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Epox MVP3C motherboard

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First post, by brostenen

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The Epox MVP 3C board! Is it good or bad? Well... How stable is it for those who have tried it? 😉

Then secondly, I would like to know, if the deal is only worth the SB16 card, or the package is good enough
to start building me a 5'th "new" retro machine.

In the package, I get the following:

Epox MVP 3C board, complete with cable's and backplate. (if such atx thing excist for this board)
One unspecified CPU with cooler. (specified as K7, and because the seller said Epoc, i guess it's an K6-2)
One somewhat specified SIS gfx card for the AGP-Slot. (no more data on that)
Then one CT2910 sb16 card.

The seller even claim's that you do not need to tingle and tangle with jumpers on this SB16.
Well... I have looked the model up, and it is indeed a non-pnp card, wich I am after at this point.
He also claim's that ISA is pnp before pnp was included on the pc platform. (oh! how wrong he is)
We all know better right? I'll just leave him to he's assumptions. 😁 🤣

So....
Is the package worth the 17 to 18 US-Dollars, or should I start using these parts for a 5'th retro machine?

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 1 of 8, by ODwilly

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I don't know anything about that board, but that is a good deal for the money. Unless anybody posts bad experiences with the board it sounds like it could make a great 5th retro rig. I have seen SB16's go for $18 by themselves. Edit: first google result http://www.anandtech.com/show/155

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 2 of 8, by brostenen

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ODwilly wrote:

I don't know anything about that board, but that is a good deal for the money. Unless anybody posts bad experiences with the board it sounds like it could make a great 5th retro rig. I have seen SB16's go for $18 by themselves. Edit: first google result http://www.anandtech.com/show/155

Have read that review too. 😉 (of course 🤣 ) Just wanted to know some first hand experience about the board. 😀
And yes... The placement of the cpu, would indeed make me cabable at testing out some full length ISA cards.
Such as my old Creative CT6080 (MP400 or MVP400) MPEG-1 decoder card.
(I just don't have drivers or manual for it, wich sucks big time)

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 3 of 8, by ODwilly

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From the sounds of it Epox made it in both atx and at. That would be really convenient if it ended up being atx!

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 4 of 8, by brostenen

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ODwilly wrote:

From the sounds of it Epox made it in both atx and at. That would be really convenient if it ended up being atx!

It have both AT and ATX power supply connector on the board, plus eighter mouse or keyboard ps2 connector.
It does indeed have DIN keyboard connector on the board itself. Just don't know if the expansion connector is mouse or keyboard.
(It's for mounting in the back, taking up one slot)

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 5 of 8, by Sutekh94

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For starters, that board uses the VIA MVP3 chipset, which is regarded as a pretty good late Socket 7 chipset. I have an MVP3 board myself, an AOpen AX59Pro, that I use in my K6-2 system and it seems to be a pretty good board in itself. So yeah, I'd recommend picking it up and making a nice K6-2 or even K6-III system.

As for the CT2910, looking up this card brought up variants of it with and without OPL3 (in this case, the YMF289B - look for two small Yamaha-marked chips) and also with and without what I think is a wavetable connector? (large brown socket) In any case, it should be a good card to use with this system.

That one vintage computer enthusiast brony.
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Reply 6 of 8, by meljor

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Aopen ax59pro is one of the best (or maybe THE best) mvp3 board.

Epox made very good ones too, only double check all the capacitors before you start it because every old epox board i have seen had bulging caps.
many vendors had this problem, but with epox and msi i saw it all the way up to the latest socket A motherboards and even a few i5 boards from msi! (very bad)

Otherwise epox had very nice boards.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 7 of 8, by nforce4max

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Got two of them from salvage a few months ago and they are amazingly durable. Even if it is the AT version get it because such boards are getting more and more expensive as well rare.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 8 of 8, by ncmark

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Epox boards were not known for having the best brand of capacitors... I had an mvp3g5 with Tayeh capacitors