Re: [newbie] PC Chips 810LR motherboard results
On December 29, 2002 07:11 pm, Joeb wrote: snip In short, I would like to say that if you are looking for a low-cost system board/cpu and don't require a lot of expansion slots, you may want to check out the PC Chips 810LR. Joeb Joe; I've had a few run-ins with a local shop regarding this SIS730 chip-set motherboard and a Duron 1200+ or Duron 1200 Pro label. What I found was a bit aggravating. It also reaffirmed my personal conviction never to own anything by ECS or PC Chips. YMMV. Background; A friend was also in upgrade mode; but being on a fixed (low) income he bought the parts he could afford, then called me to help him make a computer out of it. The motherboard is an ECS K7SEM, it uses the same chip-set and 'advertising philosophy' that PC Chips uses on labelling. The upshot of the whole thing was that what he thought was a Duron 1200 was actually a Duron 850 running the default core clock timing but a slightly faster bus speed for an actual clock speed of 892 MHz. This pissed me (and him I suppose) off so I did some checking. Both ECS and PC Chips were doing this until (maybe still are) recently and it ain't right IMHO. From ECS Support in reference to my queries: The BIOS posted on the ECS web site shows the real CPU ID which is a Duron/850MHZ, you need to contact your vendor regarding the old BIOS because they might have modified it showing the performance rating of 1200 instead of the real CPU ID. The BIOS release date: 2002/08/01 will give you an option to select the CPU speed but since the Duron CPU is 200MHZ base, you need to setup the CPU clock to 100 not 133. From AMD re.: my queries: Hello, Thank you for contacting AMD. Yes, AMD is aware of ECS, and PC Chips bundling Duron 850's with these boards and listing them as 1200's. Please not that the Model #ing methodology was not intended to be applied to the Duron processors. We are currently looking into the issue. However, at this point your concern would be best aimed at ECS, for clarification on why they are misleading their customers. Please stay posted to our website for the latest information. Regards, Ryan Gardner CPU Specialist AMD TSC So I guess my question is did they get you too? Did you actually get what was advertised or is it a performance rated CPU? Don't misinterpret what I've been saying here please. I'm glad you have a higher performance machine now and that the transition was so smooth. An 850 Duron still cooks versus a K62 500, but I'm always a bit suspicious of budget brand hardware with delusions of performance added by advertising drones. In the market the way it stands today (or any other day) there's no reason to outright _lie_ to customers, is there? I hope you enjoy the new machine. Regards; -- Charlie Edmonton,AB,Canada Registered user 244963 at http://counter.li.org We are stronger than our skin of flesh and metal, for we carry and share a spectrum of suns and lands that lends us legends as we craft our immortality and interweave our destinies of water and air, leaving shadows that gather color of their own, until they outshine the substance that cast them. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Re: [newbie] PC Chips 810LR motherboard results
ECS sold a K7SEM combo board with attached CPU that stated it was a 1200, but as you point out really wasn't. This board is still available at very low price but is not even fully compatible with the true K7SEM board (bios issues). You can easily tell this board because it doesn't have an PCI slots and the color of the board is red! I was not aware of PC Chips selling such a creature. The MB and CPU I ordered from EconPC were ordered together, but weren't a combo. The CPU is an actual boxed set Duron 1200, so unless AMD has started to ship and label them otherwise, I'm pretty sure it is a true 1200 (note, there was a design change in Durons greater than 1Ghz that vastly improves performance). The MB takes Duron through XP CPUs, so I don't think it's overclocking a slower chip to make up the speed difference. My understanding of the ECS board was that it was a custom configuration for a low end OEM. What is now available through the supply chain is over stock (these are the very, very low price ECS/Duron 1200 combos on PriceWatch). Again, the easiest way to tell is to ask if there are PCI slots and if the board is red (or can the CPU be replaced). If the answers are no, yes and no, then it is the suspect board. I always buy from a reputable dealer and make sure I know what I'm getting (and it's returnable) before ordering. Thanks for the info, though. Joeb ---Original Message--- From: Charlie [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 12/30/02 01:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] PC Chips 810LR motherboard results On December 29, 2002 07:11 pm, Joeb wrote: snip In short, I would like to say that if you are looking for a low-cost system board/cpu and don't require a lot of expansion slots, you may want to check out the PC Chips 810LR. Joeb Joe; I've had a few run-ins with a local shop regarding this SIS730 chip-set motherboard and a Duron 1200+ or Duron 1200 Pro label. What I found was a bit aggravating. It also reaffirmed my personal conviction never to own anything by ECS or PC Chips. YMMV. Background; A friend was also in upgrade mode; but being on a fixed (low) income he bought the parts he could afford, then called me to help him make a computer out of it. The motherboard is an ECS K7SEM, it uses the same chip-set and 'advertising philosophy' that PC Chips uses on labelling. The upshot of the whole thing was that what he thought was a Duron 1200 was actually a Duron 850 running the default core clock timing but a slightly faster bus speed for an actual clock speed of 892 MHz. This pissed me (and him I suppose) off so I did some checking. Both ECS and PC Chips were doing this until (maybe still are) recently and it ain't right IMHO. From ECS Support in reference to my queries: The BIOS posted on the ECS web site shows the real CPU ID which is a Duron/850MHZ, you need to contact your vendor regarding the old BIOS because they might have modified it showing the performance rating of 1200 instead of the real CPU ID. The BIOS release date: 2002/08/01 will give you an option to select the CPU speed but since the Duron CPU is 200MHZ base, you need to setup the CPU clock to 100 not 133. From AMD re.: my queries: Hello, Thank you for contacting AMD. Yes, AMD is aware of ECS, and PC Chips bundling Duron 850's with these boards and listing them as 1200's. Please not that the Model #ing methodology was not intended to be applied to the Duron processors. We are currently looking into the issue. However, at this point your concern would be best aimed at ECS, for clarification on why they are misleading their customers. Please stay posted to our website for the latest information. Regards, Ryan Gardner CPU Specialist AMD TSC So I guess my question is did they get you too? Did you actually get what was advertised or is it a performance rated CPU? Don't misinterpret what I've been saying here please. I'm glad you have a higher performance machine now and that the transition was so smooth. An 850 Duron still cooks versus a K62 500, but I'm always a bit suspicious of budget brand hardware with delusions of performance added by advertising drones. In the market the way it stands today (or any other day) there's no reason to outright _lie_ to customers, is there? I hope you enjoy the new machine. Regards; -- Charlie Edmonton,AB,Canada Registered user 244963 at http://counter.li.org We are stronger than our skin of flesh and metal, for we carry and share a spectrum of suns and lands that lends us legends as we craft our immortality and interweave our destinies of water and air, leaving shadows that gather color of their own, until they outshine the substance that cast them. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Re: [newbie] PC Chips 810LR motherboard results
On December 30, 2002 12:37 pm, Joe Braddock wrote:
ECS sold a K7SEM combo board with attached CPU that stated it was a 1200,
but as you point out really wasn't. This board is still available at very
low price but is not even fully compatible with the true K7SEM board (bios
issues). You can easily tell this board because it doesn't have an PCI
slots and the color of the board is red! I was not aware of PC Chips
selling such a creature.
It's been superseded by the ECS K7SEMv3. I don't remember if it's still red.
It has two PCI slots, an AGP slot, 2 SDRAM slots (max 1GB) but the same crap
still seems to be going on. Still bundled as a Duron 1200 +/Pro (performance
rating) in some markets by some less than reputable retailers.
The MB and CPU I ordered from EconPC were ordered together, but weren't a
combo. The CPU is an actual boxed set Duron 1200, so unless AMD has
started to ship and label them otherwise, I'm pretty sure it is a true 1200
(note, there was a design change in Durons greater than 1Ghz that vastly
improves performance). The MB takes Duron through XP CPUs, so I don't
think it's overclocking a slower chip to make up the speed difference.
It seems you got what you specified. That's a Good Thing ®. :-)
My understanding of the ECS board was that it was a custom configuration
for a low end OEM. What is now available through the supply chain is over
stock (these are the very, very low price ECS/Duron 1200 combos on
PriceWatch). Again, the easiest way to tell is to ask if there are PCI
slots and if the board is red (or can the CPU be replaced). If the answers
are no, yes and no, then it is the suspect board.
Yes to the PCI slots question, no to the red color question, yes to CPU
replacement. It's still a Duron 850 over-clocked and called a Duron 1200
Pro. The dealer refused to accept return without the customer paying a 10%
restocking charge even after ECS sent him a copy of the message I pasted. The
local BBB and Corporate and Consumer Affairs can deal with the scum dog.
I always buy from a reputable dealer and make sure I know what I'm getting
(and it's returnable) before ordering.
As do I; but some of my friends seem to think there's an animal called Truth
in advertising and don't do enough research before they jump. Some don't
want to bother anyone for advice. Not they would heed it usually anyway.
Then want someone else to perform a magic trick for them to fix things.
Thanks for the info, though.
You're welcome. I'm not usually an alarmist but I thought the information
might help prevent someone else on the list from getting hooped.
Joeb
I'm glad that you got what you paid for. My neighbor (friend) didn't.
I still wouldn't buy or use a PC Chips or ECS board for anything that I have
any say in unless forced though. {I mean anything I have to work on. :-)} I
even 'made' my 17 year old son pay the 'little extra' to get a better board
when he started to put together his new system a couple months back.
An MSI K7T266 if I recall correctly. He could only afford a Duron 1300 though
since he wanted and bought 512 MB of DDR memory at the same time. The poor
kid. g
It's red. He 'likes the color' he says. :-)
Regards;
--
Charlie
Edmonton,AB,Canada
Registered user 244963 at http://counter.li.org
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Re: [newbie] PC Chips 810LR motherboard results
At 03:45 PM 12/30/2002 -0700, you wrote: Yes to the PCI slots question, no to the red color question, yes to CPU replacement. It's still a Duron 850 over-clocked and called a Duron 1200 Pro. The dealer refused to accept return without the customer paying a 10% restocking charge even after ECS sent him a copy of the message I pasted. The local BBB and Corporate and Consumer Affairs can deal with the scum dog. Regards; -- Charlie Who is this dealer if I may ask as we're neighbours? - FemmeFatale Good Decisions You boss Made: We'll do as you suggest and go with Linux. I've always liked that character from Peanuts. - Source: Dilbert Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] PC Chips 810LR motherboard results
I have recently done a very simular upgrade from a AMD K6-2 450MHz to an Athalon +2200. I had no problems with Windows but find that somethings still don't work in Linux. Maybe it depends on the versions. I am using XP and Mandrake 8.0. Just a side note... Dan B On Sun, 29 Dec 2002 20:11:22 -0600 Joeb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Over the Christmas holiday, I decided to upgrade my old 500Mhz AMD K6-2 system. I had purchased a PC-Chips 810LR motherboard and AMD 1200 Mhz Duron from EconoPC for $70.00. If you are not familiar with this board, it only has two PCI slots, 1 AGP slot and on-board LAN, sound and VGA. It is based on the Sis730S chipset and supports AMD Duron through XP processors. My decision to use this board was also influenced by my aging Voodoo Banshee video card. I simply did not have the money to order a new CPU, motherboard and video card and I couldn't see buying a new motherboard/cpu and still using the old video card. So, while it may not be suitable for heavy duty server use, with only two PCI (and an AGP) slot, for desktop and development use, it works quite well (particularly if you are on a very limited budget). After installing the system board in the case, I connected my existing CD-ROM, Hardrives and floppy to the motherboard connectors. I was curious as to what would happen if I simply powered the computer on, and so I did. I dual boot, so first I tried Windows. It would not boot, except into safe mode, and failed to even find the second IDE controller (it was still using the old driver files for IDE and video). To my surprise, booting into Mandrake 9.0, everything came up great, except for X-Windows (which I didn't expect it to). A quick reconfigure of the X-Server for the new video and everything was running normal. I was really impressed that Mandrake found all the new devices and reconfigured itself so smoothly. I had already decided that I was going to reformat the drives and reinstall both Windows and Mandrake, so I did that next. I started with Windows and it was a headache, to say the least. To make a long story short, it took about 2.5 hours from start to finish on installing Windows and the applications I wanted to use. This included six reboots during driver installs. The Mandrake install, on the other hand, went smoothly and flawlessly. Mandrake automatically detected and installed the correct drivers for the built in video and lan. From start to finish, it took about 35 minutes and that included installing and configuring my applications and restoring my home directory! Overall, I am extremely pleased with the upgrade. Boot time on this computer is in the neighborhood of 10 seconds. I boot directly to an X login (kdm) and to launch KDE takes about another 8 seconds. Everything loads very quickly (Mozilla takes about three seconds). Well, everything but OpenOffice.org, which still takes some time. My old 500Mhz system would take about 45 seconds to boot and about another 30 for KDE to load. In additions, I have not run into any compatibility problems. In short, I would like to say that if you are looking for a low-cost system board/cpu and don't require a lot of expansion slots, you may want to check out the PC Chips 810LR. Joeb Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] PC Chips 810LR motherboard results
Over the Christmas holiday, I decided to upgrade my old 500Mhz AMD K6-2 system. I had purchased a PC-Chips 810LR motherboard and AMD 1200 Mhz Duron from EconoPC for $70.00. If you are not familiar with this board, it only has two PCI slots, 1 AGP slot and on-board LAN, sound and VGA. It is based on the Sis730S chipset and supports AMD Duron through XP processors. My decision to use this board was also influenced by my aging Voodoo Banshee video card. I simply did not have the money to order a new CPU, motherboard and video card and I couldn't see buying a new motherboard/cpu and still using the old video card. So, while it may not be suitable for heavy duty server use, with only two PCI (and an AGP) slot, for desktop and development use, it works quite well (particularly if you are on a very limited budget). After installing the system board in the case, I connected my existing CD-ROM, Hardrives and floppy to the motherboard connectors. I was curious as to what would happen if I simply powered the computer on, and so I did. I dual boot, so first I tried Windows. It would not boot, except into safe mode, and failed to even find the second IDE controller (it was still using the old driver files for IDE and video). To my surprise, booting into Mandrake 9.0, everything came up great, except for X-Windows (which I didn't expect it to). A quick reconfigure of the X-Server for the new video and everything was running normal. I was really impressed that Mandrake found all the new devices and reconfigured itself so smoothly. I had already decided that I was going to reformat the drives and reinstall both Windows and Mandrake, so I did that next. I started with Windows and it was a headache, to say the least. To make a long story short, it took about 2.5 hours from start to finish on installing Windows and the applications I wanted to use. This included six reboots during driver installs. The Mandrake install, on the other hand, went smoothly and flawlessly. Mandrake automatically detected and installed the correct drivers for the built in video and lan. From start to finish, it took about 35 minutes and that included installing and configuring my applications and restoring my home directory! Overall, I am extremely pleased with the upgrade. Boot time on this computer is in the neighborhood of 10 seconds. I boot directly to an X login (kdm) and to launch KDE takes about another 8 seconds. Everything loads very quickly (Mozilla takes about three seconds). Well, everything but OpenOffice.org, which still takes some time. My old 500Mhz system would take about 45 seconds to boot and about another 30 for KDE to load. In additions, I have not run into any compatibility problems. In short, I would like to say that if you are looking for a low-cost system board/cpu and don't require a lot of expansion slots, you may want to check out the PC Chips 810LR. Joeb Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
