Motherboard Advice Please

[Debbie]

Hi all,

Perhaps sombody has some first hand experience of this board:

http://www.abit-usa.com/pt_main_back87e0.html?pPRODUCT_TYPE=MotherBoard&pMODEL_NAME=SA6

I am about to change a motherboard on a PIII machine and it will have a Marvel G400-TV. Is the chipset ok. or will it give problems.

Regards,

Debbie

[Greebe]

I'd stay away from Abit as they tend to use cheap low quality caps that fail, shortening the life expectency of their MB's.

[IM_Riktar]

For the BEST deal on a 815 intel chipset motherboard, check out these 2 links:

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=NORAID-6A815EPD1

For one with raid go here:
http://www.package2you.com/ Scroll down to the motherboards section and look for the Dual P-III board with RAID. Best hurry on that one. They don't have many left.

Regardless which board you go with you will have VERY good stability and surprisingly fast performance. Don't sweat it if you are only going to run 1 CPU. This board will run just fine with only one CPU plugged in.

I have recently "retired" mine to my wifes machine so I could upgrade to a P4 1.6a machine. Now don't get me wrong when I say I am thinking of swapping back machines. This P4 is definately faster than my old Acorp, but it is nowhere near as quick.

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that for the money you are spending you are not going to find ANYTHING that touches this board.

Good luck with whatever you go with.
Rick

[Dr Mordrid]

I agree: avoid ABIT mainboards if you want stability and long life.

i815 chipped boards are an excellent alternative. VIA based boards are NOT.

Dr. Mordrid

[az]

Doc... You have great experience with SIS chipsets, I suppose. My K7S5A won't let my drives work with DMA under XP, even if "DMA, if available" is selected. Do I need any drivers? I know there is a registry hack, but I try to find solutions not involving something like this before.

Sorry for this being off topic...

AZ

[Dr Mordrid]

Have you tried swapping out the IDE cable on that drive?

If the cable has a problem, even one you don't notice, XP will disable DMA and revert to PIO for a device after more than six DMA transfer timeouts occur. Often one has to reinstall the device to get XP to restore DMA.

Don't forget: if it's an ATA66 or faster drive you'll need an 80 wire cable.

Dr. Mordrid

[az]

It worked perfect under 98SE before, and both cables are 80 wire..

I don't have to install any SIS drivers, I suppose? And it's correct that both IDE channels' vendors are "(Standard-IDE-ATA/ATAPI-Controller)"? (The IDE controller is called SIS though...)

AZ

[Dr Mordrid]

Ok, then try these...one at a time;

method 1;

1. intentionally select PIO, reboot then select DMA and reboot. DMA might now be selected.

method 2;

1. download and install the latest Win2K/XP IDE driver for the SiS 961/962/963 southbridges (released 7/1/02);

http://205.158.63.158/driver/ide/sis/ide20102.zip

Dr. Mordrid

[az]

Thanks, I'll give it a go

[EDIT: Tomorrow, I'll go to bed now. Thank you, doc ]

AZ

[Debbie]

Thank you all,

The problem ia that PIII motherboards are hard to come-by over here, but perhaps my brother-in-law can find one in Canada if perhaps you can let me now of a good one that gives no problems with Marvel G400.

Regards,

Debbie

[az]

Thank you doc, setting PIO and then DMA again worked

Sorry Debbie for stealing your thread. *hands it back to debbie*

AZ

[Patrick]

An answer and a question if you please.

Debbie, I've built about ten computers for clients using the Asus TUSL2-C motherboard. I admit that there was no Marvel in any of these computers, but they were made for video capturing and editing using Pinnacle Studio DV 7. These computers have all been very stable and I would highly recommend this motherboard for use with a P3 or Celeron.

If I can ask a question in this thread on a related topic - I'm building a computer for a client to use with Pinnacle Studio Version 8 and I've decided to use an AMD Athlon chip for the first time. I've seen the ECS K7S5A motherboard recommended here, but is anyone familiar with the Asus A7S333 motherboard? I'm surprised how reasonably priced it is in comparison to other Asus boards. Can anyone here recommend (or criticize) this motherboard?

[K6-III]

If you're looking for some comments on the A7S333, check out the Asus forum at www.ocworkbench.com

[Patrick]

Thanks K6

Hmmm.... the first few posts I've read regarding the Asus A7S333 board at the forum there are not too inspiring.

[K6-III]

My use of the board has shown the bios to be buggy and the performance uninspiring......but the board is very stable.

I'd be choosing between the MSI 745 Ultra and the Aopen AK75 at this time.