I have an asus a8n-sli non deluxe and it won't post and I can't hear any error codes My question is will I hear system faults with just the board plugged in, (no ram,cpu,vid card, etc) I'm trying to figure out if I have a bad board or cpu... Also my other specs are thermaltake 480w psu, amd 64 3500+ (clawhammer core) ocz 512x2 pc3200 ddram I just want to figure out if I'll have to RMA the board and hopefully nothing else...thanks
You may not have enough juice to power it. While the TT power supplies aren't bad, running an SLI rig requires a lot of juice, and I don't know if that 480W has enough. If you're trying to run dual 6800's, that may very well not be enough to power it. Off-hand, I don't know the amps on the 12V rail, but if you don't have around 30A on that thing, I'd wager that's the problem. I don't know if the A8N SLI has an onboard speaker or not, but you might wanna hook one up to the front panel headers. Additionally, if it's in a case, take it out and lay it ontop of the motherboard box and power it on.
Well if I was trying to SLI it I would know to have a bigger psu I have this exact PSU, http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-153-007&depa=0 would that be 18A on the 12v line or whatever? No, I have tried with just one asus 6600gt and a geforce fx 5200 pci I've tried in the case and on a cardboard box, I've already sent my rma request to ASUS, just hoping it doesn't take too long for them to fullfill my requests. Also If I would've known ahead of time that this board was picky with ram I wouldn't have bothered getting it. My OCZ ram couldn't be the problem could it? Man building your own pc and these 64 bits better be worth all this trouble and I know they will be.
Yeah, 18A would be fine if you were running an non-Prescott Socket 478 Pentium 4 or a Socket A CPU, but not for an A64 rig, and definitely not for an SLI setup. http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=270402 That's a very good PSU. Newegg also has it, but I believe they're selling it for around $120 vs. the $94 ZipZoomFly has it for. While the RAM could be part of it, I can pretty much guarantee you that you'll still need a more powerful PSU to get going. The thing with the new Athlon 64's and newer LGA775 Pentiums is that they simply need more juice to work. It's not like it used to be where you could get pretty much any PSU with decent wattage on it and be fine. The Amps do matter, and it's taking awhile for people to get wind of that. I'd really recommend getting a PSU with better amps on the 12V rail first before sending that board off for RMA.
Are you sure I mean 18A is the minimum so it should work, I'm not even trying to SLI here, also I don't really want to spend an extra $100 if I don't have to And I have tried my friends Allied PSU which has 20A's on the 12v rail...
18A is the max actually. That power supply is, at the maximum, barely providing enough amperage to power on the system according to what I can find about that particular board. Allied isn't a very good company for PSU's, especially when we're getting components that simply require a higher quality unit. The ThermalTake's are fine units, but, it's barely providing enough to go forward for that system. Additionally, that core is a little older and uses more power than a Winchester or Venice core, and that could be affecting it as well. The PSU brands that you'll want to look at outside of the TT units are: Enermax OCZ Sparkle/Fortron (same company) PC Power & Cooling (if you have serious cash) Zippy/Emacs (again, if you have rolling dough) I understand that you don't want to spend extra money. However, while I don't think that a bad board is out of the question, if the power supply isn't giving it the power it needs, then you're still going to be right where you're at now. I haven't looked at all the A64 mobo's, but what I am seeing is people using the heavy duty units from the companies I listed. I used to include Antec, but their quality control seems to be dropping as of late from what I'm reading. The other thing that concerns me is that I'm not seeing that PSU you have having a 24-pin ATX power connector, which Asus (and other companies) are strongly recommending. The other thing to consider is that the memory controller is on the A64's themselves. If the CPU isn't getting sufficient power, then this can have adverse effects on stability. So, yes, it's certainly in your best intrests to invest in a good power supply.
