M2N68-LA Narra 2 Replacement

[noelpg21]

I have a used HP Pavilion A6110n desktop PC that I got from a friend that I repaired almost a year ago due to a motherboard that died (it was an ASUS M2N68-LA Narra2 board - HP part no. 5188-8534).  Ordered a replacement board (same HP part# which came with an IO shield or metal backplate to fit the board's rear IO ports through) but replaced a faulty Bestec ATX-250-12Z power supply unit with a Seasonic S12II-620 Bronze (620w) power supply and put in an AMD Athlon X2 5600+ CPU (the 89watt version part # ADA5600IAA6CZ).  The A6110n computer works well with the new parts (and installed an old legacy 3.5 inch floppy drive after removing the pocket drive bay module since it's not gonna be used at all).

Looks like the Narra1, Narra2 & Ivy8 versions of the M2N68-LA boards can only handle AMD dual-core CPUs and not anything higher (like quad cores).  But Narra3, Narra5 & Narra6 editions of M2N68-LA can handle certain AMD quad-core CPUs with available BIOS updates for them.  Though these higher "Narra" versions of M2N68-LA may require a different IO shield or metal backplate because these boards have different rear IO port layouts.  the Narra6 board uses DDR3 RAM chips instead of DDR2 RAM chips found in Narra5 & earlier boards.

Someone earlier mentioned about the HP M8000n computer - that computer uses a "Narra" or Narra1 version of the M2N68-LA board, which is a little older than the M2N68-LA Narra2 board that I have on my A6110n machine.  Differences between Narra1 and Narra2 are that the boards have different colors and Narra1 use onboard Realtek ALC888 audio while Narra2 uses Realtek ALC888S audio.  Otherwise the Narra1 & Narra2 boards are almost the same.

Edit: I've just found the specific HP part no. that is the Narra3-GL8E board that contains the actual SPDIF audio & 1394 ports: it's HP 5189-1661.  The other HP part nos. (462798-001 & 459164-001) are Narra3 boards that do not have these extra IO ports at the back.  I'll probably order this Narra3 board (5189-1661) to replace the Narra2 board in my A6110n computer later this year.

[noelpg21]

a follow up on my previous post.  I ordered that M2N68-LA Narra3 board (5189-1661) that has the working 1394, SPDIF ports along with the blue IDE connector from the Memory4Less.com web site in Dec. 2016 for almost $150 (price recently rose to $200 - they not only send the board but also a matching IO shield metal backplate), put it into the old HP computer case where it used to be identified as HP A6110n.  With that Narra3 board I received & installed, the HP computer is identified as "m8417c".  The Memory4Less.com site also sells the Narra3 board part no. 462798-001 for less than $100 but does not have the 1394 & spdif ports, minus the IDE connector.

well HaggisCat if you're still out there, the Narra3 board (HP pn 5189-1661) I got is still working with my Seasonic 620w PSU and the board has not failed.  I put an AMD Phenom II X4 B97 CPU on the Narra3 board in 2017 after updating the BIOS to v5.63 from the sp49108 Softpaq and the BIOS recognized the CPU with no issues.  I even upped the RAM from 4Gb to 6Gb [2x2Gb Crucial RAM sticks plus the 2x1Gb Samsung RAM sticks] and running Windows 10 Pro.

here's a link to the M2N68-LA Narra3 manual (based on the HP part no. that I have, not based on part nos. 459164-001 or 462798-001), which does mention those ieee 1394 & spdif digital audio coaxial out ports with the ide connector.