ASUS Boards

• ASUS P4C800-E MainBoard
• ASUS A7V MainBoard
• ASUS A7V266-E MainBoard
• ASUS P55T2P4 MainBoard
• ASUS SC200 SCSI Card
• ASUS MB Safe Mode -- Board Appears Inop

ASUS P4C800-E MainBoard

• 4 Memory Slots, 1GB Max Per slot. 4GB Max
• Matched Pairs of modules gives best performance.
• 184 Pin DDR SDRAM. ECC or Non-ECC.
• AGP 8x (AGP 3.0)
• Memory: DDR PC3200, DDR PC2700, DDR PC4000
• Dual-DDR400 Memory
• Intel 875P Chipset
• Intel Socket 478
• Intel P4 CPU (Zeon w/ 2 hyperthread cores)
• Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Ethernet
• To enable wake on PS/2 keyboard or mouse there is a jumper by the PS/2 ports which needs to be switched onto pins 2-3.
• P4C800-E Deluxe Product Page
• Root Downloads Page
• XXX BIOS Updates are complex, need specific versisions of AFUDOS Update tool, and BIOS may be dependent on who the board was purchased through.
• Afudos BIOS Update Tool V2.26
• P4C800-E Deluxe E1347 User's Manual
• The ATA/SATA controller setup on this board may be goofy for some operating systems. There is compatability mode, which gives you 3 out of the 4 channels available. That is for legacy (pre winxp in asus speak) operating systems. The other mode is enhanced mode, which gives access to all 4 channels (2 ATA, 2 SATA).
• Newer knoppii releases (post 3.2 or so) don't reliably detect optical drives when any interfaces are configured in enhanced mode. This causes knoppix to BIOS boot, then either hang looking for the CD, or discover the CD then panic when it tries using it in earnest.
• Great Summary of P4C-800 and I/O Controllers

ASUS A7V MainBoard

• Athlon CPUs 800..1200
• Socket A / 462
• 3x 168 SDRAM CL=2 or CL=3
• Primary & Secondary IDE.
• Promise IDE/RAID
• AGP Slot
• Latest BIOS A11 ???
• XXX two versions, 1.02, 1.05[.] ??? Way different boards + errors!

I've had problems with this board (at least one of mine) if the BIOS doesn't enable the floppy controller -- even if you don't have a floppy installed. Booting with floppy and controller enabled, ignoring floppy boot makes things work. This failed with linux, netbsd, and windows XP. It may have been an interrupt allocation (or other resource) issues versus what the hardware thinks the interrupts really do.

BIOS updates are important, random failures otherwise.

I've noticed potential problems with both CL=2 and CL=3 memory in the system. The system clocks for the slower memory correctly, but something is goofy. The memory works OK individually. It could be some bizzare difficulty with the one memory being confused by the signallng of the other.

XXX perhaps split this entry into two, one for the good board, the other for the newer board?

• A7V Troubleshooting
• ASUS A7V Download root
• A7V A1011 BIOS
• A7V BETA A1011.01a BIOS
• AFlash 2.21
• A7V E666 Manual
• A7V E601 Manual

ASUS A7V266-E MainBoard

• FSB 200 / 266 MHz
• 3 DDR DIMM Slots PC 2100 / PC 1600 DDR SDRAM
• 3 GB Max (3x 1GB)
• Via KT266A Chipset
• Socket A/462 -- AMD Athlon XP/ Duron / Athlon 550 MHz -> 1.4 GHz
• 5x PCI Slots
• On-Board Audio + Audio / Modem Riser
• Latest BIOS A1011
• Latest BETA BIOS A1015.002
• A7V 266 E Root
• BIOS A1011
• AFlash V2.21
• A7V266-E Motherboard Manual
• Memory: DDR PC3200 - CL=3 - Unbuffered - NON-ECC - DDR400 - 2.6V - 128Meg x 64
• Part Number: CT12864Z40B: 1GB, 184-pin DIMM DDR PC3200 (same as oth DDR)

ASUS P55T2P4 MainBoard

• Intel 430 HX PCI Chipset
• Intel Slot 7 MB
• Pentium CPU (233 MMX Max?)
• TAG SRAM 0 .. 256k .. 512k socket
• L2 Cache Upgrade Slot
• 4x 72-pin SIMM (in 2 pairs) 60ns ECC EDO (or FPM, or 70ns).
• Max Memory Size 64 MB simm -> 256 MB Max
• 4x PCI Slots, 3x ISA Slots (1 overlap?)
• Boots from SCSI or IDE CD-ROM.
• SYMBIOS SCSI BIOS
• P/I-P55T4P4 Pentium Motherboard User's Manual
• Latest BIOS is Year 2000 BIOS 0207, prior was BIOS 0205.
• Download Root

ASUS SC200 SCSI Card

• NCR / SYMBIOS PCI SCSI Card
• Download Root

ASUS MB Safe Mode -- Board Appears Inop

If an ASUS board fails to power up, it is probably in safe mode. Safe mode happens after an unsuccessful boot, where it never left the BIOS sequencer. ASUS apparently designed this to put the system into a runnable mode in case some inproper CPU or other Hardware settings were selected. Unfortunately it can make the system to appear totally dead, such as a failed power supply. A good hint that this is the case is that with power applied, the green power LED on the board is ON, but the front panel switches do nothing.

To power up the board you need to:

1. Turn off the hard power supply switch (or disconnect the cord)
2. Wait for the board power LED to turn off.
3. Hold down the reset switch and
4. Simultaneously turn the hard power switch on.

The system will boot directly into the BIOS, and say it is in safe mode, with a completely degraded (safe) set of operating parameters. Now, just exit the BIOS discarding changes, or just hit reset again. The system will then boot with the normal operating parameters you set previously.