mobo is not stable with any BIOS upgrade

[nes]

No doubt, the 'new' P5N-D for the second build in my sig will not be stable with any BIOS upgrade. It came loaded with a 'custom' BIOS not downloadable or listed on Asus's website; it was 204.bin. Tried to upgrade to all of the BIOSs listed and it just won't stop freezing. I had to load 117.bin from the Install CD that came bundled just to get the thing stable.

Also, I am in the Army (as many of you may well know) and I work in Information Systems and Networking so I get a few goodies. I installed a volume license copy of XP Enterprise (2nd build in sig). After the install was complete I couldn't get the onboard sound to work. I have tried the one off of the Install CD, I went to Asus and got the latest, I tried the UAA hotfix KB881111 from microsoft, all of which to no avail. When I open the sound devices in the control panel it actually says No Sound Device. All of the Legacy Codecs are listed on the Device Manager in the MMC but not the HD Audio Device that is pretty much standard for Asus onboard sound.

One, two punch from Asus on this one. Any clues?

[werty316]

Is you system overclocked at all?

Have you tried one of the BIOS files form Asus's website? Based on Asus's website 0304 is the newest BIOS for your board.

Did you make sure the onboard sound controller is enabled in the BIOS?

With 4GB of memory installed try setting the timings to 5-5-5-15 and with the memory voltage set to 2.0V or 2.1V. Also set the command rate to 2T if you haven't already done.

If all else fails try running your system with either 1 or 2 sticks of RAM installed.

[nes]

Werty, I'm talking about the second computer listed in my sig. It only has 2gb of ram and they work just fine.

I definately went the Asus route and tried to get the files directly from the site. I have actually tried them all.

The HD Audio is 'enabled' in the BIOS.

[Kougar]

When you flashed the BIOS, did you make sure to enter the BIOS and reset everything by using "Fail safe defaults", rebooting, and then modifying the settings? Sometimes previous BIOS values must be wiped this way otherwise they can interfere with the newer BIOS regardless of if you changed them or not.

Soundwise, it sounds like you are missing the low level sound driver. Windows XP requires both the sound driver for the sound chip, and also a low level hardware bus driver. Vista thankfully doesn't need the second driver.

In your situation, I might guess the required driver is part of one of those chipset driver packages... make sure you got all the required DLs from the chipset download section on their site as they had a bunch in there.

[nes]

Kougar,

I have fixed the sound issues but the BIOS issue remains. I have upgraded her comp to XP SP3, I didn't run a Win update before trying the newer BIOSs but I'm going to try it again and follow the procedures you have outlined. She is content with the e8400 and XP SP3 but I'm not going to be happy until I know she can get new BIOS updates from Asus to run.

[nes]

Problem solved BIOS update stable and online!


yourock: thx Kougar