ASUS A8N-VM CSM

NapalmDeath · Post by **NapalmDeath** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:13 am

Not sure the Scythe Ninja would fit in a uATX case.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article251-page3.html

It's flippin huge.
My Zalman 7000 fits comfortably, but the Ninja is twice the size.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:01 am

garmpe wrote:Hi,

I'm currently working on a new HTPC project and was originally going for the A8N SLI Premium. However, since I do NO gmaing at all I don't really need the features that that offers. I decided to look at the A8N VM CSM but it appears they have had nothing but problems. Has anyone had good results and could recommend this board?

I will be using it exclusively for listening to wma's, watching dvds, and TV.

Thanks,

Garmpe

Welcome to SPCR. I guess there are plenty of people with good experiences and there are plenty of people with bad experiences. For your purposes, this should be a good board.

However, if you aren't in a hurry...
Check this article on new DFI RS482 Infinity motherboard.

Especially compare these pictures:

The first one is the I/O of DFI and the later is I/O from A8N-VM CSM.

DFI has optical S/PDIF and TV-out port which are missing from A8N-VM CSM. Asus has internal connector for these, but they are missing from the rear panel and you must purchase these dongles seperately, if you want them.

The DFI isn't available yet, but it will probably arrive in shops soon. It is clearly superior to Asus in almost every way, especially on support and bios, it only falls behind in usb2 speed, which is generally "bad" in sb 450, so if this is a deciding factor for you, choose another board. However I will say that, I would trade my "fast" usb-ports to slower working ports any day.

Btw I downloaded MSIs 143 page manual yesterday. It is light years ahead of the 86 page manual of Asus, which is the worst manual I have ever seen, not that I would need to use the manual much, but anyway...

Asus also has the worst support in the business. For example when I wrote to them and complained about the coil whine I had, I got a response:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Erkka!
If you have noise problems with the fan please call our support and we will send out a new fan to you.

Best Regards
XXXXXXX XXXXXX
ASUS TSD Support
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The funny part about this is, that I had to fill a couple of forms with serial numbers and details about the motherboard model. I detailly explained my problem, so they knew I was talking about A8N-VM CSM, WHICH HAS NO FANS!!! Just proves that the employees at the support just use some kind of forms to respond to emails and they actually have no idea what kind of boards the company sells. Also the Asus forums are a joke, just like the bios that Asus releases and then withdraws after it fcks up couple of peoples computers. It's always a gamble to be the first one to test new bios.

TomZ · Post by **TomZ** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:19 am

If you have noise problems with the fan please call our support and we will send out a new fan to you.

Reminds me of ATI's technical support (very poor, in my experience). In ATI's case, they have an automated system that scans your support request and chooses from a pre-written response. They send that to you first to see if it will "stick." Each time, though, the response was not relevant, and just serves to delay getting a real answer. I wonder if Asus is doing that too.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:28 am

TomZ wrote:
If you have noise problems with the fan please call our support and we will send out a new fan to you.
Reminds me of ATI's technical support (very poor, in my experience). In ATI's case, they have an automated system that scans your support request and chooses from a pre-written response. They send that to you first to see if it will "stick." Each time, though, the response was not relevant, and just serves to delay getting a real answer. I wonder if Asus is doing that too.

Well the post was signed by a guy called Michael. It also took them 9 days to respond... I send my post on Monday 21.11.2005 and I got the response a week later on Wednesday, would be pretty slow for automatic response.

garmpe · Post by **garmpe** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:55 pm

Thanks for all the tips.

I won't hijack this thread by going in to details but I wasn't after a micro board just one with on-board graphics (either micro or full). I'll definately be looking in to the DFI board.

After spending so much time (about a year and a half) looking through the forums at SPCR I am still pleasantly surprised by how helpful everyone is.

Thanks again,

Garmpe

winguy · Post by **winguy** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:24 am

Code: Select all

A8N-VM CSM Release BIOS 0702
Update nVidia RAID ROM
Fix after resume from S1 would got black screen.
If PCIEX1 LAN Card installed on PCIEX16 slot,the system can not power on.
Single/Dual Channel DRAM mode and Unbuffered/ECC DIMM(s) information should be post under DRAM clocking.
Patch Matrox PHE128APV PCIE CARD

Anyone tried this? Is the A8N-VM CSM a good board to get now?

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 5:00 am

winguy wrote:

Code: Select all

A8N-VM CSM Release BIOS 0702
Update nVidia RAID ROM
Fix after resume from S1 would got black screen.
If PCIEX1 LAN Card installed on PCIEX16 slot,the system can not power on.
Single/Dual Channel DRAM mode and Unbuffered/ECC DIMM(s) information should be post under DRAM clocking.
Patch Matrox PHE128APV PCIE CARD

Anyone tried this? Is the A8N-VM CSM a good board to get now?

I have it installed. But that bios had no effects on me. Some people have reported of losing their DVI after that bios.

Is Asus good? It's a great board on paper. But it was hurried to the market, the bios is still buggy and overall the board has caused too much headache for too many users. Just look at the newegg.com user reviews to see how much negative feedback it has there. In silence perspective, I would pick the MSIs board, because it isn't overvolting the cpu like this board does.

Nikolajc · Post by **Nikolajc** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:36 am

Hi guys,

Just build a system with this motherboard, and even though I don't seem to have any of the problems described here (USB works etc.) I still have a few quirks to iron out. I hope you can help:

1. CnQ: How is this supposed to work? I have enabled it in the bios (0702) and installed the drivers in windows. Yet when I run the CnQ utility it just says 2000 solid without changing even when idle. What else do I need to do?

2. QFan: Having trouble here too. It's enabled in the bios and the CPU fan is connected to the CPU Fan socket on the motherboard, but it doesn't seem to work. The fan is rotating at 1600 rpm (Nexus 92mm) no matter what I do. The fan is also connected directly to the PSU - is that wrong? It won't run at all if I disconnect the connection to the PSU, yet it just keeps running if I disconnect it from the motherboard. I must be doing something wrong here.

NapalmDeath · Post by **NapalmDeath** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:01 am

#1 - In the BIOS enable CnQ, also ACPI and ACPI enhanced, then in Windows set power management to minimum or laptop.

#2 - QFan the cpu fan must be connected to the motherboard 3 pin connector. You set the temp threshold in the BIOS, if lower, the fan is low, and if crossed the fan speeds up.

You're a lucky one to have working USB ports.
It seems that Erssa and I got flakey ones.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:51 am

NapalmDeath wrote:#1 - In the BIOS enable CnQ, also ACPI and ACPI enhanced, then in Windows set power management to minimum or laptop.

Don't forget the AMD 1.2.2.2 driver. It can be downloaded from www.amd.com

You're a lucky one to have working USB ports.
It seems that Erssa and I got flakey ones.

About that... I recently tried the rear ports again, When I rebooted the system and the usb-hub was in the rear ports, it lost it and I had to unplug/replug it to get it to work. Pretty clear I moved back to front usb-port of my case, which works...

Nikolajc · Post by **Nikolajc** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 2:50 am

Thanks ND and Errsa - I have done everything but it still refuses to work.

1. CnQ: Everything enabled in BIOS, 1.2.2.2 drivers installed. Still stays rock solid on 2000. Tried with various power schemes, but what is that supposed to mean anyway?

2. QFan: I think we found the problem with my mobo. There is no power in the CPU fan socket - until rev. counter is working

- so I need to get power from the 4 pin plug.

Regarding the temperature monitoring I know it sucks and it's probably 10 C too high for the CPU right? I'm going to try attaching the CPU fan to the chassis fan socket (which have power yeah!

) and inserting a fanmate in between. I'm thinking it's pretty safe to aim for something like 55C or so?

Nikolajc · Post by **Nikolajc** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 2:02 pm

Hi again,

I tried disabling qfan and moving the CPU fan to the chassis fan socket. Works great - and what's even better CnQ started to work too all of a sudden. I have no idea why. So now it's actually running cooler than before with a slower fanspeed. Great.

So apart from a broken CPU fan socket my mobo seems to be pretty stable.

NapalmDeath · Post by **NapalmDeath** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:17 pm

Did a cross ship RMA of my A8N-VM CSM and the USB ports now work without issue.

=D

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:19 pm

NapalmDeath wrote:Did a cross ship RMA of my A8N-VM CSM and the USB ports now work without issue.

=D

That's great news.

arrikhan · Post by **arrikhan** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 2:51 pm

NapalmDeath wrote:Did a cross ship RMA of my A8N-VM CSM and the USB ports now work without issue.

=D

What version is the board you have now? I've just got a new board shipped to me in Aust. and it is rev 1.01

. .. which is the same Erssa was having problems with.

Did you have the "Coil noise" that Erssa was reporting with your original board ... ?

Arrikhan

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 2:57 pm

arrikhan wrote:
NapalmDeath wrote:Did a cross ship RMA of my A8N-VM CSM and the USB ports now work without issue.

=D
What version is the board you have now? I've just got a new board shipped to me in Aust. and it is rev 1.01 . .. which is the same Erssa was having problems with.

Did you have the "Coil noise" that Erssa was reporting with your original board ... ?

Arrikhan

Our boards are probably damaged in production somehow, since the usb-issue isn't a common problem. And as to my coil issue, it is probably interaction with the psu (had no problem with previous mobo though), this is not the first or last reported case of coil whine. I wouldn't be too worried, if I were you.

arrikhan · Post by **arrikhan** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 3:05 pm

Erssa wrote:Our boards are probably damaged in production somehow, since the usb-issue isn't a common problem. And as to my coil issue, it is probably interaction with the psu (had no problem with previous mobo though), this is not the first or last reported case of coil whine. I wouldn't be too worried, if I were you.

I've got a month to wait for my case to come in (w/PSU) so I have a bit of time to worry about it ... thanks for the info

Arrikhan

NapalmDeath · Post by **NapalmDeath** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 6:06 am

I agree with Erssa that the boards we got were an anomaly.

It could have been so many factors that caused the issue, but I'm fairly certain it was a grounding problem, but after rebuilding and trying to isolate my board several times, it continued, so may have been at a trace level.

Asus makes stable boards, and my faith is restored.

Hifriday · Post by **Hifriday** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:20 am

Question for you guys, which set of slots do you have your RAM installed in? I seem to remember the manual recommending the blue slots (closer to CPU) if you only have one pair, which was the slots I used. But doing some testing today I moved it the outter (non-blue) slots and Sisoft benchmark seemed to like this better 5480/5450 MB/s versus the previous 5200/5160. These are a pair of Crucial Ballistix and all settings at auto.

Also I noticed the RAM was quite hot, and even the RAM LEDs seemed brighter compared with using the same ram on another mobo. It seems this board maybe slightly over-volting the RAM. Can RAM voltage be set in any of the newer BIOSes?

NapalmDeath · Post by **NapalmDeath** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:13 am

RAM voltage is fixed. You'll want an MSI board if you want that level of OC'ing.

btw the keyboard issues came back, so now I'm convinced it the Saitek Eclipse. Possibly the LED's are causing power issues. I ruled this out initially when my other USB keyboard had the same issue.

Has anyone else noticed it's hard to get a PS2 keyboard anymore, and most all are wireless?
meh.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:15 pm

Hifriday wrote:Question for you guys, which set of slots do you have your RAM installed in? I seem to remember the manual recommending the blue slots (closer to CPU) if you only have one pair, which was the slots I used. But doing some testing today I moved it the outter (non-blue) slots and Sisoft benchmark seemed to like this better 5480/5450 MB/s versus the previous 5200/5160. These are a pair of Crucial Ballistix and all settings at auto.

Also I noticed the RAM was quite hot, and even the RAM LEDs seemed brighter compared with using the same ram on another mobo. It seems this board maybe slightly over-volting the RAM. Can RAM voltage be set in any of the newer BIOSes?

Yeah you only wish, it would overvolt. I have ballistix as well and it's a bit dissapointing that the RAM voltage is fixed at 2.6v. With a little more voltage my ballistix should be able to do 220 HTT 1:1 with 2-2-2 timings. Currently I have to losen the timings, if I want to overclock 1:1.

For the record, I am not currently overclocking, because the board has boot up issues when overclocked. Requiring to drain the power, before booting up. I think I read from Anandtech A8R32 review that the board suffered from the same kind of behavior, so it seems it's some kind of bios issue with Asus boards. Crappy AMI bios, I miss Award Bios...

NapalmDeath · Post by **NapalmDeath** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:33 pm

When I overclocked the FSB from 200 to 240, to get my 4 double sided RAM from 333Mhz back to 400Mhz, the only negative I noticed was it would hang on a reboot. So I'd have to push my reset button.

I still wish I could understand how my Saitek Eclipse keyboard is different from other keyboards and doesn't play well with USB ports. =/

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:10 pm

NapalmDeath wrote:When I overclocked the FSB from 200 to 240, to get my 4 double sided RAM from 333Mhz back to 400Mhz, the only negative I noticed was it would hang on a reboot. So I'd have to push my reset button.

This is exactly the problem I was trying to describe. It can work rock solid stable, but still the bios is causing some boot up issues.

Hifriday · Post by **Hifriday** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:02 pm

Erssa wrote:Yeah you only wish, it would overvolt. I have ballistix as well and it's a bit dissapointing that the RAM voltage is fixed at 2.6v.

Actually I was more interested in undervolting as the RAM seemed to run hotter than normal. I am hoping to run this system with a DC-DC power supply in an Aria case as a very quiet HTPC. Is there some way to actually check the RAM voltages?

For overclocking, I leave that to my DFI NF4 Ultra D which IMO makes OC so much easier and you get much better results (of course there's the screamer NB fan to deal with).

Napalm, sorry to hear your USB problem is back. Guess if you want to keep your keyboard you may need to stash a powered USB hub behind your PC.

winguy · Post by **winguy** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 9:07 pm

more DVI + HD audio matx boards
NVIDIA Business Platform Certified Motherboards

Hifriday · Post by **Hifriday** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:06 am

winguy wrote:more DVI + HD audio matx boards
NVIDIA Business Platform Certified Motherboards

ASUS doesn't have the new model on their site yet, but from MSI and Gigabyte sites, looks like they dropped Firewire and Video Out to add TMP (Trusted Platform Module). Other specs seem to be the same.

Gigabyte wrote:The TPM provide a protected space for key operations and other security critical tasks. Using both hardware and software. , the TPM protects encryption and signature keys at their most vulnerable stages - operations when the keys are being used unencrypted in plain-text form

winguy · Post by **winguy** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:22 am

Anyone got a picture of the BIOS Q-Fan feature?

Is the Analog Devices AD1986A inferior to Realtek ALC880 which the MSI K8NGM2-FID uses (I don't need more than 6 channels)? Realtek offers more frequent driver updates, and that is stopping me from convincing myself that ASUS is my better choice.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Thu May 04, 2006 10:27 pm

Just wanted to make a small update on my experiences.

All the whining noises, crackling etc... I was complaining previously "dissapeared" once I moved to discrete graphics. I haven't read too many people complaining about the IGP making noises, so maybe I just have a troubled mobo. I just found a great deal on Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (Pure Innovation), so I am going to RMA my mobo now.

signal64 · Post by **signal64** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 8:59 pm

Just picked one of these up and have a few observations / questions.

1. When downloading the drivers I noticed ASUS now has a A8N-VM CSM/NBP version.

The only difference I can see is that it uses a 6150B (vs. 6150).
Very little info on what the "B" version offers, but see Gigabyte and others jumping on that bandwagon.

ASUS's BIOS for the CSM/NBP and CSM differ so assume there is something different between the two (other than the video)?

Anyone have further info on the A8N-VM CSM/NBP 6150B version?

2. Noticed there is a 1002 Beta BIOS for this board, but no release notes are included. Anybody try it or have further info on it?

3. The MCP510 chip doesn't have a heatsink on it (but see there are holes there for one). I've had problems with the MCP410 version used on the 754 boards getting a little toastie and wondering if folks have experienced the same with this one. Worth putting a heatsink on it?

Thanks

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:42 am

signal64 wrote:2. Noticed there is a 1002 Beta BIOS for this board, but no release notes are included. Anybody try it or have further info on it?

I think it fixed some bug that was troubling linux users, otherwise nothing special compared to 0702.

3. The MCP510 chip doesn't have a heatsink on it (but see there are holes there for one). I've had problems with the MCP410 version used on the 754 boards getting a little toastie and wondering if folks have experienced the same with this one. Worth putting a heatsink on it?

It's hot. But asus must have known that being hot doesn't cause any concerns. Otherwise they would have released it with a HS. If you are one of those people who are oversensitive about their temps, put a heatsink on it. It won't effect the stability.

ASUS A8N-VM CSM

Re: Anyone having good results with A8N VM CSM?