine to work with, and I'd eventually like to migrate to this new machine - but only after I've got a stable platform.

 

[Quiksilver]

Sounds more like a bad hard drive than the motherboards fault IMO.

 

[Mister4x4]

Yeah - I've tossed that idea around as well. I'll pick up a new HDD on the way to my pal's house this afternoon and give that a shot - worse case scenario, I'll have more drive-space for another machine if it doesn't work out.

 

[Mister4x4]

OK, new HDD - no effect.

Snagged a Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA drive, and no change. XP Installer is freezing at the '35 minutes - installing devices' point. Of course, that's after a 'quick format' of the 100GB 'C' partition. I'm going to try a full-format and see if that doesn't make a difference. I also 'F5'd the BIOS - so everything is factory default again (except the 'Boot Priority' with the CD is the First Boot Device).

All I can say is 'Thank God for KVMs.'

 

[Mister4x4]

Alrighty then - Either the full-format, or the reset to default setting on the BIOS busted it loose... it's installing now. Keep 'em crossed.

Otherwise, I'll be making someone a hella-deal on a low-mileage ASUS M2N SLI-Deluxe on eBay in the next few weeks.

 

[Mister4x4]

OK - I'm convinced this mobo has issues.

I got XP installed while writing the last post, and I've spent the past 3 hours just trying to get the chipset drivers installed. The machine would run like it only had 64MB RAM while it was loading the chipset drivers. And finally after it got through the installation after 2 hours, I rebooted it. When it just sat there staring at me after trying to open Network Connections to get it on the LAN, I finally gave up and did a 'Repair/Reload' of XP. Ran great, but never even made it to the desktop before it BSOD'd.

It now sits powered off while I shop for a new mobo... and will remain so until the new one's installed.

 

[tcsenter]

Motherboards don't just cause BSODs and corrupt boot sectors because they aren't especially well designed. ASUS doesn't do motherboard design part-time every other weekend for spare cash. You have a marginal/failing part somewhere.

BTW, I would put more faith in the Kingston ValueRAM you were running than Crucial Ballistix. There would be no issue with the Kingston modules, unless you were running in excess of default parameters.

 

[Mister4x4]

I wasn't blaming the design of the mobo - I said I was convinced mine had issues... big difference there. Besides, I could've received one that had a bad capacitor or some other flawed component that just gave up. As I've learned with auto parts over the years, 'New' doesn't necessarily mean 'Good.' And I love Kingston's RAM... every machine except this one in my house has Kingston RAM jammed in them, as a matter of fact. Thanks for weighing in, though.

Regardless, I've poked around the forums here and seen all sorts of people doing crazy stuff O/Cing their machines and tweaking things... which is quite impressive. I was inspired and decided to do some research on the RAM itself - while I am A+ certified and an IT Security professional, I don't know everything about everything, and never have claimed to (one reason why I'm here seeking advice and assistance).

What I found is that the Ballistix RAM I've got (PC-6400, 2x2GB) likes to run with CAS settings of 4/4/4/12 with 2.0V of juice... and the mobo on 'Auto' was running 1.8V with 5/5/5/18 CAS. I've never been an overclocker or serious BIOS tweaker, so I never even bothered to check those things (I figured the mobo designers knew what they were doing and the 'Auto' setting would do the right thing no matter what you stuffed in there). So I figured I'd give that a shot. I'm writing this post on the machine right now after a successful and uneventful XP installation. I'm not convinced this machine is actually stable - but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt for now. I really want it to work, and so far so good.

Of course, this was after shopping for an MSI K9A2GM-FIH (which is on the way). So, I guess I'll have a platform to run that Kingston ValueRAM after all. If the ASUS hangs in there, then I'll just build a new machine with the parts I have left over (just need a CPU and CD device now) - the living room machine needs an upgrade, so why not.

Having said all of that, I honestly don't think I would've given the RAM setting a second thought if I hadn't read so many posts with people tweaking their RAM and other things for the sake of squeezing more performance out of their machines. So, I have this board to thank for making me think a little harder than normal and trying something new that has probably solved my problems.

Mucho Appreciato - learning has occurred.

 

[Mister4x4]

Never say never. I woke up to a BSOD this morning. Oh well... it was worth a shot. Since this problem's been plaguing this machine since inception and persisted despite new RAM, RAM settings, and a new HDD, I'm pretty sure I've almost got it narrowed down. If it persists with the new mobo, then it'll most definitely be the CPU.

Additionally, Newegg expects the new mobo to show up Wednesday - which only gives me a couple days to play with it before I'm gone for two weeks of CISSP training. Oh well.

 

[phillyblnt21]

I'm interested to know what the outcome has been. I've got the same mobo & ram with an X2 6400+ CPU. I've been experiencing BSOD's in Vista Ultimate x64. I've requested an RMA with Asus due to it already having a USB port go bad on the back panel. I'm on my 3rd HD & did about 4 OS format/installs, 2 with XP Pro 32 bit & 2 with Vista Ultimate 64 bit. I've been going thru the event viewer trying to figure out what the problem is with no luck. Not everything gets written to the log when it crashes.

I think I'll go ahead & complete the RMA & see if they fix the board.

 

[Mister4x4]

Sorry I took so long to get back here.

I swapped the ASUS mobo out for the MSI I'd ordered and it's been running like a champ ever since - with the original HDD and Crucial Ballistix RAM.

As for the ASUS mobo? It's back in its box and chillin' on the 'gonna toss it out someday' pile of old and non-functional computer parts in my back room.

I later found out that the guy I originally built the machine for had put his old original EIDE HDD into the machine for a second HDD (and so he wouldn't have to migrate all his stuff - lazy, I guess... who wouldn't want to move pictures and stuff from EIDE to SATA-II?). He's not a computer guy, and probably zapped the system with some static electricity or something that caused the mobo to have issues.

I'm still not keen on how ASUS made specific demands of certain manufacturers of RAM and didn't bother to publish it except for in the mobo manual, but I'm not still blaming them for a poor mobo design or anything... especially later learning about Mike stuffing an old HDD into the machine without my knowledge.

 

[Row1]

a year and a half ago, i built my dad a comp with this asus m2n-sli, and the amd 5000+.

no problems. i can't remember the ram. i believe crucial ballistix.