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A7V Troubleshooting
Why the heck is there a tank ?!?

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This Site is privately run and NOT affiliated with ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Official Support is at their Homepage.


Important Note to all A7V266 (-E / -EX / etc.) series and A7V333 owners:

There is an error in the manual regarding the CMOS memory reset jumper (CLR_RTC):
It should read To clear, place a jumper on it, in normal operation DON'T place a jumper on it.

The manual tells it the other way round (To clear take off jumper, normal is with jumper)

I repeat: DO NOT power the mainboard while a jumper is placed over CLR_RTC, this might damage your mainboard! In the forum there were quite a few posts about boards loosing date and settings after having been run with that jumper in place.

 

5.7.2004 Kudos to the Greek. They are European Champion - and they deserve it. Hellas!
2.3.2004

Wow, 3.000.000 visitors up to now. Thanks to Marco for reminding me :-) And of course thanks to all visitors for showing so much interest in this site.

I never intended this site to be so popular. And even since I finally and copletely abandonned it some months ago (because following the original KT133 A7V I never owned a A7V series mainboard any more) the visitors are streaming to the forum and site. Really, I gotta do something - the forum is already taking up almost three quarters of the maximum number of allowed files on my server. Looks like it's time to switch the forum to a database-based one, soon...

Perhaps ASUS might be interested in taking over this site? Or someone else? As long as the current features and contents would be preserved I don't think I'd object. Let's see if someone contatcs me.

Update: my host upgraded the hosting package for free, so now I have no issues continuing to host the site. I guess this site will stay here "forever" :)

6.12.2003 Only interesting for german users (if at all): A7VTroubleshooting is morally supported by the following Online-Shop:
9.10.2003 Braziliantech seems to be down forever. I am sad that this happened. Daniel: The A7V Community will sure miss you! As many people are searching for this, here's one of his modified BIOSes: A7V133 1010beta1. Only use this file if you know what you're doing. I assume no responsibility whatsoever for what you do with this. If you don't know what it does leave it be (or at least red the readme.txt inside). Greetings to Marco, who was busy mailing this file around - seemingly it's not been online up to now.
6.8.2003

As you might already have noticed I am not updating this site any more. Job and friends are much too time consuming, plus I don't own a A7V any more since late 2001. This site and it's forum will be up for your reference as long as I own the webspace, though. And this will be quite long, given the fact that my private webpages are on the same webspace. So this page will likely be up long after the last A7V has been scrapped...

It was a nice time with you, have fun & see you on the next mainboard related website - if time ever permits :-)

6.4.2003 Added Barton Support to the CPU related information
1.4.2003

The following is, of course, not true. Have a look at the date ;-)

The folks over at OCWORKBENCH have finally found a solution to the A7V + FSB266 Problem. A post in their forum tells about the undocumented Jumper "XP_FSB" which enables the A7V to run 266FSB Processors like the AthlonXP. Palominos have already been verified to run OK in almost all speed grades, Thoroughbreds are still being tested with only 2000+ TBred "B" verified up to now. Look into the thread there for news on what limitations this solution has.

- Update: The thread seems to be down due to the lots of traffic. Try again later, I'll try to post a copy of the link as soon as I get the chance to download the page -

16.2.2003 Finally I updated the links page ... thanks to Marco Fulvio for reminding me of the lots of dead and old links.
23.1.2003

... and the winner is: Daniel Luong from Australia! He was the 2.000.000th visitor. There is no price (this site is not commercial, so where should I have taken it from?), but the fame of being mentioned here should be enough ;-)

By the way: Thanks also to "GBujold", who sent me screenshots of 1.999.999 and 2.000.001 - missed the mark, but not by much...

22.1.2003 Wow, we're approaching the 2.000.000th vistor. If you are the lucky guy (or gal?) then please send me a screenshot of the two millionth visit...
14.1.2003

Updated the RD1 article with new prices for BIOS Chip programming of www.rd-computer.de

A7V333 1016 Beta 1

See the BIOS section

1.1.2003

Happy new Year!

The BIOS section has been heavily updated, all the popular boards up to A7V333 are fully covered now. A7V8X will follow soon (including A7V8X OEM BIOSes).

31.12.02

I wish everyone a nice party tonight!

... und 'nen guten Rutsch!

14.10.2002

Sorry for the few updates in the last month. This is what happened:

A7V8X (Retail version only!) 1007 Final and 1008 Beta 1
A7V333 1014 Final
A7V266 and all Variants (-E, -EX etc.)1013 Beta 1

Get them directly from ASUS Germany Support

13.9.2002

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1006 Final for A7V8X
BIOS 1013 Beta 3 for A7V333
BIOS 1010 Beta 01A for A7V133
BIOS 1012 Beta 01A for A7V

Get them directly from ASUS Germany Support

10.9.2002 Updated the CPU Info page. So many people were asking about the best CPU that can be used on the A7V classic (KT133) - this is now answered clearly.
9.9.2002

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1006 Beta 3 for A7V8X
BIOS 1013 Beta 2 for A7V333

Get them directly from ASUS Germany Support

2.9.2002

New BIOS:

BIOS 1006 Beta 1 for A7V8X

Get it directly from ASUS Germany Support

30.8.2002

New BIOS:

BIOS 1005 Final for A7V8X

Get it directly from ASUS Germany Support

28.8.2002

New BIOS:

BIOS 1005 Beta 2 for A7V8X

Get it directly from ASUS Germany Support

27.8.2002

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1005 Beta 1 for A7V8X
BIOS 1004 Final for A7V8X
BIOS 1012 Final for A7V333
BIOS 1011 Final for the whole A7V266 Series including -E and -EX

Get them directly from ASUS Germany Support

23.8.20002

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1012 Beta 4 for A7V333
BIOS 1011 Beta 02 for the whole A7V266 Series including -E and -EX

Get them directly from ASUS Germany Support

19.8.2002

New BIOS:

BIOS 1012 Beta 1 for A7V333

Get it directly from ASUS Germany Support

15.8.2002

New BIOSes again:

BIOS 1011 Beta 01 for A7V266 and A7V266-E

Get them directly from ASUS Germany Support (link fixed - thanks to Evert Meulie from Norway!)

11.8.2002 I added a little info about the ROMSIP Jumper in the Troubleshooting section.
9.8.2002

There have been no updates for a while, simply because I had better things to do (greetings to Karina ;-) ), plus I don't have broadband internet any more. So no more mirroring of all ASUS BIOSes.

What happened in the meantime?

There have been loads of new BIOSes, the newest being

BIOS 1011 Final A7V333
Get it directly from ASUS Germany Support

By the way, there even has been a new BIOS for the ancient P2B Series that fixes an annoying bug with higher multipliers.

Last but not least, Braziliantech, the No.1 Source for modified ASUS BIOSes, seems down for the moment. I wish Daniel all luck with the redisign he is appereantly doing.

Lumberjacker is another very good source for modified BIOSs (RAID). It's in German, but navigation should be straightforward.

9.7.2002

New Article online:
The RD1 BIOS Savior - upgrading to DualBIOS

27.6.2002

I will be moving to another town tonight, so for a few days I will not be able to update this site or reply to mail / forum posts. See you all!

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1010 Beta 2 for A7V266-E
BIOS 1010 Beta 2 for A7V266

See the BIOS section

The same BIOS for the rest of the A7V266 series (eg. A7V266-EX etc.) can be found at the ASUS Germany Support Site.

14.6.2002

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1009 Final A7V266-E
BIOS 1009 Final A7V266

See BIOS section

The same BIOS for the rest of the A7V266 series (eg. A7V266-EX etc.) can be found at the ASUS Germany Support Site.

6.6.2002

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1009 Beta 1 A7V266-E
BIOS 1009 Beta 1 A7V266

See BIOS section

The same BIOS for the rest of the A7V266 series (eg. A7V266-EX etc.) can be found at the ASUS Germany Support Site.

24.5.2002

Wow, even newer BIOSes :-)

BIOS 1007 FINAL A7V333

See BIOS section

23.5.2002

Again, new BIOSes:

BIOS 1007 BETA 9 for A7V333
BIOS 1007 BETA 10for A7V333

See BIOS section

15.5.2002

Those ASUS people are going crazy. Three BIOSes in three days ... with two versions missing.

Anyway, here's the newest BIOS:

BIOS 1007 BETA 7 for A7V333
See BIOS section

14.5.2002

New BIOS:

BIOS 1007 BETA 5 for A7V333

Plus: Many old BIOSes and some official ASUS descriptiones added

See BIOS section

13.5.2002

New BIOS:

BIOS 1007 BETA 3 for A7V333
See BIOS section

4.5.2002

I updated the "Supported CPU" List to include the Thoroughbred CPUs.

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1008 BETA 4 for A7V266, A7V266-E
See BIOS section

BIOS 1008 BETA 4 for A7V266-EX, A7V266-M A7V266-C
can be found at the ASUS Germany Support Site.

30.4.2002

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1009 FINAL for A7V133
BIOS 1011 FINAL for A7V

See BIOS section

23.4.2002

New BIOSes:

BIOS 1008 BETAs 1 to 3 for A7V266 and A7V266-E
BIOS 1006 FINAL for A7V333

See BIOS section

25.3.2002

The fan on your Northbridge Heatsink is broken? If you live in Germany, you can get it replaced by a passive heatsink from ASUS. See this article.

Several new BIOSes:

BIOS 1005 Final for A7V333
BIOS 1007 Final for A7V266 and A7V266-E
BIOS 1008A Final for A7V133
BIOS 1010A Final for A7V

see BIOS section

Or go to ASUS Germany Support

5.3.2002

New BIOSes again:

BIOS 1007 BETA 3 for A7V266 and A7V266-E, see BIOS section

Or head over to ASUS Germany Support, there is the same BIOS also for A7V266-M and A7V266-EX

1.3.2002 There are modified BIOSes for the A7V133 available. These have the Promise BIOS removed, but include SDMS Support (SCSI BIOS for BIOSless ASUS SCSI Controllers). So if you don't boot from the promise (your harddisks on the promise will work as normal, just booting is affected) and need SDMS, you may want to try them.
27.2.2002

New BIOS 1010 Final for A7V, see BIOS section
New BIOS 1008 Final for A7V133, see BIOS section

There are some more BIOSes over at ASUS Germany Tech Support, for example for A7V133-C, A7A SEries and A7M Series...

21.2.2002

New BIOS 1007 BETA 2 for A7V266 and A7V266-E, see BIOS section

8.2.2002

Wow these ASUS guys come up with new BIOSes every week ...

New BIOS 1007 BETA 1 for A7V266 and A7V266-E, see BIOS section

Or head over to ASUS Germany Support, there is the same BIOS also for A7V266-M and A7V266-EX

5.2.2002

New BIOS 1006 FINAL for A7V266, see BIOS section

Also I found a great resource for A7V266-E Info: Paradigm Computer from UK
This site includes info on the undocumented multiplier settings, as well as troubleshooting via changing IO Voltages.

21.1.2002 New BIOS 1006 FINAL for A7V266-E, see BIOS section
30.1.2002

New BIOSes 1008 Beta 1D for A7V133, see BIOS section

New BIOSes 1010 Beta 1B for A7V, see BIOS section

26.1.2002

New BIOSes 1006 Beta 5 for A7V266 and A7V266-E, see BIOS section

I also added 1006 Beta 3 for A7V266 and A7V266-E.

21.1.2002 New BIOSes 1006 Beta 4 for A7V266 and A7V266-E, see BIOS section
16.1.2002 New BIOSes 1006 Beta 2 for A7V266 and A7V266-E, see BIOS section
11.1.2002 New BIOSes 1006 Beta 1 for A7V266 and A7V266-E, see BIOS section
7.1.2002 As I write this, we have had the 999.100th visit to the www.a7vtroubleshooting.com page.

If you are the 1.000.000th visitor, please take a screenshot (press PRINTSCREEN to copy the screen to the clipboard, then open paint and paste the clipboard there, save it) and send it to me.

By the way: The counter is counting visits, not page loads. For each IP adress, it counts only once every half an hour.

7.1.2002 New BIOS for A7V266-E : 1005 Final
1.1.2002 Happy new Year, everyone!
18.12.2001

There are two new FULL RAID BIOSes for the A7V266-E:

1005 Beta 15 full RAID by Braziliantech
1005 Beta 15 full RAID by howi (thanks for the mail!)

Both are NOT OFFICIAL, but modified BIOSes created by enthusiasts. Use at your own risk.

Both should theoretically be the same, the one by howi was tested by him and found OK. You will need the hacked drivers from either Braziliantech or Crazy Ape

14.12.2001

New BIOSes over at Tech Support ASUS Germany :

A7V266 1005 Beta 15
A7V266E 1005 Beta 15

Copys of these new versions are in the BIOS section, too.

13.12.2001 New VIA 4-in-1 Drivers: Version 4.36
7.12.2001

Ther seems to be a solution for people looking for A7V266-E FULL RAID BIOSes. See this thread in the forum of the infamous www.Braziliantech.com site. Someone sems to have finally done a tool to manipulate the new BIOSes, and someone else (second page of posts) did FULL RAID BIOSes.

Update: There is a tested A7V266-E FULL RAID BIOS by Braziliantech out!

Why use FULL Raid? This allows you to use other stripe sizes than the default ones, thus enabling MUCH higher RAID Performance. Also disable CPU Idling in BIOS the get better HDD Performance. See the Braziliantech Forum for even more tips on this topics.

3.12.2001 New BIOS: A7V 1010 - 001-A Beta (direct file link)
30.11.2001 Attention A7V266 or A7V266-E users : The Interrupt Table given in the A7V266 /-E Manual is WRONG. See the section "IRQ Conflicts" on this page for a updated version, plus information on what cards should be placed in which slot. Also see the Athlon XP Compatibility List for info on how to jumper the A7V266 /-E for AthlonXP CPUs.
29.11.2001 New: Added the Athlon XP Compatibility List for all A7V Series Mainboards.
See here for Jumper Settings for AthlonXP, too!
29.11.2001

New BIOS: A7V133 1008 - 001-B Beta (direct file link)

New: A CPU table translated from ASUS Germany. This tells you which A7V supports what CPUs.

25.11.2001

The forum is up again. It has a few bug fixes as well as new features:

In your profile you can now select a country. This displays the country's flag in your posts.

Some Posts might look a little strange at the moment, there still is a small problem with the display routines which might cause some words to be shown in bold, or < br> to appear in the text.

25.11.2001 The forum is down for a software upgrade. It will be up later today, hopefully with less bugs and more features.
21.11.2001

A new edited BIOS is available: A7V 1009e
This version replaces the newer Build 42 Promise ROM with an older Build 35. Some people complained about various problems with Build 42.

As always: Use at your own risk.See the Modified BIOSes Section on details

The BIOS section has been updated with all A7V133, A7V266 and A7V266-E BIOSes known to me.

31.10.2001 Wild speculation and misinformation have been around the net since another video has turned up dealing with how Palomino CPUs deal with running them without heatsink and fan. Here is an article by me which hopefully dispells some "myths" and lies surrounding the whole affair.
28.10.2001

A lot of people in the Forum have been having trouble after flashing the new BIOS versions. Although the flashing was OK, after restarting the PC would not boot.

To avoid this, be sure to stick to the recommended BIOS flash procedure as described in the BIOS section.

If you upgraded and your A7V does not boot, try
- Clearing CMOS
- Going to Jumper Mode

A new edited BIOS is available: A7V133 1007e
This version replaces the new Build 42 Promise ROM with an older Build 35. Some people complained about various problems with Build 42, like not being able to boot from promise ATA100 or taking longer to detect drives. See this thread in the forum for details.

14.10.2001

Lots of new BIOSes over at Tech Support ASUS Germany :

A7V266 1002.B Final ( 05.09.2001 )
A7V133 1007 Final ( =1007 - 002-A Beta )
A7V133-C 1007 Final ( =1007 - 002-A Beta )
A7V 1009 Final ( =1009 - 001-B Beta )

The new versions are now in the BIOS section, too.

13.10.2001

The forums are up again - for good. You can access it via forum.a7vtroubleshooting.com.

The forum is now at my own webspace - which makes it faster as well as more reliable (and, alas, more expensive for me...)

Searching does not work yet, plus all the links to the forum on a7vtroubleshooting.com have yet to be changed.

7.10.2001

The forums are down, for quite a while now, actually. I am sorry for this.

The Forums were hosted free of charge by www.qualityhosts.com up to now. They went out of business, thus the forum is not reachable any more. Thanks to Kevin and the other people at Qualityhosts for the free hosting up to now.

What is happening now, and when will the forums be accessible again?

I upgraded the webspace A7VTroubleshooting is on to support free CGI scripts, so the forum will be moved here. You will be able to access it via forum.a7vtroubleshooting.com.

Right now I am waiting to get the latest forum files back, so that the forum can continue where it went down. If this works out, no messages or user accounts will be lost.

This week I'll be away for work, but I hope the next weekend will see the revival of the forum.

Other news is that I am not a part of the A7V community any more. I dropped my A7V in favour of a Fujitsu Siemens Computers D-1289 KT266 DDR Mainboard and a AthlonXP.
But: Neither the site nor the forums will be going down. As long as I still own the webspace (where my private homepage is hosted, too) both will be accessible, presumably for a time long after the end of life of all A7V Mainboards that are in use right now :-)

Interesting news, A7V Related or just simply of interest to A7V owners, will continue to be posted here.

11.9.2001

 

I offer my condolences to all People affected by terroristic acts, especially the gruesome ones commited today in the United States of America. All the flags in Germany are flying at half-mast, even the company flags in front of my office window are. All people I know here in Germany are deeply shocked and grieve with you over this terrible loss of so many lives.

 

  The Forum are down right now. This is due to problems at Qualityhosts.com, who will go out of service, soon. In a few days the forum should be accessible again and the will be transferred to other webspace, soon. Most probably you will soon find the forum at "www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/forum" or "forum.a7vtroubleshooting.com"
3.9.2001 New A7V133 1007-001G, A7V133-C 1007-Gand A7V266 1002.B Beta BIOSes
22.8.2001

New Article. Why was HLT disabled in BIOSes newer than 1003 ?
This means: Why do1004 and above keep the CPU hotter than 1003 did? Is it wise to reenable this ?

6.8.2001

New Article online : Ever wondered what CPU cooler to buy ?
See the review of 23 CPU coolers for AMD Athlon.

Well, have a look at the other new article, too: What heat transfer material is best ?

30.7.2001 Good News ! Chances are good that the next generation Athlon "Palomino" will run without any problems in your A7V or A7V133. I have a new Article about A7V & Palomino online
21.7.2001 I was told there IS a cooling program that works with ATHLON on VIA chipsets. It is called VCool - check it out !
16.7.2001

In the BIOS section, info on what has been changed in recent A7V133 Beta BIOSes (1005A to 1006 Beta 01i ) has been included !

A7V133 : New BIOS 1006_01i at ASUS Germany FTP Server

On the ASUS Germany FTP Server a new Promise Driver Version 2.0 Build 11 can be downloaded.

This one fixes data corruption issues with A7V 133 under Windows 2000 (ACPI mode) while copying large amounts of data from one hdd connected to one promise channel to another hdd connected to the other promise channel.

Although there are Windows 9x Drivers included, Do not use these ! Only the Windows 2000 drivers are meant to be used ! It has not been tested with the A7V yet! This is an unofficial, undocumented release !

More info can be found here

12.7.2001 A7V133 : New BIOS 1006_01g at ASUS Germany FTP Server
18.6.2001 If you can't connect to www.braziliantech.com try http://brtech.hypermart.net/en-us/
12.6.2001 Did you ever wonder what the changes in the A7V 1008 BIOSes are? Have a look in the BIOS Section !
11.6.2001 Braziliantech has opened its Forums ! Have a look at them here
1.6.2001

New BIOSes again :

A7V133 1005 Final
A7V133-C 1005 - 001-A Beta
A7V 1008 - 001-E Beta
A7pro 1008 - 001-E Beta

29.5.2001

Bios Time !

As always: First at German ASUS Support

A7V133 1004 - 003-C Beta
A7V 1008 - 001-D Beta

24.5.2001 The forums are online again
29.4.2001 BRAZILIANTECH has a fix for the data corruption probem with PROMISE ATA100. I updated the appropriate troubleshooting section.

For details see this thread in our forum
20.4.2001

New BIOSes :
A7V 1008Beta 01B
A7V133Beta 02D

16.4.2001

Viahardware has a bugfix for the data corruption problem when using the onboard VIA IDE controllers of the A7V133 (not the PROMISE ATA100 ones! This problem remains unfixed)

See at the bottom of http://www.viahardware.com/download/viatweak.shtm for details

More info on the bug is at www.au-ja.de (in german AND english)

16.4.2001 I used the easter holidays to create a new forum. The old one is closed, but will remain online for reference purposes.
5.4.2001 Today saw the 400.000th visit.
1.4.2001 BIOS 1008 is out ! get it at ASUS Germany Just a joke :-)
31.3.2001 It is done. Now this site is moved to www.a7vtroubleshooting.com - I thought it deserved so before we get our 400.000th visit ;-)
29.3.2001

1007/FXD2 is available from www.braziliantech.com. I don't really know what it does better than FXD, yet, but I'll try. Any comments ? In the forum, please.

27.3.2001 I'm back from CeBit. Read here about what I talked about with ASUS Support and AMD
16.3.2001

1007/FXD is quite in demand. www.braziliantech.com is online again - at least the download area. Good news! Thanx Dniel & Marcel !

1003e4 is available. It includes the ATA100 BIOS 1.02 B35 from 1007.

New temperature measurements for the temperature issue, regarding 1007/FXD

7.3.2001 New BIOS A7V133 1004Final is available. As always, first at the ASUS Germany Support Page.
5.3.2001

Finally, the section on overclocking is completed. Comments? In the forum, please !

BIOS 1007 is out... no dramatic changes as it seems. 1003.A Final for the A7V133 is out, too.

28.2.2001 Rumors have it that AMD tests totally locked CPUs. Time to say goodbye to overclocking? I hope not!
7.2.2001 Planet3DNow has an interesting article up regarding stability of the A7V. Unfortunately it's in German - but if you can read it, do so. Basically it deals with "DRAM Read Latch Delay" and "Memory Early/Delay Write". Setting these to 2.11 ns and +1.0 ns is reported to have made an unstable A7V stable. If you suffer from unstableness, try playing around with these values. This is the article
1.2.2001 You might already have noticed it : I totally redid the design. This should make reading this site a lot easier. The previous design existed only due to a lack of time (and talent). Damn it Jim, I'm a technician and no webdesigner! Also, I never had planned this site to be popular ;-)
As always : no frames, no javascript, no flash, no banners, no ads - just pure content ...
17.1.2001 A lot more Bootlogos have been added to my other website - unfortunately all the text is in German


(c)2001 Disclaimer - Mail to webmaster (preferrably post in the forum)