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Building t3h c0mp
Gallstaff - Jul 5, 2003

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  gameboy900 Jul 16, 2003
1. You're hurting yourself getting this board as you are not getting the full power out of the chipset. All nforce2 (and 1) boards support dual channel. You want the Asus deluxe because it's the best of the bunch. I really don't see why you can't spend the extra couple bucks on what is possibly THE most important piece of a PC when it comes to getting the full potential out of it.

2. For the dual channel stuff go read page 25 of the online manual.

 fivefeet8 Jul 17, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Alexvrb@Jul 14, 2003 @ 12:27 PM



 Remember that only a few models (such as the Asus A7N8X deluxe) actually have the Sound Storm audio. All the others use shitty onboard audio that uses your CPU to do the work (think winmodem). So even though this model is more expensive, it saves you from having to buy a sound card, and its sound performance (although not features) surpasses even an Audigy 2.


Forgot to mention, my Abit Nf7-s Rev2 board has Sounstorm Audio as well. I got mines for a little over $110(US).

Here's a link to the full specs:

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/produc...ories...

 Gallstaff Jul 17, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by gameboy900@Jul 16, 2003 @ 11:09 PM



 1. You're hurting yourself getting this board as you are not getting the full power out of the chipset. All nforce2 (and 1) boards support dual channel. You want the Asus deluxe because it's the best of the bunch. I really don't see why you can't spend the extra couple bucks on what is possibly THE most important piece of a PC when it comes to getting the full potential out of it.



2. For the dual channel stuff go read page 25 of the online manual.


OK dude you can tell me that i'm hurting myself all you want I dont care but is that board good yes or no. I dont want to know if it's good compared to the deluxe I just want to know if you think it's good, not fantastic jut good.

 Curtis Jul 17, 2003
Gallstaff, it is always hard to give a definitave answer to a question like that. You really need to have used the board in question to be able to answer it authoratively. Is the board you are asking about good? Probably good enough for the immediate future. Will it "last"? Who can say? It might give you many prolems from the word go, or maybe it'll create some issues further down the track. Maybe it'll be fine.

What GB is telling you is that the Asus board is the best you can get and it would be a mistake to compromise on the quality of such an important component. I've just placed an order for the Asus deluxe board - it should be arriving soon so I'll tell you if it's as good as everyone else is saying.

 gameboy900 Jul 17, 2003
Just so you know I have yet to encounter a review article about the Gigabyte board on any of the more popular PC tech sites. So that might be a judge of how good it is right there for you.

 Gallstaff Jul 17, 2003
Argh where do you guys think all this money is coming from?

 Curtis Jul 17, 2003
I dunno...you asked the question in the first place though. Ditching the SB and getting the Asus probably just about balances though...

 Gallstaff Jul 17, 2003
Well not really cause the sb is 33 and i didn't really intened to spend more than about 80 on a mobo. So it's a tad more expensive but I guess it seems like it's important so i will try to work tha tinto my budget.

 ExCyber Jul 17, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			OK dude you can tell me that i'm hurting myself all you want I dont care but is that board good yes or no. I dont want to know if it's good compared to the deluxe I just want to know if you think it's good, not fantastic jut good.


What's "good" will always depend on what's important to the person evaluating it. To give an extreme example, the Tyan K8 Thunder is completely useless to a hardcore gamer because it lacks an AGP slot, but server administrators would probably love it because it has PCI-X, supports up to 12GB of memory, and has optional onboard Ultra320 SCSI. Without knowing what's important to you, it's hard to give any kind of meaningful evaluation. If you simply want to know if people are generally satisfied with it, take advantage of Google Groups... (keeping in mind that complaints will usually outnumber praises on any board - it's the patterns that are important). In fact, I'd recommend a good scouring of Usenet for known problems before any major hardware purchase...


  
	
	

		
		

			Argh where do you guys think all this money is coming from?


gb did originally suggest scrapping the SBLive to make up for part of the difference in going to the A7N8X. It's only part the difference, but probably the main reason he keeps on about it is that you're basically sitting here and saying you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars on this machine but can't justify an extra $40 or so to get a really good mainboard.

 Gallstaff Jul 18, 2003
Hey chaintech is a good company right i'm getting my GF4 Ti from them and just makin sure I hear they're good though has anyone had problems with them?

 Gallstaff Jul 19, 2003
Also can anyone tell me what bios to watch out for or anything because I really dont know what good bios are and what bios are ass.

 Alexvrb Jul 20, 2003
My friend had a chaintech video card. It worked fine. You only typically run into problems with video cards with really cheap brands, because even the fairly inexpensive ones can follow a reference design without screwing up. With motherboards, its not so simple. Designs vary radically. So with graphics it usually comes down to price and the extras, which I've never cared about personally. If I want to OC my GPU a ton, I don't buy a more expensive model of the same one, I get a cooling kit like the Vantec Iceberq4 CCB-A4P Pro. Err, or one of the smaller variants, if it doesn't fit your card.

As far as BIOS goes, if you mean the BIOS on a mainboard, that's not really an issue. Whatever the motherboard uses, it uses.

With the nForce 2, the reason why I stressed getting one (like the abit fivefeet mentioned, although only Revision 2, or the asus deluxe model) with Sound Storm was not just because the audio is better "quality". What I've saying it is makes your computer perform better in applications that use hardware acceleration (like games). It even gives you a higher FPS in games than an Audigy 2! In the end it doesn't matter, but if you're going for cheap don't bother buying a SB live either. Onboard works fine.

 Curtis Jul 22, 2003
Well, the Asus board arrived and I'm mostly pleased with it.

Installation was a breeze - a clean install of Windows 98 was simple and using the driver CD I was able to setup the on-board LAN (Nvidia LAN only, so far) without hassle. I was underimpressed with the flimsy backplate for all the connections provided with the board, but it does the job.

The contents page of the main manual seemed to have absolutely no correlation with the actual content, which wasn't really an issue for me since I don't need no stinking manual.

Onboard audio seems to be fine, but there appears to be some issues with the midi. I get this curious phasing effect on stereo soundfont which frankly sounds shit. I was plesantly surprised that the onboard card supported soundfonts - if I get this phasing effect sorted I probably won't bother getting an audigy or audigy 2. I've read that you only get the best performance from the onboard

Thus far it seems a very stable board, though I havent had a chance to give it any kind of serious workout (wait for 3DS Max 5 :devil ) and I am yet to use any of the advanced features like SATA or the dual LAN.

 Alexvrb Jul 22, 2003
You should go straight to Asus and get the latest drivers for the chipset/sound/LAN. Also, the manuals you can download from their site are typically going to be much more advanced, if you are curious. A BIOS update would be a good idea too.

 racketboy Jul 22, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Gallstaff@Jul 19, 2003 @ 09:23 PM



 Also can anyone tell me what bios to watch out for or anything because I really dont know what good bios are and what bios are ass.


Aren't there only like 2 major brands of BIOSs?

Some OEMs like Dell have their own though

You shouldn't need to worry about getting anything skinky

 Gallstaff Jul 24, 2003
ARGH holey hell I'm having some problems you guys. I want to take out this proprietary hard drive out of my gateway and I mean it looks like a normal hard drive and all but there's no way I can phsycally remove it. I can get the tso screws closest to the removable side of the computer but the other are so close to the other side a screw driver can't find in between it and the side. How do I get this bastard out?

 racketboy Jul 24, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Gallstaff@Jul 24, 2003 @ 05:53 PM



 ARGH holey hell I'm having some problems you guys. I want to take out this proprietary hard drive out of my gateway and I mean it looks like a normal hard drive and all but there's no way I can phsycally remove it. I can get the tso screws closest to the removable side of the computer but the other are so close to the other side a screw driver can't find in between it and the side. How do I get this bastard out?


can you show us a picture of it?

I know my Compaq one was a pain in the butt to get out, but it was very do-able.

 Gallstaff Jul 25, 2003
I wouldn't really have any way of gettign a pic but I can try as soon as i take it i'll up it for you

 Alexvrb Jul 25, 2003
Is it mounted directly to the case, vertical-style, or is it in a bay of some kind? Either way, with shoddy cases like that if its REALLY impossible to remove it (which seems odd, there's probably a way) then you could just destroy the case and get it out.

 racketboy Jul 25, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Alexvrb@Jul 25, 2003 @ 06:35 PM



 Is it mounted directly to the case, vertical-style, or is it in a bay of some kind? Either way, with shoddy cases like that if its REALLY impossible to remove it (which seems odd, there's probably a way) then you could just destroy the case and get it out.


yeah just start unscrewing stuff.

on my Compaq, it was impossible to get most of the screws off but there way a way to yank it out of the tray without unscrewing it.

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