motherboard replacement

[MikeAlletto]

Ok, I've got a Slot 1 Intel P3 800Mhz with a 133bus. I've also got 1 stick of 256MB 133Mhz dimm. My current mb is a asus p3v4x via based mb. Its crap. Locks up at least once a day, big time.

I'm investigating getting an intel chipset based mb (either abit, asus, gigabit). That will take my slot 1 processor and memory. I know this will be difficult since the machine is 2-2.5 years old. I'm not totally ready to move up to a P4 and new mb yet, cause then I'll have to get a new case and power supply and memory. When I do put together a new machine I want it to be a huge jump over what I've got now. I want at least 9-12 more months out of this current machine.

Any thoughts?

 

[Brian E]

I've built a lot more AMD systems than Intel, but I'll pass along what I know. It's been a while, but AFAIK the only Slot 1 Intel chipset boards out there new anymore would be either 820 (RDRAM), 810 (SDRAM, integrated) or 440BX (SDRAM, don't recall if it'll support 133MHz FSB). I know Gigabyte still has a few listed as available. Asus AFAIK doesn't make any Slot 1 boards anymore. Not sure about Abit. Gigabyte does make nice boards in general. You may see a few 820 based SDRAM boards out there, AFAIK no one makes them anymore and from my experience they are crap.

Have you tried troubleshooting your current problems? (I assume yes). I've built a lot of systems (approx. 80) using Socket 1 VIA chipset boards (Mainly Tyan Trinity 400's) with no big problems other than a video conflict with a few older Creative Labs cards and a bad stick of RAM once.

If it were me I'd probably either try and pick up a used board cheap on eBay, Compgeeks or AnandTech or I'd start saving now for my new machine and just hold out for the next 9 months (unless it's totaly unbearable).

If you need help troubleshooting post away, there's plenty of help to be had here.

 

[Max Leung]

Hmm, I have a P3V4X motherboard, with a Pentium 3/550 overclocked to 733. It's been running stable for 2 years solid, logged 7,800 CPU hours in [email protected] Not a single problem or lockup, ever since I cleared up the IRQ conflicts. CPU runs at 40 degrees Celsius idle, 45 or so under load.

I played Jedi Knight 2 on it, not a single lockup. Never had to reboot either, after playing for a week!

Geforce 2 GTS card (Asus 7700), Soundblaster Live! value, Plextor 8432 CD burner, DLink 530TX NIC, Maxtor 60GB liquid-fluid bearing HD, IBM 40GXP (I am waiting for this drive to crash like all the other IBM drives of this ilk). I did have problems with the Plextor freaking out time to time though.

This machine is rock-solid stable. The best PC I ever put together.

I have a new Asus A7N266-C and Athlon XP 1800+ CPU...quite a few problems with it, mostly with the nForce audio. The drivers need a ton of work. And the nForce chipset is notoriously picky with the RAM you put in it. Also, my Asus 50x CDROM drive goes into PIO mode most of the time. Perhaps I shouldn't be sharing it with the Pioneer 10x slot load DVDROM I have. Both drives are flaky as hell.

 

[MikeAlletto]

Max I've got almost the same config as you. Only thing different I believe is the processor (p3 800Mhz 133) and the nic. One thing I've noticed is it mainly locks up within Counter Strike or most recently the dungeon siege demo. But it also has locked up with just the screen saver running. I had it on 3d-text(open gl). I'm kinda thinking its the 4x agp setting. I've pushed the bios back down to 2x and its been ok since then. I am concerned about my irq settings. win2k has set my geforce2, nic, sound, and ide card all on irq9. I've tried to change them but I can't seem to figure out how. The properties for the device doesn't let me change it (greyed out). The bios is set to auto for all the pci slots. Its definitely not unbearable, just frustrating when it does crash. I just upgraded to win2k (fresh install on a brand new HD) and it has definitely been faster and smoother than win98.

 

[Max Leung]

I have my AGP at 2X too. Now I remember how I fixed my stability problems.

AGP 4x is a no-no on that P3V4X. Glad you seemed to have fixed the problem!
Do your IRQs look different at the boot screen? Just before it loads Win2k it should display, very briefly, the IRQ assignments of the cards in the system. If they are different from the IRQs displayed in the device manger, then the ACPI driver/HAL of Windows 2000 is likely enabled (to verify ACPI is in use, look for the ACPI device in the device listing). To work around that, you'd have to go into device manager, and try changing the computer type to "Standard PC" from "ACPI". I'm not sure how it is done in win2k, but you could try right-clicking on your Computer icon in the device manager. The icon should be the top level of the device hierarchy.
You can change the IRQ assignments in the BIOS, in the PCI configuration menu. However, when win2k/XP is running the ACPI HAL, it will always override it. Refer to your P3V4X motherboard manual for a chart displaying PCI slots that share IRQs with other slots and onboard devices.
WARNING: Once Win2k or WinXP is running in Standard PC mode, you CANNOT go back to ACPI mode, without a painful reinstall of the operating system.