best cheap, reliable mainboard for 1.4 athlon? UPDATE: KT400 vs Nforce2 U400

[v0id]

recently my old-skool epox 8k7a mainboard (AMD 761 chipset, d00t) got melty on me. at some point, i don't know when, a lot of the mainboard capacitors bubbled out a bit. at this point, it works (sorta) but is extremely unreliable. anyways, i need a very reliable, preferably cheap mainboard for my athlon 1.4 ghz (i think its ok, the caps around the socket looked fine). i will NOT be upgrading this system otherwise anytime soon, as i'm studying abroad this upcoming school year and will be purchasing a notebook anyways, so please do not suggest nforce2, barton 2500+ blah blah etc. if i upgrade the machine again, it will probably be in a few years and i'll be replacing almost everything anyways.

it was recommended that i look into older ASUS KT266 or KT333 boards. are those chipsets reliable? i know ASUS is generally seen as a solid manufacturer. the other components in the system are a geforce2 pro, and a 256 mb stick of pc2100 crucial ddr ram. it might be ECC. i dont overclock and am not planning to in the future.

anyways, any help would be appreciated. i would really not like to spend more than 75 or so. cheaper is better, of course. thanks.

 

[Vette73]

Look for a KT400 board. They cost the same as a KT266a and KT333 for the most part. You can get a Shuttle AK39N for less than $69 shipped at newegg.com

If you want a cheap board then look at the ECS L7S7A2. It uses the SiS746 chipset and is fast and very cheap at newegg.com.

 

[robcy]

Try an ECS K7S5A Pro very stable, and just as fast. Get it here for $44.00 delivered.

http://www.tufshop.com/store/product1165.html

or try this one for $32.00 delivered (KT266)

http://www.bassotech.com/priceWATCH/products/motherboard/m7vib-a.htm

Good luck

 

[v0id]

heh, i actually ordered a K7S5A pro from newegg initially. it was DOA. its been RMA'd -- i'll go back to newegg, but im thinking i might be done with ECS.

is shuttle regarded as a "quality" mainboard manufacturer? reliable and whatnot?

 

[nick1985]

i would get a kt333 before i got a kt400. BAD experience

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Shuttle makes very good boards and the AN35N-Ultra at Newegg for 66$ shipped is a greast deal. You could drop the multiplier and go for 200fsb to get the most from that old dog.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Shuttle makes very good boards and the AN35N-Ultra at Newegg for 66$ shipped is a greast deal. You could drop the multiplier and go for 200fsb to get the most from that old dog.

Didn't see that. I would go for this one.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: v0id
heh, i actually ordered a K7S5A pro from newegg initially. it was DOA. its been RMA'd -- i'll go back to newegg, but im thinking i might be done with ECS.

is shuttle regarded as a "quality" mainboard manufacturer? reliable and whatnot?

...it happens, unfortunately, though I'd be more suspect of the PSU or memory, since I've only had one defective boards out of 32 ECS boards (29 of them K7S5A variants, 3 L7S7A2). The L7S7A2 is a great little board.
However, my AK35GT2 here is still chugging along, and has never given the slightest problem at all (though my Linksys NIC is another story...), so I'd ALSO say Shuttle would be a good way to go.
On chipsets, the KT266 was nice, but still had some oddities.
KT266A was good, KT333 better (mostly a tweaked KT266A), and so forth
SiS735 was good, 745 also, though tended to be pretty picky about PSU and memory (however, after my dad killed his mobo w/ a bad PSU, the extra $10 for a decent PSU and memory is well worth it).
The L7S7A2 (SiS 746) is probably as picky as it's predecessors, but Kingston ValueRAM and Forton PSUs (or the "Ever" ones that come with my favorite case) are cheap enough...
...and of course, NForce2 is king.

 

[robcy]

I have 3 K7S5A v1.0 in the house right now running fine. I think you got a lemon, but I would not judge them all by that. In the bang for the buch category they are hard to beat.

Puter tivo
XP1600
160GB Maxtor 8mb (HP Card ATA133)
8500 AIW
SB Audigy

Wife's puter
XP1900
60GB Maxtor
GF 2 TI
SB Live

 

[v0id]

ok, i am looking at two shuttle mainboards on newegg. unfortunately none of the other manufactures seem to fit my chipset choice/pricing needs.

1) AN35N-Ultra Retail
nForce2 Ultra 400 + MCP

no soundstorm, firewire, or any of that other crap. oh well, its only $66 shipped.

2) AK39N KT400 Retail
VIA KT400+VT8235

$68 shipped.

besides the chipset, these boards are essentially the same. same features, same price (basically), same everything. which one would you suggest? remember, reliability is key. although i suppose at some point in the future i might want to pop in a 2500+ when they're going for 40 bucks a pop.

 

[bambam]

Or if you need a cheap boad with onboard video, check ( what quality ? ) out one of the new KM400 boards -http://www.eebuy.com/IC/t_prddetail.bst?su_session=1320944357&prodid=9764 - ( see AT km400 thread )

 

[mdcrab]

I recently purchased a Shuttle AN35N, which is probably the cheapest Ultra 400 mobo around. Before I installed it in my machine my son scarffed it up and wrote me an IOU.

The AN35N is a great board for the money. Only had 2 problems. My son's hard drive was formatted in FAT32 instead of NTFS and the Windows XP Pro had problems reading the hard drive after it was installed with new mobo. Possibly some files were corrupted. After reformatting it worked fine. Also my son has an Athlon XP1600+ , but he also scarffed up my Mushkin Promo DDR PC3200. The board ran the processor at 266 mHz and the memory at 400mHz which caused some stability problems (Iam not sure if the board did this or if he went into BIOS). Both now are running rock steady at 266 now. Have a XP2600+ (333mHz FSB) which he needs to install so the memory isn't wasted.

mdcrab