[wplug] Moterboard - Decision time

Brian ch at shot1.org
Tue Aug 17 16:18:19 EDT 2004


John Harrold wrote:

>Sometime in August vze57qmg at verizon.net assaulted the keyboard and produced:
>
>| Thanks for all the suggestions on the motherboard replacement.
>| 
>| Per your (collective) advice I will avoid replacing my blown PC Chips
>| M.B. with another from the same manufacturer.
>| 
>| I found a board that seemed just right from Tyan - the S2495 based on the
>| KT400 chipset.  Unfortunately this board is OUT OF STOCK everywhere I
>| checked so it doesn't look good for this one.
>| 
>| CompUSA has an MSI (KT4VL) for around $100 and an ASUS (A7N8X) for around
>| $160. Neither of these have the onboard temp/voltage sensors I was
>| looking for but I may settle on the MSI.
>| 
>| I was going to check out the Gigabyte M.B.'s at A2Z in Monroeville on
>| Tues. if you think it's worth my trouble.
>| 
>| I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on the chipsets these boards
>| use. Most use Via or NVidia.  I've heard bad things about both of these.
>| My last board used SiS but it worked fine even though I've heard bad
>| things about them too. These are the chipsets that handle on-board
>| devices (lan, sound, etc) as well as the PCI bus, USB, sensors, etc.
>| What's your opinion?
>| 
>| I plan on getting an M.B. this week so any last minute suggestions would
>| be very helpful.
>
>I didn't chime in before, but I'd like to take the opportunity to plug
>supermicro [1]. I've been using one of their dual cpu boards in my home
>computer for about 6 years and it's done really well.
>
>I know it's nice to shop locally, but I typically just order everything
>online. I prefer newegg.com -- they might not be the cheapest, but they
>have really good customer service [2].
>
>Of course, with any advice you get on a list like this, caveat emptor.
>
>[1] http://www.supermicro.com/
>[2] http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2121.html
>
>  
>
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>
Ive always used Abit and Asus, but just recently I rebuilt using an 
Intel Mobo.   Doesnt work for the AMD solution, but if you ever need 
stability in a box,  the Intel manufactured Motherboard rocks, and has a 
ton of zone temp/voltage measurements available.

As for onboard nic/sound  I avoided them for a long time, but in the 
past year or so I have been using them without trouble.   I believe my 
relationship with the Packard Bell Modem/soundcard mess skewed my 
opinion of integrated hardware, but that is slowly turning.  But for 
pure power, you definitely want a PCI soundcard to add features and 
alleviate the cpu from the extra burden.

Hope this helps.
Brian





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