Author Topic: Motherboards (Read 12511 times)

Sukaeto · « **on:** 2001-10-29 01:20:00 »

Well, I've got a 512 Meg stick of DDR RAM here that I want to use, so it's time to buy a new motherboard.

I'm stuck between two particular boards. Both have pretty much the same features, use the same Chipset and so on.

The first board is the A-Bit KG-7. I already have an A-Bit board that I like, and I've only heard good things about the KG-7.

The second board is the EPoX EP-8KHA+. I hadn't heard of EPoX untill lately, but lots of people are saying good things about their boards . . . and they are a bit less expensive than A-Bit's (Though I've learned saving money isn't always the best in the long run with Motherboards.)

So I figured I'd ask the opinions of any one on this board who has an A-Bit or EPoX board (or has worked with either.)

Thanks in advance for any input

Sephiroth 3D · « **Reply #1 on:** 2001-10-29 03:49:00 »

Personally, I'd go with an Iwill board. I've never had a problem with them.

If Iwill isn't an option for you, I'd go a Abit. Again, little-to-no problems with it.

Sephiroth 3D

"One who seeks knowledge from another person, doesn't learn half as much as the one who seeks knowledge for himself." - Vincent Valentine, The Sephiroth Chronicals, Book 1: Resurrection

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Reznor007 · « **Reply #2 on:** 2001-10-29 04:23:00 »

I'd say go for the Epox board. Most of their newer boards have a display panel on them that tells you about any errors/problems instead of the standard beep codes. I use an Epox 8KTA3 right now, and it's great. It fixed an issue I had with an Abit board as well.

Darkness · « **Reply #3 on:** 2001-10-29 21:12:00 »

ABit. they make some damn nice boards.

Sukaeto · « **Reply #4 on:** 2001-10-31 02:47:00 »

Well, I placed the order for my EPoX EP-8KHA+ this afternoon.

I decided on that board for several reasons:

1. It's less than the A-Bit
2. It's on AMDs reccommended Motherboard list
3. Every review I've read on it was good. One of the things they pretty much all said was it was very stable. (which is the most important thing to me.)
4. EPoX's Web site (from what I've seen) has lots of information, including a good Knowledge base. It seems like it's a technician's dream.

Skillster/RedSarg99 · « **Reply #5 on:** 2001-10-31 08:41:00 »

how much r u paying for it>
and yea Epox are highly regarded as an up and coming MoBo name.

Sukaeto · « **Reply #6 on:** 2001-11-01 02:07:00 »

It was $131 (U.S), plus the shipping (which was eleven something.)

---Edit---

and that was off of motherboards.com.
[edited] 76 2001-11-01 03:07

Sukaeto · « **Reply #7 on:** 2001-11-13 03:08:00 »

Well. I've got the motherboard. Everything went well with the installation (except the fact that I had the HDD and Power LED connected backward . . . DUH!) The Documentation that came with the board is very good (even with the occasional Engrish - "Not if you hit on keyboard or click to the mouse"). I like the LED error code system, seems like it will come in handy.

I ended up having to 'repair' (basically, reinstall over top) Win2K. It would get to the point where the Windows 2000 splash screen should appear, and restart. Other than that I didn't have any issues using the board for the first night.

I flashed the BIOS with the latest update, and installed the latest VIA 4in1 chipset drivers today.

So far, everything's running good. I haven't noticed any speed increase on ePSXe or Project64, but ZSNES runs faster with Super 2xSai turned on (before I had to run regular 2xSai.)

Soldier of Fortune, which used to run slightly choppy, now runs extremely smooth. I'm HOPING the FF8 World map runs smooth now (didn't get a chance to test it out yet.)

I guess it'll take a few weeks/months to really be able to rate the board's stability, but so far so good. Everythings lived up to it's expectations so far.

(Only quirky issues I have- I can't seem to get the on board sound chip, which is basically for backward compatibility with DOS games, to play through my SBLive! This is probably something I'm doing wrong, as I have no real idea how to connect 2 sound cards. I always assumed you hooked them together with a CD-audio cable through their Auxilary connectors. Also, the board doesn't seem to have an Auto-power off. Win2K just goes to the "It is now safe to turn your computer off" screen.)

J* H***** · « **Reply #8 on:** 2001-11-13 05:03:00 »

Message!

Sukaeto · « **Reply #9 on:** 2001-11-20 03:31:00 »

(dammit! just missed the backup . . . oh well, I'll post it again.)

Quote

Simplest way of connecting two cards is connecting cable from first card's line out to second's line in. And from that card's line out to your stereos.

hmm . . . thanks! (now why didn't I think of that?)

Quote

Is ACPI turned on in the BIOS? W2K needs that to shut down properly.

That's what I was thinking, too, but ACPI is enabled.

---not part of the original post---

Well, the shutdown thing is an issue with Win2K. Win98 shuts the machine off. I'm looking into what could be causing this.

Goku7 · « **Reply #10 on:** 2001-11-20 04:32:00 »

uh, the onboard sound chip may not even be processing anything.

If your using an SBLive! (or any sound card that's not built in), on a motherboard equipped with onboard sound, then that normally means the onboard chip is disabled in the BIOS. Make sure you can have it enabled without it conflicting with the SB Live! before you start connecting them together with those line out cables.

Reznor007 · « **Reply #11 on:** 2001-11-22 02:59:00 »

Dual soundcards is bad. Just disable the onboard sound in the BIOS. That's what I did.

J* H***** · « **Reply #12 on:** 2001-11-22 03:22:00 »

Message!

Goku7 · « **Reply #13 on:** 2001-11-22 04:08:00 »

Dual Sound Cards isn't necessarily bad. I'm currently running both a SoundBlaster AWE64 and my Maxi Sound Fortissimo on the same machine. Both are stand-alone cards, and the only thing that conflicted was the joystick port. I wound up disabling the Fortissimo's joystick port because it always "forgot" the joystick's calibration each time windows started up.
[edited] 239 2001-11-22 05:10

J* H***** · « **Reply #14 on:** 2001-11-22 06:00:00 »

Message!

Sukaeto · « **Reply #15 on:** 2001-11-26 04:51:00 »

Hmm . . . sounds like something I'm just gonna live with until I get my new hard drive (which'll be sometime in the next few months.) I hate re-formatting and re-installing everything, if you can't tell. It's just such a long, drawn out process.

Goku7 · « **Reply #16 on:** 2001-11-28 01:02:00 »

Well, we've all needed to do that at least once in our experiences with using computers, right?

Why don't you try this to speed up future hard-drive replacements:

After you've installed the OS on the drive (and just the OS) you should use a program like Norton Ghost to "burn" a copy of the fresh install onto a CD. Then, (assuming the case is that your OS is Windows 9X/2k/XP), you can skip the whole hour-long install and recopy the whole OS to the new or reformatted drive, so then all you have to do is do driver installs and such.

It's not much of a speed up, but at least you can skip waiting for Windows to finish up its install.

(Start's whistling the "Jepordy" theme song.....)

[edited] 239 2001-11-28 02:03

Sukaeto · « **Reply #17 on:** 2001-11-28 03:15:00 »

Well, Ghost came with my new motherboard, so I am planning on making an image of my hard drive once I get the new one. That way I'll always have a good ghost of a clean, freshly installed system. (I'll just have to back up my files the old way. Not a big deal.)

Goku7 · « **Reply #18 on:** 2001-11-28 04:54:00 »

That was exactly what I was saying. Do that.

BDA7DD · « **Reply #19 on:** 2001-11-29 22:51:00 »

You've made a wise choice with the EPoX! They make some damn good boards, and I'm gonna get the 8KHA+ for my new PC later on once I get enough money to buy all the parts for it.

Quote

On 2001-11-12 23:08, TiadaghtonDude wrote:
I ended up having to 'repair' (basically, reinstall over top) Win2K. It would get to the point where the Windows 2000 splash screen should appear, and restart. Other than that I didn't have any issues using the board for the first night.

It's always best to just do a format and reinstall when changing your mobo. Using the HD without a clean format can lead to some problems.

Quote

On 2001-11-12 23:08, TiadaghtonDude wrote:
So far, everything's running good. I haven't noticed any speed increase on ePSXe or Project64, but ZSNES runs faster with Super 2xSai turned on (before I had to run regular 2xSai.)

Soldier of Fortune, which used to run slightly choppy, now runs extremely smooth. I'm HOPING the FF8 World map runs smooth now (didn't get a chance to test it out yet.)

That's kind of strange that you got a speed increase in your graphics, seeing as the bottleneck for graphics performance these days is the video card. Unless you've got an AGP 4Ã— video card and your old mobo only supported AGP 2Ã—, then that would be a different story.

Quote

On 2001-11-12 23:08, TiadaghtonDude wrote:
Only quirky issues I have- I can't seem to get the on board sound chip, which is basically for backward compatibility with DOS games, to play through my SBLive! This is probably something I'm doing wrong, as I have no real idea how to connect 2 sound cards. I always assumed you hooked them together with a CD-audio cable through their Auxilary connectors. Also, the board doesn't seem to have an Auto-power off. Win2K just goes to the "It is now safe to turn your computer off" screen.

Don't disable any of the sound (either in the BIOS or device manager), there's a better way to do it. Get a Male-Male audio cable (I'm assuming your sound cards use 3.3mm jacks) and connect the Speaker Out of the not-so-good card to the Line In port on the good card. Go into your volume properties and make sure that Line In isn't muted on your good card.

Then go into the audio properties, choose the good card from the drop down menus (for recording and for playback), but make sure that "Use Only Preferred Devices" is DISABLED. If it's enabled, the other card can't do anything. Last but not least, test everything out and make sure your volume settings are set properly (you don't want it to be too loud.)

Quote

On 2001-11-27 23:15, TiadaghtonDude wrote:
Ghost came with my new motherboard, so I am planning on making an image of my hard drive once I get the new one. That way I'll always have a good ghost of a clean, freshly installed system. (I'll just have to back up my files the old way. Not a big deal.)

Ghost > God. Definitely ghost your HD, you wouldn't believe how many times it's came in handy for me. When you ghost your HD, what you gotta do is first format your HD, then install the OSes you want. Install your games, Internet Explorer, service packs and critical updates, etc., but don't install any drivers for your hardware. Instead, use SysPrep for the drivers, and put that into your ghost image. Remember: Ghost for software, SysPrep for hardware.
[edited] 269 2001-11-29 23:56

Sukaeto · « **Reply #20 on:** 2001-11-30 02:36:00 »

Quote

On 2001-11-29 18:51, Implicit Distrust wrote:
You've made a wise choice with the EPoX! They make some damn good boards, and I'm gonna get the 8KHA+ for my new PC later on once I get enough money to buy all the parts for it.

I know. I'm the one who recommended it to you over at FFA.

Quote

On 2001-11-29 18:51, Implicit Distrust wrote:
It's always best to just do a format and reinstall when changing your mobo. Using the HD without a clean format can lead to some problems.

I know that. I'm lazy.

Quote

On 2001-11-29 18:51, Implicit Distrust wrote:
That's kind of strange that you got a speed increase in your graphics, seeing as the bottleneck for graphics performance these days is the video card. Unless you've got an AGP 4Ã— video card and your old mobo only supported AGP 2Ã—, then that would be a different story.

My old mobo was an AGP 4x. DDR RAMs some great stuff.

Quote

On 2001-11-29 18:51, Implicit Distrust wrote:
Don't disable any of the sound (either in the BIOS or device manager), there's a better way to do it. Get a Male-Male audio cable (I'm assuming your sound cards use 3.3mm jacks) and connect the Speaker Out of the not-so-good card to the Line In port on the good card. Go into your volume properties and make sure that Line In isn't muted on your good card.

Then go into the audio properties, choose the good card from the drop down menus (for recording and for playback), but make sure that "Use Only Preferred Devices" is DISABLED. If it's enabled, the other card can't do anything. Last but not least, test everything out and make sure your volume settings are set properly (you don't want it to be too loud.)

Well, I wasn't gonna disable it in the first place. Jari already came up with the idea of using a 1/8" to 1/8" audio cable to connect the two together . . . but thanks anyway . . .

Quote

On 2001-11-29 18:51, Implicit Distrust wrote:
Ghost > God. Definitely ghost your HD, you wouldn't believe how many times it's came in handy for me. When you ghost your HD, what you gotta do is first format your HD, then install the OSes you want. Install your games, Internet Explorer, service packs and critical updates, etc., but don't install any drivers for your hardware. Instead, use SysPrep for the drivers, and put that into your ghost image. Remember: Ghost for software, SysPrep for hardware.

Heh heh . . . I know all about the wonders of ghost. It's especially good when you have a network full of computers with the same hardware.

BDA7DD · « **Reply #21 on:** 2001-11-30 15:47:00 »

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On 2001-11-29 22:36, TiadaghtonDude wrote:
I know. I'm the one who recommended it to you over at FFA.

Hunh? You're at FFAlpha? You must be using another username... wait, I just noticed some guy named Orlandu who suggested it... his sig is "404 - Sig Not Found"... now I get it! You and Orlandu are one in the same!

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On 2001-11-29 22:36, TiadaghtonDude wrote:
My old mobo was an AGP 4x. DDR RAMs some great stuff.

Oh, that explains it

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On 2001-11-29 22:36, TiadaghtonDude wrote:
Heh heh . . . I know all about the wonders of ghost. It's especially good when you have a network full of computers with the same hardware.

You probably already know this, but if you've got a WindowsNT/2000/XP machine Ghosted, make sure you use Ghostwalker to regenerate the SID. Otherwise, those computers can be detected as illegal copies.

Threesixty · « **Reply #22 on:** 2001-12-01 00:10:00 »

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On 2001-11-29 22:36, TiadaghtonDude wrote:
I know. I'm the one who recommended it to you over at FFA.

And If I recall....I told you about the Epox at the Eidos' board....

And now, I'm saying the Dragon is the better board.....

Sukaeto · « **Reply #23 on:** 2001-12-02 04:01:00 »

Dry Ice: Yeah, I'm Orlandu at FFA. (Also, I do know about the SID number in NT. Those boxes we used ghost on were all '98 boxes.)

I've heard that having two identical SIDs on the same network can cause conflicts between the two machines.

Threesixty: Was it you who told me about EPoX boards? I thought it was Vakusuma, but I might not be remembering correctly.

Threesixty · « **Reply #24 on:** 2001-12-14 23:01:00 »

Oh I dont' know....I know I told someone

And a very long time ago.....months ago.

If you don't mind the price the Dragon is the way to go.
If your looking to save 40 dollars, go with the Epox.

.....oops.....guess you already got one. LOL.

[edited] 65 2001-12-15 01:17

Author Topic: Motherboards (Read 12511 times)

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