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| Ease of Set Up | 9/10  |
|---|---|
| Value for Money | 7/10 |
| Overall rating | 8/10 |
| Abit AN-M2HD Motherboard |  | £48.99P&P: £1.99 |
Full review by
tmfarid
expert review 
on 24th Sep 2004
User Rating : 8
Respect :
0
Good Points: Overclocking down up (in BIOS, overclocking CPU and sotware) Website updates for chipset, BIOS. Easy update. Control all components by software (monitor temp, speed and voltage of components)
Bad Points: Does not support AMD64. Therefore, expect it to age in a year. Software overclocking under WinXP only. So, under Linux it's basically not diffirent from common middle-range boards. Bad memory slot design and NorthBridge cooling (may be just my machine, but worth considering in hot countries). Printed Overclocking guide is useless.
General comments: I bought the Abit AN7 motherboard intending to taste the flavor of all technologies available on market at that time (April 2004), so that I don't feel inferior when I visit any of my friends for the next 2 years! This mobo (Motherboard) gave me exactly what I expected and more!!
The best way to explain uGuru is to think of it as a system with 3 components;
1. uGuru software bundle;
a. uGuru OC (overclocker): program that controls FSB speed, CPU voltage, Memory voltage, AGP voltage, but NEITHER CPU's speed nor AGP speed). It also allows saving several working profiles to fit the different working settings according to your liking. The uGuru works fine and is practical; when the system goes hot in hot summer noon (I'm living in Cairo, Egypt) I can cool it down by selecting lower CPU speed and voltage. The temp monitor is very valuable.
b. ABIT EQ: real-time monitor for almost every hardware component on the motherboard.
c. Flash Menu: a very useful BIOS flashing utility.
d. Black box; records your system parameters to send it to ABIT in case you face problems.
e. Fan EQ: fan monitor and test program.
2. The uGuru chip: a separate processor on board that controls and mediates all the functions above
3. on board Power On Self Test (POST) LED display: 2 LED display unit that show the different phases of booting. VERY useful in case of mobo malfunction.
Moreover, nVidia provides a program that controls AGP and Memory speed on their chips. Find it on nVidia website.
Significant changes in system performance can be noticed in one second. If you are an addict overclocker then no mobo will satisfy you except this one. Nevertheless, if you are using OS other than WinXP then this entire dream will evaporate!!! You'll not be even a hundred mile near it!! The uGuru software bundle (including uGuru OC) works ONLY under WinXP.
If you are going to use the uGuru OC remember to disable "CPU interface" option in BIOS during booting. Otherwise I can guarantee that the system will crash even in your first trial to change the FSB speed.
Also, disable the Fan speed and Temp monitor in BIOS to gain some speed, but not that much. Monitoring is best left for ABIT EQ monitor; it's more comprehensive.
The big (and awfully distressing) problem I experienced with this mobo was sudden shut downs!! 1 month after I bought it started to shut down automatically and suddenly. This progressively started to occur at shorter intervals from start up till finally I couldn't work for more than 10 minutes, and finally it didn't boot up at all!!! I tried everything, I even re-installed windows and all the software again, but all failed.
I went mad, really mad, until I decided to take off the NorthBridge (NB) fan, and I was shocked to find that there was almost no heat sink ointment on it!! This means that the NB was not in contact with the heat sink, and this caused it to overheat and shut down the system.
Now, I fixed the problem. It crashed only once on that day and none ever since. Now it's 4 months from that incident and the mobo is ticking as a clock.
May be it was just an individual case, but may be it's a whole batch's problem. So, if you are in a hot country as mine (Cairo, EGYPT) pay special attention to the NB fan.
Abit released new driver for the mobo and this is nice. Their support website is very comprehensive and easy to use.
I contacted support for the problem but their answer came too late after I'd already solved the problem. Anyway, there was not so much in it, and it wasn't so helpful. May be because the problem was unexpected.
Another issue that distressed me is that Abit doesn't provide ANY guide (printed or on their site) to help use the overclocking features. They provide a printed guide on uGuru that almost doesn't go deeper than definition of program buttons and items on screen. It totally useless and doesn't help AT ALL in uderstanding anything about overclocking. It took me 2 months of struggle with my anger and frustration due to waves and waves of shut down and crashes due to wrong (in my experience) settings. It so frustrating because it's an overclocking tool in the first place, but yet you don't get the simplest note or tip on it.
Buy as much dual channel memory as you can now, because this mobo has only 3 memory slots; 2 for dual channel and the third for losers!! Yes!!! loooooooooooooosers! How can you upgrade a system of Dual channel memories with a third single slot only???? it'll no more operate in dual channel mode.
Finally, this great piece of art does NOT support the next generation of Athlon processors (AMD64) which is becoming more and more popular these days, and is meant to replace the current processors may be in a year or two. Therefore, I feel that this mobo will lag behind next processors generation soon, may be it'll be old next year.
Old but yet outstanding and unique.
Read full specifications on Abit's website
http://www.abit.com.tw/page/mi/motherboard/motherboard_detail.php?pMODEL_NAME=AN7&fMTYPE=Socket%20A&pPRODINFO=Specifications
tmfarid's review and ratings | 961 words
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