Motherboards

[Ian]

Re: Bias ?

Originally posted by IanH
One final note, why is it my GeForce-3 Ti200 on the Epox 6VBA board with the latest Via 4-in-1 drivers cannot be used with AGP Fast Write enabled and I have to resort to 2X mode as the Epox refuses to boot otherwise, strange one that.

Did fast writes work with an older version of the VIA drivers? If you set AGP mode to 2X, does your computer actually POST, but not get into windows?

What may be a good idea is to flash your BIOS to the lastest version. Check out http://www.epox.org/bios/ and you will be able to grab the latest version, along with some instructions. There is a big list here with all the things the latest BIOS fixes - and there are a fair few! None seem to directly relate to your problem, but it has a good chance of fixing it! (If you dont know what you are doing with flashing your BIOS, think carefully about it and read through the instructions carefully! (E-Mail me if you need any help with it, or post in the forums)

 

[IanH]

P4 Overclocking

Ian, I will give you the url's tomorrow as im to tired and knackered tonight. But 1 site to check out is www.hexus.net

 

[Ian]

OK, Thanks Ian

I read hexus almost daily, they have some good stuff over there!

 

[IanH]

Hi Ian, Ive scrapped the Epox 6VBA2 board and donated it to the local recycling centre, in the meantime I have re-installed my Abit BE6-II P3 800, until I can afford my P4 upgrade.

This morning, my son's P4 upgrade arrived, (P4 1.6ghz, MSI 645 Ultra and 512mb PC333 DDR, he has over clocked the cpu from 1.6ghz to 2.06ghz with no additional cooling except a front mounted case fan and the cpu is running very stable at 39c and the inside of the ATX tower is very cool.

So it seems that's the way to go, just can't wait for my bank balance to increase so I can afford a P4 upgrade. But my upgrade will be slightly more expensive (Gigabyte 8IRX, 2.2ghz cpu and 512mb PC333 DDR).

Ian

 

[floppybootstomp]

These overclocking developments with Pentiums may make me consider 'The Dark Side'

 

[Ian]

So it seems that's the way to go, just can't wait for my bank balance to increase so I can afford a P4 upgrade. But my upgrade will be slightly more expensive (Gigabyte 8IRX, 2.2ghz cpu and 512mb PC333 DDR).

Very nice You should be able to get a nice overclock there, do keep us informed as to how it performs!

I've never actually had a P4 in my own hands (yet), I'm waiting from Intel to see if they will send a review sample. If I manage to get one, I'm tempted to try watercooling, and see how far one of them will go.

 

[IanH]

Hi Ian. Thanks for the post, I think it's about time you followed the lead of PcPro and a couple of other magazines, and done a review of some of the newer P4 boards that are appearing now.

I like reading reviews that are easy to follow and cut out the bullcrap, after all how many potential purchasers want the bumpf that usually accompanies reviews in the majority of magazines (Computer Shopper and PCW take note).

Just a straight forward review in plain eglish without the life history of a cpu or the board manufacturer.

Just a note, on your main webpage If I click on Motherboards under Review Categories section, all I get is are the 2 side bars and a blank centre, is this deliberate or a php scripting error.

Ian
:spin:

 

[Ian]

Well, after a database crash - we lost all our old articles. We're in the process of adding the old ones, and adding new ones (just trying to get the balance right).

As its not a profit run site (quite the opposite infact!), we rely heavily on companies sending review samples - so its not always easy to get motherboards/CPUs as they are expensive bits of equiptment.

We should however, get a review sample from Via of their Eden platform (motherboard+cpu+graphics+sound etc...)

 

[DaveC]

I personally am I great Intel fan... they are a little more expensive albeit, but I find them extremely stable when paired with an Intel chipset.

In a server environment, I would only consider this bundle! The new revisions of the Intel CPUs are also very good overclockers too! If you can get a hold of one to review, I strongly suggest you do