Best Socket A mobo?

[Boods]

Hi, long time reader, first time poster here.

I'm having problems with my Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo (ver 1.04). When I upgraded my BIOS to accept my Athlon 3200+ XP and updgraded my videocard to a GeForce 7800 GS, my system crashes only when I load games.

On all other applications the system is completely stable; burning discs, surfing, downloading, watching videos, editing photos... it all works fine but as soon as I load a game (City of Heroes, CounterStrike and Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour so far) my system crashes.

I've had three techs take a look at this thing and even had it taken apart and put back together as though it were a new system, all to no avail. I'm thinking it is likely something in my mobo, so I want to try another manufacturer with a different chipset.

What is the best mobo for a Socket A processor that doesn't use the Nforce 2 chipset?

 

[mesarectifier]

Something with a Via KT600 I reckon. My Abit has it and it's been just super.

(BTW, my Abit board is a KV7-V, although I'm sure it's by no means the best non-nF2 board)

 

[Turbo_VE_Max]

Hi, long time reader, first time poster here.

I'm having problems with my Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo (ver 1.04). When I upgraded my BIOS to accept my Athlon 3200+ XP and updgraded my videocard to a GeForce 7800 GS, my system crashes only when I load games.

On all other applications the system is completely stable; burning discs, surfing, downloading, watching videos, editing photos... it all works fine but as soon as I load a game (City of Heroes, CounterStrike and Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour so far) my system crashes.

I've had three techs take a look at this thing and even had it taken apart and put back together as though it were a new system, all to no avail. I'm thinking it is likely something in my mobo, so I want to try another manufacturer with a different chipset.

What is the best mobo for a Socket A processor that doesn't use the Nforce 2 chipset?

I would take a hard look at these techs. Granted they did you a favor and reseated all the components but step back and look at your system.

You say it worked fine until you updated the bios installed a cpu and a pgx card. Now it crashes only in GAMES. If it was me I would update/reinstall gfx/chipset drivers, down clock if over clocked and try your gfx card in another computer to see what it does, then see if you can test with a buddies video card. Here is how I would break this down as the likely problem...

Driver conflict 80%
Vid Card defect/contact issue 10%
power supply issue 5%
mobo defect 3%
other 2%

The nForce 2 chipset is in my opinion the best EVER for AMD systems. It is the 440BX of AMD and you have the 2nd best NF2 mobo (next to the NF7-S of course.)