AOpen MX4SG-4DL mobo ?'s

[misnomer]

I just built myself a new system, and it's my 2nd Intel build ever. I've been a big fan of AMD for nearly a decade, but the Celeron D's had me intrigued. Basically a somewhat watered-down version of the 533 FSB P4's from a few years ago, but half the price. I bought a Celeron D 325 for Socket 478 and the AOpen MX4SG-4DL mobo and I'm actually impressed, especially for a budget processor and a very-budget board. I love the 90nm Prescott core (which incidentally is running quite cool compared to reports of heat I've seen out there), and I'm used to dealing with Gigabyte or Asus boards as my preference, but the MX4SG-4DL had the Intel 865G chipset (it's my first Intel chipset--I don't like VIA much, NVidia is not available for Intel, and the SiS options weren't really impressive) and was only $60 shipped next day. Even the Intel Extreme on-board graphics are decent (compared to other chipsets).

I do have some questions, though. Having worked mostly with AMD systems and chipsets, I noticed when I got my board that there were no SATA driver floppies, nor any drivers on the board CD. I was leery, but the board posted perfectly and automatically recognized my SATA HD. I was flabbergasted. Is this true of all newer Intel chipsets, or is it something unique to this board or manufacturer?

Secondly, as mentioned above, the Prescotts have had a bad rap for being heaters under the hood, and I'm worried that the HSF supplied with my processor isn't enough. The Intel info and website indicate the stock HSF is plenty, and the computer isn't running hot, but I don't want to fry it. What temp should a Celeron D run at? Mine's at about 35 degrees Celcius right now. Should I get something a little nicer, or just stick to stock?

Lastly, should I consider upgrading to an Intel 915 or 925? I really wanted to get one initially, but my budget wouldn't allow for it at the time. Should I just wait until prices come down, or go ahead? Are there any problems with the 865 that I should be aware of? Is PCI-Express worth all the hype, or just go with AGP for now?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: misnomer
(FIRST) I noticed when I got my board that there were no SATA driver floppies, nor any drivers on the board CD. I was leery, but the board posted perfectly and automatically recognized my SATA HD. I was flabbergasted. Is this true of all newer Intel chipsets, or is it something unique to this board or manufacturer?

(SECOND) Secondly, as mentioned above, the Prescotts have had a bad rap for being heaters under the hood, and I'm worried that the HSF supplied with my processor isn't enough.

(THIRD) Lastly, should I consider upgrading to an Intel 915 or 925? ... Is PCI-Express worth all the hype, or just go with AGP for now?

1) I've noticed this. Intel's onboard SATA seems to be just an extension of their PATA... until you try running RAID. If you do run RAID, you will indeed have to download the RAID version of IAA from Intel's web site. All other chipsets that I've worked with (so far VIA and Nvidia) with SATA integrated into the chipset required the RAID drivers to be installed during Windows install, almost as if it were a third party SATA chip. This is something good to know if anyone ever wants to run SATA on an OS without driver support.

2) The included HSF is fine. Sounds like you aren't overclocking, so don't even sweat it. The "bad rap" with Prescotts are for those at higher speeds, and for those who overclock. The Prescotts run at nice low voltages and at nice low temps until about 3GHz, give or take, above which it starts converting electricity to heat at a very efficient rate. :evil:

3) If you got a budget CPU for a budget system, don't start throwing money into it. IIRC most/all 915/925 motherboards are socket LGA775, so your CPU may not even work. Don't sweat the performance differences. Let's see, PCI-e graphics that for the near future won't be any better than AGP. DDR2 which is higher latency than DDR. What else? Better SATA?

 

[misnomer]

That's pretty much what I thought about the upgrading. I really wanted to try PCI Express for video, but I really haven't heard anything that impressive about it yet. I guess I'll wait for 2.0 to come out

Yeah, my celly seems to be running fine and not overheating. I wasn't sure if it was all Prescott cores, or just the higher end P4's. I'll probably stay stock for now.

That's interesting about SATA on Intel boards. I've had several boards, with anything from NVidia to VIA to SiS chipsets, and they all required drivers in the WinXP install. I was really worried that it wouldn't boot correctly, and the manufacturer's website didn't have any thing for it either, but she booted up perfectly first time. I'm not going to be doing RAID on this machine, so I'll not have to worry about that.

Another question, though. I noticed that after I got all my drivers and stuff installed for the board, the Intel fan/heat/etc monitoring program reports that the HSF is not attached and it can't read the fan speed. It is connected, and the fan is blowing. Is there anything I should check for on the board, or maybe a software/firmware update? I'm using the most recent BIOS available from the AOpen website. Any suggestions?