n-force chipsets-Hot or Not?

[car3on]

anyone else here using an n-force chipeed m/board? Thoughts? Is the onboard sound worth using, or is it the source of all woes on these boards? I have an asus a7n266-vm/lan and it seems to be buggy as hell(see thread "Graphics hell on earth!")should I use a pci sound card, and what are the advantages/disadvantages of using the onboard?

Thanks in advance for your help dudes...

 

[mztykal]

I'm loving my nForce board. I have the same one you do. The sound is *almost* as good as the Turtle Beach SC I had before. I don't mind. And the graphics are good enough for my web surfing/design. I don't really game, so that doesn't bother me. Only thing I don't like is the kinda blurry 2d. That's it.

 

[Bovinicus]

From what I have heard, the onboard sound on the nForce is quite good. It is leaps and bounds above most other onboard audio solutions out there. That might be different with the latest C-Media 6-channel onboard sound device that has been so popular lately among motherboard manufacturers. The onboard NIC is also supposed to be quite good. The onboard graphics aren't anything special, but they do fine if you are an occasional gamer or less. Also, I have not heard too much about bugs with the nForce chipset. Most people regard it as one of the platforms for AMD CPUs.

 

[car3on]

What o/s are you using, have you got the latest bios(1004)and is yours the digital revision? What order do you install your drivers/os patches(windows update) in? I am trying to figure out what is going on with mine. I have not been able to get it to run properly since I got it a week ago.. What are your bios settings, that may help...thx

 

[XeonTux]

I'm likely building one for a friend. A7V266-VM

I was disappointed when I learned the new boards require a hardware hack (the jumper that wasn't) to access the FSB tuning in the BIOS setup. It would have been easy to boost it up a little. Now I might just get the retail cpu for the 3 year warranty... Reliability and warranty are more important than overclocked performance anyways in this case I guess


car3on: I've read lotsa probs people had with win98 drivers. Which did you install/first? Asus from CD, Asus from site, or nVidia?

 

[RanDum72]

You need at least Win98SE for nforce to work reliably. MSI doesn't even recommend Win98SE/ME for their nforce boards.

 

[car3on]

The devil is in the details I have just installed winMe and all the latest drivers for it, which actually install themselves, unlike the 98se setup....
The funny thing about it all is, M.e. which is the supposedly worst of all the windows 9x's, is the only windows I have not had one problem with...
All games are working, nothing is crashing, and all is happy in happyland. To think, that after a week of stuffing around, cr3ppy old Me could have saved me all that trouble, if only I had a little more faith.

I am just glad I can finally get down to the business of enjoying this little speed demon pc I have here,
free of woes and or misery. Thanks guys, for all your help, I was beginning to lose it there

 

[nortexoid]

i have the same board as u running rock solid in winxp w/ SP1 installed.
using the latest 1.07 drivers from Asus' site, which seem to be the exact same latest nvidia reference drivers offered on nvidia's site.

audio works great..haven't tried the digital out tho...i'm sure it would work fine as well.

EDIT: the drivers aren't the same - the asus ones are older...updating now

 

[Gstanfor]

You would be better off using windows 2000 or Windows XP. Under Windows Me you will get cases of "the galloping system timer" where time suddenly starts running about 3x normal for the board. This usually happens with internet connections (of all things) and certain games (Ghost Recon is a known offender).

For everyone using Windows Xp/2K, check windows update - there is a new audio driver available - 5.10.2883.0

Greg

 

[Adul]

great solid mb. Cant wait for the nforce 2 mb to be out

 

[Megatomic]

Adul: I too was waiting for the nforce2 to come out. Do you think a Barton/nforce2 combo has enough incentive to make an upgrade worthwhile from my Palomino/KT333 combo?

 

[John]

Originally posted by: SeekingTao
Adul: I too was waiting for the nforce2 to come out. Do you think a Barton/nforce2 combo has enough incentive to make an upgrade worthwhile from my Palomino/KT333 combo?

If you have the money to burn and enjoy upgrading your computer; go for it.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: John

Originally posted by: SeekingTao
Adul: I too was waiting for the nforce2 to come out. Do you think a Barton/nforce2 combo has enough incentive to make an upgrade worthwhile from my Palomino/KT333 combo?

If you have the money to burn and enjoy upgrading your computer; go for it.

Or I could save up a bit longer and get a Sledgehammer system when it is available.

 

[car3on]

Tis a good thing that I won't ever be likely to play ghost recon then lol
No guys, I haven't noticed that happening under M.e. As I said, it has been running absolutely bug free since I installed it. 98se, however did something not unlike that. I am not over fussed on xp pro or 2000, what is xp home like? I don't get off on the million and one administrator settings, and constantly running background slowdown modules, nor was I stoked on the constant problems xp was giving me with games. Truth be told, I bought this rig for three things, making music, playing games, and skurfing the nett....M.e. does all these things perfectly, moreover, if you guys'd had the week of horror-type annoyance that I have, you wouldn't wanna skroo with something that is finally working. So anyway, as I asked before, is xp home any good? Any of you guys using it? How often do you have to call in your activation code, I had heard it put that it was an every upgrade(drivers, etc)kind of thing. Isn't there a patch out there somewhere for that?

 

[MikeMike]

i have xp pro, and xp home. I like pro, because it gives you more options, and seems to be a bit faster.

There are ways to get xp pro, just pm me if you have "questions" about it

 

[spanner]

the nforce chipset is the most stable AMD chipset I have used to date. my abit NV7-133R setup is solid as a rock. I hasn't crashed in a month.

 

[randomlinh]

anyone mention that asus' nforce1/2 solutions do NOT use nforce sound, but realtek? Anyone know why?

 

[passign]

I don't care, I've been using my 1gig hertz thundercat via setup for 2 years now. this system is stable as a rock if i don't play games. lol what system isn't? anyway i'm ready to give the nforce a try. and why not?

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: mztykal
I'm loving my nForce board. I have the same one you do. The sound is *almost* as good as the Turtle Beach SC I had before. I don't mind. And the graphics are good enough for my web surfing/design. I don't really game, so that doesn't bother me. Only thing I don't like is the kinda blurry 2d. That's it.

lol

 

[RanDum72]

anyone mention that asus' nforce1/2 solutions do NOT use nforce sound, but realtek? Anyone know why?

I have Asus A7n266-C & E mobos and they use the nforce APU with Dolby Digital. One model, the A7n266, uses a C-media chipset (8738) because the southbridge is just the regular one without the APU. I've never heard about them using Realtek sound but Asus does use Realtek for their built-in LAN.

As for the blurry 2D, the limit should be around 1024 x 768 for acceptable detail. Anything higher becomes blurry.