Sick of DFI - which Asus to get?

[Medea]

I have had it with my DFI board - reboots, bios updates, updates to the bios updates & today I read that the most recent update is also problematic.

I want to get an ASUS. They've got a good rep & I have an ASUS AX800XL PCI-E vid card. Have one SATA and one IDE hard drive. I also want on-board sound. My other components:
- AMD 64 FX-53
- Raptor drive (70 gigs)
- 2d drive for data (160 gigs)
- 1 gig Geil PC 3200 ram
- CD/DVD ROM drive
- NEC dual layer CD/DVD/RW
- modem
- floppy drive

I know they're have been complaints about loud cpu fans, so I obviously don't want those models. So, which model to get?

Edit: Not interested in overclocking...

 

[Bona Fide]

If DFI, quite possibly one of the best board manufacturers out there, didn't work for you, I highly doubt ASUS will. If you look through the motherboard forum area, you'll see dozens of topics about problematic ASUS boards.

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (or SLI)
Epox 9NDA Ultra (I think)
Abit AN8 Ultra/Fatal1ty (depending on budget)

 

[imported_Kensai]

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum and DFI LanParty Ultra-D are the only boards I can recommend for S939 with PCI-E.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Asus A8N-SLI Premium(even if you don't plan on doing SLI) or A8N-e would be my recommendations from Asus.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

EVERY DIY board manufacturer has it's own set of problems. MSI is probably the worst of them all, buggy bios AND not being supported = bad.
EPoX has one of the best track records for nforce4 - read up on it. Anandtech recommended that board (9NPA+ Ultra I think?).
ASUS A8N-E has it's fair share of problems too.

Um, before you sell the DFI - did you run MemTest86? Be sure you do that. The DFI is very picky with the RAM, so it's possible that it's not the board, it's the RAM that's bad.

-TPG

 

[CraigRT]

Soltek NF4 939 should do ya... their boards are inexpensive and work like they are expensive. I'm still running an K8AN2E-GR NF3 250 board and it runs amazing, ALL the time!

 

[The Pentium Guy]

I forgot about Soltek. Only problem is, there's no Ultra version available. But still I'd recommend the EPox for it's overclockability.

 

[Billy Bones]

The A8V Deluxe from Asus is another one to avoid. Every forum I find is loaded with tales of hard drives not being recognized, BSODs, memory failures, constant crashing, confusing drivers, lousy manual. I've spent 6 weeks trying to get my A8V working right, and am finally crying Uncle. It's going back to Frys (glad I bought the warranty for the first time in my life).

 

[silverpig]

I'd have gotten a Soltek board again if they had an ultra version, but they didn't

DFI ultra-d for me. I had major issues with it too. I had some geil golden dragon PC3500 ram that was the culprit. Took a damn week of messing with it to figure that out too cause the ram works fine in all other systems. Bought some mushkin stuff and it's all good now.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman
Asus A8N-SLI Premium(even if you don't plan on doing SLI) or A8N-e would be my recommendations from Asus.

:thumbsup:

 

[alpha88]

Asus A8N-SLI Premium

- No chipset fan or other mobo fan is really awesome
- Doesn't have the problems that the Deluxe version had.

 

[l Xes l]

Originally posted by: Kensai
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum and DFI LanParty Ultra-D are the only boards I can recommend for S939 with PCI-E.

 

[PCBliss]

Originally posted by: Billy Bones
The A8V Deluxe from Asus is another one to avoid. Every forum I find is loaded with tales of hard drives not being recognized, BSODs, memory failures, constant crashing, confusing drivers, lousy manual. I've spent 6 weeks trying to get my A8V working right, and am finally crying Uncle. It's going back to Frys (glad I bought the warranty for the first time in my life).

i had one of those for a couple weeks and it worked great while i had it

 

[Promethply]

Originally posted by: Medea
I have had it with my DFI board - reboots, bios updates, updates to the bios updates & today I read that the most recent update is also problematic.

I want to get an ASUS. They've got a good rep & I have an ASUS AX800XL PCI-E vid card. Have one SATA and one IDE hard drive. I also want on-board sound. My other components:
- AMD 64 FX-53
- Raptor drive (70 gigs)
- 2d drive for data (160 gigs)
- 1 gig Geil PC 3200 ram
- CD/DVD ROM drive
- NEC dual layer CD/DVD/RW
- modem
- floppy drive

I know they're have been complaints about loud cpu fans, so I obviously don't want those models. So, which model to get?

Edit: Not interested in overclocking...

The ASUS A8N-SLI Premium uses heatpipe to cool the chipset, eliminating the high pitch noise usually associated with NF4 boards.

I've been using the A8N-SLI, which has been running solidly since Jan 2005, and will probably get that A8N-SLI Premium next time.

 

[EddNog]

Nobody's mentioned ABIT AN8(-SLI); how come? I'm just curious as to why; is there something awry with ABIT's AN8 series that I should know about?

-Ed

 

[BTA]

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
If DFI, quite possibly one of the best board manufacturers out there, didn't work for you, I highly doubt ASUS will. If you look through the motherboard forum area, you'll see dozens of topics about problematic ASUS boards.

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (or SLI)
Epox 9NDA Ultra (I think)
Abit AN8 Ultra/Fatal1ty (depending on budget)

Since when did DFI become "one of the best board manufactuerers out there" ?

Apparently you live by the week, because DFI hasnt been a top tier MB manufactuer in oh...never.

Only recently has the hype put them in the spotlight.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: BTA

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
If DFI, quite possibly one of the best board manufacturers out there, didn't work for you, I highly doubt ASUS will. If you look through the motherboard forum area, you'll see dozens of topics about problematic ASUS boards.

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (or SLI)
Epox 9NDA Ultra (I think)
Abit AN8 Ultra/Fatal1ty (depending on budget)

Since when did DFI become "one of the best board manufactuerers out there" ?

Apparently you live by the week, because DFI hasnt been a top tier MB manufactuer in oh...never.

Only recently has the hype put them in the spotlight.

While they may not be one of the highest volume board makers, they have been a premiere performance overclocking board maker for approx. 2yrs now, that isa good number of weeks He specifically stated "One of the best" and that they most certainly are; thanks to hiring Oskar Wu away from Abit, and some other top notch people from both Abit and Soyo.

 

[Cheezeit]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: BTA

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
If DFI, quite possibly one of the best board manufacturers out there, didn't work for you, I highly doubt ASUS will. If you look through the motherboard forum area, you'll see dozens of topics about problematic ASUS boards.

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (or SLI)
Epox 9NDA Ultra (I think)
Abit AN8 Ultra/Fatal1ty (depending on budget)

Since when did DFI become "one of the best board manufactuerers out there" ?

Apparently you live by the week, because DFI hasnt been a top tier MB manufactuer in oh...never.

Only recently has the hype put them in the spotlight.

While they may not be one of the highest volume board makers, they have been a premiere performance overclocking board maker for approx. 2yrs now, that isa good number of weeks He specifically stated "One of the best" and that they most certainly are; thanks to hiring Oskar Wu away from Abit, and some other top notch people from both Abit and Soyo.

I agree, I think DFI makes its money by selling well designed products at a nice price, then not haveing to replace broken ones as much.

ASUS used to be good, but they have gone downhill lately.

 

[HQee]

If you want a rock solid product at affordable price: go for Chaintech VNF4 ultra
if you want a rock solid product and nice feature set: go for Gigabyte GA-K8N series.

gigabyte have always been a great performer, while might not for the OC-freak (but still acceptable), they always provide high quality products, tons of features and outstanding stability. And on top of that, the price doesn't bite either.

 

[mattburk]

I have to say I would take Asus over dfi any day. DFI is the most unstable mb, with driver and glitches that just should not be. I cannot plug my tv card in-on a clean install. This board also has trouble with maxtor sata hd's.
The dfi manual is junk, absolutely useless.
My asus board is leaps and bounds better than dfi.

 

[Waylay00]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman
Asus A8N-SLI Premium(even if you don't plan on doing SLI) or A8N-e would be my recommendations from Asus.

Quoted for Truth. I've always thought that ASUS boards were higher quality than DFI boards. From the packaging, to the website, to the board, everything is higher quality. And you can't use the forum argument anymore, because ASUS has their own forums now.

 

[Medea]

Thanks all for the suggestions.

alpha88, I looked at the Asus A8N-SLI Premium, and it looked great - 'til I read a review on newegg. I can't use it because I have a Lian-Li case and the mobo is placed upside down in the case to adhance cooling. The review said the Premium won't work, but the Deluxe will. I don't want the Deluxe because of problems with it that the Premium fixed.

So, now I'm looking at the Epox 9NPA+ Ultra. If anyone is using this board, I just want to know that I don't have to fiddle with the timing settings like on the DFI board - a real PITA. :| I just want a board set to Auto-Detect and let it do the rest.

BTW - Pentium Guy, I just bought some new ram and will run MemTest86 after I install it and see if that works. If not, then I'm going to junk the DFI board.

 

[ProviaFan]

I've had a mostly good experience with the ASUS A8N-E - or make that a very good experience, after finding out that the locked HT multiplier problem was a PEBCAK issue.

However, if you get any actively-cooled NF4-based motherboard, make absolutely certain that you can replace the default chipset fan with something like a Zalman NB47J (some of us like to screw sub-25dBA-rated 40mm Panaflo's or Papst's on the side or top of our NB47J's for better cooling) without interfering with your video card - making sure to account for large video card heatsinks if necessary.

 

[wasp]

Had no problems with the A8N-SLI Deluxe

but the chipset fan was making grinding noises, but the new replacement models seem a bit better.

 

[BigWookie]

I've had no bad expereinces with my ASUS A8N-E, only good ... it's been rock solid and the NB chipset fan hasn't been a problem. I'd recommend the ASUS A8N-E as an ULTRA solution.
ASUS web site is OK .. not the best .. but what exactly do you need a manufacturers website for .. updates right ... and if you don't have to fix things all the time likew DFI .. then you don't need a bunch of updates .. maybe a BIOS every couple of monthes or so.