**Official Asus A8N-SLI Premium Thread**

[Jimbo_89]

Thinking of getting this mobo with the following set up.]



AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM) £411.19

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL) £164.44

BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-010-BG) £234.94

Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD) £82.84

Coolermaster Wave Master - Black (No PSU) (CA-047-CM) £105.75

Akasa Ultra Quiet 550W PowerPlus Active PFC ATX2.0 PSU - Black Nickel (CA-014-AK) £82.19



Now is this a disaster waiting to happen ?! LOL

Heard soooooooooo many complaints about this mobo, that its puttin me off.

How would it peform with this setup, and do an ESTIMATE for any serious problems i may have?...Oh yeah, this is my first try at building a system.

 

[Sumanji]

lol, it's only a bit picky when you're overclocking mate. At stock it will be more stable than a slab of granite rest of your spec looks great too! I'd reccomend the Enermax Noisetaker PSU line though, the 600W is a beast yet practically inaudible at the same time.

Suman

 

[ted34]

Said a while ago about improving the cooling of the chipset using a zalman passive cooler. Took some pictures but dont know how to upload them onto forum

First put a layer of thermal paste on the top of the heatpipe block bit that says asus heatpipe.

Then slide a zip tie around one row of the fins of the passive cooler (go for a middle row of fins). Leave the zip tie so that there are two loops sticking about a cm out on each side of the row

Now place the heatsink onto the heatpipe block and then using a zip tie, tie down the zip tie already attached to the middle row of fins to the piece of metal that attaches the heatpipe block to the pins holding it to the motherboard. There is about a 3mm gap between these metal "wing" bits and the motherboard surface. Do the same on the other side and then tighten each zip tie equally. Does not need to be over tight just pull the zip ties lightly to take up the slack.

Dunno if this makes any sense. Its hard to understand without the picts. If someone explains how to post the picts up then will do. This lowered my chipset temp by nearly 10degrees so worth doing if having heat probs.

 

[Sumanji]

Do you have anywhere to host the pics? (Webspace provided by your ISP or something?) Just host them there and use the [/ img] tags to link to them here. If not email me them and I'll host them for you :)

Cheers,

Suman

 

[ted34]

Do you have anywhere to host the pics? (Webspace provided by your ISP or something?) Just host them there and use the [/ img] tags to link to them here. If not email me them and I'll host them for you :)

Cheers,

Suman[/QUOTE]


Thanks - have just sent u the picts

 

[Sumanji]

ted34's pics:

 

[craigjarvis]

You could just use the artic silver epoxy adhesive instead of the tie wrap method - Arctic Silver Thermal Epoxy (7g) (OA-001-AC) for a neater installation

looks like there will be clearance issues if using a 7800gtx with a zalman gfx cooler like my set up though, nothing a bit of dremmeling could'nt fix though

 

[J1nxy]

Is there any point in doing this thou? or are you overclocking heavily as with decent airflow in my case the chipset is sitting 2c over what the inside of the case is.

Steve

 

[craigjarvis]

Jinx, i dont see the point or feel the need to do this mod, my idle temps are cpu 29, mb 30, gfx 37 in my Cm stacker, but lian li v1000 users will benefit grately due to the cool pipe being inverted in their cases

 

[wozzizname]

How accurate is the temperature reading on this board ? Asus probe says my X24400 is idling at 39C, whereas Everest says it's at 29C (using a Zalman 9500), I don't know which to believe.... (1008 bios btw)

 

[Sumanji]

Not sure tbh, but my overclocked Winny (1.5V) idles at about 39 as well. Load goes up to around 54. Would be interested to hear what other peoples temps are!

Cheers,

Suman

 

[Sumanji]

[Edit] Double Post

 

[ted34]

Have got got air flow. Its in an eclipse 62 case with 1 120mm fan at front and back. This lowered chipset by 10degrees when underload and 6-7degrees when idle. Also this was with a xp120 overhanging the mofset. Was using 1.6v on chipset but now at 1.5v and still stable.

You could just use the artic silver epoxy adhesive instead of the tie wrap method - Arctic Silver Thermal Epoxy (7g) (OA-001-AC) for a neater installation

looks like there will be clearance issues if using a 7800gtx with a zalman gfx cooler like my set up though, nothing a bit of dremmeling could'nt fix though

I didn't have any epoxy but would have been just as good with that. Once the zip ties are trimmed down then it doesn't look messy. Not sure about the 7800gtx but my x800 which is a long card fits fine and another one would fit in the bottom pci-e slot as well

 

[Zico]

Got an Eclipse 62 and 3700+ SD @ Stock with Artic Freezer 64

Temp's as I sit here are (PC Probe):

CPU: 35
MB: 36

Both 120mm slots have the Akasa Orange Low DB fan's @ stock.

 

[LeeMc]

Not sure tbh, but my overclocked Winny (1.5V) idles at about 39 as well. Load goes up to around 54. Would be interested to hear what other peoples temps are!

Mine idles at 35 cpu and 37? Mobo with a Venice 3200 @ 2650mhz 1.475v using Asus probe and 48 cpu under full load 40 Mobo using the stock AMD cooler and 2 low speed 120mm case fans. (gonna get a water cooling setup soon I hope).
Can get the cpu to 2750mhz or so but its kinda hot at that(40+ idle) with 1.5v so gonna wait for the Water and try again.

Hope that helps ya some.

Lee Mc

 

[Martyn]

This may be a stupid question, but am i supposed to plug in the EZ plug?

I'm running SLi and have the EATX plugs plugged in. I'm a bit conscious about plugging a HDD plug into my MB.

can any of ya advise?

thank you

 

[Overlag]

the manual states that a HDD plug should be plugged in there if using SLI......

 

[Dale]

I would just like to add to anyone that is looking for re-assuring remarks that I have just changed my 'FULLY STAR OUT ANY SWEAR WORDS IN FUTURE, READ THE FAQ!!!' DFI mobo to this one and have experienced absolutly zero issues with it in stock form.
I have a A64 4000+ SD
Leadtek 7800 GTX and 2gb OCZ Platinum ram, and in standard form it has all worked from the word go (strokes the wooden desk....)

I haven't tried it in SLI or overclocked anything...yet but so far so good.

I have tried BF2 with everything turned on (I have a Creative X-FI also) and that lasted an hours worth of play time (it didn't crash, I had to go out)

Will report here if anything goes wrong at all before I start OCing.

Cheers

 

[merkin51]

Can anyone confirm if the A8N-SLi mobos work with Opteron's straight out of the box? Just purchased an A8N-SLi (standard) and an Opteron 146, not sure how I would go about doing a bios flash if it can't read the CPU straight off...

 

[Sumanji]

Dunno I'd like to know too thought!

Suman