Soltek 8KAN2E-GR nForce3 250Gb S754 Motherboard

[Steve]

Soltek has put together an impressive S754 package with its K8AN2E-GR motherboard. The intelligent board layout made installation simple. I especially like the way DIMM slots are orientated away from the AGP slot. Soltek has also done well on the feature count, adding in discrete SATA and IDE RAID through Promise's PCI-riding controller. Benchmark performance, too, was right on where I'd expect a well-tuned S754 board's to be, and the sample board overclocked like a champ.

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...lld19JRD04OTI=

[busmony]

If you are looking for Raid 1... I DO NOT recommend this board. I have 3 in service but not for SATA Raid... only ATA Raid. In addition Nvidia Raid IS NOT bootable. The reviewer does not state any test or usage other than to quote PR. Can anyone get Nvidia to work or is there a bios update I missed? I would be interested in any reports... I dont believe I can have 3 bad boards. Thanks all.

[a3des]

my nvidia raid 0 configuration is working fine and it's bootable. an extended test about raid configuration capabilities of this mb would be nice. i have a64 3200+ (new castle), and i don't know where to start with OC-ing. any advice?

[busmony]

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...lld19JRD04OTI=

UPDATE... tnx for info on Raid 0. I found the info on Nvidia web in notes for Win2k Unified driver v 4.27. Says that Service Pack 3 or later is required to create a bootable raid windows environment. Well I only have SP2 so thats why Im having trouble. For further info to anyone else reading this, you can go to MS service pack 4 website and read info on getting sp4 on CD ($10) and has the procedure on how to merge SP4 with your orig install CD in order to create a new install CD with SP4. Nvidia should work after that. I wont know till I try it, but it sounds like the way to go for anyone who wants to use Nvidia NV3 250gb motherboards from any manufacturer. Thanks all. Happy holidays.

[a3des]

Anyway, there are some ... strange behaviour. When I change ide configuration, by adding or removing a device, nforce controler can't find any raid array even there is one. It takes a long time till you get a message like can't find any array, then after reboot everything is ok, raid array is detected correctly and boot atempt may proceed. Anyone experienced this behaviour?

[Vicious311]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone would minding showing me how to find the temperature checking tool this motherboard comes with. I am pretty new to the whole computer world, and I can't find any program such as Motherboard Monitor to be compatible with this board, and I would really like to know my temps while playing games.

Thanks a bunch.

[a3des]

http://81.169.156.245/soltek.de/solt...tek_hm126i.zip

[toshvan]

... and the sample board overclocked like a champ.

After doing some research on numerous forums I've found that Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR motherboard revisions QA to QD (look under the last PCI solt) have upper vcore limit to 1.55V and version QF (reviewed here) can go up to 1.7V. Opposite to this the reviewer states the vcore limit of 1.55V.

Question is did the authors of the review updated the bios before doing the review?

[Apex]

UPDATE... tnx for info on Raid 0. I found the info on Nvidia web in notes for Win2k Unified driver v 4.27. Says that Service Pack 3 or later is required to create a bootable raid windows environment. Well I only have SP2 so thats why Im having trouble. For further info to anyone else reading this, you can go to MS service pack 4 website and read info on getting sp4 on CD ($10) and has the procedure on how to merge SP4 with your orig install CD in order to create a new install CD with SP4. Nvidia should work after that. I wont know till I try it, but it sounds like the way to go for anyone who wants to use Nvidia NV3 250gb motherboards from any manufacturer. Thanks all. Happy holidays.

Hes a nifty tool

http://www.autopatcher.com/autostreamer.html

This might also be of use to you

http://www.autopatcher.com/autopatcher2000.html