[test tube]

For everyone else who has this board!

Thoughts:
-My AC97 front panel audio does not work. The manual has some weird instructions on enabling it but they don't seem to do anything.
-There is an overvolt on the processor during load, but according to someone who measured it it's not as severe as the motherboard reports (up to +0.03v)
http://67.90.82.13/forums/showthread.php?p=3542830
-Asrock 4-second autoboot causes my SATA ports to fail
-The HT maxes out from 2200-2400mhz
-The NB maxes out around 2600mhz around 1.35v (with the default and recommended voltage being 1.25v)
-The chipset can run a little on the warm side, up 45C when doing GPU/memory intensive activities

 

[Enigma8750]

I use this Mobo as my HTPC so dont know about any of the problems, since im using dedicated ATI 4550 graphics and Creative sound card that I got refurbed on creatives site and I have an old AMD 6400+ that is running at 3.2 stock with a Artic Cooling 64.

 

[Akisame]

Don't have the specific model , but the "instant" boost causes my hdd to sound like it is trying to kill itself, takes a couple of restarts to calm it down, so i gave up on instant boost because of this issue

 

[test tube]

I fixed the front panel audio, what you have to do is go to the realtek audio manager and in the top right there is a little folder. Click on the folder then uncheck "Automatically detect front panel audio port connections."

 

[Da5id]

I think its a fair board. Since its my boards bigger brother with 790/750 instead of 780/700. They update the bios frequently, and are laid out pretty well. Ive had no big problems with the board since i got it (1year?). It's biggest con is the absence of passive heatsinks for the VRM's. Makes higher OC's a bit tricky to keep stable. But, i fixed that with a few vga ram heatsinks. Overall a fair board for the price paid. Would i buy ASrock again, No. Would i recommend it, Yes.

 

[bomfunk]

A few things that bug me about it - firstly, I can't find a way to disable the onboard GPU, secondly, it fails to boot every time I have an external HD plugged in, coming up with the "no OS found" message. Other than that, it seems like a nice board. Haven't OC'ed yet

 

[test tube]

NOTICE: Do not upgrade your BIOS to version 1.50!

I just updated mine and I couldn't even get it stable at stock settings! There's something seriously wrong with it. Downgraded back to 1.40 and everything is fine.

 

[Hephasteus]

HT doesn't max out on the board. It maxes out on the CPU. Front panel AC 97 is not electrically isolated trying to use both the front panel connectors and rear connectors at the same time is an open invintation to a sound chip barbeque.

 

[test tube]

Rolled back to the old BIOS and now the computer is unstable at any setting. In fact, it's hard to even get it to turn on. Bricked mobo?

 

[Da5id]

I'm running my mobo's 1.50 bios, have been since it came out, without any problems. Try disconnecting everything and just run mobo/cpu/ram(1stick) and of course the PSU. See if it boots into BIOS.

 

[test tube]

Got it sort of stable at 2200mhz on all cores with the memory at 800mhz. Ran okay for about 20 minutes so I decided to try flashing the BIOS back to 1.50 to see if it would help. BIOS failed to flash and it crashed. No POST after that.

Ordered a GA-MA790X-UD4P.

Lame.

 

[Da5id]

Quote:

Originally Posted by test tube Got it sort of stable at 2200mhz on all cores with the memory at 800mhz. Ran okay for about 20 minutes so I decided to try flashing the BIOS back to 1.50 to see if it would help. BIOS failed to flash and it crashed. No POST after that. Ordered a GA-MA790X-UD4P. Lame.

Oh man! I'm sorry to hear that, its now officially a paper weight. Big bummer

I'm sure the gigabyte will treat you much better.

 

[N2Gaming]

WOW sometimes we get a lemon from the factory and sometimes w/make mistakes and don't even realize it. For example if you were not suppose to have both front and rear audio working at the same time then you may have done some harm there. I'm not accusing you of any thing and wish that you did not have the bad luck w/the board that you did. I was gonna buy the ASRock 780a chipset mobo w/wifi and decided to get the Foxconn Destroyer instead... I almost wish that I had the ASRock but I did not like their warranty period. The warranty scared me away instantly. Any how glad to see you have a good working board from Gigabyte now.

 

[test tube]

Yup, I haven't even attempted Asrock's RMA yet, I'm not sure it's gonna be worth the stress and $40 to ship it from Canada to the US. The net loss in the end will be $60-$70 even if they do repair it, compared to the $100 I spent on it.

The GA-MA790X-UD4P is a much better board all around -- it clocks higher, runs cooler and has no insane overvolt.

 

[ocre]

Quote:

Originally Posted by N2Gaming WOW sometimes we get a lemon from the factory and sometimes w/make mistakes and don't even realize it. For example if you were not suppose to have both front and rear audio working at the same time then you may have done some harm there. I'm not accusing you of any thing and wish that you did not have the bad luck w/the board that you did. I was gonna buy the ASRock 780a chipset mobo w/wifi and decided to get the Foxconn Destroyer instead... I almost wish that I had the ASRock but I did not like their warranty period. The warranty scared me away instantly. Any how glad to see you have a good working board from Gigabyte now.

I build up to 4 asrock builds a month, most all are AM3. I liked them so much that i ordered myself one, the current one in my sig! We have had none come back, I havent RMA'd a single one yet. I stand behind the recent Asrocks boards strongly. They of course are not the best, but i would say one of the best for the money. Some of the issues you described are not caused by the board itself. Asrock has come a long way and really is good for budget setup. Before a year ago we used biostar for budget, Asus and gigabyte for expensive builds. We dropped Asus for quality reasons, and we only use gigabytes per request. So Asrock has saved us a lot of RMA hassles we had. I am sorry yours gave you trouble, But i can vouch for about a hundred that are still going strong with many of the OC a good bit!!

 

[N2Gaming]

thanks for the reply ocre. I actually don't own any ASRock mobo's atm. I was thinking about getting one w/the 780a chipset and wifi adaptor but I got the Foxconn Destroyer instead.

 

[takealready]

Is there any bios hack for this motherboard (or it's younger sibling the ASRock A780GXE) that would allow it to SLI? The reason I ask this is because the N7AD-SLI can do SLI and crossfire. I'm also considering getting the ASRock A780GXE only in the hopes of it being able to do what the N7AD-SLI can do.

I've fallen in love with my babdaboom and TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress. I dont' want to give up my CUDA transcoding yet. I've heard the ATI transcoding has not yet fully matured.

YouTube - MIssion Impossible - CrossFire on NVIDIA SLI board! - ASRock N7AD-SLI

OCZWorkbench

Thanks for sharing in advance.

 

[test tube]

In the news sections/nividia forum there's details on how you can run SLI on pretty much any crossfire board with hacked drivers. No idea about this board though.

edit: Here's the thread: http://www.overclock.net/hardware-ne...therboard.html

and the source: http://xdevs.com/e107_plugins/conten...php?content.30

And here are the compatible 7xx AMD boards so far:

Quote:

AMD 790FX (ASUS Crosshair III Formula) + 2 x GeForce 280 GTX by dbphelps AMD 790FX (DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RS) + 2 x GeForce 9800GT by aGeoM AMD 790FX (ASUS M479T Deluxe) + 2 x GeForce 6600GT by OgaiB AMD 790FX (ASUS Crosshair III Formula) + 2 x GeForce 8800GT by eRazorzEDGE AMD 790FX (ASUS Crosshair III Formula) + 2 x GeForce 9800GT by aGeoM AMD 790FX (Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P) by akula AMD 780GX (Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H) + 2 x GeForce 9800GT by Mosfet321 AMD 790GX (ECS A790GXM-A) + 2 x GeForce 9800GT AMD 790GX (Foxconn A7DA-S) + 2 x GeForce 8800GT by Velvet Wafer AMD 790GX (ECS A790GXM-AD3) + 2 x GeForce 9800GT/2 x GeForce 250GTS AMD 790FX (ASUS M4A79 Deluxe) + 2 x GeForce 8500GT by Soundood AMD 790FX (DFI UT 790FX-M2R) + 2 x GeForce 7600GS by AlexLion

I'm digging this board out of the dust and replacing the BIOS chip to see if maybe one of the other components caused the problems I encountered (the RAM died a few weeks after the board, so I'm wondering if actually the RAM had been the problem). I'll be throwing it into an HTPC build with a 720BE... Here's to hoping the BIOS chip will fix everything.

 

[test tube]

Got the new BIOS and I'm happy to say the board works, although it's being really weird about my RAM (had to put the sticks, 4 pieces of 2 matched pairs of the same type) in 10 different arrangements before it finally booted.

 

[test tube]

Sorry to bump again, but the epic fight to resurrect this board has ended in failure. It crashes randomly at stock volts for no reason at all, none of the voltage sensors appear to be working correctly, and it's overvolting the RAM too (perhaps this is what really killed my Patriot sticks). This thing is going in the dumpster or into freebies.