KWSN Orbiting Fortress

ohiomike · Prince Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 858 Location: Sometimes

are cheap- and they are worth what you pay for them!
I started powering things up for the winter, and my Phenom 9500 X4 MB is dead.

Powers up for about 2-4 seconds, then shuts down.
* Replaced PS- same.
* Remove ram, video card, NIC card (nothing but CPU & HSF)- that should sit there and beep at me telling me I am missing ram- same.
* Replace PH9500 with back-up CPU (3600 X2)- same.
* Replaced HSF on the outside chance the MB was not seeing the fan- same.

It looks like the board is dead. Now I have a PH 9500 with no home unless I buy another board.

#Microwave

PS- I HATE patch Tuesdays! I generally do updates on all machines (Windoze and Linux) and then back them up. With 14 machines (13 now), that takes a while..
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Sir Papa Smurph · Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject:

I have a couple of EGS boards and they have performed just fine for me....

I have the Black Series GF 8200A boards running a couple of 5000 Black dual cores. No problems at all.

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ohiomike · Prince Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 858 Location: Sometimes

This one is bricked (A770M-A, discontinued):

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Sir Papa Smurph · Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 3:16 pm Post subject:

I never buy micro boards.... only full size
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a.k.a. Licentious of Borg.........Resistance Really is Futile.......
and a Really Hoopy Frood who always knows where his Towel is...

Sir Furry Mark · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:07 am Post subject:

I haven't touched ECS since I had to eBay nearly thirty RC410L motherboards (the 800-M2 model) after discovering that they occasionally (once every few hours) inverted the bits in the top byte of data when doing 32 bit block memory reads... Shocked

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stooper101 · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:10 pm Post subject:

So with Elite getting bad reports, what's another good budget board? I'm saving my pennies for next year to possibly build a budget minded PC. Probably looking the AM3 route again.

And Papa: is there a big issue with micro ATX boards or do you just like the extra size/slots?
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Sir Papa Smurph · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:30 pm Post subject:

I just don't see any reason to buy a micro board.... I kinda think of them like compact cars, = Junk.

But I have no real reason to believe that is true

I have built at least 4 machines with Ecs boards 2 amd and 2 intel. all 4 are still up and running after 1-3 years.... Maybe I am just lucky #ni-1

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a.k.a. Licentious of Borg.........Resistance Really is Futile.......
and a Really Hoopy Frood who always knows where his Towel is...

JerWA · Prince Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 1497 Location: WA, USA

I don't know if this counts as budget, but here's the board I used for my recent X2 550 build:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157139

The as-shipped BIOS didn't recognize the AM3 CPU but was happy to boot it anyways, I got the OS (Win 7) installed no problems, and updated BIOS which now recognizes the CPU. Onboard sound, NIC, etc all works with Win 7 without driver drama.

It's pretty happily running at 100% load and with a healthy overclock (3.1 GHz -> 3.7 GHz with a small voltage tweak), and the RAM I bought profiled itself at 1066 just like it should have.

So, I give this motherboard a good rating. We'll see if it blows up in a year or something hehe. Oh, I got it because it's got two pcix16 slots, and I plan to stuff 2 cards in there sooner or later for crunching. Right now it's running a junky HD3450 (which is running fine though, overclocked a lot, and crunching lol). When/if money permits I'll move my HD4870 in there and stuff a new HD5850 in mine hehe.

PS: I chose this one for other reasons too now that I think about it. It's got the SATA connectors away from the video cards, rather than under them (with long cards they would be impossible to get to). That was my requirement, 2 PCIx16 slots, and SATA ports you can still get to with 2 cards in it.
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ohiomike · Prince Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 858 Location: Sometimes

I've had real good luck with ASRock motherboards lately. Both Intel & AMD
versions can be had for $50-$60.
ASRock K10N78M AM3/AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

and ASRock G31M-S LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

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John Galt 007 · Prince Joined: 31 Dec 2007 Posts: 1206 Location: Wisconsin

JerWA · Prince Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 1497 Location: WA, USA

That's one of the things budget boards don't like. On a related note, the new 1156 socket boards have similar issues. Even the high end boards have the problem, because of a socket manuf they almost all share. Essentially the CPU isn't making full contact with all pins, so it's drawing it's power unevenly from the pins it can contact, which can result in the socket, CPU, and voltage regulators damaging themselves when overclocked/volted. It's bad enough to make me reconsider going 1156 on my next system.
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ohiomike · Prince Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 858 Location: Sometimes

One note on the Elite- I did some checking around, and for some reason they require a crazy amount of current on the +12V rail (30 Amps is recommended). As the PS and my spare both have dual +12 rails, they are "limited" to 18 Amps. The +12 volt reading was real wimpy with either PS. I ordered a PS with a single +12 rail (28 Amps) and I'll try that.
What ever possessed me to buy a Phenom 9950 anyway??
#Microwave

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Sir Papa Smurph · Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:41 am Post subject:

I almost bought a new Deneb 965 last week, it came with a free printer (that I don't need), Now if it came with a free video card that I could Boinc I would have it now.......
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a.k.a. Licentious of Borg.........Resistance Really is Futile.......
and a Really Hoopy Frood who always knows where his Towel is...

florila · Squire Joined: 10 Jan 2010 Posts: 4

How do you shut off the motherboard monitor in the bios? I got a graphics card and I want to connect my computer monitor to the graphics card so I can play games, but it doesn't work. (The monitor doesn't show anything unless it's plugged into the motherboard) so how do you shut off the motherboard monitor in the bios? and also, if I shut it off, do i need to do anything else to make the graphics card one work? or once i've switched it off will it work on the graphics card. 10 points for best answer!
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Sir Papa Smurph · Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:41 am Post subject:

It depends on your bios, but basically you are looking for display = pcix not Onboard....

you will have to search around a bit #ni-1

_________________
a.k.a. Licentious of Borg.........Resistance Really is Futile.......
and a Really Hoopy Frood who always knows where his Towel is...