I love my A8N-SLI Thread.

[plqsvaja]

I havent any problem whit my board, its the best i ever had.
I dont get it, it is a board whit a lots of "Toys" on, maybe its to advanced for non "pros" ????


6800ULTRA
A64 3500+ 0.90
420W PSU
SB Audigy2

 

[CraigRT]

some people get lucky,
some people get newer revisions,
some people suck.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

:beer:

 

[zakee00]

this is going to be a boring thread

 

[Mr. Lennon]

some people wish they could throw it out the window.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Some people like it, but are new to PCs and spending too much time troubleshooting.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=36&threadid=1496896
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=37&threadid=1514903

 

[Mr. Lennon]

I have been building PCs for awhile and never have I experienced so much trouble with a motherboard before.

 

[SenorBiggles]

I enjoy the little troubles. It's like reading a good mystery novel.

"No one suspected...the dual 12 volt rails!" dum dum dum.

 

[EvilHomer]

I guess Im one of the ones that suck....I loved mine when I took it out of the box ...and now ..Im still waiting for my board to come back RMA'd Wooo Hooo

 

[squonk]

Absolutley Love them (2). The boards are just plain fun and awesome with all the features and cool stuff ya can do with them. No issues aside from the early 1002 bios not seeing changes but once 1003 came out im in heaven.

 

[imported_slippy]

I'm loving it dual booted with winxp and fedora core 3. I was nearly dying after I had ordered this board in early January when I found this forum while it was shipping and read all of these experiences.

I am convinced, however, that many people who brought problems here were not exactly telling the whole truth about their scenario, by likely leaving out things they may have done or may not have done (possibly not grounding themselves properly or who knows what). When a person has the exact same problem with two different a8n-sli boards bought from different online stores, and have the exact same problem with both, that really makes me question the builders ability.

But after seeing how many people RMA first and then ask questions later, I am thoroughly convinced that the RMA policy has been thoroughly abused.

What disappoints me most is that I really like my board, but I feel like it has been politically assassinated by people who didn't know what they were doing in the first place and tried to wing it on a high end system.

 

[EvilHomer]

Oooh Nooo you didn't ... I have built about 2 dozen computers and never had a problem .But I am to somewhat blame for my MB problem.. a quick but simple mistake and that was that...but not 100% my fault... But I have to agree with you that alot of the problems with this MB have been end user caused..

 

[imported_slippy]

Hey, someone said the thread was going to be boring... needed to add a little spice to this meatball.

EvilHomer, what was the mistake? I tried to find it in your previous threads but didn't see anything.

I also want to say that it isn't that I don't believe there actually are defective boards out there too, just nowhere close to what has been reported.

There was one comment about a month ago which read "A8n-sli won't post!!". It turned out the person forget to plug in the 4-pin 12 volt for the cpu. I mean, how much more obvious could it be, there's nearly a full page photo of the precedure (plug it in) in the manual.

But on top of it, many people have an honesty (lack thereof) complex. How many of these problems were caused by someone not paying attention when they put their cpu in and bent half their pins, then tried to straighten them, and then pressed them into the motherboard... after that they write "A8n-sli won't post!!! Mobo possibly fried cpu!! Asus is bad!!! Don't buy this board!!!"

Having been a counselor for many years, I know for a fact that most people having problems will not tell the whole truth, as long as it protects them from some sort of blame. The other day there was a thread here about how someone saw a person try to take an a8n-sli back to the store he bought it from because it wasn't working... it had turned out that he didn't use stand-offs when he built it!!! I seriously wonder what he told the representative of that store, as I'm almost certain that it was of "the dog ate my manual" variety.

 

[EvilHomer]

Na mine was alot more moronic ..I have an older 430w PSU and I actually plugged into the correct 20 pins and nothing happened I then tried the other 20 and the fan went on and the MB fried MY PSU pins were either worn or didnt have the notches ..because it slipped right in with no effort ..now I am somewhat patiently waiting for it to come back..sniff ... please no flaming ..i've already done enough to my self...

 

[LTC8K6]

Does ASUS know how you fried the board, Evilhomer? I am curious if they gave you an RMA when they didn't have to. That would be the sign of a good company.

How many folks who like the board are using 2 video cards in it?

 

[EvilHomer]

they asked me the problem ..I told them I plugged the PSU in and poof and they gave me an RMA number I sent it in ..I'll let you know when I get it back ...BTW ..I had an issue with an AMD 2100 +CPU ..and there awsome ..they even Cross ship for a $25 fee ..they sent me a 2200+ and I had it the next day...

 

[ahurtt]

As far as builds go, this motherboard / system was my smoothest one yet. The machine posted and booted the very first time I turned it on with no problems and I went straight to install OS. Only problem I encountered was my own fault for not completely seating the SLI selector card properly the first time. I spent 4 or 5 hours and even got on the phone with a BFG tech in the middle of the night but as I was about to give up I went over the inside of the case with a magnifying glass and saw the SLI selector was ever so slightly out of line. Ever since then, the problems I am having are solely to do with the new nVidia drivers and the BIOS. Ever since I put in BIOS 1004-001 and the latest ForceWare 71.25 WHQL beta and the new nForce drivers, problems gone. Overclocked my 3200+ and Prime95 stable at 2.3GHz running memory at 1T and 1:1. And that's good enough for me. There is nothing physically wrong with the hardware on this motherboard, just user error and poor BIOS and software. That stuff will sort out in time.

 

[plqsvaja]

My 3500+ cpu runs stable at 2600mhz
3Dmark 05 6200mark
CPU 29c
chip 28c
Watter on both.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: slippy
What disappoints me most is that I really like my board, but I feel like it has been politically assassinated by people who didn't know what they were doing in the first place and tried to wing it on a high end system.

I totally agree!

I think the lure of bleeding edge technology, attracts many people that have no business attempting to build these highend systems . There are a several threads in the last few weeks that emphasize this point.

One post says
"I'm a first time builder, I don't want to overclock, I don't want any setup problems or have to trouble shoot anything, I've bought everything but the motherboard, which one should I get the A8N-SLI or the DFI Ultra SLI?" Dooh!!!

Thats like saying I don't want to drive fast, I've never worked on cars before, which one should I buy the Ferrari or the Porshe?. I felt like posting "Return everything that you've bought and buy a Dell", neither one of these boards are for beginners!, but I didn't.

One person RMA'd two boards because the power switch lead from their case was incompatable with the pin layout on the board. Instead of rewiring the case lead, they scream this board is a POS! and RMA it. Many others are surprised when they build their new system using a 3yr old 350watt generic power supply and it won't boot.

If you want to learn to swim, you don't start in the middle of the Ocean!!!

Why on earth would anyone pick an NF4 SLI board for their first build? I've been building systems for 20 years and I love tinkering and problem solving and being a beta tester, and was still very nervous about this build.

 

[EvilHomer]

I love tinkering and problem solving and being a beta tester, and was still very nervous about this build

So do I and usually I have never had a problem ..I've only RMA'd 2 times before ...bother were after over a year of use..

but man, I knew there was no more problem solving or tinkering left when that Puff of smoke shot out from under the heatsing on the board ...you should of seen the look on my face ..it was priceless..I felt like a 7 year old child who just broke his favorite brand new toy and my mommy was knocking on my door....

 

[JMag]

heh... YEAH!

If you don't know how to turn-on a computer without a switch using a flat head driver, you shouldn't be building a computer... What a moron...
I didn't even use a case switch for the first few days I had my a8n-sli up... well actually now that I think about it, my rig is again outside a case on the MB box... but thats a different story...

 

[Tanclearas]

Best system ever. Easiest build ever. Everything fit, and everything worked.

That doesn't mean I wasn't nervous. Hell, I was sweating when I went to power it up for the first time.

The only problems I had were to do with the NCQ issues in the first driver, and the BSOD troubles with the ethernet driver included in the nForce4 Standalone Kit. I'm now using the ethernet driver off the Asus CD, and the new IDE driver, and the system is solid.

 

[Waylay00]

GuitarDaddy, that was me...I didn't mean that I don't want my new rig to be fast, it's just that I want the board that I choose to run fine at stock. Also, I didn't say that I have never worked on computers before. I said that if at all possible, I would like the board to work fine out of the box.

 

[aqon04]

I have to say that i agree with you 100%.

People will look at some of these forums and say, nah i think i'll leave that board alone.
I think about 90% of peoples problems are either inexperience or user error.

 

[imported_caf2461]

Having an old version on XP and a NQC Maxtor made my initial attempts frustrating. Once i pitched the maxtor everything else was pretty standard troublshooting. Now this is one of the most stable boards I have owned. Only overclocking 10% though. Waiting for non beta bios for stable overclocking. Eats every game up I can throw at it.