Owner of Asus A7N series....

[Ed_Phoon]

I noticed that Asus A7N series motherboards have only 4 mofset, meaning they are two phase power design.
This seem to be unalign with Asus's quality tradition.

Did you see any voltage unstable when overclocking?
Did the mofset bacame very hot when running?

 

[Crashman]

Asus's quality tradition? LOL, I have their top end P4 board and the vCore is all over the place. And their P4S8X had a design flaw, did they recall it? No.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Ed_Phoon]

Yeap! Actually I don't buy or test any Asus motherboard for quite some time, the last Asus motherboard I bought was CUBX ;-)

Not just Asus, but I feel like other motherboard makers too, falling in quality standard, espeacially on power circuit design. I haven't seen Intersil mosfet on motherboards for quite sometime.

Now, I only buy Intel motherboard for P4 system, and Abit motherboard for Athlon system.

I buy Intel motherboards for their quality and components.

I buy Abit motherboards because, if my memory serve me well, Abit is the only motherboard maker that has the guts to admit that they 'uses some bad capacitors in some of their products'

Remember the low esr capacitor failure event which involve a numbers of Taiwan matherboard makers. The electrolyte used in those capacitors was a incomplete formula stolen by Chinese engineer that work with Japanese engineer, and then this electrolyte was sold to many capacitor makers.

In my memory, only Abit had the guts to admit 'Yes, we used bad capacitors, send it back and we'll replace you'

Did any other motherboard maker said something like that?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Ed_Phoon on 12/23/03 03:38 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

Actually I broke that story in 2001, the original journalist of the original article exposing the problem got his start from me.

Abit didn't have a problem replacing the boards, they'll replace any board that's less than 3 years old without charge (they pay return shipping).

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Ed_Phoon]

Hey Crash!
Are you Carey? Or Gary?
Kudos to you to break the news!

Many newbie overclockers only looking at brand, magazine or web page recommendation, they should look further.

Here the <A HREF="http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb03/ncap.html" target="_new"> link </A> for those who may interested.

I started my overclocking journey since the 386 days. So I think I can call myself veteran overclocker.
In my experience, power circuit is the favorite place for motherboard makers to save cost, so when I looking for motherboard, the first place I'll looking at is the power circuit design, the components used. A good power circuit is vital for system stablality and overclocking.

For today's power hungry CPU, a 3 phase power design is minimum, a 4 phase one is better.
Gigabyte has some 6 phase power boards(and very expensive)

BTW, Crash, did you test the Leadtek k7ncr pro2 board before? How's the power circuit perform?

 

[Crashman]

Nope, I'm the guy who broke the story to Carey, I put him in contact with Gary, and I was only mentioned <A HREF="http://www.reed-electronics.com/electronicnews/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA255062&rid=0&rme=0&cfd=1" target="_new">HERE</A> Carey was VERY PISSED when he offered to reimburse me for overnight shipping on a package of bad capacitors and I told him I didn't have the pocket money to send them!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>