Most stable 939 mainboard?

[Sofa Slug]

Hi -

I'm looking for a stable mainboard for an Athlon 64 3000+ Venice, Socket 939. I don't care about overclocking or games; this will be for web design work. I don't need firewire or SLI, either. I've been looking at SATA II, but only as a point for possible future upgrades.

From what I have read in different places, people seem to favor the NVIDIA nForce4 chipset (particularly the Ultra) over the Via for stability.

Except for their crappy North Bridge fans, I have heard that the Asus boards are very solid. I'm considering the A8N-E, but their website is awful; hokey forum, almost impossible to download manual/drivers, etc. BTW, I can't find a full review of this board anywhere.

Another candidate is the MSI K8N Neo4-F, and maybe it's higher end "Platinum" brother... both are well designed with lots of features for the $. MSI boards seem to be the reverse of Asus, though - questionable stability & Q/A, but GREAT online support.

The Gigabyte boards seem OK (I'm looking at the GA-K8NF-9), but several users have reported issues with the current Bios not always detecting PS/2 keyboards properly (I don't want to purchase a USB keyboard just to fix this).

Although the ABIT AN8 Ultra looks decent, I can still recall that not too distant debacle where some users tried to sue this company for leaking mainboard capacitors.


I would appreciate your comments & suggestions...

- S

 

[Hawkeye]

Hi -

I'm looking for a stable mainboard for an Athlon 64 3000+ Venice, Socket 939. I don't care about overclocking or games; this will be for web design work. I don't need firewire or SLI, either. I've been looking at SATA II, but only as a point for possible future upgrades.

From what I have read in different places, people seem to favor the NVIDIA nForce4 chipset (particularly the Ultra) over the Via for stability.

Except for their crappy North Bridge fans, I have heard that the Asus boards are very solid. I'm considering the A8N-E, but their website is awful; hokey forum, almost impossible to download manual/drivers, etc. BTW, I can't find a full review of this board anywhere.

Another candidate is the MSI K8N Neo4-F, and maybe it's higher end "Platinum" brother... both are well designed with lots of features for the $. MSI boards seem to be the reverse of Asus, though - questionable stability & Q/A, but GREAT online support.

The Gigabyte boards seem OK (I'm looking at the GA-K8NF-9), but several users have reported issues with the current Bios not always detecting PS/2 keyboards properly (I don't want to purchase a USB keyboard just to fix this).

Although the ABIT AN8 Ultra looks decent, I can still recall that not too distant debacle where some users tried to sue this company for leaking mainboard capacitors.


I would appreciate your comments & suggestions...

- S

Asus A8V is stable. Running 2 of them, one with Fx-55 the other with
3500. They didnt put the crappy chipset fan on this board. and the
VIA is doin fine

 

[Tweek]

I have the AN8 and it is awesome. Don't worry about the capacitor issue,
Abit wasn't the only one who got hit with that problem and it wasn't their
fault. They were supplied with faulty capacitors. Now on the box is says
they use high quality japanese capacitors. I have used nothing but Abit for
years and have never had a problem with one.

Hi -

I'm looking for a stable mainboard for an Athlon 64 3000+ Venice, Socket
939. I don't care about overclocking or games; this will be for web design
work. I don't need firewire or SLI, either. I've been looking at SATA II,
but only as a point for possible future upgrades.

From what I have read in different places, people seem to favor the NVIDIA
nForce4 chipset (particularly the Ultra) over the Via for stability.

Except for their crappy North Bridge fans, I have heard that the Asus boards
are very solid. I'm considering the A8N-E, but their website is awful; hokey
forum, almost impossible to download manual/drivers, etc. BTW, I can't find
a full review of this board anywhere.

Another candidate is the MSI K8N Neo4-F, and maybe it's higher end
"Platinum" brother... both are well designed with lots of features for the
$. MSI boards seem to be the reverse of Asus, though - questionable
stability & Q/A, but GREAT online support.

The Gigabyte boards seem OK (I'm looking at the GA-K8NF-9), but several
users have reported issues with the current Bios not always detecting PS/2
keyboards properly (I don't want to purchase a USB keyboard just to fix
this).

Although the ABIT AN8 Ultra looks decent, I can still recall that not too
distant debacle where some users tried to sue this company for leaking
mainboard capacitors.


I would appreciate your comments & suggestions...

- S

 

[Sofa Slug]

Asus A8V is stable. Running 2 of them, one with Fx-55 the other with
3500. They didnt put the crappy chipset fan on this board. and the
VIA is doin fine

I'm thinking a case PS for this would need to be about 430 Watts minimum, right?

Thanks...

- S

 

[KC Computers]

I'm looking for a stable mainboard for an Athlon 64 3000+ Venice, Socket

3500. They didnt put the crappy chipset fan on this board. and the
VIA is doin fine
ASUS A8V/Athlon 64 FX-55
ATI RADEON X800XT PE
1GB OCZ Gold Edition Rev3 DDR PC-3700

-I'm thinking a case PS for this would need to be about 430 Watts minimum,
right?


FX-55 CPUs and Radeon X800 video chips require a lot of power.
We are a PC dealer and would recommend a good quality 550W
power supply such as an Antec True Power.

 

[Hawkeye]

I'm thinking a case PS for this would need to be about 430 Watts minimum, right?

Using a Enermax 460

 

[Ruel Smith]

I'm looking for a stable mainboard for an Athlon 64 3000+ Venice, Socket
939. I don't care about overclocking or games; this will be for web design
work. I don't need firewire or SLI, either. I've been looking at SATA II,
but only as a point for possible future upgrades.

From what I have read in different places, people seem to favor the NVIDIA
nForce4 chipset (particularly the Ultra) over the Via for stability.

Except for their crappy North Bridge fans, I have heard that the Asus
boards are very solid. I'm considering the A8N-E, but their website is
awful; hokey forum, almost impossible to download manual/drivers, etc.
BTW, I can't find a full review of this board anywhere.

Another candidate is the MSI K8N Neo4-F, and maybe it's higher end
"Platinum" brother... both are well designed with lots of features for the
$. MSI boards seem to be the reverse of Asus, though - questionable
stability & Q/A, but GREAT online support.

The Gigabyte boards seem OK (I'm looking at the GA-K8NF-9), but several
users have reported issues with the current Bios not always detecting PS/2
keyboards properly (I don't want to purchase a USB keyboard just to fix
this).

Although the ABIT AN8 Ultra looks decent, I can still recall that not too
distant debacle where some users tried to sue this company for leaking
mainboard capacitors.


I would appreciate your comments & suggestions...

I've built systems based on MSI, Asus, Soyo, and Gigabyte boards. I've
never...I repeat, never...had a stability issue with any of them. Your
chances of having problems with a tier 1 level mainboard supplier are very,
very low. I wouldn't hesitate one minute to buy a Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, or
Abit board that had the features I wanted.

As far as that Abit problem, that was a supplier problem, and not
necessarily Abit's fault. They may have thought everything was okay with
the capacitors, but their supplier was trying to make a few bucks off of
them, shipping them faulty capacitors. You can't necessarily blame Abit. If
they've done all they can to try and prevent this in future motherboards,
then that should be good enough to forgive them for it.

 

[David Maynard]

Sofa Slug wrote:




I've built systems based on MSI, Asus, Soyo, and Gigabyte boards. I've
never...I repeat, never...had a stability issue with any of them. Your
chances of having problems with a tier 1 level mainboard supplier are very,
very low. I wouldn't hesitate one minute to buy a Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, or
Abit board that had the features I wanted.

As far as that Abit problem, that was a supplier problem, and not
necessarily Abit's fault. They may have thought everything was okay with
the capacitors, but their supplier was trying to make a few bucks off of
them, shipping them faulty capacitors. You can't necessarily blame Abit. If
they've done all they can to try and prevent this in future motherboards,
then that should be good enough to forgive them for it.

The problem wasn't just Abit either, and not just motherboards, but they
got more press because they were the first ones to step up to the plate and
admit the problem, as well as replace the boards.

It was caused by a bit of Far East corporate espionage except they stole an
incomplete, or incorrect, electrolyte formula and then sold it to others,
who did the same, and many capacitor manufacturers were hit by it. The
formula would work initially, so there was little clue of any problem up
front, but would fail prematurely.

The capacitor companies were reluctant to admit to the problem and that
made it even more difficult for board makers to know if *they* had the problem.