Shuttle AN35N-ULTRA

[Dandaman]

There's a deal at Fry's for this motherboard along with a Athlon XP 2700+. Just wanted a quick response to this motherboard. How is this mobo?

Thanks
Daniel

 

[BlackMountainCow]

A very good one, but be VERY aware about which memory u buy. It doesn't work with Kingston Hyper X 3200 (own experience and the Shuttle guys are aware of that prob as well but have no idea why) and lots of ppl reported problems with Mushkin and Corsair (PC3500 sticks).

Buffalo and TwinMOS seem to work perfectly though. I got some TwinMOS / Winbond CH-5 sticks now and it's all fine. The main thing is that it only has 2.7 volts of power for the DIMMs, so those powerhungry ones like GEIL or else are not a good choice for it. OC is no big deal on that mobo ... I just went from 166 to 200 FSB on my Barton 2500+ and It's rock stable.

Besides that, it's cheap, fast and has no stuff one doesn't need anyways ...

 

[Dandaman]

I'm not exactly sure what kind of RAM i have in my system right now. I got it from mushkin, 512 DDR PC2100. Do you know if that will be ok, or should i get some other RAM if i plan on buying this mobo?

Thanks,
Daniel

 

[BlackMountainCow]

Well, if u use that RAM, u should be on the safe side. PC2100 RAM is no big deal in that board. The probs were all about PC3200 and PC3500 sticks as most ppl buy these to get the max out of their Athlons. If u wanna read more about the probs with the Shuttle AN35N-U go here. It's about the best place I've found so far about this board.

But if I was you, I'd really consider getting some better RAM. Yours is for 133MHz FSB and that 2700+ Athlon is (AFAIK) 166 MHz FSB. So in the end, your RAM is gonna be your bottle neck. U might be lucky and overclock that RAM a bit but it won't be enough to even that out.

 

[Dandaman]

Thanks for the help BMC. One more quick question. How much do you think my RAM would bottleneck the CPU performance? Will it be a world of difference or something I can deal with until i do get some better ram?

Thank again,
Daniel

 

[BlackMountainCow]

No prob man!

Well, that depends largly on what u do with that rig.

If u are a hardcore gamer or distributed computing fanatic then yes, it will have an impact on your overall performance. Some very rough numbers (I'm an old man ): 133 FSB should give u around 2 GB of memory bandwith, while 166 FSB will give u about 2,7 GB (in theory). Also, u should always try to run both memory and CPU in sync. So if u run your 2700+ on 166 FSB u should have your mem on 166 as well for best performance. Else, your CPU will always have to "wait" for your RAM to finish its job.

If u r a "normal" guy, who just plays occasionaly and does text stuff and calculations most of the time, then u won't notice that difference very much. For an office PC it's more than u'll ever need.

 

[daclayman]

I have had this board and a Barton 2500+ running with my stick of Kingston 512mb pc3200 CL2.5 for about a week now; no problems encountered. My stick has the 'Kingston' chips on it <--- D372DW-50 I think, I can't read it upside down.:beer:

I tried running 2 sticks of SpecTek 256mb PC2700 in dual channel I had lying around and even at -33mhz fsb, I couldn't overclock as high as with the single stick of Kingston. It's looks like the testing/overclocking/benchmarking with this chipset is going to be an uphill struggle

 

[Bonesdad]

I have used this board to build a few systems. Been 100% stable every time. On all but one, I used Buffalo PC3200 with the Winbond chips. Good board.

 

[pspada]

Put one of these into the system I gave to my brother's family for Xmas. It has been working just fine, with a generic stick of K-byte PC2700 currently running at 133/266.

 

[mechBgon]

I got the AN35N Ultra after my 1st-generation K7S5A finally went to the Great ATX Case In The Sky recently. So far so good... it has multiplier control for my XP1800+ and I'll be goofing around with that a little. I have Crucial PC2100 that's done PC2700 speed in the past, so I have a little room to play with.

 

[pspada]

...<snip>... after my 1st-generation K7S5A finally went to the Great ATX Case In The Sky recently...<snip>...

LMFAO

 

[Texun]

I've had one running for about 3 weeks now with no problem. I've got Corsair 3200. It's still new but so far this has been a great low-frills board for the price. One thing to consider: The ATX socket is located in the top right corner of the board placing it directly under the 5-1/4" drive cage when installed in a small case. It shouldn't be a problem if you use a large case.

 

[mechBgon]

Yeah, my ATX cable sort of leans on the HDD cage in my Antec 800-series tower.

Speaking of socket locations, the CPU socket has a capacitor that's somewhat close to the bottom-left corner of the socket. I had to bend one of the wire 'fan-holder-downer' bails on my Thermalright SK-7 a little to keep it from touching the capacitor. No biggie.

 

[fireontheway]

ive got a pair of 3200 corsair value select on my AN35N and i have not encountered any problems with it , reason i mentioned this is that i saw them on sale at fry's yesterday ..

 

[thedarkwolf]

I have some kingston pc-2700 and some crucial pc-2100 mixed with my 2500xp and all is well. I haven't tried overclocking it yet though.

 

[CDRecorder]

Originally posted by: fireontheway
ive got a pair of 3200 corsair value select on my AN35N and i have not encountered any problems with it , reason i mentioned this is that i saw them on sale at fry's yesterday ..

Does that work in dual-channel mode? I just bought this mobo, and I'm planning on using two 512MB sticks of Corsair Value Select RAM (PC3200, CL2.5) on it in dual-channel mode. I'd just like to make sure that this works before I buy all of that RAM.

 

[Salvador]

Is it just the Kingston Hyper X 3200 or 3500? What about the 2700? What happens if the mobo doesn't like the RAM? Will it post at all, but just not boot into Windows?

I'm helping a friend build a system right now and we're having a problem getting it running. My thread is here. Any ideas?

Sal