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Can anyone reccomend a good motherboard company that pumps out P3 AT systems?
AT with ATX will do but I want to avoid ATX as much as a normal person wants to avoid being violently sawed in half with a chain gun. Also, I did find a good board but I don't know if Epox is a good reliable company or not.
Why are you avoiding atx?
Check out www.asus.com , They have great boards.
x
ATX as far as I am concerned....is the physical manifestation of satan...and I heard asus makes boards that can set on fire...and as very cool and somewhat funny that would be.....I have limited funding so I don't know what to think of Asus now.
ASUS is extremely reliable for motherboards. I've never heard of one catching fire. Theoretically, though, that could happen on any motherboard given the correct circumstances (which would be rare, and caused by the owner, not the manufacturer). I have to reaffirm what xmaddness said and suggest that you go with ASUS. ABIT makes alright boards as well, though I've heard of people having problems with some of them. I would personally recommend staying away from unknown motherboard manufacturers because they're most likely not tested throughout the real world as many larger manufacturers.
Also, what's your problem with ATX boards? Do you just not have an ATX case to put the motherboard into? ATX cases are dirt cheap. I could easily help you build an entire P3 machine (with case, etc.) for a few hundred dollars. Maybe you should tell us why you dislike ATX so much (rather than saying that they're a "physical manifestation of satan") and maybe people will be a little more willing to help you out.
AJ
Isn't ATX a newer manifestation of the AT design, hence faster. I know there are tons of reliable boards out there and heat for the MB is you last worry. IT is heat from your processor if anything that is going to help you board become combustable. Anyway, I agree with avdven I have never heard of one of these going up in smoke (not that it hasn't happened) but most board have a termal shutdown which won't allow this anymore. At least that my understanding...
HAHAHAH...faster.....It's a power standard.....hehheehhe and I hate it because, well, not really of its own fault but of the boards that use it. I have seen some AXT systems where the board makes you stand there and hold the power button in for like 10 seconds to power down the system and even then it can still send power to some parts.....I just don't like ATX flat out...some things can't be explained with through reasoning but I just...don't like it..I've never seen AT do anything bad...well with out my help.....but AT just turns of when you flip the switch because it has to when the enegry is routed through the switch its self....I like that design VERY much...and thanks but no thanks this project is my own I can handle it...You can take my word on that one...My orginial plan was to take a server class system and just use that as my home computer....NO MORE LAGGING EVER! but they all had on-board scsi (that's fine and dandy but not up my alley at the moment) so they are slightly out of my pricing range....so I'm going with a simple P3 system....the one I found can take a Gig of ram and has an ISA slot on it. ( I love ISA....I love EISA more....but I take what I can get) It has some PCI slots too and an AMR slot (Audio/Modem Riser) but I don't think I'll be using that much...none the less I have no idea what OS runs that kind of port...But this board has the basics and then some as far as I am concerned......Here's a nice little list of any specs I may have over looked.
Form factor: Baby AT with ATX
Socket 375
3 PCI
1 ISA
1 AMR
Gig of Ram....
On board USB (4 Ports)
2X Serial
1x Parallel
and your other standard goo-gaas
lol Do you have a problem with new technology? You love AT motherboards and ISA cards, rather than the newer ATX and PCI cards. Anyway, I think you're going to be hard pressed to find another AT motherboard with those kind of specs, so you probably want to keep that at the top of your list of options.
As for servers, Dell (as well as many other computer manufacturers) sell servers which use IDE rather than SCSI (though why anyone would get IDE over SCSI beats me...), and you can actually get quite inexpensive ones... granted, the more you spend, the better computer you'll get, but you can get a decent standalone server for around a grand.
AJ
oh sorry...those specs were the ones I FOUND with Epox (www.epox.com) and I hope they still make it..I was just wondering if you people know if there's one *like* that one ...that might be better in someway I've over looked...and I don't hate new tech...I just like the old stuff...ATX has managed to piss me off...don't even get me started on Win XP...lol....and I just think...so what if the old stuff is a little slower....the 8088 NEVER EVER EVER CRASHED!! EVER PEROID. lol....Pentiums weren't bad either (pentium 1s that is) I never owned a two or three..but a friend told me that P3s are slightly better designed....example: P3 at 1GHZ is slightly faster than a P4 at 1GHZ better architechure I suppose...but that totally aside....I just want a P3 (Xeon if at all possible)....and what's the deal with Titalium or what's it called...I keep seeing some goofy name proceded with "ready" so the motherboard can handel this tantlum or what ever it is...I saw nothing of it on Intel's web site...so I'm at a loss there..(now addressing the issue of IDE VS. SCSI.....)
I LOVE SCSI!!! (hugs a scsi logo)
SCSI is all that is good and holy in this world and I would get it if I didn't already have 30 IDE drives sitiing around..lol....I have scsi 1 drives sitting arund for my old mac....HAHHAHAH not even going to finish that sentence...
Hmm.. Well actually the newer ATX boards are faster. They have larger buses and can handle faster processors. Why you would ever want to use a baby at board is beyond me. Here are a few tidbits you should look over before gettin a baby at.
- You have to remove all the boards before upgrading the processor
- You have limited compatibility
- You have limited i/o ports
- You lack the ability to upgrade
- The Disk connectors are located far away from the bays meaning your gunna have lots of cables running around, thus slower transfer speeds.
- Your prolly not going to be able to install Windows 2000 (no acpi), so I hope your going Linux
- More cables than ATX
- It WILL cost more in the long run because ATX aprts are cheaper
- They make alot of noise
- AGP? Nope
- SIMMs, nope older slower DIMMs
- PS2 ports? Nope, gotta add those with cards
- Same with video
- I hope your bios uses LBA interfaces for your drives, otherwise you stuck using drives under 8.5GBs
And its Itanium
It's hard to find a good AT board, I'm a fan of the fic system of boards, their atx so I'm not sure how you feal about that but the fic series are very stable.
Xmaddness....so much of what you listed
A; isn't true
B: doesn't matter to me
AGP is a waste of my time and money....never need it never need to use it...pci is just enough for me to get by with for video busses....
I have plenty of AT boards with onboard PS/2 thank you very much...and alot of the other things you listed they don't usually have..
ATX does not make the system faster!!!! it is simply a power box with specs I don't like...ATX is just used with newer systems because it was invented around 1996-1997!!!! ATX IS IN NO WAY CONNECTED TO THE PROCESSOR EXCEPT FOR ENEGRY!!!
and as I said before...I don't care about silly little frilyl ammounts of speed that come from the length of the cable.....whoopdee doo I can have a slightly faster hard drive acess time.....that...It's amazing how much i don't care about that sort of thing..I have cooling covered....All of my cables are tube form for air flow concerns....everything else is just trivial...
It going to be an OLD game (descent 1 /2 *****Doom 1/2....Quake1/2....ect...and workstation....so little bits of speed I may pick up here or there that I am missing do not matter....
*****---maybe descent3 after I mod it to be all flat polygons...no more over work for mr.processor or captain video card ...
The term for the different processors you're talking about are called Itaniums. I'm actually putting together specs for my own Itanium2-based machine right now (definately looking forward to it!). One thing I found disconcerting in your last post, however, is that you're interested in using a P3 Xeon processor. As far as I know, to run Xeon processors you need a specific motherboard made for it... I may be wrong though.
AJ
SirVentolin, I like EPOX, and have used EPOX for years mostly because I am not the richest dude in the world. EPOX has been very reliable for me, but for those who like things like onboard RAID, a talking POST, and everything but the kitchen sink I would go with ASUS...
Oh I forgot... you don't like ATX form factor.
Never mind.
Oh don't mind the Xeon comment....and I know the word I was wondering about began with a "T" and this is a client level machine we're talking about here...not an Itanium...which..is just....SO MUCH POWER...I post a link if I can find it again
I don't know where you get your information SirVentolin, but xmaddness is very accurate in his assessment of the limitations of AT. Granted, if you only want to play those old games you mention, it'll be fine (though, you can run those on a P2 450 MHz without a problem... it'll be much cheaper).
The processor you're refferring to (if not Itanium) may have been a code-name for either an AMD or Intel processors. I'm not up on all of the code-names for processors that have been released or that will be released, but there are links everywhere online to find out what they are.
AJ
thoroghbred is what he's prolly thinking about. Or Thunderbird....
Both of which won't run on an at board..
http://www.giga-byte.com/products/products.htm
"Universal socket 370 supports Intel® FC-PGA/FC-PGA2 Pentium® III (CopperMine / Tualatin) or other compatible processors"
TUALATIN!!! THAT'S IT!!! WHAT THE HELL IS TUALATIN???? thank you in advance...
The tualatin was a type of die that is used by a chip. P III's were originally made on the coppermine die, the latest is the tualatin. P4's now use the northwood core, whereas they previously used the williamette. Use google and you will see what that all means. Its basically different architectures for the same chip. Thus the PIII can use either a slot or socket board, depending on what die is used.
interest-a-ma-jig.......