RMAed 3 Asus K8n4-E deluxes - SB Live sound breaks it!

[ayqazi]

Hi,

I've just had to RMA my 3rd. Asus K8n4-e Deluxe motherboard, which broke in exactly the same way!

Here's my kit:

Sempron 64-bit 3100+ with 256 KB L2 cache 1.8GHz
1GB OCZ DDR400 cl2.5 RAM
Leadtek nVidia Geforce 7600GT card (excellent card for its price)
SeaSonic 430W power supply (excellent power supply)
SB Live! card (old, but kicks on-board sound's arse)

Note I tried to replace my overclocking-unfriendly Gigabye K8ne, so its a matter of taking it out and putting the Asus in.

I first update the BIOS to the Beta version on the Asus website. That's the only way Linux doesn't spew errors when it is run, and Windows doesn't BSOD after 2 minutes.

Then I plug in my SB Live! sound card.

Then I play some sound under Linux - all fine.

Then I stess-test with Quake 4 under Linux - all fine.

Then I load up up Windows 2000, it redetects all the same hardware for some reason and reinstalls all the same drivers (that's why I use Linux first, it doesn't have to do this) then demands a reboot. I oblige.

On next boot, I find an 'unknown device' add/remove hardware wizard - strange, methinks.

I play a sound, e.g. by using the mixer test button.

BANG - power down.

On reboot, PCI devices stop being detected. Sometimes they are, they are corrupted. The SB Live! is sometimes detected under Linux (by using the 'lspci' command) as an 'unknown Jazz device'. The PCI IDs are completely screwed up: 0000:ffff or something.

The first motherboard I had, I stress-tested under Linux with the crappy onboard sound (first time I'd used it, really was crap compared to the SB Live) under Quake 4, and the mobo just shut down after 5 minutes, and wouldn't turn on again.

The next 2, I didn't risk any stress-tests, didn't want to damage my components.



sigh... apart from a bit of sympathy can anybody give me advice as to:

1) another overclocking friendly motherboard (Currently I'm looking at the Biostar 6100-M7) that supports PCI-E video cards? The DFI S754 one is sadly cancelled out.

2) why this is happening? Same problem on 3 consecutive motherboards? ARGH!

And finally has anybody had any similar experiences?

Thanks for letting me let off some steam,
Asfand Yar

 

[_Morphine_]

Are you overclocking your PCI bus?

http://www.tweakfactor.com/articles/tweaks/neoocguide/3.html

Some devices are a lot more tolerant to strange PCI bus speeds while other people have horror stories about disk and component problems resulting from an overclocked PCI bus.

-M

 

[ayqazi]

Firstly, with a signature like yours, I was thinking of not replying at all.

Secondly, a SB Live! does hardware mixing of simultaneous voices, as well as supplying EAX 1.0/2.0 for games that support it. Thirdly, SB Live! has soundfont support. Onboard sound has none of these features. And the SB Live works on my current Gigabyte GA-K8NE just fine, so why abandon it?

I've decided to just stick with my GA-K8ne now - it can't overclock my CPU, but I've had enough of all these problems now, so I'll take stability over performance.

 

[_Morphine_]

I thought you wanted help...

Secondly, a SB Live! does hardware mixing of simultaneous voices, as well as supplying EAX 1.0/2.0 for games that support it. Thirdly, SB Live! has soundfont support. Onboard sound has none of these features.

Most of that is just inaccurate.
Soundblaster delivers the specification goods....
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=207&product=14184&nav=1
Your K8N4-E Deluxe's comparatively impressive onboard sound specifications....
http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/products1-2.aspx?modelid=2003101

RE: soundfont: Sample banks format created by E-MU for the Sound Blaster soundcards. This format allows to load sound banks in the central memory of the computer in order to play them as sounds of an expander or sampler. It is a cheap way of doing sampling, as we can record any sound and play it through MIDI in a sequencer.

Bah.

-M

 

[ayqazi]

Actually, I just wanted to know if this was a common problem, and not a one-off freak accident. I now know it is. And if a board is guaranteed to bork up when an SB Live PCI card is plugged in it (the PCI bus was completely unusable from that point on, and the mobo shut down and wouldn't start a short while after) I don't want that board. Why are you trying to convince me to keep it?

The info on onboard vs. sb live is noted, thanks - but SB Live doesn't stutter like onboard when playing Quake 4 on Linux with alsa output, so it's still my choice of sound. It's probably a driver issue, but Linux support here influences my decision as much as anything.

 

[_Morphine_]

It's probably a driver issue, but Linux support here influences my decision as much as anything.

The ALC850 supports host/soft audio from Intel ICHx chipsets, as well as audio controller-based VIA/SiS/ALi/AMD/nVIDIA/ATI chipsets. Bundled Windows series (98/ME/NT/2000/XP) and Linux drivers.

Linux Driver: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloads.aspx

So that leaves Quake 4 which is OpenAL.
http://developer.creative.com/articles/article.asp?cat=1&sbcat=31&top=38&aid=46
Quake 4 should work with all the correct drivers. If it doesnt it sounds like it may need an update. You made it sound that there were numerous reasons not to use the onboard sound. The only one I can see is possible Quake 4 problems. That might be enough to select the SB Live! 1.5 for you but for 70 dollars you could upgrade to a audigy2 and use your much nicer Asus K8N4-E Deluxe with no problems and better Quake 4 performance from an overclocked CPU.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102178

Just a thought.
-M

 

[ayqazi]

Um... the point is still as before: do I really want a mobo that will break as soon as I put a PCI card in it? I'm sorry, but that's a faulty product, and I'm not getting it.

The Gigabyte GA-K8NE works fine with it, why can't the Asus? I just wanted confirmation that the board was indeed designed faulty, so I don't break the eBuyer record on the RMA replacement products sent out or anything, and can move on with my life. *sigh*

As for the Onboard vs. SB Live! issue, I'm gonna do some benchmarks to see if there's any discernable difference in performance, as well as some sound tests.

 

[ZOldDude]

Hi,

I've just had to RMA my 3rd. Asus K8n4-e Deluxe motherboard, which broke in exactly the same way!

Here's my kit:

Sempron 64-bit 3100+ with 256 KB L2 cache 1.8GHz
1GB OCZ DDR400 cl2.5 RAM
Leadtek nVidia Geforce 7600GT card (excellent card for its price)
SeaSonic 430W power supply (excellent power supply)
SB Live! card (old, but kicks on-board sound's arse)

Note I tried to replace my overclocking-unfriendly Gigabye K8ne, so its a matter of taking it out and putting the Asus in.

I first update the BIOS to the Beta version on the Asus website. That's the only way Linux doesn't spew errors when it is run, and Windows doesn't BSOD after 2 minutes.

Then I plug in my SB Live! sound card.

Then I play some sound under Linux - all fine.

Then I stess-test with Quake 4 under Linux - all fine.

Then I load up up Windows 2000, it redetects all the same hardware for some reason and reinstalls all the same drivers (that's why I use Linux first, it doesn't have to do this) then demands a reboot. I oblige.

On next boot, I find an 'unknown device' add/remove hardware wizard - strange, methinks.

I play a sound, e.g. by using the mixer test button.

BANG - power down.

On reboot, PCI devices stop being detected. Sometimes they are, they are corrupted. The SB Live! is sometimes detected under Linux (by using the 'lspci' command) as an 'unknown Jazz device'. The PCI IDs are completely screwed up: 0000:ffff or something.

The first motherboard I had, I stress-tested under Linux with the crappy onboard sound (first time I'd used it, really was crap compared to the SB Live) under Quake 4, and the mobo just shut down after 5 minutes, and wouldn't turn on again.

The next 2, I didn't risk any stress-tests, didn't want to damage my components.



sigh... apart from a bit of sympathy can anybody give me advice as to:

1) another overclocking friendly motherboard (Currently I'm looking at the Biostar 6100-M7) that supports PCI-E video cards? The DFI S754 one is sadly cancelled out.

2) why this is happening? Same problem on 3 consecutive motherboards? ARGH!

And finally has anybody had any similar experiences?

Thanks for letting me let off some steam,
Asfand Yar

DFI MB's are the way to go.

I have used ASUS board 100% for most of the past decade but they always die from bad capasitors in about 3 years.
After starting to use DFI boards for my builds I will never go back to ASUS.

Z