Need NForce2 Board with the following features:

[RichC]

Looking to upgrade my old MSI KT3 Ultra. However, as other review sites have found out, none of the NForce2 boards on the market have a complete set of features. Specifically, here's what I need:

-Assembly holes (for my Zalman 7000A)
-RAID (for my dual WD 80's in RAID 1)

Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[Peter D]

Chaintech 7NJS Ultra ZENITH

That was the only I found so far.

 

[RichC]

Doesn't seem like it has RAID.

 

[Jeff7]

There's 3 IDE connectors on that board. According to the manual:

This connector is used for connecting IDE HDD, which builds IDE RAID.
Using IDE RAID, the IDE HDD needs to be set to Master, not Slave;
otherwise, the HDD can not be detected. For 7NJS Ultra, one/two Serial
ATA(s) and one IDE RAID or two Serial ATAs need to be used at the same
time. Otherwise, single HDD, which is plugged in IDE RAID or Serial ATA
can not be become RAID function.

So it looks like for RAID, you're going to need one SATA drive. Sounds like a weird implementation.


One nifty feature - a special header for blue or white LED's. It provides the slightly higher voltage that they need. I think standard LED's run on around 2.5V, but blue/white ones usually need ~4.5V.

 

[RichC]

Drat... all my drives are standard IDE. Unless somebody comes out with integrated RAID, I'll just have to go for a standard Nforce2 board and get a RAID card.

 

[JSSheridan]

Have you thought about getting a couple of PATA to SATA converters? Peace.

 

[Fern]

I'm pretty sure the Abit NF7-S has built in raid. It lso ships with the serillel converter. This alows you to use a IDE drive in SATA/raid

 

[Jeff7]

I bought a RAID card somewhere (forums or Newegg, don't remember) for only about $20. Low CPU usage, and decent performance. I don't know how it'd stack up against another card, but it seems to work just fine for me.
Found a link - that's the same one I've got; runs my two WD 80GB drives in RAID 0 just fine. It's not exactly loaded with advanced features - it just does basic RAID 0, 1, and 0+1, nothing more.

 

[jdogg707]

NF7-S doesn't have mounting holes

 

[yodayoda]

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?featureItem=1&description=13-130-418

MSI K7N2 Motherboard for AMD Processors Model Delta-ILSR Retail

new for $115, refurb for $59, in stock

has both PATA and SATA RAID builtin.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: jdogg707
NF7-S doesn't have mounting holes

Around the socket you mean? If so, my Alpha 8045 and NF7-S rev 1.2 would disagree with that.

 

[Fern]

RE: jdogg707. What do you mean about no mounting holes? Please explain further
EDIT: Oh, for the fan

 

[OpTiX]

Originally posted by: jdogg707
NF7-S doesn't have mounting holes

yeah they do