Any MicroATX with onboard VGA, Sound, Ethernet?

[Joffer]

I'm looking for a MicroATX motherboard that has onboard:
-Sound
-VGA
-Ethernet

I'm gonna use a "cheap" cpu type, eg. celeron, k6 or duron.

on board tv-out would have been nice too, but i don't think that exsists.

Could any of you guys give me some links if you know of any boards with this specs?

 

[relyt]

Hmmm...
Your requirements are kind of steep. I don't believe a micro mobo exists with what you're demanding, I don't think there is enough room. I personally would go with a larger board, you may find what you want there.
Onboard video is NOT a good idea. It is worse across the board than almost any other video solution. You can find a videocard that is much better than a mobo version for about $50, and a 3-COM 10/100 Base T Ethernet card for around $30. Then, do yourself a favor and buy a bigger board, preferably something by a good manufacturer, like Asus, ABIT, or AOPEN. Trust me, the difference will be worth the extra money you spend.

 

[Joffer]

If i wanted a bigger board I'd ask for it.

I want a MicroATX with the above specs..

I want onboard vga cuz I'm only gonna use console/linux so onboard is just 100% fine

not to seem too rude, but please just answer to the question, and don't question my intent with the setup or my knowledge. I know what I'm after and that's what I'm asking for. This isn't gonna be a "normal" computer etc.. so again.. :

I'm looking for a MicroATX motherboard that has onboard:
-Sound
-VGA
-Ethernet

 

[2336]

joffer, try www.tcwo.com and check out their selection of socket 7 MoBo's. I think that the TekRam or the BioStar may meet your requirements, and they're reasonably priced. In fact I'm looking real hard at the TekRam board myself. Good luck!


RGR

 

[Joffer]

Looks like a 2 out of 3 hit... didn't find any onboard ethernet. or am I mistaken?

 

[mutex]

I uses PC-Chips 741LMRT
It has onboard C-Media Sound, Davilink ethernet and SIS620 Video.
they all works under Linux and I am happy with it. It even has a
onboard WinModem that can work under Linux.

The only problem is that it is made by Pc-Chips and many people don't like PC-Chips

If you want to find more info on PC-Chips board, here is the site,
http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q3998142/pcchips/links.html

Frank

 

[Joffer]

Finally someone had a link etc for me. Thnx Frank (mutex).

PCChips.. hmm.. the site wasn't the best I've seen.. but i don't care.. if I just can find such a motherboard u describe and linux support is all ok is a big plus

I'll go have a look

-Christopher

 

[Joffer]

Did you say you were using such a motherboard? I was looking at the picture.. but wasn't able to locate the LAN port.. but then again the picture was taken from above, and the specs says it supports 10/100 Mbit LAN so I guess it does..

do you have a price for me? about?

 

[mutex]

It comes with Ethernet and modem "adapters". The only thing I don't like about its ethernet is there is no LEDs for it. The site I gave you has links to many companies that have info about the board. With the updated BIOS, I think you can use FC-PGA on it.

I bought the board in Canada, it was $99CDN Dec, 1999 when I bought it.

Frank

 

[Joffer]

Well.. after a big search ... I've found a few boards.. beside the on Frank (mutex) had for me.

The one that fullfilled my requirements 110% was Tomcat i810ef (S2420) Motherboard (http://p://www.tyan.com/products/html/tomcati810ef_c.html)

 

[rigor]

get the pcchips i810e motherboard, DO NOT use the cheap BX knock off boards, they are suck.

the i810e based boards share 1 meg of ram for video, and have 4 megs of fast ram for video. the BX versions use up to 8 megs of primary ram (SLOW!) for video and no on board cache.

the 810e supports 133 megahertz (some run 133 memory with 66/100 fsb chips.)
the 810e boards usually have a nicer sound card (yamaha or creative). maybe not the pcchips 766 lmrt i think has the cheap sound card.
The 810e overclocks 366 to 550 and 566 to 850/533 to 800 (celeron II or coppermine supported) the BX boards do not support the celeron II and coppermine in most cases.

You'll be much happier with the i810e based boards. by the way bummer on the forsale trade was selling some 810-based all-in-one boards for $39 shipped on the forsale/trade, he sold me one, it works great at 800mghz (celeron 533a)

 

[mutex]

rigor

actually, i810e has its AC97 sound codec. So, I don't think any of
i810e based M/B would use yamaha or creative chip.

Joffer

that is really a much better board. I used 741LMRT because I want to add node for Seti@home that does nothing besides executing Seti@home. Since its network has network boot, I don't have a hdd, just ram(32MB) and CPU(celeron 450). It boot from my main computer with Mandrake and run seti@home for $200CDN.

However, if I want something that I am going to use for real, I think Tomcat i810ef (S2420) is a much better choice since it has 2 PCI slots, better network, and better graphics i752.

Frank

 

[Jhhnn]

The intel CA810EAL has what you want, as do some of the gigabyte boards. These are s370 solutions, ok for most users, particularly business or your little sister, and not at all what the habituees of this forum would generally consider for personal use. Linux support? don't know, but you can get it with a soundblaster chip. Pricewatch> vendors>intel.

 

[Peter]

PC-Chips has a few boards that match your requirements:

Available:

M599LMR - super-7, SiS 530 including VGA, C-Media 8738 sound/modem, SiS 900 10/100 LAN.

M741LMRT - same for slot-1/socket-370 twin (using SiS 620)


New:

M757LMR, M758LMR - socket-370, SiS 630 all-in-one chipset including VGA and LAN, C-Media 8738 sound/modem. M758LMR has the better expansion slot layout, with the softmodem raiser not blocking a PCI slot.

M581LMR - same for super-7 (using SiS 540)

These new boards have an A-DIMM slot that either takes SDRAM memory for the integrated VGA to use, or a "Video Companion" board (using an SiS 301 chip) that'll bring you TV, Digital Flat Panel, and Secondary CRT outputs. Neither add-ons are available yet.

http://www.pcchips.com.tw/product.html

(Note: All those boards seem to come in "MR" flavors as well. These do not have the LAN hardware.)

Linux support is particularly good for SiS chips, since they aided in driver development and even developped some of the stuff themselves. Even the integrated DVD decoders have drivers. C-Media 8738 sound and softmodem (!) also have mature Linux drivers, and so do the LAN and IDE devices.

Regards, Peter

 

[Peter]

... and finally, PC-Chips branch ECS has gone all the way and built a "P6STP-FN" socket-370 FlexATX using the SiS 630 all-in-one.

As usual for that family of boards, it has 3D VGA, 10/100 LAN, 4.1-channel sound, and modem. But this board has the SiS 301 companion right on the mainboard as well, bringing a TV-out as a standard feature.

Expansion is, well, erm, limited ... either use the modem raiser or the sole PCI slot.

Regards, Peter

 

[Hawkeye_(BEL)]

Maybe a bit off topic, but does Linux have AC97 support ?

 

[Peter]

"AC97" isn't something generic you support. It's just a standardized data bus for audio and modem data between the sound chip and the audio/modem codec chips. This allows integrating the purely digital part of the sound engine into the mainboard core chipset, and do the conversion from/to actual analog audio signals elsewhere (like on the AMR riser card or close to the Audio connectors on the mainboard).

Meaning that Linux needs to support the specific sound chips that are embedded into the respective chipsets. Needless to say that the integrated sound units from ALi, VIA, SiS and Intel all use their own proprietary programming model.

There are (very basic and very immature) drivers for all those, with SiS probably being most helpful of all four. Expect this to improve quickly, as with everything on Linux

Regards, Peter

 

[Hawkeye_(BEL)]

Thanks for the info Peter !

Hmm, so I'll have to disable AC97 and plug my old SB16 card in my new motherboard in order to get sound working under Linux... I'll give it a shot.

 

[TheKingAnt]

My onboard sound worked in Linux (Via Apollo MVP4 chipset). It wasn't all that great, but that's okay, it's my server and I didn't really want sound anyway. The the onboard video was also pretty lousy, so I bought a PCI Voodoo3. Much Better. Onboard video is probably usable for just a console though.

 

[Joffer]

Well, Onboard video was only ment for console, atleast for my use. That's why I wanted onboard vga.. as with ethernet and sound.. just want a simple linux system for a project

 

[Peter]

Hawkeye,

you don't have to disable the onboard sound engine. Give newer Linux sound drivers a try first.

Regards, Peter