a7v880 - any happy owners?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

hi all,

i've been thinking of using the a7v880 for new systems. after googling thru this
group for "a7v880" i noticed a fair number of "problem" posts. not surprising
given the tendency of folks to only post when they are experiencing trouble.

so, anyone out there happily using an a7v880?


ciao,
david
---
I thought I finally understood everything.
Then I regained consciousness.
- pw (PhotonWrangler on candlepowerforums.com)

 

[Paul]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

In article <gcpid1p8g5lv3pec7s27nvf9gs9pmtcuro@4ax.com>,
davidb.removetheprecedingdotandthissentence@panix.com wrote:

> hi all,
>
> i've been thinking of using the a7v880 for new systems. after
> googling thru this group for "a7v880" i noticed a fair number
> of "problem" posts. not surprising given the tendency of folks
> to only post when they are experiencing trouble.
>
> so, anyone out there happily using an a7v880?
>
>
> ciao,
> david
> ---
> I thought I finally understood everything.
> Then I regained consciousness.
> - pw (PhotonWrangler on candlepowerforums.com)

The private forums can help with your quest. There are a
large number of forums, of which I only use a few. Here
is a sample thread.

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=367408&highlight=a7v880

All motherboards have problems of one sort or another. It
is the problems that have no obvious fix that kill the
reputation of a motherboard.

I like my A7N8X-E Deluxe and would recommend it - it
is picky about RAM, but if you pick up some CAS2 memory
for it, it should work just fine for you. It only gets
picky about RAM when run at DDR400. At DDR333, even
CAS3 will work. There are other brands of Nforce2
motherboards that have a good reputation, if you
are looking to save a few dollars.

To get to roughly the same price as the A7V880, you might
research the A7N8X-X board (or equiv from other manufacturers).
It is single channel, but since a FSB400 AthlonXP can
only theoretically move 3.2GB/sec, a single PC3200 bus
is enough to keep it pretty full anyway. The dual channel
on the A7N8X-E buys about 5% difference in performance,
which is not too significant.

As far as power supplies go, my peak consumption running at
3200+ equiv rates, with 3 sticks of RAM, is 3.3V@6.4A
5V@17A 12V@0.55A. The board draws most of its power from +5V.
If using a high end video card, the video card could draw
5.5A from +5V. Disk drives are 1 amp on +5V each. These
numbers soon add up, and 5V@25A is a bare minimum for this
board with a good video card (and judging by appearances, these
same rules should apply for the A7V880 too, as it has no
+12V 2x2 connector that I can see).

Paul

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Previously David M. Besonen <davidb.removetheprecedingdotandthissentence@panix.com> wrote:
> hi all,


> i've been thinking of using the a7v880 for new systems. after
> googling thru this group for "a7v880" i noticed a fair number of
> "problem" posts. not surprising given the tendency of folks to only
> post when they are experiencing trouble.

> so, anyone out there happily using an a7v880?

I have one. I use it under Linux (no problems) and XP (gaming only,
the usual issues, but nothing specific for the board I think).

I would say overall I like it and it was not expensive. But I only got
it a few weeks ago for an emergencu replacement.

Arno

 

[abc]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
news:nospam-1707050329410001@192.168.1.178...
> In article <gcpid1p8g5lv3pec7s27nvf9gs9pmtcuro@4ax.com>,
> davidb.removetheprecedingdotandthissentence@panix.com wrote:
>
>> hi all,
>>
>> i've been thinking of using the a7v880 for new systems. after
>> googling thru this group for "a7v880" i noticed a fair number
>> of "problem" posts. not surprising given the tendency of folks
>> to only post when they are experiencing trouble.
>>
>> so, anyone out there happily using an a7v880?
>>
>>
>> ciao,
>> david
>> ---

I am generally satisfied with my a7v880.
I needed a board in a hurry after my Abit Nf7-s v2 died.

My major gripe with the board is that under XP when you want to change the
sound configuration from 2 ch stereo to 5.1 using the Soundmax control
applet you must reboot the computer for the changes to take effect. This is
most annoying because often I want to switch between headphones and 5.1
depending on who is the room (or not). There is also some noise through
headphones occasionally from HDD activity, or the mose scroll wheel, but
that could be other things.

Apart from that it seemed reasonable value board to me, everything works, am
using an ATI Radeon 9800 pro and SATA drives (not RAID), dual channel
memory, it doesn't seem to be that fussy memory wise, provided the RAM
matches size and specs.

Only had problems with one game, Battlefield 2 demo will freeze
occasionally, but I think that is an ATI driver problem, all other games ran
fine.

HTH.