fortyways

I'm looking at some very cheap ECS motherboards that have this chipset. I heard VIA is something to avoid. Why's that?

imsati

I've had VIA chipsets before and no real problems. It was a low-end chipset, so no blazing performance, but it got the job done. ECS is the devil though, IMO. I'll never buy one of their products again.

__________________
--Jay
Gigabyte EP31-DS3L | E4500 | Masscool HSF paired with AS-5
80 GB SATA2 x 2 | e-GeForce 7100 GS | CM Elite 330 (gorgeous!)
Triple Boot: Ubuntu 7.10/XP Home/Kubuntu 7.10

You do realize that everytime PC eye Posts, God kicks a puppy, and every time someone takes his advice, He smothers a kitten in front of a child, right?
http://www.computerforum.com/114761-...tml#post922619

lovely?

i have a via chipset right now, and i'll tell you its the worst on earth. i can barely overclock from 2.4GHZ to 2.6 without a huge spike in voltage and turning my ram timings AND speed way down

__________________
E4500 @ 2.93GHZ
ASUS P5K-DELUXE
2GB OCZ Reaper CL3 @ 800MHZ 3-4-4-15
eVGA 8800GT
OZC GameXStream 700W PSU
320GB WD Caviar SATA, 80GB WD Caviar IDE

Sometimes scientists make things alot harder than they need to. All they've gotta do is put a big spring on the ground where they think it's gonna land, or send a mission to the moon to erect a sign that says "Welcome to Earth".

StrangleHold

ECS is what you need to avoid. VIA makes good chips there just not overclockers, most never had the PCI bus locked. But for running a stock system there fine.

__________________
NZXT Apollo
Athlon 64 X2 5600+
Gigabyte GA MA770 DS3
G Skill DDR2 800 4gb
PNY XLR8 8800GT
Spinpoint F1 500gb.

fortyways

What I'm making will be for MS office and Internet in XP, and maybe Linux in the future. No overclocking or games. ECS boards don't really have overclocking options anyway from what I've heard.

What was your bad experience with ECS, imsati?

imsati

Where to begin... It took total control of my fans and no matter what BIOS setting I put them, to they were running half-speed. The PCIe slot was dead or didn't like my video card, or something. POSTing took forever and a day. Maybe I had a fluke, I'm not certain, but the combination of problems was enough to turn me off to them.

__________________
--Jay
Gigabyte EP31-DS3L | E4500 | Masscool HSF paired with AS-5
80 GB SATA2 x 2 | e-GeForce 7100 GS | CM Elite 330 (gorgeous!)
Triple Boot: Ubuntu 7.10/XP Home/Kubuntu 7.10

You do realize that everytime PC eye Posts, God kicks a puppy, and every time someone takes his advice, He smothers a kitten in front of a child, right?
http://www.computerforum.com/114761-...tml#post922619