Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe stability problems

THREAD UPDATE:

Current as of July 30th, 2007

I'd like to consolidate all the latest "best" info into this first post so that people who come across this thread don't have to read hundreds of old posts to find what they're looking for.

How to get your ASUS M2N32-SLI DELUXE to be stable

MEMORY CONFIGURATION:

If you have two sticks of RAM, the general consensus is that the board is much more stable with the sticks in the A2/B2 slots (BLACK SLOTS), NOT the Yellow slots as the manual says. We recommend putting your ram in the BLACK slots.

HARD DRIVE:

Forum member Marchban was having serious issues until he replaced his Maxtor DiamondMax 10 hard drive with another brand. If you have a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 and cannot get a stable configuration, this may be the problem.
BIOS SETTINGS:

First, get the latest bios:

Asus M2N32-SLI DELUXE Bios 1201

Don't assume the default settings are the best!

Quoting TheLostSwede from OCZ Support

The board is (was?) incredibly picky with ram. It actually took two or three bios revisions before half of our ram worked properly and we had constant spd testing. After we consulted Asus, they implemented an option in the -32 board called SKEW. Set it to Advanced 450 on both channels and use +.1 more volts on the ram than specified. Also setting the timings manually to 5-5-5-15 or whatever the ram is specified for, instead of just running auto, helps a great deal. Note that the non -32 board does NOT have the SKEW option. In case you still have ram problems with the non -32 board, i highly suggest you rma the board and purchase another. The -32 board however, is a very good board once you have done the changes i mentioned above.

DRIVERS:

At least version 5.10.01.6110 SoundMax Driver (WinXP/2K/2k3) (Vista)
The current version of nVidia nForce 590 SLI drivers (9.35 at this writing)
VISTA drivers for the nForce 590 SLI Drivers (15.00 as of this writing)

Install the sound driver and nforce 590 drivers, then let windows update take care of the HD Audio stuff. At this point, your system should be somewhat stable. If you are still having problems, read the entire thread, as there are lots of good suggestions here.

Welcome to icrontic!


the original post:
Here are the specs:

Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
2gb OCZ PC6400 DDR2 Special Ops ram
FSP FX-600GLN power supply (SLI certified, etc.)
ATI Radeon X850XT Crossfire Edition
Athlon 64 X2 5000+ / AM2

Latest BIOS for the motherboard, latest Catalyst (6.6), XP SP2, latest nforce 590 unified driver, etc.

Everything in the BIOS is at stock. Nothing overclocked, temps are good. Memory has tested good.

Basically the computer is unstable. I will get random bluescreens, but it's not predictable. For instance, I had about 6 days straight of uptime for the last week. Sometimes the crashes are minor (like an app crashing out but the OS remains running), or FAHCORE65.EXE will "experience an error" and crash out, or a game will crash to the desktop, but other times, the system will hard freeze or bluescreen and then reboot.

Some games crash regularly. Oblivion and Psychonauts, for example, I can barely run. Oblivion sometimes runs for a full two hour session, but Psychonauts, I cannot play because it crashes way too often. In these cases, I suspect the sound driver. I turned off hardware acceleration for the sound and I was able to play for a full ten minutes before it crashed.

I don't think it's a hardware problem. It "feels" like a driver or a configuration or setting problem. Any clues?