Replacing borked nForce 680i mobo

sink

Looks like my mobo is busted. It's a Abit IN9 32X MAX nForce 680i SLi LGA775 DDR2. The thing never worked right, regret not sending it back when I bought it. The problem is the bios, the cmos is busted and won't save the data (i've tried replacing the battery) and so can't edit any bios settings including enabling SLi.

So need to buy a replacement, cheap as possible. Looking at two second hand boards. Never bought components second hand before any advice?

Asus P5N-D S775 Intel 750i ATX A L €51.01

Asus Striker Extreme S775 nForce 680i ATX Audio Lan €53.30

Both of there are warranty repaired and have 90 day warranty.

Rest of my system is as follows.

Intel QX6700 @ 2.66Ghz
4 X 1Gb PC2 6400 OCZ Platinum
2 X GeForce 8800 GTX
Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer

It's over 4 years old now but still capable of playing BFBC2 at near full whack 1920x1200. Will be upgrading in the not too distant future so the replacement board only has to last a year or so.

I think with the Striker I will be able to do a bit of overclocking, but would probably need better memory. 750i is a newer chipset and may be more stable. What do you think?

lmimmfn

sink wrote: »

Looks like my mobo is busted. It's a Abit IN9 32X MAX nForce 680i SLi LGA775 DDR2. The thing never worked right, regret not sending it back when I bought it. The problem is the bios, the cmos is busted and won't save the data (i've tried replacing the battery) and so can't edit any bios settings including enabling SLi.

So need to buy a replacement, cheap as possible. Looking at two second hand boards. Never bought components second hand before any advice?

Asus P5N-D S775 Intel 750i ATX A L €51.01

Asus Striker Extreme S775 nForce 680i ATX Audio Lan €53.30

Both of there are warranty repaired and have 90 day warranty.

Rest of my system is as follows.

Intel QX6700 @ 2.66Ghz
4 X 1Gb PC2 6400 OCZ Platinum
2 X GeForce 8800 GTX
Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer

It's over 4 years old now but still capable of playing BFBC2 at near full whack 1920x1200. Will be upgrading in the not too distant future so the replacement board only has to last a year or so.

I think with the Striker I will be able to do a bit of overclocking, but would probably need better memory. 750i is a newer chipset and may be more stable. What do you think?

ok a few things, forget a 680i replacement board, it doesnt support Q9 series quad cores, e.g. 9550
Go for a 750i or 780i if you can at least you can upgrade the cpu later if you want to.

I like Asus mobos, but their 680i series boards were absolute $hit, i blew 2 Asus P5N32-E SLI mobos trying to overclock them. Terrible boards and i wouldnt trust any other Asus 680i mobo, 780i/750i should be decent enough from Asus though.

If you havnt got an aftermarket cpu cooler DONT overclock on 680i/750i or 780i mobos, they get horribly hot. Do you NEED sli? the p35/38/45/58 mobos are so much better i would never consider a 680i/750i/780i if i didnt want SLI.

I have an Asus p5K-Pro( cheapo p35 mobo, cost me about 90 euro back in the day ), took 15 minutes to overclock my E7200 to 3.3Ghz( up from 2.53Ghz ) with the stock cpu cooler and its the one now in my media centre. I overclocked it when i got it, play games, stress it out, have never touched OC settings since.

sink

lmimmfn wrote: »

ok a few things, forget a 680i replacement board, it doesnt support Q9 series quad cores, e.g. 9550
Go for a 750i or 780i if you can at least you can upgrade the cpu later if you want to.

I like Asus mobos, but their 680i series boards were absolute $hit, i blew 2 Asus P5N32-E SLI mobos trying to overclock them. Terrible boards and i wouldnt trust any other Asus 680i mobo, 780i/750i should be decent enough from Asus though.

If you havnt got an aftermarket cpu cooler DONT overclock on 680i/750i or 780i mobos, they get horribly hot. Do you NEED sli? the p35/38/45/58 mobos are so much better i would never consider a 680i/750i/780i if i didnt want SLI.

I have an Asus p5K-Pro( cheapo p35 mobo, cost me about 90 euro back in the day ), took 15 minutes to overclock my E7200 to 3.3Ghz( up from 2.53Ghz ) with the stock cpu cooler and its the one now in my media centre. I overclocked it when i got it, play games, stress it out, have never touched OC settings since.

Need SLi so nForce boards are the only option as x58 would be too expensive. I have a thermalright ultra 120 extreme, and was able to OC on my old board to 2.9Ghz, but barely noticed a difference gaming so left it at stock. Temperatures were fine 60~65. I'm pretty sure it was my memory that was holding me back from going higher.

All I remember at the time was that the Striker was a very good OC'in board. Can 750i even be OC'd?

lmimmfn

sink wrote: »

Need SLi so nForce boards are the only option as x58 would be too expensive. I have a thermalright ultra 120 extreme, and was able to OC on my old board to 2.9Ghz, but barely noticed a difference gaming so left it at stock. Temperatures were fine 60~65. I'm pretty sure it was my memory that was holding me back from going higher.

All I remember at the time was that the Striker was a very good OC'in board. Can 750i even be OC'd?

you can use the hack here on one of the mobos in the list - http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/670810-howto-sli-non-sli-motherboard.html

Might be a better option

I would try and pick one of them up on adverts.ie and if you have any problems like it not working or whatever just reflog it, yeah a bit of hassle but youll get a better and most likely cheaper mobo.

Yep 750i can be overclocked, its a better overclocker than a 680i in general.

tbh i would sell your 2x8800GTX's for about 80euro and pick up an nvidia 260 or ati 4870/4890 second hand, they'll use a lot less power and performance will be comparible or better.

sink

lmimmfn wrote: »

you can use the hack here on one of the mobos in the list - http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/670810-howto-sli-non-sli-motherboard.html

Might be a better option

I would try and pick one of them up on adverts.ie and if you have any problems like it not working or whatever just reflog it, yeah a bit of hassle but youll get a better and most likely cheaper mobo.

Yep 750i can be overclocked, its a better overclocker than a 680i in general.

tbh i would sell your 2x8800GTX's for about 80euro and pick up an nvidia 260 or ati 4870/4890 second hand, they'll use a lot less power and performance will be comparible or better.

Is that 80 euro for each 8800GTX or all together? If I could get 160 for the two of them I would probably stump up some extra cash and get a GTX460 and buy a second hand p45. I have a few other bits I lying around I could sell for maybe 50 - 60 euro.

lmimmfn

sink wrote: »

Is that 80 euro for each 8800GTX or all together? If I could get 160 for the two of them I would probably stump up some extra cash and get a GTX460 and buy a second hand p45. I have a few other bits I lying around I could sell for maybe 50 - 60 euro.

nah 80euro for both as in ariund 40-50euro each( you might get 90-100 if youre really lucky ), Theyre nearly 4 years old, consume massive amounts of power and you can pick up an 8800GT for about 50 euro which provides similar performance but doesnt need much power.

Again though depends on the buyer

sink

I think I'll just keep it simple and go for the 750i. I will be building a whole new system next year so this will do for now. There are so many bits I would like to change, if I get into upgrading I might end up replacing everything. Thanks for your help.