a7n8x to a7n8x-x mod idea

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 20, 2004, 11:53 PM

a7v8x to a7v8x-x mod idea

The a7n8x and a7n8x-x look exactly the same... thier specs are the same

They verry only slightly by chipset what are the chances
the a7n8x-x bios will work on a a7n8x board

I'm getting a little dareing since I have a spare bios chip pre flashed
already in case this were to fail.

What do you guys think?

Also keep in mind it seems they've stopped releaseing a7n8x updates

4/21/2004 last time X was updated
almost a year ago for the non X version

Nacht · Jul 21, 2004, 12:54 AM

hmm

you can always flash back

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 21, 2004, 01:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Nacht
hmm

you can always flash back

not if it truly borks it lol.... or If it fry's the board or something

I wonder whats the worse that could happen.....

CDsDontBurn · Jul 21, 2004, 01:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by The_Neon_Cowboy
not if it truly borks it lol.... or If it fry's the board or something

I wonder whats the worse that could happen.....

Only way to find out is to actually try it out.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 21, 2004, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pac-Man
Only way to find out is to actually try it out.

this is part of what drives me

a7n8x

a7n8x-x

notice at big chip chips that are not on the a7n8x-x thats what my board looks like even thouse it's a non x

I have a a7n8x rev. 1.04 and it looks just like the second pic

CDsDontBurn · Jul 21, 2004, 01:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by The_Neon_Cowboy
this is part of what drives me

a7n8x

a7n8x-x

notice at big chip chips that are not on the a7n8x-x thats what my board looks like even thouse it's a non x

I have a a7n8x rev. 1.04 and it looks just like the second pic

i don't see much of a difference in the board except the model of both boards between pci slots 1 and 2, and the a7n8x has an RCA jack and something else above the two top USB ports

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 21, 2004, 02:02 AM

my bard has no rca jack lol

any one have any consiqences for doing this? even if it works?

the bios's release notes seem to be nearly ideantical

to me it looks good but i've yet to her the sceptics weigh in....

would there be a reson i'd what to do this? other then the newer bios?

wonder if it'll help me reach 400 FSB currently seems locked at 175 or 180
( with out a volt mod that I do not want to do...)

mainman · Jul 21, 2004, 02:35 AM

I think its worth the try, you can allways flash it back if it doesnt work, i dont think it will kill the board, you have pretty good change of it working.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 21, 2004, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mainman
I think its worth the try, you can allways flash it back if it doesnt work, i dont think it will kill the board, you have pretty good change of it working.

Well now that I think it's way posssable now I debateing to my self... the... WHY?

Why should I?

What do I stand to gain?

mainman · Jul 21, 2004, 02:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by The_Neon_Cowboy
Well now that I think it's way posssable now I debateing to my self... the... WHY?

Why should I?

What do I stand to gain?

Well i think these are important questions, its all up to you, but personaly i wouldnt do it.

MythicaL · Jul 21, 2004, 04:21 AM

Too must of a risk-o... I lost my last A7N8X to a bad flash so I don't think you should.

CDsDontBurn · Jul 21, 2004, 04:38 AM

I would do it. Worst case scenario your board is dead.....gives you reason to upgrade

. I'd get either the Abit NF7-S or the Asus a7n8x - Delux.

If you're into overclocking, the Abit board is better for that.

Lchevy79 · Jul 21, 2004, 05:01 AM

go for it bro i have faith in you

CrapolaJola · Jul 21, 2004, 06:15 PM

I haven't looked @ these in a while, but if memory serves me correctly the -x model uses a slightly different version of the nf2 chipset.

178 or 180 FSB ouch, mine hits a lowly 210. For mine overclocking I'd snatch an NF7-S like Pac suggested or if you're more serious or if just like sweet looking mobos get a DFI Lanparty. Those things reach insane fsbs.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 21, 2004, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CrapolaJola
I haven't looked @ these in a while, but if memory serves me correctly the -x model uses a slightly different version of the nf2 chipset.

178 or 180 FSB ouch, mine hits a lowly 210. For mine overclocking I'd snatch an NF7-S like Pac suggested or if you're more serious or if just like sweet looking mobos get a DFI Lanparty. Those things reach insane fsbs.

Well that sighly diffrent chips isn't really diffrent iut's the same chip relabled but one thats been tested to ensure it hit 400mhz....

What holds my bard back is a resistor R628 thats too strong and starves my south and north bridge of the proper voltage. only fixable by a volt mod

1ChAoS · Jul 21, 2004, 08:40 PM

A7n8x D new bios 1008 at Asus website.Forget about going past 182 FSB without the volt mod.This is a good MB but it's a old cowboy and needs to be put out to pasture.Stick it in a case and use it for your backup and get a newer MB that will go 200+FSB.
I have a Barton 3200 and 1gig 3700 OCZ DDR in mine but it is a waste and I'll probably switch to a Abit soon.

Geminiwave · Jul 21, 2004, 11:20 PM

why would you want an X-X mobo on an X board. the X board is more advanced. The X-X is the low discount model. Its missing dual channel and a few other things(cant remember all of them). And the rev 2 X mobos have been getting bios updates but not many because there havent been many problems.

soooo I guess im alittle confused about why you'd want to do this.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 21, 2004, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Geminiwave
why would you want an X-X mobo on an X board. the X board is more advanced. The X-X is the low discount model. Its missing dual channel and a few other things(cant remember all of them). And the rev 2 X mobos have been getting bios updates but not many because there havent been many problems.

soooo I guess im alittle confused about why you'd want to do this.

well thats what I thought but if they have droped the bios support there is not much I can do....

I'm just discussion ATM ....

Also if it's possable to go from non X to X then it's likely possable to go from X to regular

I know the X is value series but bios updates are important...

pRAyNz · Jul 22, 2004, 03:17 AM

Hi,

I`m a little bit optimistic to get one more update from ASUS, which (propably "only") enables the boards to detects AMD Semprons correctly, but I fear that`s all we can expect from ASUS (kind of disappointing for me, because of the reputation of ASUS and the amount of stability-problems people are still experiencing all over the web, even more with newer BIOS-versions.).
To flash a BIOS of another board on my board looked very risky, if not extremely stupid for me -some days ago- but I`m unsure ATM. This is because I found a posting by someone claiming (Edit) that he accidently flashed the A7N8x-E`s BIOS to his A7N8x Rev2.x and didn`t get any problems! (Link) (Sure its not the "x-x", your talking about, but this makes me think, that ASUS didn`t change the design of the A7N8x-Series too much...)

Well, I see two options:
First it would be a good idea IMHO to intensively search the web for reports by people who were crazy enough to flash a "wrong" BIOS to their A7N8X-boards and for what they experienced.
Second IIRC the BIOSes are completely modular, meaning that one should be able to take the newest BIOS for any board in the A7N8X-line (<-at least) and "make it fit" in every other board of this line he wishes too, by replaceing single incompatible modules with modules from the target-board (for example to replace the Gigabit-LAN-module of the "E" with the old counterpart.), while overtaking the rest of the modules from the newer board, which most propably includes new fixes, tweaks and other updates - Well, maybe this is more hard than it sounds like, but I believe there are people with the skills to do that around for sure and maybe they would be willing to do this?

Edit: Here is a nice tool BTW (But it`s support for the ASUS BIOSes is not fully implemented ATM and you have to manually copy the files from the plugin-folder to the main-dir to get any useful info.

But Still, looks very promising...

)

But about you simply flashing this BIOS...I really wouldn`t do that, maybe it works (and I would guess so), but if not you`ve got a useless piece of nice looking hardware (because of wrong voltages for example). - If you really want to do this maybe it would be a good idea to borrow a second A7N8X of the same model from someone to hotswap the BIOS-chip if there`s a problem, or to lower risk even more, I`ve seen some device, which seems to work similar to Gigabytes DualBIOS-stuff ->here
But if you should decide to flash, the results would surely be interesting...

Good luck!

Edit:
I dunno, they all look very similar

A7N8X

A7N8X-X

A7N8X-E

pr0digal jenius · Jul 22, 2004, 03:37 AM

go for it neon...but use a bootdisk(i use DR.DOS bios disk from bootdisk.com) and nto Asusu Update

Killer_uk · Aug 2, 2004, 12:36 PM

I though the the A7N8X and the A7N8X-X had different chipsets? Or wouldnt this make a difference?

A7N8X -> nForce 2
A7N8X-X -> nForce 2 400

The_Neon_Cowboy · Aug 2, 2004, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Killer_uk
I though the the A7N8X and the A7N8X-X had different chipsets? Or wouldnt this make a difference?

A7N8X -> nForce 2
A7N8X-X -> nForce 2 400

Nope a Nforce2 400 is just a stright Nforce thats been tested to make sure it wil runn stable at 400 MHz Fsb that is all, it's exact same chipset

Geminiwave · Aug 2, 2004, 05:28 PM

plus you got them reversed anyway. if one of those were to have a lower end chipset it would be the A7N8X-X as it is the cheapo model.

btw many people do not have nF2 400s on their A&n8X-Xs because the first few runs of that board were only tested for 333mhz.

Its probably the same chipset but just a different label but even so its a detail.

Also, I'm pretty darn sure that you cannot unlock the dual channel mode on the X-X. The board has too many differences.

One more note. Up on those pictures another change is that the A7N8X-X has a different AGP port(its missing the AGP PRO slot)

The_Neon_Cowboy · Aug 7, 2004, 11:32 PM

check this out though

A guy flashed his a7n8x-x to the deluxe rev 2.0 bios it worked plus it re enabled duel chanel
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/view...054&highlight=

G@MeBoY · Aug 9, 2004, 06:28 AM

@The neon cowboy:
Look, its simple: -x series do not feathure dual channel, have a different mosfets on some revisions, not all, what you all didnt notice on pics that you have sent is DualChannel chip that is missing (between soket and USB connectors on the outer end of board) and because of that, that guy is telling a lie, he could not have enabled something that he doesent have, and another thing, DELUXE model HAS nvidia soundstorm instead of realtek AC'97, I dont see how could he pass a boot screen with that BIOS since he i is missing an MCP-T chip (he has MCP) so forget about that guy

nVidia has distributed to the manufacturers nf2 400 and nf ultra 400 (with DC) and as an option, southbridge equiped with soundstorm (this eliminates additional realtek ac'97 chip) named MCP-T over standard "plane" MCP chip....

I hope that I made some thing clear. Anyway, why would you like to loose DC even if it is possible to flash ?!?!?? I were you, I would go out and buy a new mobo since ASUS hasent proved to be "top of the line" for AMD nf2 platforms...yes it's stable, but can you go over 220FSB ? you can get your self epox rda+ or even cheaper (and maybe better) rda3i, or abit nf7 (avoid an7)...all thoese for arround 50$, and I am sure you could ca$h in your mobo for 30$

Jul 20, 2004, 11:53 PM	#1
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	a7n8x to a7n8x-x mod idea a7v8x to a7v8x-x mod idea The a7n8x and a7n8x-x look exactly the same... thier specs are the same They verry only slightly by chipset what are the chances the a7n8x-x bios will work on a a7n8x board I'm getting a little dareing since I have a spare bios chip pre flashed already in case this were to fail. What do you guys think? Also keep in mind it seems they've stopped releaseing a7n8x updates 4/21/2004 last time X was updated almost a year ago for the non X version __________________

Jul 21, 2004, 02:02 AM	Thread Starter #7
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	my bard has no rca jack lol any one have any consiqences for doing this? even if it works? the bios's release notes seem to be nearly ideantical to me it looks good but i've yet to her the sceptics weigh in.... would there be a reson i'd what to do this? other then the newer bios? wonder if it'll help me reach 400 FSB currently seems locked at 175 or 180 ( with out a volt mod that I do not want to do...) __________________ Last edited by The_Neon_Cowboy; Jul 21, 2004 at 02:08 AM.

Jul 21, 2004, 02:35 AM	#8
mainman Mr. Nobody Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: OmniPresent Nightwatcher Posts: 5,961 Rep Power: 71	I think its worth the try, you can allways flash it back if it doesnt work, i dont think it will kill the board, you have pretty good change of it working. __________________

Jul 21, 2004, 04:21 AM	#11
MythicaL I like computers. Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: In front of a monitor Posts: 3,399 Rep Power: 89 System Specs	Too must of a risk-o... I lost my last A7N8X to a bad flash so I don't think you should. __________________ Always knew I didn't belong in this world. I wasn't made for this. But I'll never forget those who betrayed me, and those who never failed my trust.

Jul 21, 2004, 04:38 AM	#12
CDsDontBurn Lurking DriverHeaven Join Date: May 2003 Location: Southern California Posts: 22,805 Rep Power: 235 System Specs	I would do it. Worst case scenario your board is dead.....gives you reason to upgrade . I'd get either the Abit NF7-S or the Asus a7n8x - Delux. If you're into overclocking, the Abit board is better for that. __________________ Her First Day \| A year later

Jul 21, 2004, 12:54 AM	#2
Nacht ein Krieger Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Clemson Uni Posts: 3,127 Rep Power: 0	hmm you can always flash back

Jul 21, 2004, 05:01 AM	#13
Lchevy79 -=[DHzer0point Team]=- Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 725 Rep Power: 0	go for it bro i have faith in you __________________ msi K7N2 delta2-AMD 2800xp@2083-1gig of pc2700ram -ati x850xt 256mb -Audigy mp3+ - 1 80gig maxtor 8mb and 1 250gig 16mb maxtor -48x24x48 buslink burner-and a lite on 4x +/- dvd burner xp home samsung lcd (19") 930b monitor

Jul 21, 2004, 06:15 PM	#14
CrapolaJola The Great DaK Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 317 Rep Power: 0	I haven't looked @ these in a while, but if memory serves me correctly the -x model uses a slightly different version of the nf2 chipset. 178 or 180 FSB ouch, mine hits a lowly 210. For mine overclocking I'd snatch an NF7-S like Pac suggested or if you're more serious or if just like sweet looking mobos get a DFI Lanparty. Those things reach insane fsbs. __________________ P2 X4 @ 3.6ghz, 4gb ddr3, SSD, 5870 @ 950/1250 + a 3ghz i5 lappy

Jul 21, 2004, 08:40 PM	#16
1ChAoS DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	A7n8x D new bios 1008 at Asus website.Forget about going past 182 FSB without the volt mod.This is a good MB but it's a old cowboy and needs to be put out to pasture.Stick it in a case and use it for your backup and get a newer MB that will go 200+FSB. I have a Barton 3200 and 1gig 3700 OCZ DDR in mine but it is a waste and I'll probably switch to a Abit soon.

Jul 21, 2004, 11:20 PM	#17
Geminiwave I Have lovely Breasts Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: In the closet... Posts: 5,395 Rep Power: 64	why would you want an X-X mobo on an X board. the X board is more advanced. The X-X is the low discount model. Its missing dual channel and a few other things(cant remember all of them). And the rev 2 X mobos have been getting bios updates but not many because there havent been many problems. soooo I guess im alittle confused about why you'd want to do this. __________________

Jul 22, 2004, 03:17 AM	#19
pRAyNz DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 29 Rep Power: 0	Hi, I`m a little bit optimistic to get one more update from ASUS, which (propably "only") enables the boards to detects AMD Semprons correctly, but I fear that`s all we can expect from ASUS (kind of disappointing for me, because of the reputation of ASUS and the amount of stability-problems people are still experiencing all over the web, even more with newer BIOS-versions.). To flash a BIOS of another board on my board looked very risky, if not extremely stupid for me -some days ago- but I`m unsure ATM. This is because I found a posting by someone claiming (Edit) that he accidently flashed the A7N8x-E`s BIOS to his A7N8x Rev2.x and didn`t get any problems! (Link) (Sure its not the "x-x", your talking about, but this makes me think, that ASUS didn`t change the design of the A7N8x-Series too much...) Well, I see two options: First it would be a good idea IMHO to intensively search the web for reports by people who were crazy enough to flash a "wrong" BIOS to their A7N8X-boards and for what they experienced. Second IIRC the BIOSes are completely modular, meaning that one should be able to take the newest BIOS for any board in the A7N8X-line (<-at least) and "make it fit" in every other board of this line he wishes too, by replaceing single incompatible modules with modules from the target-board (for example to replace the Gigabit-LAN-module of the "E" with the old counterpart.), while overtaking the rest of the modules from the newer board, which most propably includes new fixes, tweaks and other updates - Well, maybe this is more hard than it sounds like, but I believe there are people with the skills to do that around for sure and maybe they would be willing to do this? Edit: Here is a nice tool BTW (But it`s support for the ASUS BIOSes is not fully implemented ATM and you have to manually copy the files from the plugin-folder to the main-dir to get any useful info. But Still, looks very promising... ) But about you simply flashing this BIOS...I really wouldn`t do that, maybe it works (and I would guess so), but if not you`ve got a useless piece of nice looking hardware (because of wrong voltages for example). - If you really want to do this maybe it would be a good idea to borrow a second A7N8X of the same model from someone to hotswap the BIOS-chip if there`s a problem, or to lower risk even more, I`ve seen some device, which seems to work similar to Gigabytes DualBIOS-stuff ->here But if you should decide to flash, the results would surely be interesting... Good luck! Edit: I dunno, they all look very similar A7N8X A7N8X-X A7N8X-E Last edited by pRAyNz; Jul 22, 2004 at 06:01 AM.

Jul 22, 2004, 03:37 AM	#20
pr0digal jenius Delete Me Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 14,648 Rep Power: 0	go for it neon...but use a bootdisk(i use DR.DOS bios disk from bootdisk.com) and nto Asusu Update

Aug 2, 2004, 12:36 PM	#21
Killer_uk DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Stoke-on-Trent, UK Posts: 117 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I though the the A7N8X and the A7N8X-X had different chipsets? Or wouldnt this make a difference? A7N8X -> nForce 2 A7N8X-X -> nForce 2 400

Aug 2, 2004, 05:28 PM	#23
Geminiwave I Have lovely Breasts Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: In the closet... Posts: 5,395 Rep Power: 64	plus you got them reversed anyway. if one of those were to have a lower end chipset it would be the A7N8X-X as it is the cheapo model. btw many people do not have nF2 400s on their A&n8X-Xs because the first few runs of that board were only tested for 333mhz. Its probably the same chipset but just a different label but even so its a detail. Also, I'm pretty darn sure that you cannot unlock the dual channel mode on the X-X. The board has too many differences. One more note. Up on those pictures another change is that the A7N8X-X has a different AGP port(its missing the AGP PRO slot) __________________

Aug 7, 2004, 11:32 PM	Thread Starter #24
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	check this out though A guy flashed his a7n8x-x to the deluxe rev 2.0 bios it worked plus it re enabled duel chanel http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/view...054&highlight= __________________

Aug 9, 2004, 06:28 AM	#25
G@MeBoY makes your mouse tremmble! Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Serbia,Livingroom Posts: 247 Rep Power: 0	@The neon cowboy: Look, its simple: -x series do not feathure dual channel, have a different mosfets on some revisions, not all, what you all didnt notice on pics that you have sent is DualChannel chip that is missing (between soket and USB connectors on the outer end of board) and because of that, that guy is telling a lie, he could not have enabled something that he doesent have, and another thing, DELUXE model HAS nvidia soundstorm instead of realtek AC'97, I dont see how could he pass a boot screen with that BIOS since he i is missing an MCP-T chip (he has MCP) so forget about that guy nVidia has distributed to the manufacturers nf2 400 and nf ultra 400 (with DC) and as an option, southbridge equiped with soundstorm (this eliminates additional realtek ac'97 chip) named MCP-T over standard "plane" MCP chip.... I hope that I made some thing clear. Anyway, why would you like to loose DC even if it is possible to flash ?!?!?? I were you, I would go out and buy a new mobo since ASUS hasent proved to be "top of the line" for AMD nf2 platforms...yes it's stable, but can you go over 220FSB ? you can get your self epox rda+ or even cheaper (and maybe better) rda3i, or abit nf7 (avoid an7)...all thoese for arround 50$, and I am sure you could ca$h in your mobo for 30$ __________________ -= G@MeBoY =- ::Full color with 3DNOW! tech:: XP2000+ thoroughbred @ 10x230FSB - watter cooled by home made sistem - EpoX RDA3I - ASUS V9950SE/Td @470/820 - 2x256 DDR400 V-Data - !Live Player - 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax9+7200rpm - Tagan TG-380 black PSU - chieftek Matrix case - WinXP SP1