Cheap Sockert A Mobo Recommendation [inven] [mhz pentium]
Q: I have a friend who is currently using a computer based on a 200 MHz Pentium with Win95. He uses it to bring Office type work (ie, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, e-mail and surf the Web). He recently developed an IE problem and he is unable to connect to the Internet. I thought it might be a good opportunity for his computer expertise to bring a few notches and get rid of some of the old parts that I do not lie used.
Here be a quick inventory of the items I have:
Antec case
Antec 300 Watt PSU
AMD Duron CPU Master 1800
Cooler cooler
256 MB PC2100 RAM
Optical drives
Floppy drive
Here is what I need to complete its system:
Motherboard
Hard drive
For the motherboard, Im looking for something cheap with integrated video. My boyfriend has no interest in playing games on his computer (he has a console for that). I have identified the following two micro-ATX motherboards and features:
ECS 741GX-M
Biostar M7VIG 400
Does anyone here has any experience with these motherboards? What would you recommend? Both boards have an AGP 4x/8x expansion slot in case he wants to upgrade the graphics in the future. I know that this computer is not much by todays standards, but it will be a big improvement over its wat he is currently running.
Thanks.
Re:im using the ECS 741GX-M and i have to say its not that bad actually. Of course, performance wise, it is way far behing my old broken ASUS A7N8X-LA on nforce2. The performance drop is just because of the SIS 741 chipset which isnt a very powerful one.
I'd say SIS 741=0.67nforce 2
But for general usage, the ECS 741GX-M is fine.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Both the integrated graphics units are about equally outdated DirectX 7 hardware. I'd prefer the VIA graphics unit for its slightly better 2D media capabilities and somewhat more consistent driver quality – although there's not really anything wrong with the current state of affairs at SiS either.
Board vendor wise, I'd prefer ECS.
I was leaning toward the ECS motherboard. It appears to have a slightly better raputation than Biostar. I personnally have mixed results with ECS (one good and one bad), but I am willing to give them another try.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
I'd like to add, if the PSU has been in service for awhile, open it, inspect the capacitors and replace the fan with a same wattage ball bearing unit.
…Galvanized
The 300 Watt PSU has never been used. It originally came with the Antec case, but was removed in favor of a more robust PSU. Now that the case is no longer needed, I put the 300 Watt PSU back.
Thanks.
Re:I'd like to add, if the PSU has been in service for awhile, open it, inspect the capacitors and replace the fan with a same wattage ball bearing unit.
…Galvanized
Re:Both the integrated graphics units are about equally outdated DirectX 7 hardware. I'd prefer the VIA graphics unit for its slightly better 2D media capabilities and somewhat more consistent driver quality – although there's not really anything wrong with the current state of affairs at SiS either.
Board vendor wise, I'd prefer ECS.
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