Asus A8N 32 SLI M/B

[chuckcrc]

Hi
I'm starting to look at upgrading my PC and I'm thinking of getting the Asus A8N 32 Sli board. Would this m/b have a performance increase over the standard A8N sli that would make it worth paying nearly double for the 32sli board ?

Would the 32 sli board be better for running multiple monitors in my simpit as I would eventually like to have a 19in LCD for forward view , with a 17in lcd on either side so 3 views in all.

Thanks
chuck
 

[luke]

Chuck,
do NOT get A8N-SLI. It has an inherent fault within its chipset cooling fan which fails after a few weeks of running. I am suffering it right now.

My upgrade is only 5.5 months old  and I am fighting with the supplier to replace it with the latest Asus A8N 32 Sli, as he is not expecting any A8N-SLI to come.

This is Congo's (a real Expert) wright up, of Aug 5th :-

".....Chipset fan - this cools the nForce4 SLI chip which is kinda like a northbridge chip. In a nutshell, this fan is a known disaster and Asus are doing their best to replace the defective part worldwide (so the press release states).  
It's got a record breaking 3 week lifespan and my fan expires in 3 days, The nForce4 chip needs active cooling (a fan and heatsink) on this board, apparently because the chip runs quite hot. There is no room for a large heatsink on the board.  
I'm currently considering my options and wonder if it's worth sacrificing the boards warranty if I replace the fan myself, rather than go months without a PC waiting for Asus to fix my new computer. Oh dear, I alreadt made up my mind, you see, there is that warranty thing rearing up it's head again. Absolutely USELESS......."

Also see his comments to me (Jan16th) in this thread (10th down):-

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/ ... 1137279613

The multiple screens depend whether you have one of the latest Grfx Cards that have two adaptors for monitors.

I have Nvidia GeForce 6600GT & use two old monitors.
WinXP caters for this setup. All I had to buy was a small adaptor for 50p at the WRuslip PC fair.

My thread explained it in detail to Caveman Jan 1st 06 :-

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/ ... 34;start=1

Good luck,                       luke

[chuckcrc]

Hi Luke
Thanks a lot for your reply. I didn't know there was a cooling problem with the standard fan on the SLI asus boards. So I won't buy the A8N with only the cooling fan.

The Asus A8N 32 SLI board has a liquid cooling device on the Nforce chip so are these boards ok? They cost a lot more tho but if they are reliable well I guess I'll pay the extra.

If the the Asus is still sus with the liquid cooling then what would be a good board.

I have already bought a AMD64 3700 San Diego 939 CPU which I may want to overclock to get it up to FX specs so the board would need to be able to handle this as well.

Will the  multiple monitors issue run ok in CFS3 as well as FS9 ?

thanks
chuck

[luke]

Chuck,
Since last post the supplier received the new A8N-SLI, so I exchanged my A8N-SLI with the new issue with improved chipset fan, to try it.

Lets hope that Congo will be kind enough to tell us if this is the improvement he had on his, and if he thinks  I will be better with the 32 one for extra

[chuckcrc]

Hi Luke
I guess I 'll wait awhile to see how this problem pans out before I go out a buy. I'm in ne hurry as the price will only go down over time. I wanted to get in a buy the CPU while stocks in Perth Australia were still available. I think I got a good deal at $382 AUS for a AMD64 3700 skt 939 San Diego core (1mb L2 cache).

CFS3 is the MS combat series of sim .

cheers
chuck


pic of the simpit I use in cfs3

[congo]

The A8N 32 Sli has one spec that is better than a standard A8N-SLI, I just can't remember what it is right now

[luke]

Congo,
the new straight A8N-SLI with its modified fan, after halve an hour simming & rebooting, it's chipset fan screeched again.

With the fan lead unpluged made no noise, when replaced it screached again.

He showed me the 32 one (+

[congo]

The heatpipes are not liquid, they are usually copper which transmits heat rapidly and efficiently over a short distance, to get a proportion of the heat away from the source quickly so the heatsink metal near the source can deal more effectively with what heat remains.

The problem with the original fan on the A8N-SLI was the extremely high RPM. This presents 2 glaring problems, excessive wear and noise.

The lower the RPM a fan has, the less noise and wear.

I try to replace any needed fans with High Volume, slow RPM ones if possible, thus reducing noise and maintainence. This usually means a larger fan diameter is required than the original, and larger heatsinks need to be used if required as well.

Many PC repair shops will have lots of old HSF assemblies at near giveaway prices or free. Just get a box of them to play around with if possible, Or go to the dump and scavenge a boxful from old PC's and electronics.

[chuckcrc]

Thanks Congo for the info. I will definitly make the effort to budget for that RAM you talk about. It will make the difference when overclocking.
Basically all I want is a PC that will run CFS3 flat out and run FS9 with a good frame rate.
Thanks
chuck

[GeForce]

Just to make it clear for myself, are there any boards on the following page that would have the fan problem mentioned above?

Click here for page

Cheers,

Jon

[congo]

Yes, the bottom three nf4 boards on that page, A8N-SLI SE, A8N-E and A8N5X all have fans in those pics which look like the offending 9000rpm fan. However, those are archive photos and may not represent the current shipped board versions.

It's best to consult the supplier in question and get them to include the Asus replacement part or a suitable

[GeForce]

Cheers mate

One thing though, if you Google Asus A8N SLi Deluxe (which is one of the ones that is said to have a good fan), you get images like this: click me

Doesn't this look like the fan on the normal A8N SLi?

Jon

[congo]

Take a look at the deluxe model in the original link (overclockers) you posted above, that is what the new fan looks like, it's very hard to see in that pic, but they are different.

These fans are an Achilles heel for these otherwise brilliant boards.

[GeForce]

Aah right I understand, thanks

[congo]

The A8N32-SLI has the fanless heatpipe design, an 8 phase power unit , 32 PCIe graphics lanes and possibly some other improvements, they are more expensive but they are a good looking option if you are well heeled.