ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard Settings?

[JonathanF]

I will be receiving my A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard on Thursday.

I will be using an AMD Athlon 2700+ Retail Version CPU with two sticks of the Kingston HyperX Series 256MB DDR434 (PC-3500) DDR RAM.

Is the AMD Athlon 2700+ Retail CPU's Heatsink and Fan good enough, or I should purchase a higher end Heatsink and Fan Unit?

What is the best BIOS Software Revision that I should use for the ASUS A7N8X Motherboard?

What are the best ASUS A7N8X Motherboard BIOS Settings that should I use?

Should I insert the two sticks of Kingston PC-3500 DDR RAM in Slots 1 and 2, and 1 and 3, or 2 and 3?

I plan on using the ASUS Motherboard's on board Sound instead of my Sound Blaster Live Card.

Which of the two NIC Port's should I be using for my DSL Connection?

Are there any other of the ASUS Motherboard's Hardware Settings that I should be using?

Jonathan

 

[mechBgon]

Use whichever NIC you want. I would use the nVidia one, not the 3Com.

The retail heatsink will get the job done as long as your case is keeping itself cooled off. If not, it's time to do something about your ventilation. There should be at least one 80mm exhaust fan close to the CPU keeping the air moving. I would shoot for an air temperature below 35C, at least, and below 30C if possible.

Be aware that the stock thermal pad on a retail AMD heatsink is ONE USE ONLY. Make sure you put the heatsink on in the correct orientation the first time, and not 180° backwards (note the step in the base of the heatsink, and match it up with the solid part of the CPU socket where the lever swivels).

After firing up the system, you don't want to take the heatsink off again, not even once, until you're prepared to replace the used-up thermal pad with something else, preferably Arctic Silver 3.

You should put one stick of RAM in the slot that sits alone, and the other in one of the slots that sit close together, to enable the DualDDR capability.

I hope you have a high-quality name-brand power supply in the 350W+ area, or higher?

 

[Adul]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Use whichever NIC you want. I would use the nVidia one, not the 3Com.

The retail heatsink will get the job done as long as your case is keeping itself cooled off. If not, it's time to do something about your ventilation. There should be at least one 80mm exhaust fan close to the CPU keeping the air moving. I would shoot for an air temperature below 35C, at least, and below 30C if possible.

Be aware that the stock thermal pad on a retail AMD heatsink is ONE USE ONLY. Make sure you put the heatsink on in the correct orientation the first time, and not 180° backwards (note the step in the base of the heatsink, and match it up with the solid part of the CPU socket where the lever swivels).

After firing up the system, you don't want to take the heatsink off again, not even once, until you're prepared to replace the used-up thermal pad with something else, preferably Arctic Silver 3.

You should put one stick of RAM in the slot that sits alone, and the other in one of the slots that sit close together, to enable the DualDDR capability.

I hope you have a high-quality name-brand power supply in the 350W+ area, or higher?

there is no diff in perf between the onboard nics mach, they resolved that issue in a later review oh nforce 2

 

[SFang]

Check My Thread on A7N8X, it might help you with some settings, too lazy to type them again.

I would suggest you go with a more aggressive HSF if you overclock (Alpha or ThermalRight), Otherwise stock HSF is fine.

 

[JonathanF]

I have the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 400 ATX Power Supply.

Is the AMD Retail Heatsink and Fan sufficient for my Computer if I am not overclocking?

Should I use the stock thermal pad or the Arctic Silver 3 Compund that I have?

What is the best ASUS A7N8X BIOS Revision out there now?

What are the best Motherboard BIOS Settings for my Motherboard if I am not overclocking but using the two sticks of Kingston HyperX PC-3500 256 MBDDR Ram?.

Jonathan

 

[truffelsmoel]

I'm running the following setup on a 300W (!) Maxpower psu ...

Asus A7N8X (non-deluxe)
XP2400+ unlocked and running at 166*12.5
512 DDR400 apacer memory
Geforce 3 Ti500
Creative Audigy
2 Maxtor 40Gb 7200 drives.
2 Case fans
2 HD coolers, who have in total 4 small fans
Pioneer DVD
HP 9200 cdwriter + scsi card
Mr. Floppy

I was quite surprised that this worked stable. I have this setup running since saturday (it's wednesday now) and i havent seen a single crash (unless you count the time when i tried running 200*10 )