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ASUS A7N266-VM Motherboard

Ameya Dalvi, Jun 04, 2003 0000 hrs IST

The A7N266-VM is a low-end motherboard from ASUS thatùs based on the nVidia nForce 220D chipset.

Expert Rating:

Good assortment of features, Good CPU support, Excellent onboard audio, Inexpensive

Lacks a few recent features

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EXPERT REVIEW

With PC technology maturing at a phenomenal pace, it's common for peripherals, especially motherboards to make an appearance in the market and then plunge into obsolescence within months due to their inability to support the recent, faster processors and newer peripherals. There are a very few boards that stand the test of time and simply refuse to die. The A7N266-VM from ASUS is one such example.

Introduction
This board has been present in the Indian market for over 15 months now and is still going strong. When the board made its debut, it used to support Athlon XP processors up to the speed of 1900. A BIOS update saw it support a maximum of 2100+. Subsequent BIOS updates brought in the support for the AMD CPUs based on the Thoroughbred core and pushed the compatible speeds to 2600+ thus prolonging its life span. But it wasn't just the support for the faster CPUs that made this board popular. This board from ASUS was always marketed as a value for money board (that's what the VM in the name stands for) and had a price tag that supported that claim. From our past experience, we can define value boards as ones with cut corners and only very basic features. This is exactly where this board differentiates itself from the rest of the pack.

What's the buzz about?
This board, based on nVidia's nForce 220D chipset, has a GeForce 2 MX AGP onboard, which still happens to be one the best onboard display solutions rivaled only by its elder brother the nForce2. In addition to that, it also has a 4X AGP slot for plugging in better AGP cards. If that's not enough, it also sports a 5.1 channel Dolby certified audio chip onboard that can put to shame other onboard sound chips and give Creative's SB-Live series of cards a run for their money.

As for the standard features, the A7N266-VM is a Micro ATX board that has a simple yet efficient layout and a robust build quality. It features three PCI slots other than the AGP 4X slot. It has two banks that support up to 1 GB of PC-2100 (266 MHz) DDR RAM, the capacity of each bank being 512 MB. It does not support the dual memory channels that are found on the other high-end nForce chipset boards. It has a couple of IDE connectors and a Floppy drive connector. Connectors for the second COM port and additional USB ports are also present. The back panel comprises of the usual PS/2 ports, a COM port, a Parallel port, a VGA-Out and a pair of USB 1.1 ports. Also present is the game port and the connectors for Line Out, Line In and Mic, which double up as Front, Rear and Center channel outputs respectively if you choose to use its 5.1 channel audio capabilities. The complete spec-list can be obtained from the ASUS Website.

The Driver Interface
Even though the onboard GeForce2 MX does not use the nVidia's Detonator drivers, the driver interface is very similar to that of Detonator's with all the usual DirectX and OpenGL options and the Overlay and the Digital Vibrance controls available.

The new 2.03 nForce drivers, bring about a refreshing change in the Audio interface with lots of customizations and wide array of features at your disposal. Other than tons of equalizers and presets, you can actually control the volume level of each and every channel in a multi-channel speaker setup thus obtaining a perfect output irrespective of your position from the audio source. Hats off to nVidia. To get a better idea about the driver interface, have a look at the images below.

Benchmark time
Going by what we have seen, this board is a good buy for its features alone. Now let us see if it can deliver when it comes to data crunching and put up a performance that can compliment its features.

The Test bench

CPU:

Motherboard:

Memory:

Graphics Card:

Hard Drive:

Optical Drive:

Power Supply:

Operating System:

Drivers:

Software used:

Benchmarks

SiSoft Sandra 2003

Benchmarks continued

Performance at a glance
As we see from the benchmarks the performance of this motherboard is quite impressive. Lets not forget that the Krypton M7VIT Pro is a KT-400 Motherboard, hence has better specs and is expected to perform a lot better than this board. Inspite of that, in certain benchmarks, the A7N266-VM comes quite close to beating the KT-400 board and in fact does beat it in a couple of tests. When compared to the SiS 740 chipset motherboard, a board in its price range and a potential competitor, it manages to outperform it by a distance. This is truly commendable.

Another thing that the benchmarks throw light on is the onboard AGP, which proves to be atleast as good as a stand-alone GeForce 2 MX card. Also as I mentioned before, the onboard audio based on the tweaked Realtek ALC650 chipset delivers sound of the highest quality, which the non-nForce boards, can only dream of for now.

Final words
Good performance, impressive features and stable operation, what more can one ask for. What more? A good price tag, of course! I'm happy to say that the price is as impressive as the features that this board offers. The board can be yours for as little as Rs. 4150. Although a few of the recent features like AGP 8X and USB 2.0 are missing, at that price point you won't miss them. It's a solid entry-level motherboard for AMD CPUs. Rather that calling it a 'Jack of all trades', I would like to say that the ASUS A7N266-VM is a genuine all-rounder. It's an ideal solution for anyone looking to build an economical PC with decent gaming capabilities or watching DVDs with surround sound. So if you are planning to put together a good all-round PC in the range of Rs.25,000 to 30,000, this board is highly recommended. You just can't go wrong with it.

Test Unit Sourced From: Neoteric Informatique Pvt Ltd., Mumbai.

USER COMMENTS

hi am sachin

by sachin, khamgaon, on May 03, 2009 12:23 PM, Report abuse Reply

I want to Purchase a new A7N266Vm MotherBoard,my old one is creating problem.So,please suggest a shop from where I can purchase the new one.

by Tusher Banerjee, Kolkata,India, on Apr 22, 2009 02:02 PM, Report abuse Reply

i am using the a7n266 vm motherboard... the RAM it is showing is 96 MB. eventhough i have put a 256 MB of RAM ... my OS is XP.... The problem is the system is dead slow... Can someone help me to know the reason why it is that slow...

by lakshmi, bangalore, on Mar 30, 2009 04:14 PM, Report abuse Reply

where is the jumper cmos on this mb ???? have you got a correctly manual of this MB?? please help me !!

by Ago, milan, on Mar 15, 2009 07:35 AM, Report abuse Reply

yipppeeeeeeeeee, guess wot neo, I DONE IT,lol it was 2 jumpers needed putting on, short lineout-fr with lineout-rr, lineout-fl with lineout-rl. or the output will go to front connect. let me thank you again for your time and advice, very very much appreciated, i can now attempt pc no.2 for my other lad, bye from a very happy guy, see ye shane,(boroboy

by Burn, bankkok, on Oct 30, 2008 08:21 PM, Report abuse Reply

เรียนเรื่อยๆ เหนื่อยก็พัก

by Burn, bankkok, on Oct 30, 2008 08:18 PM, Report abuse Reply

ASUS A7N266-VM Motherboard

by Burn, bankkok, on Oct 30, 2008 08:14 PM, Report abuse Reply

i want to but a new mother board . please tell me at which shop i can purchase the A7N266-VM board in bangalore . Thak you

by Jose g, Bangalore, on Oct 25, 2008 12:40 PM, Report abuse Reply

i need drivers for windows xp sp2 please send url address

by nagaraj, bangalore, on Aug 29, 2008 02:06 AM, Report abuse Reply

I have Asus A7N266-VM motherboard with 40 GB 7200 RPM HDD. Can I attach 250 gb IDE HDD additionally. What will be the maximum HDD capacity for this particular motherboard.

by Niladri Pal, Kolkata, on Mar 10, 2008 01:13 PM, Report abuse Reply

im running same board with 500gb drive sweet

by alan, nz, on Aug 03, 2008 08:28 AM, Report abuse

thanks

by mohamed, mumbai, on May 21, 2008 01:20 PM, Report abuse Reply

12345

by 123, 526, on May 20, 2008 07:32 PM, Report abuse Reply

thanks

by dheeraj, bangalore, on May 09, 2008 12:56 PM, Report abuse Reply

My sound stopped, is there some bios setting? Tried installing all realtek, and NVIDIA drivers. Plz. help. TIA

by Qurbi, Mumbai, on Apr 22, 2008 05:04 PM, Report abuse Reply

Athlon XP2000+ CPUon this motherboard has died. What can I replace it with?

by Shankar, Pune, on Apr 01, 2008 04:15 PM, Report abuse Reply

I need drivers for my pc pls give me driver

by thazudeen, mumbai, on Jan 08, 2008 09:55 AM, Report abuse Reply

hai i want the sound drivers

by bhaskar reddy, hanamkonda, on Aug 04, 2007 05:19 PM, Report abuse Reply

hi i have got it plz contact gayathri_cmohan@yahoo.co.in

by mohan, trichy, on Nov 12, 2007 09:38 PM, Report abuse

sound driver

by sachin, mumbai, on Dec 30, 2007 07:36 PM, Report abuse

My PC mother board is A7N266-VM Rev.1.05 with 512 MB DDR1 266 FSB RAM and 80 GB HDD. Now i want to upgrade my system RAM to 1GB. Is my pc mother board can hold 1GB RAM in single slot? And what is the maximum FSB it can support?

by Nag, Hydeabad, India, on Dec 13, 2007 06:38 PM, Report abuse Reply

gud

by fasd, ko, on Dec 04, 2007 12:44 PM, Report abuse Reply

hi my system is not sound and audio divice.

by ice, pondicherry, on Nov 10, 2007 04:01 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hello, I too have the same motherboard ASUS A7N266-VM/SE, recently i have purchased nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MB Graphics card, after installing it is giving me problems, the website of the card says that by disabling the onboard graphics the problem will be solved, can anyone please tell me how do i disable the onboard graphics controller of the motherboard, any method please. i.e; by jumper settings, bios or cmos, kindly reply. thank you.

by Ram Kunchur, Belgaum, on Feb 28, 2005 11:38 PM, Report abuse Reply

I have the same problem as you have posted, i have bought a GeForce 6600 and i can get it to output the signal but it has problems. Did anyone give you an answer to your question. pls help.

by Richard, Galway, on Jun 20, 2006 10:10 PM, Report abuse

I tried 5200, 5500, 6600. All of them have problem. Then I changed to ati card everything seems to be good for over one year.

by Eric, HK, on Jul 06, 2006 07:53 PM, Report abuse

I had problems too with a gforce 4, I disabled the onboard card, intalled the correct driver and the games looked horrible. it seems to be a chipset incompatibility, with Ati everything it`s ok.

by Ivan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Oct 13, 2007 06:17 AM, Report abuse

suggest graphic card to be used ofr a7n266VM mother board

by H singh, Kolkata India, on Sep 12, 2007 11:23 PM, Report abuse Reply

i want to put graphics card for a7N266VM mother board with 756 RAM pl suggest with card with 512/256 MB ram will support & give better results

by H singh, Kolkata India, on Sep 12, 2007 11:22 PM, Report abuse Reply

hey Friends i need to buy a new pc... my budget is around Rs 70000-75000... can you please suggest me with a suitable pc... thanks

by Tegbir, Chandigarh, on Aug 17, 2007 11:54 PM, Report abuse Reply

I Have motherboard A7n266-Vm+20 Gb hard disk+128 mb ram. Recently i got a problem with my RAM. I want purchase a new RAM,i got info from somebody saying that the RAM speed should be less than the PC bus speed. Please suggest me the RAM. I would like to go up to 512 mb ram

by Jagadeesh, Chennai, on Jul 19, 2006 02:53 PM, Report abuse Reply

You can buy 333 ram , It works. I have the same

by hrishig, bangalore, on Aug 07, 2006 04:10 PM, Report abuse

hrishig, r u sure v can use PC2100/333 Mhz RAM. or is it PC2100/266 MHZ. one more question.. I already have 128 MB RAM. Is it possible for me to upgrade my RAM to 1GB while retaining my existing 128 MB RAM stick on board. If yes, then how can I do it.

by RAM issue sucks, Bangalore, on Aug 09, 2007 04:14 PM, Report abuse

Hi i have same a7n266vm motherboard with Athlon 1800+, i'm using 512x2(1GB) DDR 400Mhz ram its working fine u can try it.

by Prashanth, Bangalore, on Aug 14, 2007 01:33 PM, Report abuse

thanks

by smith, mum, on Jul 26, 2007 08:02 PM, Report abuse Reply

luuminh_03@yahoo.com.vn

by PHONG, TPHCM, on Jun 22, 2007 12:32 PM, Report abuse Reply

ddfd

by dfdf, dfd, on Jun 20, 2007 03:01 PM, Report abuse Reply

very vell

by sinan, istanbul, on Jun 01, 2007 09:29 PM, Report abuse Reply

good

by logu, trichy, on May 30, 2007 11:56 AM, Report abuse Reply

hello..can i ask where can i get the video and audio driver of my board A7N266VM, REV 1.xx 'coz i don;t have the CD..pls give me link where i can download working drivers...thanks! by Niti pardeshi from Pune

by Nitin, Pune, on May 27, 2007 01:51 PM, Report abuse Reply

hello..can i ask where can i get the video and audio driver of my board A7S266VM, REV 1.xx 'coz i don;t have the CD..pls give me link where i can download working drivers...thanks! by Niti pardeshi from Pune

by Nitin, Pune, on May 27, 2007 01:49 PM, Report abuse Reply

hello..can i ask where can i get the video and audio driver of my board A7S266VM, REV 1.xx 'coz i don;t have the CD..pls give me link where i can download working drivers...thanks!

by Nitul K. Sharma, Guna(M.P.), on May 23, 2007 12:48 AM, Report abuse Reply

Facing no display problem.No beeps but sounds like a siron.Help to rectify the problem area.

by S.P.Das, Bhubaneswar, on May 09, 2007 12:59 AM, Report abuse Reply

I had bought a ATI:Radeon X1300-512MB (VGA) To go into ASUS A7N266-VM Motherboard. I installed the video card and software,drivers but when.It restarts and the monitor goes blank when windows starts to load. What's Wrong ?

by chris przybysz, south bend, on Mar 24, 2007 03:42 AM, Report abuse Reply

this is happening due to a conflict between the onboard agp and the new one.uninstall your nforce and ati drivers completely,next install each mobo driver except video driver manually from device manager.next run ur ati driver installation.this shoul solve ur problem

by fox, chennai, on Apr 01, 2007 06:49 PM, Report abuse

I had bought one GeForce 5200 8x AGP Card. My mother board is A7N266- VM SE. But after installing Windows XP it will allow to see the display even in safe mode. Please provide help to us

by Natarajan, Thiruvananthapuram, on Jan 20, 2005 02:11 PM, Report abuse Reply

Me too hav d same. Iam Mahesh from trivandrum. when i instaled dat same geforce card, windows xp is not loading. i can only view it in safe mode. iam stil in doubt wethr dis motherboard suport dat geforce model? did ur problm solved? iam stil using onboard geforce 2. i also instald a geforce 4 MX card, itz working smoothly. but v kno MX card is not anymore nd itz useles. i wana fix a FX card. tel me if ur problms r solved by any means.ok

by Mahesh Mohan, Trivandrum, on Mar 08, 2007 09:53 AM, Report abuse

Hi, I have Asus Motherboard of A7N266VM and AMD Athlon XP-2100 Cpu. Now my cpu is damaged so can i perchase new cpu with same speed or can upgrade it with same motherboard. Plz suggest me ASAP. thanx

by Jitendra Kumar, Gurgaon, on Nov 08, 2006 03:14 PM, Report abuse Reply

Jitendra , It is very difficult to get a spare cpu in the market since this type of 32 bit Socket A(Socket 462 ) is no longer sold /produced .You might at the most get second hand ones but they are also available as a Motherboard+cpu bundle at Nehru Place for abt Rs.3500/- (second hand dealer ).I had the same experience recently on my A7N8X motherboard but luckily it supports Duron and so I got a Duron 900Mhz for about 900/- bucks (second hand again ) .So check out if your bopard also supports Duron processors (they are also quite o.k though not as powerful as the Athlons .-clock speed is max 100Mhz.) Also refer to this link while searching for compatible processors.

by Sunil, Gurgaon, on Dec 09, 2006 05:41 PM, Report abuse

please tell me where i can find the drivers cd of this motherbord

by suri, bangalore, on Oct 14, 2006 08:19 PM, Report abuse Reply

i have lost the cd to download the drivers for it and im wondering if you can tell me a site where i can download the drivers ?

by mohsin i shaikh, pune, on Sep 24, 2006 11:45 AM, Report abuse Reply

Does someone knows where I can get the drivers to the port USB 2.0??

by Paulo, Bs As, on Aug 18, 2006 09:26 PM, Report abuse Reply

i hv this motherboard A7n266-vm. but this time i m facing a problem my audio-in(mike) not working. initially i thought the problem would be with the mike, but i tested my mike with another computer, its working fine. so the problem is confined to my mother-board. can anybody help me what short of problem can be there in the motherboard. regards.. sunil kumar toor asstt aircraft engineer (avionics) indian airlines n delhi

by sunil kumar, n. delhi, india, on Jul 06, 2006 08:08 PM, Report abuse Reply

Use new audio drivers. It helps

by hrishig, bangalore, on Aug 07, 2006 04:11 PM, Report abuse

I have this MB, but it does not support my usbhard disk(2.0), inspite of a pci usb2.0 card. what can be the remedy?

by Ashok, Mumbai, on Apr 21, 2006 01:53 PM, Report abuse Reply

Buy a USB 2.0 card again. It's very cheap

by Eric, HK, on Jul 06, 2006 07:55 PM, Report abuse

i want to know more info on prices of m boards and rams

by joseph, hyderabad, on Apr 01, 2006 10:39 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi , I have this motherboard from last 3 years and now I am planning to some upgrade of it. 1) I already have 256 Mb ram ( single chip) . Question is can I put additional 512 MB ram in another slot with 400 Mz speed? 2) I want to put some graphics card which one can be the best , and how to install it? Do I need to do something to stop the onboard graphic card before installing the new one? Any help is appreciated.

by hrishig, Pune, on Feb 24, 2006 05:14 PM, Report abuse Reply

yeh go ahead on the 512 ram i am too works like a charm the ques i'll get back 2 u if i can ok

by shabbaV1, Cape Town, on Mar 31, 2006 08:00 PM, Report abuse

i have lost the cd to download the drivers for it and im wondering if you can tell me a site where i can download the drivers ?

by Carl Roper, Featherstone Pontefract, on Feb 27, 2006 03:59 PM, Report abuse Reply

check/google the asus site for drivers ...

by kgthelazy, bangalore, on Feb 27, 2006 04:53 PM, Report abuse

Hi! I've A7N266 ASUS mother board but don't know if its VM or SE. Also I recently purchased Hynix 512 RAM (133Mhz), how can I check if its original and does my motherboard support RAM @ 233Mhz or above. Can I increase the mapped memory of integrated Geforce 2 MX from 32mb to higher memory.

by Siddharth Agarw, Bangalore, on Jan 15, 2005 12:29 PM, Report abuse Reply

U need saperate Grpx card if you want to go beyond 32 MB V RAM

by hrishig, Pune, on Feb 24, 2006 04:53 PM, Report abuse

hi, i've got a 2 year old A7N266-VM SE board. It was working fine untill recently.While its running it suddenly stops and only the power led keeps blinking. If i restart immediately then then same problem occurs within seconds.I have to wait for some time before i restart.The time between each such occurrence is not the same.The CPU fan seems to be working fine and bios show its speed to be around 5000 rpm. Please help , thanking you in advance.

by Ashwin Pathmudi, Pune, on Apr 01, 2005 05:09 PM, Report abuse Reply

This happens with my pc also. The reason is heat. Try to keep it cool Env. I tried using another cooling fan but I just added noise that's all. My solution was to keep it in a diffrent bigger room

by hrishig, Pune, on Feb 24, 2006 04:50 PM, Report abuse

i want to know whether asus company is manufacturing A7N266-VM motherboard now

by rakesh, trivandrum, on Oct 28, 2005 12:36 PM, Report abuse Reply

no, they were phased out about 2~3 years ago

by Stevo, anywhere, on Jan 11, 2006 07:36 AM, Report abuse

I WANT USB 2.0 DRIVERS FOR A7N266VM-SE WICH IS UNABLE TO FOUND IN WEBSITE PLEASE GIVE ME A LINK FOR THE SAME tHANK YOU

by VIMAL, aHMEDABAD, on Oct 07, 2005 06:43 PM, Report abuse Reply

did you ever get an answer? I'm also trying to find them.

by steve, St Neots, on Jan 06, 2006 03:39 AM, Report abuse

the board doesn't support usb 2.0 so you will never find drivers

by jesse, brisbane, on Jan 06, 2006 05:59 AM, Report abuse

Hi I have just purchased this board second hand,but haven't got a manual which I thought I could just download to from ASUS but off course its not there. Anyway the area of concern is the main jumper setting for power the reset etc. But if anyone has any electronic copy or could scan the jumper pages of the manual then I would be very grateful. Thanks Cathal

by Cathal, Sheffield, on Aug 01, 2005 03:02 PM, Report abuse Reply

there are manuals on the asus site if you find the right area. Not that recent though - the latest is 2002, mine is 2003 http://support.asus.com/download/ At top left - Enter A7n266-vm and select manuals

by steve, St Neots, on Jan 06, 2006 03:23 AM, Report abuse

I need the sound driver for the A7N266-VM motherboard (5.1 channels, Nforce2). Please help me!!!

by Hannibal, Bs As, on Jan 02, 2006 08:18 PM, Report abuse Reply

I badly need the sound driver for the A7N266-VM motherboard. Please help me!!!

by Rizwan, Curepipe (Mauritius), on Dec 01, 2005 05:03 PM, Report abuse Reply

this Mother Board is very Good in Performance,and i am using this since 2002.

by Anoop mishra, Bangalore, on Nov 28, 2005 03:30 PM, Report abuse Reply

A great Motherboard.. though old.. download drivers at www.nvidia.com.. byeeee..

by Mazen, Sana'a, on Nov 03, 2005 02:14 AM, Report abuse Reply

HI this is chirag i want to know whether this motherboard support 2400+ amd athlon cpu. can any one help me. whether it requires bios upgrade or not?

by chirag chhtabr, surat, on Sep 12, 2005 08:20 PM, Report abuse Reply

I just upgraded my CPU to the AMD Mobile Athlon XP-M 2600+ (45W) Barton with the 266MHz FSB. so i figured it would work. i read it should work. it doesnt work. although i havent changed any jumpers or anything i didnt think i had to. could that be the problem. i've updated the bios to 1007. flashed the bios. the whole time its been running at 800 mhz. i performed that mod that supposed to unlock the bios adjustments. hasnt worked but i think i read that i'll need to flash the bios again.

by squirrelbait, minnesota, on Aug 03, 2005 06:50 AM, Report abuse Reply

good

by saravanakumar.k, madurai, on Aug 01, 2005 08:36 PM, Report abuse Reply

i am use mainboard asus a7n266-vm, but cd driver crash. can download this main driver?

by sigit hariyanto, pureokrto, indonesia, on Jul 29, 2005 07:22 PM, Report abuse Reply

can i use a processor of more that amd 2000+ on this board without any problem

by pranay, hyderabad, on Jul 25, 2005 08:29 PM, Report abuse Reply

hello..can i ask where can i get the video and audio driver of my board A7S266VM, REV 1.xx 'coz i don;t have the CD..pls give me link where i can download working drivers...thanks!

by zellgun, balamb, on May 17, 2005 10:46 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi there...Guys..which is a good Graphic card for my mother board A7N266VM

by Nagesh, Mumbai, on May 02, 2005 11:08 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi,all. This mobo is posible to be overclocked. I find the gide to do this. http://www.angelfire.com/yt3/jzztt/modding_A7n266-VM.htm After this mobo mod you can change FSB frequency. Good luck.

by Jeko Boev, Plovdiv, on Apr 23, 2005 10:59 AM, Report abuse Reply

Plz, don't forget to remove two jumpers from mobo after mod! Read this before starting the solder mod of mobo http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=530&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30 There are many usefull info! Another good luck!

by Jeko Boev, Plovdiv, on Apr 23, 2005 11:07 AM, Report abuse

I have some questions? Can I overclock A7N266-VM board? some say You cant overclock, and some say You can...whats the right one? But as some people say You can Is it safe to overclock this board....Doing this so: This is a brief guide detailing the overclocking procedure for the Asus A7n266-vm Motherboard. hmmm lets see is this a difficult thing to do or not ? I'd have to say that if you get it right first time then its a fairly simple operation. The goal is to remove a small piece of wire that bridges 2 points on the board and rejoin it as in the A7N266-c/e series of boards. You can either solder the wire out or you can cut it, i would recommend soldering it out if you have a decent solder iron and a steady hand. Once the mod is done, the once grayed over FSB and multiplier settings in the Bios will be free to change. Although the multiplier settings have been opened they have no effect on the board whatsoever, or so it seems. You will have FSB settings from 100-115 in steps of 2MHZ and then 133-188 in various steps. It looks like ATi graphics cards are unusable for overclocking this board as the overclock defaults to 100FSB when used. Equipment Fine headed solder iron Solder possibly a craft/stanley knife if you want the cut the wire, instead of soldering it out. Step 1 Take your board and place it on a worktop , preferably on top the anti-staic bag that came with it. Step 2 Locate the 2 blue coated plastic (memory/frequency) jumpers just beside one end of the AGP slot, see figure 1. Take the 2 jumpers off the board, and locate the small wire strip connecting 2 points on the board, right next to the Mem/cpu jumper pins. fig 2. Step 3 From the back side of the board heat up the wire point nearest the back end of the board and push the wire out. You obviously need to be careful to avoid getting any solder on adjacent traces. Theres not much room to work with. Step 3a If you dont like this method you can cut the wire from the front side of the board using some kind of fine wire cutter or other. There are 2 fine traces under the wire, so you need to watch so as not to damage them, if they do get damaged you could possible repair them with something like conductive paint, etc.. Step 4 Rejoin the wire between points as shown on fig 3. Thats it! Figure 1: Arrow points to jumper pin location. Figure 2: shows location of CPU/ram jumper. If cutting the wire you need to be careful not to damage the adjacent Capacitor. Yellow arrow points to 'wire'. Figure 3: Wire must be reconnected between these 2 points.done Pls reply me asap. Thnkz

by Ian Garrin Uy, Cebu City Philippines, on Mar 21, 2005 11:11 PM, Report abuse Reply

Great motherboard, had mine for a while now. I've decided that I want to use a full gig of ram. When I was pricing Ram, I discovered that pc2100 was more expensive than faster RAMS. My questions is, If I buy 2 sticks of 512mb, pc3200 RAM. Will it work? I understand that the RAM would clock back, but will it work in the first instance. Thanks in advance.

by Brian, Edinburgh, on Feb 26, 2005 10:20 PM, Report abuse Reply

how could i enable 6 channel audio feature.would u please tell

by charmx, thrissur, on Nov 02, 2004 04:46 AM, Report abuse Reply

HELP! I have a a7n266 mother board and I can only get 3 of the 6 usb ports to work. I have to be missing something simple. The 2 that come mounted in the rear of motherboard work and the usb 1 works but 2 3 4 do not. Anyone know what I am missing? The wiring is correct because I am using the plug version that connects both at the same time. Thnx in advance.

by Jim, Springfield, on May 12, 2004 10:26 AM, Report abuse Reply

bios version is 1004. windows xp pro with all updates and service packs. figured this might be important lol thnx again

by Jim, Springfield, on May 12, 2004 10:28 AM, Report abuse

Hi Jim, Did u manage to get a solution to this problem. I have a similar issue. Please help. Regards

by Lloyd, Bombay, on Oct 17, 2004 01:30 AM, Report abuse

Need Help I have AsusA7N266VM motherboard and AMD2600+(400 MHz FSB) processor , but on the systems tab it shows AMD1800+ and 1500 MHz . Could this be because of the incompatible FSB ( 266) of the mobo? And if yes,how do I get my BIOS updated?

by Divansh, Kanpur, on Oct 12, 2004 09:19 PM, Report abuse Reply

What are you all crazy, my A7N266 sucks!! I can't even start up my computer for 10 minutes without it turning completely off. I did some research and found that almost everyone with this same motherboard have the same problem, I would like to know where you got this extranious information.

by Garrett Mangel, Wilson, on May 15, 2004 02:06 PM, Report abuse Reply

Use a large Power supply 400w at least. Use a good cpu cooling fan, and believe it or not you must use thermal grease between the fan and cpu. This worked for me. Has been one of the best boards I've owned since.

by Anonymous, Monee, IL., on Sep 13, 2004 12:53 PM, Report abuse

If you are using the latest nvidia drivers...then try this...INSATLL THE GEFORCE FX ULTRA DRIVERS, ALSO INSTALL THE NFORCE2 MEMORY CONTROLLERS...TRUST ME IT WORKS WELL..PERFORMANCE GAIN GARANTED

by hailstorm, Hellstorm Research Team, on Aug 24, 2004 04:14 PM, Report abuse Reply

My PC spec: Asus A7N266-VMSE, 40GB HDD, AMD Athlon XP2100, 256MB DDR,Win98SE. My WMP7.1 plays everything in fast forward mode. How do I fix this or uninstall WMP7.1? Desperately seeking help. I note that Hrishikesh of Pune is clued on to this Mobo. Please contact me.

by Shankar, Pune, on May 28, 2004 08:04 AM, Report abuse Reply

there is an audiofix program in the cd follow the instuctions and play smoothly

by vinit shah, mumbai, on Jun 02, 2004 04:15 PM, Report abuse

Vinit, Followed your advice and the problem got fixed. I can't thank you enough for the help. Muchos Gracias Amigo. Pune's RP Tech (Asus Agent) couldn't help me out. You are a saviour.

by Shankar, Pune, on Jun 02, 2004 08:54 PM, Report abuse

dude my mic i like speak in it n the sound is a second off i been toyin with these drivers n settings n interfaces still the same every time im bout to rip this board out n shit on it or just buy a sound card
** Message edited by moderator **

by wicked police k, huntsville al, on Apr 30, 2004 08:00 AM, Report abuse Reply

hi Techtree, im also using this mobo... please tell me what is VGA-Out is this used to see movies or any other display on tv? act i want see my monitor's display on tv. if there is no port in this mobo then tell me what i have to do to see monitor's display on tv. thanking u,

by Mandeep Matharu, Mumbai, on Apr 29, 2004 11:40 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hola Soy de Argentina, me llamo Agustin. tengo un Este mother, asus a7n266 vm y quiero conserguir los ultimos driver actualizados, en la pagina de Nvidia sale pero no para este mother. Capaz lei mal, pero si alguien sa be de donde bajar unos actualizados que avise, gracias
** Message edited by moderator **

by EnFiEsTa, Buenos Aires. Argentina, on Apr 24, 2004 03:06 AM, Report abuse Reply

need all the drivers for my motherboard.....wife ran off with cd...can anyone help....please send site where I can download.......thanks in advance

by Wayne, Niagara Falls, on Apr 24, 2004 01:21 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi techtree! Well, i bought this board (ASUS A7N266-VM). It's as awesome as your review says. I got it in Jan 2003. a couple of months ago, the sound output stopped abruptly. I mean, there was no sound output at all. I tried reinstaling the drivers, upgrading them, upgrading my bios, and what not! So i finally contacted my systems engineer, and after a couple of weeks, he told me that the realktek chip had somehow become short circuited and wouldn't work. so i asked him for a replacement, coz this mobo was in the warranty period. He told me that the warranty period was just 1 yr. I'm sure i've read that the warranty period for this mobo is 3 yrs. in a couple of places. Warranty for the SE version is definitely 3 yrs. So could you tell me if i'm right or not? Is the warranty for ASUS A7N266-VM 3 yrs or 1 yr?

by Nikhil, Delhi, on Apr 22, 2004 05:17 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi Nikhil, the warranty period is definitely 3 years. If your system engineer refuses to help you with that, try talking to an Asus distributor in your area.

by Neo, Techtree Testlabs, on Apr 23, 2004 10:37 AM, Report abuse

There is some confusion here. Asus worldwide offers a 3-yr warranty on all their products, but apparently in India, the warranty is 1-yr. A couple of System-integrators have told me this, and one of them was a disti for Asus. Some SI's however, do offer the 3-yr warranty, but this is pretty rare in my experience. I have the same board, and have never had a problem, touchwood. The only thing is that the rear channel sucks.
** Message edited by moderator **

by Karan, Mumbai, on Apr 23, 2004 11:00 AM, Report abuse

Waranty is 3 years from date of manufacture.

by ANISH MODI, MUMBAI, on Apr 23, 2004 05:53 PM, Report abuse

Ok, now I'm more than a little bit miffed. I finally decided to try my hand at building a new computer. Nothing special, just an upgrade from my old one. Now I have a brand new problem. The main components are: (All brand new components) Motherboard: Asus A7N266-VM LAN/AA RT (video and audio on board) CPU: AMD ATHLON XP 2200 Memory: DDRAM 256MB|32X64 PC-2100C2.5 CRL DVD ROM: DVD|LITE ON 16X XJ-HD166/165H Case: CASE SCASE|PC-146 BK 400W 7CC32-146 Case fan: CASE FAN|ANTEC PRO 80mm 75000 RET Hard drive: Western Digital 80GB jb 8mb cache 7200 rpm Floppy: Generic So I very meticulously and slowly put everything together, double check the jumpers, the cables, plug it in and fire it up. At first all seems to be ok, the monitor comes on, the bios shows up, bios recognizes the components correctly, I review it, check the boot order, which is: (1) Floppy, (2) CD Rom, (3) IDE Hard drive, but don't change anything, save the settings, exit, and then the problem comes. Here's what appears on the screen. "Disk boot failure, Insert system disk and press enter" So I put in the Western Digital Data Lifeguard floppy and press enter. same message! I try other boot disks, same message! I try the windows 98SE installation disk, same message! So I check the floppys and the cd in the old computer, and they are fine. So what gives? I pull the cables out, reconnect them, recheck the jumper settings, and even pulled the CMOS battery and left it out for a day before reinstallation. Try it again, same message!!! Man am I bummed! I'm sure it is some simple setting, adjustment, correction somewhere, but what - where? Any help will sure be appreciated!!! Oh yes, the only other thing I can think of is that there was an updated page on the jumper settings for the CPU:DRAM, so I changed the jumpers which made the CPU go from 100MHz to 133MHz which the new page states is the default.

by Jim, Grand Junction, on Jan 20, 2004 07:21 AM, Report abuse Reply

Maybe your new floppy disk is damaged. Put your old floppy disk and see if u get the message. Otherwise boot from cd rom device after changing the boot order in the bio settings. Best of luck man.

by Vinay, Mumbai, on Jan 20, 2004 10:12 AM, Report abuse

Good ideas but I've tried 3 different boot disks, and tried several different combinations of the boot order. Guess I can pull the floppy drive out and try another. Can I create a bootable CD from a bootable floppy?

by Jim, Grand Junction, on Jan 20, 2004 10:44 AM, Report abuse

a friend of mine got the same kina problem, its the case of a bad hard disk, try keeping it in a diff position it might work, but its better that you get it changed.

by Jason Bourne, Mumbai, on Feb 02, 2004 11:13 AM, Report abuse

The problem is with your hard disk. See if it is connected properly and the jumpers are set correctly.

by Ramesh Balakris, Sammamish, WA, on Feb 28, 2004 02:30 PM, Report abuse

you need to look at boot sequince in ya bios set it to floppy as first boot device followed by cd rom then hd0

by lee, tenerife, on Apr 23, 2004 12:50 PM, Report abuse

dfgsdfg

by sdgsdfg, sdfgsdfg, on Apr 21, 2004 02:25 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hello, Please tell me if it will work on 300w poer supply as i was currently using 220 v power supply. I hvae Asus A7N266-VM Model

by Vineet, Delhi, on Apr 21, 2004 01:07 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi Techtree, please tell me that 256 MB DDR RAM (PC 133) can work in Asus a7n266vm. Please help me to know that RAM will work or not. Thanking you,

by Mandeep Matharu, Mumbai, on Apr 14, 2004 09:00 PM, Report abuse Reply

PC133 is SDRAM while PC2100/3200/2700/3500 is DDR-SDRAM. So PC133 wont work with A7n266VM but DDR RAM will work.

by Rahul Jawale, Mumbai, on Apr 15, 2004 12:41 AM, Report abuse

I can not get my parallel port to work. It says it has conflicts. I have tried everything. I am downloading new drivers. I have also tried to add parallel pci card and it won't load the drivers the card came with. Says that the drivers are not for hardware selected.

by Dennis Peteson, McDonough, on Mar 24, 2004 01:28 AM, Report abuse Reply

hi, I downloaded all the newest drivers... And still the 2 onboard usb ports will not work.. WEll when i go to DEvice manager and properties, it says device working properly, but The my Optical mouse is not lighting up, or working. NIether is my Printer. IN otther words the USB PORTS ARE NOT WORKIN>>> PLEASE HELP!!

by ANdy, powhatan VA, on Jan 30, 2004 08:32 AM, Report abuse Reply

check if you have enabled the same in bios

by Ramesh, Sammamish, WA, on Mar 05, 2004 02:19 PM, Report abuse

I had recently purchased AMD 2000+ Asus A7V8X-MX 256 MB DDR (2100) Hynix samsung 40GB Hard disk (7200 RPM) Am really fade up with the motherboard... It causes problems in almost every game... And i finally decided to exchange with A7N266 PLEASE HELP ME.... 1) Among A7N266-VM and A7N266-SE which is the best??? 2) Among Nvidia chipset and VIA chipset which is the best for high graphics?? 3) which is faster and best...Ram with single sided or double sided??? and putting 2 chips of 128 and 128 is best or putting a single 256 ram chip is best??? please help me guys.... Am really confused!!!

by syed, hyderabad, on Feb 09, 2004 01:55 PM, Report abuse Reply

a7n266-s is better that VM version. VM is a downgraded version. VM has got 2 Memory Holders (2 for S) and 3 PCI Slots (5 for S). and many other things. nVidia is the no. 1 company in Whole world for its Graphics Processors. nForce chipset(A7n266) has got Geforce 2 MX GPU (a pretty fast processor than VIA ones). Via has got those f**k all S3 processors. Ok For DDR RAm (A7n266) 128x2 will give u better performance than 1x256. It's a proven thing. Write to us at Ask Techtree if any more questions.
** Message edited by moderator **

by Rahul Jawale, Mumbai, on Feb 09, 2004 05:20 PM, Report abuse

VM stands for value for money. You have onboard video on VM. If you are a gamer, better go in for non VM version .VM has better chipset than A7n266S. Personally i would opt for VM motherboard.

by Ramesh, Sammamish, WA, on Mar 05, 2004 02:17 PM, Report abuse

Hi , I have a A7N266-VM motherboard. It's performance is ultimate. But I have Creative Inspire 4.1 speakers and I am unable to configure the sound card so that it can act as a 4 channel sound card. I know that we need to install the different sound driver for that .. I installed audio-utility-winxp103u.zip after downloading it from asus site .. but this does not allow me to to use the Line in and Mic as sound outputs. Please Help me . Should I go ahead and installthe latest unified driver from Nvidia site ???? Please Help me .......

by Ravi, Bangalore, on Dec 28, 2003 10:52 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi Ravi, unified nForce drivers version 3.13 from the nvidia website is what you need to fix your problem. Before you install them, uninstall your existing drivers from add/remove programs in Control panel.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Dec 28, 2003 02:25 PM, Report abuse

Thnx very much Neo, now that I have all the speakers working. Thank you very much for your help . I am just hoping that even the video performance will be better after installing the unified driver. Thanx once again Neo , you have been of great help.

by Ravi, Bangalore, on Jan 23, 2004 01:04 AM, Report abuse

there is a tiny utility called NWswap available for download from nvidia web site and its pretty intutive to use. Im sure with that utility you can easily configure 4.1 output.

by Ramesh Balakris, Sammamish, WA, on Feb 28, 2004 02:38 PM, Report abuse

Hi , Can i use any other version of motherboard driver cd for instaliing for installing on A7n266-Vm motherboard. plz tell with version of driver cd which will me.As i have tried two version of same driver cd. I have purchase my comp year ago in jan 2003.

by Anuj, Mumbai, on Jan 24, 2004 10:21 PM, Report abuse Reply

Latest version of Nforce drivers are avialable for download from NVIDIA. ITs called the unified NForce platform driver. THink the bersion is 3.13

by Ramesh Balakris, Sammamish, WA, on Feb 28, 2004 02:28 PM, Report abuse

Dear sir i have AMD 2000xp with Asus A7N266-vm mother board one day night i was worked on the system next day morning system was not on.Itaken the board to Rashi pheripherals they told it was purchased from banglore so bring the Rim number then only we can service the board But the board is under warranty.they are telling how can i got the Rim number kindly help me. Mother board s.no:35MM1p8008

by suresh, chennai, on Jan 29, 2004 12:34 PM, Report abuse Reply

Call them and say you are going to consumer forum. You can then see how they are going to go on thier knee. Ask them where u can find the F*****g number.

by Ramesh Balakris, Sammamish, WA, on Feb 28, 2004 02:25 PM, Report abuse

Hi, I recommend this board to everyone. But I'm wondering how the A7V8X-MX compares to the A7N266-vm? The price of the 2 boards is identical. A7V8X-MX has better technology but that Unichrome graphics seems slow. Please help!

by Guilherme, Medianeira, on Jan 13, 2004 11:27 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi,go for agp card it will definitely improve the performance.

by Hrishikesh, Pune, on Jan 14, 2004 12:44 AM, Report abuse

Thanks Hrishikesh. I know it will improve the performance, but these boards aim at budget market, a market that even a low end video card is expensive. That's why I'm asking, in terms of integrated video, which should be better, The nvidia GeForce2 of A7N266-VM or the S3 Unichrome of the A7V8X-MX? I'm asking this up because the A7V8X-MX cost the SAME price of the A7N266-VM but have USB 2.0, AGP 8X, Dual Channel pc400 memory support and 333 fsb support. So, wich board is wiser to buy, these days? Thanks!

by Guilherme, Medianeira, on Jan 14, 2004 03:06 AM, Report abuse

Hello, anybody?

by Guilherme, Medianeira, on Jan 16, 2004 09:05 PM, Report abuse

HI I Bought this board (A7N266-VM), and i can play almost every game, I have a AMD athlon XP 2000+, and it work really great with this board. I was not able to play any games on my previous PC as it had a SIS Chipset and Sis really Sucks. I Would Sincerely REcommend this Motherboard as it has smooth graphics and is very stable. I am using the Board for the last 4 months and never faced and issues.

by Arya, New delhi, on Jan 16, 2004 10:45 PM, Report abuse

Thanks Arya, I know. I'm a technician and build PC's every time. I always put this board when customers asks for a cheap PC. They get very happy with the performance they got for that cheap price. This board is awsome! I've played some games with it and it's quite ok. But don't try to play eg. Need for Speed Underground on it! The game will run totally slugish and ugly! That's why I'm asking if someone here had any experience with the A7V8X-MX, a board with more technology, that maybe has better performance, who knows? Thanks!

by Guilherme, Medianeira, on Jan 17, 2004 10:03 PM, Report abuse

HI Guilherme, I am also into the same business u r in for the last few yeasr, I Tried what u said, tried playing NFS and its really sluggish, I updated the Display drivers from the NVIDIA Website ver 3.13 now i can play it Smooth and clear.

by Arya, New Delhi, on Jan 20, 2004 11:29 PM, Report abuse

im having the same problem as you "what board to buy?" but i have decided the a7v8x-mx because eventually i can save money for an 8x agp card in the future.

by ted velez, cebu city philippines, on Feb 03, 2004 09:31 AM, Report abuse

by ANdy, powhatan VA, on Jan 30, 2004 08:39 AM, Report abuse Reply

Does anybody know if this motherboard will support a AGP 8x graphics card (Geforce fx52000.

by Jamie, Paisley, on Jan 18, 2004 01:46 AM, Report abuse Reply

It will, but it will run at 4x

by Guilherme, Medianeira, on Jan 20, 2004 06:41 AM, Report abuse

Just wondering, an 8X card running on a 4X slot, will the performance be exactly half?

by Chetan, Bangalore, on Jan 20, 2004 10:50 AM, Report abuse

Hi can anyone help me I want to Upgrade my motherboard and Cpu should i go for this motherboard and Athlon XP 2500+, I have PIII 1 GHz processor now. I Need help Please revert back Thanx in advance

by Sridhar, New Delhi, on Dec 30, 2003 03:06 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi, this board only supports processors with 266 Mhz front side bus. As for the 2500+, it has a 333 front side bus processor. Buy either a 2600+ with 266 FSB or a 2400+. More info here: http://www2.amd.com/us-en/recmobo/DetailHandler/1,,30_182_869_4348%5e7923,00.html?queryID=2137

by Guilherme, Medianeira, on Jan 16, 2004 09:17 PM, Report abuse

Hi folks, where can i get this mobo in pune?i m desperate:) ritesh

by Ritesh Dighe, Pune, on Jan 09, 2004 02:19 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi,it's most popular board for AMD. You can get from any dealer in Pune. As the mb is of slightly earlier design it is going to be discontinued very soon.There is already shortage. I would recommend you A7V8X-MX mb, as it's more advanced.

by Hrishikesh, Pune, on Jan 10, 2004 12:46 AM, Report abuse

hi hirshikesh, thanks for your reply buddy!i m new to pune can u tell me where can i get this mobo or the 1 u told me of?actually my budget for a mobo is around 4k so i guess i will have to stretch it :) ritesh

by ritesh dighe, Pune, on Jan 10, 2004 12:57 AM, Report abuse

Hi Ritesh, you are asking about only mb what about cpu ?

by Hrishikesh, Pune, on Jan 11, 2004 01:07 AM, Report abuse

You can get the mb from M/s.RP tech Sterling centre, MG Road, Pune. Ph.26136332,26054261

by Hrishikesh, Pune, on Jan 11, 2004 01:14 AM, Report abuse

Hi,actually i have decided for amd xp1.8ghz which i think will cost me 3.7-8?(tell me if i m wrong?)+mobo for 4k(i guess it costs less than that!!)ddr128mb for 1k?and yeah a good cabinet 300w 1200k? i got the rest of the stuff for the machine.i have a p3 450mhz +2mb play(agp slot not working)+cabinet+floppy drive+creative vibra sound card to sell for 4.5k:) any1 interested?

by ritesh dighe, Pune, on Jan 11, 2004 03:38 AM, Report abuse

HI Ritesh I Bought the M/B and AMD Athlon XP 2000+, and 256 MB ddr Ram. for Rs:8850/- Only and the Motherboard is rocking with the processor and Ram. Audio is Unbelieveable. And also graphics, I have Installed 2000 Pro and its boots up real fast. I think it is a good buy. Go for it MAN!!

by Arya, Delhi, on Jan 13, 2004 06:12 PM, Report abuse

Is this motherboard graphics tnl enabled?

by Nishu, Salem, on Jan 11, 2004 09:01 AM, Report abuse Reply

Maybe you can help me with my A7N266-VM. I've got an AMD 2600+ processor in it, and the bios updated to 1007 but I still get only 2000+ recognized at startup. Is there another bios I should be using or perhaps a jumper to set so I can fiddle with cpu speed myself?

by Jim, Nebraska, on Dec 11, 2003 07:25 PM, Report abuse Reply

hi Jim, just check on the Processor box if the FSB of your Athlon XP 2600+ is 266 or 333 MHz coz this board doesnt support anything more than 266 MHz.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Dec 11, 2003 09:21 PM, Report abuse

Good call, Neo. My processor is 333. Is there any way to pretend to be 266 to get more out of it?

by Jim, Nebraska, on Dec 12, 2003 06:15 AM, Report abuse

hi, Unfortunately this board doesnt let you play around with the FSB and multiplier settings, so the only option is to get a board which supports 333 FSB or replace the CPU with one that has 266 MHz FSB.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Dec 12, 2003 11:50 AM, Report abuse

You can get 333 FSB. See http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=50829

by Gilberto, Sao Paulo, on Jan 10, 2004 12:40 PM, Report abuse

Hey Folks, Looks like a lot of people have this motherboard in India. Anyway, this motherboard was good to me till now. I happened to format my HDD and as before reinstalled Win 98SE on it. Surprisingly the drivers seem to be causing some trouble. I followed the few instructions for manual driver installation from the motherboard's manual. But even then I get the following 2 devices listed in the other devices section of my Device Manager. 1. PCI Multimedia Device 2. PCI Multimedia Video Device Are there any drivers available for these on the CD that came with the motherboard or on the internet, so that I may download and get these 2 devices detected and configured correctly ? Please let me know. Ciao for now, Aniruddha.

by Aniruddha Nadka, Mumbai, on Jan 06, 2004 12:54 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi, problem could be with your driver installation or you may have TV tuner card.Remove your presently installed all drivers & install them by autorunning the driver cd.Check for if there is any other card present in the motherboard slot.

by Hrishikesh, Pune, on Jan 08, 2004 01:17 AM, Report abuse

HI Guyz I Want to know Its price in Delhi Can Anyone help me Thanx in Advance

by arya, delhi, on Dec 24, 2003 11:43 PM, Report abuse Reply

I recently picked up one for Rs 3200/- in hyderabad. Guess it should be ceaper still at delhi.

by Manoj, Hyderabad, on Dec 30, 2003 09:57 AM, Report abuse

Hey can anyone help i have a a7n266-vm with 2400+ an 1024 ram and the usb ports do not opperate could someone please help

by Steven, New Zealand, on Dec 28, 2003 10:30 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi, You need to connect the connectors properly. The wires should be correct. Try reversing the present setup and check.

by Manoj, Hyderabad, on Dec 30, 2003 09:54 AM, Report abuse

Having problem with the power - i.e., I have XP200+ with A7N266 mother board. The computer restarts as soon as the power goes - I tried changing the UPS - the UPS is working fine with Pentium IV System. After changing the UPS and the SMPS the problem is still occuring. I have installed 13 Athlon XP 2000+ with Asus A7N266 Motherboard and all the computer is behaving the same way i.e., it restarts as soon as the power goes. The OS is Windows XP PRofessional SP2. Can anyone help cannot find support out here. I know the problem lies with the SMPS but don't know which SMPS to use!!!

by Jerry Garcia, Darjeeling - India, on Dec 16, 2003 08:39 PM, Report abuse Reply

The problem as you said is the smps. Usually a quality smps will provide power to the board for a few milliseconds after power is switched off. Most cheap smps cannot. This is the reason I went in for an Antec smps....needless to say the smps works beautifully and voltages across all rails are rock solid. You could also try power your monitor from a seperate power outlet instead of your smps, if you havent already.

by Manoj, Hyderabad, on Dec 30, 2003 09:52 AM, Report abuse

The a7n266-vm SE is the best value for money mb ive came across, the only thing u need to remember is that the cpu must have a 266mhz max fsb rate, it runs ut2003 fine for me with the onboard gf2 in lower res, the only prob this board had was with the first ones released and the jumper guide for fsb settings were wrong in the manaul also the older revision board doesnt take the above 2100xp i think, so just look for the box with SE on it to solve all these probs, after this mb im going to stick with the nfource chipsets for the speed and suport.

by Greencat, Australia, on Dec 16, 2003 04:09 AM, Report abuse Reply

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Dec 01, 2003 02:40 AM, Report abuse Reply

Great to hear that. Congratulations. Go ahead and build your 2nd PC. Cheers.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Dec 01, 2003 09:40 AM, Report abuse

hi neo (u genius) im gonna go try exact wot u said,hope it works? out of curiosity which part of the globe are u from, im in uk and its 5.10pm, just wondered wot time difference we are on? will let you no how i get on with sound, ok, and thankyou

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 29, 2003 10:40 PM, Report abuse Reply

so do i need to connect my 2 spkr system to threar(green) skt, and the go to control panel/sounds & devices/speaker settings/advanced, and then choose, desktop stereo speakers?

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 29, 2003 10:46 PM, Report abuse

neo i have tried control panel/sounds etc and i stiil get no sound from rear speaker socket, i,ve just about give up,lol

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 30, 2003 12:53 AM, Report abuse

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Dec 01, 2003 01:04 AM, Report abuse

Hi, I am from India.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Dec 01, 2003 09:37 AM, Report abuse

yes neo it is only 2 speakers, im of very ltd knowledge so thanx for ur patience

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 29, 2003 08:31 PM, Report abuse Reply

does this mean i have done somethin wrong? as in settings?plz

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 29, 2003 08:33 PM, Report abuse

Hi, let me explain. To utilize the onboard audio in 5.1 channel mode, you need 5.1 channel speakers meaning a 6 piece speaker system comprising of 5 satellite speakers (which reproduce high and midrange frequencies of sound), 3 of which are placed at the front and 2 behind the user and a Sub-woofer for bass reproduction. Hence its called 5.1 system. A 5.1 channel speaker system has 3 inputs: front, rear and centre which need to be connected to the 3 sound outputs on the motherboard: (green, blue and pink) with each output driving the respective channels. Its not about simuating 5.1 channel audio through 2 channels. What you have are stereo speakers which u need to connect only to the front channel (green) and set the output in the drivers to 2 channel. If you have any more doubts, do let me know. I am quite patient :)

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 29, 2003 09:42 PM, Report abuse

hello neo, nice to hear from you,b4 i answer your Q,s let me tell you that i managed to get sound from rear(through the blue socket)i got a reply from asus,saying "install,wdm_a345.exe and use this sound man taskbar tool to adjust speakers to 5.1 mode Then , plug your front speaker to light green jack , plug your back surround speaker to blue jack,and the central to the ping jack. So , you can try to play some music(like MP3 songs) by Windows Mediaplayer or Play multichannel DVD films to enjoy the 6-channel audio" i dont hav front spks? after doin this i got sound from rear(blue socket)it played mp3 but no windows/game sound? Q1-yes icon(taskbar) is ther. Q2-spkers set at 5.1- Q3-speakers make "tsunami"capricorn cp 2000. Q4- 1st i connected to "lime green skt" wen i installed "wdm_a345.exe" i switched to "blue skt"- i have tried 2 other sets of spkrs got same results. i hope this information is accurat for you, thankyuo yet again.

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 29, 2003 06:52 PM, Report abuse Reply

hi, please correct me if I am wrong but i guess the "tsunami"capricorn cp 2000 are 2 channel (2 piece stereo) speakers and not 5.1 channel ones. Isn't it?

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 29, 2003 07:37 PM, Report abuse

hi neo, sorry but my prob still aint sorted? i did as you said, uninstalled all nforce drivers etc from add/remove progs, i installed version 3.13 with no luck, so i uninstalled that and installed 2.03 drivers,and im sorry to say but still got no audio from rear skt? really is frustrating. i dont want to buy a sound card cos lots of reviews i,ve read about this board mention how good the onboard sound is? also wen i plug the speakers in(yes i have tried different speakers) you can hear a crackle type noise, so ther is deffinatley power there? i dont suppose ther are any jumpers to set or any bios changes i need to make, can i also remind you of my very limited pc knowledge, i am an absolute begginer (i was so excited when i 1st turned the system on and it bleeped and started up with no probs) other than the rear audio skt? i hope you dont give up just yet, please dont, thankyou again in advance.

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 28, 2003 04:15 AM, Report abuse Reply

HEY NEO, DONT GIVE UP YET? I MANAGED TO GRT AUDIO FROM REAR SPEAKER (VIA BLUE SOCKET) BUT I CANT GET WINDOWS/GAMES SOUND? PLZ HELP, THAKX IN ADVANCE M8.

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 29, 2003 08:06 AM, Report abuse

hi buddy, couldnt log on yesterday. No, I havent given up yet. :) Ok. Back to the problem. Now please provide me the following info: 1. Do you get nVidia's Sound Storm inteface for tweaking sound settings? Do you get some nVidia icon in the task bar next to the system clock at the bottom right corner of your screen? 2. Have you set the output to 4 channels in the driver interface and in Windows Control Panel -> Sound & Audio Settings -> Advanced. 3. Which speakers are you using (model)? 4. Which connectors at the back are you connecting the speakers to? And did u indivisually chk out each output using headphones or some simple stereo speakers?

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 29, 2003 11:59 AM, Report abuse

I'M SORRY ABOUT MY INGLIS, BUT I'LL TRY TO EXPRESS MYSELVE AS BETTER AS I CAN, THIS IS MY PROBLEM, I'VE JUST BUOGHT THIS MOTHERBOARD, W' ATHLON XP 2.4 GGZ, AND 1 GYGABITE ON RAM, W/ 120 GB HD, AND EVERYTIME I TURN ON THE COMPUTER, IT JUST DOESN'T APPEAR ANY VIDEO SIGNAL..., I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT CAUSES THIS, BUT WHAT I DO KNOW IS THAT I'M ABOUT TO KILL THIS MOTHERBOARD, I'VE BEEN READING A LOT OF PAPERS RELATED W/ THIS SUBJET, BUT NO ONE IS TELLING ME WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET A SOLUTION, DOES ANUBODY KNOWS WHAT I'M DOING WRONG?, APRECIATING YOUR REPLAYS ALREADY.

by ENZO PAREGLIO, VINA DEL MAR, CHILE, on Nov 15, 2003 07:40 AM, Report abuse Reply

Have tried a more powerful power supply? Â¿Han intentado una fuente de alimentaciÃ³n mÃ¡s de gran alcance?

by Eric Nordstrom, Mountain Home, on Nov 29, 2003 05:52 AM, Report abuse

hi again neo(i do appreciate all your help)i have d-loaded/installed nforce chipset 3.13 - i disconnected audio leads from case to m-board, still no joy? oh i also tried the output in 4, 5.1 & 2 speakers? still no joy? the pc im building is for my sons birthday(2 weeks time) if the board is faulty, then the shop say i cannot have a replacement/refund until the board manufacturers have tested board for faults!!!! by then his birthday will have passed? would i be just aswell buying a sound card? and if so would this enable the rear speaker socket to work? this is so frustrating, please be patient, i hope you have another suggestion(actually i pray you do) thanx again neo.

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 27, 2003 03:01 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi, opting for a separate sound card is the last option. That will obviously work. But before that try doing a few things. To start with, Go to Add/Remove programs in Control Panel and remove all the nForce drivers and software from there and then install the 3.13 drivers. See if that works. If the problem continues, uninstall the 3.13 as well and get the 2.03 drivers from the nVidia website. You will find them in the Archieve section on their site. They are the most stable nForce drivers that I have used. Let me know if that works.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 27, 2003 12:00 PM, Report abuse

neo thanx for previous help,re;i changed CPU to xp2400(266fsb). my prob now is that i cant get any sound/audio from rear connection, i only get sound/audio from front connection(near front usb)please please help, im hope the motherboard aint faulty(after all the hard work of building the thing),lol,same spec as b4,"A7n266-vm/256ddr/40gb hdd/xp2400+cpu", i hope its a simple fault the you can help me rectify??? thanx in advance(again)

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 26, 2003 01:19 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi again, I think I can help u fix this. I guess u installed the drivers on the CD bundled with the motherboard which incidently happen to be far from good. Now do a simple thing. Go to www.nvidia.com and download the latest drivers for the nForce chipset (version 3.13) and install them. This should fix the problem and will also improve the overall performance a bit. If you are using Win XP, here's the direct link to the driver page: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_udp_winxp_3.13

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 26, 2003 04:02 PM, Report abuse

Also, if you have physically connected the audio outs on the front of your cabinet to the motherboard, disconnect them till the issue is resolved. And once you install the drivers, change the output to 4 or 5.1 channel from the software to enable the multi-channel audio. Let me know if it works.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 26, 2003 04:10 PM, Report abuse

please help! i bought the a7n266-vm 2day along with amdxp2500+, i have since read reports that the max cpu for this board is xp2000+, can u put me at ease and tell me wether this board will take xp2500+? im new to all this, so i dont want to put it all together if it aint goin to work, i,d rather exchange my xp2500+ for a smaller one, any help appreciated, thanx in adavnce

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 24, 2003 12:48 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi, the A7N266-VM supports Athlon XP processors right up to 2600+ but with a bus speed (FSB) of 266 MHz. The 2500+ is based on the Barton core and has a 333 MHz FSB. If you wish to keep the A7N266-VM then get a CPU with a 266 MHz FSB, else u will need to change the motherboard to something that supports 333 MHz FSB.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 24, 2003 10:10 AM, Report abuse

by boroboy, middlesbrough uk, on Nov 26, 2003 01:18 PM, Report abuse

i have problem with the sistem clock its run too faster and the audio files run step by step. this changes in the sistem clock takes efects en the bios clock. some times i'm reboot the system and all works ok. help me please and sorry for my english. Mother asus a7n266vm, athlon xp 2.2 512 mb ram, and win 98 SE

by Federico, La Plata, on Nov 24, 2003 06:08 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi Federico, something seems to be wrong with the motherboard battery. Try changing it. This should fix the time issue. Please provide more details about your audio problem.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 24, 2003 10:16 AM, Report abuse

the product is really working good. i really feel proud to have a mother board like this.

by vipin md, kochi, on Nov 23, 2003 09:57 PM, Report abuse Reply

the product is really working good. i really feel proud to have i mother board like this.

by vipin md, kochi, on Nov 23, 2003 09:51 PM, Report abuse Reply

Quote, "the connectors for Line Out, Line In and Mic, which double up as Front, Rear and Center channel outputs respectively if you choose to use its 5.1 channel audio capabilities", unquote. Does the Krypton C18G (ATX) mboard posess this feature.

by S.Vinayak, New Delhi., on Nov 20, 2003 04:13 PM, Report abuse Reply

yes it does

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Nov 20, 2003 05:22 PM, Report abuse

I have recently purchased an assembled pc of confign. AMD Atholon xp 2000+, ASUS A7N266 VM/SE Motherbord, 128 MB DDR SDRAM, nVIDIA's chipset,40 GB HDD. I am havding the following problems. - Windows XP takes more time to start. - 3D games running slowly- - takes more time to close the run programms. Kindly suggest how to rectify the problems. where is the fault. Is it necessary to add additional RAM. Your suggestion will be appreciated. Thank you, Kannan, S. Vindhyanagar, Sidhi, M.P

by Kannan, S, vindhyanagar, on Nov 11, 2003 12:44 AM, Report abuse Reply

It would - if you put just 128 MB of memory in such a PC. Please increase memory upto 512 MB if you can afford it or 256 MB at the bare minimum - and then see how much performance difference occurs

by Dennis Mendonca, Mumbai, on Nov 11, 2003 08:06 AM, Report abuse

that 128 mb ram, gets divided into 32 mb for the onboard GeForce 2 MX and the 96 part of it goes to the system. Running WinXP on a 96 mb ram will surely give you the problems that u are facing now. Upgrade, boy, boy...... If you have the moolah go buy a 512 mb DDR, if not settle in for a 256 mb DDR running at 233 mhz.

by Denz, Online, on Nov 15, 2003 01:06 AM, Report abuse

hi, try shutting down some of the services in winxp which u dont require, and if it is still slow configure xp to run in the best performance mode. shutting down the theme service will itself free about 12 mb of memory

by mathew, mangalore, on Nov 19, 2003 10:08 PM, Report abuse

A fantastic Board...... Having used it for over a year now, I think I wud rate it as one of the best boards of its time... The only thing it lacks is expandibility of memory beyond 1 GB and SATA. But if its complemented wid another computer mebbe wid a D865GBF board.....u're talking real big business....

by Aniruddh Bajira, Mumbai, on Oct 14, 2003 04:45 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hallo Aniruddh, Im sure ur rite about dat mother board...cuz u worship it like its ur god or sumthing...but if dont u pay real good attention...it may take over ur life!!hope alls well wid ur sweetheart of a computer...from ur other sweetheart...

by malavika, alzey, on Nov 16, 2003 03:22 PM, Report abuse

I have recently purchased AMD Atholn xp 2000+, ASUS A7N266 VM Motherbord, 256 MB DDR nVIDIA's chipset,30 GB HDD. I am havding the following problems Wen play a DVD the Video and audio starts to fail. video runs much faster. Same with Divx. The DVD-Rom works Fine in other PC

by Luis, Mar Del PLata, on Nov 14, 2003 08:09 PM, Report abuse Reply

What operating system is your computer running on?

by Denz, Online, on Nov 15, 2003 01:00 AM, Report abuse

Operative system is Win XP Pro SP1 Same Shit happens with Me and 98se The Driver are 2.45 but I am going to test with nForce_3.13_WinXP2K

by Luis, Mar Del PLata, on Nov 15, 2003 03:26 AM, Report abuse

operating system is Winxp Pro SP1 Same happens with Me And Win98Se Drivers Version is 2.45

by Luis, Mar Del PLata, on Nov 15, 2003 03:38 AM, Report abuse

I brought Gigabyte 7VKMPP which support thermal shutdown USB2.0 and ATA133, LAN on board ASUS price higher around 300RPS with no thermal shut down, ATA100 USB1.1 no LAN. Why buy from ASUS? i blame my classmate, and finally he went back and get refund tthen buy GBT and happy

by Ashok, MAHE, on Oct 15, 2003 01:28 PM, Report abuse Reply

USB 2.0-----Do you have any products that are USB 2.0 compatible? Lan-----Is it connected? If it is, you get a lan card for Rs. 450/- ATA 100----Beat that with the Geforce 2 MX integrated CPU and 5.1 Dolby sound. Your board stands no chance in front of this one. Dude.

by Denz, Online, on Nov 14, 2003 11:44 PM, Report abuse

I recently got a assembeled PC with a Asus A7N266-VM mother board. I tried palying a copied version of the game Hitman, there was no audio coming and also after about 2-3 minutes, the game got shutdown. Also there is no audio coming fromthe Windows Media Player. However, when I play songs in WinAmp, I do get good sound. I tried playing other demo games, same problem across all. The game Mummy did not even load. What do you think is the problem? My configuration is Asus A7N266-VM motherboard AMD Athlon XP 2000+ processor 256 MB of DDR RAM 266 Mhz Samsung 80 GB 7200 RPM HDD LiteOne 52X CD-Writer Windows 98 2 Desktop Streo Speakers Pleae help me out. I assembled this PC based on your diwali recommends for PC's. Thanks

by Gauri Shankar, Chennai, on Nov 10, 2003 11:35 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi Gauri Shankar, This board is not compatible with Windows 98. Please upgrade it to WinXP.... Everything runs without a hitch. Let me know, if you have any problems..

by Denz, Online, on Nov 14, 2003 11:37 PM, Report abuse

today ie 13/12/03 we had buy the same mother board but it is having sdram slot also and it works fine good board

by praveen, bangalore, on Nov 13, 2003 09:21 PM, Report abuse Reply

Dear Sir, My Name is Dinesh We have purchase 5 Asus Mother Board of A7S266VM/U2 Make & We have Windows NT O/S but the driver cd not have the driver for NT. So please help to solve the problem if possible send the web link for same. Thanks Waitibg for your reply

by Dinesh Gandhe, Aurangabad, on Oct 23, 2003 09:13 AM, Report abuse Reply

you can download the drivers from http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=A7S266-VM/U2&Type=Latest

by Ramesh, Sammamish, on Nov 02, 2003 11:45 PM, Report abuse

I've just received a PC with this Motherboard: A7N266-VM Athlon 2200+ XP 40Gb hdd 512Mb RAM Have installed Win2k and drivers (2.03 NVidia) but the system seems to reset itself ar random intervals. No Blue screen, just blank screen then BIOS screen after load up. I think the PC shop may have put PC2700 RAM in (have to check this). Would this be the cause of my problems? The graphics appear unsteady as well - lines on screen that don't get refreshed. If it's not the RAM, any ideas about what it could be?

by Stuart, Melbourne, Australia, on Sep 17, 2003 12:37 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi Stuart, i don't think PC2700 Ram is causing the problem. Try doing a couple of things. If you have a single Ram strip, try putting it in the other Ram slot. If you have two 256 MB srtips, try interchanging the slots. I know, this may sound stupid but it often works. If the problem persists, get your Ram and motherboard tested.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Sep 17, 2003 02:12 PM, Report abuse

my a7n266vm restart and restart after using it for a couple of month i dont know what's going on, i'll try to change the memory and still restarting and restarting somebody help plsssssssssssssssssssss??????

by mauel, manila, on Oct 18, 2003 12:08 PM, Report abuse

The motherboard is absolutely fine in all features. But i have installed Redhat Linux 9.0 , it gets stuck while finding module dependencies. Do anyone have a solutions.

by Arup, Kolkata (India), on Sep 26, 2003 08:28 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hey, I too had the problem so I downloaded the latest kernel from www.kernel.org ver 2.4.22 and compiled it alongwith the drivers at the nVIDIA website for nFORCE. Try it out and let me know. Can't fully recommend this solution because it's not time tried because I used the above setup only for a few hours and then went to SuSE linux. Lemme know.

by Kaustav Bose, Jamshedpur, on Oct 07, 2003 01:07 AM, Report abuse

i have a pc with AMD Athlon XP 2Ghz,Asus A7N266-VM,256 DDR in Windows 2000. I m not able to get any sound to my speaker.Even the internal pc speaker also not making any beep sound. Someone pls tell me y?in the bios MCP Audio is Auto. i installed the drivers from the mother board CD.its playing the mp3s but no sound out come.The line out pin is correct.The CPU speed it says 1.666GHz why?

by Gops, Blore, on Sep 29, 2003 02:41 PM, Report abuse Reply

I am also having trouble getting the full 6 channel support from my internat audio device. I'm currently running the following system: AMD Athlon XP 1.8Ghz Asus A7N266-VM 20gig HDD Altec Lansing 5.1 surround sound system (recently purchased) I actually get all speakers working but some are like mono with very little sound output. Front speakers are loudest along with sub, rear speakers are not bad but could be much better and centre speaker is close to dead. I don't think my Line In and Mic jacks are configured for the 6 channel as the main one that functions is the speaker jack (green) the other two don't make a difference to the speakers at all. I'd be happy if you could help me out on this matter. Thanks in advance.

by Mustafa, Sydney, on Sep 25, 2003 05:31 PM, Report abuse Reply

BTW I have already tried the latest driver (2.45) from Nvidia and got those results. Now trying the previous (2.03) driver as mentioned in other comments.

by Mustafa, Sydney, on Sep 25, 2003 05:35 PM, Report abuse

could you please tell me where from i can get graphics and audio drivers for A7n266/vm for windows NT

by amol, baroda, on Sep 18, 2003 07:09 PM, Report abuse Reply

Since this motherboard is based on Nvidia's Nforce chipset, please visit www.nvidia.com and download the drivers from there

by Dennis Mendonca, Mumbai, on Sep 20, 2003 05:40 AM, Report abuse

can u plz tell me if u find that drivers i have graphics drivers for NT. byt don't have Audio, if u know plz tell me where to find the audio drivers. my id is rhkreddy@hotmail.com Thanq hari

by hari, Hyderabad, on Sep 20, 2003 10:13 AM, Report abuse

A more modern alternative is A7N8X-VM, which has mx4 graphics, dual-ddr400 support (only 333 w. built-in graphics though), DVI and S-video out (through add-on brackets), SPDIF i&o support (optical and out support through addon bracket), nforce2 and supports 333/266 MHz FSB. Seems like a great card, while naturally slightly more expensive. Check out: http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x-vm/overview.htm

by Anders Sjï¿½gre, Gï¿½teborg, Sweden, on Sep 15, 2003 01:33 PM, Report abuse Reply

i have learnt from a few of the reviews in other sites that A7N266 mb is not compatible with linux os in terms of drivers for integrated video, audio and LAN card. is that true? and can anyone suggest me an indian make medium priced good quality 5.1 channel pc audio system.is there any review regd intex speakers?

by jai, delhi, on Sep 05, 2003 02:02 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi Jai, this is a Linux certified board. Infact, there are Linux drivers for this board on the nVidia website. However if you are looking for an alternative, u may check out the MSI KM2M motherboard. It is based on Via's KM-266 chipset and has the Realtek ALC-650 sound chip onboard which supports good quality 5.1 channel audio. The board also has LAN and USB 2.0 onboard and is price similar to the A7N266-VM. This board too is compatible with Linux.

by Neo, Zion, on Sep 05, 2003 11:17 AM, Report abuse

There seems to be drivers at nvidias web-site. nforce2 works fine at least, add modules nvidia-audio and nvidia-net (from memory, might have been nforce-net, etc.) Check out ALSA compability list is another trick I suppose. Just started fiddling with Linux on a A7N8X-deluxe card.

by Anders, Gï¿½teborg, Sweden, on Sep 15, 2003 01:24 PM, Report abuse

please tell me how to get that 5.1 dolby thing on my A7N266-VM BOARD. i have athlon xp 2000+, 40gb hdd, 256md ddb. The drivers provided at NVIDIA site are kind of unclear. I do not know which one of them to use toget the 5.1 channel audio. I downloaded all of them for xp and installed them. I have xp on my machine. The installation was easy. still only two channels make noise. others are dead. Please give me a step by step procedure, along with the names/versions of the drivers i have to download and install, the site from which to download ( the manual that came with the board says that i can download the software for the 5.1 audio from www.asus.com. but i could not find them on ASUS site.). Also, please tell me whether there is support for audio in dos on this board. I have installed a creative vibra 128 sound card in one of the pci slots and installed the drivers . But could not get audio in dos although, the card is working fine in xp, win98. Thanks in advance.

by murthy, vijayawada, on Sep 12, 2003 11:18 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hi Murthy, please do the folloing: Go to www.nvidia.com and click on Download Drivers. Choose Platform/nForce Drivers > Unified Driver > Windows XP and click on GO. On the next page, you may choose to download the (English) 2.45 version of the drivers or you may click on the 'WinXP/2000 unified drivers Archive' link on the left of the page. On the next page choose the WinXP unified drivers version 2.03. Then download the English verion of the driver file (10.4 MB). First try using the 2.03 version drivers before you opt for the 2.45 version as we found the former better than the later. After you download and install the drivers and restart your machine :), run the Sound Storm application and in the nVidia Control Panel, under Speaker setup, choose the 2, 4 or 6 channel mode. This should fix your problem. Before you do all that remove the Creative Vibra card and uninstall its drivers and other Creative applications. This should work. If it doesn't, let me know.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Sep 12, 2003 12:46 PM, Report abuse

Dear Firestorm, I've been using an ASUS a7n266vm motherboard with Athlon 1800XP, 256mb DDR (128 X 2 pieces), 40 GB Seagate Hard Disk, ASUS Cd-Writer, ASUS CD-Rom, etc. for the last 9 months. I'm a perfectly satisfied user. I've been recomending this board to all my friends, and I'm happy to report that 14 systems are using the same motherboard because of my advice. What I read on your review at TECHTREE surprised me. How did you acheive a 3dmark score of 4500? The maximum I'm able to acheive on "3DMark 2001 SE" is 1650. How in the world did you acheive such a high score? ASUS has posted BIOS updates on their site frequently. I just downloaded the 1.07 patch. Do users have to install each update or is it enough to patch the latest one directly? Nvidia has put up Nforce Drivers ver 2.45 on their website. After installing it, I actually found my PC-MARK2002 score (only the HDD score) decreasing by almost 100 points. How can this be? What are your other recomendations for acheiving the maximum performance from the board ? This is truly a tremendous board...and I'm happy that you've been able to offer support for it. Thanks a lot. Franci Jose

by Franci Jose, Kannur, on Aug 24, 2003 10:49 PM, Report abuse Reply

The review is excellent. the subsequent clarifications are also excellent. Only after reading the replies that i learned about the 5.1 audio thing and already started downloading the drivers from nvidia. There is another important issue that is not covered here. That is support for audio in dos. I am unable to get any dos audio drivers for the board. Also, I have installed a creative vibra 128 pci sound card and loaded the win98 drivers. ( i have 98 installed on my computer.) The Drivers cd automatically installed drivers for dos. But, I am unable to get the sound. Any help in this regard is most welcome. murthy, Vijayawada.

by murthy, vijayawada, on Sep 11, 2003 12:44 PM, Report abuse

HI, I upgraded my machine on Aug12 2003. Machine Config: AMD2000XP+,Asus a7n266 VM/SE board(july 2003 make),BIOS V1006, 256 DDR, 80GB HDD and Win98 OS. Problem: Seems to be that there is NO audio coming out of my PC. 1. In the device manager under sound,video.... section I have 3 entries.. - nvidia audio - nvidia codec interface - nvidia Dolby Digital blah blah 2. Also in the control panel- mutimedia properties the audio tab entries are disabled(greyed out) and made non editable. Because of this, I am unable to associate any sound card to Prefered device. 3. Also in Device manager other devices , one entry of type 'nvidia MIDI blah blah' has a Yello mark agianst it. I am not using any midi devices. Is this a problem 4. I was able to setup all display drivers properly and its perfectly working fine.I followed the steps given in the manual. Please advice how to solve this problem of NO audio.

by Santosh, Bangalore, on Aug 14, 2003 11:47 AM, Report abuse Reply

First check if ur front pannel audio jumpers are in the off setting. then down load the Nvidia audio driver and stereo drivers from the website and install them. in that order.

by firestorm, helstorm reserch team, on Aug 14, 2003 12:16 PM, Report abuse

also make sure ur using win2k/xp and not some 9x.

by firestorm, helstorm reserch team, on Aug 14, 2003 12:24 PM, Report abuse

This nforce chipset is not supported by Windows 98 First Edition. Try setting up Win 98 Second Edition and use the latest drivers from nvidia support. This should fix your problem. Better go for XP or 2K, which is more compatible with this chipset.

by Rajesh Sundaram, Chennai, on Sep 10, 2003 07:00 PM, Report abuse

please anyone can tell me how to get just the driver needed for the chipset, I goto MS. after I format for drivers needed easier that way, but incounter that it dosnt provide all the necessary drivers for its field. Please help @ disabled in motorcycle accident / Ohio. it sucks , but it could be worse if I hadnt been wearing a helmet. I have good sound and video that I have see so far but not sure about this driver and what it does ? Please if you know what cause or effect I can do to avoid this in the future.

by Sean Nip, New Carlisle, Ohio, on Sep 08, 2003 08:38 AM, Report abuse Reply

I just bought my A7N266-VM and the damn Dolby 5.1 dont work and I am seeing this problem alot on ther net, this needs to be adressed dont you think?! E-mail me at greerhog@sympatico.ca if you have any solutions to this. i had to update my driver in order to change the outputs fer the Mic and Line Out fer the extra speakers, and now that I can set it up and choose the 5.1 setup, do you think it would work fer me? NO! This is very upsetting as i do not have the time or patience to send in my board for such a stupid flaw. Sorry if I seem pissed but i just spent a lot of money and purchased a really nice 5.1 dolby speaker setup and only my main left and right speakers work out of all of them.. That means 2 out of 5 speakers I paid for work. I am mad as hell... Please give me other options or advice other than sending in the friggin whole board please? Must be something i can do no?

by Mike Greer, North Bay, Ontario, Canada, on Jul 07, 2003 11:50 AM, Report abuse Reply

Hey have u got Dolby DIGITAL or what Are u using the analog output that's the normal one provided at the back panel of mobo then it might help u. Open NVIDIA APU Control Panel. Then Click Output. If ur plugging 2 main to Lineout 2 rears to line in & center/subwoofer to mic in then CHECK the "Stereo" Tab & click on Speakers Check "5.1" then click on Output Setup & select first "Two Options Only". Try third option to correct the center/subwoofer output. Click Ok. This will help u.

by Rahul Jawale, Mumbai, on Jul 30, 2003 12:37 AM, Report abuse

the Dolby Digital Controller will work whn u download the nVidia drivers frm the website.......u shall get the 6 speaker volume controller also with that.........that APU upgrade is called Soundstorm..available on the A7n8x deluxe version

by hailstorm, helstorm reserch team, on Aug 20, 2003 01:26 PM, Report abuse

Mike Greer from North Bay, Ontario, Canada likes to HIT WOMEN! Tell him to grow up at greerhog@sympatico.ca

by Anon, Anon, on Aug 26, 2003 07:49 AM, Report abuse

What is the difference between a7n266vm and a7n266vm-SE

by saint, bharuch, on Aug 16, 2003 11:57 PM, Report abuse Reply

a7n266-VM had lan, it was made in taiwan the SE is made in china, and lacks the LAN. no other difference. infact sometimes one is passed of as the other.

by firestorm, helstorm reserch team, on Aug 18, 2003 05:32 PM, Report abuse

The actual difference between the 2 is that the original A7N266-VM used to have a SP-DIF out module bundled with it while the same is missing in the SE. Also the SE comes with a updated Bios. The model with Lan was called A7N266-VM(L).

by Neo, Mumbai, on Aug 18, 2003 05:57 PM, Report abuse

Nforce 1 is piece of crap!nforce 2 is a different beast.Tom's hardware guide compared all athlon platforms recently and the nforce 1 was more often than not at the bottom of the pack.The kt266a kicks its ass big time.The nforce 2 is a very refined chipset with DASP(nforce 1 lacks this).Buying a kt266a/333/400/600 or nf2 is wiser.

by Sid, Delhi, on Aug 12, 2003 08:54 PM, Report abuse Reply

before you badmouth it.. try to run benchmark tests and try installing the proper things in proper way... dont blame lack of competence on others. I'v got a 3d mark over 4500 with Nforce1 and no extra devices.. beat it with ur 266a

by firestorm, helstorm reserch team, on Aug 14, 2003 12:22 PM, Report abuse

i cant get the sound card driver to install everytime it gives me the blue screen error vxd nt kern (06) can someone help me please

by Tariq, Sydney, on Aug 12, 2003 03:35 PM, Report abuse Reply

please give details of your opertaing system and platform. also please mention which driver you are trying to install

by firestorm, helstorm reserch team, on Aug 12, 2003 06:26 PM, Report abuse

neo hit the mark.. but one point u have to install the bundled driver, then the nforse 2.03 audio driver, then the nvidia stereo driver.. in that order.. to get it to work.

by firestorm, helstorm, on Jul 30, 2003 02:29 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi all. There seems to be some problem with the bundled Asus drivers for this board, especially in case of sound. They don't seem to support 5.1 channel output. This is a common issue with most of the users of this board. The simple solution for this is to download the latest nForce drivers (2.03) from the nVidia website. Not only is the sound issue fixed, but it also offers the excellent soundstorm driver interface presented in the review. Its a 9 MB download but its worth the time and bandwidth.

by Neo, Techtree Testlabs, on Jul 30, 2003 02:21 PM, Report abuse Reply

Mike if u read this.. then may find a solution if u havent got one already.... send me the details about ur problem at maelstrom@netsanchar.com or kayes_flash@rediffmail.com What u need is a specific set of drivers loaded in a specific order.. if have the drivers fine, else i can send em to u, cause i have them , and all speakers work on all the boards of this model i have given to my clients so far.

by firestorm, helstorm, on Jul 30, 2003 02:21 PM, Report abuse Reply

urvish.. u need 2 sets of normal 2 channel speakers... and one subwhoofer with another speaker attached. each id independant.. just pick up a 2.1 subwoofer set from somewhere having one input.. plug it into the mic jack.. and get any 2 normal 300 rupee 2 channel speaker sets.. put one into the line in , one into the line out. then if u need assistance with the drivers cause the sic channel is not switching on inspite of doing everything u can.. mail me.

by firestorm, haelstorm, on Jul 30, 2003 02:17 PM, Report abuse Reply

i havent seen it support a pci vga yet.. not tried.. but why on earth would u want to put one anyway??? also... if anyone has a problem with the 6 channel sound it's because u need specific drivers loaded in a specific way... fell free to mail me if u need assistance with the 6 channel on the 266 VM at maelstrom@netsanchar.com

by firestorm, helstorm, on Jul 30, 2003 01:28 PM, Report abuse Reply

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

by sssssssss, ssssssssssss, on Jul 29, 2003 09:53 PM, Report abuse Reply

There is a Big mistake in one hardware taken for Review of Motherboard i.e ram Neoter. use pc2700 DDR RAM in A7N266VM but fact is A7n266VM only support PC 2100/266 Mhz DDR RAM Only, 2nd question What is different between Normal sound, 6 Chanel sound & dolby digital, I attached my music system with their speaker, what is spdif/out module where it available and what kind of speaker i need if I wanted to use my pc as a 5.1 dolby surround or 6 channel, I heared that A7N266 VM does not support PCI VGA card is it true, A7N266VM support from pannel USB connection ? Please answer ASAP

by Urvish Gajjar, Ahmedabad, on Jul 16, 2003 12:38 AM, Report abuse Reply

does the onboard geforce2 shares memory with the actual memory, if not, then what is the memory of the card, if yes, than how much memory does it use?

by anish, mumbai, on Jul 03, 2003 11:16 AM, Report abuse Reply

Yes, it uses shared memory. You can allocate a maximum of 32MB from the main memory for the same.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Jul 03, 2003 11:43 AM, Report abuse

This board just rocks! i have two peices and few of my freinds have the same,it could do with a better bios and support for USB 2.0 and moreover S-pdif is optional and u don't get it in the market which is a sore point

by jeremiah, Chennai, on Jul 02, 2003 10:46 AM, Report abuse Reply

YES!!!!! This board beats everything in terms of Value/Performance ratio. Have been using it since 5 months (Rev.1.05 bios 1005)...the only shortcomings are: lack of USB2 ports and overclocking features..... My system runs ROCK SOLID!!! and even with loads and loads of devices...the performance is tooo good for a board of this range in the market....

by ani, chandigarh, on Jul 03, 2003 12:15 AM, Report abuse

My motherboard does not have onboard LAN ..... how's that..... Does Nvidia have 3D support for Linux on this Board....

by Warange Rajesh, Pune, on Jun 24, 2003 05:43 PM, Report abuse Reply

it has full suport for linux if u have any problem u can go www.nvidia.com to download the linux drivers,Lan is optinal

by jeremiah, chennai, on Jul 02, 2003 10:50 AM, Report abuse

Would like to see review of similar m/b like MSI K7N2G-ILSR, etc. if available in Inda and thier cost.

by jamesx, Mumbai, on Jun 17, 2003 05:58 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hi, I am from chennai. My email id is srinivasta1973@yahoo.com. I have used this motherboard MSI K7N2G-IL SR. Its a beautifull motherboard with all the latest features and additional diagnostics tools for troubleshooting. It outperformed in the geforce4 4x graphics with onboard agp. In chennai it is available and costs Rs.14,500/-. But if U leave the latest features A7N266 VM is the best motherboard in its range and also higher end. We are having 7 systems running for an institute with same mbd with all the multimedia softwares installed on it.

by srinivas, chennai, on Jun 29, 2003 10:53 PM, Report abuse

Good ratings, good features. Hmmm.. what does it cost?

by Rakesh Gupta, New Delhi, on Jun 24, 2003 11:30 PM, Report abuse Reply

In my experiance ASUS A7N266 is very nice mother board and I like it more than other.

by Mohammed Ali, Calicut, on Jun 24, 2003 01:56 PM, Report abuse Reply

Does anyone know what the nforce2 will cost? I'm thinking of going in for an nforce2 with a 2400+ or a 2600+. Could you tell me what this might cost me? Thanks...

by agrajag, neophyte, on Jun 24, 2003 10:28 AM, Report abuse Reply

All said & done . . . there is no doubt about the quality from Asus . . . this mainboard is a good value for money product . . . but I would still expect a 4 layered mainboard . . . in the future revisions.

by Pramod, Thrissur, on Jun 15, 2003 12:25 PM, Report abuse Reply

I have always felt India is a dumping field for all outdated products be it printer or motherboard or that matter any pc peripheral. This is a discontinued product everywhere else. Also the onboard g2mx is not all that good...if you want to share a 8mb you need more ram on it....though the only its got in its favour is that its cheap.

by Suraj, Mumbai, on Jun 06, 2003 08:08 AM, Report abuse Reply

I dont totally disagree with u abt the dumping field thing but it doesn't really apply to this mobo as this is available everywhere and features on most of the international eCom sites and in the list of AMD's recommended boards. And this products is certainly not discontinued. also the onbd video is better that any other onbd option available here especially wen nforce2 boards are selling for over 8k here.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Jun 06, 2003 09:36 AM, Report abuse

Read my reply to DVS.. its NOT outdated. And about the G2MX.. what u need to do to get max out of this board.. is to set the AGP to 32.. and the AGP aperture to 64 and use twin 128 DDR sticks...U cant expect 22 players to play proper soccer in a 10/10 room can u?

by firestorm, maelstrom, on Jun 13, 2003 11:53 PM, Report abuse

Feel Great pleasure using this Board with XP-1800 Processor. Drawback is : not getting addtional Com PORT ie com2 & Unable to Load win-nt 4.0 as drivers not found yet which is ridculou.Also not found any dolby digitial compitable sound cable (port) or else. how ever cheap but better than best performance compare to Intel p-4 1.6 ghz in Intel-GLLY Board. Also enjoying better graphics.

by Binod Binani, 58D N. S. Road, 602 Ganesh Market, Kolkata - 700001, on Jun 09, 2003 11:12 PM, Report abuse Reply

Dolby digital ports are: line out = front, line in =rear, mic= center, subwoofer. u have to set it in the audio control panel, Now what dolby digital port can u not find? And howcome no getting com2 ? and what was that about winNT drivers???... its running fine on the ones i sold?!

by firestorm, maelstrom, on Jun 13, 2003 11:48 PM, Report abuse

There is no DOlby Digital SOund and it has tremendous BIOS and Heating PRoblems

by Pavan Kanoi, KOlkata, on Jun 13, 2003 10:51 AM, Report abuse Reply

hi Pavan, get back with more details abt your problem. Several members of the Techtree community (visiters to the site) own this board and would be happy to fix ur problem.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Jun 13, 2003 11:46 AM, Report abuse

Yes that happens sometimes.. My guess is u have one of the first lot of that board. There were a few in that lot that were defective... it's a chipset error... get it replaced under warranty. the boards from the 2nd lot on never had that problem bacause ASUS managed to counter the manufacturing error.

by firestorm, maelstrom, on Jun 13, 2003 11:39 PM, Report abuse

excellent review, i have got the same board and as i kept on reading the review it was like all that i ever wanted to say about the board was but to paper by MR ameya dalvi...good job dude.....keep up the good work.

by soham, mumbai, on Jun 04, 2003 07:34 PM, Report abuse Reply

I have got the same board. I am proud that i selected it myself form the range of mobos. It's just fantastic. I bought it 2 months ago. But now it has got outdated. ASUS has got new one as A7N8X & A7N8X Deluxe with nForce 2 & everything else. Chck it out on ASUS site. New one as A7V8X. Still nForce Rocks.

by Rahul Jawale, Mumbai, on Jun 04, 2003 07:41 PM, Report abuse

review is not doutly good. while in case of A7N266-VM motherboard , ASUS is not having good qty product in that range ( price range) internationally. they have discuntinied the same internationally

by D. V. S., Gurgaon, on Jun 05, 2003 12:54 PM, Report abuse

Unfortunately i have to disagree with DVS... the A7N is NOT outdated.... all u need to do is flash the bios. As for the A7V8x.. u got ur facts wrong there rahul.. THAT has been taken out of circulation... what is in india is what we call backstock. Same with the A7N8X Deluxe.. it is still available.. but the added 8x AGP feature dosent give it much of an edge over the 266vm as compared to the price factor.. The onboard cards being the same. Very few people who use the A7N266VM bother to add an agp card anyway. I should point out... a select few of the board do have a problem .. where the 6 ch sound output dosent work...Meaning.. no output on line in and mic.. but all u need to do is get it replaced if it happens to u cause its a manufacturing defect. DVS. This board is still in production and has NOT been discontinued internationally...it's stil available in USA, UK, SWEEDEN, FRANCE, POLAND, CANADA, JAPAN, TAIWAN, CHINA, INDONESIA, and Perhaps other places as well. Even now.. i still recommend this board to most of my client.. nationally or internationally. and i havent got any return complains.

by Firestorm, maelstrom, on Jun 13, 2003 11:34 PM, Report abuse

what is the price of the asus motherboard? where are asus motherboards manufactured? will this particular one support an amd xp with a speed of 1700+? can this motherboard be used if 64 bits systems and cpus are released in the market? please email me and let me know. thank you

by AMIT RAJA, BANGALORE, on Jun 13, 2003 12:28 AM, Report abuse Reply

The price is around 4000 Rupees (read the review, its there). It will easily support Athlon XP 1700+ and anything upto 2600+ (read b4 u ask). And no motherboard presently in the market will support 64 bit CPUs.

by Neo, Techtree Test Labs, on Jun 13, 2003 09:37 AM, Report abuse

its really too good

by sujoy, kolkata, on Jun 11, 2003 12:13 AM, Report abuse Reply

review good , board good . BUT I DEFINETELY WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPEND ABOUT THE AGP CARD LAST WEEK . No reply has been given , even though Im intersted in buying one.

by marko, mumbai, on Jun 07, 2003 03:13 PM, Report abuse Reply

U didnt say anything about DOLBY Surround Porcessor. Yes! It has got inbuilt Dolby Surround Processor inside. nForce ROCKS!!!!

by Rahul Jawale, Mumbai, on Jun 04, 2003 08:19 PM, Report abuse Reply

I knew you would post. Hallow.

by Jim, Techtree Test Labs, on Jun 05, 2003 12:16 AM, Report abuse

excellent review, i have got the same board and as i kept on reading the review it was like all that i ever wanted to say about the board was put to paper by MR Ameya dalvi...good job dude.....keep up the good work.

by soham, mumbai, on Jun 04, 2003 07:34 PM, Report abuse Reply