Soltek S75-FRN2-L: "old" nforce2 vs. nforce2 Ultra 400 ?

I just ordered a Soltek S75-FRN2-L listed as nforce 2 Ultra 400 and upto 400Mhz FSB.
The MB i recieved only advertises the "old" nforce 2 chipset and says nothing about Ultra 400.
I *know* that if i update the BIOS i can get 400Mhz FSB support, but i want to know if there is any difference(FSB overclocking etc) between newer boards and older boards. Im asking because i read this:

"The nForce2 Ultra 400 is different from NVIDIA's earlier nForce2 chipsets
in only one way; official 400MHz FSB support. Results from NVIDIA's in-house
testing confirmed that nForce2 Ultra 400 was able to reach higher FSB speeds
than their older chipsets from last year, which reached average speeds of
only 420MHz FSB. (However, nForce2 chipset steppings predating nForce2 Ultra
400 did gradually perform a bit better.)
If you refer back to our nForce2 6-way Motherboard roundup in December 2002,
you'll see that nForce2 motherboards from ABIT, ASUS, Chaintech, Epox,
Leadtek, and MSI were all revision 1.x. In other words, they were not based
on the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. Now, virtually every single nForce2
motherboard available for purchase is based on NVIDIA’s nForce2 Ultra 400
chipset, and each motherboard is accordingly marked version 2.0." ( http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1836 )

Btw, my board is marked as "Rev. D"(manual is from March 2003), im just wondering if i should ask for an replacement or if it doesnt matter at all(i mean i *do* know how to update a BIOS, but i dont want to lose OC potential ).

Thanks for reading.

If you take off the heatsink on the northbridge, do you see the aluminum heatspreader. The new Ultra 400 chips do not have a heatspreader in the northbridge. Also what is the revision A1, C1? There is a difference in many cases in stability at 400 Mhz FSB, for me to run at 400 fsb, with the revision 1, i have to increase the vdd, the northbridge voltage, or else it wont run, with the ultra 400, it doesnt happen.

Ill try taking the NB heatsink of when i get home, but is the A1/C1 revision stuff marked on that chip or do you mean the motherboard revision(Which is "D") ?

Thanks for responding btw.

BTW: I am sure its a FRN2 and all, thats marked on the side of the box, but i still think its weird. I emailed soltek and they said that all FRN2 boards use the CR18D chipset which is the same as the Ultra 400. I really hate this kind of !#%#¤!¨#¤

Okay i took of the NB heatsink and it says this on the chip:

G34590.1 0310A1
S TAIWAN

I suppose that means A1, and i assume higher is better ?

EDIT: I found some posts here and there(including an Babel-fish translated german site) that seems to indicate that the A1 stepping/revision(whatever its called is indeed the newest? So basicly im am currently very confused....

It would seem that C1 is newer, but your chipset can already handle 200+ fsb without the vdd increase. What hardware are you running, how far have you oc'ed?

I havent even had a chance to try it out yet, i was trying to figure out whether or not i should send it back! [and i cant try it out yet, i dont have a CPU cooler yet. ]

I did however find 2 interesting things, one is a review at digital-daily of "Gigabyte 7NNXP (nForce2 Ultra 400)", which obviously has the correct ultra chipset.

They write this:
"Although the new revision of the chipset (C1) heats less than the previous versions, the heat emission of the north bridge is still pretty high. So active cooling allows to increase stability both at nominal speeds and at overclocking. "
And following this text they show this image:
http://www.3dnews.ru/documents/5565/north2.jpg
(they store their images on the .ru server which is apparently a russian version of the same site?)

This image shows the northbridge of this ultra 400 chipset and you can clearly see its marked A1. So obviously i cant claim mine isnt an ultra 400(except that i have to do a BIOS update).

The other thing i found was this:
http://www.hardtecs4u.com/reviews/2003/asus_a7n8x_deluxe_rev.2.0_gold/
Its a german review of the asus deluxe v.2 and they have this little funny table:
http://www.hardtecs4u.com/images/reviews/2003/asus_a7n8x_deluxe_rev.2.0_gold/revision.jpg
Which seems to suggest that A1 marks the C1 chipset ?

Im pretty convinced now that i have what i should have, but not 100%

Is yours marked C1?[ and was the A1 you mention marked otherwise as Ultra 400? ]

Use CPU-Z to confirm its a C1. A1 on the northbridge indicates it is in fact the newer C1 stepping and will support 400FSB Athlons with the D1.2L BIOS and up.

Okay, ill go ahead and put everything together(as it seems everything is okay) as soon as i get my cooling stuff, and then check with CPU-Z just to be sure.

Thanks for helping out!

I was in the same dilema as you and was not sure until I put mine together and ran cpuz, as I did not want to pull it to bits before I had used it vbg, I found this that might help you it shows the northbridge marked A1 and underneath it states C1 stepping,

http://www.modsynergy.com/Review 42.htm

this review should help clear up any of your worries I hope, I have the D1L bios and will have to update to D1.2L if Iwant 400 support but I am only using 1700 so will not bother as you loose some of the memory optoins with the new bios so I have read, anyway it's a great board, I have had it @ 220 but my ram won't go higher, also running stable @ 210 x 11.5=2415 1.7 vdd 2.8 vdimm and 1,750 vcore, good luck.

For mine it says it's a A2, and I have a 75FRN-L non ultra 400....

I guess that settles it, now i have 3 different sources saying that the A1 mark indicates the C1 revision which is the newest no matter who you ask.

Thanks again all of you, this is a really great forum!

ALL Soltek 75FRN2 boards have the updated Ultra 400 chipset.

Soltek makes no mention of this in their manual or on the box, but rest assured it is using the newest chipset.

FYI ....

The newest frn2 revision PCB is: "REV: E3"

seren said:

I was in the same dilema as you and was not sure until I put mine together and ran cpuz, as I did not want to pull it to bits before I had used it vbg, I found this that might help you it shows the northbridge marked A1 and underneath it states C1 stepping,

http://www.modsynergy.com/Review 42.htm

this review should help clear up any of your worries I hope, I have the D1L bios and will have to update to D1.2L if Iwant 400 support but I am only using 1700 so will not bother as you loose some of the memory optoins with the new bios so I have read, anyway it's a great board, I have had it @ 220 but my ram won't go higher, also running stable @ 210 x 11.5=2415 1.7 vdd 2.8 vdimm and 1,750 vcore, good luck.

Click to expand...

Agreed I have had this board for a while mine is a Nforce2 Ultra 400 supporting 400 fsb however it came with bios D1.1L I will not flash to 1.2 as mentioned above you lose mem frequency settings. Unless you plan to run a Barton 3200 or higher 1.1 bios is flat out the best. I have a Barton 2500 running at 200x11.5 all stable for XP3200 speed.

Personally I would stick with 1.1 bios, unfortunaltely lotsa issues if you try to backwards flash from what I have read on amdmb.com. If you attempt buy a back up bios chip from Soltek

Cisco KID