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Author Topic: buying a motherboard?  (Read 391 times)

Offline Gunslinger

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buying a motherboard?
« on: April 24, 2004, 10:20:18 AM »
just wanted to get the boards opinion on the best motherboard/cpu combo for under $100.  My AMD athalon 1200 just burned up on me and I'm looking to replace it.  I'd have a little bit bigger budget but as i've seen most now MBs only have DDR ram slots so I must replace all my ram as well.
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Offline Roscoroo

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2004, 11:10:14 AM »
my old gammer mb is still available  but its not the fastest thing around ... and can play ah2 with a decent video card in it

Ecs K7S5A  pro

ive seen them combo'd up with either 1.3 ,1.4, 2.0 ghz cpu's for around 89 - 119.  $ us

this board can use either sdram or ddr  

i would really suggest stepping up to the 300-350 $ level and upgrading to a

asus A7n8X , or -x , or deluxe
2400+ or 2500+ cpu
duel stics of 333 ddr

use your current video card for now til you can afford a nice one
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Offline Gunslinger

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2004, 11:30:03 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Roscoroo
my old gammer mb is still available  but its not the fastest thing around ... and can play ah2 with a decent video card in it

Ecs K7S5A  pro

ive seen them combo'd up with either 1.3 ,1.4, 2.0 ghz cpu's for around 89 - 119.  $ us

this board can use either sdram or ddr  


LOL that's exactly what I'm replacing.  Had a amd XP 1500cpu in it (i think).  Worst thing is I have no way of knowing if just the MB is bad or the CPU.

Quote



i would really suggest stepping up to the 300-350 $ level and upgrading to a

asus A7n8X , or -x , or deluxe
2400+ or 2500+ cpu
duel stics of 333 ddr

use your current video card for now til you can afford a nice one


what do you think of this
http://www.computerbrain.com/cbisys/buy.asp?main=MotherboardCombos&title=AMD_Athlon_XP_Combo&id=65
Same board you discribed....w/ an 1800.  Upgradeable to a 3200.
and I can get a stick of 3200 DDR 256mg all for under $200?
« Last Edit: April 24, 2004, 11:33:04 AM by Gunslinger »
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Offline Roscoroo

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2004, 11:52:25 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Gunslinger


what do you think of this
http://www.computerbrain.com/cbisys/buy.asp?main=MotherboardCombos&title=AMD_Athlon_XP_Combo&id=65
Same board you discribed....w/ an 1800.  Upgradeable to a 3200.
and I can get a stick of 3200 DDR 256mg all for under $200?


looks like a good deal , the Asus a7n8x is a tottally upgradable and can overclock nicly too . i used the deluxe version of this mb for my new system last fall and it just rocks.

I still use my ecs k7s5a machine alot though ...

what did yours do when it died ?? does it give off any beeps ??
did you try a power supply swap ? or check the fans ?
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Offline Gunslinger

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2004, 12:21:59 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Roscoroo
looks like a good deal , the Asus a7n8x is a tottally upgradable and can overclock nicly too . i used the deluxe version of this mb for my new system last fall and it just rocks.

I still use my ecs k7s5a machine alot though ...

what did yours do when it died ?? does it give off any beeps ??
did you try a power supply swap ? or check the fans ?


here's exactly what happened:  (I know I'm an idiot please dont laugh)

We just got DSL in our house and I got the network up and running through a new lynxus router.  

When I was trying to network the two computers together for file sharing I totally corrupted my TCP/IP protocals (dont ask me how)

I tried all the windows fixes (I'm runing XP pro BTW) and even deleted the winsok's in the registry to reinstall them from my wife's computer.  no luck there.

SO I said screw it and did a format and reinstall windows.  (i was due for one anyways)  While XP was installing it kept coming up with several errors and wouldnt boot.  Turns out my CD was scratched or the CDrom is going bad.  

Either way I hooked my hard drive up to my wifes computer and it installed perfectly booted just fine and everything.  

When I returned the HD to my computer and booted it up it would power on.  the HD would spin up but no system beep the monitor power light just sits there and blinks.  

I unplug the monitor and I get the no signal banner(so i know that's working)
I swaped the P/S and still the same
I tried swapping my video card for an old PCI ATI that I have no joy
I unplugged everying on the board and just hooked up a keyboard vid card and monitor and the bios wouldnt go into setup
I tried the jumper settings posted on the ECS website and it didnt work.
I tried different ram sticks and configurations (IE 2 64s 2 128s)no joy
I hooked up my 31/2 A drive and it's light doesnt even come on.


my prognosis.....BIOS screwed....processor bad....or....MB is bad
« Last Edit: April 24, 2004, 12:24:14 PM by Gunslinger »
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Offline Roscoroo

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2004, 02:07:54 PM »
no post beeps ...  id guess it died

bolth of my ecs mb's always give off some sort of beep even just hooked up bare .. no ram ,vc ,hd, ect

the only thing you could do for a final test would be swap out the bios ic chip . or a cpu swap .
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Offline Griego

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2004, 02:49:15 AM »
I just upgraded from a 1800+  on a k7t MSI board to a
MSI K7N2-V board and a 2500+ AMD

The MSI K7N2-V was reasonable  $95.
the AMD 2500+ was                    $109.
and the PC3200 RAM was            $134.

Parts wise its totals to                  $338.     and you can upgrade
the cpu up to a 3400+.

I haven't heard to much about this board , but so far so good.
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Offline SKurj

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2004, 09:52:49 AM »
a7n8x deluxe r2 here, no complaints at all.
the onboard sound works well, 2 built in NICs, easy to overclock, it even talks in a female voice!!

Oh yeah I run:
XP2500+ @ XP3200+ speed
1 gb DDR
Asus 9800 PRO 256
Sata 80gb hdd


SKurj
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Offline BB Gun

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2004, 01:12:13 AM »
Best bang/buck AMD motherboard, IMO, is still the Epox 8RDA3+.  88 bucks and ya got firewire, SATA RAID and USB ports galore.  Plus all the overclocking options you could want in the BIOS.

BB  <-- running his barton2500+ at 11x200MHz = Barton3200+ (plus 80 GB SATA drive, 512 MB RAM, Radeon9500Pro)
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Offline ChasR

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buying a motherboard?
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2004, 10:26:15 PM »
I would buy one in either the ASUS A7N8X line or the Abit NF7 line.  My favorite is the Abit NF7-S.  It has everything, overclocks well and easily, and isn't outrageously expensive.  The computers I build at work all use this board and none have had any problems.   Whatever you get, go for a board that supports dual channel ram since you've got to  get new ram anyway.
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