HI I'm new to this forum site and there seems to be a wealth of experience here so maybe you can help me or advise me?

There seems to be a lot of problems with motherboards for the new Winchester processors, (ASUS A8V ) to name but one. these don't work on new biulds or you have to flash the bios or there are is other issues. Are there any boards out there that will work on a new system biuld without to much messing around?

Or are the board manufacturers slow to catch up?

Or is there a board out there just for the Winchesters?

This system will not be overclocked & I don't play a lot of games I just want something fast and upto date

This is my proposed new biuld-----(First time)
If you think there is something better let me know I have the case and the PSU at this time.

AMD Athlon 64 3000 Winchester 90nm

Motherboard??????

SATA seagate 120gb

ATi Radeon 9800

Sony dual layer dvd rewriter

Corsair 512mb XMS3200 DDR

Tagan 480w

Cheiftec case




-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
SATA Western digital 160GB hard drive
Corsair ValueSelect Dual Channel 1GB KIT (2 x 512MB)
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB TV/DVI/DVI-I (PCI-E)
Sony 16X DVD-ROM DDU1613
Sony DWD22A 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/±RW
Cheiftec case
Tagan 480 PSU

Flashing the bios is fairly easy. If you look on the asus site it even comes with a bios flash utility that does everything for you. It also seems to have a dual bios like the gigabytes so if u screw one up, the mobo will automatically fix it. It seems to have a lot of nice features like it will overclock for you depending on what your hardware is, seems like a decent newbie mobo. what exactly are you looking to get out of a mobo?

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A8n-sli deluxe bios 1.004
A64 3200+ winchester at 2.2ghz 32C at idle w/ stock HSF
2x512 corsair xms pc3200C2 2-3-3-6 o/c to 220mhz 2.6v(stock)
connect 3d Radeon x600 pro 256mb
enermax whisper II 460w w/ 33A on the 12v rail
2 40gb PATA hdds
1 120mm, 3 80mm case fans
everything runs pearl and cool

My MSI Neo2 Platinum worked out of the box with the 90nm cpu, and i'm fairly certain Monarch didn't flash it for me. It's a good board, I'm pretty happy with it. Asus boards get the edge as to instructions (some of the MSI translations can be cryptic), both are good boards in my opinion. I just wanted the Nforce3 chipset over the K8T800.

The rest of the system looks well and good, make sure you have a floppy drive to load the SATA drivers, makes life much simpler.

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/DeuceTrinal
' ">http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=0&t=76
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum | Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester Core(90nm) | Zalman CNPS7000-Cu cooler | Antec SL350 PSU
OCZ EL Plat rev. 2 PC3200 2x512 2-2-2-5 | eVGA Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT | NV Silencer 5 | R

I would add in this, if you arent very computer swavy, i would try to stear away from the gigabyte boards, at least the board i have (7dxr) was a royal pain in the [content edited] to setup. Way too many dipswitches and jumpers to go over before being able to fire her up. Dunno if they are all like that, but mine was.

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A8n-sli deluxe bios 1.004
A64 3200+ winchester at 2.2ghz 32C at idle w/ stock HSF
2x512 corsair xms pc3200C2 2-3-3-6 o/c to 220mhz 2.6v(stock)
connect 3d Radeon x600 pro 256mb
enermax whisper II 460w w/ 33A on the 12v rail
2 40gb PATA hdds
1 120mm, 3 80mm case fans
everything runs pearl and cool

just to add my 2 cents worth. I have the msi neo2 plat. with a 3000 939nm. It all worked great right out of the box with kingston hyperx ram and zalman 7000al cu

HI thanks for all your input .

It will have a floppy drive to load the SATA drivers, it was the motherboard I was worried about and the ASUS seemed fine until I started reading up about any problems with it and the Winchester that people have had.
Maybe I should just go for it and if I run into any problems you peeps can always help me out.

Thanks again.

-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
SATA Western digital 160GB hard drive
Corsair ValueSelect Dual Channel 1GB KIT (2 x 512MB)
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB TV/DVI/DVI-I (PCI-E)
Sony 16X DVD-ROM DDU1613
Sony DWD22A 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/±RW
Cheiftec case
Tagan 480 PSU

I've just recieved my Asus A8V and 90nm 3500 and they are lying in the hall waiting for me coming off nightshift and building them. From what I've read, the Asus is stable, fast and easy to set up but does need a BIOS flash to work. I'll let you know how I get on once it's done!

-------------------------

Athlon 64 Winchester 3500 @ Stock
Asus A8V Rev 2- BIOS 1007
Gainward Golden Sample GeForce 6800 GT @ Ultra 400/1100
Creative Audigy 2 Platinum Pro
Corsair XL 1GB DDR 3200

Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro Cooler
Antec P160 Aluminium Case
2x120mm Akasa Ultra Quiet Case Fans
Antec Neopower 480W PSU

Hitachi Deskstar 160GB 7250RPM SATA HDD
Sony DWU-22D 16x DVD±RW
Sony DDU1612 DVD-ROM
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Thanks RS_Maverick

I would like to here how it goes

-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
SATA Western digital 160GB hard drive
Corsair ValueSelect Dual Channel 1GB KIT (2 x 512MB)
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB TV/DVI/DVI-I (PCI-E)
Sony 16X DVD-ROM DDU1613
Sony DWD22A 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/±RW
Cheiftec case
Tagan 480 PSU

the Asus A8V is a piece of cake to set up for winchester chips.

grab the latest bios & rename it A8V.ROM & put it on a floppy on it's own. put 1 stick of ram in the 3rd slot from the cpu. pop the floppy in & hit the power. while it's booting press & hold ALT+F2 for approx 10 - 15 seconds. Asus EZ-Flash will kick in & flash the board automatically before re-booting. job done your mobo now works with winchester cpu's

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DFI UT NF4 SLI-D
San Diego 3700 at 2904
GSKill LE
Sapphire X850XT
Storm G5 watercooled
my baby' ">http://vog.20m.com/images/my_bike_002.jpg

Thanks VoG

I,ll do what you said sounds a piece of cake

-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
SATA Western digital 160GB hard drive
Corsair ValueSelect Dual Channel 1GB KIT (2 x 512MB)
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB TV/DVI/DVI-I (PCI-E)
Sony 16X DVD-ROM DDU1613
Sony DWD22A 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/±RW
Cheiftec case
Tagan 480 PSU

Does anyone know what revision of the A8V Deluxe NewEgg is selling at the moment? I assume they are beyond the 1.02s, and are into the 2.0s. And, what BIOS revision are they shipping with as well? I'm about to buy this board, in a couple of weeks, and NewEgg couldn't confirm.

OK, I built my machine on Thursday, did software setup on Friday and played games all day Saturday at a LAN so feel like I can say a thing or two about the Asus A8V and 3500 Winchester chip. I used 1GB of Corsair 3200 DDR and the Gainward Golden Sample GeForce 6800 GT (256MB), cooling provided by the Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro and Arctic Silver 5. My case is the aluminium Antec P160 and I've fitted it with two 120mm fans- front and rear.
First of all, let me say that setup is indeed very, very easy. I also went down the EZ-Flash route and downloaded the 1007 BIOS from ASUS's site before renaming it to A8V.ROM and sticking it on a floppy. Build the machine, 1 stick of RAM in the 3rd slot from the CPU and switch on the machine with the floppy in the drive holding Alt and F2 (I think... it's in the manual! The mobo does the rest and will flash in about 30s with on-screen progress.
After that, stick the other stick in the 1st slot (other blue one) from the CPU for dual channel DDR and continue to boot Windows.

A word of warning though- If you're intending to install on SATA HDDs, you will need to have made a driver floppy from the ASUS CD or you will NOT be able to boot Windows. This floppy is not included, which caused me some frustration but is easily made with the instructions from the manual.

After that minor hiccup, everything was plain sailing in terms of software and driver installation. As for the games- all I can say is this thing flies! Doom III at 1280x1024 with everything on is smooth as silk (not benched it yet though) and even utilising 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering on Quake III with maximum settings wouldn't slow it down any! I was able to play all my games on full settings in a LAN setting with no hassle- Far Cry, Star Wars Battlefields, Freelancer etc.
The only two problems I had with the system were- hosting and playing a game of Doom III, no matter what the graphics settings was absolutely unplayable- I think this is a coding problem though because I've read many complaints about Doom III multiplayer. The other problem was a frozen system on hosting a game of Star Wars Battlefields with 32 per side at maximum settings. This only happened once and needed a restart but didn't reoccur at 16 per side.

The CPU runs very cool- maximum seen was 42C!!! Out of interest, the graphics card (guaranteed to OC to Ultra speeds) is a very hot beast and seems to sit around 68C when at Ultra speeds! I found that I could bring it down to about 63 by running at GT speeds and achieve similar performance in most games (except Doom III).

Other than the two minor issues, I've had nothing but stability and great performance from this system. I can only recommend it! :-)

-------------------------

Athlon 64 Winchester 3500 @ Stock
Asus A8V Rev 2- BIOS 1007
Gainward Golden Sample GeForce 6800 GT @ Ultra 400/1100
Creative Audigy 2 Platinum Pro
Corsair XL 1GB DDR 3200

Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro Cooler
Antec P160 Aluminium Case
2x120mm Akasa Ultra Quiet Case Fans
Antec Neopower 480W PSU

Hitachi Deskstar 160GB 7250RPM SATA HDD
Sony DWU-22D 16x DVD±RW
Sony DDU1612 DVD-ROM
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Hi RS_Maverick

Thanks for alll your feed back that's the MB for me.

Enjoy your system


-------------------------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
SATA Western digital 160GB hard drive
Corsair ValueSelect Dual Channel 1GB KIT (2 x 512MB)
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB TV/DVI/DVI-I (PCI-E)
Sony 16X DVD-ROM DDU1613
Sony DWD22A 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/±RW
Cheiftec case
Tagan 480 PSU