socket 370 question

[me]

have a dying off brand motherboard at work due to bad cap issue. Need to
replace it. It is older Socket 370

Anyone recommend a Socket 370 ASUS (old technology like found on Ebay) that
is

extremely stable at 6.5 x 133 = P3/ 866 and above
has onboard audio
AGP 2x min
UDMA 33 ok but 66 or 100 better
Later than the VIA 686A chipset that had known USB timing problems
at least 3 PCI and maybe 1 ISA for old modem
low probability of bulging / exploding / bad capacitor problem

I skipped from BX440 past Socket 370 and just don't have a clue which ones
have a good reputation. I tired some old articles on Tom's Hardware but it
was really hard to find them without knowing motherboard names. Also
willing to look at MSI or maybe ABIT but I understand that the Abit Socket
370 were more prone to issues over the bad cap issue than Asus was.

 

[Paul]

have a dying off brand motherboard at work due to bad cap issue. Need to
replace it. It is older Socket 370

Anyone recommend a Socket 370 ASUS (old technology like found on Ebay) that
is

extremely stable at 6.5 x 133 = P3/ 866 and above
has onboard audio
AGP 2x min
UDMA 33 ok but 66 or 100 better
Later than the VIA 686A chipset that had known USB timing problems
at least 3 PCI and maybe 1 ISA for old modem
low probability of bulging / exploding / bad capacitor problem

I skipped from BX440 past Socket 370 and just don't have a clue which ones
have a good reputation. I tired some old articles on Tom's Hardware but it
was really hard to find them without knowing motherboard names. Also
willing to look at MSI or maybe ABIT but I understand that the Abit Socket
370 were more prone to issues over the bad cap issue than Asus was.

First of all, you can have the old motherboard repaired. In
North America, there is "Homey", a regular of the Abit group.
Homey started by repairing the large number of failed Abit
motherboards, but he handles other brands as well. He will replace
the whole set of electrolytics with new ones. I think you can
even buy sets of caps from him, if you want to DIY.

http://motherboardrepair.com/

In Europe, there is "BigBadger". To email him, you need the three
components "Big_Badger" "com" and "btinternet", arranged in a
meaningful way. I don't know if Bigbadger has a web site or not.
If he does, he is pretty quiet about it.

To see how many products are available, start here:

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/asus/mb/sock370/

The 440BX is a good chipset, and with late enough boards, like
say a P3B-F, you'll have a solid platform. Check the manual for
evidence that 133MHz is available for the FSB. Your video card
has to be able to handle 89MHz (2/3rd divider), and most older
GeForce cards can do that. Only the most recent Nvidia and ATI
products are having trouble with this.

Some of the later Intel chipsets, have limits on how much ram can
be installed. While I've had 4x256MB installed in my 440BX
P2B-S, some of the later Intel stuff had a 512MB total RAM limit.
With those products, they could take a 512MB SDRAM DIMM, and then
none of the other slots could be used, because the Northbridge
couldn't handle a total of more than that 512MB.

You already know of some of the potential problems with Via
chipsets. The TUV4X for example, would be a fine choice, but it
has a 686B on it. The 4in1 drivers fix many of the boards that
had problems, but there are no guarantees. There are boards where
no amount of hacking made them stable. Perhaps a TUV4X plus a
PCI IDE card, would give you a capable platform, with room for
lots of RAM.

Stay away from Ali. I had a TUA266, and it was an AGP disaster
area. Might be fine if you own a PCI video card :-(

Don't know anything about the SIS entries in the directory.

Other than that, work your way through the FTP directory, Googling
model numbers until you find a winner. As the manuals are in the
FTP directory, you can download as many as you want, to look at
the pictures and see if they have what you need.

Not many of those will have ISA slots, as I think ISA was dying out
as S370 came along.

Good luck in your search,
Paul

 

[Roy Coorne]

have a dying off brand motherboard at work due to bad cap issue. Need to
replace it. It is older Socket 370

Anyone recommend a Socket 370 ASUS (old technology like found on Ebay) that
is

extremely stable at 6.5 x 133 = P3/ 866 and above
has onboard audio
AGP 2x min
UDMA 33 ok but 66 or 100 better
Later than the VIA 686A chipset that had known USB timing problems
at least 3 PCI and maybe 1 ISA for old modem
low probability of bulging / exploding / bad capacitor problem

I skipped from BX440 past Socket 370 and just don't have a clue which ones
have a good reputation. I tired some old articles on Tom's Hardware but it
was really hard to find them without knowing motherboard names. Also
willing to look at MSI or maybe ABIT but I understand that the Abit Socket
370 were more prone to issues over the bad cap issue than Asus was.

....


To see how many products are available, start here:

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/asus/mb/sock370/

The 440BX is a good chipset, and with late enough boards, like
say a P3B-F, you'll have a solid platform. Check the manual for
evidence that 133MHz is available for the FSB. Your video card
has to be able to handle 89MHz (2/3rd divider), and most older
GeForce cards can do that. Only the most recent Nvidia and ATI
products are having trouble with this.

Some of the later Intel chipsets, have limits on how much ram can
be installed. While I've had 4x256MB installed in my 440BX
P2B-S, some of the later Intel stuff had a 512MB total RAM limit.
With those products, they could take a 512MB SDRAM DIMM, and then
none of the other slots could be used, because the Northbridge
couldn't handle a total of more than that 512MB.[/QUOTE]

....


If 512 MB RAM (PC133) are enough, the ASUS boards CUSL2 and TUSL2 will
fulfill the requirements of the OP.

Roy