Please recommend Nforce2 board

[Mark R]

I need to replace my brother's NF7 after he blew it up by trying to upgrade the RAM. Story is that he put a 2nd DIMM in, and smoke started pouring out from around the DIMM slots. Needless, to say it no longer works.

I'm looking for an nforce board, but don't want another NF7 because they are, to put it bluntly, junk.

I was thinking of an Asus A7N8x-x. I'm not desperate for SATA, Soundstorm, firewire or RAID - just the basics: integrated LAN and audio.

Does anyone have any comments about the Asus, or should I consider an alternative manufacturer?

 

[Megatomic]

The A7N8X-X is the bargain NF2 board from ASUS. I wouldn't recommend it. What about the DFI Infinity? It's a nice board and not their high end model either.

 

[Mem]

What about the DFI Infinity? It's a nice board and not their high end model either.

I`m using one at the moment after my EPox KT266A had too many leaking capacitors,all I can say is it`s excellent on stability,easy to setup and has quite a lot of features like Soundstorm,SATA RAID,LAN,USB 2.0,Firewire etc....and also designed for the overclocker ,if you want to go in that direction.

Review here. .

 

[11427]

I recommend the ASUS A7N8X, MSI K7N2 Delta L, or DFI. These are boards I have use and have had no problems with.

 

[Warhawk71]

No problems at all with my DFI NFII Ultra Infinity - great features and awesome support for those who need it at www.amdmb.com. Check out the DFI forum - Angry_Games is a full time DFI rep/support guru.

 

[Jittles]

I'm lookin for an nforce2 board also. Which of the ones you mentioned overclock well? I want to try my hand at these hot little barton 2500+'s.

 

[Mem]

I'm lookin for an nforce2 board also. Which of the ones you mentioned overclock well? I want to try my hand at these hot little barton 2500+'s.

It`s a good overclocker the DFI,

You also won't find anyone complaining about the NFII Ultra Infinity holding their overclock back either. The NFII Ultra Infinity produced the highest FSB overclock at a fully stable 434MHz DDR clock with tight 2.0-3-3-6-1T memory timings. We didn't even need to use our air conditioner to reach this level either, which is simply an outright amazing feat with our current test system.

Stability: 20/20
- Design: 13/20
- Features: 17/20
- BIOS: 10/10
- Overclocking: 10/10
- Performance: 19/20
-------------------------
Total: 89/100 Points - Good

 

[osage]

for cheap it's hard to beat the Shuttle AN35N-Ultra, it is a decent OC board with just the basic onboard stuff.

never had a problem from mine, I do have Asus, Abit, and Epox nf2 boards that I like, but the AN35 is great for the money

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: osage
for cheap it's hard to beat the Shuttle AN35N-Ultra, it is a decent OC board with just the basic onboard stuff.

never had a problem from mine, I do have Asus, Abit, and Epox nf2 boards that I like, but the AN35 is great for the money

I'll 2nd that.

 

[MDE]

My Abit NF7-S has been rock solid.

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: MDE
My Abit NF7-S has been rock solid.

Maybe, but I made the mistake of buying 3.

Of those, on 2 the chipset fan has seized solid after less than 1 year or use All of them were unstable (thousands of memory errors in memtest, and prime95 would error out) - irrespective of what type of memory was used, crucial, corsair, or twinmos (PC2700 or PC3200). RAM and motherboards were RMAd because of this, with no change. USB is flaky on at least 2 of them.

Maybe I got a bad batch, but I hope you can understand why I will never, ever buy Abit again.

 

[Tango57]

Albatron KX18D Pro nForce 2 Ultra has all the overclocking options without the SATA/RAID for $62 at Newegg KX18D Pro

 

[Megatomic]

Mark R, sorry to hear about your misfortunes with NF7-S boards. I don't believe that your experiences with them are typical, though. And maybe it was good thing I replaced my NB hsf with a Zalman passive cooler.

 

[Mark R]

Just an update:

I've set up the new DFI board with 1 GB of RAM - and it is running sweetly.

Only gripe is that the CPU socket is so close to the edge of the board that the HS cannot be mounted with the board out of the case - and it is virtually impossible to mount the heatsink with the board in the case, because there is only about 3mm of clearance between it and the PSU.

I had a bit of trouble trying to coax the old installation of Win2k to run on it - the LAN drivers wouldn't install, despite that fact that it is the same chipset. A reinstall fixed this. Additionally, the USB2.0 driver supplied with the board severely disrupts USB operation - my USB drive simply would not work until I uninstalled that driver. Without the driver, USB performance is satisfactory and stable.

Some other good news as well:

1) The spontaneously combusting DIMM was successfully RMA'd, and rather amazingly the other 512 DIMM in the NF7 was also intact. So I now have 1GB of RAM spare

2) Got the latest NF7 bios - Finally, after 6 months of waiting, USB now works on my remaining NF7s.

 

[Mem]

Additionally, the USB2.0 driver supplied with the board severely disrupts USB operation - my USB drive simply would not work until I uninstalled that driver. Without the driver, USB performance is satisfactory and stable.

I tried it without the supplied USB 2.0 driver being I had a slipstream XP CD(clean install).

I do agree about the tight CPU area,however never had any problems,anyway glad yours is up and running sweetly,great board for the price.

 

[ParatoOptimal]

You've thrown me for a loop.

I was all set to get an NF7-S.

I've scanned the AT forums and found good things about all the boards mentioned in this thread.
The NF7-S seemed to be the overwhelming victor.

NF7-S is the top pick of MaximumPC mag readers.
MaximumpPC's editors like the Albatron K8X800 Pro II for any non-FX AMD MOBO.

Elsewhere on AT I've read that the NF7-S and the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe are the only two boards that multi over 12.5x with a mobile Barton.

 

[yelo333]

I can vouch for both the NF7-S(I have an NF7, which has given me ALMOST no trouble - keep reading),although, my NF7 has the above-mentioned problem with the north bridge fan. it hasn't really bothered me, as it just makes extra noise(fan is banging against heat sink, I believe) when I first turn it on for about the first 15 seconds, and then, all is quiet, with the fan spinning as fast as ever.

I can highly recommend the NF7-S in good conscience

 

[MegaWorks]

NF7-S V.2
NF7-S V.2
NF7-S V.2
NF7-S V.2....
..................
..................
..................

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B DLT3C 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.775v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nForce2-U400)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2800RPM
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

 

[loic2003]

yeah, my NF7-S has been rock solid, coudn't fault it. i've not had one Windows or program crash in the 6 months I've used it whcih I recon is pretty amazing for a windows PC... I replaced the chipset fan with a zalman passive cooler, the smaller fans make the most noise so I thought it best to get rid of it.You must have had a bad batch or something....

 

[Aenslead]

I would have suggested the A7N8X-X. Even though I love high-end components, I figured I wanted a no-frills 100% stable motherboard. I NEVER use Firewire, don't have SATA drives yet (and don't plan on geting any time soon, until performance boosts are considerable) and dual memory channel is useless unless you have integrated video. So I would have recomended the A7N8X-X above the rest.

I have been using it for almost 7 months now, and I can easily say its the best motherboard I have ever used. Stable, fast, and no frills. The fewer components are integrated on-board, the better, IMHO.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: ParatoOptimal
You've thrown me for a loop.



I was all set to get an NF7-S.



I've scanned the AT forums and found good things about all the boards mentioned in this thread.

The NF7-S seemed to be the overwhelming victor.



NF7-S is the top pick of MaximumPC mag readers.

MaximumpPC's editors like the Albatron K8X800 Pro II for any non-FX AMD MOBO.



Elsewhere on AT I've read that the NF7-S and the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe are the only two boards that multi over 12.5x with a mobile Barton.

What you read is correct, the NF7-S Rev. 2.0 is a solid, reliable, and speedy motherboard. I've had mine for almost a year now, the only problems I've had with it is PEBKAC (I blew my BIOS trying to flash it. I bought a BIOS Savior kit and all has been well ever since.)

 

[nemesismk2]

I am currently using a MSI K7N2 Delta-L with a XP3200 and MSI FX5900 XT. I've had no problems at all and I am very pleased with it's performance and stability!