VeeDubb Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 I'm thinking about upgrading my mobo/cpu/ram since I'm haveing trouble with my current one and mandrake. I need a board that supports both duron CPU's and the latest athlonXP's. DDR ram is must and 2slots minimum. It also needs AGP, but that's about it. I don't need anything fancy and I don't need anything extra included. Just a printer port, at least 1 serial, ps2 for mouse and kb, and built in USB. It's okay if there's more, but I don't need it. My three biggest concerns, in order of concern - linux AND windows compatabilty, stability and price. don't care about anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmack Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 I am running Win98SE and ML 9.1 dual boot with no problems on install detection using an Abit KR7A133 non-RAID version. Setup has been smooth since 8.2 installation. I have 512MB PC2100 RAM and an AthlonXP 1600 and it runs very smoothly without any major hassles. Runs ATA Ultra and I have a Maxtor 40GB hd 7200rpm version. Video card is Asus V3800 TNT2 32MB so nothing fancy, but adequate. My sound card is Creative SB Live 5.1. Mobo price was mid-range about 6 mos ago and I bet it is cheaper now with all the 333 and up FSB. I am satisfied with the quality of the mobo and documentation. Plus there is good online Abit support on Sudhian forum. http://forums.sudhian.com/categories.cfm?catid=28 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted April 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 Sounds pretty, good, though I've never used abit before. What brand is the bios? AMI, pheonix, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmack Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 BIOS is Award and Abit does pretty well about updating the flash versions if needed. Abit website has the info as does the Sudhian forum if you go to the FAQ section and look for the Abit KR7A FAQ it has tons of info. I consider Abit like a Oldsmobile. Bit nicer than a Chevy but still not a luxury item. Price is intermediate, but you get pretty fair quality for the money. Asus makes a good board too but you end up paying a bit for their name. Epox is fine too. I used to live in Tualatin, OR btw. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 Abit is great. Don't rule out Epox. I just installed an EP-8K9A, which is really nice. They are good boards and usually better priced than Abit. There is a really inexpensive board, ECS, that has mixed reliability. I would stay away from those. Epox boards are priced better on the west coast than the east coast. Multiwave Direct is usually pretty good. www.mwave.com Epox boards use Award bios chips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdg Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 I'm using the Epox 8K3A with 9.1 and Windows dual boot. CPU is the AMD XP1800 and memory is 256 mb PC2700. I'm using the GeForce MX440 with 64mb. BIOS is by Award. There are no frills such as RAID or onboard LAN (actually, onboard LAN is not really a frill anymore) The board is very stable and had no setup problems in either Mdk or Windows. This is my first Epox (used to buy Asus) and will not be my last Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 I third the epox recommendation, although for nforce2 chipset it is kinda tricky, at least in terms of mandrake 9.1. (I haven't tried other distro yet, but I will soon after I backup my mandrake partition in cd images). Right now I am using an Epox 8RDA+ Nforce2 mb.. it's stable in windows, but there is a bug at least in Mandrake 9.1 version of XFree. It has to use the bios released on January, not the newest otherwise it will hang X if you use NVidia driver (weird hunh?). OSS driver is ok though. But I guess that's the price to become an early adopter :) My first epox mb is the 5 year old Epox 7KXA coupled with Athlon Classic 650 (the slot A version). I gave that one to my friend and last I heard.. it is still running perfectly stable, although the bios cannot handle the WD 200 GB hd it has, even with its latest bios update (dated January 2001, now 3 year old support for a EOLed platform like Athlon Classic is amazing imo). I think Via KT400 Chipset should be right about your alley if you are looking for stablity and support in linux. NForce2 is a bit problematic right now, it runs but just need a bit of tweaking to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 I've always liked Epox personnally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 There is a really inexpensive board, ECS, that has mixed reliability. I would stay away from those. I've a ECS-board with a via-chipset and AWARD-bios....What's wrong with them...(the one I've got...the only bad thing I've read about it is int the commercial nvidiadriver-README..that the agp wasn't so good..but with the opensource drivers it runs the Xserver very stable and with the commercial ones also pretty good...but I'm not the only one who has problem with the commercial nvidia-drivers:)) For the rest I find it very good and Mandrake had no problems with it..wery well onboard-sound... So, why are these boards bad?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 There is a really inexpensive board, ECS, that has mixed reliability. I would stay away from those. I think the commercial nvidia-driver is mostley the problem if it comes to stability, but that's my opinion....I'm not an expert so maybe it is not so good as others, but I think their driver is mainly the problem....Anyway, my board is "already" 2 years old...and I've no compalins, also not if it comes to 3d-performance...:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted April 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 Wow, htank you for so many replies. I think if I do pull together the bread for new parts of my own, I will go epox. Sounds like exactly what I want. I've always liked the soyo Dragon series for windows when building "show off" computers, but I've never built a computer for myself before, and I don't want to show off. Sad isn't it? I've been building computers for other people for a couple years now, but I've never built myself one. Oh well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 27, 2003 Report Share Posted April 27, 2003 The first thing I did was build my own. I figure if I broke my own, I could handle the complaining to myself!! :lol: All the computers in the house are homebuilt, (4) and I run a little network with them. Concerning ECS, the ones that work, work. But, they have a high failure rate, and if you buy refurbished boards, there are a lot of ECS available, too many to take a chance on. A friend of mine that has a parts business always has ECS boards on the seconds pile. So, that is why I said they were inconsistent in reliability. I know they are very low priced for what you get. I have used DFI, PCChips, Soyo, Abit, FIC, Asus, Aopen, Shuttle, Gigabyte, and of course, Epox. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted April 28, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2003 Okay, I now have access to what MAY be a working soyo k7vdragon. NOt the dragon+ Should work, just a litle worried because it has LOT of onboard stuff, sound game port, USB, eth, smartcard if you hook it up, DVD decoding, fiber optic sound, opitonal raid...... Anybody successfully use this board? More importantly, anybody recently updrade and have a socket A CPU and some DDR laying around? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted April 28, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2003 Soyo officialy supports linux, so it should work with mandrake if it's functional, now I just need to get my hands on a cpus and some ram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ral Posted April 28, 2003 Report Share Posted April 28, 2003 Using an EPoX 8K9A myself. Pretty happy with it and it is pretty cheap at $70. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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