Newsgroup: it.comp.hardware.motherboard
Titolo: GIGABYTE GA-7N400 PRO: come mai quest a review è così negativa?

Come mai questa rece è tanto negativa?
Voi che l'avete provata avete incontrato i problemi in essa esposti?
Magari l'uscita del modello 7N400 PRO2 è proprio per risolvere tutti 
questi problemi????
Qualcuno ha il modello PRO2????
Grazie 1000.
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	Giga-Byte GA-7N400Pro Review 	Post #1
daveg
Moderator
Joined: Feb 2003
 
Well, as you know I settled on the GA-7N400Pro for my new AMD board. 
This has been an interesting experience and reminds me of why I stopped 
purchasing Giga-byte boards in the first place
It also reminded me to RTFM thoroughly before embarking on a new M/Board 
installation.
Features = 9/10
Ease of h/w Installation = 2/10
Ease of driver Installation = 5/10
Functionality of drivers = 2/10
Manufacturer's support = 2/10
Overclocking = 8/10
Stability = 3/10
Overall = 44%
My rating scale = how frustrating it was to do each task!
More details to come along with some pic's. I'll detail each section in 
a separate post as I get some time over the next week.
edit = revised score based on further investigation/fixes.
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	  17-08-2003, 10:52 PM
 
	Physical Installation 	Post #2
daveg
Moderator
Joined: Feb 2003
 
Phew! What a week.
Here's the rest of the review on the Giga-Crap (oops! did I really say 
that?) GA-7N400 Pro.
Let's start with the physical installation issues shall we?
If you don't have a case capable of supporting full-size ATX boards, 
don't buy this board. It was a bit awkward to fit into an AOpen H600A 
case - but there was enough room to spare and it doesn't block access to 
the 5.25" or 3.5" bays.
Ensure that you place your system board pegs in the right spot! You'll 
need and additional 3 pegs over the standard ATX form factor (total of 
9) for this board.
b. Prepare the board.
Insert the CPU the right way around in the ZIF socket and close it up - 
pretty standard really...
Next was the HSF.
Um, well, no, not really...
I was trying to use a Thermaltake Volcano 9 HSF on this board. AS it 
turns out, there is a rather tall capacitor, associated with one of the 
3 phase power circuits, which is too close to the corner of the CPU 
socket to allow the HSF to be mounted. This misses out by about 2-3mm ONLY.
The other dissapointing item was the lack of mounting holes for advanced 
HSF combinations - even if you don't have a HSF that uses these you 
could put some old, plastic main board stand-offs in these holes to 
support the board if you reseat the HSF once installed.
So... to get around this problem and continue with the installation, 
I've used the standard HSF from the AMD 2500+. I HATE mounting these 
HSF's. The locking mechanism is difficult to put on at the best of times 
and your always worried about slipping with the screwdriver and going 
through the board!
Fortunately, Giga-byte have thought of this and placed some rather thick 
plastic on either side of the ZIF socket to prevent you from creating 
your own unintentional mounting holes. Very thoughtful.
c. Mount the board in the case.
As expected this went without any major dramas. However, if you have 
removable drive bays - take the time to take out your drives.
CAUTION: there is a capacitor near the top right hand side of the board 
that is extremely close to the mounting hole. Use caution when inserting 
and tightening this screw.
d. Install the cards and risers.
Gigabyte have chosen to remove the CNR riser in preference for using a 
smart-card header on the board. The upshot of this is that the 5 PCI 
slots start right at the bottom of the board. This also moves the AGP 
slot down one slot and allows you to insert the surround audio riser 
where the AGP card would normally be. This works out quote well as the 
header plugs for the additional audio connectors are in this vicinity. 
Also reduces cable clutter around your add-on PCI cards
Gigabyte have chosen to also place the FRONT audio header at the REAR. 
This is MOST inconvenient as the cable then has to run from the FRONT of 
the case to the middle REAR of the board. Hmmm. Dissapointed.
Because this board is so integrated, I've chosen to (initially) use the 
built-in audio and LAN so the only other card to add was the AGP VGA.
Putting the AGP card in is easy - getting it out is not. Gigabyte have 
used a small, spring-loaded pull-pin to lock the AGP card in the slot. 
This makes taking the card back out a little awkward as you really need 
three hands to pull the locking pin and both ends of the AGP card. A 
simple locking lever would have sufficed.
ImportantAlso ensure that you change the dip switch (near the 
northbridge HSF) from the default. If you don't then you'll be stuck at 
100Mhz FSB - regardless of what you do. I missed this first time around 
as the front audio cable ended up being routed over the switch.
Installing the cables.
Installing all the data and power cables is fairly straigt forward.
RECOMMENDATION: Install the FDD cable BEFORE installing the ATX power 
cable. I would also recommend installing the RAM after the power cable 
is installed. This will ensure correct seating of the RAM and prevent 
any accidental damage form enthusiastic handling of the power connector.
The layout of the USB 2.0 header, firewire and front panel connectors is 
extremely well done. This board manages to keep the majority of your 
cables away from your PCI slots and puts the headers relatively close to 
where they will be used. The front panel connectors are even colour 
coded for ease of installation. Handy.
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	  17-08-2003, 11:12 PM
 
	Setting Up 	Post #3
daveg
Moderator
Joined: Feb 2003
 
OK now that the thing is plugged together, time to fire it up and get an 
OS installed!
WARNING
The Giga-Crap (oops, again!) F9 and F10 BIOS does not work correctly. 
Please check out the NForcersHQ Forums for a better idea of the problems 
with the BIOS's.
The Board will not function in Dual DDR, nor does the SATA or PATA raid 
controllers function correctly.
That said, the feature set is great (pending problem resolution).
The P-ATA RAID function is great (with a BIOS update). You have the 
capacity to add up to 4 HDD's into a RAID of various configurations. The 
RAID BIOS is fairly easy to use, although I did end up using the 
"automatic configuration" option (Couldn't seem to get the "create 
array" working). This might have just been because I was a little tired 
though at 4am...
PROBLEM
If you intend to use the P-ATA or S-ATA as your boot drive, ensure that 
you create the necessary driver diskette PRIOR to ripping apart the only 
working PC you have. If you don't have a PC, get the driver diskette 
before leaving the place of purchase.
The CD won't use the autorun function in a non-Gigabyte PC - so you will 
have to navigate to the right location
Better yet - go get the WORKING drivers from ITE Product Downloads
So now that I've stuffed around trying to find the right RAID driver for 
the onboard P-ATA RAID controller, I can boot up and install my OS!
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	  17-08-2003, 11:28 PM
 
	SUMMARY 	Post #4
daveg
Moderator
Joined: Feb 2003
 
Overall, this board has reaffirmed my intense dislike for Giga-byte 
products.
No Game port shipped with board;
Supplied drivers are difficult to install and do not work;
Physical installation could be a little easier (but around average);
BIOS does not work properly - this means that:
on-board LAN port does not work without hard-coding of MAC address, CPU 
is running over-voltage (when set to auto-detect), Dual DDR does not 
function without a BIOS update, unable to consistently reboot, data on 
SATA/PATA raid controllers may be corrupted.
Out of the box this board will not work as advertised.
that is:
SATA/PATA RAID with Dual DDR and LAN.
All are issues that can be "worked around" but it is extremely poor 
quality assurance.

 Come mai questa rece č tanto negativa?
Non conosco la pro. Io ho la 7N400-L1 e sono piů che soddisfatto,
soprattutto in considerazione di quanto ho speso.

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:bjkn94$vdp$1...@lacerta.tiscalinet.it...

ciao sono in procinto di acquistare, presso un distributore online, la
scheda che hai menzionato ..solo che nelle specifiche tecniche vedo che
nonha reid e monta solo 2 connettori eide..invece dalla foto ne vedo
4...potresti dirmi precisamente quanti eide supporta e come ti trovi con
quetsa mobo?
grazie ciao

Ho appena acquistato la gigabyte ga-7n400 pro2 (137 euro da essedi) per
sostituire  la mia "vecchia" asus a7v266-e raid che non memorizza più i
settaggi del bios quando scollego la spina (probabile corto della scheda).
La scheda doveva essere fornita insieme ad due porte firewire by cable cosa
che non è avvenuta.
Domani Essedi shop mi darà delle nuove spiegazioni...altrimenti contatterò
direttamente la gigabyte.
Preciso che la ga-7n400l non ha il controller raid.
Ho scelto questa scheda perchè è l'unica ad avere il controller raid ata
100-133 oltre al sata.
Al momento la scheda è sotto sfruttata per via della ram ddr 266 512mb, non
mi va di disanguarmi per comprare due moduli da 256mb da 200 euro l'uno x
avere un 5-10%? in più di prestazioni.
Non ho avuto particolari problemi con i driver, l'unico inconveniente l'ho
avuto disinstallando i driver nvidia nforce forniti con la scheda per
installare la v.2.45:
dopo la disinstallazione al successivo riavvio winxp mi chiedeva il driver
nvatabus non potendo proseguire l'avvio, costringendomi ad una nuova
installazione di windows!!
L'overclock non l'ho ancora provato...ti farò sapere.