Motherboard

[SoBeiT]

Anyone know about a:

VIA Motherboard with IEEE 1394 FireWire, usb 2.0 & 10/100 LAN; 6 ch. Audio, made by ECS. Model # L4VXA2.

It comes with a 2.GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor boxed cpu 533MHz fsb with fan & 3 yr warranty. For $ 189.00

So I have to buy the whole thing. I already asked if I could pay the diff for an upgrade on the M/B. They said NO!

I have till Tuesday when the sale is over.

(yes I have to buy new Ram as my current is rambus and won't match up)

[Orion]

so long as there is enough room for a new video card, network card and sound card.. I'd buy it.

www.liquidclever.com guys have a line on this if you want a bit of comparison. This is more of an office type machine though.

Apex PC-115 Mid Tower Case w/300W Power Supply
Generic Additional Case Cooling Fan
Syntax SV266A KT266A Socket A ATX AC97 LAN
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ Thoroughbred 266FSB CPU/1.67GHz
Athlon XP Fan up to 3000+ XP
Apacer 256MB PC2100 NONECC DDRAM Memory
XFX G4 MX440 8X AGP 64MB DDR w/TV
Aopen CD-956E 56X Internal IDE CD-ROM OEM Drive
1.44MB 3.5" Generic Floppy Drive - Beige
Zonet 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet Realtek Chip w/Wake on LAN
Generic PS2 Optical Wheel Black Mouse
One year BTO Limited Warranty

Parts :$296.00
that's just parts, no setup or intstallation. I kinda own this company, and this price is without our labor costs for installation or shipping.

[Zinia]

Looks like a Fry's ad. Not a bad price.

[tr@xtandn]

Looks like a Fry's ad. Not a bad price.


mmmm Fry's


and sometimes.....damn that Fry's!!!

[SoBeiT]

Need opinions on the motherboard..not the store..d'oh!

[Orion]

Yes, it is a good mobo. like I said, if it has a few expansion slots, I'd buy it.

[SoBeiT]

Thanks Orion.

I got lost in reading about the stuff, I was trying to compare it to my list :D

[Inkswitch]

Only get a P4 motherboard if it has a 875 chipset.

[Creeper]

Ink is correct. VIA is decent for AMD chips (though not as fast as nForce) .. but stick with Intel mobos for Intel procs.

Oh.. and ink sux anyway ;)

[SoBeiT]

I have a problem..Of start up of my computer it "sees" everything but won't read the info on my harddrive.

Whats wrong?

I have XP pro upgrade version.

edited:
Ended up spending way to much money.. :(

here's what I now have:

DFI PS83-BL i865PE
400/533/800 fsb support M/B

Pentium 4 processor 2.40 GHz 533MHz 512KB L2-cache

Memory kingston KVR 333/512 (2)
pc2700 184 pin dimm

a CD-Rom as the ball bearings were rolling around in the old one :(

[Turkish]

I have a problem..Of start up of my computer it "sees" everything but won't read the info on my harddrive.

Whats wrong?

I have XP pro upgrade version.


huh?

a couple simple questions to ask ya.

Is the HDD-0 the first boot device in the BIOS boot sequence?

Are there any CDs or Floppy Disks in any of the drives?

Did you copy the HDD over from another HD?

Is the HDD jumper setting set correctly for Primary Master?

These and other question will be answered in the next following post by
Sobeit.

"STAY TUNED"

[SoBeiT]

1- tried booting from hard drive and didn't read drive. yes was set as first boot.switched to cd rom and still froze.

2- at first no but when switched to cd boot tried using disk that came with mother board. still froze.

3-no

4-yes

[Inkswitch]

Did you install the new motherboard?

If you did, you will need to re-install Windows.

[SoBeiT]

windows XP wants a floppie which doesn't come with an upgrade..imagine that. It won't use the cd that came with it either.

So they are loading ME then if it works let XP "upgrade" itself.

This is all very confusing. I can't imagine buying anything else new and it not wanting to work with older stuff.

Could you see my shoes refusing to be worn with new slacks? :rolleyes: hehe

[Salyavin]

Try this first: go into the BIOS, load the setup defaults, save and exit. Someone may have bought the board, tried to overclock it, and taken it back (Fry's is notorious for putting returns back on the shelf).

Also, are you using a hard disk with Windows already installed on it from your old system? Despite people assuming that it should work and anecdotal evidence, it rarely works properly and Microsoft doesn't support it. New motherboard = new OS install, if you want to avoid a lot of headaches.

When it hangs, does it stop after the BIOS stuff and ask for a boot disk, or does it try to start booting off the hard drive and then freeze?

If it asks for a boot disk, the master boot record on the hard drive may be corrupted. Booting from the XP install CD and selecting repair from the first menu that comes up should fix it.

If it tries booting off the hard disk (the HDD light on the case flashes) but then hangs, try booting into safe mode. Hold down the F8 key just after the BIOS finishes checking memory and finding the hard drives. You may have to try a few times before getting the timing right.

If you can't boot into safe mode, try booting off a CD. The CD that came with the mobo may not be bootable, but the XP install CD should be. Go into the BIOS setup options and change the boot order so that the CD-ROM drive comes before the HD. Check the motherboard manual if you're not sure how to do this.

Cheers,
Salyavin

[SoBeiT]

Sal, what you wrote about freezing is just what happened. It isn't allowing anything to work.

The guy assured us the MB was brand new, never been opened. We should have known when the plate for the back of the computer wasn't there.

They are using a different hard drive now. Mine won't work at all. Seems to be loading now <fingers crossed>

This stuff sucks!!!

[Creeper]

Well, at least the DFI mobos are pretty!!

[Turkish]

can you load into safe-mode?

can you load it into the repair console?

can you use the WinXP CD and load it into the repair console?

[SoBeiT]

He loaded windows ME and got things working. Then he loaded XP pro upgrade. Now everything works.

Just lost a lot of stuff :(

XP is very controlling I feel.

[Paladin]

He loaded windows ME and got things working. Then he loaded XP pro upgrade. Now everything works.

Just lost a lot of stuff :(

XP is very controlling I feel.

Grumble....

I hate to say this, but I'm 90% sure you could have just made a ME boot disk with CD support, booted from that and run the XP setup. That should have reinstalled over the original XP copy. You'd have lost settings and file registrations (maybe not even those), but the data files should have remained.

I've had to reinstall XP twice due to the NTFS going boom. Once I was able to boot from CD, the other I had to dig out a 98 boot disk, but it did work.

[SoBeiT]

That's cause you're smarter than me. I freely admit it too :)

[Turkish]

AWWWW-HELL!

I felt he could have done a Repair-Install and not have lost anything and flushed the old mobo drivers out and had windows xp install new ones.

[Paladin]

That's cause you're smarter than me. I freely admit it too :)

No, I just crash XP more often. :D

Besides, I'd have probably used the occassion to buy a new hard drive and installed XP to that.

[SoBeiT]

Couln't get it to boot for a day and a half. They were pretty tired and ticked off by then.

At least they got it going for me :)

[Creeper]

Amazing how the 98 boot disks still own when everything else fails.

[Zinia]

I think you'll like that DFI mobo. Just got the NForce version.

I hope your troubles have subsided, Sobe.