Asus A7V8X-X

A7V8X-X Motherboard: Great motherboard...with a couple of problems that don't effect each motherboard. I have 4 of these mb's and 2 of them can't go beyond the 1.5gig RAM size without constant rebooting...the other 2 are great. All 4 of them seem to have a problem with heavy weight video cards which will also cause reboots off and on. I find 64mb GeForce 2's and 4's work great. I use 512 RAM sticks on the 2 that have RAM problems and I have no problems then. On the other 2 I use a full 2 gigs with no problems. None of them recognise large drives such as the 500gig WD's I use on all 4 so a upgrade to the BIOS worked on the 2 I upgraded. I didn't see any improvement between doing the upgrade and not so I only did 2 of the 4. It's now Jan 2011 and I've been using them as my server boards with Linux database, web and file servers since I got them in Jan 2004...and they still are my best work horses, even better than the new 3.0ghz mb's I have for the same purpose. I use the Barton 2500+ CPU with Kingston RAM. The Barton 2500+ has the 512mb internal cache which works well. Most CPU's of that era don't like more than 128mb internal cache and won't use it. Overall I rate these boards 4.5 stars - once you figure out the personality of each board and tend to their various needs. They all seem to vary in their needs for some reason, but, that's okay with me. They are very stable and can be 99.99% relied upon. KUDOS

I tried 3 times to load Windows XP but it kept stopping at the format drive part of the install. Then i noticed on the boot screen that the virus protection was active in the bios. After i disabled the virus protection the motherboard no longer recognised the hard drive. It killed my hard drive. I'm up and running with a new hard drive but these things aren't cheap. Everything works fine now and i've found no problems.

Asus A7V8X-X is an awesome motherboard, has been running for five years now none stop as a server. Think just about all other components have failed apart from this board. Easy to setup, running server 2003 OS with no problems.

i just re-formatted my friend's computer with the asus a7v8x-x motherboard. it may be slower than my computer, but it does pretty well, now i have to hunt down the audio driver. lol. actually it's downloading right now. good: it works, goes at a good pace, doesn't overclock like crazy. bad: hard as hell to get into bios so i can change the boot cycle.

The first DIMM white "lock" thingy gets in the way of my video card, making it harder to switch out RAM.

Greatest mother board for the value, with the low cost of the components for this dated motherboard you can build one serious rig for very little bread!

My system:

A7V8X-X Asus BIOS 1014

Amd 2600+ Barton @ 2.07 GHz [11.5 * 180/36]

Kingston 1GB DDR 400

ATI AIW Radeon 9800 pro 128MB AGP

80GB Matrox HD

300 Watt PSU

Fast enough for many great 3D games.

The ASUS A7V8X-X is a versatile and capable motherboard that suits a variety of users.

The motherboard layout is reasonably good, and the supporting documentation is clearly set out and easy to follow. My only criticism is that the tail end of the AGP card encroaches close to the first DIMM memory slot, therefore it might be easier to remove the AGP card before inserting a new DIMM module in memory slot 1.

The motherboard can accommodate a variety of Socket A processors (Athlon XP Barton and Thorobred, Duron, Semperon) at either 200, 266, or 333 MHz bus speeds. Similarly, the motherboard will accept 266, 333, or 400 MHz DDR memory modules, which permits considerable flexibility and upgrade-ability in future.

However, please note that 200 or 266 MHz processors will support up to three DDR 266 DIMM's, up to two DDR 333 DIMM's, and only one DDR 400 DIMM to a maximum of 3Gb. A 333 MHz processor will only support up to two DDR 333 MHz DIMM's to a maximum of 3Gb.

The UDMA system bus speed of 133 MHz is the highest available on any parallel ATA board, and is only slightly slower than the newer SATA (150 MHz) boards currently available.

The A7V8X-X has four USB 2.0 ports on the rear, and supports a further two USB 2.0 ports on the front edge of the board.

This board is popular because it supports six full PCI slots, and an AGP 8x slot, which again ensures future capability to support a variety of PCI devices.

The A7V8X-X and its bundled software can monitor the CPU temperature and CPU cooling fan speed in order to prevent overheating. A word of caution here though - when choosing your CPU cooling fan, select a cooling fan that is suited to a much faster processor, because Athlon XP processors generate considerable levels of heat. Therefore, I would not advise overclocking an Athlon XP processor without using some high-spec cooling kit.

My own A7V8X-X has an Athlon XP 2000+ (Thorobred 266 MHz bus) processor, an XP2400+ rated fan, with two 256Mb DDR 333 MHz DIMM's (512Mb total), and two Maxtor 80Gb ATA 133 MHz IDE drives, with Samsung DVD and CD-RW drives. I currently use Windows XP Home Edition SP2, but originally used Windows ME. I have had no problems with the motherboard.

I note that other users (posted here) have encountered difficulties, and I would suggest that they check the speeds and quantities of DIMM's installed, and verify that their processors are sufficiently cooled. Full details are available from www.asus.com.

Other features of the A7V8X-X include the ASUS EZ flash BIOS utility, which reprograms the BIOS without the need for floppy disk images, and 6-channel surround-sound capability.

This is a capable and upgradeable board for most users who want to build or upgrade a PC. The popular and inexpensive Socket A processors and DDR DIMM's will continue to be plentiful in future for second-user upgrades or rebuilds.

The A7V8X-X is likely to be a popular choice for those users who want a good PC on a limited budget.

I have had the Asus A7V8X-X motherboard for 1 and a 1/2 years, and it never lets me down! I have read that a lot of you have had problems with the XP setup. I recommend you go into the BIOS where there is a menu that says plug and play OS, set it to yes and it will work great!!

I have read the other reviews about the Asus A7V8X-X motherboard, and I have never had any problems with it! Maybe I was lucky? I don't know. I didn't need to update the BIOS for any reason, and I managed to get a Sempron to run on it, although it was displayed as an Athlon XP. It was pretty quick and easy to set up, everything running pretty smoothly. It took a variety of RAM, 64 to 1 Gig, Kingston, Crucial, Matrix, Corsair. I had it running Duron's, Athlon's, Athlon XP's, and Sempron's without any hitches. Had 4 IDE drives running all the time, and was able to use them all easily with no problems. Good reliable board, but I don't think a serious gamer would find all the power they wanted. All in all, I think it is a good reliable board, provided you don't have any problems that the other people seem to have!

Tried to install XP 3three or four times. The first time the installation went alright but once I got into XP the first time I hit a key it crashed (I was typing something into the 'run' dialog but I found it doesn't matter-it crashed if I hit a key. I tried Windows a few more times with the same results (except sometimes it would let me hit two or three keys first. I reinstalled XP only to find that it had the same problem during the installation this time. Tried a few more times but it was just a matter of time (usually less than ten key presses) before it would crash.

I installed Windows 98 without any problems. That got rid of the key-press crashing problem but introduced other problems (besides 98's inferior security features). When I would run a game, it wouldn't last more than ten minutes before either the game just dissappeared and went back to the desktop or the computer would just reboot itself. The computer would still run alright (although it would sometimes and crash randomly but not often unless I was playing a game) so I used it for a week or so just to get on the net and stuff.

Whenever the computer froze and reset itself, it made a bunch of weird patterns on the screen for a moment, leading me to think that it may have been a problem with my video card (which was a NV Winfast A6200). I RMA'd the card, and the new one did the exact same thing.

The solution--bought a Gigabyte 7VT600P RZ board. Computer now runs crash-free like it should.