one new mobo please...and I'll have some chips with that

[Testin da Cable]

ho-kay, TdC looking into the realm of motherboards to replace his current EPoX 8kha+ [brilliant thing that it is]

my config consists of this:

amd XP2200+ with a zalman cooler
512MB DDR [2100 iirc...or would that be 2700?]
leadtek nVidia gF 4600ti
creative SB live
3com 100MBit nic
adaptec 2940 uw scsi
WD 80GB/8MB (ide)
Maxtor 40GB (ide)
Plextor 40x scsi cdr
Plextor 8x scsi cdrw
tapeunit (ide)

I'm looking for a mobo with as little extra bells and whistles as possible. I don't want raid, firewire, onboard sound/lan/whatever, irda...you get the idea. I'm not interested in that stuff at all, unless it's finding out how to turn it off heh. I've used EPoX and Abit in the past and liked them quite well, had an Asus once but didn't get wood heh. Your advice is welcome. I'm willing to purchase new ram if needed.

 

[Summo]

(I 0wn cage, btw.)

 

[Testin da Cable]

you're welcome to him. just see that he gets that ickle pink gimp-suit with matching gag that he craves so much


TALK MOBO'S BIZNITCHES!!!1 THIS AER TEH HAERDWERE FORUM AIIII

 

[.cage]

im not up to speed with the latest mobos, but if you're going to be using windows, or indeed anything ditch the sb live quickly

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by .cage

ditch the sb live quickly

nice one there. I've heard about the issues with it, but once more I'm plagued by second thoughts. I've never personally had a problem with the card, and under unix it, or rather the emu10k chip, performs nicely. is there any card you'd advise? I'm not an audiophile tbh, and have a labtec 2+1 set that does me nicely.

 

[Will]

If you can find an Abit KX7-333, it'll more than do what you want.

And the SB Live! will be fine. It seems that they cause 3rd world debt as well as every PC problem that every has or will happen, but I take all that with a pinch of salt. My two work fine.

 

[Big G]

live's been great for me, i use it mostly for music production with cubase sx and i've never had a prob with it - bit dated tho.

What issues are we talking about?

Gaz

 

[(Shovel)]

Abit KD7 (or variant) is highly recommended by me. Has onboard sound and onboard LAN so you can dump two of those cards if you wished?

Supports DDR up to 400Mhz

All have USB2 (3 headers) and AGP8x. You can get bigger models with RAID and Serial ATA etc.
Onboard sound is 6 point with SPDIF out.

 

[~YuckFou~]

ditto, so far on win 98se, 2000 and xp, never a problem.

 

[.cage]

I think the whole sb live thing is more down to mobos, as i know quite a few people who've had problems, but its a minority, so i'd test it first ;p

 

[Testin da Cable]

right...I can get the following:

Abit KD-7 - 105euro
Abit KD-7E - 97euro
Abit KX7-333 - 100euro

prices in pounds multiply by 0.6 [iirc]

 

[Will]

The KX7-333 I have is rock solid. I dunno what the KD7-E has over it.

 

[Testin da Cable]

KX7-333

CPU
Support AMD Athlon XP 1500+ ~ 2100+ or future Socket A Processors based on 200/266 MHz (100MHz/133MHz Double Data Rate)
Support AMD Athlon 700MHz ~ 1.4GHz or future Socket A Processors based on 200/266 MHz (100MHz/133MHz Double Data Rate)
Support AMD Duron 600MHz ~ 1.2GHz or future Socket A Processors based on 200 MHz (100MHz Double Data Rate)

Chipset
VIA KT333 /VT8233A
Supports Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 IDE protocol
Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 2X(3.3V)and 4X(1.5V)mode (Sideband) device
Supports200/266/333 MHz (100/133/166 MHz Double Data Rate) Memory Bus Settings

Memory
Four 184-pin DIMM sockets support PC1600/PC2100/PC2700 DDR SDRAM module
Supports 6 banks up to 3GB DRAMs for unbuffered DDR modules
Supports 8 banks up to 3.5GB DRAMs for registered DDR modules

System BIOS
SoftMenu™III Technology to set CPU parameters
Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
Supports Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI)
Supports Desktop Management Interface (DMI)
Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS

Multi I/O Functions
Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
Two Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to four Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 devices
Built-in Standard /EPP/ECP paralleport connector
Two built-in 16550 fast UART compatible seriaport connectors
Built-in PS/2 Keyboard and PS/2 mouse port connectors
On board USB header for two extra USB channels

Miscellaneous
ATX form factor
1 AGP slot, 6 PCI slots
Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speed, Voltages, System environment temperature
Built-in Wake on LAN header
Built-in Wake on Ring header
Built-in IrDA TX/RX header

KD7-E

CPU
Supports AMD-K7 Duron/ Athlon / Athlon XP Socket A with 200/266/333MHz FSB Processors

Chipset
VIA KT333 / VT8235
Supports Hi-Speed Universal Serial Bus (USB 2.0)
AGP connector supports AGP 4X (1.5V)

Memory
Four 184-pin DIMM sockets
Supports 2 DIMM DDR 333 (Max. 2GB)
Supports 3 DIMM Un-buffered DDR 200/266 (Max. 3GB)
Supports 4 DIMM Registered DDR 200/266 (Max. 3.5GB)

System BIOS
SoftMenu™ Technology to set CPU parameters
Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
Supports Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI)
Supports Desktop Management Interface (DMI)
Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS

Internal I/O Connectors
1 x AGP, 6 x PCI slots
1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 Connectors
2 x USB 2.0 headers,
1 x IrDA

Back Panel I/O
1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse
2 x Serial, 1 x Parallel
1 x S/PDIF Out port
2 x USB 2.0

Miscellaneous
ATX form factor
Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speeds, Voltages, System environment temperature

abit isn't the clearest infomation-wise

 

[Will]

I think you lose some legacy ports when you go to the KD7-E, and thats about it.

 

[Testin da Cable]

I can do without legacy stuff imo. the less I have on the mobo the happier I am.

 

[Will]

I lied, ABit just lists then in different categories on those mobos.

Get the KD7-E, its cheaper and has a more recent south bridge.

 

[Testin da Cable]

heh troo. get it I shall.


anyone feel like buying the EPoX 8KHA+ with 512MB worth of ddr ram? you pay postage heh

 

[mookie]

ECS K7S5A will take all of that, solid as a rock (mine is ) and cheap as fuck too.
good little mobo

 

[Testin da Cable]

that ECS is 57 euro

 

[.cage]

Originally posted by mookie
ECS K7S5A will take all of that, solid as a rock (mine is ) and cheap as fuck too.
good little mobo

thats the same board i have, and i concur it does rock, but its also the same board i have sblive probs with...

 

[Testin da Cable]

bah

 

[.cage]

I don't know if its the board, though :|

Basically, with win2k it's fine.
Then, installing WinXP - on initial install, i.e. with no patches, it's foul. totally inaudible really, full of pops, scratches, and horrid noise. Then after installing all the patches bar SP1, it works. Then installing SP1 reverts it to its original state, even with all combinations of drivers installed and stuff.

sucks :|

 

[Will]

A few people have said a driver only install, none of the other Creative stuff, helps.

 

[S-Gray]

Hm i dont know if you did this already .Cage, but im on a SB Live also, and when i installed XP i had the same poor quality sound...

What i did was go into Control Panel > Sound and Audio Devices > Audio Tab > Sound playback *advanced* > Performence tab > and on Hardware Acceleration if you turn it down to Standard it sounds better.

I had probs if it was on "Full"..

 

[Testin da Cable]

so it's the XP drivers really? or is it XP in general that screws the card up?

 

[S-Gray]

I think its the Soundcard/Soundcard Drivers itself.. because i do recall having a few small problems with it on Win2000... (As in, i still had to do the above)

 

[Testin da Cable]

hmm. must be one of those strange cases where everyone gets the problem but me then again, I've not yet run XP on my gaming system yet so I wouldn't know really. w2k gives me no problems at all with the sblive that I have now, and none of the unixen do either. ah well, we'll see

 

[mookie]

i've got an SB live 5.1 and have no problems at all i XP. except the shitty software wont run

 

[Wilier]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
hmm. must be one of those strange cases where everyone gets the problem but me then again, I've not yet run XP on my gaming system yet so I wouldn't know really. w2k gives me no problems at all with the sblive that I have now, and none of the unixen do either. ah well, we'll see

I have to confess to never having had problems with XP pro and my SB Live.


So there.

 

[Testin da Cable]

yay makes me happy, cos XP will be worming it's evil way onto my gaming poota soonish and I don't want any silly probs heh