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nForce Motherboards: Need some recommendations

C

chucky2

Lifer
Well, someone has asked me to build them a computer for (relatively) cheap: $1000 USD.

He already has a PNY Geforce3 64MB, a monitor (I think its a decent 17"), and cheap speakers (2 of them). He'll probably go and get some better speakers once the system is built.

Basically, he needs everything else, including a DVD-ROM and a CD-R/RW.

Also, he wants and AMD based system, so no Intel here (not a flame, just a fact).

He'll mostly used it for gaming, with regular e-mail/Internet use. The system will rarely be moved, so there's no need for Al cases - unless their cheap. 🙂

I've been thinking about going with an nForce motherboard and using the onboard audio, since from what I've read its pretty good. He doesn't need the onboard video, so I was also thinking something based on the 415-D chipset. The Asus A7N266-C would be perfert, providing its stable.

What I'm most looking for is stability, then speed. I don't want to have to deal with a 4in1 driver every month, or some wierd VIA USB imcompatibility. I'me 400 miles away, so its not like I can just drop on by and fix it for him.

My questions are:

1. Is anyone running an nForce motherboard around here? There doesn't seem to be many people talking about them, even though they've been out for a while now. See #2.

2. Is there any known problems with nForce in general, or specific problems with them?

3. How's the stability?

4. Does anyone know when the Asus A7N266-C is coming out?

5. Thanks! 🙂

Chuck
 
I've been running an MSI nforce since december and it rocks.

Not quite as fast as a 266A solution, but yes it's totally stable.

The only real problems with it are:

#1. Some people are experiencing random LAN dropouts using onboard NIC. 90% of these were fixed when they updated the BIOS, but some people are still experiencing them.

#2. The 5.1 audio doesn't work w/ analog speakers unless it is playing a true 6-channel recording. Thus, no games or such will get surround sound unless you are using a set of digital speakers.

#3. If you plan on using onboard video, you REALLY need two sticks of RAM so you are running in twinbank 128-bit memory mode, (assuming you want to game in any way). Without it, your video card is gonna be running like something resembling a trident card (not really, but it sucks). If you are using a seperate vid card though, this isn't an issue and twinbank won't really affect performance that much.

Also note, people are saying that nvidia is working on making the drivers for 5.1 work w/ analog speakers for a future driver update, but I've never heard nvidia say anything about it. (I mean working as far as converting A3D or EAX to 6-channel surround, which works now with the SPDIF out).

j
 
I recently picked up an Abit NV7m MicroAtx board to go in a new Lan Box design.
The performance is great , stability is fantastic. On this board however with the current BIOS there are absolutely no OCing options at all.
No multiplier adjustments, no FSB choices other than the standard 133/133/66 133/100/66 100/100/66 being Memory/FSB/AGP. There is a CAS2 setting.
In Sisoft Sandra at default settings memory bandwidth: 1860/1790 which is pretty good .

Things about this particular board.
It has AC97 audio, It does have the 420D bridge so it does have nVidia's 5.1 digital, however you have to buy a seperate add in SPDIF interface. ( I think that is LAME )

I have a GF3 and ran a default 3DMark 2001 bench and was pleasantly supprised to see a 8800+ score. Thats awesome. 😀
I bought an Alpha 8045 to go on this board and it fits perfectly, so if you have a big HSF it'll fit. 🙂

The MPU seems to get very hot, I suppose because of all the features. Abit used a very small amount of thermal paste, so I added Acrtic Silver to the HS and it seemed to make quite a difference.

I tried initially to install the board over a VIA machine in XP. Thats is a NO GO. It wont boot into the OS. However a clean install was a snap, no problems at all.
Abut elected to not use the onboard NIC feature and instead added a Realtek. Why? I have no clue.

Except for no OCing , I really like this board.
I have an Audigy card installed now until I get that darned SPDIF add on. It works great, I wasn't so sure it would.

Interesting thing about the BIOS. Many motherboards that have onboard video will default to the AGP slot when an AGP card is added. The nForce does to, BUT the options for the onboard video also DISAPPEAR in the BIOS after adding the card, thats kinda neat. ( Frame Buffer line in particular )






 
Thanks jfunk and SilverBack for the replies! 🙂

I'm really glad to hear about the stability. I just don't want to have to support this thing after I build it....well, support this thing the least I have to is more like it. 🙂

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to drop in a seperate NIC for him or not. I'm thinking no because I believe all he's going to use it for is the very rare LAN party, so I'm thinking it won't be used much at all. So, hopefully, any issues will be resolved by then.

Video won't be a problem as he's already running a PNY Geforce3 64MB in his current machine. Thanks for the info though!

As for the RAM, it definitely going to be 2 256MB sticks. I'm leaning toward Crucial with the 15% AnandTech discount, however, the Mushkin supporter in me is trying to make the rationale that CAS 2 is worth the extra $50 USD (total) over CAS 2.5. 🙂 We'll see how the rest of the machine can be built while coming in at the requested price before I start making exceptions. <background chant>Mushkin, Mushkin, Mushkin...</background chant> 🙂🙂

I'm going either Asus or MSI, leaning toward the Asus. I really think I'm going to wait until the Asus A7N266-C has been released for a week, then I'll go ahead and order it. That should give people enough time to start reporting any bad horror stories. 🙂 I've already read too many threads on Abit, so they were out even before I started this little project. $25 for an RMA is $25 too much in my opinion.

That is cool about the video options though; not very cool about the mul. and FSB options (or lack thereof). Wierd, since Abit has usually been one to push the overclocking urge, rather than suppress it.

Maybe because its a MicroATX board?

Thanks again for the replies! 🙂

Chuck

 
On my MSI, the onboard video settings don't disappear when I install an AGP card. Thats a good idea though. Perhaps they did it so people didn't get confused about the frame buffer, since mine still shows it and it can still be changed and everything, (although it does nothing).


Also, another note about ease of support on this board. It has a unified driver package, so if there is ever a problem and the person needs to update for some reason, you just tell them to go to nvidia.com, click on drivers, nforce, and their OS. Very easy.

MSI also has live bios update feature, but it may be a little sketchy with this board. The latest BIOS update required you reset the BIOS w/ jumper after flashing or it wouldn't POST. Lets hope that doesn't show up with any future updates and you actually have an easy to update BIOS too.

j
 
I have had my nForce (MSI K7N-420 Pro) for nearly two months now. It is the most stable board I have ever had. Love it and will not go back to VIA. However I do have to correct something that jfunk said.



<< #2. The 5.1 audio doesn't work w/ analog speakers unless it is playing a true 6-channel recording. Thus, no games or such will get surround sound unless you are using a set of digital speakers. >>


Sorry man, but I have full 5.1 sound working through analog speakers (Inspire 5300) from all my media. MP3s, games, everything. The music and movies are attainable through PowerDVD XP for now, and with later driver updates from nVidia it will be available through all players. For games, however, you have to have something that supports A3D or EAX. As long as this is present you will be able to play games in full 5.1 analog.

Hope that helps,
Vampiro
 
Great feedback everyone, keep it coming! 🙂

jfunk- Thanks for the additional info. Are you running any USB devices? If so, have you experienced any problems with them on your nForce motherboard?

PUNKtotalled- Your sure you want an Abit motherboard?

vampiro- Thanks for the report on stability, since that's what I'm most concerned about. Also, that's good to know about the analog 5.1.

Two additional questions:

1. What games don't support EAX or A3D? Wouldn't all games support this by now?

2. jfunk and vampiro: Why the MSI board over the Asus one? Just curious.

Thanks again everyone! 🙂

Chuck
 
does Nforce board like MSI support 4.1 channel? How's the sound by the way? I have the Logitech Z-560 and i was wondering if i can connect front and rear channel with it?
 
1. Nothing based on the Q3A supports surround sound.
2. I chose MSI because I find Asus overpriced and I liked the feature set of the MSI a little better.

Secondly, yes the MSI board will support analog 4.1, and it sounds great.
 
my A7N266-e has been very stable for me, mildly overclocked (140mhz fsb) with an XP1700+ and crucial ram

Side question...anyone seen any reviews or ANYTHING about the Abit NV7M board??
 
vampiro- How exactly does Q3A sound? I mean, if you have a 5.1 analog setup, what happens when you play Quake III?

Chuck
 
Another happy nForce owner here. 🙂

The MSI K7N420 Pro in my secondary rig is solid as a rock, performs great, and was easy as pie to install (both physically and driver-wise). The one "issue" I had with this board was the whole memory slot issue, but that was fixed a couple months ago when MSI releases the "superstability" BIOS update, which fixed my problem immediately (however, I'm not using recommened RAM so it's my fault anyway...).

I don't know a lot about speaker and audio technology, but I do know the sound on this board is awesome. The NIC has worked perfect for me too, and the integrated GeF2 core actually isn't all that bad (of course you need 128-bit dual channel for good performance).

Overall this is by far the best motherboard purchase I've ever made. 🙂
 
I was also wondering about the Abit board. I like the fact that it's 133. I don't know if I'm gonna go with 133 stuff (HD and ram) yet, but just the fact that it has it sound good for the future. I also like it cuz it has raid. I don't know anything about raid, but I want to try it, so this seems like the board for me. A friend told me that Abit doesn't have the greatest reputation (RMAing and stuff) so I'm a little bit hesitant. I planned on using all the onboard stuff (lan, sound, video). All that's left to get is HD, ram, CD-R... that stuff. Any suggestions? Are there any other nforce boards on the way?
 
I think at this point, I'm sold on the Asus A7N266-C whenever Asus finally decides to release it.

redly1 and AGodspeed- Thanks for the info! It's exactly what I'm looking for.

hungry4eva- I'm currently looking for the rest of the computer. When I get it all done, I'll make a post in the General Forum asking people to critique it.

I'll also update this thread with a link back to the General Forum post.

Maximum exposure baby!!! 🙂🙂

Thanks everyone for your help!!!

Chuck
 


<<


<< #2. The 5.1 audio doesn't work w/ analog speakers unless it is playing a true 6-channel recording. Thus, no games or such will get surround sound unless you are using a set of digital speakers. >>



Sorry man, but I have full 5.1 sound working through analog speakers (Inspire 5300) from all my media. MP3s, games, everything. The music and movies are attainable through PowerDVD XP for now, and with later driver updates from nVidia it will be available through all players. For games, however, you have to have something that supports A3D or EAX. As long as this is present you will be able to play games in full 5.1 analog.

Hope that helps,
Vampiro >>



Dude, please tell me how you got this setup. Then post it at www.msi.com.tw forums, because you are the only nforce owner I have ever seen that has 5.1 analog audio working with surround sound in anything besides DVDs and 6-channel recorded WAVs. TONS of people would love to know how to do this, including MSI, cause they tell people it doesn't work too.

What games do you have this working on? I heard you say on a later post that Q3 doesn't have any 3D sound, but it does support A3D.

I don't care about MP3s or movies, just tell me how you got ANY game to work w/ sound comming out of all speakers. I have the exact setup as you. It is setup properly, because I get the 6-channel test wav to work.

Now, my understanding of the problem as it stands now is that the audio chip DiCE thing is only capable of encoding x,y,z based sound into a dolby digital signal, not breaking it down into a 6-channel analog signal. Thus, unless the original source of the sound has 6-channel info imbedded, it cannot be converted to 6 channels.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated by MANY people. PLEASE let us know!



j
 
jfunk
I have posted how to get 5.1 analog working at www.msi.com.tw. It is under a post entitled 5.1 Analog. So far I have gotten UT, Deus Ex, and Emperor: Battle for Dune to work. Basically, you just have to go into the settings menus and tell it to use surround sound. It is really that simple. Also, you need to make sure that your OS is set to use 5.1 speakers, because otherwise it will not work.

As far as the MP3s fo, you need a piece of software that can be set to use a 5.1 speaker system. So far the only one that I have found is PowerDVD XP. I am certainly hoping that the next driver release will make it so that I can use Windows Media Player and all sounds will come out in full 5.1, but for now PowerDVD Xp works. On a side note, the bass is a little weak in PowerDVD XP, but that can be overlooked when you consider that you can finally use your full analog 5.1.

Vampiro
 
vampiro (and jfunk)- What happens if someone uses a 5.1 digital setup?

Does this cure the problem of not being able to have normal speakers?

Thanks again! 🙂

Chuck
 
Well, that solves that then.

I'll just tell him he's got to get a digital 5.1 setup.

Shouldn't be too hard for him, he's single. 😉

BY THE WAY: <drum roll>

The Asus A7N266-C has debuted on PriceWatch today.

SpartanTech has it listed at the moment for $124 USD.

Word of caution though: When I went to their website, they have it listed as A7N266-C-WOA. Until I confirm it, I'm believing this means With Out Audio.

What good is the board if it doesn't have the CNR (or whatever) audio card with it?

So, check before you buy.

Soon as I get word back from them, I'll post back here.

Chuck
 
🙁🙁🙁

Well, I called SpartanTech and talked to a Sales guy.

After explaining to him that one of the best things about these boards was the audio, he went and checked.

He has confirmed that this board doesn't do onboard audio.

Now, this is a sales guy, so take this with a grain of salt or two.

I don't know if the board just doesnt have the ACR sound card included with it, or if just doens't do audio at all.

So, bad news for those of us waiting on the Asus A7N266-C with audio.

Good news for people looking to add their own audio.

Guy from SpartanTech had no idea when they were going to get the A7N266-C's with audio, but said if he had to guess, it'd probably be another 2-3 weeks!

Asus, tell me it ain't so! :Q

Chuck
 
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