Need advice on a new motherboard

Tuesday, November 11, 2003 by kona0197 | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk

I am curently running a 733 mhz Pentium 3 processor. I just invested a good chunck of change on a stick of 128 mb SDRAM for this Dell Optiplex of mine bringing my total to 192 mb system memory.
I do not wish to upgrade my mobo to a new P4 or Athlon setup until this P3 goes bad.
So since I can not transplant my dell mobo (damn riser cards and propriatary hardware) my question is this:

What would you recommend for a new socket 370 mobo? I need UDMA 100 (or 133), a AGP 4x slot, at least 2 PCI slots, and support for PC-100 SDRAM. And I need brand new, never used, in the box.

Any ideas? I found a few nice new mobos on ebay, but i would prefer other options.

Thanks in advance.
9 Reply 0 Referrals
IPlural
Reply #1 Tuesday, November 11, 2003 12:01 PM
Asus or Gigabyte...




kona0197
Reply #2 Tuesday, November 11, 2003 12:06 PM
yes IP but where can i go to get a brand new Mobo? My local computer shop does not carry any socket 370 boards.

Leo the Lion
Reply #3 Tuesday, November 11, 2003 12:56 PM
Kona........you are a fan of ebay i believe.......can't you get one there. I know you are looking for a boxed one but surely they are going to be difficult to find as most manufacturers have stopped making them so a used one on ebay would surely be a better option and a lot cheaper
[Message Edited]

Leo the Lion
Reply #4 Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:07 PM
Kona......here you go......there's hundreds of them. Click the link
http://listings.ebay.com/plistings/list/all/category42004/index.html?from=R12



IPlural
Reply #5 Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:34 PM
ohhh, sorry Terry I thought you were asking preferences.


BizRate.com Gigabyte 370 mom board priced lowest to highest...
http://www.bizrate.com/buy/products.xpml?cat_id=419&keyword=gigabyte+socket+370&lp=2&mkt_id=11411287&rf=fsa&url_id=362605

BixRate.com ASUS 370
http://www.bizrate.com/buy/products__search_box--1,keyword--asus+socket+370,cat_id--419,ir--733.html

ASUS Socket 370 TUSL2
ATX - Intel 815E B0 - Celeron, Pentium 3 $89.00

Datum from the US-ASUS website on that mother board above..
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=TUSL2&langs=09

IPlural
Reply #6 Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:36 PM
Personally I rather have an ASUS in my box over anything else, because Bang for Buck
out reachs all the others in my opinion...

I've yet to have a problem with one or a Gigabyte for that matter, but I still like ASUS more
because of the expansion abilities built into it from the start.

kona0197
Reply #7 Wednesday, November 12, 2003 12:35 AM
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3529384

thoughts?

kona0197
Reply #8 Wednesday, November 12, 2003 12:44 AM
http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_m_spec.jsp?motherboardId=81

there is the specs

IPlural
Reply #9 Wednesday, November 12, 2003 4:54 AM
looked up the prices to see what the ASUS and the VIA look like side by side?

VIA has little to no room for expansion at all with having only 1 PCI slot
you can add a Serial or ULTRA IDE interface, but if your video blows you either
get a new mom board, or pull the drives and pop in a PCI video card. 1 stick of
512 or 1 gig ram is fine unless the socket gets flaky.

I know you have the same thing with the video in an AGP slot, if it goes kerplunk
you are stuck with a PCI vid card and if the #1 ram socket says suckit you have end up
one slot short of booting.

Thing is, all on board mother boards had some serious issues for years and I learned
to dislike them out of hand...

You should check on some sites with write ups on that or similar VIA mom boards to see
if there was any issues 13 months down the road or not.

Thing is, if the price is right and your not to worried that something simple fizzing
will dink your system, it could be what you want.

me, no... Not because of performance or anything, but proven stability and MTFR in the
past for all in one motherboards scares me frankly

Here is a VIA with a little room to expand and or recover priced at $88.00
http://www.motherboards.com/product_info.php?products_id=21132&

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