A64 mobos for $80

[Yousuf Khan]

754-pin Athlon 64 mobos can be had for as little as $80. Based on SiS 755
chipset. This chipset seems to a little pocket rocket, apparently better at
i/o than its rivals. Combine with a $200 A64 3000+, and things are getting
affordable. One of first SIS based mobos is the ECS-755. These SIS chipsets
can allow overclocking of the processor without changing the clock rate of
the PCI or AGP bus; this is similar to Nvidia Nforce 3, but not VIA K8T800.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20031220083826.html

[Stacey]

Yousuf Khan wrote:
754-pin Athlon 64 mobos can be had for as little as $80. Based on SiS 755 chipset. This chipset seems to a little pocket rocket, apparently better at i/o than its rivals.

I've been very happy with the SIS based AMD systems I've built in the past,
no weird problems etc like I had with many of the Via systems. I'd bet
these work great!
--

Stacey

[Yousuf Khan]

"stacey" <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bs3ckh$98lop$2@ID-52908.news.uni-berlin.de... Yousuf Khan wrote: 754-pin Athlon 64 mobos can be had for as little as $80. Based on SiS
755 chipset. This chipset seems to a little pocket rocket, apparently better at i/o than its rivals. I've been very happy with the SIS based AMD systems I've built in the
past, no weird problems etc like I had with many of the Via systems. I'd bet these work great!

Exactly my impression too. VIA sucks!

Yousuf Khan

[Will Dormann]

stacey wrote: Yousuf Khan wrote:754-pin Athlon 64 mobos can be had for as little as $80. Based on SiS 755chipset. This chipset seems to a little pocket rocket, apparently betterat i/o than its rivals. I've been very happy with the SIS based AMD systems I've built in the past, no weird problems etc like I had with many of the Via systems. I'd bet these work great!


I built a MythTV machine using an SIS board, and I'm very impressed with
it. One of the rules of thumb for building such a machine seems to be
"avoid VIA". Timeshifting television seems to put a high load on a
system's PCI / DMA architecture, and VIA boards often cannot cope.

In the early days of the Pentium, SIS boards were a little flakey. But
now, they'd be my top choice.

-WD

[Yousuf Khan]

"Will Dormann" <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:4PlFb.31027$031.9439@fe3.columbus.rr.com... I built a MythTV machine using an SIS board, and I'm very impressed with it. One of the rules of thumb for building such a machine seems to be "avoid VIA". Timeshifting television seems to put a high load on a system's PCI / DMA architecture, and VIA boards often cannot cope.

What's this MythTV thing about?

Yousuf Khan

[Ray]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 18:58:41 GMT, Yousuf Khan <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote: What's this MythTV thing about?

It's Linux based DVR software.

MythTV is bit of a project to set up but the results are IMHO every bit as
good as a TIVO plus there lots of extras such as a music player, movie
player, playback over a network, commercial skipping, manage recordings from
anywhere on the net etc..

http://www.mythtv.org

--
Ray

[KMS]

Yes... I thought that this would be good... and it actually was too good to
be true! Buyers beware!

I did purchase that board couple days ago. Here are my thoughts and
experiences with it:

The retail box did not come with the manual (had to download manual from ecs
web site). Also the driver CD that was supplied with the board was not the
correct one! I had to download the chipset etc. drivers from ecs web site
again...

Second big problem, I do not have an IDE hard disk, but only a SATA disk.
There was no driver floppy disk (needed with windows install) provided.
Also, the ECS nor SIS web sites did not have that driver! I ended up to
search the driver from other manufacturers web sites... and finally found
that from Asrock (ASUS) web site!

OK... at that point I was able to install windows... or so I thought.

During windows2000 install, the computer crashed many times. I had to lower
the speed of my Mushkin PC3500 (216MHz CAS2, 3, 3) ram to 166MHz in the
BIOS. After that I was able to install windows. I also tried another no-name
memory module that runs great with nForce2 board (ABIT NF7-S) at 216MHz
speed with 2,2,2 timings... but no go with the ECS.

Overclocking: The only speed settings that the board booted, were 200, 201,
202 and 203 MHz. I tried almost all the settings all the way to 232 (max. in
the BIOS), but no go. Somewhere around 220 I corrupted the BIOS... and had
to restore that from the bootable floppy. (That is a big plus with that
board that corrupted bios can be restored with bootable floppy disk!)

In the ECS web sites there are links to some newer (revA and revC) BIOSes...
but the actual files have been pulled out. I did find the same bioses
somewhere else, and did try them. They added the cool'n'quiet support, and
also "improve DRAM capability"... the improvement was that the bios disabled
DDR400 (PC3200) setting!!! I ended up to put back the original BIOS.

Finally I get so frustrated that I did go to Fry's and bought the MSI K8T
NEO board... and what a difference! The windows install did go through as
smooth as it could. Also right now I'm running the board at 220MHz FSB and
the memory is running at its rated settings. (Of course the clock speed is
slightly higher than rated...but still runs good!) Everything works very
good!

Tomorrow I'm going to RMA the ECS board back to the vendor. The price was
cheap, about half of the MSI board, but even if the ECS board was free I do
not think I'd use it...

Only consider to use that board if you do not plan to overclock and if you
plan to use PC2700 memory or slower with it... At least until they release a
new BIOS that fixes the problems.



"Yousuf Khan" <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote in
message
news:9uaFb.128573$%TO.12544@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com... 754-pin Athlon 64 mobos can be had for as little as $80. Based on SiS 755 chipset. This chipset seems to a little pocket rocket, apparently better
at i/o than its rivals. Combine with a $200 A64 3000+, and things are getting affordable. One of first SIS based mobos is the ECS-755. These SIS
chipsets can allow overclocking of the processor without changing the clock rate of the PCI or AGP bus; this is similar to Nvidia Nforce 3, but not VIA
K8T800. http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20031220083826.html

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (21 Dec 2003 20:04:22 GMT) it happened Ray <nmos@sonictech.net>
wrote in <slrnbubv66.rjr.nmos@homer.sonictech.net>:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 18:58:41 GMT, Yousuf Khan <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote: What's this MythTV thing about?It's Linux based DVR software.MythTV is bit of a project to set up but the results are IMHO every bit asgood as a TIVO plus there lots of extras such as a music player, movieplayer, playback over a network, commercial skipping, manage recordings fromanywhere on the net etc..http://www.mythtv.org--Ray
may interest you to know I do all that on VIA, need no myth, see
http://www.home.zonnet.nl/panteltje/dvd/
I stream with dvbstream ethernet
I record 4 TV programs at the same time, and time shift watch
old recordings too.
The harddisk light gets a bit busy if more then 4 DTV stuff is happening.
Do the math.
Linux of cause.

[Yousuf Khan]

"KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote in message
news:cxnFb.12507$VB2.22294@attbi_s51... Yes... I thought that this would be good... and it actually was too good
to be true! Buyers beware! I did purchase that board couple days ago. Here are my thoughts and experiences with it:

Well, looks like you had a "learning experience" with it.

Yousuf Khan

[Ray]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 22:41:50 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote: may interest you to know I do all that on VIA, need no myth, see http://www.home.zonnet.nl/panteltje/dvd/

I envy you having programming broadcast in dvb. I'm stuck having my dss
receiver decode the mpeg2 stream to ntsc and then having my pc re-encode it again
.... what a waste and fairly impractical for more than a couple of streams at
a time.
I stream with dvbstream ethernet I record 4 TV programs at the same time, and time shift watch old recordings too.

The nice thing about Myth is that all those features are nicely integrated
and wrapped up in a nice wife friendly gui complete with program guide.
Just push a few buttons on the remote and you've just told it to record "24"
or whatever whenever it plays and Myth's even smart enough NOT to bother
recording the re-runs.

--
Ray

[Spam Me Please]

VIA had a severe problem with high load on the pci bus, but a patch in
linux kernel 2.4.23 has made my via based motherboard usable again
under heavy lead situations. Still I would not buy another via
motherboard.

Whatever
>> "Will" == Will Dormann <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> writes:

Will> stacey wrote: Yousuf Khan wrote: 754-pin Athlon 64 mobos can be had for as little as $80. Based on SiS 755 chipset. This chipset seems to a little pocket rocket, apparently better at i/o than its rivals. I've been very happy with the SIS based AMD systems I've built in the past, no weird problems etc like I had with many of the Via systems. I'd bet these work great!


Will> I built a MythTV machine using an SIS board, and I'm very
Will> impressed with it. One of the rules of thumb for building such
Will> a machine seems to be "avoid VIA". Timeshifting television
Will> seems to put a high load on a system's PCI / DMA architecture,
Will> and VIA boards often cannot cope.

Will> In the early days of the Pentium, SIS boards were a little
Will> flakey. But now, they'd be my top choice.

Will> -WD

[LBJGH]

That is the ECS motherboard with the sis755 chipset right? I've heard good
things about the sis755 for overclocking and locking the AGP.

There is a good article about it here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/sis755.html

I guess I'll be waiting for an Asus mobo with the sis755.

Perhaps you got a dud board... better luck with the RMA.


"Yousuf Khan" <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote in
message news:vypFb.108541$ea%.49912@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com... "KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote in message news:cxnFb.12507$VB2.22294@attbi_s51... Yes... I thought that this would be good... and it actually was too good to be true! Buyers beware! I did purchase that board couple days ago. Here are my thoughts and experiences with it: Well, looks like you had a "learning experience" with it. Yousuf Khan


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.554 / Virus Database: 346 - Release Date: 12/20/2003

[rms]

> Perhaps you got a dud board... better luck with the RMA.

I think this is a generic problem with the ecs board, as other forums
are reporting the same issues.

rms

[The little lost angel]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:38:32 GMT, "KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote:
Tomorrow I'm going to RMA the ECS board back to the vendor. The price wascheap, about half of the MSI board, but even if the ECS board was free I donot think I'd use it...

It sounds like the average ECS/PCChips experience :PPppPp

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me :)
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

[Stacey]

The little lost angel wrote:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:38:32 GMT, "KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote:Tomorrow I'm going to RMA the ECS board back to the vendor. The price wascheap, about half of the MSI board, but even if the ECS board was free Ido not think I'd use it... It sounds like the average ECS/PCChips experience :PPppPp

PCChips?!?! What a POS those are!
--

Stacey

[Yousuf Khan]

"Ray" <nmos@sonictech.net> wrote in message
news:slrnbucesc.rjr.nmos@homer.sonictech.net... The nice thing about Myth is that all those features are nicely integrated and wrapped up in a nice wife friendly gui complete with program guide. Just push a few buttons on the remote and you've just told it to record
"24" or whatever whenever it plays and Myth's even smart enough NOT to bother recording the re-runs.

How does it know whether you're recording a rerun or not?

How does it work with satellite or digital tv boxes?

Yousuf Khan

[Will Dormann]

Yousuf Khan wrote: How does it know whether you're recording a rerun or not?

It downloads the program listing from the internet. If the description
is the same as one already recorded, it skips it. If there's no
description, it records it regardless.

How does it work with satellite or digital tv boxes?

Yeah. With an IR blaster, the machine will relay the channel change
commands to your tv box.


-WD

[Ray]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 06:44:15 GMT, Yousuf Khan <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote: How does it know whether you're recording a rerun or not?

It stores the title, episode, and description of everything it records and
compares them against whatever it is scheduled to record in the future.
How does it work with satellite or digital tv boxes?

It can run an external script for changing channels. If you're lucky as I
was your box has a serial port and the command set is known. Otherwise you
need to build/buy an IR transmitter and use LIRC to change the channels.

--
Ray

[Yousuf Khan]

"Will Dormann" <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:KNDFb.33731$031.28406@fe3.columbus.rr.com... Yousuf Khan wrote: How does it know whether you're recording a rerun or not? It downloads the program listing from the internet. If the description is the same as one already recorded, it skips it. If there's no description, it records it regardless.

There's some programs that don't give episode descriptions, but instead have
a single general series description that it repeats week after week.
How does it work with satellite or digital tv boxes? Yeah. With an IR blaster, the machine will relay the channel change commands to your tv box.

So the MythTV box can control your digital tv box too?

Yousuf Khan

[Yousuf Khan]

"Ray" <nmos@sonictech.net> wrote in message
news:slrnbue6dc.rjr.nmos@homer.sonictech.net... On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 06:44:15 GMT, Yousuf Khan
<removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote: How does it know whether you're recording a rerun or not? It stores the title, episode, and description of everything it records and compares them against whatever it is scheduled to record in the future. How does it work with satellite or digital tv boxes? It can run an external script for changing channels. If you're lucky as I was your box has a serial port and the command set is known. Otherwise
you need to build/buy an IR transmitter and use LIRC to change the channels.

What was your tv box make? We get Scientific Atlantas here from our local
cable company.

Yousuf Khan

[Will Dormann]

Yousuf Khan wrote: There's some programs that don't give episode descriptions, but instead have a single general series description that it repeats week after week.

Not sure how it handles that, actually. I believe if you set it up to
record a particular timeslot every week, for example, it'll always
record the show.


So the MythTV box can control your digital tv box too?

Yup. With an IR blaster, the MythTV box sends the appropriate signal
to your digital tv box. Or, as mentioned in another post, some boxes
have serial ports and that would be the preferred method.


-WD

[Ray]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 18:00:52 GMT, Yousuf Khan <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote: "Ray" <nmos@sonictech.net> wrote in message It can run an external script for changing channels. If you're lucky as I was your box has a serial port and the command set is known. Otherwise you need to build/buy an IR transmitter and use LIRC to change the channels. What was your tv box make? We get Scientific Atlantas here from our local cable company.

It is a Directv receiver, RCA model DRD502RB which I think makes it a
"series 2". I also (temporarly) have a series 5 that has an RJ45 connector
in place of the serial port. Hopefully I can just use an adapter cable and
the commands will be the same but I'm not counting on it.

--
Ray

[KMS]

"Yousuf Khan" <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote in
message news:vypFb.108541$ea%.49912@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com... "KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote in message news:cxnFb.12507$VB2.22294@attbi_s51... Yes... I thought that this would be good... and it actually was too good to be true! Buyers beware! I did purchase that board couple days ago. Here are my thoughts and experiences with it: Well, looks like you had a "learning experience" with it. Yousuf Khan
I agree... that is even written outside the box: "Enriching your PC
experience"... Can't arque with that... ; )

Today I got the RMA number and will send the board back.

[Yousuf Khan]

"KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote in message
news:BG3Gb.184767$_M.840108@attbi_s54... Well, looks like you had a "learning experience" with it. Yousuf Khan I agree... that is even written outside the box: "Enriching your PC experience"... Can't arque with that... ; ) Today I got the RMA number and will send the board back.

Did the thing at least come in a box? :-)

Yousuf Khan

[Tony Hill]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 00:55:57 -0500, stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:The little lost angel wrote: On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:38:32 GMT, "KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote:Tomorrow I'm going to RMA the ECS board back to the vendor. The price wascheap, about half of the MSI board, but even if the ECS board was free Ido not think I'd use it... It sounds like the average ECS/PCChips experience :PPppPp PCChips?!?! What a POS those are!

And guess who manufacture's the bulk of PCChips motherboards? If you
said ECS, you win the prize! (what prize? Why a whole crate full of
RMA'ed ECS/PCChips motherboards that no longer work! :> ).

The quality and quality controller of ECS leaves much to be desired.
Occasionally you can find a winner, but they are very hit and miss,
with most boards being more of a miss. FWIW Asrock (Asus' el-cheapo
division) is supposed to have a similar motherboard to the ECS one and
it should sell for a similar price but hopefully with slightly better
quality.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

[Yousuf Khan]

"Tony Hill" <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:788523f249227db8b64f10d65f13fb85@news.1usenet.com... And guess who manufacture's the bulk of PCChips motherboards? If you said ECS, you win the prize! (what prize? Why a whole crate full of RMA'ed ECS/PCChips motherboards that no longer work! :> ). The quality and quality controller of ECS leaves much to be desired. Occasionally you can find a winner, but they are very hit and miss, with most boards being more of a miss. FWIW Asrock (Asus' el-cheapo division) is supposed to have a similar motherboard to the ECS one and it should sell for a similar price but hopefully with slightly better quality.

Been running an ECS K7S5A for going on three years now. Still solid. My
brother has been running on one for almost two years now.

However, one friend had his for 1.5 years and then all of a sudden one day
it died (I assume capacitor failure). However, this friend has a bad history
of unexplained component failures on his systems. He is an ex-smoker at one
time and I think that has stayed in his carpets and stuff and clog up his
computers.

Yousuf Khan

[George Macdonald]

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 21:45:08 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Tony Hill" <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote in messagenews:788523f249227db8b64f10d65f13fb85@news.1usenet.com... And guess who manufacture's the bulk of PCChips motherboards? If you said ECS, you win the prize! (what prize? Why a whole crate full of RMA'ed ECS/PCChips motherboards that no longer work! :> ). The quality and quality controller of ECS leaves much to be desired. Occasionally you can find a winner, but they are very hit and miss, with most boards being more of a miss. FWIW Asrock (Asus' el-cheapo division) is supposed to have a similar motherboard to the ECS one and it should sell for a similar price but hopefully with slightly better quality.Been running an ECS K7S5A for going on three years now. Still solid. Mybrother has been running on one for almost two years now.However, one friend had his for 1.5 years and then all of a sudden one dayit died (I assume capacitor failure). However, this friend has a bad historyof unexplained component failures on his systems. He is an ex-smoker at onetime and I think that has stayed in his carpets and stuff and clog up hiscomputers.

What, his computers get lung cancer from years old ETS?........ hilarious!

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

[Yousuf Khan]

"George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in message
news:kjkvuvot752apf2bgb4blt6vn3s10td2l6@4ax.com...However, one friend had his for 1.5 years and then all of a sudden one
dayit died (I assume capacitor failure). However, this friend has a bad
historyof unexplained component failures on his systems. He is an ex-smoker at
onetime and I think that has stayed in his carpets and stuff and clog up hiscomputers. What, his computers get lung cancer from years old ETS?........ hilarious!

It's the only explanation I can find for it. When he used to smoke, I'd
constantly show him how clogged up his computers were with that icky brown
stuff, and that this was what was going into his lungs daily. That visual
demonstration wasn't enough to make him quit, but a heart attack finally
did.

Yousuf Khan

[George Macdonald]

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 19:57:40 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<bbbl67.spam@yahoo.com.nospam> wrote:
"George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in messagenews:kjkvuvot752apf2bgb4blt6vn3s10td2l6@4ax.com...However, one friend had his for 1.5 years and then all of a sudden onedayit died (I assume capacitor failure). However, this friend has a badhistoryof unexplained component failures on his systems. He is an ex-smoker atonetime and I think that has stayed in his carpets and stuff and clog up hiscomputers. What, his computers get lung cancer from years old ETS?........ hilarious!It's the only explanation I can find for it.

OK... ummm.... I see.
When he used to smoke, I'dconstantly show him how clogged up his computers were with that icky brownstuff, and that this was what was going into his lungs daily. That visualdemonstration wasn't enough to make him quit, but a heart attack finallydid.

And you think that all that "icky brown stuff" is lurking in his carpets
and furniture and coming out to attack his computer? Wow.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

[Rob Stow]

Yousuf Khan wrote:
"George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in message news:kjkvuvot752apf2bgb4blt6vn3s10td2l6@4ax.com...However, one friend had his for 1.5 years and then all of a sudden one dayit died (I assume capacitor failure). However, this friend has a bad historyof unexplained component failures on his systems. He is an ex-smoker at onetime and I think that has stayed in his carpets and stuff and clog up hiscomputers.What, his computers get lung cancer from years old ETS?........ hilarious!

Most of the dangerous chemicals in tobacco smoke are acids
or solvents. The same stuff that etches those yellow stains
onto a smoker's teeth, in other words. Their corrosive or
solvent properties are as bad for your computer as they are
for your lungs.

When I clean out smokers' computers, not only do those computers
tend to have a lot more dust in them than a non-smoker's computer,
the smokers' dust also usually leaves permanent stains behind.

As well, things that are corrosive are also by nature highly
conductive and easily ionized. All those electrical fields
in your computer encourage ionized (AKA "static charged") smoke
particles to deposit in the worst possible places - so it is
easy to get dust buildups that can cause short circuits. Plus
the smoke dust is typically mixed in with other gunk that makes
it light and fluffy and hence a great thermal insulator.

The reliability of a smoker's computer usually goes up dramatically
when his office is declared a smoke-free zone. In my experience
CRTs are even more susceptible to tobacco smoke than are computers -
and it is usually a *lot* harder to open up a CRT monitor to clean it
out. Come to think of it, the only majore CRT shorts/fires I've
ever had to deal with came either from liquids spilled into the
monitor or a smoker's office.



It's the only explanation I can find for it. When he used to smoke, I'd constantly show him how clogged up his computers were with that icky brown stuff, and that this was what was going into his lungs daily. That visual demonstration wasn't enough to make him quit, but a heart attack finally did.

I've got a friend who is a pathologist. He once showed me and
my girlfriend the lungs of a smoker and the lungs of a non-smoker.
I'd seen photographs before, but the impact of seeing those two bodies
side by side was *huge*. I've never smoked, but my girlfriend
quit cold-turkey right then and there. Amazingly enough, the
pathologist was and still is a heavy smoker.

[Io]

> The quality and quality controller of ECS leaves much to be desired. Occasionally you can find a winner, but they are very hit and miss, with most boards being more of a miss. FWIW Asrock (Asus' el-cheapo division) is supposed to have a similar motherboard to the ECS one and it should sell for a similar price but hopefully with slightly better quality.

I wouldn't count on it. The low-end Asus motherboards are imho 'POS' too, so I
somehow doubt I'd have much confidence in this Asrock.

[Yousuf Khan]

"George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in message
news:g731vv81qnefnpg7hj3lpsiplal6oceu13@4ax.com... And you think that all that "icky brown stuff" is lurking in his carpets and furniture and coming out to attack his computer? Wow.

More like whatever was already coated, remained coated.

Yousuf Khan

[The little lost angel]

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 20:59:44 GMT, Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca>
wrote:
with most boards being more of a miss. FWIW Asrock (Asus' el-cheapodivision) is supposed to have a similar motherboard to the ECS one andit should sell for a similar price but hopefully with slightly betterquality.

What I've heard from some local system builder friends, it ain't much
better :P

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me :)
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

[The little lost angel]

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 21:45:08 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote:
Been running an ECS K7S5A for going on three years now. Still solid. Mybrother has been running on one for almost two years now.

The K7S5A appears to be ECS's best model in recent years I think.

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
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[Yousuf Khan]

"The little lost angel" <a?n?g?e?l@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com> wrote in
message news:3ff138f5.482807510@news.pacific.net.sg... On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 21:45:08 GMT, "Yousuf Khan" <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote:Been running an ECS K7S5A for going on three years now. Still solid. Mybrother has been running on one for almost two years now. The K7S5A appears to be ECS's best model in recent years I think.

I think it may have been because of the single-chip SIS chipset. It really
simplified the design of the motherboard considerably enough that even ECS
couldn't screw it up.

Yousuf Khan

[RusH]

Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote in
news:788523f249227db8b64f10d65f13fb85@news.1usenet.com:
FWIW Asrock (Asus' el-cheapo division) is supposed to have a similar motherboard to the ECS one and it should sell for a similar price but hopefully with slightly better quality.

ASROCK makes theyr motherboards in ECS fabricplaces

--
Like ninjas, true hackers are shrouded in secrecy and mystery.
You may never know -- UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE.

[George Macdonald]

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 15:20:33 -0600, Rob Stow <rob.stow@sasktel.net> wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote: "George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in message news:kjkvuvot752apf2bgb4blt6vn3s10td2l6@4ax.com...>However, one friend had his for 1.5 years and then all of a sudden one day>it died (I assume capacitor failure). However, this friend has a bad history>of unexplained component failures on his systems. He is an ex-smoker at one>time and I think that has stayed in his carpets and stuff and clog up his>computers.What, his computers get lung cancer from years old ETS?........ hilarious!Most of the dangerous chemicals in tobacco smoke are acidsor solvents. The same stuff that etches those yellow stainsonto a smoker's teeth, in other words. Their corrosive orsolvent properties are as bad for your computer as they arefor your lungs.

Etches - BS. Solvent action has nothing to do with it - simple surface
staining which is easily removed from whatever.

If you'd read the post you'd have seen that the guy had stopped smoking and
the suggestion that the deposits which stayed in the carpets were
responsible... apparently since retracted.
When I clean out smokers' computers, not only do those computerstend to have a lot more dust in them than a non-smoker's computer,the smokers' dust also usually leaves permanent stains behind.As well, things that are corrosive are also by nature highlyconductive and easily ionized. All those electrical fieldsin your computer encourage ionized (AKA "static charged") smokeparticles to deposit in the worst possible places - so it iseasy to get dust buildups that can cause short circuits. Plusthe smoke dust is typically mixed in with other gunk that makesit light and fluffy and hence a great thermal insulator.

<shrug> The dust sticks to the tar which sticks to itself. In the home, if
you do any real cooking at all, there's more gunk from air-borne grease and
water vapor borne contaminants. No, I don't see it as another reason to go
vegan.:-)
The reliability of a smoker's computer usually goes up dramaticallywhen his office is declared a smoke-free zone. In my experienceCRTs are even more susceptible to tobacco smoke than are computers -and it is usually a *lot* harder to open up a CRT monitor to clean itout. Come to think of it, the only majore CRT shorts/fires I'veever had to deal with came either from liquids spilled into themonitor or a smoker's office.

Even in the days of smoke-filled offices, though there was undoubtedly more
*apparent* dirt in the computers, I'm not sure it was really any greater in
quantity. It did tend to collect on fan blades and the like but elsewhere
inside the box, I can't say I've ever seen a reliability problem due to
tarry deposits which predated the useful life of the computer or monitor.

Floppy disk drives were particularly prone to R/W-head and other problems
but really... nothing to make a big deal of and as much down to the poor
design of the drives themselves and the PC air system. I've seen more
problems from proximity of a laser printer or Xerox machine though even
there, there seems to be less environmental leakage in recent machines.
Now that *is* very nasty toxic, electrically conductive stuff... which by
its very purpose is designed to bake on to anything it comes into contact
with which gets even mildly warm.

If you have an ink-jet printer which has seen any appreciable use it makes
you wonder what the range and effects of it's pollution amounts to -
everything in it's close environ, including the printer itself, is covered
in ink-jet mist deposits. Ever cleaned out the ink spittoon (HP's own
term) in an HP DeskJet?
It's the only explanation I can find for it. When he used to smoke, I'd constantly show him how clogged up his computers were with that icky brown stuff, and that this was what was going into his lungs daily. That visual demonstration wasn't enough to make him quit, but a heart attack finally did.I've got a friend who is a pathologist. He once showed me andmy girlfriend the lungs of a smoker and the lungs of a non-smoker.I'd seen photographs before, but the impact of seeing those two bodiesside by side was *huge*. I've never smoked, but my girlfriendquit cold-turkey right then and there. Amazingly enough, thepathologist was and still is a heavy smoker.

And so endeth today's lesson!:-)

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

[Wormwood]

I had a horrible experience with an ECS board, in fact, the only time
I ever had to RMA a mainboard, and never used one again.

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:38:32 GMT, "KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote:
Yes... I thought that this would be good... and it actually was too good tobe true! Buyers beware!I did purchase that board couple days ago. Here are my thoughts andexperiences with it:The retail box did not come with the manual (had to download manual from ecsweb site). Also the driver CD that was supplied with the board was not thecorrect one! I had to download the chipset etc. drivers from ecs web siteagain...Second big problem, I do not have an IDE hard disk, but only a SATA disk.There was no driver floppy disk (needed with windows install) provided.Also, the ECS nor SIS web sites did not have that driver! I ended up tosearch the driver from other manufacturers web sites... and finally foundthat from Asrock (ASUS) web site!OK... at that point I was able to install windows... or so I thought.During windows2000 install, the computer crashed many times. I had to lowerthe speed of my Mushkin PC3500 (216MHz CAS2, 3, 3) ram to 166MHz in theBIOS. After that I was able to install windows. I also tried another no-namememory module that runs great with nForce2 board (ABIT NF7-S) at 216MHzspeed with 2,2,2 timings... but no go with the ECS.Overclocking: The only speed settings that the board booted, were 200, 201,202 and 203 MHz. I tried almost all the settings all the way to 232 (max. inthe BIOS), but no go. Somewhere around 220 I corrupted the BIOS... and hadto restore that from the bootable floppy. (That is a big plus with thatboard that corrupted bios can be restored with bootable floppy disk!)In the ECS web sites there are links to some newer (revA and revC) BIOSes...but the actual files have been pulled out. I did find the same biosessomewhere else, and did try them. They added the cool'n'quiet support, andalso "improve DRAM capability"... the improvement was that the bios disabledDDR400 (PC3200) setting!!! I ended up to put back the original BIOS.Finally I get so frustrated that I did go to Fry's and bought the MSI K8TNEO board... and what a difference! The windows install did go through assmooth as it could. Also right now I'm running the board at 220MHz FSB andthe memory is running at its rated settings. (Of course the clock speed isslightly higher than rated...but still runs good!) Everything works verygood!Tomorrow I'm going to RMA the ECS board back to the vendor. The price wascheap, about half of the MSI board, but even if the ECS board was free I donot think I'd use it...Only consider to use that board if you do not plan to overclock and if youplan to use PC2700 memory or slower with it... At least until they release anew BIOS that fixes the problems."Yousuf Khan" <removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam@hotmail.com> wrote inmessagenews:9uaFb.128573$%TO.12544@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com... 754-pin Athlon 64 mobos can be had for as little as $80. Based on SiS 755 chipset. This chipset seems to a little pocket rocket, apparently betterat i/o than its rivals. Combine with a $200 A64 3000+, and things are getting affordable. One of first SIS based mobos is the ECS-755. These SISchipsets can allow overclocking of the processor without changing the clock rate of the PCI or AGP bus; this is similar to Nvidia Nforce 3, but not VIAK8T800. http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20031220083826.html

[steve harris]

Wormwood wrote: I had a horrible experience with an ECS board, in fact, the only time I ever had to RMA a mainboard, and never used one again. On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:38:32 GMT, "KMS" <do.not@spam.me> wrote:

It's not so bad after you get over the fact that ECS lied to you and
ignored your emails and tried to cover it up by changing the webpage and
manuals and advertising after they discovered it wouldn't run DDR400.
Ever wonder why there are no 755A2s yet? Maybe they won't run DDR400
either except for a few cherry picked ones sent to reviewers like the
755A was.

I kept my ECS755A. I wasn't going to waste any more time or money due to
ECS. Newegg was great in their handling of my situation.