Flash again. Yes, like many, I set the "kill bit" for Flash. No Flash is no problem. Spywareblaster free has a flash kill ability for those who do not wish to manipulate the registry. Uninstall flash with macromedia uninstaller, then check kill flash with spywareblaster. All reversable. Love the reviews here and still prefer Abit.
I have this mother board with the newest bios. The ITE raid chips do NOT support ATAPI Optical devices. I have the manual sitting in front of me and it specifically states in the troubleshooting section that it does NOT support cd-rom drives. This is just great... THat was a rather large factor in me buying the motherboard, so i could have optical drives out the wazooo... Guess not now.
I would be interested in hearing more about the DDR memory and this board. I just sent the motherboard (actually mine is a GA-7N400 pro with the nVidia and AMD Barton 2800) back for replacement because I couldn't get it to boot reliably more than 3 or 4 times; I was using Mushkin PC3200 Blue DDR dual bank, 2 sticks of 512mb each. When I tried one in each bank for dual channel, I couldn't even post as far as video or a single beep. When I tried one stick it would boot 2 or 3 times then not again. When I moved it to another slot it would do the same, boot 2 or 3 times then not. The keyboard would not be present every now and then also. Of course there is no word from Gigabyte. Their tech specs are: Memory 1. Type:Dual Channel DDR400/ 333/ 266- 184pin 2. Max capacity: Up to 3GB by 4 DIMM slots
Does anyone know how I would even guess which memory would work here, or is there something I'm missing with the CAS ? I do like the features on the board, but because of the support I am thinking that is unfortunate.
"In fact, if we had to choose between the Gigabyte 7N400 Pro, ABIT NF7-S and ASUS A7N8X Deluxe, we’d choose the 7N400 Pro any day of the week." Why is it that you'd choose 7N400 and not NF7-S?
Sorry anonymous user #24, but you simply haven't researched your issues enough. "Issues" such as the following are not issues at all:
- Audio stuttering at boot-up is something that happens with lots of boards and is hardly all that much of an issue.
- There are no issues with the ITE RAiD controller if you're know what you're doing (the latest board and controller BIOS), and since I've used it many times with no issues (including the 7NNXP's ITE controller) it's user error.
- The Smart Fan control DOES stop once you disable it in the BIOS. I tried it myself multiple times.
- The voltage values loaded automatically in the BIOS are not incorrect or bad in any way like you claim. The values (such as 2.6V VDIMM) are prefectly acceptable practice.
- BIOS Athlon XP CPU temps are almost always inaccurate, welcome to three years ago.
- Gigabyte's easytune utility works just fine, your issues are odd.
I am amazed at how superficial this review is. There could not have been very professional or detailed testing, since a quick look at the forums over on www.nforcershq.com gigabyte forum will show how many flaws/bugs this board has. I have confirmed those on my GA-7NNXP also. Let's see about the list; 1. False starts and lock-ups upon power-up, improper automatic voltage settings on ram and other components, stutering audio on boot of win-xp, most heatsinks require modifications with a cutter to fit around the on-board capacitors, the last few BIOS versions have the north-bridge fan failing to run if the "easy-tune" util is running, the easy-tune util has not been ported to this specific board, so most of it's features do not operate and it shows inaccurate temperatures, there are reported issues with the ITE Raid unit, The system is exceptionally fussy about running in dual-channel DDR, The cpu cooling fan dips in speed even if you turn off smart-fan settings in BIOS, and last but not least, since there is not yet a properly working temperature monitoring utility and bios version, it is anyone's guess what temp your CPU is *really* running at.
Since these, and more, issues are littering the other forums, I really have to wonder about reviewers who simply boot windows and run game benchmarks. They are so happy to get a free board, they report NONE OF THE NEGATIVES, hence you can not make a valid purchase decision based on these content free superficial reviews.
I scoured my entire machine for stupid link-stealing programs, data-miners, annoying malicious ad-programs and found nothing using any of the latest scanners. Flash is borderline bearable at the best of times, but Anandtech is the only website I use on a regular basis that gives me flash overlay ads. Use some common-sense: If you're going to advertise, at least get paid for it, and make the adverts relevant to those using your site.
WHO IN GOD'S NAME WOULD READ ANANDTECH AND THEN CLICK ON A DELL ADVERT? FFS PPL Something has to be done about this
I filter all Flash/Shockwave content because of all those annoying overlay ads out there. Please revert back to something that is standards-based like plain HTML or GIF/JPG.
The board is a non-runner in my competition since it does NOT have HSF mounting holes! I seems as if Gigabyte has overlooked the NEED for these holes to save time/money on the engineering/production costs, and consquently will suffer poor sales of this part. The socket is arranged in an orientation that would preclude this part being used in a machine that will be transported any distance with a most of the effective HSFs on the market today. The socket arrangement should have the mounting lugs facing top to bottom to provide against the sag of the HSF combination. Installing the socket as they have, will result in the need for shimming (hate those things), and even then, the mechanical stresses will be the achilles heel of many many installations. Sorry for the long-winded, but I have developed this opinion through extensive use and study of the socket A specified hardware.
As for the fellow whom was looking for "any-time" support contacts for Giga-byte? Hah!! It doesn't exist. Any inquiry I have made to thier support site seems to "get lost" for an always indeterminate time, occasionaly permantly. It's a good thing that Giga-byte generally does an excellent job producing thier products, (I own 20 of thier boards so-far) because if the support side of thier business governed thier corporate health, they would have folded by now.
The size of the Flash download is irrelevant. I don't know about the others, but I choose not to install such dreadful programs because other websites use them for extremely irritating advertisements. It's been a while since I did HTML, but is there a way that you could have the page test for Flash and then display a GIF if no flash is available? Heck, just the numbers in plain text would be fine with me if you don't want to make Flash and GIF charts. Just no loathsome Flash forced on us.
Flash is less than a 200k download, dialup can handle that no problem. GIF/PNG are 2-3 times the size of flash graphs. Over 80% of the internet uses flash, so do we at this time.
Yes, uhm, can we go back to GIF? I hate Flash. Look, I'm on dialup, and I'm lagged a LOT by big downloads, but I still prefer GIFs to Flash (which seems to load a tad faster). My friends all agree, and most of them are dialuppers too. Please, at least put up a poll or something so you can see how we all really feel about this stupid Flash stuff.
I have tested both this board, and the MSI K7N2Delta. The MSI board was FAR MORE stable, and a bit (7%) faster. I wonder why in this test the Gigabyte board is compared with an EPOX via board: Just to let it outperform, which is otherwise not possible?
They say that CPU voltage is adjustable only up to 1.85v and that chipset voltage is adjustable by 5, 7.5 or 10%. I believe this to be wrong however. What the reviewer believes to be chipset voltage is actually CPU voltage also!! Check out the review over at Digital Daily and they show how voltage up to 2.035v is possible using a combination of these 2 seperate CPU voltage controls! Quite a large difference and large overlook by the reviewer.
Evan, are you or anyone at Anandtech going to discuss the differences between the Ultra 400 and the standard nForce 2 chipsets? Maybe a general review with reference boards? Is there a big performance difference or limiting factor for future upgrades?
The review does not include information on the presence of Heat Sink Mounting Holes. Suggestion, add info on mounting holes or lack of to all motherboard reveiws.
It appears that the performance test results in the Gigabyte 7NNXP review are presented in Macromedia Flash Player 6.
This is unfortunate, since I am among the many web users who dislike the Flash format, and resent the numerous pop-up "ads" requesting that version 6 be installed.
I regret that I will be unable to view these results, to find out what additional complexities required them to be displayed in Flash, rather than a standard, multi-platform/browser form such as GIFs. And I hope that this is not an indication that future results will be Flash-formatted, since I am a frequent AnandTech reader and will miss whatever informative content is Flashed.
Nice evaluation...However perhaps the six phase power DMS prolongs the overall life of these boards, rather than inherently more stable overclocking...Replacing a board thirteen months, two or three years down the line (If lucky) is common place...
I like to see more board makers produce the bare bones 400's like Solteks NV400-64L...Why because these boards can be thrown away once a year or so...
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Anonymous User - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
Flash again. Yes, like many, I set the "kill bit" for Flash. No Flash is no problem. Spywareblaster free has a flash kill ability for those who do not wish to manipulate the registry. Uninstall flash with macromedia uninstaller, then check kill flash with spywareblaster. All reversable. Love the reviews here and still prefer Abit.nguyendot1 - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
I have this mother board with the newest bios. The ITE raid chips do NOT support ATAPI Optical devices. I have the manual sitting in front of me and it specifically states in the troubleshooting section that it does NOT support cd-rom drives. This is just great... THat was a rather large factor in me buying the motherboard, so i could have optical drives out the wazooo... Guess not now.Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - link
I would be interested in hearing more about the DDR memory and this board. I just sent the motherboard (actually mine is a GA-7N400 pro with the nVidia and AMD Barton 2800) back for replacement because I couldn't get it to boot reliably more than 3 or 4 times; I was using Mushkin PC3200 Blue DDR dual bank, 2 sticks of 512mb each. When I tried one in each bank for dual channel, I couldn't even post as far as video or a single beep. When I tried one stick it would boot 2 or 3 times then not again. When I moved it to another slot it would do the same, boot 2 or 3 times then not. The keyboard would not be present every now and then also. Of course there is no word from Gigabyte. Their tech specs are:Memory
1. Type:Dual Channel DDR400/ 333/ 266- 184pin
2. Max capacity: Up to 3GB by 4 DIMM slots
Does anyone know how I would even guess which memory would work here, or is there something I'm missing with the CAS ? I do like the features on the board, but because of the support I am thinking that is unfortunate.
Anonymous User - Saturday, July 26, 2003 - link
"In fact, if we had to choose between the Gigabyte 7N400 Pro, ABIT NF7-S and ASUS A7N8X Deluxe, we’d choose the 7N400 Pro any day of the week."Why is it that you'd choose 7N400 and not NF7-S?
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 23, 2003 - link
Any reports of sound problems or quality questions?Evan Lieb - Monday, July 21, 2003 - link
Sorry anonymous user #24, but you simply haven't researched your issues enough. "Issues" such as the following are not issues at all:- Audio stuttering at boot-up is something that happens with lots of boards and is hardly all that much of an issue.
- There are no issues with the ITE RAiD controller if you're know what you're doing (the latest board and controller BIOS), and since I've used it many times with no issues (including the 7NNXP's ITE controller) it's user error.
- The Smart Fan control DOES stop once you disable it in the BIOS. I tried it myself multiple times.
- The voltage values loaded automatically in the BIOS are not incorrect or bad in any way like you claim. The values (such as 2.6V VDIMM) are prefectly acceptable practice.
- BIOS Athlon XP CPU temps are almost always inaccurate, welcome to three years ago.
- Gigabyte's easytune utility works just fine, your issues are odd.
Next.
;)
Anonymous User - Friday, July 18, 2003 - link
I am amazed at how superficial this review is. There could not have been very professional or detailed testing, since a quick look at the forums over on www.nforcershq.com gigabyte forum will show how many flaws/bugs this board has. I have confirmed those on my GA-7NNXP also.Let's see about the list; 1. False starts and lock-ups upon power-up, improper automatic voltage settings on ram and other components, stutering audio on boot of win-xp, most heatsinks require modifications with a cutter to fit around the on-board capacitors, the last few BIOS versions have the north-bridge fan failing to run if the "easy-tune" util is running, the easy-tune util has not been ported to this specific board, so most of it's features do not operate and it shows inaccurate temperatures, there are reported issues with the ITE Raid unit, The system is exceptionally fussy about running in dual-channel DDR, The cpu cooling fan dips in speed even if you turn off smart-fan settings in BIOS,
and last but not least, since there is not yet a properly working temperature monitoring utility and bios version, it is anyone's guess what temp your CPU is *really* running at.
Since these, and more, issues are littering the other forums, I really have to wonder about reviewers who simply boot windows and run game benchmarks. They are so happy to get a free board, they report NONE OF THE NEGATIVES, hence you can not make a valid purchase decision based on these content free superficial reviews.
Sorry, that is that.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - link
Read This For Some Real problems not mentioned in this article :www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22527
Anonymous User - Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - link
Anonymous User - Sunday, July 13, 2003 - link
I agree. This is just one of the yellow underlined links on random words in that article:http://adforce.adtech.de/?adlink|82|60988|1|16|AdI...
I scoured my entire machine for stupid link-stealing programs, data-miners, annoying malicious ad-programs and found nothing using any of the latest scanners. Flash is borderline bearable at the best of times, but Anandtech is the only website I use on a regular basis that gives me flash overlay ads. Use some common-sense: If you're going to advertise, at least get paid for it, and make the adverts relevant to those using your site.
WHO IN GOD'S NAME WOULD READ ANANDTECH AND THEN CLICK ON A DELL ADVERT? FFS PPL Something has to be done about this
Anonymous User - Friday, July 11, 2003 - link
Is it really important ....Anonymous User - Friday, July 11, 2003 - link
Please Go back to The OLD way of doing reviews,without any flash!
Even better Make Charts with the numbers instead
of these unnecessary Printer head killers.
:(
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 10, 2003 - link
Regardless of the size of Flash itself, it would seem many users prefer not to use it because of Flash advertisements.For Christ's sake, it's not like GIFs are huge, and this is just annoying.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 9, 2003 - link
I filter all Flash/Shockwave content because of all those annoying overlay ads out there. Please revert back to something that is standards-based like plain HTML or GIF/JPG.Thanks.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 9, 2003 - link
The ITE chips support ATAPI devices I read, has this been tested?Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 9, 2003 - link
The board is a non-runner in my competition sinceit does NOT have HSF mounting holes! I seems as if
Gigabyte has overlooked the NEED for these holes
to save time/money on the engineering/production costs, and consquently will suffer poor sales of this part. The socket is arranged in an orientation that would preclude this part being used in a machine that will be transported any
distance with a most of the effective HSFs on the
market today. The socket arrangement should have the mounting lugs facing top to bottom to provide
against the sag of the HSF combination. Installing
the socket as they have, will result in the need for shimming (hate those things), and even then,
the mechanical stresses will be the achilles heel
of many many installations.
Sorry for the long-winded, but I have developed
this opinion through extensive use and study of the socket A specified hardware.
As for the fellow whom was looking for "any-time"
support contacts for Giga-byte? Hah!! It doesn't exist. Any inquiry I have made to thier support site seems to "get lost" for an always indeterminate time, occasionaly permantly.
It's a good thing that Giga-byte generally does
an excellent job producing thier products, (I own
20 of thier boards so-far) because if the support
side of thier business governed thier corporate
health, they would have folded by now.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
The size of the Flash download is irrelevant. I don't know about the others, but I choose not to install such dreadful programs because other websites use them for extremely irritating advertisements. It's been a while since I did HTML, but is there a way that you could have the page test for Flash and then display a GIF if no flash is available? Heck, just the numbers in plain text would be fine with me if you don't want to make Flash and GIF charts. Just no loathsome Flash forced on us.Zuni - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
Correction its 400k, which on a 56k modem takes a minute.http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/downl...
Zuni - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
Flash is less than a 200k download, dialup can handle that no problem. GIF/PNG are 2-3 times the size of flash graphs. Over 80% of the internet uses flash, so do we at this time.Anonymous User - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
What's with the Flash charts? I filter all Flash/Shockwave content so I see a big nothing there. Please revert to a standard like GIF or PNG! Thanks.Anonymous User - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
Yes, uhm, can we go back to GIF? I hate Flash. Look, I'm on dialup, and I'm lagged a LOT by big downloads, but I still prefer GIFs to Flash (which seems to load a tad faster). My friends all agree, and most of them are dialuppers too. Please, at least put up a poll or something so you can see how we all really feel about this stupid Flash stuff.NovaPolice - Monday, July 7, 2003 - link
It looked very good on paper but it hated every brand of ddr I had on hand. I went through a couple gigs of sticks before deciding to send it back.Anonymous User - Monday, July 7, 2003 - link
I have tested both this board, and the MSI K7N2Delta. The MSI board was FAR MORE stable, and a bit (7%) faster. I wonder why in this test the Gigabyte board is compared with an EPOX via board: Just to let it outperform, which is otherwise not possible?Anonymous User - Monday, July 7, 2003 - link
They say that CPU voltage is adjustable only up to 1.85v and that chipset voltage is adjustable by 5, 7.5 or 10%. I believe this to be wrong however. What the reviewer believes to be chipset voltage is actually CPU voltage also!! Check out the review over at Digital Daily and they show how voltage up to 2.035v is possible using a combination of these 2 seperate CPU voltage controls! Quite a large difference and large overlook by the reviewer.WooDaddy - Monday, July 7, 2003 - link
Evan, are you or anyone at Anandtech going to discuss the differences between the Ultra 400 and the standard nForce 2 chipsets? Maybe a general review with reference boards? Is there a big performance difference or limiting factor for future upgrades?Anonymous User - Monday, July 7, 2003 - link
The review does not include information on the presence of Heat Sink Mounting Holes. Suggestion, add info on mounting holes or lack of to all motherboard reveiws.Anonymous User - Monday, July 7, 2003 - link
It appears that the performance test results in the Gigabyte 7NNXP review are presented in Macromedia Flash Player 6.This is unfortunate, since I am among the many web users who dislike the Flash format, and resent the numerous pop-up "ads" requesting that version 6 be installed.
I regret that I will be unable to view these results, to find out what additional complexities required them to be displayed in Flash, rather than a standard, multi-platform/browser form such as GIFs. And I hope that this is not an indication that future results will be Flash-formatted, since I am a frequent AnandTech reader and will miss whatever informative content is Flashed.
Thanks.
Anonymous User - Sunday, July 6, 2003 - link
The Anandtech review claims Gigabyte replied in 33 hours..I Wonder who in Gigabyte Should I contact ,Or what e-mail address i should mail to,
To get a Reply in ANY time frame.
CrystalBay - Sunday, July 6, 2003 - link
Nice evaluation...However perhaps the six phase power DMS prolongs the overall life of these boards, rather than inherently more stable overclocking...Replacing a board thirteen months, two or three years down the line (If lucky) is common place...I like to see more board makers produce the bare bones 400's like Solteks NV400-64L...Why because these boards can be thrown away once a year or so...