VOGONS


First post, by SW-SSG

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So, not-so-recently I pulled out this micro-ATX Asus motherboard from a generic whitebox. From a look at the manual it's a late-2001 SiS 650 board with some level of Northwood support (it arrived to me with a P4 1.6A SL668 CPU installed). It's highly integrated, with built-in LAN+sound+video (but also with an AGP slot), and seems nice; however this particular one won't POST and has some gross-looking capacitors near the CPU socket.

The attachment IMG_6853b.jpg is no longer available
The attachment IMG_6857b.jpg is no longer available

I guess I'm just curious. Ignoring the dust it's in nice condition overall, and almost seems like a shame to trash, especially if swapping the badcaps might get it running (note: I don't know how to solder). On the other hand, I already have one P4-based box and have no need or interest in building another. Is there something about this board that might make it desirable to someone else from a "collecting" or "retro-PC building" standpoint?

Reply 1 of 4, by Kamerat

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Some reasons why you should repair it:
- SiS chipset
- Integrated graphics
- Integrated LAN
- Universial AGP
- mATX
- Good Windows 98SE compatibility
- Should supports Yamaha YMF7xx PCI and ALS4000 in DDMA mode for good Sound Blaster compatibility in DOS games

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 2 of 4, by xjas

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I've got one of those, it's a nice compact little board and the universal AGP slot is apparently compatible with 3DFX cards. Mine has a 2GHz CPU in it. Was trying to figure out what to use it for. That said, if it didn't work I likely would have tossed it.

Replacing caps isn't that hard, this would be a good practice board if you want to learn how to do it. And hey, if you manage to fix it then bonus. 😀

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 3 of 4, by SW-SSG

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Thanks for the responses. Yeah, universal AGP was something I suspected this board supports but the manual isn't very clear about it. Nice that it has it, but it's not really a big enough reason for me to build something using it.

I suppose I'll hold on to it for now. Learning to solder is a thing I'd definitely like to do in the future, anyway.

Reply 4 of 4, by elod

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There's a good chance that it does support 3.3V AGP. It does not have the red LED that is used on some boards to signal issues with AGP compatibility.
The manual should state AGP 1x compatibiliy.