Don't know what to choose from

[Dan81]

Alright.My MPM800 is long dead (broken BIOS socket),the Asrock I got doesn't work and I don't have any other working board for my second rig.(main rig is a Sempron 3400+ AM2)

Now,there's a fair in my town that is open everyday.However,on Sunday there's a lot of people (more than the entire town almost )which sell old things,like original Playstations,old motheboards and stuff.

I've recently found there 2 other boards for sale,those being a HP OEM ASUS P4SD-LA and a K7S6A.

Which one should I get?
Here are some pro and cons for both boards.

ECS K7S6A
Pros:
-Overclocking features
-AGP 4x
-3 DDR333 slots
Cons:
-ECS\PCChips
-FSB333
-Not known if Sempron CPUs work or not

ASUS P4SD-LA
Pros
-Shares same layout as P4G800-V (minus 2-3 PCI slots,which are on a expansion card next to the onboard PCI slots)
-Intel 865G/PE chipset
-FSB800
-Prescott support
-Certain versions can be flashed to the P4G800-V BIOS if the Super I/O on board matches the ASUS P4G800-V motherboard(SMsC LPC47M192-NC from what I read)
-Micro-ATX (almost)
-4 DDR slots
-Green board most of times
Cons:
-Some versions of it lack AGP slot (like crippling the BIOS wasn't enough)
-Some versions also lack 2 of the DDR slots(certain GL6E Stingray boards,some retain the 2 DDR slots,those can be easily spotted because they use yellow PCB instead of green)

[Compgeke]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

I would honestly go with the Pentium 4 board. The 3 GHz Pentium 4s aren't half bad for the $5 I can get one for (or find one by a dumpster) whereas S463 Semprons will struggle with modern OSes (like 7 and such).

[mariushm]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

(a bit outside the rules of the forum, posting strictly because he's Romanian as me and I'd like to help)

Dan, I recently upgraded my sister's computer so I have here an Asus A8N8X board, with 2 x 512 MB DDR 400 and, if I remember correctly, an Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton) or something very close to it.

Board is socket 462, agp 8x, 5 pci, it's an older 5v only design so you can use older 250-300w power supplies that are heavy on 5v if you want...
Manual for the motherboard here if you want to check it out: https://cdn.badcaps-static.com/pdfs/...936235a7c9.pdf

It works great, the only issue it has is that the black memory slot doesn't detect any memory (probably a couple of contacts in the slot are bent, or maybe the board only supports 3 modules at lower frequencies, I didn't bother to test)
But the board supports 1GB sticks so you can put 2 GB on it and it will run great.

If you're interested, asking 160 RON for the whole set, and if you want i can bundle a PCI 2xSATA+1xIDE controller card for extra 40 RON. Negociable, if you think it's too much suggest a price and we'll see. I'm in Cluj so mailing it to you wouldn't be a problem.

ps. also have a couple of agp 8x video cards if you need one.

[Dan81]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

I don't need it,thanks.

I decided to go with the P4SD-LA as Compgeke said,because I need to use Windows 7.I have a question about the P4SD-LA though.Can I use all the RAM slots?Or I can use only 2 slots of choice?

[selldoor]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

I have a question about the P4SD-LA though.Can I use all the RAM slots?Or I can use only 2 slots of choice?

It only has 2 ram slots?

Dual channel 4g max

[Dan81]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

It has 4,but 2 are blue 2 are black.

[selldoor]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

Hmm Sorry sure I read it somewhere before putting my foot in it.
There seems to be 4 boards - dont know what the differences are.
P4SD-LA PES Oxford-UL6E
P4SD-LA (ICH5) Cobra GL6E (ICH5 version)
P4SD-LA Stingray (wth graphics)
P4SD-LA Yale (without graphics -)
Found the manual for Yale which does have 4 slots but seems to contradict itself saying 2gb system memory but says up 1 gb per slot.

Yo just found the manual for the (oxford) and that only has 2 slots - im not going mad

[Dan81]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

It's a green one if that helps.I didn't check if it has onboard GPU but I'll check when I get it.
Also,2GB memory,that means 2 1GB sticks in 2 of the 4 RAM slots.

[selldoor]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

Well I still dont know - this is what HP say

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=c00041640

and this is the YALE manual

https://cdn.badcaps-static.com/pdfs/...0c0a49016a.pdf

[pfrcom]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

It has 4,but 2 are blue 2 are black.

Most likely indicating which slots to use for achieving dual channel memory setup

If you have two memory modules of equal size, put them in the blue slots, rather than one in blue and one in black

If you have four modules, populate all four slots - try to use equal capacity modules in each set of slots

i865 chipset supports maximum 4GB

[mockingbird]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

(a bit outside the rules of the forum, posting strictly because he's Romanian as me and I'd like to help)

That board needs a re-cap if it is to be sold... Get rid of the OST and the KZG. Believe it or not, I repaired one of those a couple of years back for someone who wanted to keep their Win2K system alive.

[Dan81]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

Most likely indicating which slots to use for achieving dual channel memory setup

If you have two memory modules of equal size, put them in the blue slots, rather than one in blue and one in black

If you have four modules, populate all four slots - try to use equal capacity modules in each set of slots

i865 chipset supports maximum 4GB

Well,I have 3 256MB modules and 2 128MB modules.Well,I'll use 2x256MB modules(512MB) and 2x128MB modules.

Now,is it good if I dualboot Windows 7 and Android 4.4 x86?
I have 2 HDDs,a 10GB Seagate and a 8GB WDC Protege,both extracted from 2 dead Xboxes.
So far I planned to instal Tiny7 (light version of 7)on the 10GB HDD and Android 4.4 x86 on the 8GB WDC.

[c_hegge]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

It would work, but 7 would be so slow it would hardly be usable. It doesn't run well unless you at least have a Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM.

[Dan81]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

It's a light version of 7,which means all programs that slow down the PC are removed,and BTW 768MB RAM is enough.

[c_hegge]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

That might be OK if it's stripped down enough (and you don't use any antivirus). Even for XP, though, I like to have a bare minimum of 1GB.

[Dan81]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

I won't use any antivirus because the PC won't be connected to the internet for long.(just to install drivers,some apps for both Windows 7 and Android 4.4 x86 and new wallpapers for both systems)

[Dan81]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

Seems I didn't have so much luck....the P4SD was 30 bucks and I had to get a Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL,which seems to not post and beep at all.I'll try replacing the KZGs on it and a few caps around the RAM slots and see if it boots up.Weird thing was that,because I didn't had a cap of the same type,I replaced one KZG that was rated 1500uf 16v with a Nichicon HD that was of the same rating but was 6.3V,and it suprisingly didn't pop.
When I can,I'll start taking some KZEs off my dead Xbox and see if they match the specs for recap.One good thing is that the board also came with a 512MB DDR400 Elixir RAM stick and a Athlon XP 3200+ which works.
This board is pretty good:nForce 2 Ultra chipset,Promise PDC20376,3 DDR400 slots.If it works then I'll connect my old 80GB drive (a Caviar II SE if I remember correctly)on one of the SATA ports then install systems as following:

1.Windows 7 Lite "7Cocos" - 10GB Seagate ST310211A
2.Android 4.4 "Kitkat" x86 RC1 - 8GB Western Digital "Protege"
3.Windows Vista (full system,not lite) w/XBMC- 80GB Western Digital "Caviar II SE" (SATA 150 jumpered)

And maybe another drive that I can find so I can fill in the last cage and the 3rd IDE port on the motherboard.No,I won't make a RAID array.(with 3 IDE ports how it would be possible to make one anyways?)

[Dan81]

Re: Don't know what to choose from

Alright,the recap failed and I couldn't get a top board (ASUS A7V600-X)so I resorted to a K7S6A.It works,apart from the problem that I can only boot the Android disc.Trying to boot from a Windows disc (such as 7COCOS)makes the system skip booting from CD and go ahead and boot from HDD.I'll try PLOP boot manager to see if it works,as it's ISOLINUX based,like the Android disc.

Specs of it:
ECS K7S6A v1.0 - after using a old hairdryer it's clean like new out of the box
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
ATI Radeon VE AGP 32MB
1GB RAM (2x256MB V-Data,Sycron and 1x512MB Elixir,all DDR400)
Intel Socket 370 cooler (CPU runs cool because it's underclocked to 1500+)
TSSTCorp (LG or Samsung I think)SH-S182D DVD ROM
Realtek 8139D NIC
Seagate ST310211A 10GB HDD(I removed the SATA drive and the 8GB HDD is going to be for storage,as Android won't boot)