1.4 GHZ AMD Socket A: motherboard recommendations?

[Syngin]

I was lucky enough to have an AMD 1.4 GHZ processor given to me and I'm looking for a motherboard for it. ANy recommendations? I'm usually an Abit person but its been a while since I purchased one so I'm 'a bit' out of the loop ;) . I've heard Asus boards contribute to the heat problem in these processors as well?

[Choozo]

I'm also in favour of the Abit boards (even if I had two of them dying on me within a year), and the KT7A-RAID would do nicely (uses the 'old' PC100/133 SDRAM though).

Tried a MSI board once with onboard (useless) Promise 100 RAID controller, which I didn't like. The Promise controller just insisted on setting up a RAID, and would not let me use ATA100 only.

Asus boards are usually great, but they are generally a bit more expensive than the Abit ones.

Anyway, you need a solid heatsink/cooler for the AMDs.

Cheers :)


Woooo ..... my post# 1000 ! :D


[ 29 March 2002: Message edited by: Choozo ]

[sarah31]

The EPoX boards sound nice too but i have seen a feww probs with them in Mandrake---but that may just be mandrake itsself.

the soyo dragon is pretty sweet too :) but is really pricey

[ 29 March 2002: Message edited by: sarah31 ]

[Eclipse]

I'm using the KR7A-133 Raid mobo with a 1700 XP processor. It's faster than my car !
:D

[carlywarly]

ECSK7S5A - cheap and cheerful. I've run several distros on it, great value. DDR and SDRAM compatible.

[Piix4]

[edit]
Abit kt7a.

If you get the ECSK7S5A, get a 350 watt or pay for a good 300 watt psu as that particular mobo needs roughly 282 watts to post, thus most cheap 300 watt psu won't post her.

Piix4

[ 30 March 2002: Message edited by: Piix4 ]

[jlany]

The Epox-8K7A board is a solid board with that chip. See the reviews at 'Tom's Hardware' site. I've used nothing but Epox boards since '95 and have found them to be very solid.

Disregard what Sarah31 has to say. She is quite biased against Mandrake since she was to ignorant to check out whether her hardware was fully compatible and had problems from the start with it. I first started with Mandrake in 1998, using ver 8.2 now, and haven't had any issues with it since day one.

[ASCI Blue]

ASCI Will stand by anything Epox. I've got an 8KTA3 and it just kicks ***. Good overclocking board, and has been reliable. Not only that Epox like AMD gives you a good bang for your buck.

:cool: Epox :cool:
:cool: AMD :cool:

[Syngin]

THanks for the tips people. I also went to Tom's Hardware. THere weren't very many stores in town that have socket A boards so I ended up going with the ECS K7S5A (Elite Group). WHile they don't have a particularly good track record in the past, everyone I've talked to about this board has said that its actually pretty good. Gives me the option of using SDRAM or DDRRAM too (2 slots apiece)

[ 30 March 2002: Message edited by: Syngin ]

[sarah31]

Yeah I don't know much about it's record in Linux I have heard mixed reviews. Overall though it seems mostly positive. Have fun :)

[sarah31]

Originally posted by jlany:
<STRONG>The Epox-8K7A board is a solid board with that chip. See the reviews at 'Tom's Hardware' site. I've used nothing but Epox boards since '95 and have found them to be very solid.

Disregard what Sarah31 has to say. She is quite biased against Mandrake since she was to ignorant to check out whether her hardware was fully compatible and had problems from the start with it. I first started with Mandrake in 1998, using ver 8.2 now, and haven't had any issues with it since day one.</STRONG>

So you know jlany, i removed a very venomous post to this thread. In the future be sure you know someone's history with a distro before you post bold faced lies. For one I do not use any EPoX board. I did however observe a few posts at MUO about the 8KHA and 8KHA+ EPoX boards and some troubles with them.My experience was with another board and chipset that are supposedly supported with MDK. To be sure ever since I started using computers I have always checked to be sure that the software I wish to run is compatable with the hardware I own. I do know for a fact that my board and your board are not on the compatable hardware list at mandrakelinux.com. However, that does not always ensure that the hardware will work or not. If you ever bothered to go through the hardware list at mandrake that is CERTIFIED to run Mandrake you would find it rather small.But again that means nothing as both you and I got Mandrake running with our hardware. MY issues with Mandrake go far beyond simple compatability with hardware and I can find many, many others that both use and used to use Mandrake that would back up most of the claims I would put to it. Please be sure of the facts by verifying them with those involved in the case first before you go full cocked into a gun battle you will lose. The fact is you really have absolutely no clue what I did or didn't do before, during or after my run in with Mandrake. So if we should disregard anyone's comments it should be yours as you chose to straight up lie.

Syngin apologize for that previous post and really do hope you enjoy your new board. In fact you can message me with your reviews as this is one board that I am interested in purchasing in the next few weeks :)

[ 31 March 2002: Message edited by: sarah31 ]

[Timothy L. Miller]

MSI boards rock. So do the SOYO dragon boards. I've used quite a few Epox boards, and while often less well-equipped, they are nicely affordable, and very dependable. I've used ASUS, and I'm not impressed due to their insistance on continuing to use jumpers (yeah, yeah, I know some people like them, I don't, I like jumper free mobos). I've also used ABIT, but I had bad luck with their boards...but my friend has had spectacular success using them. Definitely stay away from DFI though, they are junk.

[Icarus]

I have 2 ASUS boards that work very well (besides not knowing how to correctly tell the CPU temp) and a MSI DDR. The MSI is great, but wouldn't recognize 2 or my 3 vid cards. It's using a Creative Banshee, when I put in a GeForce256 or GeForce2 MX (both AGP pro) it wouldn't boot. I'd still like to know why, it's running a 1.4 Athlon XP :)

[pointreyes]

I tried the Epox 8kha+ and I RMA'ed the mb after a week of problems. The main problem was that my requirements for fans connectors on the board would require the purchase of an external fan connector because the Epox would choke on bios boot-strapping. At first I thought it was my PSU but it was definitely the Epox mb. Replaced it with the Abit KR7A-RAID. Have Linux SuSE 7.3 Professional running on the RAID configuration with two Maxtor UDMA133 D740x 60Gig hddes.

Note: The Abit is one of the few KT266a chipset boards that will accept ECC RAM up to 4Gig or non-ECC RAM to 3Gig. I'm currently running my 1.4Gig Athlon on this board with 1Gig of non-ECC RAM and it rocks. Also, the Abit is a tad faster than most of the other KT266a chipset boards on the market (based on benches). Plus having six USB ports is nice (I constantly have 4USB ports in use and like have the extra two for plugging devices that are not always needed).

[Rickdog]

Avoid the ECS K7VZA. The so-called 133 Mhz fsb will not run and yes, I do have pc 133 ram which runs fine at 100 setting but kills the boot completely at 133 jumper settings. Also the AGP connector is troublesome. It often leaves you with no vga signal at all. It took me a while to figure out why I couldn't light up the screen and del into bios setup.

Also, really, really avoid the ecs sis315 AGP adapter. It has no support for Linux at all that I can find and the support for windows is down to one recent driver. It will not run gaming on my old K6-2/400 even at lowest acceleration and all settings optimized for the old cpu. I tried it there because I dual boot the newer boxes and it will not work with Linux. It will run a word processor or desktop OK and that's about it. Good luck building your linux box.

[ 02 April 2002: Message edited by: Rickdog ]

[TC]

We have a whole lab of Gigabyte AMD's running Debian. We choose Gigabyte for their reliability. ASUS is good also.

That's all I have to say ;)