PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-05, 13:31:

Let's see. None listed in order. […]
Show full quote

Let's see. None listed in order.

- ABIT BE6-II HPT366 - best Slot 1 I could ever ask for. Proper 133FSB operation, lotsa IDE to work with, overclock options galore.
- Soyo 6BA +IV - sort of an indirect sibling to the BE6. It can't really overclock due to the PLL chip used, but has almost never crashed.
- Luckystar 6BX2 - small AT board that has a lot of potential with a BIOS mod. VRM is totally Coppermine compatible, but BIOS never had a chance to get the support. Patched my BIOS and it runs great.
- Gateway Tabor 3 - built upon the WS440BX, this thing is literally A TITAN. I mean it - only the ABIT and Soyo have come as close as being that rock solid.
- ECS K7VZA - neat, cheap and stable KT133A mobo, as long as you were using Shuttle's version of the BIOS (ECS' BIOS was just crap, period.). Have ran Windows ME on it with zero crashes... on an IBM Deskstar 20GB (60GXP) no less. (although I assume the 60GXP is one of the metal platter Deskstars, similar to the 34GXP I own)
- ECS K7S5A - neat small OC gremlin once recapped and flashed with the right BIOS. Mine sports Rubycons and polymer caps as of speaking.
- ABIT NF7 and NF7-S v2.0 - great boards (one is without SATA), Taipan BIOS does wonders with a mobile chip
- Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL - almost the holy grail of nForce 2. Forget the mess that is A7N8X, this is one of the kings, along with the NF7 and DFI's Lanparty NF2 Ultra B. Took me almost a decade to find a working one, it now paid off.
- ASRock P4Dual-915GL - microATX monster that can expand your GPU horizon greatly. Did I mention that thanks to the 915 chipset, it runs HD7800/7900 cards?
- ASUS CUSL2 - one of the few great ASUS boards, long before their quality took a plummet into the ground worse than Mayday. Like seriously, their later 775 boards (945 onwards) quality were worse than ECS.
- ASUS P5P800 and ASRock 775i65PE - neat 865 based 775 boards. Unfortunately both are limited to P4 and Pentium D as far as I remember, at least in ASRock's case.
- FIC P4M-RS350 - very interesting microATX mobo, with an onboard Radeon 9100. Found one OEM'd by Medion (which I fortunately managed to flash back to FIC). Depending on what CPU you have, different splash screens appear - I currently replaced the one for Celeron but might have to work something up for P4/P4HT as well.

Yessss..... My NF7 + Athlon XP Mobile 2500+ worked on 2.6GHz!!!!! Uuuuuuu, that was the best board of all time 😀

That's an impressive list of favorite motherboards so far!

I like to see what other people think about different boards becasue, unless you're a huge motherboard enthusiast, there were just too many different versions and variations released over the years, it's hard to keep track of them all. So it's cool to hear other peoples thoughts on different ones, that way you can find boards you may have missed and expand your knowledge, especailly when it's time for you to go shopping for one. While I may not be in the market for one at the moment, I'm always on the lookout for good deals.

😀

I've always loved my Gigabyte GA-686LX. Completely reliable. Not much else I can say about it. Never had any software issues or BIOS problems. Same CPU has been chilling in it it's whole life.

Another good one is my Intel D875PBZ, which I've had since new and STILL works good to this day. I've abused the shiz out of it too! It was hanging on the wall for years, my rabbit used to tunnel into the case it was in and chilled on the board, and it has been a testing ground for all my 478 CPUs. Never have me any software guff, either. I had regular heatsink loops soldiered onto it as well, so I could properly cool it back what it was "all that" and got used heavily. Was paired with a P4 SL7E6 (3.4, 1M), 4x512M Patriot DDR400 and 6600GT. The CPU died long time ago, as did two of the memory sticks, and the GPU also "was" dead. Seemed to work last time I had it on, which was exciting.

I forgot to mention my Intel Galileo. Maybe because it's still in the box.

For P4 systems my Asus P4P800 LE is rock solid and running for ten years straight and then on and off until now. Not even one bulgy capacitor yet. Luckily I found another at value village in case mine ever goes. May be I am alone but I enjoy a nice fast P4 Northwood lo.l

Tommaso

It is difficult to say, because I’ve encountered so many great MBs during my days with PCs. From back in the day I have really fond memories of Abit NF7-s V2.0, although I had few other terrific sA boards in early 2000s.

Of my current retro systems I like EpoX 8rga+ quite a lot. Of my older computers I must say that in general I like the LPX motherboards in my brand desktops (Compaq, HP, Tulip). Although those systems aren’t the best performers of their class, mainly 486s because of the lack of L2 or unobtanium cache modules, those very custom MBs are just so hassle free. As they are highly integrated with all the necessary IO, video, PS/2 ports and so on, they are very hassle free systems in general compared to regular AT/baby-at computers. LPX computers aren’t as fun from the tinkering and building stand point of view, but there surely are advantages too and they aren’t that different from later ATX mobos in that sense either.

Tyan 1832
Dual Slot 1, 440BX
ATX formfactor
2x ISA, 5x PCI, 1x AGP

Perfection.

440bx is only for Pentium II?

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-08-23, 00:58:

440bx is only for Pentium II?

Slot 1 Pentium III and Celerons exist.

StriderTR wrote on 2024-08-20, 15:19:

I like to see what other people think about different boards becasue, unless you're a huge motherboard enthusiast, there were just too many different versions and variations released over the years, it's hard to keep track of them all. So it's cool to hear other peoples thoughts on different ones, that way you can find boards you may have missed and expand your knowledge, especailly when it's time for you to go shopping for one. While I may not be in the market for one at the moment, I'm always on the lookout for good deals.

😀

In regard to this and for everyone else not aware pshipkov's 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations kinda turned into a 486, 386, 286 motherboard review thread, focusing a lot on performance and ability to support top end CPUs for the architecture. It's a monster, but he has it well indexed.

leileilol wrote on 2024-08-23, 05:36:

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-08-23, 00:58:

440bx is only for Pentium II?

Slot 1 Pentium III and Celerons exist.

*cough*slotkets*cough*

🤣

My question was does the chipset support only PII chips.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-08-23, 13:58:

In regard to this and for everyone else not aware pshipkov's 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations kinda turned into a 486, 386, 286 motherboard review thread, focusing a lot on performance and ability to support top end CPUs for the architecture. It's a monster, but he has it well indexed.

I had no idea about that thread, thanks for pointing it out!

I have a section of bookmarks dedicated to classic hardware reference "guides", and I just added that thread. 😀

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-23, 14:47:

leileilol wrote on 2024-08-23, 05:36:

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-08-23, 00:58:

440bx is only for Pentium II?

Slot 1 Pentium III and Celerons exist.

*cough*slotkets*cough*

🤣

Funny enough, last night I tore through my house looking for a small box I know I have that has about a dozen processors in it, most are socket 7. I was looking for a Pentium to mess around with in my DOS build. Sadly, I have no idea what I did with that little box of parts, but I did find my old PGA370 slocket. That thing just keeps turning up whenever I go digging for parts. I think it knew there was a slocket conversation going on somewhere and wanted to be found becasue I have no use for it these days, I have nothing to use it with. 😜

My favourite boards are:

Pc Chips M577: super7 and mvp3. It takes literally any CPU, is stable (yes, of all brands!) and supports agp cards up to Ti4200. Ok, PC Chips is PC Chips... It lacks speed, is about 15% slower than the Asus P5A-B.

Asus P3B-f: the OC monster. FSB allowed to 150MHz. Crazyness, faster than its i815 brother CUSL2. Had my P3-933 on slotket to FSB 150 (yes, it's a 440BX board). Then agp runs at 100MHz so its cherry picking with cards.

Asus P4C800-E deluxe: fast, stable and takes about any p4-478 cpu with even better AGP support.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-05, 13:31:

Let's see. None listed in order. […]
Show full quote

Let's see. None listed in order.

- ABIT BE6-II HPT366 - best Slot 1 I could ever ask for. Proper 133FSB operation, lotsa IDE to work with, overclock options galore.
- Soyo 6BA +IV - sort of an indirect sibling to the BE6. It can't really overclock due to the PLL chip used, but has almost never crashed.
- Luckystar 6BX2 - small AT board that has a lot of potential with a BIOS mod. VRM is totally Coppermine compatible, but BIOS never had a chance to get the support. Patched my BIOS and it runs great.
- Gateway Tabor 3 - built upon the WS440BX, this thing is literally A TITAN. I mean it - only the ABIT and Soyo have come as close as being that rock solid.
- ECS K7VZA - neat, cheap and stable KT133A mobo, as long as you were using Shuttle's version of the BIOS (ECS' BIOS was just crap, period.). Have ran Windows ME on it with zero crashes... on an IBM Deskstar 20GB (60GXP) no less. (although I assume the 60GXP is one of the metal platter Deskstars, similar to the 34GXP I own)
- ECS K7S5A - neat small OC gremlin once recapped and flashed with the right BIOS. Mine sports Rubycons and polymer caps as of speaking.
- ABIT NF7 and NF7-S v2.0 - great boards (one is without SATA), Taipan BIOS does wonders with a mobile chip
- Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL - almost the holy grail of nForce 2. Forget the mess that is A7N8X, this is one of the kings, along with the NF7 and DFI's Lanparty NF2 Ultra B. Took me almost a decade to find a working one, it now paid off.
- ASRock P4Dual-915GL - microATX monster that can expand your GPU horizon greatly. Did I mention that thanks to the 915 chipset, it runs HD7800/7900 cards?
- ASUS CUSL2 - one of the few great ASUS boards, long before their quality took a plummet into the ground worse than Mayday. Like seriously, their later 775 boards (945 onwards) quality were worse than ECS.
- ASUS P5P800 and ASRock 775i65PE - neat 865 based 775 boards. Unfortunately both are limited to P4 and Pentium D as far as I remember, at least in ASRock's case.
- FIC P4M-RS350 - very interesting microATX mobo, with an onboard Radeon 9100. Found one OEM'd by Medion (which I fortunately managed to flash back to FIC). Depending on what CPU you have, different splash screens appear - I currently replaced the one for Celeron but might have to work something up for P4/P4HT as well.

Nice collection!
Question: which is "right BIOS" for this board that you mentioned?
Digging some ancient discussions from 2003 around the web I saw people mentioning HoneyX 0811 modded bios - is this the "right" one?

StriderTR wrote on 2024-08-23, 15:04:

Funny enough, last night I tore through my house looking for a small box I know I have that has about a dozen processors in it, most are socket 7. I was looking for a Pentium to mess around with in my DOS build. Sadly, I have no idea what I did with that little box of parts, but I did find my old PGA370 slocket. That thing just keeps turning up whenever I go digging for parts. I think it knew there was a slocket conversation going on somewhere and wanted to be found becasue I have no use for it these days, I have nothing to use it with. 😜

Some people think it is the right moment to liquidate them.

Aladim wrote on 2025-03-30, 04:09:

Nice collection! Question: which is "right BIOS" for this board that you mentioned? Digging some ancient discussions from 2003 […]
Show full quote

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-05, 13:31:

Let's see. None listed in order. […]
Show full quote

Let's see. None listed in order.

- ABIT BE6-II HPT366 - best Slot 1 I could ever ask for. Proper 133FSB operation, lotsa IDE to work with, overclock options galore.
- Soyo 6BA +IV - sort of an indirect sibling to the BE6. It can't really overclock due to the PLL chip used, but has almost never crashed.
- Luckystar 6BX2 - small AT board that has a lot of potential with a BIOS mod. VRM is totally Coppermine compatible, but BIOS never had a chance to get the support. Patched my BIOS and it runs great.
- Gateway Tabor 3 - built upon the WS440BX, this thing is literally A TITAN. I mean it - only the ABIT and Soyo have come as close as being that rock solid.
- ECS K7VZA - neat, cheap and stable KT133A mobo, as long as you were using Shuttle's version of the BIOS (ECS' BIOS was just crap, period.). Have ran Windows ME on it with zero crashes... on an IBM Deskstar 20GB (60GXP) no less. (although I assume the 60GXP is one of the metal platter Deskstars, similar to the 34GXP I own)
- ECS K7S5A - neat small OC gremlin once recapped and flashed with the right BIOS. Mine sports Rubycons and polymer caps as of speaking.
- ABIT NF7 and NF7-S v2.0 - great boards (one is without SATA), Taipan BIOS does wonders with a mobile chip
- Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL - almost the holy grail of nForce 2. Forget the mess that is A7N8X, this is one of the kings, along with the NF7 and DFI's Lanparty NF2 Ultra B. Took me almost a decade to find a working one, it now paid off.
- ASRock P4Dual-915GL - microATX monster that can expand your GPU horizon greatly. Did I mention that thanks to the 915 chipset, it runs HD7800/7900 cards?
- ASUS CUSL2 - one of the few great ASUS boards, long before their quality took a plummet into the ground worse than Mayday. Like seriously, their later 775 boards (945 onwards) quality were worse than ECS.
- ASUS P5P800 and ASRock 775i65PE - neat 865 based 775 boards. Unfortunately both are limited to P4 and Pentium D as far as I remember, at least in ASRock's case.
- FIC P4M-RS350 - very interesting microATX mobo, with an onboard Radeon 9100. Found one OEM'd by Medion (which I fortunately managed to flash back to FIC). Depending on what CPU you have, different splash screens appear - I currently replaced the one for Celeron but might have to work something up for P4/P4HT as well.

Nice collection!
Question: which is "right BIOS" for this board that you mentioned?
Digging some ancient discussions from 2003 around the web I saw people mentioning HoneyX 0811 modded bios - is this the "right" one?

I'll have to check, I think it's one of the other between HoneyX or the Oerg866 modified version of CheepoBIOS

EDIT: I think it's Cheepo, didn't quite like HoneyX and I recall using Cheepo quite a lot even before Oerg's mods.

PARKE wrote on 2025-03-30, 09:29:

Some people think it is the right moment to liquidate them.

That's crazy... Prices on this stuff is just bonkers.

Since it's the only one I have, I can't bring myself to part with it. I've sold off far too many parts I now wish I had kept and I'm not willing to pay the crazy high prices we see today. It can stay in it's box for now. 😜

Any of the DFI Lanparty range but undoubtedly the nF2 Ultra B is my favourite board of all time.

Easy 250 FSB overclocks. 3.3Vdimm and super 00s UV case mod chic.

I miss mine. Been trying to buy one for years now. Missed out on one on eBay earlier this week...

Slot 1 and later Intel motherboards (as in Intel-branded) were extremely stable. The exception was when they were hit with bad caps in the P4 era like everyone else (Nichicon HM/HN and UCC KZG/KZJ), but if you got one with Rubycon caps or recapped it, they were still good.