Which SATA Version does the ASUS M2N68-LA (Narra2) Mainboard have?

[ivo343]

Hi,

I want to upgrade my HP a6150de Desktop PC with a SSD.
I am not able to find out which SATA version (1, 2 or 3 a.k. 1.5/3.0 or 6.0 GB)  comes with my

ASUS M2N68-LA (Narra2) Mainboard.

I tried several hardware analysis tools, also checked the ausus homepage as well as the specification on the HP

homepage (http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01080282).

Does anyone know which version it is? I gues SATA 2 a.k.a. 3 GB

Thanks

Ivo343

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

You guessed right, but I don't have any prizes to award you. 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/mobo_gpu_tech_specs.html

You will find all the technical specs for the chipset on the motherboard in your PC in the 3rd column from the right.

[ivo343]

Perfect - thanks 🙂

Did not think about this, but it makes sense that the information is coming with the chipset !

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

[ivo343]

One more question which raised - maybe you have an idea/opinion on that.

I opened a ticket at Asus Support regarding my mainboard, but did not except a answer coming backt os fast.

They replied that I have to contact HP (the question was regarding the SATA speed) but the additionally said

that as a general tip, you should never ever run a SSD with a nVidia chipset.

???

So, from my point of view I can imagine that this might be the case for certain combinations but you can not say

this in general.

Any idea to proof if my chipset would work with a SSD?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You might be able to run a SSD with that chipset, but I wouldn't waste the money.

The reason they probably told you that was because the nForce 430 chipset does not support AHCI, so the SSD is going to run in IDE mode, which is the lowest form of drive performance.

If you have a RAID option in the BIOS I would set it to that, but you would need to know what nvidia RAID driver you need to install if you are not running windows vista or windows 7.

If you don't have a RAID setting, you may find some sight performance improvement by installing a SSD, but it won't be anywhere near what it should be.

But I cannot certify 100% that a SSD will work in your PC.

I can't remember if others on this forum have installed SSD's with that chipset.

[ivo343]

Ok - thanks for the excellent clarififcation.

I kind of guessed something like that and during my search I found a lot of user (not with my chipset) with older Desktops

having issues AHCI.

Your probably right and it isn`t worth the money for such a slight increase of performance.

Thanks for the tips, you saved me some money which I can waste for other things now 😉

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime!