These Abit boards are in the overview sheet that I made for my own use, some time ago. See attachment.

Thanks gerwin. I see from your table that both the BE6 & BH6 have 2 (as opposed to 3) ISA slots. That's useful to know.

I suppose you want 3 ISA slots 😉. 3-ISA boards are mostly first generation though (1998). The later generation boards are made like a year later: they lose at least 1 ISA slot, but have the benefit of many finetunings and Bios updates. You can often recognize the later ones by the colored connectors (PC99 standard). Note ATA66 though, these extra IDE controllers might just be annoying, not sure...

gerwin wrote:

I suppose you want 3 ISA slots 😉

What I really need is 1 AGP, 3 ISA and 5 PCI. 😉

Abit BE6 and BH6 - any good?

Weell.... what are you really asking here ?

Biggest benefit over the P2B is by far, in my opinon, the Softbios:
no bothersome jumpers to move if you want to experiment a bit.
(and probably a bit more flexible when it comes to voltage settings etc?)

Other than that, it has only 2 ISA slots, yes, so that may bother some 😜

And the mobo IDE connector expects a full set of 40 pinholes from the cable, so you either have to cut off 1 pin on the mobo, or use old style ATA-33 cables only. (haven't tried the first option yet, not sure how that would actually work out?)

When that's said, I have 10(ten) BH6 v1.0X in stock.
One in daily(!!) use since it was made... 1998... 😁
(probably mentioned it before, but... it is actually in this very machine I'm writing on)

The others are backups, gathering dust for now.

Though I must admit, I've just recently started to buy P2B's (!) - just in case/to have some variety... 😎

PS:

What I really need is 1 AGP, 3 ISA and 5 PCI.

If you can stomach only 4 PCI slots, then maybe this little one is for you ? :
http://cgi.ebay.com/SOYO-INTEL-MOTHERBOARD-CP … 1QQcmdZViewItem

bestemor wrote:

And the mobo IDE connector expects a full set of 40 pinholes from the cable, so you either have to cut off 1 pin on the mobo, or use old style ATA-33 cables only. (haven't tried the first option yet, not sure how that would actually work out?)

It's easier to remove the tiny little plastic plug that closes the hole on "new-style" ATA cable connectors. Simply poke it out with a needle, no need to cut off pins on the mainboard. 😉

Or just use the old style cable. Not like it matters if you are limited to UDMA33 anyway.

My biggest concerns with old Abit 440BX mobos are 1) bad caps 2) IRQ pain. My BF6 is rather annoyingly picky about what PCI card goes where, and this is worse in 9x than in XP. I recapped my BF6 because it had 4 or 5 bursting caps. While it still seemed to be as stable as usual, it seemed like a good idea to recap it.

I had a BH6 before the BF6. BH6 had some cold boot issues, as I recall. Sometimes it wouldn't turn on and I had to hit the reset button to get it going.♦

Simply poke it out with a needle

Hmm, doesn't look simple at all to me, though 😢
Unless you drill a hole in it somehow ?
Looks kinda fused together with the rest, or maybe I'm don't try hard enough... (?)

I have no problem using the older variety, but IDE cables DO degrade over time(8-10 years?), and much easier to get fresh ATA-66/133 versions than replacement ATA-33 - hence me considering it a (minor) problem.
(lest I solve that poking conundrum, that is... 🤣)

My biggest concerns with old Abit 440BX mobos are 1) bad caps 2) IRQ pain.

Haven't experienced any IRQ pain so far, maybe I haven't pushed the board to the max yet ?
As for caps, well, you know... mine are fine, heh 😁

I HAVE experienced some of the boards(the backups, in their yearly testing) not starting up/no picture but fans spin (via KVM), and would have to do a few retries unplugging stuff back and forth etc, with no hardware changed.... before they finally fire up.
Granted, not that many had that problem, but still worries and puzzles me a bit - temperamental much... 😵

This may be that cold boot thingie you mention, although restarting alone never helped, so this is probably due to something else...
My daily operational mobo has NEVER shown such behaviour, ever...
<knock-on-wood>

.

bestemor wrote:

Hmm, doesn't look simple at all to me, though :depressed: Unless you drill a hole in it somehow ? Looks kinda fused together w […]
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Simply poke it out with a needle

Hmm, doesn't look simple at all to me, though 😢
Unless you drill a hole in it somehow ?
Looks kinda fused together with the rest, or maybe I'm don't try hard enough... (?).

Hmmm, maybe there are different cable connectors out there. The "poke out plastic thing with needle"-method always worked for me so far. Someone I know once managed to create the hole by pressing the connector very hard onto the mainboard pin row (NOT recommended! 🤣), that's how I learned about these tiny plastic pin hole covers in the first place.

@bestemor,

You have 10 BH6s?! Hehe, you're worse than I am! 😉 I guess those backups weren't needed, as your daily usage machine is still going strong since '98.

Re "33 speed IDE cables", lindy.co.uk sell them -

http://www.lindy.co.uk/31-2-ata33-ide-hard-di … 045m/33140.html

Hehe, you're worse than I am!

yeah, tell me about it... 😵

Somehow I get this Pavlovian urge to buy one everytime I see it listed (cheaply!) on ebay....
Having behaved so nicely for so long, I'm fooled(?) to think this is a good(durable) board, which also serves many retro needs, and hence better load up on spares when they are still around/readily available at low cost... or somesuch nonsense. 😊

My BH6 finally crapped out, after 10 yrs of solid functioning. And now Ebay is fresh out of 'em (I wonder why...).

Any chance of you selling me one of your BH6s from your horde of a collection, Bestemor?

Well, I got lucky and won one of the very few BH6 Ebay auctions out there. Ironically, it came with an AWE64 CT4520...the exact sound card I bought by itself two weeks ago 😜. For the record, the CPU pins in the Slot 1 cartridge became smushed and fell off after I installed the retention bracket and inserted a CPU in there. Without all the pins, the computer, of course, never POSTed. Maybe someone with some more technical skills could have fixed it, but I tried all I could, but only made things worse.

So I guess my advice would just be cautious when inserting and pulling CPUs out, especially if your board has the retention bracket installed...it's not quite as durable as a Nintendo cartridge hehe.

Oh well, at least I have another coming 😀

Farfolomew wrote:

So I guess my advice would just be cautious when inserting and pulling CPUs out, especially if your board has the retention bracket installed...it's not quite as durable as a Nintendo cartridge hehe.

Oh well, at least I have another coming 😀

I removed the retention bracket in my DFI P2XBL Motherboard, which is Slot 1 based. My PIII 450MHz sits there snuggly! 😁

I always hated that plastic brackets sticking out. In fact, I hated these brackets so much that in my socket 478 based motherboard, I removed it too, and installed a 775 based heatsink. I have posted a picture of this in another thread. 😉

Well, I was looking forward to finally having these retention brackets installed. I never even knew they existed until a month ago when I noticed the holes in the MB. Then it dawned on me how much more secure the CPU would be with them, especially when I stand the tower up vertically and the processor has to sit horizontally "hanging" off the Slot.

You see, a few years ago I packed the computer up for shipping, but forgot to take the CPU out. When I received the computer again at my new dwelling, the processor had fallen out and was rattling around inside the case. Ever since then, I've been a bit wary of the CPU being secured soley by the Slot cartridge.

I'm not 100% positive that the brackets caused the pins inside the Slot to break; afterall, I didn't inspect the Slot until after I couldn't get the computer to boot up. It's very well those pins were just getting worse and worse, and eventually decided it was time to break off. I do recall Gerwin mentioning his reluctance to switch out CPUs frequently; perhaps it was for this reason? I don't know...

But anyways, I think i'm going to take your advice, Malik, and just not use the brackets w/my "new" board 😀. They require more pressure to be put on the Slot to install, and i'm going to be as delicate as a flower to this board!

So it WAS you winning that mobo I gave you the link for, heh... 😁
Wasn't sure where you're located, hence the other suggestions.

Glad to(well, sorry for your loss, but you know what I mean... 😎 ) hear the death of your previous one was just 'user-error' related - at least that means the mobo itself theoretically could've worked for longer... increasing the empirical chances mine will too.

I'm sure you and your 10 boards will live a long and prosperous life 😉