s939 nForce4 board recomendations

hravn · Post by **hravn** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 1:15 am

operandi wrote:After further research the leading canadate is the Abit AN8 Ultra. It seems to have a good layout, nice Rubycon caps, and all the required features including three controllable fan headers.

About the only downside I see is that the fans can only be brought down to 7-8v so careful fan selection may be a concern.

Well, the AN8 has some stability problems, especially when trying to run 1T command rate.

There is a 53 page thread about these boards at XtremeSystems here.

You should check out the Asrock 939DUAL-SATA2 with the ULi M1695 chipset. Has passive cooling and is really cheap. Does not have firewire, "SATA2" (meaning NCQ) or alot of voltage options, but is really stable and fast.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 1:29 am

hravn wrote:You should check out the Asrock 939DUAL-SATA2 with the ULi M1695 chipset. Has passive cooling and is really cheap. Does not have firewire, "SATA2" (meaning NCQ) or alot of voltage options, but is really stable and fast.

The ASROCK is a great economical board, but it doesn't have the ability to control fans through the on board fan headers. You need a fanmate or something similar to control the voltage, but then the control isn't automatic.

hravn · Post by **hravn** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:40 am

stromgald wrote:
hravn wrote:You should check out the Asrock 939DUAL-SATA2 with the ULi M1695 chipset. Has passive cooling and is really cheap. Does not have firewire, "SATA2" (meaning NCQ) or alot of voltage options, but is really stable and fast.
The ASROCK is a great economical board, but it doesn't have the ability to control fans through the on board fan headers. You need a fanmate or something similar to control the voltage, but then the control isn't automatic.

Hmm.. I guess since you would be saving alot of money going with the Asrock board you could buy a T-balancer as well

Also, I was wrong about the "SATA2" support, it apparently has one such port.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 12:26 am

So the AsRock has AGP and PCI-e. Can i run it with both an agp and pci-e card for 4 monitors? It is not a high end board but I can't seem to find one I want.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 1:55 pm

The ASRock can handle an AGP and PCIe card at once to drive 2 or 4 monitors. The chipset is actually deisgned to handle graphics cards from the three different possible interfaces, PCIe, AGP, PCI at once. Here's some more information on the board and chipset:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2489
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2524
It overclocks well too. But, ASUS did cut some corners. They don't have their on-board BIOS backup feature, and other nice features found on their ASUS high-end boards.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:28 pm

The ASrock board may suit me just fine. Sounds like a nice chipset too. However, I just saw this board that has onboard DVI and VGA from the Nvidia 6150 chipset.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131570
This is great because i can save 50 bucks on a video card and still have the ability to upgrade to a PCI-e video card with the onboard video providing up to 4 monitors. I remember reading that this chipset allowed you to do that. I'll have to read some more on it to make sure. I don't really need 4 monitors right away, I just wanted the option in the future.

The 6150 chipset is geared towards HTPC computers so it would be really sweet if they also gave you component output.

This might be my next HTPC chipset if they make one in S-754. I love the semprons cause they run so damn cool and are cheap

Rory Buszka · Post by **Rory Buszka** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 9:17 pm

So it sounds like AN8 is a real lemon, plagued by all kinds of BIOS problems that make it useless for A) Silencing (when the fans can't be decreased to 5V) and B) Athlon X2 processors.

So the question is, what boards in the price range (~$99-$130) will do the CPU Fan speed control and the AMD Athlon X2 processors? Or would it be better for me to take the chance with the AN8?

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:01 am

I think 5V is too though of a standard to meet. I mean at 5V, some fans won't even run. Even the Q-Fan feature on ASUS motherboards only get down to about 8.5V with the BIOS. But, using Speedfan you can get it lower. ASUS A8N-E or A8V-E (or some other A8N or A8V derivatives, I'm too tired to find ones in the price range) are good motherboards in the price range you mentioned that can handle X2 processors and have fan speed control.

Rory Buszka · Post by **Rory Buszka** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 2:02 pm

Here's an important question, then: Does ANYONE give you the ability to throttle the CPU fan back to 5 volts? How much do I have to pay, and to whom, to get some 5v action around here?

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 2:47 pm

From my experiences with MSI, ASUS, and ECS motherboards, I haven't seen BIOS control that allows for you to turn the CPU fan down to 5V. You can do it on MSI boards and probably ASUS (haven't tried it though) by using the Speedfan utility (its a free downlaod, just google it).

nici · Post by **nici** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:17 pm

DFI nF4 LanPartys allow fan control between 0 and 127%(though t seems like 100% to me if i watch the rpm), at least with the included monitoring program. Never tried adjusting it directly from the bios, but it keeps the setting even if you shut down the program so i dont see the point in making it more difficult by fiddling in the bios..

Rory Buszka · Post by **Rory Buszka** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:54 pm

I had a chance to play with a friend's DFI LanParty board and I didn't like the fan speed control. It would start from zero at a user-defined temperature, and then it would vary the voltage from there, and when the voltage was increased just enough, the fan would just twitch, and then start to run when the voltage was enough. Would Speedfan work on the AN8 board?

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:04 am

It runs all fans at 100% at start up, but yes if you have some fans that spin just under load they might have a problem starting if you have the percentage set just so the fan would spin. I like to have my fans at a constant speed, so i just set them and leave them the way they work best together.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:07 am

If the AN8 can vary the voltage in its BIOS, then you should be able to use Speedfan on it. Speedfan can only use what is on the motherboard, but the whole point is that it gives you more control over the fanspeed (rather than just low, med, high settings in the BIOS). If you want to make sure, you could check Speedfan's website for a list of compatible motherobard, but I'm not sure how up to date their list is.

Operandi · Post by **Operandi** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 12:05 pm

Can someone provide some documentation to the problems the A8N has, particularly regarding stability and A64 X2?

I was also under the impression not many if any nForce4 board were actually compatible with Speedfan.

Chaendler · Post by **Chaendler** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 12:45 pm

LOL, I thought all Nforce4 motherboards hang up

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 1:16 pm

asrock board is the best out i feel. other than that you have to fool with cooling northbridges, you have to make sure you have a non x2 chip around to first flash the bios, etc. only brand new 130+ boards made lately have x2 bios installed. eh.

but the name sux. as rock. assrock. why?

still its my board. goign that and an opteron 170. will be the pimp daddy.

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 3:18 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote: but the name sux. as rock. assrock. why?

It, er, Rocks Ass!

Still, it could be worse, like AsStone or AsPebble

Sorry..

btw. is it just me or does Arctic Silver5, aka AS5, make your mind think about something else than Thermal Interface Material

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 3:25 pm

nici wrote:btw. is it just me or does Arctic Silver5, aka AS5 make your mind think about something else than Thermal Interface Material

This is a sure sign that you've spent too much time on the internet.

nici · Post by **nici** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 7:25 am

jackylman wrote:
nici wrote:btw. is it just me or does Arctic Silver5, aka AS5 make your mind think about something else than Thermal Interface Material
This is a sure sign that you've spent too much time on the internet.

Nah.. Cant be that since i really only use e-mail and browse SPCR, or could it..?

No i just think its my twisted sense of humour in general

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 11:27 am

Found another interesting board:
This one is ati express 200 with DVI and VGA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130520[/url]

s939 nForce4 board recomendations

AN8=Lemon?