Update: I went MSI! K7N2 Delta2 and some accessories. I will test it tonight!
Posted by Lucacg00@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 81 comments
I got:
MSI K7N2 Delta2 NF2 Ultra 400/MS 6570. I/O shield 5 IDE cables, 1 Floppy 3 diagnostic speakers, 1 power switch.
For 50$
I needed the accessories because I am running put of speakers and IDE cables. And also the power switch is nice for my test bench, though this will be going in a case (Antec Dragon in gun metal from 16/11/2004).
It came in A LOT of bubble wrap and does not have 1 spec of dust. So I'm 100% sure it will fire up :)
jussuumguy@reddit
Is this Board still worth something? I have one laying around and I was about to remove the USB Ports for another project but realized it's fairly unique.
Question is should I save this for something?
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
DON'T DESTROY IT
it is unique. one of the best motherboards for Socket A and if working you can get like 50$ for it.
you could do a retro build. very nice board with a ton of features for overclocking and expansion
jussuumguy@reddit
Hmm okay, maybe I'll plug it in and see if it works. It already has a CPU slotted. Not sure which kind. It is missing the Heatsink over what I assume is some kind of onboard graphics chip though.
Should be safe to run it without that?
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
nope, that's the northbridge. no on board graphics, this is an enthusiast board. back then you had 2 chips, northbridge and southbridge. This board has the nVidia nForce 2 Ultra SPP northbridge (nb) and nVidia nForce 2 Ultra MCP RAID (SATA RAID) southbridge (sb)
you do need a heatsink. can't run it without. just install an aluminium one or maybe copper. doesn't run that hot.
jussuumguy@reddit
Okay, I dug up an old Heatsink got it on there. Threw in my Ati Rage aaaaand Magic Smoke. The Cap popped on my Video Card. That's the last AGP Card I had laying around so I don't know if it boots to BIOS but the Slot has power obviously. So there's that.
I'll have to revisit this later. I'll put it safely back in storage for now.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
maybe you should have done some reasearch. this only supports AGP 4X and 8X cards. rage is 2x afaik
jussuumguy@reddit
You are correct. On closer inspection the burned card is a MSI NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 8911 VER:330 P162 128MB AGP 8X
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
FX 5200 was always a turd
get a good agp card like ATi 9000 series or GeForce 4 Ti series. cheapest and very good. or Geforce 6000 series
jussuumguy@reddit
Okay, thanks for the advice. I'll see what I can find.
time_machine3030@reddit
I had this board!! Loved it. I wonder where it is now….
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
I'm loving it too :))
I always wonder like that when I sell hardware :)
My ASUS P6T SE X58, i7 920 D0, Zalman CNPS 9900LED ended up in a county 500km away from me in my country :)
2723brad2723@reddit
I'm not familiar with this motherboard. Was there something significant about the different colored PCI and RAM slots?
You should try to source some of the rounded IDE cables. I think they give the system a nicer look (assuming your case has a window) and they help with airflow.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
The orange PCI slot is the communications slot. Which is recommended for sound cards. It's "primary". Basically a PCI slot with higher privileges.
The RAM slots are normal. They support dual channel.
Eh these are fine but those UV reactive rounded ones are cool!
time_machine3030@reddit
For the ram slots each color is a different channel. The silk screen shows that channel A is the green and channel B is purple.
If you have 2 sticks of different sizes you place them both in the purple slots but if you have a matched pair of sticks you place one in slot 1 (purple) and one in slot (3) green. I’m trying to remember if you can use only a max of two DIMMs in one of the two configurations; adding a 3rd doesn’t just add them all up, something sub-optimal happens.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
I ended up using 2 1GB DDR 400 CL3 kingston sticks. 1 in the primary purple one in the green. BIOS splash screen says "DDR 400 Dual Channel Enabled" so I think it's good :))
campingskeeter@reddit
I also bought the round UV cables and light with this motherboard back in 2003 as well. I still have the UV cables, but they didn't age well.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Did they degrade over time?
campingskeeter@reddit
They were shiny and clear, now not as clear, dull and little discolored
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Oh I guess that's what happens over time.
OldschoolSysadmin@reddit
That slot might have better ground-loop isolation to keep noise out of your analog audio signal.
happycabinsong@reddit
why did that one chunk of components have to be oriented perpendicularly to the rest of the components. it bothers me
time_machine3030@reddit
That is a very astute question. And there is a very good reason that it is oriented on a diagonal.
The chip under that heatsink is the bus/bridge to allow the CPU (which goes in the empty socket) to talk to the ram, pci slots, other on board components. The CPU sends out a “chip select” message to tell the bus, “I need to send/receive from the ram, at this address”. The bus flips some internal switches and then creates a direct path from the CPU’s in/out to the ram’s out/in pins.
The critical point here is that because everything is happening at such a high speed/low latency the physical traces need to all be the same length to have the same inductance/resistance or the messages received on the physical pins would be out of sync (even if just by a few nanoseconds).
Turning the bus 45 degrees from the CPU allows access to the other components with the most efficient drawn traces. There is still some jiggery poky with the traces. If you look to the left of the purple ram slots, just above the MSI logo you can see the traces are zigzagged to make them the correct length.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Lol which components? IDE? FPanel? Components on the board?
happycabinsong@reddit
I will say that I don't have much knowledge of circuit boards, although I've soldered on them before, but to me, what looks like a heatsink and the smaller 'components' next to it. as I type this, I realize that I have no business commenting here at all. I was lurking in this sub because I received a free IBM 5151 monitor and wanted to see what I could do with it
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Lol I see now. Nice monitor! Very vintage. Need to get myself a CRT sometime. They're just so large...
deskiller1this@reddit
I had a similar board to yours and it could never find the sata drive on reboot. Cold boot no problem..
RetroTechChris@reddit
I had the same problem with mine before I gave up on it. I wonder if a recap would fix it.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Interesting. This looks like it hasn't seen much use. Some wear around some I/O ports (slight scratching) from cables but that's it.
campingskeeter@reddit
The first board I ever bought for myself. I used it with the Barton core and a cooler orange and blue heatsink fan. At its peak it was paired with an HD 4650. Sold for $30 in 2010, so I am glad it's regained it's value.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Nice:)
I paired it with a 3200+ 400FSB and Radeon 9800XT XXL 128MB. Also 2GB of dual channel DDR. It flies in windows xp sp3 :)) got the CPU and GPU for 50$. Nice deal.
campingskeeter@reddit
Nice find on the GPU. I originally put a 2800+ 9600Pro in it. This year I purchased a Semprom 3000+ HP system 2GB RAM and I generated GF4 MX at Value Village ($8). I still wish it was an XP. I find that years after I sell something I end up wanting it again. I even bought a 9x00 card in box off Facebook, but he shipped it in a mailing envelope and it was broke. Anyway too much information, but not many people interested in this stuff.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Nice. 2800+ could easily go to 3200+ speeds :))
Semprons are ok. They were a budget offering in 2004 for S462. However they are still plenty fast.
GF4 MX is an ok card but it's based on a 2000 design and architecture. Not the 2002 GF4 core. I got a GF 4 Ti 4200 AGP8X, copper core cooler on 462, DDR and SDRAM, Pentium D 945, P4 524, P4 530 and XP 1700+ for free last year. I got the P D to 5GHz and the XP to 2000+ speeds on my old GA 7N400
campingskeeter@reddit
I didn't come on the box or cables, just thrown in envelope and shipped. Not even the static bag. I was too upset to even bother sending it back.
My second laptop (upgraded from a K6/2 to a P4m) has a GF4 Go in it. I also picked up a agp slot GF4 MX, but that Go card blew both the MX cards away. I still play games on that GF4 Go laptop today. It's pretty funny I picked up my first P4 Dell box a couple years ago, and have never had a Pentium D. When I worked at Intel (2006) we had a bin full of motherboards and old Pentium D for recycling, but never grabbed one. Stuck with the 2800+.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Man that sucks. How much did you pay?
Nice laptop I also had a P4 NW 2.4GHz laptop on 478 with a GF 4 420 32MB. It was ok for some simple games. Did get warm though. But the display was amazing. Better than on a 2011 Acer. And that was a JoyBook 8000 from 2003 by BenQ.
Pentium D sucked so much to be honest. Hot and slow. Athlon 64X2 on 939 was light years ahead. My 945 idled at like 40+ C with an Akasa AK965 and MX4 paste
campingskeeter@reddit
I have never seen that joybook before, but it's pretty slick compared to the Dell 8200. Still I was all about the modular bays a yellow palm rests on the 8200. Also 1600x1200 laptop resolution was nice.
I upgraded from the 2800+ to 939 3800+, but not till almost 2011.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
1600x1200 was really nice. That thing had 800p screen. The BenQ. But the colours and viewing angles. Brightness also. Unmatched by any laptop I've used so far. It also had 512MB RAM and a 40GB HDD. Broken DVD Drive and battery sadly. Now the charging port needs a little work too. Left speaker started buzzing. But overall a great machine.
939 is awesome :) was it an X2 3800+? What board was it?
campingskeeter@reddit
I usually go whatever is cheap on budget. It was an Asus A8V-X. I didn't hold onto it too long.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
That's a nice budget 939 board :)
That 4650 AGP was the best AGP card ever made :))
campingskeeter@reddit
That's why it sold in the end for what I paid for it or more. I almost bought back the same 4650 a few years ago, and found there was a 3850 made which had a little more power.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Yeah that came in AGP too. There is a 180$ one on olx. 3850 AGP. What the hell. I paid 6$ for a 4850 PCIE ASUS OC
Gerg_@reddit
I love nForce 2, had a Ultra 400 (and still have) board from Soltek paired with XP 2800+
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Oh very nice! Soltek SL 75 FRN2 RL? 75 MRN-L? I found one of those but the owner said it's not for sale sadly. So yeah didn't get it
Gerg_@reddit
SL75-FRN2-L
It's a bummer it's not the RL model with Proimise SATA contoller but I have the board with the box and I'm really happy to own it
Distribution-Radiant@reddit
Oh man, had the same board a long time ago. Very, very nice board. Finding drivers for the nForce chipset may be a pain.
If you run into stability issues, this is the era where bad capacitors were most prevalent (and that's what killed mine, but mine was on 24/7 for years).
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Nice to hear! Drivers are hosted on the official MSI website for the "MSI K7N2 Delta2 LSR" which should be pretty similar. Drivers for my ABIT AN8 Ultra on 939 were a bit of a pain. But after like 1 week on and off finally found a good website with the original 2005 drivers. I also used it to update the BIOS to the 2007 release. Abit.com downloads are corrupted (380 bytes download size). Site has not been maintained as ABIT went out of business in 2009.
This board has very little use and was pulled out of a working system. So little chance they're bad. Also no bulging of any kind. But once I get a soldering station this summer I plan on swapping this to polymer caps. Looks like they've already used polymer ones for the integratef ALC 665 Audio. Bad caps don't cause any damage if caught in time. If they explode or leak heavily they can corrode the board. Which is not good. But fixable. The case has a window (Antec Dragon in gun metal made on 16/11/2004. Release date of HL2 :D) so I will see them in time for sure :)))
ORA2J@reddit
Fyi, nvidia still has most nforce drivers on their website.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
I just installed the MSI drivers and they detected all my controllers, sound chip etc
ORA2J@reddit
Is it one of the SoundStorm boards, or is it just the nvidia ac97 driver?
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
No MCP-T SB (it has MCP RAID) so just AC97. Played a movie and some music on it and it sounds very decent so far. MCP-T boards are quite expensive. I'm talking ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra B
ORA2J@reddit
Yeah, must be something along the lines of an ALC850, sounds just fine, but man, i really need to get a SoundStorm board for that sweet DDL sometimes.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
It's an ALC 655. Interesting thing is that they used polymer caps for it. Not anywhere else on the board. Will recap it this summer with polymer probably
Me too! If I don't get a DFI LP NF2/4 this summer I will just add a SB Audigy 2 ZS to this. Premium sound rocks
ORA2J@reddit
Funny thing is that where i live (france) getting high end boards like an a7n8x deluxe is dirt cheap (like there's a guy selling one for 25€ right now, with an Axp 2600+) i bought my A8N SLI deluxe for 26€ (with a a64 3500+) and i got a P7P55DE PRO with an i7 860 for 120€.
But at the same time, finding an Audigy is a royal pain in the ass.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
I live in romania. My A8N SLI Deluxe with a 3200+ and huge 110MM copper cooler cost me 50 euros. Sadly the chipset got killed by me. Now I'm rocking an ABIT AN8 Ultra nF4. And besides the SLI it is actually better than the ASUS. ABIT cost me 60 euros with a 3000+. There are very few boards like that still running in Romania.
A7N8X-X SATA is around 60$ here. But no P4 connector still. So needs modding or old PSU. even with old PSU for XOC you still need to mod 12V into it.
I did find an Audigy 2 ZS but it sold. I do have an Audigy SE. But that's in my AN8 Ultra cause I can't get the ABIT AudioMAX to work lol. That board also has uGuru menu. Shows me up time (45000 hours so far), advanced fan control (5 fan headers), OC control, voltages etc. It also has a cool debug LED and ambient lighting and cooling on VRMs. And best of all it has a huge I/O radiator and heatpipe from copper so the chipset is 100% passive.
ORA2J@reddit
Damn, that's a well used board.
The additional fan headers and the debug LEDs for post n' stuff are the only thing i miss on my A8N SLI.
I strapped a very thick AliExpress fan to the chipset cuz the original fan Inevitably died, i had to plug it to a case fan header since asus understandably disabled control on the chipset fan header to prevent the NF4 from frying itself (happened on my old A8N SLI board OFC) and it makes much less noise now, it's still annoying, but that whole build already makes a racket anyways, so it doesn't bother me too much.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
5.1 years up time and 19 years later and none of the LEDs broke and it still works like a beast. I personally had more luck OCing on the ABIT than A8N SLI Deluxe. The BIOS is also way better. But the A8N SLI Deluxe is still an awesome board.
Yeah mine had a copper cooler with a fan. Cause the original one died. They all did. A8N SLI Deluxe is cool but very easy to kill lol. And I love the Passive cooler on my AN8 Ultra. Cause I have a silent Arctic fan on the CPU and another silent one on the GPU (MSI NX9500GT 1GB for now) and it's really silent.
Distribution-Radiant@reddit
The drivers are specific to the chipset, so once you find them, you're good.
And yeah, been through cap issues. So... many... cap... issues. I have an Asus nForce (maybe nForce2) board in storage that I really need to drag out. I don't even remember what CPU is on it, it's been sitting for probably 15 years. It has a couple of leaky caps, but they've only popped the tops so far. They'll get swapped before I try to use the boards again.
The integrated audio on nForce boards was pretty much the best you could get at the time - IIRC it's the same as what the original Xbox shipped with.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Yup. Just fired it up and installed xp 32 sp3. Grabbed some drivers from MSI and they installed and picked up all devices. Ethernet controller, ALC 655, nForce 2 Ultra 400 chipset. This board has not been used much so caps are still good. Might still recap it in the summer once I get a soldering station. With Polymer caps of course if I can.
Those ASUSes on S462 are pretty ok. But no 12V CPU power so you need a PSU with a strong 5V rail. Caps should be easy to replace.
Nice! This is not nForce 2 MCP-T with sound storm but it is still really good. Video is not integrated, since this is the enthusiast nForce 2 Ultra 400 (nF2 SPP and nF2 MCP RAID). Oh and also windows XP flies on this XP 3200+, 2GB Dual Channel 400MHz and R9800XT 128MB Medion XXL. Just listened to some music and played a movie no issues. I don't know the resolution but it looked really decent. Tomorrow I will try some games :)
zPacKRat@reddit
You should be able to still get the most current NF chipset v5.11 drivers from Nvidia. I have the 15.23 drivers as well. Not sure what the MSI site has.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Found them. Got a copy of xp sp3 on it and it runs fenomaly with the XP 3200+, R9800XT XXL and 2GB in dual channel. BIOS is also amazing for overclocking and I just played a movie and some music and it was very nice. Tomorrow, some games.
triemdedwiat@reddit
Good luck. I'm surprised it is still around. In a previous life I was selling systems built with MSI motherboards, but I stopped selling them as they religiously all died after three years.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Interesting. This one fired right up after 21 years. Straight into the BIOS. Put win xp sp3 on it just now. Watched a movie. Tomorrow maybe some games. I've installed an XP 3200+ and 9800XT XXL on it. Got those 2 for 50$.
Even overclocked the CPU a little to 2300MHz. But I messed a setting up in the BIOS. This has a lot of settings under the CoreCell menu like sys performance and a lot of stuff. Huge upgrade over my GA 7N400. vcore can go all the way up to 2.3v on this. On the GA it was max 1.8v. my GA also had no SATA and no RAID.
I'm currently running on it: XP 3200+ 400FSB, 9800XT XXL 128MB, 2GB DDR-400 Dual channel, copper core cooler, Seasonic S12II 520W, 80GB WD SATA 7.2K RPM drive, SATA LG DVD RAM and Win XP SP3. W2K in the future.
odar420@reddit
What age do you consider vintage?
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
This is 21 years old or so. 2003/2004. The sub says 15 years.
DeepDayze@reddit
I'd agree the OP's board qualifies as vintage.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Thanks! I mean. It is vintage. This CPU (XP 3200+) cannot run anything newer than W7. Cannot really play yt. Or barely. And is based on a socket from 1999.
DeepDayze@reddit
You could use it as a Win98 or an XP vintage gaming station. Just get as much RAM as you can for it up to the max supported (3GB). 1 GB max for W98 though.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Yeah I plan to install 98/2K/XP on it. I plan to use 1GB RAM. I do have 2 GB but that 98 compatibility is nice. dual channel of course
DeepDayze@reddit
That 2 GB would be good for XP considering you have dual channel for that.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
I have dual channel for both 1GB (2x512s) and 2GB (2x1GB) so it's just size no performance gain
zPacKRat@reddit
98 will freak out with too much (over 512mb). there are work arounds for that but you may need to instll with only 512.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Oh :( does 1024MB work? XP is slow with 512MB for what I want to do
zPacKRat@reddit
here's a good start, Vogons is a great place for info. https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=48981
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Thanks!
FelixTheNerdCat@reddit
What a beauty 😍
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Thanks!
zPacKRat@reddit
Just know that you should be running dual channel ram, and to do so one stick goes in the green and another goes in blue. the reason for 2 slots for one channel was say you had 2 256MB sticks you could put them both in blue and then a 512MB stick in green and have dual channel 1GB.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Yup I sure will. I have a 2x1GB DDR-400 kit and a 2x512 DDR-400. The 2x512 has lower latency. Have to decide
EternalSkullman@reddit
I think I have the older Delta-ILSR version to it, the 6570 (non-E).
Did make for a good Barton 2800 build for a good while, then moved on to an ABIT IS7-E + P4 2.8HT.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
I still decided to stick with Socket A and not S478. As I think it is all around better. I do plan on getting a 478 board at some point for playing around. I do have some P4s for 478. 1.8GHz highest. And I did have a BenQ JoyBook 8000 on 478 with a P4 2.4GHz NW and 512MB RAM. pleasant to use, awesome screen, but hot and the fan needed to kick on very often.
Krack73@reddit
An the old red MSi motherboard. Remember using one along with an AMD Athlon cpu. Back in the early 2000's.
Lucacg00@reddit (OP)
Nice! :))