BYE my friend, goodbye

[Neo]

Well it appears to be a serious deal now. The t-bird is just not what she used to be.
At least not the motherboard anyhow.
MY a7v133 is really starting to get flakey since the overheating happened. i have tried on 3 different hard drives and still get the same thing. Wont find agp video card, and sound card.
I'm getting nervous now cause it could get expensive for a new board, plus i got to pick one that can handle the lower bus for the 1.2 i have now.
So far im looking at the soyo dragon, and a tyan tigerMP, but have made no decision as of yet. I am spending some time out at amdzone.com and looking at theyre reviews.
If anyones got an idea let me know.....

 

[Gonzo]

*bows head in remeberance of the stories about & the excitement from getting the T-bird-goodbye NEOs friend*

 

[Neo]

Here are the specs on the dragon:

DESCRIPTION

200/266MHz System Interface Speed AMD Socket-A based VIA KT266 ATX Motherboard
DDR SDRAM

RAID controller on board

Audio on board, with 6-chanel Hardware Audio

Graphic, Universal AGP Pro slot

Overclocking, setup FSB by 1MHz increment

Network, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet

PROCESSOR

Supports AMD Socket-A type Processor

Including Duron & Athlon CPUs (1.5 GHz ready)


CHIPSET

VIA KT-266(8366/8233) chipsets

Support 200/266 MHz FSB

SYSTEM MEMORY

Three 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2.5V DIMM sockets Support up to 3GB

EXPANSION SLOTS

Five 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (V2.2 compliant)

One Universal AGP Pro slot (support 1x/2x/4x mode)

On Board Audio Subsystem

On board CMI 8738 Audio chip to provide 6 channels audio solution

Supports optical output & SPDIF output

On Board Ultra I/O CHIP

Two RS-232 Serial Ports (16550 UART compatible)

One Parallel Printer Port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode)

One FDD port (supports 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88 MB FDD)

Provides IrDA port with optional cable for transceiver

Provides 6 USB ports (2 rear, 4 front)

Ultra DMA IDE Ports

Four independent channels for eight IDE devices (two for Raid)

Supports up to PIO mode 5 & UDMA 33/66/100

Two PCI bus mastering ATA E-IDE ports

Boot-Block Flash BIOS

Award PCI BIOS with ACPI function

Supports multiple-boot from E-IDE/SCSI/CD-ROM/FDD LS120/ZIP

2M byte Flash ROM

Board Dimensions

Four Layer PCB, 30.5cm x 23cm(12" x 9.05")

ATX form factor

Enhanced PC Health Monitoring

On-board voltage monitors for +3.3, +5V, +12V, Vcore,(TBD)

CPU fan speed monitor (TBD)

CPU temperature monitoring through flexible thermal sensor (TBD)

DOUBLE STACK BACK-PANEL I/O CONNECTORS

PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports

2 USB ports

One RJ45 connector

Two D-Sub 9-pin male serial port

One D-Sub 25-pin female printer port

Audio I/O: LINE-OUT x1, LINE-IN x1, MIC JACK x1

One Game port

FCC CLASS B AND CE EMI REGULATION COMPLIANT



PC 99 COMPLIANT

The one proble i see already is that i will have to invest in ddr also, This isnt gonna be easy i fear...

 

[fury]

Abit KT7a

'Nuff said.

No need to invest in DDR memory, the board has BIOS settable bus settings (so you can change it if for some reason it tries to use 133), and there's an autoshut down on CPU fan Off feature, which I've found handy

When the CPU fan stops spinning even for a fraction of a second, the motherboard stops the CPU by shutting the power down immediately.

Only problem is that this feature only works with CPU fans that connect to the motherboard header. You can't do this with one that connects through a power supply cable (unless, of course, you tape the rotational meter wire to the respective pin on the fan header on the mobo)

 

[fury]

AND GET BETTER COOLING ON THAT THING!

 

[Neo]

OK, OK better cooling...
But ddr is gonna happen and if i gotta get a new board why not get something a little more on the edge. DDR isnt anymore expensive than pc133 at this point. i am also looking at the iwill kk266 plus. Seems like a very nice board.
I also looked at the newer tyan dual amd board. pretty sweet but no pricing as of yet.

 

[fury]

if you must get a DDR board, wait for one with the KT266A chipset

It will r0x0r y0r b0x0rz

 

[Neo]

how is this for cooling?

 

[fury]

hmm... you can give it a try but I'm not really sure how effective it would be with the air flows from the two fans pushing against each other