Barton Voltage askew

[RedFury]

Okay, I've got a system I built around the Asus A7v8xx-x mobo. No matter what I set it at in the Bios, either manual or automatic, the Barton Vcore is 1.80-1.81v. What gives? The temps are fine ( 40C no load ), but Sandra and the Bios both read the Vcore high. Is there a Mobo jumper that I'm missing or ???
It's running 166mhz X 11 which is right for a 2500+.

I am utterly confused. This motherboard also disabled the L1/L2 cache on me.

Also, it crashes running Counterstrike for only a couple of minutes.

We did a Bios Update via the Windows flash utility.

I'm at a loss.

[beppodmime]

You might want to consider testing that CPU in a known working board. If everything is set to default, the CPU could just be about done for. If, in another board, of a different chipset hopefully, it still gives the same readings, you might want to consider a new CPU, before that one truly toasts and takes something else with it.

That's my thoughts, anyways. As far as I know, the board won't disable the L1-L2 cache unless there's a problem with it. If the manual doesn't make any mention of a jumper or BIOS setting for this feature, then the CPU's probably gone. If the setting is just wrong, that could be a reason for the CS problems.

Good luck with that, and hope this helps some.

[RedFury]

Thanks, I hadn't thought the CPU might be taking a dump on us simply because everything else seemed to be running okay on the system, ust CS kept dying ( the only large application that I'm aware of ).

[beppodmime]

Well, you could always try running a few loops of Prime95 or something and maybe get a better idea, but the mobo shutting down the cache is not a good thing. That might be a sign of a bigger problem.

Just curious, what brand and wattage of power supply are you running? Well, actually I guess full system specs would give me a better overall picture.

[RedFury]

Well, that's the thing, the negative rail on the PS is way off. But we swapped out a good PS and the problem remains. The PS neg. rails were like 16v for the 12v rail.

[sweeper2]

I run a athlon XP which i have at this moment overclocked to FSB 200X11 and running 1.68 volts (2.2GHz) at 34C on a MSI K7N2 Delta L nForce2 400 edition. Only time i see my voltage go up is if i really overclock the cpu. Not sure why you have a high voltage, but just some info on my setup, hope it can help.

[custompccases]

Woah -16v?! First time I have heard of that. One time I had a board disable the L2 cache on a intel 733 for no reason at all, the thing ran slower than slow so I’m amazed you can do anything with no cache enabled... I just re-enabled it and it hasn’t turned it off since.

Regular voltage for the 2500 is 1.65, I don't even run 1.8 @ 2.3ghz.

Sounds like the motherboard to me. You did a bios update after this started happening?

I searched around the web for a good 2 hours trying to find info on your board, I came up with a site in another language selling a asus “A7v8xx-x” but I was only able to find a “A7V8X-X” on the asus site. Was it a typo?

I noticed a lot of complaints about ram and video voltage problems. Perhaps these boards have bad voltage regulators? I accidentally spent the first hour looking at a7”N”8X-X results before I realized I mistyped it lol, but a interesting thing came up. More voltage problems, so maybe voltage problems run in the family. Nothing came close to matching your predicament though…. I would try another bios update if you can. If nothing else works perhaps a RMA was in order (if you can).

I might aswell add the extra info I found out about the a7v8x-x in case someone searches through the forums. I can’t believe I did that lol, must be really tired.


A lot of people claim this board is extremely picky about ram, however none of your symptoms relate to ram… Also I found out changing the fsb jumper on the board clears up a lot of issues for people (don’t ask me why) http://www.asus.com/products/mb/sock...x-x/jumper.htm but it says its set to 333 default in which case this shouldn’t affect your situation either.

On one forum a guy had his 3.3v frequently drop to 2.7-2.9 and experiences video problems while running a ati9600 card.

[RedFury]

Thanks for the info CPC. We are going to swap out the Barton for a known good one and see what happens from there. It's really going to suck if it's a problem with the board because we are past the 30 day return for NewEgg.

First thing I did was upgrade that Bios, and yes, those voltage numbers are whack.

BTW, I probably got the numbers on that board wrong... since it isn't sitting right next to me to double check ( darn Asus and their super string of numbers...another reason to like Abit )

Re-enabling the Cache sped the system up considerably, but anytime you play a game that puts a strain on the system, it crashes. Normal Apps like Microsoft Hearts, going online etc and it will run all day long.

I'll be sure to post the results of the processor swap.

[custompccases]

From newegg's site: "RMA Repair: You want to send an item back for replacement (Items older than 90 days maybe replaced with repaired items.)"

You are past your allowed Refund time limit but you can still get it replaced with a new one, unless of course your also past the 90day period.

[RedFury]

not yet, but again, thanks for the info....it will be put to good use.