1. I had some problems with the fit of the ACR card on the Asus A7N266-C. It seems to be a common problem based on the forums at
http://www.amdmb.com. I had to loosen the mobo screws to get the card to fit. And even then it was a force job. I'm probably going to fabricate a card bracket that fits better, but I'm still thinking about returning it to mwave or getting an RMA from Asus. I've heard of no such problems with the MSI boards.
So I would have to
recommend you get an MSI board instead of an Asus board if you are building an nForce system. However be aware that not all of the MSI nForce variants include the extra audio card (CNR card on the MSI units). So if you want 5.1 audio you need to either get an Asus board or make certain that the MSI board you are buying has the CNR card.
2. Also there seems to be a common problem of not having the rear or center channels working on the onboard audio when using analog outputs. This is not a problem of the mobo or the drivers. It is a combination of bad documentation and operator error.
In the audio utility you need to set the analog output to STEREO, not Dolby Surround. STEREO will activate the 6 discrete analog channels and make your 5.1 work perfectly.
FYI Dolby Surround encodes all of the surround information into the two front channels so it can be decoded by a Dolby reciever. Unless you have such a reciever you will get nothing on the rears or center when using this setting.
