Via vs. nForce

[clarnibass]

I was very close to buying the Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard. They didn't have it in stock but will in a few days. I just read a lot of posts about how it is difficult to connect SATA hard drives with it, and that I would need to do something with a floppy. It's going to be my first build, and I don't want any problems (I mean, not problems that are not my own fault). I prefer a nForce3 board but haven't beeen able to find any nForce3 boards with passive chipset cooling.
Since quietness is the most important thing, I must have a motherboard with passive cooling. Does anyone know what nForce3 board has passive cooling, or at least one that it is possible to change the fan with a Zalman (anything better than Zalman?) heatsink?
I thought about the MSI for a while but then read it is not posible to change the fan because of it's placement on this board.
Since I need the computer quiet, I will only have one (or maybe two if it's really necessary) case fan. Will changing the chipset fan for a heatsink damage anything?
Thanks very much.

 

[Budman]

Chaintech VNF3-250 and the DFI Lanparty UT both use passive sinks on chipset.

edit: nevermind you wanted socket 939 i guess?

 

[Promethply]

If you're concerned about chipset fan noise, most Via chipset based Athlon64 mobos only use passive cooling on their chipset, and for AGP based boards, the Via ones are slightly faster than the nForce3 solutions.

 

[keeleysam]

The MSI Neo2 chipset fan is silent IMHO.

 

[filterxg]

Some of Gigabyte's NF4 boards use passive sinks. I don't know about NF3 though.

 

[Macro2]

Just get a VIA. Like the Abit AX8.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

It's very easy to get Windows installed on a SATA HD with the AV8.

 

[aj58]

Get Nforce! :thumbsup:

 

[The Pentium Guy]

The A8V isn't that loud, IIRC. The A8V-E and the A8N-E and the A8N-SLi are prettty loud, but not the A8V

 

[The Pentium Guy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131510 <-- teh chipset has passive cooling.

 

[JBird7986]

I love this motherboard...it's worked great for me for six months now and it drips with speed and silence.

 

[clarnibass]

Thank you everyone for your replies.

OK looks like I'm staying with the Asus A8V Deluxe after all. I guess I should just hope I don't get a dud board (which can happen with any brand really) and everything would turn out ok. Probably most problems were caused by the builders more than by the boards.

The Pentium Guy, I know, the passive cooling is the reason I chose it in the first place. I can see that the nForce4 Asus board are louder though. Thanks.

ChineseDemocracyGNR, when I buy it in a few days, I might ask your help with that. Hope it is as easy as you said.

JBird7986, do you have only SATA hard drives or ATA too? I'll only have SATA drives, so if you have only SATA too, you might be able to help me too.

To all of you with this board, will Corsair Value or OCZ Value (I think OCZ Value is called something else) work with this board?

Thank you very much again to everyone.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

www.compatible.corsair.com (I think) - it'll tell you if it's compatible.