I give up on FIC - taking recommendations on new mobo

[MrMikeL]

I've had enough of FIC. The PA-2006 mobo I have runs just fine, but trying to upgrade RAM is a nightmare. The user manual is all a lie. You cannot have a total of 384MB on that board as the manual suggests, only 64.

OK, now that's off my chest, I will take recommendations on a new mobo. I have a Cyrix MII-300 chip for it. Thanks for your help!

[Ygor]

I'm not too fond of FIC myself, but before you RMA or chuck that board, have you come across a Bios Ram setting choice of OS2/Non OS2?
For whatever the reasons, that defaults to "OS2" on most boards and unless you are using OS2 Warp, you won't see Ram over 64 megs. If that's the case, change it to "Non OS2".
As for recommendations, the Epox and AOpen boards are among the best for Socket 7. Not sure they handle Cyrix, but they should.

[This message has been edited by Ygor (edited 07-18-2000).]

[MrMikeL]

Ygor,

I'm pretty sure I checked that, but it doesn't hurt to double-check it one more time. What pisses me off the most is that FIC published a user manual that is just plain wrong. I cannot get anyone at FIC to admit that it is wrong, either.

Thanks for the recommendations on those boards.

[Axel]

YIKES - Ditch that processor and get something less flaky like a Pilsbury buttermilk biscuit.......

I'd recommend a Giga-byte GA - BX2000+ motherboard - Slot1 - 440BX intel chip-set, and I put a PIII 550mHz processor on it - it can handle up to an 800mHz processor - it has 3 ram slots and a lot of PCI slots for growth - I'm running a 3DFX voodoo3 2000 AGP video card on it and a 3com NIC and I'm happy with it so far. Board cost me $138 and the processor cost me $300 - both over the internet.

The real problem may be the processor chip - Last time I attempted to use a Cyrix, it conflicted badly with a VIA IO chip - and the CD-ROM never worked right - I ditched the chip and lived happily ever after - running that PIII and an old AMD 266mHz and they seem to be working fine.

My luck with FIC boards has been good overall. I also like ASUS boards.

[MrMikeL]

Axel,

Thanks for the Asus recommendation. BTW, I am on a very limited budget, so $438 for a new mobo & new processor was out of the question. The new chip on the old board works great, but I need more RAM, which the PA-2006 won't support.

[Axel]

That smells extremely fishy to me - If the manufacturer says the board will support it, and I trust FIC as much as any other board manufacturer, then I'd look at the I/O chip set and see if FIC has a driver update for the board itself.

Then I'd look at possibly getting a Celeron chip to replace the Cyrix.

Have you given any thought to flashing the BIOS on the motherboard - ?? - I KNOW FIC has BIOS updates on their site and follow their instructions to the letter - a bad BIOS flash and you will need a new motherboard or at least the EPROM chip.

The amount of RAM a board can handle is directly tied to the quality of the BIOS. If you have an old BIOS file, that may be the problem. Don't look to the BIOS manufacturer for an update - go directly to the FIC web site as BIOS file updates are EXTREMELY motherboard specific.....

Good luck -

[Axel]

Another thing to consider is the operating system - what are you running - win95, NT - what?

Also - have you had the RAM tested - what type of RAM do you have ?

Mixing RAM from different manufacturers can result in a bad count - Different RAM speeds gives most people problems - mixing ECC and non-ECC ram is bad news - mixing parity and non-parity RAM is bad news -

The best situation is to have the same RAM from the same manufacturer within the same production run if possible.

[MrMikeL]

Axel,

I do have the latest & greatest BIOS for the PA-2006, and I'm running Win98.

I did hear back from FIC re: memory configs. Seems the board DOES NOT support all the memory stated in the manual. In fact, the max is 64! What a crappy mobo, and what crappy doco.

I've already found an EPOX mobo that should work great. Thanks again for the advice.

[Axel]

Well - at least FIC admitted their error - Giga-byte still has yet to get back to me about their manual for the BX2000+ having the primary and secondary IDE ports labeled backwards..... That took me the longest to figure out on this system build.... Couldn't find it until I used two old drives with stuff on them and noticed the ports were backwards in the manual.....

Haven't heard much about EPOX boards - but was considering one last time out myself...

[DrCorvette]

hmmmmmm, it seems to me that someone, who's not in this thread, made fun of me for buying BB units or ready built. I don't have time to fight mobo problems, I'm sorry you guys are having to do it though. lots of luck. DrVette

[Peter M]

Well, the PA-2006 sports the VIA Apollo VP-1 chipset - which is, like its competitor Intel VX from back then - incapable of driving SDRAM technology above 16-MBit-per-chip density.

Meaning that the largest DIMM available today that you can stick into it is 32-MByte 16-chip double sided. (Sort of defending those old mainboard manuals, I have to mention that physically larger DIMMs with lots of low density SDRAM chips on them were available back then, but at insane prices.)

For BAT form factor, the best replacement would be a DFI K6BV3+/66-2. With VIA MVP3 and 596B chipset, 2 MB L2 cache, hardware monitors, 4 PCI, 2x AGP and 3 ISA (1 shared) it should run all the hardware you now own.

EXCEPT if your MII-300 is of the rare "75 MHz 3.0x" flavor - the 75 MHz setting on the K6BV3+/66 is an overclocked setting with 75 MHz AGP and 37.5 MHz PCI (but so it is on the PA-2006). Non-overclocked speeds on this board include 66, 83, 95, 97, and 100 MHz, so a standard MII-300 "66 MHz 3.5x" will run just fine.

From my personal experience, this board has great compatibility with all kinds of PCI cards, and is absolutely stable even when fully loaded. And it's the only BAT SS7 board with 2 MB L2 cache.

Regards, Peter


[This message has been edited by Peter Missel (edited 07-19-2000).]

[MrMikeL]

Peter,

Thanks for your analysis. What are your thoughts on the EPOX EP-MVP3C board? It looks and sounds like a winner.

[Peter M]

The Epox MVP3C, while matching everything else the DFI board has, is only available with 512 KB L2 cache. The DFI K6BV3+/66 in 2 MB L2 cache flavor is still cheaper than the MVP3C, at least here in Germany. Since there is nothing to complain about the DFI board's quality and included bits and pieces, there really is no reason to get the Epox. (USB brackets are not included with either, btw.)

Regards, Peter

[Ygor]

Try the Epox mvp3g2 rather than the c2. That gets you the 1 mb cache. There's also a g5 with 2 mb cache.

[MrMikeL]

Ygor, too late. My MVP3C came yesterday. After I backup my HD, I will install it today.

Price point and legacy hardware was my driving force. Thanks for the advice, though.

[neo_otyugh]

epox makes very stable motherboards
i have the mvp3g2 and it is a great mobo (til the cmos acquired a virus http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/frown.gif a flashshould fix it...)

[Win_98]

this cpu is actually pretty fun to play with
I would up the voltage to 3.0 and use 66 x 4 for 266mhz pr 333 83 x 3 says pr 333 but is actually pr 317 75 x 4 263mhz pr 333 95 x 2.5 240mhz pr 300 hmm not good slower thought. 100 x 2.5 hmm pr 317 same as 83 x 3 but i doubt it will work couldn't so far because the quality of the chip is low. it is really a 66 x 3.5mhz chip pr300 Good Luck and let me know if you can get it to 266mhz or 263 stably