Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (
More info?)
On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 23:39:00 -0400, ByTor <ByTor@snowdog.com> wrote:
>In article <553kb1dua1tako6ch4cvhopsd2d71hb8vh@4ax.com>, millerdot90
>@SPAMlessosu.edu, milleron says...
>> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 22:54:46 -0400, ByTor <ByTor@snowdog.com> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <1shhb1tv9b4q7jhj2um3in86mu80oug4rm@4ax.com>, millerdot90
>> >@SPAMlessosu.edu, milleron says...
>> >
>> >> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:53:38 -0400, HST <HST@n0mail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:52:22 -0400, ByTor <ByTor@snowdog.com> wrotf:
>> >> >
>> >> >>Silicon Image SiI 0680 ATA/133 Controller
>> >> >>
>> >> >>I assumed you had seen it in my comments to milleron? Did you see my
>> >> >>specs I posted?
>> >> >
>> >> >ok, I am a little confused, the Silicon Image controller you talk
>> >> >about, is that an actual PCI card or is it actually part of the
>> >> >motherboard, because when I do a search for it on Google, it's not
>> >> >showing me a specific card.
>> >> >
>> >> >and yes, I did see your comments and your specs, I'm still trying to
>> >> >understand the A8N-SLI motherboard fully before I take the leap buying
>> >> >it with my other planned purchases.
>> >>
>> >> There's a lot to understand. I'm not speaking from experience because
>> >> mine will not be built until 96 hours from now, but I've spent
>> >> hundreds of hours poring over the manual, this News group, and almost
>> >> every forum on the Internet that discusses the board.
>> >>
>> >> The salient points for your situation are:
>> >> 1 -- don't count on using the SI SATA controller for anything but
>> >> RAID. Since you're not anticipating RAID, I'd recommend not trying to
>> >> allocate any drives to it during your planning phase. (I suppose that
>> >> you could install more than one drive there with JBOD disk spanning,
>> >> but that would force you to reformat those drives, and I don't think
>> >> you want to do that.)
>> >> 2 -- Don't plan on attaching any optical drives to the nVidia SATA
>> >> controller, not even something like a Plextor SATA burner. This will
>> >> change with newer nVidia chipset drivers, but I'm not aware that it
>> >> has as yet.
>> >> 3 -- Be sure to order the A8N-SLI Premium and NOT the A8N-SLI Deluxe.
>> >> In case you're not familiar with the Premium, it replaces the
>> >> southbridge fan with a heatpipe cooler that gets rid of all of the
>> >> noise inherent to the board, itself, and hopefully makes the board
>> >> more reliable. It uses different BIOS versions, and Asus has listed
>> >> it as X2 compatible from its first iteration. If not for the recent
>> >> advent of the Premium, Asus presumably would have come out with its
>> >> next revision of the A8N-SLI Deluxe. Considering your almost
>> >> unlimited budget, you do not want to buy a Deluxe. It would be like
>> >> buying a revision 1.02 board when the 1.03 is already available..
>> >>
>> >> There is no advantage to having lots of relatively small HDs compared
>> >> to a few relatively large ones. You may need to burn three optical
>> >> discs at once. I can't second guess you on that, but I sure hope that
>> >> when you get this world-class dream-machine A8N-SLI x with an X2
>> >> 4800+, you don't clog up the case with way more HDs and cables than is
>> >> good for the power and cooling capacities of your PSU and case. That
>> >> would seem like such a shame.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Ron
>> >>
>> >
>> >Thanks for putting it in a better technical perspective for myself
>> >also.....New boards are becoming more complex, less PCI slots, improved
>> >PCI, lesser relience on AGP, more focus on SATA/RAID.....etc....It
>> >appears the newer boards will cost more in the end run to stock the
>> >board itself.....Wondering when IDE will be fully dismissed? I'm sure my
>> >A7M266 board has hit the archives already, but damn I love this board,
>> >last of its kind I believe on the AMD 760 chipset, or maybe the A7M266-
>> >D?
>> >Anyway, I appreciate the explanation as it confirms my thoughts but on
>> >my limited understanding, I hear what you're saying but my education
>> >needs to be enhanced anyway....I never claim to be a hardware
>> >specialists but I know what works for me.........I clearly did not peek
>> >at the OP's board well enough.....Oh well, learn something new every
>> >day...... ;0)
>> >
>> >Cheers............
>>
>> Interesting that you have an old reliable A7M266. That's what I'm
>> typing this message on (built June, 2001 and upgraded to a
>> Palomino-core 2100+). I'm writing while taking a short break from
>> bench-assembling my new A8N-SLI Premium.
>
>It still pumps.....Cool as the arctic.... ;0)
>When I first bought it I had to flash the bios with an older processor
>in order for it to accept my Athlon XP 1600+......This little bit of
>info was left out when I bought the board, no wonder I couldn't get it
>going when I first built it.....Sent it back where I got it from and
>they flashed it for me......Well worth it though, this board handles
>very well for what I have connected to it....Not sure if you seen the
>specs I posted to HST..........
>
>
>> With just the RAM and video
>> card, it POSTs!!! The Thermalright XP120 HSF is virtually silent.
>> The southbridge is warm to the touch, but I have to leave my finger on
>> it for a few seconds to be sure it's above room temperature. The heat
>> pipe coming from it is literally cool to the touch, and the heatsink
>> at the other end is literally cool to the touch (although it's close
>> to the 120mm fan on the XP120, the fins are perpendicular, so the
>> fan's not blowing directly on it). With no load at all, sitting on
>> the benchtop, the CPU is 23°C.
>> I'll post this same message in the thread on the BIOS Savior, but it's
>> so important that I don't mind inserting it twice: Since the IOSS
>> BIOS Savior model RD1-PMC4 was certified for the A7N, I though it
>> might be OK for the A8N-SLI, and it does work. Importantly, I could
>> NOT flash it from awdflash.exe (latest version downloadable from Asus)
>> because it got a checksum error and refused to proceed. Before giving
>> up, though, I rebooted and tried the Asus EZ-Flash (ALT-F2 during
>> POST), and it flashed the BIOS Savior without any problem. Rebooting
>> from the BIOS Savior worked like a charm. My original BIOS is now
>> sitting securely atop the BIOS Savior, safe from any harm. Should I
>> ever encounter any BIOS problem, I'll just flip the back-panel switch
>> and be booting from my original BIOS again. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
>> perhaps the best $24 you can spend on a single item.
>>
>> Ron
>> Ron
>>
>
>Sounds like a great board and would be inbterested to know furthur how
>ya make out.......Board like that for it to run top notch for me would
>be an investment as I don't like shortcuts with hardware. 2 PCI slots
>make me uncomfortable though, but hey I guess I could live with it.....
It has three PCI slots. Windows XP is installed and running without
any problems. I can't use SiSoft Sandra to benchmark it for some
reason. Just doesn't work on this hardware. May have to wait for a
new version of Sandra.
Ron
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