Asking too much of a mother board?

Woodzzter · Post by **Woodzzter** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:21 pm

Currently I have a DFI LanParty nForce 4 board in my media PC. Due to the noise of the chipset fan and not wanting to reisk destroying the chip by changing over the chipset fans for larger heatsinks that need to be cut to fit, I am looking at replacing the main board.

I have had a look for main boards with the following:

Socket 939, PCI Express motherboard
1 x Gigabit LAN
3 x internal USB headers for 6 additional USB ports (4 for connection to front of case, 1 for case VFD)
1 x internal IEEE1394 port (for connection to front of case)
4 x SATA (Using 3 SATA HDD's in the system so boards with 2 x SATA ports are no good)
3 x PCI slots (Usually 1 of these is inacessible due to being next to the PCI-Express x16 slot and the location of the molex power plug on my XFX GeForce 6600 card)
Passively cooled chipset
8 channel sound
SP-DIF in/out connectors

To date I have only found motherboards that have most if not all of these OR they are the more expensive SLI boards that I do not need.

The ABit A8N Ultra board I was looking at is not longer in production, replaced by an actively cooled K8N board. Other boards have no SPDIF, 2 PCI slots etc.. or have all the above but are actively (and far from silent) cooled like my current DFI board.

I found a board (forget the model number) now that suited but was based on the ULi chipset. After searching for reviews and general opinions, no one is entirely sure of the future of this chipset and associated BIOS upgrades etc... now that it has been bought by NVidia and whether or not the current batch of boards will be suited to Windows Vista when released so I am a little reluctant to follow this path.

Can anyone point me to a board that might suit or do I have to go up to an SLI enabled board that will obviously have a much higher price tag.

Feel free to pick holes in any of what I have said - I am still new to this whole HTPC / Silent PC setup!

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:02 pm

Hello,

The Zalman northbridge HS is only $5 plus shipping -- it's aluminum, so cutting off a few of the pins at 1/2" or whatever fits is not too hard. To remove the stock noise maker, you just need to push out the center of the two pins on the back of the mobo, and then gently pinch together the sides, and then push it through -- easy pie. Clean off the (lousy?) TIM goop (to use a technical term!) and apply a thin coat of some decent stuff. Mount the little arms and puch the pins through the holes -- done, and it's be quiet.

Otherwise I'd recommend a Gigabyte mobo, though it might have to be an SLi. Go for the Zalman!

Woodzzter · Post by **Woodzzter** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:39 pm

Thanks Neil,

I have seen a few posts mention that on DFI-Street but I am not sure if the Zalman Northbridge heat sink will be sufficient to cool it. A lot of the guys on there have hand made heatsinks or cut away much bigger ones and fashioned now mounts for their heat sinks which is a bit too advance for me as far as getting it all to fit goes.

Also some of the posts regarding doing that have mentioned that they have chipped their chipset causing the mother board to be unstable and a bit flaky at times.

You definitely made it sound easy though! I will also have a look at the Gigabyte boards.

Flying Dutchman · Post by **Flying Dutchman** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 11:14 pm

Seriously, the Zalman NB47J is a good HS, as long as you have decent airflow through your system you should be allright.

It's easy to install too, and you won't have to buy a new mobo.

Like Neil said: go with Zalman! Seriously!

thrillhouse · Post by **thrillhouse** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:15 pm

This is the mobo I'm using for my HTPC:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/mot ... =GA-K8NF-9

There's also an Ultra version:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mot ... F9%20Ultra

Both will meet your needs.

TD22057 · Post by **TD22057** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 6:43 pm

Close but not quiet is the Abit KN8 SLI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813127225

Only has 2 PCI slots and no 8 channel sound. For me, the sound part is irrelevent since I'm using a card for that. Yes it's SLI but who cares since it's only $100.

Or go with the DFI SL4 Infinity:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813136164

It's got an active NB but it's in a good spot and would be easy to swap for a passive cooler. Again SLI but still only $108.