Opinion on Asus A7N8X

I've posted before on which motherbaord I should get, and my answer i came up with was the asus A7N8X. Lately on all the forums I visit, I've been seeing a lot of posts like"Problems with A7N8X", "A7N8X wont boot up", "Dead A7N8X Mobo?" and such. Is this becuase people are stupid and dont follow the stickies (no offense to anybody), or is it becuase so many people have the board, its normal to see that many posts about the board. Or does the board just suck?

Specs to be (going to order in a month or so):

Asus A7N8X (non-DLX)
AMD 2600+ XP (place hasn't emailed back if its palimno (sp?), barton, etc)
400+ AMD Approved PSU
AMD Approved Heatsink + Fan
Two sticks of 256 (maybe only one at the start)MB of PC2700 Ram
Windows 2000 or XP

This stuff will also be on there but I already have it (or already have orderd it):

Sapphire Radeon 9200 (128MB DDR)
LED Fans 80mm (4x)
UV Cold Cathode Light
UV Cables and Cable management
48X CD-RW
40GB Western Digital (i think) HD
Modified Case (ATX Form Factor)


Any input, suggestions, or links would be really great to have since this will be my first time building a computer from scratch. Also if there is any incompatibility issues please give me a holler (sp?)!!!

Edit: Updated Spec's

[Urban_Squrill]

THe 2600 is a Barton.
I would go with XP.
Are you planing to overclock.
Whats this used for?

[jmebonner]

I'd say a combination of people being unsure and having something incorrect and also because there are so many. I just got one refurbed from newegg and it's working great so far, I have it overclocked to 2600 speeds with a 1700 chip and no drastic cooling. You might consider doing that instead of buying the 1700. Of course you'd have to ditch the amd fan and get a vantec or coolermaster.
The only thing I see off about your specs is you'll be running pc2100 ram which is 266 MHz and your processor is 333 MHz, it's best to have these synched. It looks like you already have a stick of 2100 and want to be able to use it, but I'd advise against it.
You may also consider getting two identical sticks of 256 to utilize the Dual Channel ability of the Nforce Boards.

The boards are good thus the reason for so many posts, alot of people are using them. When you see things like board won't post or questions like dead board most of the time its user error. Or just simple issues. All boards have issues doesn't mean they are all bad apples.

One thing I notice is the use of pc-2100 you'd be better of using faster ddr and the price isn't that much difference. I'm assuming your adding one stick of 512 to an existing stick of 256? I'd just sale off the 256 and get a couple sticks of 3200. But thats IMO

Edit:wow I'm slow over here

PC3200 is a little expensive for my taste, what about two 256MB PC2700 for the dual channel quiality? I think im going to order from newegg beacuse of their quiality service, but all the 400+ power supply's are >$50 that I see. Is this cheap? Expensive?

Urban Squirl: What do you mean go with XP? Windows XP? And this machine will be used for gaming, and probably no overclocking involved.

Thank you all for your quick responses, keep them coming please!

yeah the 2700 would be fine I actually meant to type in pc-2700 or 3200 in the fisrt post i'm just a lil brain dead at the moment and who know what US means 400w ps for $50 depends on what brand it is but that should be about the right price. good luck with the new build and keep us posted

edit: for clarity.

[daniel brooks]

he meant processor ATHLON XP he was not talking about the operating system ok i thought i would tell you and i hope you get the system up and running bye

[cruiserlck]

Originally posted by Urban_Squrill
THe 2600 is a Barton.
I would go with XP.
Are you planing to overclock.
Whats this used for?

If i'm not mistaken the 2600 isn't a barton , it's a xp. The 2500 , 3000 , and 3200, and some 2800's are bartons.

I have the deluxe version of the A7N8X and it's been up and running for about 2 months with no problems what-so- ever. From my experience it's a good board , and I'm sure there are alot of them out there and I've seen alot of posts about problems with it but I'd recomend it to anybody.

cruiserlck is correct the 2600 is not a barton its is an xp t-bred

and I dunno what urban meant but I'm assuming he means go with win XP <shakes head>

[Jeordiewhite]

There are problems with the asus A7N8X and deluxe(discovered later on then released)
I've tried all i could, it wasn't compatible with my ram. The board does have quite a few issues, the problem is they release them with not enough testing, instead they fix them later on with differen't revisions of the board.
I'm running the deluxe, pcb 1.06.

Is this becuase people are stupid and dont follow the stickies (no offense to anybody)

I don't think of people as stupid, i take them as they come.
I've tried all i could, it had problems with it. Memory as one, this was the big one which most people expirienced. Quite a few types/brands were incompatible.
This doesn't mean the board is completely bad, but this isn't the first board to cause lots of troubles from asus.
As i mentioned, the reason being they don't do near enough testing, they must ship these out.
So they make revisions, if you can get the latest revision of the board.