AMD Sempron Processor 3100+ & ECS NFORCE3-A Motherboard for $80 at Outpost.com

[Flatpicker]

Originally posted by: furballi
I have no computer cert. Still manage to fool a lot of folks. Min hourly wage of $40 when working on friends and relatives' PCs.

Just because your friends think you are certifiable, doesn't mean you are fooling anyone.

There went the rib. OW OW OW

 

[mikeford]

Don't worry about thermal compound on the used cpu, likely it just wouldn't overclock even with large voltage adjustments, overheated, or maybe was defective out of the box.

 

[jvisaria]

Originally posted by: furballi
Min hourly wage of $40 when working on friends and relatives' PCs.

Geez I have been missing out, I could have been charging MY FAMILY this entire time and all I have is a masters in electrical engineering and 13 years of computer experience!

Come to think of it, I should go push my dad for $80 for building his last computer.

 

[BaNzaiDags]

Originally posted by: jvisaria

Originally posted by: furballi
Min hourly wage of $40 when working on friends and relatives' PCs.

Geez I have been missing out, I could have been charging MY FAMILY this entire time and all I have is a masters in electrical engineering and 13 years of computer experience!

Come to think of it, I should go push my dad for $80 for building his last computer.

yea... that's dirty... its your family.... have them buy you a 6-pack

 

[altonb1]

Yeah, yeah...I know I should have known that...but I was at work getting bombarded with questions and couldn't think. I finally just described them to get the post finished.

And hey...how come I didn't get the offical A+ pliers when I got my cert??? I'm gonna have to call Comptia and make a fomal complaint.

 

[furballi]

Time is $. I don't expect freebies from people, and they should not expect freebies from me. That's the best way to keep good friends and family members in line. Mom and Dad, of course, are exempt from this rule.

Sound advices are always FREE.

 

[xSeongminx]

Good rule to live by, but I consider my family (mom, dad, sister, grandma, and grandpa) to get whatever I have, anytime they want. I seriously abide by this rule of thumb, not because I have a few bucks laying around but because they have initially done so much for me. I guess it all depends on what environment you grew up in.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Flatpicker
Those "round" components are inductors.

I've always called them coils. *shrug*

Originally posted by: altonb1
If I put the original board in, I get the symptons I had once the 1st board failed: everything spins, but no POST.

That tells me some other component is causing the problem. What CPU/mobo is the original, and what PSU are you using? If the PSU was older or lower quality/output, perhaps it died trying to power the first Sempron setup. Sometimes "dead" PSUs can still put out power, just not good enough to power up a board.

Originally posted by: Flatpicker
Just because your friends think you are certifiable, doesn't mean you are fooling anyone.

OMG, furballi got pwned!!!111!~!1

Aack, I think I hurt a rib too. :laugh:

Sorry, furballi, just having a "moment" at your expense.

Originally posted by: mikeford
Don't worry about thermal compound on the used cpu, likely it just wouldn't overclock even with large voltage adjustments, overheated, or maybe was defective out of the box.

Gee, you instill confidence...

Originally posted by: altonb1
I know a previous post said not to mention years of experience, but I've had my A+ cert since '95 and I've never had problems like this before

Dude, mentioning A+ certification is almost as bad...

Who was it that used to say NCNE... was it Russ?

Originally posted by: furballi
Time is $. I don't expect freebies from people, and they should not expect freebies from me. That's the best way to keep good friends and family members in line.

I actually fully and completely agree with furballi.

"Give someone an inch and they'll take a foot."

It's amazing how much people will take advantage of you if you give away your expertise for free. Seriously! My family is actually pretty good at not taking advantage of me but there are still times that I feel "used."

Then there's people that I've gamed with at LAN parties back in CA who now message me asking about how to fix this or that. I don't want to be rude, but man, these guys are taking up my time to help them fix computers for other people that they charge money for. Worst is one guy I know who's "kind of" a friend. He has a cushy job being IT for a state prison, but he can't "IT" his way out of a mATX case! He used to always phone me for help and now that I'm not handy, he phones a good friend of mine who I used to work with. It's like, dude, do your own job - especially since he makes about 3x what we were making, yet he couldn't do his own job without our free help (which we no longer give :| ).

Yeah, you think that they're friends or family and that you'd just like to help them... but some day you'll find that you no longer have any free time and all your time is spent being someone else's computer-bitch. :roll:

 

[freshspace]

Zap and Furballi,

Thanks a lot. I took your advice and tried a different cable and a different configuration with the jumpers - HDD as slave and CD-Rom as master. My computer is loading xp as I type this from my laptop. Thanks again. I'll report the result later.

I just want to make sure what I read from here is correct. It is true that I should NOT install nvidia firewall and nvidia ide drivers, correct? I need people to tell me which drivers not to install so that all of my efforts in making my hardware work do not go to waste. Thanks you guys and gals.

Douglas

 

[furballi]

Ahhh...inductors...Henries...little gizmo that impedes current flow (to those without a MASTER in EE)! Same little toy is used at traffic intersections to detect the presence of a steel automobile.

The MB has oscillators (LC or inductor/capacitor circuit) which may "ring" (about 1KHz tone) if not properly assembled.

 

[furballi]

DO NOT load the Nvidia firewall and the Nvidia IDE drivers.

Go to the ECS website and download the latest AUDIO driver. Next, visit the NVIDIA website and download the latest NF3 chipset driver. Install the AUDIO driver from the ECS website. Reboot. Now run the NF3 driver that you've just downloaded. Uncheck the IDE driver. Install and ignore the prompt to install the firewall. Reboot PC.

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/P...&DetailID=502&DetailName=Specification

 

[jvisaria]

Eh? I just popped in the CD and installed all that junk.. works just fine for me.
I coupled this with the $30 Geforce 6200 in another thread and built an XP MCE rig which is recording all sorts of cool stuff as we speak!

Thanks for the deal guys!

 

[jolycu]

:| Arghhh! My shipment is lost somewhere! Ordered on the 18th, received an email saying it was shipped the 21st although their website showed "In Process" and no tracking number. Called yesterday and they say it shows it was delivered on the 23rd, supposedly left on the the door step! Well, it wasn't! No telling where DHL left it. The last time I ordered from Outpost, the DHL driver delivered my package the Postmasters house because he figured she would know who I was and could take care of getting it to me. Luckily, she knows me well and was willing to take delivery. But not this time. I've contacted her and all my other neighbors and no one has seen the package. Outpost is "reviewing" the situation and was supposed to call me back yesterday but they didn't. Guess I'll be calling them again later this morning.

Now I don't know whether to order another one (and call DHL and give them explicit directions to my door) so I can get this built and resell the original one if it ever shows up, or to wait until Outpost decides what they're going to do. This is really, really aggravating :|

Sorry for the rant, but I just had to vent!

 

[DarkTXKnight]

Ok so Ive got a question, how much of an imporvoement would I see if I got this and switched out my current setup:

AXP 2500+ OCed to 2 GHZ w\1GB DDR400 and 6800NU ???

 

[furballi]

I'd stick with the current rig.

 

[xSeongminx]

I'd upgrade. The differences will be great, and you can use the ram and video card. 2500's are still worth around 50-60$, so you'll recouperate most of the costs...

 

[BaNzaiDags]

Originally posted by: jolycu
:| Arghhh! My shipment is lost somewhere! Ordered on the 18th, received an email saying it was shipped the 21st although their website showed "In Process" and no tracking number. Called yesterday and they say it shows it was delivered on the 23rd, supposedly left on the the door step! Well, it wasn't! No telling where DHL left it. The last time I ordered from Outpost, the DHL driver delivered my package the Postmasters house because he figured she would know who I was and could take care of getting it to me. Luckily, she knows me well and was willing to take delivery. But not this time. I've contacted her and all my other neighbors and no one has seen the package. Outpost is "reviewing" the situation and was supposed to call me back yesterday but they didn't. Guess I'll be calling them again later this morning.

Now I don't know whether to order another one (and call DHL and give them explicit directions to my door) so I can get this built and resell the original one if it ever shows up, or to wait until Outpost decides what they're going to do. This is really, really aggravating :|

Sorry for the rant, but I just had to vent!

hmmm... they made me sign for mines

 

[D-Man]

thetxstang
I had to raise the chip voltage up but even at max it was a no go. I live close to a Frys and grabbed several of their 2600 and 2800 combos with this board and they all did 250 and were the Palermo core. This chip is just not the best. I build quite a few machines a year and sell them. I just clock them up if my customers want me to so this is no big deal. It just is fum to build combos from Frys and watch them sail.

 

[furballi]

Just couldn't resist the $80 price tag...so I picked up four more combos at Fry's. The gal gave me four printouts cause there was a limit of one per customer. I saw at least 100 boxes on the top shelf!

I was quite happy to discover that these boards have Matsushita capacitors at the main power section. ALL caps on this board have 105C rating.

The coils and transformers were solidly built and assembled, unlike some that I've seen on other ECS boards. Did a quick check to make sure that these boards are working properly. Vcore = 1.7%. 250MHz FSB. 5:6 memory speed at 2.5-3-3-6-1T (Corsair VS 2 x 512). They all passed Memtest #5 and #8 (10 passes) and 30 minutes of Prime95 max heat mode.

I also compared the speed of this rig with my A64 3000/939 computer. Both systems were set to 2.25GHz core speed with DDR333 2.5-3-3-6-1T timing. The Sempron setup was 7.7 to 9.9% slower with Super Pi 1M and 8M. Boot time was identical at 25 seconds (power activation to 1st display of desktop).

Without benchmark software, there is no way that I could differentiate between the two with most PC operations. Until the price of an A64 3000/939 combo drops below $100, this Sempron/ECS rig is still the KING of value.

I predict that Fry's will offer an A64 3000/939 with ECS NF3 or NF4 combo in the next four months for $100. If you don't have the need for PCI-E video, then stick with the passively-cooled NF3 chipset.

 

[daid]

This may be a dumb question, but is there a trick to wiring the Power Switch LED on this board? I attached the + and - as it shows in the manual but get no LED when I power up. Here is the thing... I am powering up without the processor. I just have the power connected to the motherboard and the front panel switches and LED's connected to the motherboard. The power switch powers up the fans, but the Power LED doesn't light up. Do you have to have the processor in for the light to power up, or is something wrong?

 

[Zap]

Dunno about the power LED functioning, but I know really nothing else functions without a working CPU in there. Just make sure you also put a fan/heatsink on CPU.

 

[pixelnate]

I have a new problem that I haven't seen mentioned before. I just oc'd the board, and everything works great. Except when I shut the machine down. When it completely powers down, I get the mother of all beeps, just one long, very loud beep that never stops. Even when I unplug the machine the beep never stops. I am having to keep my machine until I find an answer.

Does anybody know what's happening here?

 

[furballi]

Reset CMOS and retest. If okay, then bump to 205MHz FSB and retest.

 

[EKKC]

im thinking if i should get this. i have an old empty antec case

 

[pixelnate]

Originally posted by: furballi
Reset CMOS and retest. If okay, then bump to 205MHz FSB and retest.

So I guess what you are saying is just shut it down, and while it is in the middle of the 'beep that will not end', reset the CMOS and step it up a little bit at a time.

Any thoughts on what is causing this? The machine runs great when it is on. It is stable at 2.284 Ghz with FSB 250, Corsair Value ram at 166, 2T. But when I shut it down, the bashee wail from hell. Strange.