Refurb. Aopen Nforce2 @ NewEgg 45$ shipped

[nctherock]

I got in on this last night, and i waited to make sure the order was verified so that you all wouldnt get mad at me. It went through. I think this is pretty hot, but thats because im in a discount amd market right now. Good luck everyone.

Aopen AS79D-400vN MB for AMD Socket A

Specifications:
Socket: AMD Athlon / XP & Duron Socket
Chipset: nVidia nForce2 Ultra 400 + MCP
FSB: 400Mhz
Max Memory:3 x DDR400 PC-3200 Max 3GB
Audio: Realtek 5.1 Channel
Slots: 5-PCI, 1 (8x) AGP, 1-CNR
Ports: 2xPS2,1xCOM,1xVGA, USB and audio Ports
Onboard Audio:AC'97 CODEC on-board (ALC650E)
Onboard LAN:nVidia 10/100Mbps RTL8201BL

 

[Replay]

AK79D-1394 Nforce2 refurb from Newegg last month came as a bare board, and it has a non-standard IO backpanel.

That AOpen bios had major problems up until recently. Version 1.03 that came on my board would only run XP's with a 100 MHz front side bus. The mutiplier adjustment was broken in the bios for XP's, but worked for Durons :-/ Had to go back to version 1.01 to run an XP chip until the latest bios fixed that bug. Was also unstable unless the DDR was set at 2X the fsb (don't use the Auto setting). MP3's stutter in W98se unless you back off DirectX sound acceleration to basic (NVidia driver issue).

Saw these boards last night too. Don't let me scare you away from buying an AOpen. It should be an ok rig for an experienced builder. My board would have given many people fits. Finally got it working fine, but it took alot of time and effort.

 

[wluk]

oos

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: Replay
AK79D-1394 Nforce2 refurb from Newegg last month came as a bare board, and it has a non-standard IO backpanel.

That AOpen bios had major problems up until recently. Version 1.03 that came on my board would only run XP's with a 100 MHz front side bus. The mutiplier adjustment was broken in the bios for XP's, but worked for Durons :-/ Had to go back to version 1.01 to run an XP chip until the latest bios fixed that bug. Was also unstable unless the DDR was set at 2X the fsb (don't use the Auto setting). MP3's stutter in W98se unless you back off DirectX sound acceleration to basic (NVidia driver issue).

Saw these boards last night too. Don't let me scare you away from buying an AOpen. It should be an ok rig for an experienced builder. My board would have given many people fits. Finally got it working fine, but it took alot of time and effort.

My MSI K7N2G-LISR refused to work again after a BIOS reset. I eventually figured out that it wazs defaulting to 166/333FSB and therefore my multiplier-locked XP 2000+ simply wouldn't boot! Luckily, MSI has a "safe mode" jumper so I was able to boot at 100MHz FSB and update the BIOS. How could they make that mistake?! My computer was out of commission almost all of QuakeCon2003 because of them. If I knew sooner I would have walked over to their booth and chewed out the engineer guy

 

[lsman]

some 5 barton 2500+ each for $66 right now....
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduct.asp?submit=list&catalog=343&Type=Refurbish&order=price&sort=asc

 

[TerryMathews]

I got in on the $45 board last time they had it... Pretty hot IMO. It's the 200MHz FSB capable board, onboard LAN and soundstorm audio. Mine had no problems affecting the multiplier on an unlocked Palomino.

One thing worth noting is that this board is 1.5V AGP only. It's got a protection system to keep you from frying everything if you plug in a 3.3V AGP card (And it works, BTW), but this limits you to AGP4x cards or higher.

You know, that could be why there are so many refurbs...

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: TerryMathews
I got in on the $45 board last time they had it... Pretty hot IMO. It's the 200MHz FSB capable board, onboard LAN and soundstorm audio. Mine had no problems affecting the multiplier on an unlocked Palomino.

One thing worth noting is that this board is 1.5V AGP only. It's got a protection system to keep you from frying everything if you plug in a 3.3V AGP card (And it works, BTW), but this limits you to AGP4x cards or higher.

You know, that could be why there are so many refurbs...

The D850GB was the first and nearly anything more modern has had the same limitation. 1.5v only boards have been the industry norm for QUITE a while now... I paired my D850GB with the absolute latest P4 available at the time... A P4 1.3GHz CPU (Released after the 1.4 and 1.5GHz Williamette P4 CPUs).

 

[Delbert]

I got a refurb Aopen (AK79G0 a couple weeks ago from newegg. It was indeed a bare motherboard. Anyone know if there is a way to order the accessories from Aopen like you can from ASUS?

 

[bautot]

JFYI mwave has AOPEN AK79D-1394 NVIDIA nFORCE2 CHIPSET ULTRA for $68.90. $30.00 Mail-In Manufacturer Rebate Available till 9/30/03. My order came to 77.53 w/shipping so 77.53-30.00-47.53 for a brand new nforce2 board. Gonna use cheap pc2700 ddr and an 1800xp light if any overclock for my sis. Hard to beat IMO.