Need advice on a budget systemboard

[nick]

Hi,
My attempt to make use of an older pc board has stalled. I purchased
a 80Gb Seagate hdd, a ATI 8MB video card and a floppy drive to make
use of a AMD 450MHz systemboard (Biostar M5SAA). The BIOS didn't
recognize the HDD and it seems there isn't an update that addresses
the hdd size limitation. Since a new motherboard is needed, I've
been reading reviews at newegg.com and trying to make a choice
between motherboards. I'm a novice regarding computer hardware and
have little to spend (a $120 limit for a motherboard & cpu). Is there
a motherboard recommendation you can give me?. Something that has a
straightforward installation, is stable, has onboard video and two IDE
headers. Thank you.

 

[lkboop]

Hi,
My attempt to make use of an older pc board has stalled. I purchased
a 80Gb Seagate hdd, a ATI 8MB video card and a floppy drive to make
use of a AMD 450MHz systemboard (Biostar M5SAA). The BIOS didn't
recognize the HDD and it seems there isn't an update that addresses
the hdd size limitation. Since a new motherboard is needed, I've
been reading reviews at newegg.com and trying to make a choice
between motherboards. I'm a novice regarding computer hardware and
have little to spend (a $120 limit for a motherboard & cpu). Is there
a motherboard recommendation you can give me?. Something that has a
straightforward installation, is stable, has onboard video and two IDE
headers. Thank you.

If you have $120 you're in like flin. Computer Geeks has a MSI-7125.
This is a bulk pack board (No pretty box or drivers or manual all this
is easily avaliable from the internet). It's a socket 939 board which
supports PCIexpress video card. Now for the prices, the MB is 40.00 and
a very low end video card can be had for less than $35.00. There are
about 6 different flavors of this board, all of them far,far superior To
what you have tried. There are CPU's that this board supports for around
$45.00 and up. You can not possible do better than this.

Good Luck

 

[Dave]

Hi,
My attempt to make use of an older pc board has stalled. I purchased
a 80Gb Seagate hdd, a ATI 8MB video card and a floppy drive to make
use of a AMD 450MHz systemboard (Biostar M5SAA). The BIOS didn't
recognize the HDD and it seems there isn't an update that addresses
the hdd size limitation. Since a new motherboard is needed, I've
been reading reviews at newegg.com and trying to make a choice
between motherboards. I'm a novice regarding computer hardware and
have little to spend (a $120 limit for a motherboard & cpu). Is there
a motherboard recommendation you can give me?. Something that has a
straightforward installation, is stable, has onboard video and two IDE
headers. Thank you.

Not so straightforward, I'm afraid. There are plenty of combos well within
your budget. However, I'm 90% certain you will need to replace your power
supply. But check out the following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138047
I don't do celeron processors, but I've built a few systems with that
mainboard, and it's very fast and stable.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103484
I think you can squeak in that power supply (barely) into your budget.

Those two components should be all you need. -Dave

 

[nick]

nick wrote:
If you have $120 you're in like flin. Computer Geeks has a MSI-7125.
This is a bulk pack board (No pretty box or drivers or manual all this
is easily avaliable from the internet). It's a socket 939 board which
supports PCIexpress video card. Now for the prices, the MB is 40.00 and
a very low end video card can be had for less than $35.00. There are
about 6 different flavors of this board, all of them far,far superior To
what you have tried. There are CPU's that this board supports for around
$45.00 and up. You can not possible do better than this.

Good Luck

I'll definitely consider this board. I do get a little shakey when I
hear OEM, Open Box, Bulk, bare and so forth. Thanks, Ikboop.

 

[nick]

Not so straightforward, I'm afraid. There are plenty of combos well within
your budget. However, I'm 90% certain you will need to replace your power
supply. But check out the following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138047
I don't do celeron processors, but I've built a few systems with that
mainboard, and it's very fast and stable.

I have that mainboard bookmarked. And, spent time reading reviews on
newegg that my head starts to spin.

I neglected to mention, that I set out to build an inexpensive pc for
someone and purchased an Antec NSK 4400 online at Circuit City. It
shipped with a 380 Watt ATX12V v2.01 power supply. It was intended
for a Socket 7 motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103484
I think you can squeak in that power supply (barely) into your budget.

Those two components should be all you need. -Dave

Thanks, Dave.

 

[Andy]

PC CHIPS V21G (V1.0C) VIA C7/ FSB 400/ PCI/ A&V&L/ F-ATX Motherboard
$57.68
<http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-V21G>
STT DDR2-533 512MB/64X8 S-RIGID Memory
$22.63
<http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=T5UA512C4>
SiSoftware Sandra Lite XI.SP1a Benchmarks
Processor
Model VIA Ester 1500 MHz (100 x 15)
Performance Rating PR1346 (estimated)
Motherboard
Model PC Chips V21G
Chipset VIA CN700 (P4M800CE), VT8237
Display
Chip Type VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP 64 MB
Processor Arithmetic
Dhrystone ALU 2076 MIPS
Whetstone iSSE3 1795 MFLOPS
Processor Multi-Media
Integer x8 iSSE2 6436 it/s
Floating-Point x4 iSSE2 7265 it/s
Memory Bandwidth
RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2 933 MB/s
RAM Bandwidth Float Buff'd iSSE2 934 MB/s
Power: 43 watts (idle)
52 watts (100% CPU usage)
FSP300-60PN Power Supply, Seagate 200 GB, Floppy, DVD-ROM

 

[fwibbler]

Hi,
My attempt to make use of an older pc board has stalled. I purchased
a 80Gb Seagate hdd, a ATI 8MB video card and a floppy drive to make
use of a AMD 450MHz systemboard (Biostar M5SAA). The BIOS didn't
recognize the HDD and it seems there isn't an update that addresses
the hdd size limitation. Since a new motherboard is needed, I've
been reading reviews at newegg.com and trying to make a choice
between motherboards. I'm a novice regarding computer hardware and
have little to spend (a $120 limit for a motherboard & cpu). Is there
a motherboard recommendation you can give me?. Something that has a
straightforward installation, is stable, has onboard video and two IDE
headers. Thank you.

I assume you have upgraded to the latest BIOS from Biostar? 0727f
It is possible that even with this BIOS there may be a limitation of 65GB or
if you're really unlucky, 32GB.

There should be a jumper setting on the back of the 80GB HDD that should cap
the size at 32GB.
You could try that and see if it works.

If you go for a new system board, remember you will need new RAM for it too.
Try and go for an ASUS, ABIT or MSI board even if they cost a bit more.
IMO paying a bit less for a PC Chips type board is often a false economy.

Cheers!

 

[fwibbler]

I assume you have upgraded to the latest BIOS from Biostar? 0727f
It is possible that even with this BIOS there may be a limitation of 65GB or
if you're really unlucky, 32GB.

I've just noticed, there is a BIOS update available for it from the
following site:
http://wims.rainbow-software.org/index.php?count=-1
that allows hard discs up to 128GB.

 

[nick]

I assume you have upgraded to the latest BIOS from Biostar? 0727f
It is possible that even with this BIOS there may be a limitation of 65GB or
if you're really unlucky, 32GB.

I didn't because, my pc doesn't have a floppy and there isn't a second
monitor.

There should be a jumper setting on the back of the 80GB HDD that should cap
the size at 32GB.
You could try that and see if it works.

I did try this and 32GB was recognized. After the effort in getting
the drive, it seemed unsatisfactory to settle for part of the rated
capacity.

If you go for a new system board, remember you will need new RAM for it too.
Try and go for an ASUS, ABIT or MSI board even if they cost a bit more.
IMO paying a bit less for a PC Chips type board is often a false economy.

Cheers!

The reviews on newegg.com makes my head spin.
Thanks, fwibbler.

 

[nick]

I've just noticed, there is a BIOS update available for it from the
following site:
http://wims.rainbow-software.org/index.php?count=-1
that allows hard discs up to 128GB.

I spent hours searching for a website such as this! Now, there's an
alternative and I need to decide which is the better option. Thank
you, fwibbler.

 

[nick]

PC CHIPS V21G (V1.0C) VIA C7/ FSB 400/ PCI/ A&V&L/ F-ATX Motherboard
$57.68
<http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-V21G>
STT DDR2-533 512MB/64X8 S-RIGID Memory
$22.63
<http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=T5UA512C4>
SiSoftware Sandra Lite XI.SP1a Benchmarks
Processor
Model VIA Ester 1500 MHz (100 x 15)
Performance Rating PR1346 (estimated)
Motherboard
Model PC Chips V21G
Chipset VIA CN700 (P4M800CE), VT8237
Display
Chip Type VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP 64 MB
Processor Arithmetic
Dhrystone ALU 2076 MIPS
Whetstone iSSE3 1795 MFLOPS
Processor Multi-Media
Integer x8 iSSE2 6436 it/s
Floating-Point x4 iSSE2 7265 it/s
Memory Bandwidth
RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2 933 MB/s
RAM Bandwidth Float Buff'd iSSE2 934 MB/s
Power: 43 watts (idle)
52 watts (100% CPU usage)
FSP300-60PN Power Supply, Seagate 200 GB, Floppy, DVD-ROM

Looks good. Thanks, Andy.

 

[tom]

--
---AVG Certified Virus-Free---

 

[mdp]

I spent hours searching for a website such as this! Now, there's an
alternative and I need to decide which is the better option. Thank
you, fwibbler.

If you have a K6-2 in it, you can get a significant boost going to a K6-III,
K6-3+, or K6-2+. You'll still have money left over.

 

[fwibbler]

If you have a K6-2 in it, you can get a significant boost going to a K6-III,
K6-3+, or K6-2+. You'll still have money left over.

Agreed, but the + (plus) versions are the ones to go for as these are
virtually all overclockable to at least 600mhz as well as having the on die
L2 cache.

Cheers!

 

[mdp]

fwibbler wrote:
snip

Agreed, but the + (plus) versions are the ones to go for as these are
virtually all overclockable to at least 600mhz as well as having the
on die L2 cache.

Cheers!

Not all MBs handle the K6-x+ series, fortunately for the OP, the Biostar
M5SAA does. This site has more information and also has a link to the BIOS
that handles 128GB HDs that was mentioned in an earlier post.

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

The K6-2+ has 128KB on-die L2 cache. Still a noticeable improvement over
the K6-2 which depends on the MB for its L2 cache (i.e. off-chip).
The K6-III and K6-III+ have 256KB on-die cache, probably the fastest
socket-7 CPUs ever made.

 

[nick]

I've just noticed, there is a BIOS update available for it from the
following site:
http://wims.rainbow-software.org/index.php?count=-1
that allows hard discs up to 128GB.

Hi again,

Sometime back, I downloaded a file from Biostar (saa0727f.exe) to
attempt to update the BIOS on the M5SAA motherboard referenced above.
The BIOS update file on the wims website shown above that can allow
HDDs up to 128GB, is a .zip file (mfsaa.zip). I tried to view its
content for instructions yet was unable to. Opening, might start
some install routine. How does one execute a zipped BIOS update?
Thank you.

 

[nick]

Hi again,

Sometime back, I downloaded a file from Biostar (saa0727f.exe) to
attempt to update the BIOS on the M5SAA motherboard referenced above.
The BIOS update file on the wims website shown above that can allow
HDDs up to 128GB, is a .zip file (mfsaa.zip). I tried to view its
content for instructions yet was unable to. Opening, might start
some install routine. How does one execute a zipped BIOS update?
Thank you.

Oops, sorry. It's a .bin (M5SAA) file.

 

[nick]

[Attributes restored]

Hi again,

Sometime back, I downloaded a file from Biostar (saa0727f.exe) to
attempt to update the BIOS on the M5SAA motherboard referenced above.
The BIOS update file on the wims website shown above that can allow
HDDs up to 128GB, is a .zip file (mfsaa.zip). I tried to view its
content for instructions yet was unable to. Opening, might start
some install routine. How does one execute a zipped BIOS update?
Thank you.

Oops, sorry. It's a .bin (M5SAA) file.