Asus A7v266e

[Honourableprawn]

lo there ev'ryone, any idea what the Asus A7v266e mobo is like? I've tried to search for any reviews but not had much luck.....

Cheers,

The Prawn

 

[ToRN]

I own one

I actually have one. Make sure you take the one with second IDE or RAID controller. Having to choose 4 drives out of 8 is hard when you used to have it all.

I just love this mobo. Stable as a rock and very powerful. Best support possible. The only problem I ALWAYS have with asus mobo's. You need to learn to use the boards. I mean, for some reason they have a special way to handle them which you need to know. So if it has problems in the beginning, don't say it's a bad mobo.

Expencive, but worth every penny.

 

[Honourableprawn]

thanx Torn

Thanks torn, I've actually gone and bought it already and it was the easiest install I ever had to do, the board is the Raid version so there's no worries on that score. But how overclockable are they? You can see my specs at the bottom of this post, and I haven't tried to oc it yet, have u? And if so how far have u pushed it?
One final question, when I've tried to upgrade on previous mobos past 512Mb, my system crashed, now this mobo has 3 slots for ddr, can I slap another stick in there or will it crash still?

Thanks again,

The Prawn:grinthumb

 

[ToRN]

taken from asus.com

DDR Memory Support
The A7V266-E supports up to 3GB of high-speed PC2100/PC1600 DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate) for a peak bandwidth of 2.1 GB/s. The ultra-fast 266 MHz memory bus provides enhanced system performance for intense gaming and multimedia applications.

I have not yet tried to overclock, but I know it is very easy to do with the jumperfree mode. I guess the 1600+ can be overclocked easily to 1.47 GHz and 1.5 GHz. With proper cooling maybe the 1.6 GHz and 1.7 GHz are in reach. Don't forget to unlock the cpu, if you want to overclock using the multiplier.

 

[Didou]

Re: thanx Torn

Originally posted by Honourableprawn
One final question, when I've tried to upgrade on previous mobos past 512Mb, my system crashed, now this mobo has 3 slots for ddr, can I slap another stick in there or will it crash still?

Might be some bad quality RAM or maybe aggressive memory timings in the BIOS. Were all the memory modules the same ? You could slap in some good ram, find that it very fine & slap some low rate ones & it hangs the whole system. I especially heard that KT266a cards are very picky when comes to Ram. Try to get some good brand ones.

BTW does the A7V266-e RAID have integrated sound ? I hate it when they put some cheap stuff in a high end card ( onboard sound, acr slot, etc... ).

I'm trying to decide between the A7V266-e or the KR7A-RAID. I've installed a KR7a before & it worked great & I must say that I've never had bad experiences with ASUS but...

:blackeye:

 

[uncleel]

The "REAL" uncleel

I've tried to search for any reviews but not had much luck.....

Review-->
http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/mainboards/asus/a7v266-e/

I also noticed your having trouble w/ your Subject Lines.

 

[Svoboda]

how is he having trouble w/ the subject lines?

The REAL Bourbon

 

[Honourableprawn]

A7v266a

I didn't think I had trouble with my subject headers, but now the error of my ways has been pointed out I shall seek councelling for it, lol. I'll try and be a bit more specific in future.

Anyway..... back to the mobo, it does has o/b sound and an acr slot, but the sound was the first thing to be turned off, as for the acr slot, what's it for? who needs it? will it ever get back together with PCI slot number 3? Will the AGP slot ever recover from it's debilitating illness?.............sorry, slipped into soap world then, too much time with the wife..........

The Prawn

 

[Didou]

Hmmm

In case you missed my last post

Does the A7V266-e RAID have onboard sound ?

 

[Vehementi]

It's optional, some do, some don't. It wouldn't be much more if you wanted it...

 

[Laser Eyes]

Here are links to some reviews of the Asus A7V266-E and the manufacturer's site on the board:

http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,apn%3D11%26s%3D1670%26a%3D18386%26app%3D9%26ap%3D10,00.asp

http://www.bench-house.com/motherboard/asus/a7v266-e/a7v266-e_001.html

http://www.mbreview.com/a7v266e.php

http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socketa/a7v266-e/overview.htm

My A7V266-E works fine. Hope this helps.

Laser Eyes

My system:
ASUS A7V266-E Socket A DDR Raid
AMD Athlon XP 1800+
Taisol CGK760092
Enermax 350W EG365P-VE FCA
2 x 256MB Kingmax PC2100 DDR-SDRAM
40GB IBM Deskstar 60GXP 7200 RPM
ASUS V8200 64MB Geforce 3 Ti500 Deluxe
Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer
Plextor PlexWriter PX-W2410A
Sony 19" CPD-G420
Iomega 250MB Zip Drive int.
Klipsch ProMedia 2.1
Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical
Microsoft Windows XP

 

[Vehementi]

Man, I had the same exact question about the ACR (Advanced Communications Riser) slot. After some searching, I discovered it's a new architecture for modems, i.e. NIC's, xDSL modems, cable, dial-up. Apparently it's faster than PCI, and if I'm not mistaken, very similar to the AMR (Audio Modem Riser) that came out a while ago, but didn't really catch on. It's basically just trying to get modems away from PCI, kind of like AGP did with video cards way back when.

 

[Bill The Cat]

I also have this motherboard and being a ASUS M/B owner I am very impressed by this new motherboard. I can almost remember my first ASUS board, almost but I can't remember all the letters but I'll take a stab at it, I think it was the P55T2P4 Motherboard, is that it? I loved that one and after that one I made the mistake of going with a FIC and then a Soyo motherboard and then went back to ASUS motherboards and have been sticking with them from then on.
I like how they set the cpu so it can fit the PAL8045 and I heard they are using a faster switching regulator chip that works as good or better than a 3 stage setup with the older controller chip. I still wish they would have gone with a full 4 stage but it works and so that is good enough for me.
It was a very easy motherboard to install and get up and running. The speed it right up there with most, it's not the fastest but it is still in the ballpark. I prefer the mix of stability and performance and this motherboard does both.
The sound issue was a sore spot, why include the onboard chip and not include the hardware to make full use of it. I ordered a SB Aud. Gamer soundcard and am going to stick with that.
Am running Crucial and an run 2-2-2 settings with a faster than stock.
I highly recomend this motherboard to anyone looking to upgrade or put togeather a new system.
Note to new computer builders. When building a new system buy a ground strap as well to protect your investments. I am even guilty in my early days of zapping a video card's memory with static elec. I have cats and one jumped on my lap while I was working on it and I didn't think about it and after giving the cat a scratch behind the ear I put it down and then picked up the video card and installed it. I then got garbage on the screen and found a hot memory chip that I zapped. I leard a lot sence then though and never do any work without using a ground strap.
Have a good one everyone....