Recommendations for the best possible Socket A motherboard?

I already have an Abit NF7-S v2.0 motherboard. However, a digital tv card in
conjunction with and SATA striped RAID array it won't work properly. I had
held out hope that there would be a decent Nforce2 MCP-S motherboard but
that doesn't seem to be the case, anyone know any better than me???

I'm basically looking for something as good as the one I have right now but
with SATA RAID properly implemented.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Best regards

tHatDudeUK

"tHatDudeUK" wrote in message
...
I already have an Abit NF7-S v2.0 motherboard. However, a digital tv card
in
conjunction with and SATA striped RAID array it won't work properly. I had
held out hope that there would be a decent Nforce2 MCP-S motherboard but
that doesn't seem to be the case, anyone know any better than me???

I'm basically looking for something as good as the one I have right now
but
with SATA RAID properly implemented.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

A7N8X-E deluxe? Uses the MCP-T chipset though.
HTH
--
Rob

"Rob Hemmings" wrote in message
...
A7N8X-E deluxe? Uses the MCP-T chipset though.
HTH

Yeah I'm guessing that will have the same problem as I have now. It's
starting to look like my only option to get my TV card working again is to
go with either Intel Pentium 4 or AMD 64bit....

"tHatDudeUK" wrote in message
...

"Rob Hemmings" wrote in message
...
A7N8X-E deluxe? Uses the MCP-T chipset though.
HTH

Yeah I'm guessing that will have the same problem as I have now. It's
starting to look like my only option to get my TV card working again is to
go with either Intel Pentium 4 or AMD 64bit....

Or flog it and get another make of TV card?
I s'pose it's worth a google to see if anyone has same TV card in an
A7N8X-E and gets problems. What card is it, btw (I have an A7N8X
deluxe 2.0 and was thinking of getting a freeview card..)
Ta
--
Rob

"Rob Hemmings" wrote in message
...
Or flog it and get another make of TV card?
I s'pose it's worth a google to see if anyone has same TV card in an
A7N8X-E and gets problems. What card is it, btw (I have an A7N8X
deluxe 2.0 and was thinking of getting a freeview card..)
Ta

It's a Nebula DigiTV which cost me just over £100 at the start of this year.
I think the problem is that it's PCI. I think the USB2 version should
technically be ok (at least that's my understanding.)

"tHatDudeUK" wrote in message
...


I'm basically looking for something as good as the one I have right now
but
with SATA RAID properly implemented.



MSI & EPoX both have new boards available in the UK using the new RAID
southbridge to keep transfers off the PCI bus.
Of course ABIT have the NF7-S2 & -S2G if you are happy to run stock/mild
overclocks.

"tHatDudeUK" wrote in message
...
I already have an Abit NF7-S v2.0 motherboard. However, a digital tv card
in conjunction with and SATA striped RAID array it won't work properly. I
had held out hope that there would be a decent Nforce2 MCP-S motherboard
but that doesn't seem to be the case, anyone know any better than me???

I'm basically looking for something as good as the one I have right now
but with SATA RAID properly implemented.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Best regards

tHatDudeUK

Depends what you want to do with it. If you want to run insanely high FSB's
then you won't do better than an nf7-s or a DFI Lanparty B or DFI Ultra
Infinity. But all of these will suffer from the problem you describe, I
would think.

The other option would be to go for something like the new Abit KW7 (KT880
board). This features the VT8237 southbridge with integrated sata raid,
i.e. the raid is not on the PCI bus.

Although it will overclock OK, I don't think you get a working PCI/AGP lock
with KT880 boards though. So realistically you are stuck with about 220MHz
max FSB.

Chip

"tHatDudeUK" wrote in
message ...

"Rob Hemmings" wrote in message
...
Or flog it and get another make of TV card?
I s'pose it's worth a google to see if anyone has same TV card in an
A7N8X-E and gets problems. What card is it, btw (I have an A7N8X
deluxe 2.0 and was thinking of getting a freeview card..)
Ta

It's a Nebula DigiTV which cost me just over £100 at the start of this
year. I think the problem is that it's PCI. I think the USB2 version
should technically be ok (at least that's my understanding.)

Same setup here, (Neb / NF7s ver2 / sata raid0), what problems are you
getting, I still get some artefacts, they were a lot worse before I
increased the PCI latency.

May be worth playing around with the latency if you haven't tried
already. I have heard that showshifter gives better results but I
haven't tried it yet.

Are you getting a decent signal? I get around 80% / 23db / 0.0070 BER
on all mux's, I have read that 23-24db is the minimum for an acceptable
picture.

BTW my Hauppauge nova-t pci (first version without remote) gave me a
full signal in the same PC from the same feed, with no artefacts.

It does seem to be a pci bus problem but different cards are affected to
varying degrees, I happen to really like the DigiTV software too, it
works and looks good.

--
Apollo

tHatDudeUK wrote:
"Rob Hemmings" wrote in message
...
Or flog it and get another make of TV card?
I s'pose it's worth a google to see if anyone has same TV card in an
A7N8X-E and gets problems. What card is it, btw (I have an A7N8X
deluxe 2.0 and was thinking of getting a freeview card..)
Ta

It's a Nebula DigiTV which cost me just over £100 at the start of
this year. I think the problem is that it's PCI. I think the USB2
version should technically be ok (at least that's my understanding.)

There's a recent thread on uk.tech.digital-tv where someone, (not you?) has
the same query.
I will repeat the post I made there in case it helps.
I used to have an Epox MB and a Nebula DigiTV card which had problems with
the PCI bus manifested by a reluctance to work with the remote control.
When it came to upgrade my system I wanted an Athlon cpu and NVidia chipset.
I read about the problems with SATA and the PCI bus interfering with the
Nebula on nForce2 MBs and it seemed to be down to the fact that the chipset
had no native SATA support and relied upon a Sil chip to drive it. This
apparently overloaded the PCI bus, interfering with the TV Card on
occasions.
I then learned that the later NForce2 chipsets contained there own SATA
driver and dispensed with the Sil chip.
I bought a NF7-S2G which appears to have this chipset and no Sil chip. It
works fine with the Nebula, not a even blip and the remote functions
correctly.
As long as you don't need the sophisticated overclocking functions of the
earlier NF7-xx MBs, I can recommend this MB.

However, I am not even remotely a MB Guru so others might have a different
take on this problem.

regards

Martin

"Martin Prentice" wrote in message
...
I then learned that the later NForce2 chipsets contained there own SATA
driver and dispensed with the Sil chip.
I bought a NF7-S2G which appears to have this chipset and no Sil chip. It
works fine with the Nebula, not a even blip and the remote functions
correctly.
As long as you don't need the sophisticated overclocking functions of the
earlier NF7-xx MBs, I can recommend this MB.

That motherboard would be a step down for me. I think I'm going to try sell
my PCI version and put the funds towards a USB version which will hopefully
cure my problem.