[UV_Power]

one has to be careful because there are three different varieties of NF7 boards on the market today and two of them don't hold a candle to the third one, which is the more expensive of the three.

I was careful. We both had NF7-S V1.0, unless you were talking about a different distinction.

By the way, if you bought from Newegg, just log on and reprint your original invoice.

That is good thinking. I am not sure if I bought it from newegg, but I tried it anyways and the earliest one they have on file is August 2004 and I know I got my board before that.

Thanks anyways guys. All your suggestions are much more helpful than I could've gotten anywhere else. Looks like the best one for me right now is the RMA. I am gonna try that.

[Advertisements]

Doby already mentioned their turnaround time on an advance RMA but they are also very quick on regular RMA's too. Excellent company to deal with - you won't be disappointed. They even have real people manning phones on callbacks.



edit: re: your NF7S V1.0 - sorry, didn't mean to offend, just have been tempered by some who have trouble distinguishing their elbow from other parts of the anatomy. You obviously aren't among them.

Edited by Rockster2U, 15 August 2005 - 09:35 PM.

[Rockster2U]

Doby already mentioned their turnaround time on an advance RMA but they are also very quick on regular RMA's too. Excellent company to deal with - you won't be disappointed. They even have real people manning phones on callbacks.



edit: re: your NF7S V1.0 - sorry, didn't mean to offend, just have been tempered by some who have trouble distinguishing their elbow from other parts of the anatomy. You obviously aren't among them.

Edited by Rockster2U, 15 August 2005 - 09:35 PM.

[UV_Power]

I actually live very close to their headquarters. About a 30 min. away. Not that it matters though since everyone pays the same amount for processing.

[UV_Power]

Looking ahead...

When I get a new mobo, will I be able to just transfer my hard drives over in tact? Or will I need to reformat first and then reinstall XP?

[RAz]

reinstalling the O/S isn't necesary... u just need to update some of the drivers ...

[warriorscot]

You should reinstall the os it should just allow you to update drivers but it rarely works like that.

[RAz]

if he has Win XP then he doesn't need to reinstall... because WinXP supports multiple hardware profiles... so just updating drivers should work just fine...

[warriorscot]

Yeah like i said works in theory not so well in practice. Big difference between should and will.

[UV_Power]

OK, but before I get to trying to update the drivers, I bought a new motherboard (keeping the receipt ) while ABIT works on my old one. It's an ABIT NF7-SG2. I installed it and booted her up. The POST was very slow. It took about 5 minutes to get to "Detecting IDE drives..." where it wouldn't go any longer. I hit 'delete' and ran Optimized BIOS settings and restarted. Same thing. Really slow.

So, I turned it off, unplugged it from the wall, and looked around. All the connections were fine, but the CMOS jumper was on the 2-3 pins which clears it. Out of the box, the CMOS was being cleared. So, I changed it back to the Normal 1-2 pins and started it and I get nothing (just like my last mobo). But, starting it up while the CMOS jumper is on the 2-3 pins, and it works VERY slowly and I can at least get into BIOS. It sounds like a bad idea to be starting my comp while the CMOS is being cleared. So, what is this all about and how can I fix it?

[Rockster2U]

I think all of the S2 and SG2 boards are being shipped that way and there's a warning in your quick setup guide. I'll bow out of this thread because I think you went from a great board (NF7S) to a marginal board and are making a huge mistake. You can also move an existing system drive loaded with XP to just about any machine and do a repair install from a slipstreamed SP2 CD without any hardware or driver problems. Good luck.

Regards,

[UV_Power]

I think you went from a great board (NF7S) to a marginal board and are making a huge mistake.

The board is only temporary until I hear back from ABIT. After I (hopefully) get a replacement board, i am returning this one. What, may I ask, makes it a marginal board? Looks the same to me except for the fact that I can't Dual Channel my memory.

do a repair install from a slipstreamed SP2 CD

You mean just boot from Windows XP CD and hit 'R' (repair), right?

[Rockster2U]

You mean just boot from Windows XP CD and hit 'R' (repair), right?

No, first R prompt is the recovery console. You need to proceed all the way through as if you were doing a first time install and then at the second R prompt - Repair - proceed accordingly. If your system has SP2 on it and your CD is either Gold or SP1, you'll have to make a slipstreamed CD which includes SP2 as your original CD won't work on the newer system. You will also need your SATA controller driver floppy when prompted during the boot or else your drive will not be recognized.



edit: too lazy to go back and read right now - if all you have are regular IDE HDD's, you can forget the comment about SATA controller drivers.

Edited by Rockster2U, 18 August 2005 - 03:38 PM.

[UV_Power]

It's too bad I can't get that far though

EDIT: Thinking way ahead, if ABIT can't solve my problem, does anyone have any recommendations for a good Socket A mobo in case I need to buy a new one? The only thing I really need on it is Dual Channel capability. Other than that I can be flexible. Any ideas?

I was thinking the ABIT AN7 would be pretty nice and it looks pretty similar to the NF7-S.

Edited by UV_Power, 18 August 2005 - 08:33 PM.

[UV_Power]

Bad news. My ABIT board is toast. ABIT says that there is physical damage found on the board and the warranty is void as a result. That's all I could get out of the phone conversation (after being on hold for about 45 minutes). So they are sending it back to me. Grrr......

Why couldn't they tell me where they found damage? I gotta look more into this. Maybe it got damaged during shipping when I was sending it to the company.

[UV_Power]

Well, I have a purchased a used board just like my old one. An NF7-S. Only now I got the revision 2.0 instead of the 1.0.

I slapped it on and got my baby working again. So, my overclocking adventure continues....

I left off with my CPU running at 2200 MHz (11x200). It's running pretty stable. 42C IDLE and jumps to 49C under load. What would my next step be? I kinda want to go higher with the multiplier. What do you guys think?