I'm looking at picking up this board because it's inexpensive and apparently stable under most conditions EXCEPT the board APPEARS to have problems when using GOOD memory with strict memory timings.
Here's some text from a review of this board from Nexus.net regarding the above observations.
Nexus.net: "Here's where it gets interesting. We tried the AN35N with 2 pre-tested sticks of Corsair's excellent XMS3500 RAM. Not only have these sticks run as a pair at DDR-400 with 2-6-2-2 timings, they have done so with default volts. This has been tested on a number of cross-platform motherboards from various manufacturers. Imagine our surprise, then, when the board failed to load a fresh copy of Windows XP Professional with these timings (we always install the OS with relatively relaxed timings). Raising the voltage to the maximum 2.7v didn't cure our stability problems. Using another pre-tested pair of Mushkin EMS PC3500 modules didn't help either. Using any number of high-performance PC3200+ modules resulted in almost instant crashing when loading the OS. However, relaxing the memory timings to 2-3-3-7 cured all ailments. It appears as if the board is applying some odd latencies when set to 2-2-2-6 in BIOS. To confuse matters a little more, running at 166FSB caused no problems whatsoever, even with the tightest latencies. The sample board also had a problem restarting from 200FSB upwards. It was even money whether it would reboot correctly or not. In its defence, it did power-up perfectly each and every time."
Any comments on the above review observations? I've searched the various message boards at AMDMB.com. NForcers.com, here, etc. and there doesn't appear to be much discussion on this issue.
Thanks for your input.
Here's some text from a review of this board from Nexus.net regarding the above observations.
Nexus.net: "Here's where it gets interesting. We tried the AN35N with 2 pre-tested sticks of Corsair's excellent XMS3500 RAM. Not only have these sticks run as a pair at DDR-400 with 2-6-2-2 timings, they have done so with default volts. This has been tested on a number of cross-platform motherboards from various manufacturers. Imagine our surprise, then, when the board failed to load a fresh copy of Windows XP Professional with these timings (we always install the OS with relatively relaxed timings). Raising the voltage to the maximum 2.7v didn't cure our stability problems. Using another pre-tested pair of Mushkin EMS PC3500 modules didn't help either. Using any number of high-performance PC3200+ modules resulted in almost instant crashing when loading the OS. However, relaxing the memory timings to 2-3-3-7 cured all ailments. It appears as if the board is applying some odd latencies when set to 2-2-2-6 in BIOS. To confuse matters a little more, running at 166FSB caused no problems whatsoever, even with the tightest latencies. The sample board also had a problem restarting from 200FSB upwards. It was even money whether it would reboot correctly or not. In its defence, it did power-up perfectly each and every time."
Any comments on the above review observations? I've searched the various message boards at AMDMB.com. NForcers.com, here, etc. and there doesn't appear to be much discussion on this issue.
Thanks for your input.
Facebook
Twitter