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Ecs?

Descent

Descent

Hella Constipated
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I want everyone's opinion here on ECS.

My dual CPU board fucked out, and I need to use a temp board for a few weeks.

ECS sells the cheapest non-Via solution out there, so I want to get that. I have heard good/bad things about these guys, so I want facts here, try to lay off opinion-only reviews. Opinions are find, just don't slather them on.

I am a HUGE fan of SiS chipsets, so this is perfect for me. My old ASRock has a SiS 748 in it, but the board is alas, dead.

Please help me :(.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-135-153&depa=1
 
bnccoder

bnccoder

Postaholic
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I had a board go out that blew the CPU when it did. The CPU looked fine but killed every board i put it in after that. Are you sure you want to risk it for that processer? Also, that has a low FSB if you are going to upgrade the processer and be sure to get a lot of memory if you are planning on useing the onboard video because it tends to bog it down.Forgot to put that I've had 3 of the ECS boards die on me and the one that fried the processer was one of them.
 
Descent

Descent

Hella Constipated
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What model of boards were these? I'm starting to think I should buy another ASRock...

The ECS OC's better, though.

This is just going to be a temp. board, I don't really care about it's features.
 
Descent

Descent

Hella Constipated
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The Chaintech has been ordered, and soon I will have a good PC again :D.

Anyone here a huge fan of nVidia chipsets? I've experienced them, but never personally used them. My bro has an Asus A7NXE-Deluxe that is to die for.
 
BRiT

BRiT

CRaZY
Founder
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Currently, the best AMD Socket-A chipset out there is the nForce-2 ultra, preferably one with the integrated SoundStorm audio solution. It works wonders when using optical out and connected to a dolby-digital receiver.

For the A64 cpu, the best chipset to use is the soon-to arrive ATI 'bullhead' chipset. It overclocks like mad and has some insane performance. Next up is the Nvidia nForce-4 series.

I hear the VIA A64 chipset isn't too bad. It's a shame their Socket-A series sucks. However given the choice between the evils of VIA or SIS, I'd wholeheartedly choose VIA, no questions asked.
 
Descent

Descent

Hella Constipated
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Why would you choose Via? SiS is infinitely more stable. I can tell you this from personal experience.

I had a Via KT266A chipset. It's high PCI latency caused me to throw out a working SB Live! card. I thought the card was dead, but it just hated that POS.

On top of that, I had excessive program crashes/slowdowns. I had good parts in there too, AMD 2000+ Palomino, Gainward Ti4200, 640 Crucial RAM, a 40GB Seagate HD, and a Soyo 300w PSU as well as a Soyo mid tower case.

One day, my machine just wouldn't boot. No POSTing. No nothing.

I cleared the CMOS. It saw an AMD Athlon 1.2GHz, just like all those boards do when you first turn them on with a 133MHz FSB chip.


So I set the FSB back up to 133 in the BIOS. Nothing. Wouldn't boot. Reset the CMOS, tried again. Nothing.

The northbridge fucked out on me...

I ran it at 1.2 for about one week before I bought a better mobo.

It was an ASRock K7S8XE+. Killer mobo, performed great, stable as hell...It has a SiS 748 chipset.

All of the problems I had with my Via NEVER even appeared once on that SiS chipset. The only blue screens I ever had were from Creative's drivers (Which suck cock anyway).

Sadly, that board died three days ago :(. I'll try a new CR2032 CMOS battery.

The Via Socket A KT880 is magical. It's an amazing chipset, and is stable, and fast.

BRiT, what do you think about Chaintech? I've heard nothing but good about these guys. Cheap, feature packed, budget boards.

Right now, my machine is running an old K6-2 450 off of a Via MVP3 chipset mobo, the FIC VA-503+. Great board, but the chipset is mediocre.
 
BRiT

BRiT

CRaZY
Founder
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Now a days, SIS isn't a viable choice. They do not have the funding nor resources to produce anything that's competative with the big 3 AMD producers (ATI, Nvidia, VIA).

Does SIS even have any AMD A64 chipsets? I haven't seen ANY reviews on them. They have an issue with coverage and support. The only way they make it into any market is by undercutting everyone-elses' prices. The only people interested in making boards using their chipsets are those who make cheap motherboards using cheap parts of lesser quality. The boards did not last. And now your SIS board died in what, less than 3 months?

Some friends tried out the SIS boards back in the socket-a days. The one had the first board die in a month, and the second board die in 6 months. Another friend had his die in 9 months. Also, when comparing performance, the SIS chipsets were sometimes 10-15% slower. That performance deficit was equivalent to two to three cpu speed-bin differentials, which was worth $400. The only way to get on par-performancewise was to spend an additional $400 on a much beefier cpu, if one even existed. Or you could save the $400 and buy a VIA solution.

As for the KT266a issues, that was at a time when SIS was just emerging with their chipset. The sound-blaster issue on VIAs was fixable using a bios-tweaking program. But at the time when everything was new, the better sound-card to have was based on the Aureal A3D chipset. There were also plenty of initial issues with the SIS chipset. It took them close to 6 months to stabilize it. By that time there was the second revision of the KT266-a/motherboards which resolved most issues the first set had.

The problem you're having is you're buying boards which haven't been produced in nearly 4 years. Instead of hoping on a KT266a chipset board, you could have grabbed a KT880/KT600, or gawd, even the KT400.

I told you before... The SIS boards do not last. Nor do off-name knockoffs like ASRock. If you don't want the hassles of crap equipment, dont buy crap equipment.

You should have picked up an ABIT/Asus (or perhaps a DFI/Chaintec) nForce 2 Ultra board three months ago.
 
H

Hypertron

Asshole of the Year
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Descent said:
Fuck it, I'll buy a Chaintech:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-152-024&depa=1
Click to expand...
thats a pretty nice board, personally i wouldn't get it b/c it is so compact, also did you check out the RAM slots? It only supports 1 gig, come on man i know you can find better than that...suck it up buy an asus. you keep buying offbrand names that neither I nor my bro-in-law, who taught me everything i know, have even heard of. oh and by the way if you havn't noticed your boards keep buring out, ever stop to think that you might be pushing it a little to far? Seriously PM me when you get your new system up and running and ill give ya some good benchmarking software to see if you machine is actually stable. there is no point in OC'in if its just gonna blow out your board, and eventually your CPU, you need to make sure its stable before you get into hard use of it or you're just going to keep blowing out your crap and spend a whole lot more money than you should.
 
Descent

Descent

Hella Constipated
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BRiT said:
Nor do off-name knockoffs like ASRock.
Click to expand...
Um, that's an Asus designed, built and marketed board. It's their value brand.

http://www.techspot.com/story3001.html

I will also NEVER buy a SiS/Via chipset again. I'm sticking with AMD/nVidia.

Hypertron said:
thats a pretty nice board, personally i wouldn't get it b/c it is so compact, also did you check out the RAM slots? It only supports 1 gig, come on man i know you can find better than that...suck it up buy an asus.
Click to expand...
Actually, I have never owned an off-name brand board. That Chaintech supports up to 3GB of RAM (Newegg misprinted, check the product link!).

I have owned a Gigabyte, Soyo, and an ASRock. All three name brands, and all three failed.

I have also heard nothing but good things about Chaintech, and I also just needed a cheap mATX board for an old HP case I have lying around that is 13" tall.

The best board I have ever used is made by FIC. Their VA-503+ is a god. It's stable, fast, and it was the must have Socket 7 overclocking board back in the day, and with good reason. It OC's like a BEAST.

Furthermore, it does everything it advertises, 100%. It's perfect. I would buy another FIC in a heartbeat.

In fact, it's in my machine right now, along with a K6-2 mobile 450 OCed to 500 rock solid, and a TNT2 Pro OCed to 160/166 stable. It also has 96MB of RAM and a crappy 10GB Maxtor HD.

FIC, I salute you.
 
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