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ISA slot motherboards from AliExpress

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Reply 20 of 87, by Sutekh94

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alexanrs wrote:

I REALLY doubt they designed new boards, but rather just bought an existing design from the likes of ECS, PCChips or whatever and manufactured them.

Turns out this particular board (the board in the OP, that is) is a Gigabyte design: http://ee.gigabyte.com/products/page/mb/ga-6vxc7-4x-p/

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Reply 21 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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alexanrs wrote:

I REALLY doubt they designed new boards, but rather just bought an existing design from the likes of ECS, PCChips or whatever and manufactured them.

Motherboard fabs are expensive and this company doesn't look to be doing enough volume to afford one.
More likely they contracted Hsing Tech (aka PcChips, aka ECS) to build the boards for them using a stolen design.
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Reply 22 of 87, by alexanrs

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mockingbird wrote:
I'm pretty sure everything until the 845 chipset had integrated ISA support (eventhough most boards didn't officially have the p […]
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hyoenmadan wrote:
Nintendawg wrote:

The real interesting ones are the intel 8xx ones including ISA support. Intel threw very early their support for the ISA slot... Even their last 370 Coppermine/Tualatin offers don't include it.

I'm pretty sure everything until the 845 chipset had integrated ISA support (eventhough most boards didn't officially have the physical slots).

I'm also farily certain that even the 865 (and perhaps also the 875) had ISA support, in fact there's a member here who has had partial success even with 45nm on an 865 board...

I think the 915 was the first chipset without ISA.

Nope, everything Intel from the 810 and up does not have a native ISA bus. Intel 810-based boards with ISA are rare because, to implement it, you have to add a bridge chip like the Winbond that was mentioned in this topic.

PCBONEZ wrote:

Motherboard fabs are expensive and this company doesn't look to be doing enough volume to afford one.
More likely they contracted Hsing Tech (aka PcChips, aka ECS) to build the boards for them using a stolen design.

Or maybe licensed the design? "Stolen" is a harsh accusation, despite being a possibility. Btw, I find it weird they bothered colouring the boards red... If those were meant for industry usage, why bother making them "pretty"?

Reply 23 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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Sutekh94 wrote:
alexanrs wrote:

I REALLY doubt they designed new boards, but rather just bought an existing design from the likes of ECS, PCChips or whatever and manufactured them.

Turns out this particular board (the board in the OP, that is) is a Gigabyte design: http://ee.gigabyte.com/products/page/mb/ga-6vxc7-4x-p/

Yes, that looks like the design they stole but the knock-off board is missing a few parts over the original.
The blue jumper/switch block is missing and something is missing between the last two PCI slots on the left.
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Reply 24 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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alexanrs wrote:

Or maybe licensed the design? "Stolen" is a harsh accusation, despite being a possibility. Btw, I find it weird they bothered colouring the boards red... If those were meant for industry usage, why bother making them "pretty"?

Sorry, that's not a harsh accusation for a company well known for fake cache and remarking chipsets as their own.
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Many Hsing Tech's PcChips boards were red. It's just one of their favorite colors.
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Last edited by PCBONEZ on 2015-12-08, 17:32. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 25 of 87, by alexanrs

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PCBONEZ wrote:

Sorry, that's not a harsh accusation for a company well known for fake cache and remarking chipsets as their own..

For PCChips, yeah, but I never heard of this IIT company. Anyway, I would probably buy a second hand board before tossing my money their way, as I would not trust the build quality of the product from a chinese company reusing old designs whose sales channel is Aliexpress.

Reply 26 of 87, by hyoenmadan

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PCBONEZ wrote:

Sorry, that's not a harsh accusation for a company well known for fake cache and remarking chipsets as their own.

There are actually physical proofs about the fake chipsets and cache chips, but we aren't talking about that here. Do you have any proof that these boards are stolen designs? Like schematics and bits of RE? You just can't go and accussing someone from doing X stuff without any proofs.

alexanrs wrote:

For PCChips, yeah, but I never heard of this IIT company. Anyway, I would probably buy a second hand board before tossing my money their way, as I would not trust the build quality of the product from a chinese company reusing old designs whose sales channel is Aliexpress.

You have any proof that these models are just reused old designs?
And about the rest is just your personal opinion. Sometimes boards from Asrock/ECS/Pcchips were even more durable that some Asus/GB/MSI/Whatever major brand crap. Maybe we can list all the defective models that these respectable manufacturers produced.

PCBONEZ wrote:

I agree. I'd be much more confident with a freshly recapped old board from a major company than one of these.

Good luck finding a second hand a P4/Core2 board, from a respectable manufacturer, supporting DMA for older soundcards, with ISA slots, for recapping... Because that's we are talking about in this specific thread 😜.

Last edited by hyoenmadan on 2015-12-08, 17:42. Edited 4 times in total.

Reply 27 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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alexanrs wrote:
PCBONEZ wrote:

Sorry, that's not a harsh accusation for a company well known for fake cache and remarking chipsets as their own..

For PCChips, yeah, but I never heard of this IIT company. Anyway, I would probably buy a second hand board before tossing my money their way, as I would not trust the build quality of the product from a chinese company reusing old designs whose sales channel is Aliexpress.

I agree. I'd be much more confident with a freshly recapped old board from a major company than one of these.
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Reply 28 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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hyoenmadan wrote:

You have any proof that these models are just reused old designs?
And about the rest is just your personal opinion.

Hsing Tech has been doing "White Box" boards since the 90's for many dozens of smaller companies - not unusual.
Hsing Tech stealing designs is not unusual either.
A tiny company actually manufacturing their own boards - that's unusual big time.
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All you have to do is look at the Gigabyte board to see it's a stolen design.
The caps are even in the same positions.
.

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Reply 29 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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hyoenmadan wrote:

Good luck finding a second hand a P4/Core2 board, from a respectable manufacturer, supporting DMA for older soundcards, with ISA slots, for recapping... Because that's we are talking about in this specific thread 😜.

The board in the OP is a socket 370 board, so no, P4/C2D boards are not the whole topic.

And as alexanrs pointed out several times - these IIT boards don't support ISA sound anyway.
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Last edited by PCBONEZ on 2015-12-08, 17:57. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 30 of 87, by alexanrs

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hyoenmadan wrote:

You have any proof that these models are just reused old designs?

Nope, I'm just assuming they are not stupid enough to spend money on R&D for products that will sell on very small numbers for an affordable price when there are plenty of designs already out there.

hyoenmadan wrote:

And about the rest is just your personal opinion. Sometimes boards from Asrock/ECS/Pcchips were even more durable that some Asus/GB/MSI/Whatever major brand crap. Maybe we can list all the defective models that these respectable manufacturers produced.

I never said ANYTHING about ECS/Asrock/PCChips quality. I said I don't trust IIT, as they don't even seem to have a proper sales channel or a decent website. If they are cutting corners there, how can I be sure they also did not go for the cheapest passive components they could get away with, and the cheapest fabs possible, and the poorest QA in existence (if any). I did not say the build quality IS crap, just they have given me no reason to assume its not.

Reply 31 of 87, by hyoenmadan

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PCBONEZ wrote:
Hsing Tech has been doing "White Box" boards since the 90's for many dozens of smaller companies - not unusual. Hsing Tech steal […]
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hyoenmadan wrote:

You have any proof that these models are just reused old designs?
And about the rest is just your personal opinion.

Hsing Tech has been doing "White Box" boards since the 90's for many dozens of smaller companies - not unusual.
Hsing Tech stealing designs is not unusual either.
A tiny company actually manufacturing their own boards - that's unusual big time.
.
All you have to do is look at the Gigabyte board to see it's a stolen design.
The caps are even in the same positions.
.

Only circumstantial weak deliberations. Hsing Tech produces white box boards for smaller companies, but you know that many respectable brands subcontract Hsing fabs to build their own designs. These brands can also license prebuilt blocks from Hsing Tech to use in their customized designs. And you still don't have a solid proof like the Schematics of these boards.

The same with the Gigabyte board... you don't know if Gigabyte licensed that VRM block from Hsing Tech to be used in its customized design, if Gigabyte sold/licensed their design IP to Hsing Tech so it can be used for other manufacturers under special contract clausules, etc, etc... You just are backing your statement with something trivial, like the Cap bank position in the board.

PCBONEZ wrote:

The board in the OP is a socket 370 board, so no, P4/C2D boards are not the whole topic.

And as alexanrs pointed out several times - these IIT boards don't support ISA sound anyway.

Yes, there are second hand Socket 370 VIA boards with ISA slots out there ready for recap, maybe OP just doesn't know how to do/ want to do it. Troublesome task if you don't have the appropiate tools and skill.

Both VIA boards in that page have the 686B southbridge, which supports Native ISA with DMA for soundcards. The only question about them was if these boards actually support Tualatin CPU, which wouldn't be a problem as soon as the board has an not so outdated VRM chip.

alexanrs wrote:

Nope, I'm just assuming they are not stupid enough to spend money on R&D for products that will sell on very small numbers for an affordable price when there are plenty of designs already out there.

I never said ANYTHING about ECS/Asrock/PCChips quality. I said I don't trust IIT, as they don't even seem to have a proper sales channel or a decent website. If they are cutting corners there, how can I be sure they also did not go for the cheapest passive components they could get away with, and the cheapest fabs possible, and the poorest QA in existence (if any). I did not say the build quality IS crap, just they have given me no reason to assume its not.

You don't need actually any R&D dept to make your own boards from zero, you just need license IP blocks, or complete designs if you want, so you can modify them for your needs and make a new board ready for production.

Is very reasonable that they don't have a proper designed/cute website. As you said they are actually producing small batches of boards for very specific applications, they don't have intentions to compete with the bigger brands or in the normal PC market. As sson as the customer knows the existence of these boards via that simple site, they can settle a deal personally in their offices, or via the AliExpress site. Probably not enough for you, but enough for customers who have expensive interface cards and equipment driven by these cards, and don't have any other way to get the replacement boards that they need.

Last edited by hyoenmadan on 2015-12-08, 18:14. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 32 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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hyoenmadan wrote:
PCBONEZ wrote:
Hsing Tech has been doing "White Box" boards since the 90's for many dozens of smaller companies - not unusual. Hsing Tech steal […]
Show full quote
hyoenmadan wrote:

You have any proof that these models are just reused old designs?
And about the rest is just your personal opinion.

Hsing Tech has been doing "White Box" boards since the 90's for many dozens of smaller companies - not unusual.
Hsing Tech stealing designs is not unusual either.
A tiny company actually manufacturing their own boards - that's unusual big time.
.
All you have to do is look at the Gigabyte board to see it's a stolen design.
The caps are even in the same positions.
.

Only circumstantial weak deliberations. Hsing Tech produces white box boards for smaller companies, but you know that many respectable brands subcontract Hsing fabs to build their own designs. These brands can also license prebuilt blocks from Hsing Tech to use in their customized designs. And you still don't have a solid proof like the Schematics of these boards.

The same with the Gigabyte board... you don't know if Gigabyte licensed that VRM block from Hsing Tech to be used in its customized design, if Gigabyte sold/licensed their design IP to Hsing Tech so it can be used for other manufacturers under special contract clausules, etc, etc... You just are backing your statement with something trivial, like the Cap bank position in the board.

And you have no proof to the contrary.
Show me these schematics you have as proof.
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Reply 33 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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It's very clear that this:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/IMV694X-ISA-mo … rchweb201560_10
Is a copy of this:
http://ee.gigabyte.com/products/page/mb/ga-6vxc7-4x-p/

The component locations are all the same and the knock-off board is even drilled and silk-screened for the parts Gigabyte used but IIT didn't.
If IIT used their own design why would they suffer the added expense of designing, drilling and screening the board for parts they aren't going to use.
The AMR slot is a great example. Those were never popular. An actual new design would not have one.
Also, a new design would have polymer caps. Those have been standard on new designs for quite some time now.
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Last edited by PCBONEZ on 2015-12-08, 18:17. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 34 of 87, by hyoenmadan

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PCBONEZ wrote:

And you have no proof to the contrary.
Show me these schematics you have as proof.

I'm not the one making the accusations. I'm not even saying if they stole or not anything. Is the one who makes the accusations responsibility to show the proofs to back their accusations.

PCBONEZ wrote:
It's very clear that this: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/IMV694X-ISA-mo … rchweb201560_10 Is a copy of this: http://ee.gigabyte […]
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It's very clear that this:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/IMV694X-ISA-mo … rchweb201560_10
Is a copy of this:
http://ee.gigabyte.com/products/page/mb/ga-6vxc7-4x-p/

The component locations are all the same and the knock-off board is even drilled and silk-screened for the parts Gigabyte used but IIT didn't.
If IIT used their own design why would they suffer the added expense of designing, drilling and screening the board for parts they aren't going to use.
The AMR slot is a great example. Those were never popular. An actual new design would not have one.
Also, a new design would have polymer caps. Those have been standard on new designs for quite some time now.
.

But still you don't know if Gigabyte licensed their old board design to Hsing or IIT so they could use it under certain clausules. Or maybe is the contrary. How do you know that Gigabyte didn't licensed on these old years some Hsing layout design to populate it with their customized component list?

Today is possible to license every part of the board construction in packages or separately. Layout designs are actually very tolerant and support combinations of similar discrete parts. There's a lot of room for customization.

But licensing =! steal, and that's the whole point of the actual discussion.

Reply 35 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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hyoenmadan wrote:
PCBONEZ wrote:

And you have no proof to the contrary.
Show me these schematics you have as proof.

I'm not the one making the accusations. I'm not even saying if they stole or not anything. Is the one who makes the accusations responsibility to show the proofs to back their accusations.

Well, no. You are making an accusation that I don't know what I'm talking about. - So you prove it.
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I have several decades of experience following the motherboard industry and I know how it works.
It's self evident that you don't know how it works when you ask for motherboard schematics.
Those get released for reference designs but never ever for completed designs used in production boards.
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If it makes you feel better you can attach "probably", "most likely", "historically" or "standard practice" where appropriate to every thing I said.
Because, whether you like it or not, what I said -IS- what is most likely going on here.
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Last edited by PCBONEZ on 2015-12-08, 18:42. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 36 of 87, by PCBONEZ

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Gigabyte has never licensed a mobo design to someone else - ever in their history.
Hsing Tech has been stealing designs for various things for decades.

Last edited by PCBONEZ on 2015-12-08, 18:45. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 37 of 87, by Tetrium

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alexanrs wrote:

Nope, everything Intel from the 810 and up does not have a native ISA bus. Intel 810-based boards with ISA are rare because, to implement it, you have to add a bridge chip like the Winbond that was mentioned in this topic.

Or maybe licensed the design? "Stolen" is a harsh accusation, despite being a possibility. Btw, I find it weird they bothered colouring the boards red... If those were meant for industry usage, why bother making them "pretty"?

Perhaps red was the cheapest color? 🤣
Or maybe they were gifted some PCB-dye by MSI (sorry MSI, still love your products 😀 ).

I don't remember ever having seen an 810 chipsetted board with ISA, but I do have an 815 one with a single ISA slot (posted about it a long time ago and I actually used it for a rig of mine, but never bothered to populate it's ISA slot) and it should indeed have a bridge chip of some sort.

PCBONEZ wrote:

Gigabyte has never licensed a mobo design to someone else - ever in their history.
Hsing Tech has been stealing designs for various things decades.

Well, to me I wouldn't like it very much if they indeed had stolen it, but this doesn't mean the boards are actually of poor design.
Perhaps theres some reviews of these boards floating around? I'll go check 🤣

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Reply 38 of 87, by alexanrs

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Tetrium wrote:

Well, to me I wouldn't like it very much if they indeed had stolen it, but this doesn't mean the boards are actually of poor design.
Perhaps theres some reviews of these boards floating around? I'll go check 🤣

Well, if those are stolen, then there is always the possibility they stole a good design to begin with xD
Of course a good design won't make miracles if they populated it with the worst components they could get away with.

Reply 39 of 87, by keropi

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... and I thought that I was the only one thinking these new boards are most likely cheaply made knockoffs... 🤣
Like it's been said above I'd spend my money for an older mobo from a good manufacturer rather than these ... it wouldn't surprise me if these new mobos weight 60% of the gigabyte one , I am almost certain corners have been cut everywhere 🤣

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