Mainboard blew - replace with SIS even now?

[Jkun]

In the middle of an important project, my main PC blew its mainboard. Literally - 2 capacitors flipped their lid and started a very convincing impression of a steam engine. At 35 degrees C ambiant, I can't really blame them, I know the feeling...

When shopping through the various online dealers, I noticed that there's very little SIS choice these days. I'm sure most brands still have some SIS based Athlon mainboards, but they're impossible to find. Obviously, with nForce2 boards at such low prices, shopkeepers probably don't think they can sell any SIS boards anymore.

The only ones I could find were the classic ECS K7S5a and 6A, the newer L7S7A2 (SIS746), the Asus SIS745 based board and the Asrock series with SIS746FX (K7S8X) and 748 (K7S8X-E) boards.

The Asus and ECS boards are already pretty old (hopefully, also debugged and stable now), maybe a bit too old - do they support the latest Athlons? Asrock is an unknown newcomer to me, but at least has the latest chipsets. Not to mention 6 PCI slots...

MSI and other big names no longer have one available.

nForce2 boards by the truckload, but I hear these are not recommended because of many IDE driver issues and PCI bandwidth problems.

So, could anyone provide some tips or ideas about alternatives? Go for an oldie (though I'm not that sure about cheapo brand ECS) or go for the new Asrock? Is the SIS748 stable enough to risk it, I hear it's brand new? Any other chipsets or mainboards I may not have heard of?

Thanks!!

J-kun

[Sasq]

from what I've heard the 748 is fine, currently using an MSI746Ultra here.

Works a treat. Id avoid the 5A and 6A (have a 6A here) in terms of latest chips.

the 746 handlles the 166FSB athlons fine. I wouldn't o/c it to 200FSB however.

Dan

[Jkun]

Unfortunately, no MSI SIS boards here (this isn't Japan, where all the latest electronic goodies can be had, unfortunately )

Would you recommend the Asrocks then? Is this a good brand? As reliable as MSI?

Thanks

J-kun

[Sasq]

I could be wrong. but last I check Asrock is a sub-company of ASUS.

I have lots of good reports and non bad as yet.

Dan

edit - I installed an ECS 746 based mobo for someone a few months ago, havn't heard any complaints about it, and he's doing lots of Photoshop type work.

[Jkun]

I did some research on Asrock. Seems they indeed were a startup by Asus, to cover the low cost market. But since then Asus made a U-turn on low cost (releasing low cost boards in the -X series themselves under the Asus label)

And now Asrock is on their own, no more Asus support. So the latest boards, including these SIS boards are Asrock, not Asus design...

Dunno if that is good or bad...

J-kun

[GNEP]

The ECS boards are stable and cheap - perfect to get you back up and running as an interim measure before your next major upgrade (which you were planning anyway, right?). I've used several for friends machines where they just needed stability without being bleeding edge, and had a tight budget. Never any problems. But check your existing Athlon is compatible as Sasq said. http://www.ecs.com.tw/ should tell you.

[Jkun]

I'll take ECS into consideration (reluctantly, my previous experiences with this brand - PII mobo's & K6 - were quite bad), but next major upgrade is a long way off: Athlon64 + Win64 + 64bit software is at least a year away for stable & complete solutions.

Should I go for 746 or 748? What does the 748 do better?

J-kun

[Nowhere]

It supports 200mhz fsb and...that would be all.

[Jkun]

Well, there's this pooha on special memory management, allowing single channel to be as fast as dual channel.

Is this new to the 748? If so I'd be a bit weary... new doesn't always mean better.

J-kun

[wkulecz]

Unless you are also planning to replace your CPU and RAM, I'd just go with whatever is cheapest and get the system back up.

These days you have to think CPU+MB+RAM as a single entity for any serious performance gains

--wally.

[funky-d-munky]

A friend has a self made music studio and was looking for an upgrade on his old system(KT133a) I set him up with a ECS 746 board based system to keep costs down. Couldn't get everything stable.(He has a lot of gear and with so many drivers and patches it was a real chore) His main program is Cubase, a quick call to them and we find out the SiS chipsets are not supported, as well one of his soundcards when patched won't do SiS as well(says so in the driver notes). So off to get a Nforce2 board. I was shocked how cheap they are now and guess what? Perfectly stable. Nvidia has the resources and marketshare to continually tweak their boards and get the 3rd party support.
I think your worries about bandwidth will not translate into realworld performance drops. Go Nforce2. Every major piece of software will work fine.
funky

[Dr Mordrid]

I run Cubase here on a SiS 745 chipset + ECHO GINA24 with no problems.

When I check Steinbergs forum I see all kinds of references to VIA chipsets as troublesome, but only a few about SiS....most all of which had their MB set up as Standard PC instead of APIC (the better option for Win2K and XP), in which case their drives were defaulting to PIO mode. There were even a few that had trouble with the Asus P3B-F/BX440, one of the best MB's available for the PIII's. Problem: the P3B-F didn't support APIC.

What SiS 746 board was he running? There weren't that many by major makers as most were waiting for the SiS 748.

Dr. Modrdid

[Sciascia]

The capacitors blowing is not that uncommon, it is something that has been occurring a lot more often than you would think. Apparently the formual for the electrolytic fluid was leaked (no pun intended) and a lot of manufacturers started using the cheaper caps. Problem was that not all of the formula was stolen and they tend to blow or leak after about 1-2 years of operation. I don't know about al MB manufacturers out there but ABIT and some others will replace them or service them for like $25 if they are over 2 years old. You may want to check into it if a major upgrade is not a great idea at this time.

[funky-d-munky]

It was an Elitetech(ECS)
It may have been a 745 chipset but I believe it was a 746. This was around March so a little hard to remmember.
Tech support was phoned and he was told that that chipset was not supported. And to get the recommended Nforce2. I was shocked as I well know the praise many in this forum give SiS chipsets. I had also used many of the SiS ECS boards to whip-up cheap web/office/gaming systems without any problems.
funky

[KRSESQ]

If you go with the ECS mobos, make sure your power supply is at least 300-350 watts, with many users recommending at least 20A on the 3.3V circuit and 30A on the 5V circuit.

Here is some more detailed info on the subject:

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/ecs/k7s5aguide/psuFAQ2.htm

The K7S5A is a power hog!

Kevin