Old-school advise required - socket a

[ollyk]

Hey folks ok after many years of service my A7N8X has just died. I think it is the BIOS and I will explain why in a moment....

Basically I need a Socket A to replace my A7N8X, - it has to be able to boot with SATA and have pretty similar specs to my previous board. I cannot afford to upgrade everything so this is the route I need to take . Now the reason I do NOT want another A7N8X....
Basically about 6 months ago my HD started giving write errors, so I decided to upgrade to a 1tb SATA drive.
On plugging in, I soon realised the MOBO was not setup to boot from SATA (can't remember exact details). I actually ended up having to create my own BIOS file by merging the last ASUS BIOS with the last produced SIS SATA BIOS (that was fun!!!).
So, I finally got everything working and installed windows XP pro on the SATA. I got warnings on installation that the controller wasn't certified but everything worked.
Now a few months on I start getting delayed write fails, things got worse then no boot - now my graphics card POSTS and I get a beep but things do not get as far as a memory test. So my mobo has finally died - perhaps due to a corrupt BIOS?
So, as I stated above, I do not want another A7N8X - as nice as it was, it is not SATA capable.
So does anyone remember any socket A's that did work well with SATA? I would like a good performing board but tbh stability is my main goal now!
I know socket A should be consigned to museums but I really have no choice at the moment, unless someone can tell me how to upgrade all hardware for the price of a second hand socket a board!

Does anyone know how the Nf7-S performs with sata.
Any other, more modern boards out there?

Appreciate advice folks....

Olly.

 

[trents]

I think the smarter route would be to install a SATA PCI adapter with whatever socket A board you get, and your choices will be limited because that motherboard technology is quite old now. You can get SATA PCI adapters for cheap off ebay. And don't forget, Windows XP doesn't natively support SATA installation. You have to press F6 at a certain point in the install process and then feed it SATA/RAID drivers from a floppy.

 

[ollyk]

I think the smarter route would be to install a SATA PCI adapter. You can get them for cheap off ebay.

Would you be able to boot into windows from that card though?
Anyway I still need a new mobo, and I am sure that there must have been socket A's that were fully capable of booting from SATA so I would rather go down that road but I will bear that in mind - I still don't think the A7N8X would have allowed that though....

 

[trents]

Would you be able to boot into windows from that card though? . . . I still don't think the A7N8X would have allowed that though....

Certainly you could boot into Windows from an add-on pci card! I just installed XP on a system last week that had a motherboard without native SATA connectors of any kind. It had a pci SATA adapter card added in. You just need to have the adapter's drivers ready on a floppy disk to insert when the XP installation prompts you for them. First, early on in the istallation of XP it will tell you to press F6 if you need to install RAID drivers. Press F6 then it will ask you to insert the floppy disk with the drivers. And it will ask you to do it again a little later in the process. Don't be confused by the request for RAID drivers. The same chip (whether found on a pci adapter or on the motherboard) that controls the RAID function also controls the SATA function. Remember, XP came out slightly before SATA technology did. That's why XP can't can't see a SATA drive without supplying the third party drivers. My guess is that is why you had trouble in the first place.

 

[ollyk]

Hi trents thanks for that. No the reason I had trouble is because the on board sata bios was released before SATA 2 came out and the bios would not recognise the 1tb size. It just used to hang at the start before trying load operating system.
I might just get another a7n8x, try a card and then another BIOS-bodge if that doesn't work...
I would still like to know what the last half decent socket a board was and what it's sata capabilities were.
BTW looking on the net other similar aged boards had the same problem name abit an7 etc...

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

It's probably not a corrupt BIOS, but bad capacitors. AFAIK, it's a problem on all revisions and variants of the A7N8X boards... I'm actually surprised yours has lasted this long, most of 'em didn't make it more than ~5 years, and mine died after 3.

Unfortunately it's also a problem on a lot of other Socket A boards, too. The NF7-S is one of the few exceptions, and it's also one of the best Athlon boards made.

As for the onboard SATA on the NF7, it (and most other SATA-equipped Athlon boards) uses a Silicon Image chipset. Most PCI SATA cards use either that same Silicon Image chip, or a vastly inferior Via chip. So the onboard SATA will be at least as good as, if not better than, any of the lower-cost PCI SATA cards.

 

[ollyk]

I did the caps about 6 months ago when I had other probs. TBH I only touched the larger ones (some were bulging but no leaks) as the cost is quite prohibitive!!!

I have noticed that owners of the NF7 also have to attach the later SIS bios to the main motherboard bios as I did with this board so I might just try an NF7....

Surely there were later socket a boards with full sata ii support though!!!?

It's probably not a corrupt BIOS, but bad capacitors. AFAIK, it's a problem on all revisions and variants of the A7N8X boards... I'm actually surprised yours has lasted this long, most of 'em didn't make it more than ~5 years, and mine died after 3.

Unfortunately it's also a problem on a lot of other Socket A boards, too. The NF7-S is one of the few exceptions, and it's also one of the best Athlon boards made.

As for the onboard SATA on the NF7, it (and most other SATA-equipped Athlon boards) uses a Silicon Image chipset. Most PCI SATA cards use either that same Silicon Image chip, or a vastly inferior Via chip. So the onboard SATA will be at least as good as, if not better than, any of the lower-cost PCI SATA cards.

 

[Mr.DLucey]

unless someone can tell me how to upgrade all hardware for the price of a second hand socket a board!

How much is your budget?

 

[Ben333]

I don't think you need to worry about SATA II, I think the original SATA should give you the same throughput and you'll be limited by the bus the controller is on or the drives you use.

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

Surely there were later socket a boards with full sata ii support though!!!?

No, there are none. SATAII didn't get wide support until pretty late in the S939 generation, a couple years after Socket A had been discontinued. As has been said, though, SATAII doesn't matter... SATA 1 is not going to limit your drive performance in any appreciable way.

 

[ollyk]

No, there are none. SATAII didn't get wide support until pretty late in the S939 generation, a couple years after Socket A had been discontinued. As has been said, though, SATAII doesn't matter... SATA 1 is not going to limit your drive performance in any appreciable way.

A ok that is what I needed to know thanks! re: sata II - my problem is boards like the abit and asus above do not support my sata II drive - they normally hang the computer at startup! I need to mod the original bios file and add latest unoficial SIS (specifically designed for the PCI cards!) drivers which is something I would rather not do as it is not officially tested or condoned!!!
Obviously it looks like I will have to do this if I want to remain socket A with my large sata drive...

How much is your budget?

Well I could puch to £70 I guess if that sorted all my problems out!

 

[Ben333]

70 bucks might get you a new motherboard, processor and some memory... if the euro is still where it was. I'm thinking anyway... Any new setup should beat anything on 462 / DDR1.

 

[tazman171]

Here's a list of some boards that are still available, Socket A or 462 all in the US and not much selection.
http://www.pricewatch.com/gallery/motherboards/socket_462

I just resurrected an A7N8X for a friend. It runs great again, bad caps and crappy Antec 400W PSU were the problem. I fired up my A7N8X to track down his problems, ran great then it shorted to the case through the only grounded mb screw, wont post now.

 

[ollyk]

Here's a list of some boards that are still available, Socket A or 462 all in the US and not much selection.
http://www.pricewatch.com/gallery/motherboards/socket_462

I just resurrected an A7N8X for a friend. It runs great again, bad caps and crappy Antec 400W PSU were the problem. I fired up my A7N8X to track down his problems, ran great then it shorted to the case through the only grounded mb screw, wont post now.

That's bad luck!!!
Well I just got another a7n8x (glutten for punishment) for £40 I am going to try hot-swopping the BIOS chip and reflashing the old one with standard BIOS. Then I can look at the possibility of selling on and perhaps looking at a total upgrade. At the very least I can determine if it is the BIOS chip and order a new one for a tenner.
Would a modern budget-board with on-board graphics beat my setup (xp2600 overclocked 1gb ram and Geoforce 7300GT) >>>?

 

[David]

I suspect an Athlon X2 with 2 GB RAM and onboard Radeon 4200 graphics ought to perform on par, if not better, than your current setup.

880G Based Board: £60
Athlon X2 2xx: £50
2 GB DDR3: £25

That would leave plenty of room to upgrade to a quad/hex later.

 

[tazman171]

Yeah, a setup like David mentioned or with a GeForce 8300 mGPU onboard if you want a nVidia GPU. Of cousre, discreet cards like the GeForce 8400 GS or an ATI Radeon HD 4350 are in the $30US range, pretty cheap. I have an Athalon 64 X2 3800+ with box and cooler that came out of my Asus M2N32SLI Deluxe MB that died, chip is good, had it in my Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H MB before I put my 1055T in it. Shipping might cost more than the CPU though.

Actually, the Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H is really cheap, $69 at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394&Tpk=Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H and supports up to AM3 with onboard Radeon 4200 HD graphics and 8 channel sound. I have my 6 core running on it as a media PC. It is only DDR2 though.

 

[ollyk]

ok folks if I get both mb's working I might look into selling on then I will have a bigger budget to work with Looking at current prices I could possibly sell my 1gb DDR and by 2gb of modern stuff! Amazing how older-spec memory prices are so high!
Anyway, currently installing XP onto an IDE drive, will then try hot swapping and flashing the old bios chip so wish me luck
I will update when all is done..

 

[tazman171]

OK. Let us know the haps.

 

[ollyk]

First bit of good news folks Did a bios hot swap and reflashed the old chip - now got my old board booting again )

I have just been reading about similar (actually pretty much identical) situations with Abit NF7 users and a discussion about merging Bios files together - one person suggested that you should use an earlier version of the 3112 OEM Sata drivers so I am thinking that a compatibility issue might have been the root of my problems, leading to a corrupt bios...
However, Now I have two working motherboards worth up to £50 each (especially with new capacitors!) and XP2400+ / 2600 with a video card worth at least £30, and 1gb ram, so I am very tempted to go down the route of selling them and opting for a complete system upgrade now.... Christmas might be coming early for me this year

 

[johan851]

I'm envious of your setup...what you have now was pretty much my first serious overclocking system. But yes, you should upgrade.