ASUS K8V Deluxe and K8V Deluxe Wireless Edition

[DR]

My first look at Model 3200+ Athlon 64 on K8T800 was an encouraging one. K8V is a well featured, well presented, well laid out board. It performs well, K8T800 deserves the plaudits and the bundle options mean a decent choice of K8V options at retail.

High cost of entry due to CPU pricing lets the platform down a little, but that's not ASUS' fault. They've put together a strong set of packages you can be confident in buying.

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...lld19JRD02NzQ=

[mrochester]

On the sample K8V boards I have, using 1002.007, it doesn't appear to ever change CPU frequency or voltage when enabled, although fan speed definitely does change. When idle, the PIB fan would completely stop. This suggested CPU frequency was being altered, I wasn't convinced it would just passively cool the CPU at 2000MHz, 1.55V. CPU-Z, my CPU monitoring tool of choice, showed no realtime adjustment of voltage or frequency though.

You need a BIOS update to get the Cool 'n' Quiet thing to work correctly. I started off at 1002 and it wouldn't work, but as soon as I flashed to 1004, it worked a treat.

[Ryszard M]

By coincidence my name is Ryszard and I Have just joined Hexus. I am building such a system although I am a novice on such up to date equipement hence the search for reviews and info and help on these matters.
2 Questions Please
1) You say that if all the extra headers are used, then the pci slots will become unavailable. (please clarify this) do you mean there will be no system IrQs to run them or something like this.
2) I could do with some help in setting up a raid 0 array, I intend to fit twin Samsung SATA hard disks.
System.
Asusus K8V Delux, AMD 64 3400+, 1Gb Mem ( 2x512) 3200/400, 2xSATA Hdisks, Pioneer 107 DVD RW , Plextor CD RW.
Any help will be much appreciated thanks. Ryszard M.
Yippee, all the gear arrived is set up and running, Asus info was great, I am very pleased. Running a netgear wireless system on pci slot 5 (netgear wg311 via a netgear DG834G ) absolutly a doddle to set up.
Still like help with Q1 please. Ryszard M

[Shorty]

Welcome to HEXUS Ryszard..

On question 1).. I have to leave our Rys to answer that.. but..

Question 2) A pair of SATA's setup right will scream along nicely. How much do you know about IDE/SATA Raid? (I just want to guage if you have used IDE pseudo RAID before).

[Ryszard M]

Welcome to HEXUS Ryszard..

On question 1).. I have to leave our Rys to answer that.. but..

Question 2) A pair of SATA's setup right will scream along nicely. How much do you know about IDE/SATA Raid? (I just want to guage if you have used IDE pseudo RAID before).

Hello to you and thanks for your reply.
I set up and used an Abit K7 raid/1gig Tbird with a highpoint 370 controller and found it reletively easy compared to the reviews I was reading on the Asus while waiting on its arrival, However it started to go wrong and gave me lots of problems after about 6 months. ( it turned out that one of the hard drives was playing up, an IBM deskstar an IC35L 60gb as was its twin) traced it after reverting to ide and using Si Soft Sandra and Diskspead 32.
Today all my fears were put to bed as the Asus info was great and I had no probs whatsoever. ( I chose the VIA controller)
Now that it is set up I will start to install some progs ( Nero 6.03 first and recode some vidio to see what happens)
I would still appreciate any help and guidance to maintain a raid 0 set up on a SATA array. Quiry ? two 160 Gb Samsungs only report 298Gb of space, where has the other 20gig gone ? OS is Win XP Prof.

[Rys]

If you use the bundled WiFi card (with the WiFi bundle), the extra USB ports, the FireWire port and the SP/DIF ports, they all take up backplane slots on your case, where PCI cards would sit.

Four backplane slot spaces only leaves one spare on the K8V for use with a PCI card. You get two spaces free on the non-WiFi bundle.

If you don't intend to use many PCI add-in cards, you'll be free to use all the backplane expansion. The converse is also true; if you don't use any of the extra backplane expansion ports, you'll have more spare for PCI add-in cards.

Welcome to the forums Ryszard, it's not often I see a namesake around these parts

Rys

[Ryszard M]

If you use the bundled WiFi card (with the WiFi bundle), the extra USB ports, the FireWire port and the SP/DIF ports, they all take up backplane slots on your case, where PCI cards would sit.

Four backplane slot spaces only leaves one spare on the K8V for use with a PCI card. You get two spaces free on the non-WiFi bundle.

If you don't intend to use many PCI add-in cards, you'll be free to use all the backplane expansion. The converse is also true; if you don't use any of the extra backplane expansion ports, you'll have more spare for PCI add-in cards.

Welcome to the forums Ryszard, it's not often I see a namesake around these parts

Rys

Ever felt a fool ? I printed of your review this morning and sat down and read it properly, It became clear to me and so I came up to post my admission to you, (and see that you have already wrapped my knuckles.) because
I had not studied your excellent review properly. My Apologies.
Puting that aside I did purchase the board on the strength of your review and I am very pleased with it.
Using a Coolermaster Centurian with a case intake fan on the front,
and an exhaust via the power supply ( P/S has an internal and external fan to give a suck and blow effect) (also taping up the case vent where the exhaust fan would normally fit) to give a good airflow in and out of the case the cpu idle temp is 35C and running at full load recoding vidio for 30 mins it reaches and holds a max of 49C. The M/B is stable at 28C all the time.
Now that I have it set up I will cotinue to load up my favourite Progs, and finish of my system.
Bios supplied is version 1003.027 and I can see no reason to upgrade at present. Regards Ryszui

[Scott2003]

I'm building a K8V Deluxe machine. I powered it up for the first time today, and got a warning message about not having plugged in the power connector for the 9800XT. OK, it was stupid of me, but the skimpy instruction manual from Sapphire said absolutely nothing about it. (My old 9600 Pro hadn't needed one).

After plugging in and booting again, I got the "American Megatrends" logo and the option to press F1 or F2. Curiously, it said my "attempt at overclocking had failed". I was not trying to overclock it, and nor will I be.

Anyway, I pressed F1 to enter the BIOS, and managed to change the hour value when it seized up. I switched the PSU switch off (there is no reset switch on the Chenbro Gaming Bomb case), then back on again. No signal. My monitor stayed in standby mode.

I checked all the connections, it's well seated, the molex is in as far as it will go. Nothing. I swapped the 9800XT for a 9600. Same thing. No output signal. So it can't be the 9800XT that's faulty. Everything else appears to be working.

I then tried clearing the CMOS and removing the battery, as per instructions in the manual. That made no difference. Still no output signal.

Can anyone tell me what to do now?

Scott.

---

Chenbro Gaming Bomb / 120mm Acousti case fan
Nexus NX-3500 PSU
Asus K8V Deluxe / Athlon64 3000+ / Zalman CNPS7000AlCu
Corsair 1GB XMS3200 TwinX C2
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800XT Ultimate 128MB
Samsung Spinpoint SATA
Plextor 4x DVD+RW

[Rys]

Try reseating the CPU. Hanging in the BIOS is a sure sign of CPU troubles in my experience. It's unlikely it's overheat[ed|ing], but it can't hurt to check.

That's my only suggestion however, good luck fixing

Rys

[Scott2003]

OK, Rys - I've just had the Zalman HSF out. The Arctic Silver 5 had stuck quite well, but there was nowhere near as much "spread out" as there was supposed to be. I'd read that about a rice grain and a half's worth should be enough. It wasn't.

I've daubed a good amount on this time, all the way across the CPU's aluminium cap. I don't think I've overdone it. One thing I did notice; while I was "wiggling" the Zalman HSF down in place by a degree or two, I found it was still quite loose even after tightening everything up. I think it's flush with the CPU, but it still shouldn't move, surely?

The K8V came with it's own back plate. There was one with the AMD HSF, and another with the Zalman. I left the one that was stuck on the motherboard already. Maybe that was a mistake - maybe I should have removed it and put the Zalman plate on instead. It looks as though I may have to, which means raving everything out and starting all over again.

I remembered the BIOS is supposed to have vocal warnings. After plugging in my speakers, with the screen still dead, I got the warning "CPU failed due to system overclocking". Which is similar to what I saw (once) on the screen. But I haven't tried overclocking anything. All I'm trying to do is get past the first power-on stage!

What on earth is going on!?

[Rys]

If the heatsink is loose, try the bracket that comes with the Zalman just to be sure. Make sure CMOS is cleared properly too, just incase it didn't work when you tried previously.

Rys

[Scott2003]

I've tried clearing the CMOS again. No change. The exact POST message says "System failed due to CPU over-clocking". I never get a chance to enter the BIOS to select fail-safe defaults, as my monitor never comes out of "standby".

I've sent an email to Asus technical support in the US. I hope they get back to me soon. I think I'll wait to see what they say before going to all the trouble of changing the Asus plate for the Zalman one.

(Thanks, by the way, Rys!)

[Scott2003]

I swapped the mobo back-plate this morning for the Zalman one. It fixed the problem. I've now got a fully working machine; I'm just finishing off installing WinXP Pro now.

I have a total of three back-plates. One that came attached to the mobo from Asus, one that came with the AMD stock HSF, and one that came with the Zalman. As I didn't know what I was doing, I left the Asus one attached, as it seemed stuck pretty firmly. That was my mistake. There are two "prongs" on it that come up through the holes in the mobo (just like the AMD plate). The Zalman doesn't have them. You screw some thumb-bolts into the back-plate with a cardbard washer as a cushion.

The HSF still moves a fraction, because that's the way the retaining arm on the Zalman works. But it must be situated a lot close to the CPU than before.

I made a much better job of rebuilding the machine, now I know where everything goes. Putting the mobo in before the PSU made things a lot easier, as did leaving the power cables till last. I also re-routed the USB, Firewire & audio headers so they fit around the 9800XT much better.

It's running sweet as a nut, and has been for a few hours now. I've installed Cool & Quiet, but I'm not sure about the "quiet" bit! The cool bit certainly seems to work, stepping the bus down to 800MHz and automatically undervolting the CPU.

I managed to install XP on my Samsung SATA without any problems, having been pre-warned about the F6 and floppy trick. I've also disabled the Promise Raid controller in the BIOS, which speeds the boot process up a bit.

Phew! (Good save, Rys!)

[Ryszard M]

Hi Scott, I bet you are relieved that your CPU is well and safe,having built a system a few years ago when the 1Ghz was the ultimit and Mine fried in less than 2 secs, I know how you felt. (It turned out that it was the board that was to blame after my supplier fitted a new CPU and fired it up in front of me to see a repeat performance) and so I got my money back, any way just having built a system similar to you on an Asus K8v delux I used the back plate already fitted to the board and dropped the AMD64 3400 straight in followed by the AMD HSF unit and it has been absolutly fine never climbing more than 49c underheavy load and after reading Rys origional review I gues it must be a Zalman quirk that is worh advising other users.
Good luck with your new system, Ryszard M ( no connection with Rys!.)

[Rys]

Glad it's all working If I get the time, I'll amend the article to mention that users should watch out when using the Zalman. I'll try and get one of the heatsinks in for myself too (I know Tarinder uses one for his A64 testing).

I'm enjoying SK8V at the moment, K8V's big brother. Both are excellent, as you both know

Rys

[Scott2003]

The ASUS POST doesn't like the Fanmate being turned down as far as "silent" mode. I've had to set it half-way. Things are a little bit noisier than I'd like, for a supposedly quiet system. But I've got a few things to try yet; using the 7v resistor on the Acousti 120mm, and tweaking down the Fanmate as far as I can while under load.

I seem to be getting a fair bit of vibration. The Samsung HD is attached directly to the lower drive cage - although it's cool, being immediately behind the front air intake. I might try it in my SilentDrive enclosure. It only has a heat dissipation of 9.6W so it should be OK. I've also thought of trying some rubber mounts and quiet feet from Quiet PC.

I'd really like the NoVibesIII device, but I can't seem to buy it anywhere in the UK. I'm not really that keen on building a Heath Robinson device out of bungee cord myself.