imported_Buzz Vinard

This is sort of an extension of my last post about Athlon motherboards for NLE.

My Pinnacle DV-500+ has to share PCI bandwidth with my M-Audio Delta-1010 10-channel sound I/O. This has never been a happy marriage, and I am looking to stick with Athlon, but get a more reliable motherboard. VIA chipsets are much better than SiS chipsets for the 500+, but the VIA's are still not entirely reliable and do not yet incorporate I/O APIC technology. nForce2 does, or at least can, assuming that the motherboard manufacturer takes advantage of it.

What I have whittled it down to is the Asus A7N8X (non-Deluxe version). The "Deluxe" version adds Serial ATA, but it is routed through the PCI bus, which costs PCI bandwidth, which I need for video and audio streams. ATA 100 is fast enough for now, so Serial does not yet excite me. The northbridge chip is the SPP version, which does not have built-in graphics. The southbridge chip has integrated audio, but that can be disabled and should not tie up any resources once that is done. Asynchronous operation of CPU and RAM will let me keep my relatively new 1.5GB of PC2100 RAM.

Anyway, the big issues are I/O APIC, and PCI bandwidth. If you have been using an nForce2-based board, I'd like to hear about any problems with:

IRQ issues/sharing,
PCI bandwidth issues, especially video capture,
random lockups in software that might be related to specific hardware,
non-linear editing, or
anything else that comes to mind that might be mobo-related.

Please tell me the make and model of the motherboard. I want to see if some companies are better than others at implementing the full potential of the chipsets they use. Chaintech, for instance, builds an nForce2 mobo that bypasses the onboard southbridge audio and uses a C-media chip routed through the PCI bus. This makes no sense to me, and it makes me wonder if they chose to implement I/O APIC.

Thanks!

BTW, I read the specs on the nForce3 chipset, and they are about to do to VIA and SiS, what they did to 3Dfx. The nForce3 will be a single-chip chipset which, among other things, will incorporate RAID and Serial ATA. It should also provide the stability that AMD needs to crack into the high-end workstation market. Wow.

Rob Gillespie

Buzz, I run two of the A7N8X mobos, one with an XP2000+ the other with an XP1700+.

The onboard sound is pretty basic (though sounds fine in itself) as are the drivers for it (no bass/treble controls for example). I use it on one of mine but on the other I've got a Hercules Fortissimo II which sounds nicer. Unlike my old Asus CUBX (P3) board, the Fortissimo playback is without fault - no glitches or anything nasty. The Deluxe version adds 5.1 Soundstorm which is either totally brilliant or glitchy, depending on who you listen to.

You'll need to run the latest drivers for this board but DO NOT use the ones from NVidia. Asus have their own - slightly tweaked - version and they (alledgedly) run better.

Since installing these boards I've had NO crashes whatsoever. They run very stable indeed. One problem I do have is that I don't seem to be able to run my 512mb DDR Crucial memory at the correct bus speed (I get lockups) - but apparently the Nforce2 runs best when processor and memory bus is set the same anyway. Running both at 133mhz results in two super-stable systems here.

As for IDE bandwidth - can't say I've noticed any problems, but then I'm not doing video capture at the moment. On the second machine I also have a Promise IDE controller card which handles two of the three internal hard drives. A few weeks ago I was doing the following - all the same time - ripping a DVD, writing a DVD-R at x2 (both DVD rom and writer are on the same IDE controller), performing a 20gb file transfer from that machine to another, performing an MPEG2 encode, performing a DVD transcode as well as general desktop use. Now granted, the machine was running slower than usual, but nothing went wrong.

No longer here.

Philip Hamm

Wow you're talking way over my head, I don't get nearly into that level of detail.

I recently replaced my box/motherboard/CPU/RAM. My motherboard is an ASUS A7N266-VM/LAN/AA witn an AMD Athlon XP 2000+. I use and Actiontec Firewire card for DV capture. It works great. I use Pinnacle Studio8 for making VideoCDs and editing video (soon I'll be making DVDs! ). I can't capture in Studio8, it drops frames like mad. I have to use another tool, Scenalyzer LIVE, which works way better anyway.

I agree with Rob - use the geforce drivers from ASUS, I tried installing the NVidia ones and I got a message about not being compatible with XP. I then installed the ASUS Driver and I'm good to go.

My experience with this set-up has been excellent, but I don't do anything that really taxes video (does video NLE tax video?)

Since I need a digital in and my moptherboard sound doesn't have one I have a Cmedia card that I got for like $15 from ubid a year or so ago. It works great for capturing through the optical input.

Philip Hamm
Moderator Emeritus

Rob Gillespie

Phil - just out of curiosity - what software do you use the capture the audio from the digital-in?

Philip Hamm

I use an old version of SoundForge. Any audio editor would work fine, I also have Cakewalk Pyro 2003 which I use to burn the discs.

Philip Hamm
Moderator Emeritus

imported_Buzz Vinard

Just to make sure I'm reading correctly...Rob, you're talking about nVidia nForce chipset drivers, right? Not nVidia GeForce drivers. I don't intend to use any onboard video.

Glad to hear about the clock speed issues. I'l save the money on a 2600+ and go with the 2400+ 200FSB.

Buzz

Rob Gillespie

Correct. The A7N8X doesn't have onboard video anyway.

I think the bus speed issue I have is possibly down to the memory module. Ram - as always - is a fickle beast. It works for some, not for others but doesn't bother me at the moment.

No longer here.

Max Leung

You can force the nvidia nforce audio drivers to install on the A7N8X Deluxe, if you use the device manager. Asus made a change in the hardware that required a new device ID, hence why it won't install by default.

You may wish to look at www.nforcershq.com for every possible thing you want to know about all the nforce2 motherboards out there.

The Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboards seem to have more trouble with analog outputs (because they share a port or something, not sure exactly) than the other brands.

Also, on the deluxe at least, the builtin 3COM ethernet adapter stops working after about 10-15 minutes of use. I'm not the only one with this problem either. Figures.

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him...a super-callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Gameshow host: "Is taking Viagra kosher during Passover dinner?"
Whoopee Goldberg: "Not if it leads to pork."
Kermit the Frog: "Hey, that's my line!"

imported_Buzz Vinard

As long as I can disable the audio, I'm happy. There's no way that it can match my Delta-1010.

I'm also thinking about the Asus V8420 GeForce4 128MB video card. Any thoughts on that one?

Max, thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

BlakeN

You might want to check out http://www.nforcershq.com

I can tell you from experience that you should not buy an MSI KN2G or KN2-L I have a stack of 20 of them in my shop waiting for a bios fix.


The problem with the KN2-L is if you have your fsb set to 133 the machine will post once and thats it. You can by pass this and some times fix it by installing a duron processor and using the "saftey" jumper. After clearing the cmos the board might post again. The only way to get the board to use 133 FSB is to install a duron post the machine and then set the fsb to 133 in the bios setup. Then you can install your athlonXP and change the fsb jumper to 133. As long as your bios doesnt get cleared your ok.

This problem was recognised and fixed by nvidia in a matter of days. Most companies then released a new bios to fix the problem. Unforutnately MSI just started making the KN2-L Delta and has yet to release a fix for the older KN2-L

The KN2NG will fail runing 3d games wiht 99% of the pc2700 on the market.

You might want to hold off untill the kt400a is mainstream. It will have a new southbridge as well on most boards but im not sure about the improvements other than the memory conroller.