It appears quite a few people (myself included) purchased this motherboard recently (Nov 2004) to find it didn't work straight out of the box. This is because the A8V-Deluxe was shipped with a bios that didn't recognize the new 939 pin 3400+ processor or the newer Winchester 90nm processors (since they were released only recently).  
 
The result is that when the power is turned on, your VGA monitor screen is blank and the Post Reporter voice repeats over and over "System failed CPU test". For those who forgot or didn't know to hook up their speakers to the line output will both see and hear nothing. They think their new PC is dead. Remember that the post reporter requires the speakers to be connected. Also ensure that if you have 2 RAM memories, that they're in the blue slots DIMM_A1 and DIMM_B1 (slots 1 and 3). If you have a single memory it has to be in blue DIMM_B1 (slot 3) only.
 
ASUS has corrected this bios problem and now the A8V supports the 3400+ 939pin processor and the 90 nm processors. You must use the new 1008 (or beta 1009) bios which you can download from their site and use EZFlash feature of the A8V to flash a new bios. Be sure to clear the bios first by using the CLRTC jumper. Follow these detailed instructions and you'll be good.
 
You need to go to the ASUS site under 'download' for the A8V Deluxe motherboard and get the latest bios release (using another computer of course ), which is VERSION 1008 or beta 1009.
 
Unzip this file and put it on an empty formatted floppy and rename it A8V.ROM and put it in your floppy drive.
 
You are now going to use the feature called EZFlash (which you can read about in your manual too). This feature doesn't require the system to be operable, as is required if you used the conventional DOS boot flash utility method.
 
With the computers power completely off clear the bios by moving a jumper on your motherboard called CLRTC from pins 1-2 to pins 2-3 for about 15 seconds and then move it back to default pins 1-2. I found it wasn't necessary to remove and replace the battery, but you can do that too if you wish.
 
Now turn on the power of the power supply and then the front panel power switch and then immediately press and hold <ALT + F2> until you hear the floppy disk loading. If you get the nice lady reporting "System failed CPU test", you've failed and you have to start over by clearing bios again and then carry on trying to get EZFlash to work. It's a bit finicky with regard to when you press <ALT + F2> to get the floppy to start reading, but you'll get it. It would seem that as the system starts Post and before it finds a fault is the key time that EZFlash can be launched with the <ALT + F2> interrupt. Make sure your keyboard and floppy are installed correctly. This means the floppy cables white stripe pin 1 is up on the motherboard and 'usually' left on the rear view of the floppy drive.
 
Once the floppy starts clicking and reading, the VGA monitor screen will now show your flashing progress by saying floppy found and erasing bios and flashing new bios etc and then the computer reboots when successful. Again, you can read in your manual the exact wording of what the EZFlash reports on your screen  
 
Once it reboots and you get past the post reporter and it tells you to hit DEL to enter bios edit mode - do so. This will allow you to make changes you want to make to the bios, like making the floppy the 1st device to boot from, and if you have a 3400+ to change the HT speed from 1000Mhz to 800MHz.  
 
Now save and exit bios and when it reboots it will go to floppy where you have your disk utility to format and partition your SATA or IDE drives etc.....  
 
On another interesting side note, There also seems to be several forum reports of problems with this motherboard with regard to underpowered PSU's. The usual caveat about ensuring you use a PSU with a +12v rail of at least >18 amps appears to hold true - specifically if you're using larger video cards such as the 6800GT or XT800XT and a lot of peripherals (HDDs, DVDs, etc.). Where you might have gotten away with an underpowered PSU before, it doesn't seem to be the case with this motherboard.......