Don't buy this trash ! I have a lot of memory problems ! My system is unstable (freeze, ugly exits from 3D games, etc...). The memory (2 x 256 DDR400 AData) works fine at 200 MHz on nForce2. The processor (AMD 1,6 Dorun) works fine on nForce2, KT333 and event on K7S5A !!! Crap!

I would like to see test marks with the new sempron chip.

I have a Asus KT880 Motherboard and is running much better than the N'force i woldn't change it for nothing,it's the Best trust me!!

I have set up two a7v880 boards and one kt400 board,but I always found the nforce boards easier and friendlier to set up

I just want to say something about post 9.I had a ga7n400 pro2 board and it was the best one I have ever had for a socket A chip. I even bought another one after I put a screwdriver into the first one. A lot better than the two A7v880 boards I put together for other people!

Whay about Soundstorm?


Did you forgot?

Thank U

i don't have any problems with this board, everything works well and the integrated 6.1 channel sound is fantastic. Didn't expect quality like this from integrated sound card

Bought two A7V880 boards from separate vendors. With first board memtest86+ verified the Windows BSODs (2x512 PC3200 DDR DIMMs). From 2-20 memory errors at various locations amount depending on how the DIMMs are placed (but the bottom thing being that no matter how and what kind of DIMMs you stick into this sucker, you'll get loads of memory errors and that means that the system becomes unusable).

Also with the first board suddenly supply voltage to my mouse disappeared :D (at this point I fell off my chair and decided to buy another one, exactly the same kind of mobo...big mistake). This happened only once but happened anyway (random ones are the worst, can't even get a refund since they can't be reproduced at will).

So I bought another one with same kind of memory problems.

Boy do I feel cheated now.

Currently I'm using my old Asus A7M266 (which doesn't recover from boot, and which crashes every 10-20 minutes after updating the BIOS.

Needless to say, NEVER buying anything Asus related EVER again.

ADDITION

-DIMM memories used were approved by Asus (listed in the manual).
-CPUs used: various AMD Athlon /XP/Sempron 2600+ - 3000+
-Display adapter: ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB DDR, old ATI Radeon 32MB.

No other cards present while testing except for the display adapter, tried with/without hard drives + bought few hexes from the local voodoo shoppe just to make sure

i just finished reading your review. i actully own a a7v880 and my brother owns a nforce2 ultra 400. there no real huge difference accept the price. there both great mobo's. i think this is 1 great review. thanks

Heeeeeeeeeeelp please.
A7V880 just bought this board nothing but headaches so far.This board wont post with a inno3d 6800Gt 256mb card in.however its ok with a G2 & G3. 6800GT card is new and works fine in an nforce based mb.Memory is ok,PSU is ok,CPU is ok.Is mb nackered.
Spec:
XP3200+ Barton,1GiG PC4000 DDR500 Crucial Tracer balistix,Single 10,000rpm SATA Rapter.
Ive tried changing memory,psu,cpu .
Have emailed Asus customer support but takes a day per reply and they aint got a clue as yet.
Please any info would be much appreciated.

My ASUS A7V88X
does not work smoothly
1.It does not work when I run the game with Gforce 6600 TD
2.When I shut it down It sometime restart and sometime , it go to
suspend mode
if you can help me to solve this problem you will be best human for me. Thank.

Thought I'd throw in my comments on this board. I bought it as an upgrade from an A7V8 Deluxe. It had 2 things I wanted; more USB ports and the ability to run dual channel DDR400. I wanted to get the most out of my xp2500 mobile. I also acquired 1gb OCZ PC3200, Gold Edition EL 2-2-2-5 RAM (note: the OCZ web site in very fine print says this RAM does not like NF2 boards). After I bought the board I found a comment in the manual that it could be unstable with a 9700 Pro that didn't have the -30 on the end of the p/n. Of course I have a 9700 Pro and it doesn't have the -30. Anyways, I figured how bad could it be?
The adventure begins. First, I carefully put everything together. New Big Typhoon HS (make sure you lap the bottonm of these, aside from the coarse finish, 120 grit, mine had multiple waves on it). Arctic cooler to the 9700. First boot up. It sees the cpu as a 600mhz Sempron, the Ram is given ridiculously hi timings. I gave the cpu 10 x 150 (cpu rated for 166) and it won't boot. Flash with lastest beta BIOS. Manage to get 10 x 100, now sees a 1000mhz Sempron. Still can't get proper recognition. Flash with previous BIOS 1009.x, was suposed to have corrected detection problem. Again no joy. I was convinced this board was an ASUS con, that they had sent reviewers only beta boards that actually worked. Considered going back to my old board, given my RAM an NF2 wasn't a solution. So after thinking about it all day at work, I came home and switched out the OCZ for my cheap 512 of 333 from my old board. Booted up into BIOS, changed it to single channel, for the hell of it moved the FSB to 166 and carried on. Amazingly, I got a Sempron 2000 @1660. Huh? Put back the OCZ, changed to dual chan, set 200hz, cpu to 11 x 166 and got Sempron 2600. Now the RAM showed timings auto set at 5-5-5-7 off the bat. Went back into BIOS set FSB to 200hz and I got Sempron 3000! Everything stable. On the ASUS web site list of cpus' supported, the xp 2500 and a couple of Semprons have "(model 10)" after the name. I checked with CPU-Z and the cpu is shown as an xp2500 mobile, with a 512 L2 cache (Barton), all correct. The thing is the specification is shown as Sempron which explains why BIOS shows that name. The strange thing is I made no change to the BIOS, I had done multiple reboots with no gain after the last change. The only thing I did different was leave it alone for awhile then change the RAM downward. It was almost as if I were trying to push too much on the first boot or something. I really can't explain why one day it wouldn't even boot at 10 x 150 and now it seems prefectly happy at 11 x 200. As for the 9700 I have only tried UT2003 so far with absolutely no issues. In fact, where in the first part of a new match start I always had a delay and a bit of jerkiness for may the first 20-30secs, I now have none and the game just blazes! Almost too fast to play. The big test will be Pacific Fighters, but I have that on another drive under WIN98 (for a few extra frames), and I haven't got '98 completely sorted yet. Well, I hope that maybe this helps someone with their setting up.

I was having lots of lockups, especially in graphically intensive applications, like games or dvd playing. I ultimately ended up with two choices.

1. Increase Vcore from 1.65 volts to 1.75 volts.
2. Reduce the AGP capacity from 8x to 4x.

These solutions are published by ASUS in their forums. I have so far only had to do the first and have had NO problems since.

I am a little concerned about the life of my 3200+, but I guess all you overclockers get away with stuff like that all the time.

Your full of it. You should try running a AMD 3200 at the "400" bus speed.

What is the best Graphics Card to go with the ASUS A7V880 Motherboard? When i play FAR CRY it keeps crashing.

what graphics card do you use? I have geforce 6600, and Far Cry went pretty well. Anyway, this game was a big disappointment to me, except the jungle and the water there wasn't anything else, so it became boring after first 30min

ok i read all the article and it seems that some people find this mainboard pretty "ok" while others encountered a lot of problems with it.
I bought the A7V880 and i must say i experienced Lots and lots of problems. The worst is the constant crashing in graphic applications like games and movies, even the thumbnail view of some video files crashes the pc. In games worked perfectly at the begining, then i couldn't play w3 in 1024*768 anymore - it wouldn't send video signal to the monitor, and now i can't play at all, it crashes every time i try to open applications like w3, wow or it crashes in the game. The blue screen says about the nv4_disp or other driver file on nvidia video cards and about other video driver files on ati vga's.
Some crashes does not show a blue screen at all, the monitor freezes but the applications running go on; if i continue tu click and to press keys it'll show a blue screen eventually, if i wait mins it shows a crash log about the video driver and the desktop steps to a 16 colors 640 resolution.
Anyhow, if this isn't enough there r still more problems.
Sometime the 2200+ athlon proc is found at 1500+ and the sound is distorted when i read a CD, some voltages in BIOS are very low sometime showing in red color.
I tested all my other components on other systems and i found no problems except for the mainboard. My opinion: A7V880 is one of the worst MB ever encountered

Well I'd like to add my experience to the A7V880 problems:

I have a Duron 1800 with ATI 9250. First the processor is seen as 1350 duron, no problem read on asus site that it happenbds, set it manually to 133 fsb and got my 1800 mhz, but one prob everything hangs in 3d. I read that this is an agp problem but any fiddling with the agp settings didn't solve the problem, although I have some more tips off the net yet to try. If I leave the proc a 1350 as seen it work very well (although slower of course) All in all is a great board with great problems ;)
The Via guys should make better drivers not only heap of chips and asus beter bioses