Well, I just lost a BIG chunk of my email as well as my new database of logins and passwords with a new app I recently bought to keep track of them... The damn NB cooler on my Asus A8N SLI Deluxe mobo is completely dead. This resulted in the chip overheated which resulted in the total corruptio of my RAID 0 Array. Lucky, I also run a RAID5 array that hold my main documents which SHOULD still be ok. The loss of email and those logins ROYALLY sucks! This has delayed a review I was finishing up as well on the XFX 7600 XXX. I am really looking forward to showing you guys the review since it is a really nice mid-range card.

ANYWAYS... the point of this post, besides informing you that I will not have my full email access for about 2 days? Well if you own any of the A8N SLI series boards then I HIGHLY recommend that you order an AFTER MARKET NB cooler immediately. After a quick search on google it is readily apparent that the NB coolers on this board are REALLY bad and often die. There are a number of replacements that work. For those of you wanting to keep the cooler small and don't do alot of OC'ing then this Cooler Master chipset cooler should work well for you and there is this Vantec Cooler as well. If you are like me and do some considerable overclocking then I recommend this Swiftech Cooler (the MCX159-Cu) Chipset Cooler BUT you cannot use many two-slot cooling cards when using it! This is the beefiest air cooler I could find for this board that still allows SLI cards (with most cards).

I like the look of this guy, hes cute.

http://xoxide.com/thermalright-hr-05...et-cooler.html

Chipset Coolers


Cooler Master SLC-S41-U1 Blue ICE Chipset Cooler

Thermalright HR-05 High-Riser Northbridge Cooler

Swiftech MCX159-CU Extreme Duty All-Copper Heatsink w/ 40mm Fan

Cooler Master RT-UCL-L4U1 CM Blue Ice Northbridge Chipset Cooler

Sorry to hear about your loss GK, part of the reason I went with the passive heatsink on the A8N-SLi Premium, you might want to upgrade to the A8N-SLi32 since it's got a passive cooler too!

I am so frustrated right now I could freakin' kill someone. (almost)

My new chipset cooler got here and I fired up the system to try to install windows on it and now no matter how I have the cd drive/cables/jumpers set it will not recognize any cd as being bootable... *sigh*

It is looking like my mobo northbridge went totally belly up! What really sucks is that I HAVE to buy roughly the same board in order to make sure I have access to the same RAID5 controller as before since I still have my RAID5 array intact but not accessible. Wow what a mess! I know my email must be piling up.

Has anybody had experience with Open Box stuff from NewEgg? This mobo is the one I am wanting to order since it is significantly cheaper but marked as OPEN BOX. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813131540R

Quote: Originally Posted by GlitterKill I am so frustrated right now I could freakin' kill someone. (almost) My new chipset cooler got here and I fired up the system to try to install windows on it and now no matter how I have the cd drive/cables/jumpers set it will not recognize any cd as being bootable... *sigh* It is looking like my mobo northbridge went totally belly up! What really sucks is that I HAVE to buy roughly the same board in order to make sure I have access to the same RAID5 controller as before since I still have my RAID5 array intact but not accessible. Wow what a mess! I know my email must be piling up. Has anybody had experience with Open Box stuff from NewEgg? This mobo is the one I am wanting to order since it is significantly cheaper but marked as OPEN BOX. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813131540R

Just bought an open box video card for a friend from NewEgg. It's not a refurb item; it looked like someone returned it and they sent that right back out to me. May just have been the way it was packaged though. Either way, it worked fine, and didn't include any accessories at all.

The Asus A8N-SLI nForce4 SLI Mobo won't do?
Its New and with ***Free Shipping***
Linky

Quote: Originally Posted by Spectrum Just bought an open box video card for a friend from NewEgg. It's not a refurb item; it looked like someone returned it and they sent that right back out to me. May just have been the way it was packaged though. Either way, it worked fine, and didn't include any accessories at all.

Dude that SUCKS!

I've bought open box items before (although not from newegg)

They usually come from people who discover that they aren't compatible with their gear and return them within the x-day free return timeframe - other's have been used to provide accessory replacements (so come without a few of the extra things)

I'd say give it a shot - if it doesn't work out, there's always the FS thread (you look honest enough - I reckon you'd be able to sell it )

Quote: Originally Posted by GlitterKill Has anybody had experience with Open Box stuff from NewEgg? This mobo is the one I am wanting to order since it is significantly cheaper but marked as OPEN BOX. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813131540R

I have bought quite a few open box mobos from Newegg. Never had a problem with any of them.
And better than half the time they'd come with most if not all accessories.

Quote: Originally Posted by GlitterKill I am so frustrated right now I could freakin' kill someone. (almost) My new chipset cooler got here and I fired up the system to try to install windows on it and now no matter how I have the cd drive/cables/jumpers set it will not recognize any cd as being bootable... *sigh* It is looking like my mobo northbridge went totally belly up! What really sucks is that I HAVE to buy roughly the same board in order to make sure I have access to the same RAID5 controller as before since I still have my RAID5 array intact but not accessible. Wow what a mess! I know my email must be piling up. Has anybody had experience with Open Box stuff from NewEgg? This mobo is the one I am wanting to order since it is significantly cheaper but marked as OPEN BOX. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813131540R

GK, I have that exact board, and I have to say that I don't love it. I'm seriously limited by the vCore and few other limitations of it (although it is nice that the northbridge is passively cooled REALLY WELL (never too hot to touch))

If you look at ASUSes new line they've already addressed this problem, they have heatpipe cooling on their new SLI boards, which is pretty sweet! Besides being pretty easy to stick w/c blocks on ;-) might be my next mobo (well Conroe version of it..unles there's some AM2 proccessor that's gona be faster.. no offence)

Here's the AM2 version


P.S.: Mobos are the worst thing to buy open box... as are HDDs... PSUPs....and jsut about aynthing else come to think of it lol.

Argh..I feel your frustration, recently had some important stuff (Family pic's) on my test rig that I should have moved to my new server.

I was testing out a spare set of of BH-5's that I had recently trade for, and got one to many BSOD'd before I pinpointed what was was going on... I think making it a slave drive would make it possible to recover them.

Reading this got me looking at that tiny peice of metal and fan on my 939 SLI board..I realy liked my older DFI's that had a nice chunk of Aluminum and no fan, they would take 1.9v with nothing more than decent case flow!

SLI causes a bit of a real estate problem, and they all have been working on copying it...alot of the new AM-2 high end boards are going to the "Heat Pipe" fanless design Asus used, though some are a bit "Clunky" looking and seem a bit fragile if not well thought out.

Passive cooling th NB is one less headache for the RMA department too, Abit learned the hard way with the NF-7!

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/...es=1&model=315

http://www.msicomputer.com/msiforms2/AM2.asp

EDIT: The new ASUS looks pretty damn slick!

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=3662

Quote: Originally Posted by GlitterKill Has anybody had experience with Open Box stuff from NewEgg? This mobo is the one I am wanting to order since it is significantly cheaper but marked as OPEN BOX. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813131540R

I scavenger the refurb stuff at newegg all the time for deals. I've gotten 1 or 2 dead boards but you can rma them and their pretty cool about it. You do lose out on shipping but the success rate has gotta be like 10 to 1. The key is to test the hell out of it when you get it. And call newegg asap (within the day) if you have a problem and don't mention that it was a refurb.

the chipset cooler on the deluxe are crap. the premium should help you avoid ever having a similiar problem.

edit- ew. newegg up'd the shipping rate on refurbs from $1 to $9

Just out of curiousity, was it the new cooling fan (50mm) or the old cooling fan (40mm) that crapped out on you?