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ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe

The PNY GeForce GS 7600 AGP 8x 512MB video card arrived today. Came with the original box, packaging, and accessories including the install CD (won it on Ebay). Also, ordered an IDE to SATA adapter. Actually, it was a 3 piece deal (different mfgs) for $11.97 shipping included. Hopefully the new Barton chip and 3GB memory sticks will get here next week.
 
Just make sure that you're paranoid levels of careful when installing the heatsink. Socket 462 CPU dies are ridiculously easy to chip or crack, especially with the stock AMD heatsink that has a crazy strong leaf spring that you have to more or less lean into to clip it on. It was such a common occurrence that companies started selling shims to place on top of the CPU to make a level surface for the heatsink to mount on.

The spring tension also gives rise to another danger: punching a hole in the motherboard during heatsink installation. The clip that holds the end of the screwdriver can give way, or you can slip resulting in a flat blade plunging into the board.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
Just make sure that you're paranoid levels of careful when installing the heatsink. Socket 462 CPU dies are ridiculously easy to chip or crack, especially with the stock AMD heatsink that has a crazy strong leaf spring that you have to more or less lean into to clip it on. It was such a common occurrence that companies started selling shims to place on top of the CPU to make a level surface for the heatsink to mount on.

The spring tension also gives rise to another danger: punching a hole in the motherboard during heatsink installation. The clip that holds the end of the screwdriver can give way, or you can slip resulting in a flat blade plunging into the board.
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Advice heeded. :thumbsup:
 
The new Sempron "Barton" 3300+ arrived this afternoon - all the way from China in 10 days. Hopefully, I'll be able to install it this weekend. The memory's not scheduled to be here until the 23rd. I'm going to try to setup XP on the Kingston 120 GB SSD using my big box, and make use of its external SATA and power plugin provisions. Kind of neat, no need to tear into that PC and having to wallow around in a bunch of wiring and cables.
 
I use a discarded A7N266 here that's been set up with a AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+ mobile. It runs quite happily at about 2.1 GHz after a couple of wire jumpers on the bottom of the CPU socket. That was about the limit of what I could do with a 15x clock multiplier. To be perfectly honest, I got it for the case and just kept the CPU board.
 
The A7N8X-E motherboard was new back in 2005 and was part of a project for my nephew. He has since moved on to bigger and better things, so I reclaimed most of the parts. I set a budget of $100 for this project and I'm just about there. With the new chip, memory, GeForce 8x AGP video card, along with the SSD (hopefully it will fly), you could consider the setup maxed out. There are drivers available all that way up W8, and I do have a spare W7 license, so I would like to see how far I can take OS's on this old platform. Nice winter project.
 
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Agent Orange said:
There are drivers available all that way up W8, and I do have a spare W7 license, so I would like to see how far I can take OS's on this old platform. Nice winter project.
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The A7N8X-E Deluxe is an nForce 2-based board isn't it? Driver support for those only goes as far as Windows XP and Server 2003.
 
cthulhu said:
The A7N8X-E Deluxe is an nForce 2-based board isn't it? Driver support for those only goes as far as Windows XP and Server 2003.
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Not at all. Those drivers are around, you just have to sniff them out. You won't get any help from the Asus site, but there are a few 3rd party offerings.
 
cthulhu said:
I'm referring to the drivers on Nvidia's website.
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I understand. With a project like this you have to play detective. I have some of the W7/8 drivers. Once in a while a XP or Vista driver might work with W7. I not pushing the W7 thing, if it works out then okay, if not, It'll stay as XP. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.
 
The A7N8X-E Deluxe is assembled and running with the new Sempron Barton 3300+ chip, along with the PNY Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS. The present monitor is an older 22" ViewSonic VX2262, which sees a max 1680 x 1050 from the GeForce video card . I misread the shipper for the 3 PC-3200 1 GB sticks and they won't be here until 12-23-15 thru 01-23-16. The system has two 512 MB sticks installed and is now configured for dual channel operation, and I can see a slight upgrade in performance. The system as a whole is very smooth and boots quickly. I think the video card puts it over the top. I scrapped the new aluminum piece of crap PC case, and went with an older one that I scrounged from my loft. It's an Antec which Dell was using for a time, and I bought years ago off their clearance web site. A little on the heavy side but it offers plenty of room. I had to use a spare 600 Watt PS, as it was the only one I had with enough of the old style power connectors to go around. The PS fits in the bottom of this case, which is a little strange, but is totally out of way of everything. With the holidays just around the corner, I'm not going to have to much time to play the rig until after the 1st of the year. Hopefully I can find a few minutes (before she clobbers me) to post the CPU-Z & GPU-Z so you can get some idea of the performance. Not bad for an old girl, and for once, it looks like this project will come in under budget.
 
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I just remembered something important about your motherboard while I was digging around in my motherboard bonepile today.

The NForce2 MCP-T chip (the southbridge under the AGP slot) gets VERY hot on ASUS motherboards. I'm not sure why it does or why ASUS didn't put a heatsink on it. If yours also gets skin blister hot then I'd recommend putting one of those chipset heatsinks on it with some double sided thermal tape. A heatsink with a fan would be a better option if available.

Reason I mentioned this is because I have an A7N8X (non deluxe version) where the southbridge suffered thermal death. The letters on the chip packaging turned dark brown in it and the motherboard all around it is very dark brown from severe overheating.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
I just remembered something important about your motherboard while I was digging around in my motherboard bonepile today.

The NForce2 MCP-T chip (the southbridge under the AGP slot) gets VERY hot on ASUS motherboards. I'm not sure why it does or why ASUS didn't put a heatsink on it. If yours also gets skin blister hot then I'd recommend putting one of those chipset heatsinks on it with some double sided thermal tape. A heatsink with a fan would be a better option if available.

Reason I mentioned this is because I have an A7N8X (non deluxe version) where the southbridge suffered thermal death. The letters on the chip packaging turned dark brown in it and the motherboard all around it is very dark brown from severe overheating.
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Thanks for that. My kid nephew ran this mobo 24/7 for years, you used to have to pry him off the keyboard. However, it wasn't being 'hotrodded' as it is now. I have 2 large fans churning away as well as the fan on the AGP card and the CPU. I'll keep and eye on it.
 
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Here's a screenshot of what's presently going on. SSD and more RAM to follow as well as a trial run of W7.

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A7N8X-E Deluxe software update: Although there are still some missing pieces of hardware, I was able to load a few games just to see if this thing is usable. There were no problems with the likes of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, and you shouldn't expect any. I chose Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. for the litmus test. Here's a listing for the game's minimal hardware configuration:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz / AMD Athlon XP 2000+ or higher
CPU Speed: 2.0 GHz
RAM: 1 GB Windows XP / 2 GB Windows Vista
OS: Windows XP (Service Pack 3) or Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
Video Card: 128 MB Direct X–compliant video card with Shader Model 2.0 or higher (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 and better or ATI Radeon 9800 / X800 / X1300XT / X1650-1950 / HD 2000/3000/4000 series)
Direct X version: Direct X 9.0 or 10.0 libraries (included on disc)
Sound Card: Yes
Free Disk Space: 1.5 GB
DVD-ROM: 4x dual-layer drive

Looks like this build just slides in and meets the specs for a minimal configuration. H.A.W.X. loads and runs at a decent pace. It is definitely playable with only 1 GB of RAM installed, no skips or stutters, and the mission went fairly smooth. Given that this game was released in 2009 or so, and the hardware and OS are from the early 2000's, it's an excellent project for youngsters coming up and kids 75 and older as well.

Here's a 'gotcha' that I didn't count on. Originally I installed XP as FAT32. I'm having a problem with the CD-ROM, and though it's a DVD, it doesn't do 2L double layer (soon to be rectified). This forced me to copy the H.A.W.X. CD's contents to the desktop on my big box, and then port the whole thing over via a flash drive. Well, one of the CAB's in H.A.W.X. is over 6 GB, and that presents a problem. It means I couldn't copy it it over to the thumb drive as the cutoff is 4 GB for FAT32 (most flash drives come native as FAT32 as you well know). I happened to have a new 64 GB SanDisk lying about, so I reformatted it to NTFS, which by the way took the better part of the night (FORMAT D: /FS :NTFS and I went to bed). Also, changed XP from FAT32 to NTFS on the A7N8X-E Deluxe. Since the A7 fully supports USB 2.0, there were no further problems with the H.A.W.X. installation.


 
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Agent Orange said:
I'm having a problem with the CD-ROM, and though it's a DVD, it doesn't do 2L double layer (soon to be rectified). . . .
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Installed a SATA TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223C which I found stuffed in a box of old stuff in my loft (@ 2009/10), and that solved the DVD problem. I left the PATA drive in place as it works seamlessly with DOS, which is on the C drive. BTW, dual boot setup.
 
A7N8X-E Deluxe Hardware update: The 3 GB of Chinese PC-3200 arrived this afternoon, all $9.84 worth (shipping included), and is up and running. There is definitely a noticeable increase in performance. So, hardware-wise, the build is complete, with the exception of the SSD, and that will have to wait until next week sometime. Worth noting is that the Sempron Barton 3300+ is the exact same chip as the the Sempron Barton 3200+. The 3300+ was a designation given to units shipped to OEM's, supposedly for marketing reasons.

I was having a problem getting Microsoft Security Essentials to install properly. Out of the blue this afternoon, and while the A7 was doing its update thing, MSE installed itself, so go figure. Also, I have Chrome up and running on my big box's XP HD, but it won't install on the A7. Maybe related to some obscure hardware issue. In any event FireFox version 43 installed without a hitch and runs real well.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
 
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I attempted to install W7 32-bit this afternoon and received a BSOD: "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA 0x00000050". After a little research, and among other things, it points to bad system memory (Chinese). I'm not ready to buy that yet, as XP and a few higher-end games, which are some what memory intensive, seem to run okay. Problem could also be in the add-on SATA cards. I haven't totally completed this build, still need to install the SSD, so I think I'm going to shelve the W7 idea and try not to get ahead of myself. I don't think W7 is going to add much to this project other than some bragging rights. XP seems to be the right fit for the time period anyway.
 
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If you suspect the RAM is bad, run Memtest on it.

I have a pile of old DDR memory if you need more to test with. I don't have any 1 GB modules, but I do have lots of 512 MB modules.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
If you suspect the RAM is bad, run Memtest on it.

I have a pile of old DDR memory if you need more to test with. I don't have any 1 GB modules, but I do have lots of 512 MB modules.
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Thanks for the offer. I ran several types of tests and the memory checks good. I believe the problem is hardware related. I installed the Kingston 120 GB SSD last night using an "el cheapo" SSD to IDE adapter (and I mean cheap), and the BIOS saw it this time. I did a fresh install of XP and it's presently churning away at the updates. More later.
 
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