Motherboard only available at motherboards.com

[Al]

Would it be safe to buy from motherboards.com if it was the last place
on earth that a motherboard was available?

I need a MB that has both SDRAM and DDRAM sockets, but it MUST have a
VIA chipset and 5 PCI slots. There is an MSI model that is available
at motherboards.com only - all of the other stores have replaced the
model that has the VIA KT266 chip with the KT400, and the new board
does not have SDRAM sockets.

The reason I need the VIA chipset is because with the SIS chipset
there are some older Windows programs that display an "out of memory"
error regardless of the amount of memory in the system, so the ECS MB
won't work for me. I would consider the Matsonic at Egghead but it has
been out of stock for quite a while now.

If this is the last source of the board that I want, how much risk is
one taking to buy it from them?

 

[Dave C.]

Would it be safe to buy from motherboards.com if it was the last place
on earth that a motherboard was available?

I need a MB that has both SDRAM and DDRAM sockets, but it MUST have a
VIA chipset and 5 PCI slots. There is an MSI model that is available
at motherboards.com only - all of the other stores have replaced the
model that has the VIA KT266 chip with the KT400, and the new board
does not have SDRAM sockets.

The reason I need the VIA chipset is because with the SIS chipset
there are some older Windows programs that display an "out of memory"
error regardless of the amount of memory in the system, so the ECS MB
won't work for me. I would consider the Matsonic at Egghead but it has
been out of stock for quite a while now.

If this is the last source of the board that I want, how much risk is
one taking to buy it from them?

OK, first go to www.pricewatch.com and run a search for KT266A SDRAM

Then go to www.resellerratings.com and check out the vendor.

I wouldn't take a chance on a store that is so rarely used that it's not
rated at all. -Dave

 

[crucial]

what apps are you running?

 

[Al]

what apps are you running?

The critical one is Aldus Photostyler 2.0. This was a very good
graphics program at the time when Aldus was competing with Adobe.
Although Aldus was purchased by Adobe, not all of the features made it
into Photoshop. Photostyler has a cloning tool which is much more
flexible than the Adobe rubber stamp.

I had bought the ECS K7VTA-Pro board and Photostyler just won't start
up. Memory allocation errors are common with old apps if there is too
much memory in the system, but this happens regardless of the physical
memory amount.

 

[Al]

OK, first go to www.pricewatch.com and run a search for KT266A SDRAM

Then go to www.resellerratings.com and check out the vendor.

I wouldn't take a chance on a store that is so rarely used that it's not
rated at all. -Dave

I found some very old ratings on the store at one site but nothing
recent.

What has happened on the other vendors is that they have the board
listed, [ MSI KT2COMBO-L ] but when you go to the site it has been
replaced by a KT400 model with DDR sockets only. The Matsonic with 5
slots at Newegg is almost identical, but it's been on backorder for
quite a while. They had the MSI COMBO last year, but it seems like
everything has shifted to DDR now. Somehow this one store seems to
have all the remaining MSI COMBOs.

 

[Al]

what apps are you running?

The critical one is Aldus Photostyler 2.0. This was a very good
graphics program at the time when Aldus was competing with Adobe.
Although Aldus was purchased by Adobe, not all of the features made it
into Photoshop. Photostyler has a cloning tool which is much more
flexible than the Adobe rubber stamp.

I had bought the ECS K7S5A PRO board and Photostyler just won't start
up. Memory allocation errors are common with old apps if there is too
much memory in the system, but this happens regardless of the physical
memory amount (128, 256 MB).

 

[Dave]

Would it be safe to buy from motherboards.com if it was the last place
on earth that a motherboard was available?

I need a MB that has both SDRAM and DDRAM sockets, but it MUST have a
VIA chipset and 5 PCI slots. There is an MSI model that is available
at motherboards.com only - all of the other stores have replaced the
model that has the VIA KT266 chip with the KT400, and the new board
does not have SDRAM sockets.

The reason I need the VIA chipset is because with the SIS chipset
there are some older Windows programs that display an "out of memory"
error regardless of the amount of memory in the system, so the ECS MB
won't work for me. I would consider the Matsonic at Egghead but it has
been out of stock for quite a while now.

MSI KT2 Combo (MS-6764), www.msi.com.tw, check for specs.

Dave