Pre-Sale: Asus nforce2

[Mercutio]

I bought a refurb Nforce2 today. An Asus something or other. I had some credit at newegg nothing else sounded good.

Of course, I hate nvidia with the sort of passion that really defines such words as "deide", "contemn", or "execrate",so, I'm more-or-less expecting to be utterly disappointed with it.

And I'll be happy to sell it at a loss, once I determine exactly how much I hate it.

So... unless the Soundstorm-whatever-the-hell-it-is is the nicest thing since Mother Theresa, able to handle full duplex SPDIF out and line in at the same time AND able to feed the lepers of Calcutta, it'll be available for auction in this very space.

Opening bid will be $1. I paid $90 for it. It's the one with SATA and the Gigabit PHY.

 

[Jake the Dog]

sounds to me lie this board has no chance of getting a fair trial...

 

[Jake the Dog]

lie = like

 

[Mercutio]

It has a chance. I wouldn't buy something that doesn't have a chance.
I wouldn't mind at all changing my blanket disgust with nvidia in general for a blanket disgust for nvidia video cards. I've never personally tried an nforce2.

Personally, I have ZERO interest in performance. Anything I can pop an Athlon XP in will probably be fine. I want better quality sound. SATA and Gigabit aren't anything to complain about.
If sound works (no hissing or popping), full duplex and using the SPDIF, and the board is stable, I'll keep it. If sound hisses and pops, doesn't handle SPDIF or can't record and play back at the same time, or the damn thing isn't stable for me, I'll sell it. If it's broken (it IS a refurb board), I'll call it a bad board and second-day it back to newegg.

My opinion of nvidia can't possibly be any worse. Really. It can't. If George W. Bush and Satan were found to be the owners of the company and all the proceeds from the sale of its products went to secret camps in the Afghan desert where AOLers were taught to type "me too" and molest children, it couldn't get any worse (although it would explain a lot). Two out of the three scenarios I describe, there's a chance my opinion might actually improve. That's bunches better than no chance at all.

 

[Mercutio]

If you haven't guessed, I'm something of a pessimist.

 

[mubs]

My opinion of nvidia can't possibly be any worse. Really. It can't. If George W. Bush and Satan were found to be the owners of the company and all the proceeds from the sale of its products went to secret camps in the Afghan desert where AOLers were taught to type "me too" and molest children, it couldn't get any worse (although it would explain a lot).

You're the biggest waste out there. With the sway you have over words, you ought to be writing, man. (shakes head in disgust at talent wasted)

 

[Groltz]

Last I heard, the Asus A7N8X Deluxe lost its Soundstorm certification rating by Nvidia.

Not that it matters.

More on it here.

 

[Mercutio]

What's up with haranguing me about my posts, mubs?

 

[CougTek]

I have some reserves on the Asus nForce2 board. IMO, you would have been better with an EPox or an Abit (yes, an Abit - for the nForce2, that is) or even a Soltek or FIC. I'm not saying it's a bad board, I'm only saying that I have doubts about it.

 

[Mercutio]

Not that it matters.

Hey, I'm trying aren't I?

 

[Mercutio]

The Soundstorm was a hard requirement. SPDIF is a hard requirement. Looking at pictures of various nforce2 boards, the Asus was the only one I could see that had Soundstorm and SPDIF. If you'll recall, I asked around here about that very issue a few weeks ago, but no one replied.

 

[blakerwry]

Last I heard, the Asus A7N8X Deluxe lost its Soundstorm certification rating by Nvidia.

Not that it matters.

More on it here.

wow, that's pretty intersting.. the sound storm requirements seem pretty tough. Most sound cards wouldn't even make that grade... with or without the soundstorm certification, any mobo with the MCP-T southbridge probably offers good quality sound that is certainly a big step up above any other onboard sound currently available.

 

[Groltz]

Not that it matters.

Hey, I'm trying aren't I?

Heh....No-no, I meant that according to the article I linked above the Asus board is not lacking in audio ability compared to the certified boards.

So have some harangue...Lemon harangue. :mrgrn:

 

[Howell]

What's up with haranguing me about my posts, mubs?

I think he meant it as a prodding compliment. I think I'll have to agree with mubs himself, mubs is easily misunderstood.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

I bid $10.

 

[Pradeep]

$15 dolla

 

[mubs]

What's up with haranguing me about my posts, mubs?

I've got to harass somebody,right (ask honold, he'll tell you :mrgrn

So have some harangue...Lemon harangue.

Thanks for helping out, Steve!

I think I'll have to agree with mubs himself, mubs is easily misunderstood.

Thanks, Howell. People sometimes seem to paint me in blacks and whites (mostly black) while my conviction is that it's all gray, different shades of it.

And for the record, I'm not anti-govt. and anti big-business. But as they say, power corrupts, and the bigger these entities get, the more power they have and the more crooked they become. I'm not a communist or socialist. But I do believe in social resposibility, the common good (and fair taxation to attain that goal). What I am against is corruption, unfettered greed in the name of capitalism, "individual rights and freedom" at the expense of the common good, the rape of the weak and poor who can't defend and protect themselves.

And if somebody has too much testosterone/estrogen in their bloodstream and flies off the handle at everything I say, that's their problem (Merc I'm not referring to you).

That's the sermon for the day.

 

[Pradeep]

Hmm just received my Action Pack. I got all excited thinking it was Buffy Season 6 form the UK. Merc, I'll swap you the 15 CDs from my Office 2003 Beta (which you undoubtedly have via MSDN), for the mobo. Deal?

Now to waste the day installing 2003 Server EE.

 

[Mercutio]

It'll take about 90 minutes, actually. Plus the five reboots it takes to re-enable all the stuff you're used to having like, oh, sound.

 

[Pradeep]

Can I install over the top of the eval version? I guess a clean install would be best anyway.

 

[Mercutio]

I have no idea.
My 2003 EE machine has hard locked three times with no known cause, by the way. Since it's a file server, I usually find this out when I'm trying to send it some data.

 

[Mercutio]

Got board today. When they say "bare", they mean it. It came in a white box with no parts. No firewire header, no I/O bracket. I can probably scam those somewhere.

Popped in a Tbred B 2100, 2x 256MB DDR. Booted on first try. I don't have a ghost image for an nforce2, so right now I'm downloading the OUTRAGEOUSLY LARGE nforce2 driver suite while loading XP - not my first choice but I can't find my 2000 install discs - on this machine.

To be fair: It booted my 2100 as 15x166. That's probably kind of impressive. I clocked it back down (I think only one of the DIMMs in that board is even PC2700), but I was surprised that it worked.

Rants: It was really nice of Asus to stick those four GIGANTIC caps in front of the CPU fan clips. I had to do some gymnastics to get my favorite fan clipped on.
Good things (note: I am saying good things): DIMM slots aren't fouled by the AGP slot. North bridge HS is bigger than I expected. Fedex chick was cute.

 

[P5-133XL]

... Fedex chick was cute.

See there is hope for you.

 

[blakerwry]

... Fedex chick was cute.

See there is hope for you.

:bravo: (i think this deserves the Johnny Bravo smiley)

Unfortunately, I always get the same fedex guy with no hair. Atleast he's personable. :monkey:

 

[SteveC]

Great moments in history:

December 25, 0000 - The birth of Jesus Christ.
July 4, 1776 - The signing of the Declaration of Independence.
November 5, 1955 - Dr. Emmett Brown invents the flux capacitor.
May 16, 2003 - Mercutio says some good things about an Nvidia product.

:lol:

 

[Howell]

... Fedex chick was cute.

See there is hope for you.

:bravo: (i think this deserves the Johnny Bravo smiley)

Unfortunately, I always get the same fedex guy with no hair. Atleast he's personable. :monkey:

My two UPS guys know me by name and on sight. They are always cordial. Congratulations Merc, on a decidedly upbeat post.

 

[Mercutio]

My regular FedEx guy is named Denny. Denny hates me, for I order many heavy things that he has to drag all the way to my apartment door.
My UPS lady is Jolene. Jolene's son is studying computers in college,

I wouldn't go thinking that I'm any better than usual. Noticing someone's appearance in no way changes one's emotional state (as millions of devoted husbands say when wives catch them taking a second look).

Anyway, Asus board: I am annoyed. Deeply annoyed. The Soundstorm encoding works exactly as promised. I was disappointed at first, that sound wasn't noticeably better than the realtek chip on my 7vaxp. Then I opened the nvidia control panel and saw that it was supplying stereo only. I flicked on the surrounds - sound got better, then the center, then the LFE. Wow. Nice. Couple steps up from DPLII, anyway. Wish someone would put that chip on a card.
So here's the problem. Sound is perfect, but I haven't gotten video-in on the AIW7500 in this machine to work yet. Conflict? I don't know. It doesn't work, and I have every driver revision released in the past year, and I've tried them all, working from XP restore points. Some of the combinations which SHOULD work aren't. Some are throwing bluescreens on reboot that go way when I do a "last know good", and sometimes I get as far as starting ATI's MMC to a screenful of garbled, half-frozen video that should be my VCR tuned to Telemundo.
ATI v. nvidia compatibility problem? XP? This board? Tough call.

 

[blakerwry]

i've had innumerable problems with the MMC and winXP with my Nvidia cards.. it was quite a popular problem...


Although I found that if I slipstreamed SP1 into winXP and installed that way, that I could then setup my computer and install MMC last and it would work as expected.

Installing SP1 after installing winXP yeilded broken video in the MMC (other programs that accessed my TV wonder worked fine)

 

[Mercutio]

XP SP1a and the 35MB of drivers Catalyst 3.4 drivers and support files I just downloaded over a 19.2 connection appear to fix the problem. Good thing I won't use this machine to play games.

 

[Groltz]

Good thing I won't use this machine to play games.

Why?

We should set you up with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City... :mrgrn:

 

[blakerwry]

Merc, i was talking to a guy the other day... he may have been talking out his ass, but he said that he has DSL over an ISDN line. He said he wouldn't normally be able to get DSL because he was too far away from the nearest switch.

He said he only paid like $60 a month (he didnt have to pay the normal ISDN line charges).

IDSL is DSL at 144 kbps. IDSL uses ISDN transmission coding, bundling together both ISDN channels and voice all on one circuit. IDSL does not use any kind of dial up nor involve per-call fees. For those that live too far for regular DSL, IDSL may be the only DSL option. IDSL tends to be priced at a rather higher rate per bit of speed, than any regular DSL. IDSL can still be a very satisfactory solution for data transmission compared to the alternatives (modem), coping very well with online gaming, and medium quality streaming audio/video.

I know you're in an apartment complex, but I wasn't sure what the reasons for not using DSL were... perhaps this will be of interest to you.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm 30,000 feet from my CO. ISDN requires complex changes inside the demarc - you have to basically build an additional phone infrastructure or replace your analog stuff with Digital/ISDN.

Either way, I don't see my landlord going for it.

Supposedly, a local company is building a 1Mbit wireless service. I MIGHT be able to do that, but last I checked they were still beta testing. I signed up, didn't get called.

 

[Howell]

Good thing I won't use this machine to play games.

Why?

We should set you up with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City... :mrgrn:

I would think a first person shooter would be more appropriate considering his proximity to Chicago.

 

[Mercutio]

Actually, Gary is what you have to watch out for. I'm a city block outside Gary. Gary is in annual competition with Washington DC, Detroit and New York for "Murder Capital of the World".

But I mostly like strategy games, myself.

 

[blakerwry]

Bring on the Tetris!


:mrgrn:

 

[Groltz]

I would think a first person shooter would be more appropriate considering his proximity to Chicago.

Oh, I think he could find Vice City pleasant.

 

[fool]

Gary is in annual competition with Washington DC, Detroit and New York for "Murder Capital of the World".

But I mostly like strategy games, myself.

Not that its the sort of accolade that you'd want, but I thought Jo'burg took that title by a country mile.

 

[James]

So, is the nForce going or staying? 'Cos I want one to mess around with!

 

[Jake the Dog]

I'm also wondering whether you're still using this board Merc.

 

[Mercutio]

Its future was simply uncertain until I got an Audigy 2 to play with. I just finished a side-by side between an Audigy2 Platinum and the Soundstorm.

I tried each with analog 5.1 and with SPDIF to a receiver and a full set of speakers. Listened to a couple of MP3s, a couple tracks off an audio CD, a bit of "Phantom Menace" on DVD and a couple of MIDI files (I don't like electronic instruments, but I have some stuff I made back when I was seriously studying piano, and, well, I like it to sound good).

I switched between stereo and 5.1 (DD 5.1 for soundstorm and DPLII for the Audigy for stereo-only sources on the Audigy), and... frankly, the Audigy 2 was generally not impressive, particularly for the multichannel stuff. The Audigy sounded great with MIDI - better samples, I guess - and there wasn't much difference between them in stereo modes on either device. The audigy seemed to underutilize the center channel in "native" 5.1 though, which isn't what I was expecting, particularly given the way DPLII tends to OVERutilize it.

I could repeat the test with a set of 5.1 computer speakers, but that wouldn't be true to my listening environment.

Anyway, I'm basically convinced I can't get better sound out of a PC right now, and that's really the important reason for my use of this motherboard (the board does seem to have some USB issues I'm not really excited about - basically forgetting what's pluged in from time to time, but I can live with that).