britain4 wrote on 2021-07-02, 15:59:
Was browsing AliExpress today and stumbled across these:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32895091971.h … -242d5eec3570-2
Cheap it ain't - but it is apparently brand new. Anyone tried these or have any idea whether they're actually newly manufactured, NOS or just rebadged old boards?
Not new - it's actually NOS, but if the better photo I found tells me anything the manufacturing date was back in...2011 (so 10 years ago instead of 20 years ago...look at the silkscreen date stamp and the sticker on the BIOS)
https://sc04.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1shFXa7L0gK0jSZFxq6xWHVXam.jpg
I think the 694 board has a silkscreened date from 2007.
Heres a little clue, the seller is definitely not the original manufacturer...they run a booth at the infamous Golconda Electronics market in Shenzhen, and according to a listing on some Chinese B2B site:
http://www.beook.com/qiye/biz2337667484.html
"深圳市福田區創益速電子,是深圳市公司,我們以商業服務的方式主要經營SMT舊板卡;維修SMT板卡;二手貼片機;工業電腦;羅技產品代理;組裝電腦;網絡工程;電腦維修;電腦配件銷售..."
Which translate roughly to:
CYS Electronics is a company based in the Futian District of Shenzhen. Our commercial operations revolves around the sales and repair of old SMT motherboards, pre-owned SMT pick-and-place machines, industrial computers, computer assembly/repair and network engineering. We also retail computer components and is a Logitech products distributor"
Eh, you can do much better than dealing with these small fry.
So, who manufactured the boards?
If I have to guess...ITZR - they assemble boards and sell them on AliExpress...
Here's their own B2B portal with the small board on their list. Oh look, Intel 845 (ICH4) and 945 (ICH7) boards with an ITE ISA-to-PCI bridge chip).
https://itzr2010.en.made-in-china.com/product … HERBOARD-1.html
And here's the PLE133 board -
https://itzr2010.en.made-in-china.com/product … h-Isa-Slot.html
Here's one that can do a sample for 55 USD/piece (plus shipping and whatever tariffs are applicable) - pretty sure if you poke around more you can get a better listed price:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/IMV860 … .6398c7caFibd9F
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/VIA-69 … .220b4534h7vaOA
(that board also looks very similar to the DFI CA63/64 series industrial boards)
IIT seems to be a fairly large reseller - related to ITZR, perhaps?