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DualNet Ethernet Controllers

The nForce2 platform internally supports two Ethernet controllers integrated into the MCP-T. The rationale behind dual Ethernet adapters is that it is possible to either daisy-chain several computers within the local area network or else to use one computer as the main Gateway featuring any software firewall, virus scan and filters to protect the LAN side of the network from malicious attacks from the outside. At the same time, it is possible to filter out content or rather only allow certain content to go through. It is an interesting concept, personally I am not a friend of any controls, though but there is definitely a market for this sort of feature. The drawback is that in order to work in the most basic sense and provide connectivity to the outside world, the "gateway" has to be powered up. What that comes down to is that over the course of some 6 months to 1 year, the electrical bill for keeping such a system running will exceed the costs for an entry-level hub with integrated firewall as offered by DLink, LinkSys, Nexland and many more. In any case, the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe features both the nVidia MCP networking adapter and the 3Com 3C920B-EMB integrated controller.

Serial ATA connectors, the Silicon Image "bridge" and the jumper next to it to enable everything. The second jumper shown is the "ClRTC" where RTC stands for Real Time Clock and means CMOS. With the preproduction Barracuda SATA-V we got up to 85MB/sec burst transfers as measured in HDTACH which is the highest we have seen so far (with this particular drive)

Jumpers are sparse on the A7N8X but those that are present definitely warrant some attention. Foremost, misconfiguration of the CPU_FSB jumper is something that we have come across time and again when the processor does not show up at the correct speed. It is all documented in the manual but who really reads it anyway? In the end, having the jumper set to the wrong position will either cause POST failure of a 200 MHz FSB CPU because the bus speed is hardwired to a minimum or 266 MHz or else cause a 266 / 333 MHz FSB processor to run at 200 MHz only. In other words if any problems like this are encountered, check whether the jumper is set correctly.

The other jumper of interest is SATA-enable, the only thing that needs to be switched for SATA configuration. If the jumper is set to disabled, not even the install CD will show the SATA driver installation menu. This can be confusing, a more intuitive solution for the CD would be to show the SATA entry with the hint that the menu will become available as soon as the jumper is changed. Keyboard and USB-Wake-Up and Clear CMOS don't need any detailed explanation.

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