Post #12,308
10/8/01 5:03:52 PM
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inexpensive motherboard recommendations
Down below Darrell Spice posted for me a request about getting a cheap BYO system from Fry's as a follow-through on my post in the "Windows X.X" forum about ScanDisk locking up on the PC he helped me build. Still no luck with the dead hard drive, with several hundred bad clusters and ScanDisk refusing to complete even once so I can rescue anything. No luck with either ScanDisk or Chkdsk from a Win 98 SE machine after booting to a floppy. SO...
No disrespect to Mr. Spice intended, but it's time to replace a P166 machine with something newer. I'd like to get a BYO starter kit (case, motherboard, CPU & memory) since I already have a 20 Gig Maxtor HD, a floppy drive and a 50x CD player. And I'll reuse the OS from the dead machine to avoid paying "the M$ tax" one more time.
I've hit tomshardware.com a little, but the boards he reviews and/or favors run $150 - $200 and up. I'd like to get something good for $100 or less. Can anyone throw me their 2 cents worth of opinion on a good inexpensive motherboard?
BConnors
"Prepare for metamorphosis. Ready, Kafka?"
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Post #12,330
10/8/01 6:22:02 PM
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Fic AD-11
~$100 at [link|http://www.newegg.com|Newegg].
I'm happy with them, I'm down with them, and the board is NIIIICE.
That, and you can get a cheap Athlon now for ~$100. Memory is about $30-$40 for 256mb.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #12,373
10/8/01 11:42:48 PM
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ECS K7S5A
$62 at Newegg [link|http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=22&manufactory=1414| ECS M/Bs] with SiS735 chipset, built-in LAN, DDR and SD-RAM support, etc. [link|http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/sis/735-315/| VR Zone article] For more reviews, try googling.
I think you're better off getting a m/b, CPU, and case separately than getting a Fry's combo, because I think you can get a better case and m/b separately for the same price (or less). I didn't like the m/b I saw in Fry's bare bones computers -- they had very few slots, for example. I also thought Fry's cases were rather pricey; I prefer the case I got at Central (local chain) with USB connectors on the front and four 5.25" drive bays for about $60.
And, the disclaimer -- I don't have a K7S5A, but am seriously considering it for my next Athlon system. My current system has an Iwill KK266 which is OK, but only supports SDRAM, not DDR.
Good luck,
Tony
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Post #12,575
10/10/01 1:21:17 AM
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The cheap f*cker option
Try the [link|http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=728LMR|Alton 729LMR] motherboard from Computer Geeks. Combine it with their [link|http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GN200| Under $20 Mid-Tower ATX case] and it will have the Ethernet, Modem, Audio, and Video built into your system for less than the price of the $100 motherboards. About $60 right there. Then get an el-cheapo $38 700Mhz Celeron CPU with a $10 370 CPU-Fan for about $110 and then plug in your memory (has to be DIMMS), hard drive, keyboard (must be PS/2, but new keyboards can cost under $10), mouse, and cd-rom, and floppy drive.
Pros:
This motherboard can have the video, audio, etc disabled and replaced in the future should you be able to afford new cards. But with everything you need built in, you can get by with that.
Cons:
[link|http://www.pcchips.com|PCChips] type motherboard, generic type, will most likely need the latest driver updates to get it working properly with the latest Microsoft or Linux OS. No ISA Slots, but four PCI and one AGP slot means that it can use newer cards.
Buyer Beware!
I bought one to upgrade my brother-in-law's system. He has a Pentium 100Mhz system, which was great and state of the art in 1995-1906, but now it is just a high-tech doorstop, not quite as useless as a TRS-80 yet, but getting there. :)
Picking up the pieces of my broken life.
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Post #12,655
10/10/01 1:00:08 PM
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Even cheaper fscker option...
[link|http://www.xppcentral.com/xpp/promotion.asp?p=2|The AMD Roadshow]
AMD is promoing their Athlon XP (GAG!) processor - which is actually a Righteous Processor That Kicks Much Intel Butt, it just got tagged with that unfortunate nomenclature.
They're giving away free motherboards, CPUs, and heatsinks.
I'm going to see if I can score one.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #13,167
10/12/01 4:46:57 PM
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and they're coming to Houston!
good for bconnors and me :-)
Darrell Spice, Jr.
[link|http://home.houston.rr.com/spiceware/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
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Post #13,805
10/17/01 3:19:32 PM
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They came at 6 AM on Tuesday, 10/16
They did it in the parking lot of a mall on the far north side of town. Even at that hour, the distance for either of us to drive would have taken over 1 hour each way, then we'd have to turn around and fight traffic to return to our side of town to go to work. Just wasn't worth getting up at 4 AM to fight not very good odds.
BConnors
"Prepare for metamorphosis. Ready, Kafka?"
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