Cool features you don't see anymore in newer boards

[ComputerWizKid]

I was given a bunch of computer parts (Again!) It can either be a godsend or a PITA if you know what I mean() and if i refuse one piece I will get nothing in the future (At-least he does not ask hey how is that board working a year latter) Anyway one piece was a BIO-Star M7VIG Pro with an Athlon XP 2000+ and 767MB of PC-2700

I am really liking this board (I know it is old but it is cool)
It can take two types of ram DDR/PC-2700 or SD-Ram/PC133 (Not at once though) and in the BIOS it has a mini manual it says the most important hardware jumpers and even has the pinout of the front panel headers (LED/Switch) and when you boot the computer before the OS loads it will show you the Hardware Monitor screen as part of the post screen (Cool if you ask me

I wish my newer boards had these features although this board has no SATA :thumbsdown: but it was made before SATA was introduced so that does not detract from the coolness of those three features

Anyone know any other cool features that past generations of parts had that are not features in the current generation of parts?

 

[MrTransistorm]

Anyone know any other cool features that past generations of parts had that are not features in the current generation of parts?

Floppy connectors! :awe:

Also Game/MIDI ports.

 

[dac7nco]

Turbo buttons and side-mounted keyboard function keys.
Memory expansion CARDS (just kidding - F*** that).

Daimon

 

[james1701]

math coprocessor slot

 

[GrumpyMan]

Dip switches to overclock the processor. Want to oc? Flip the switches bitches!

 

[A5]

Dip switches to overclock the processor. Want to oc? Flip the switches bitches!

Give me BIOS overclocking any day over dealing with DIP switches.

 

[Numenorean]

I was given a bunch of computer parts (Again!) It can either be a godsend or a PITA if you know what I mean() and if i refuse one piece I will get nothing in the future (At-least he does not ask hey how is that board working a year latter) Anyway one piece was a BIO-Star M7VIG Pro with an Athlon XP 2000+ and 767MB of PC-2700

I am really liking this board (I know it is old but it is cool)
It can take two types of ram DDR/PC-2700 or SD-Ram/PC133 (Not at once though) and in the BIOS it has a mini manual it says the most important hardware jumpers and even has the pinout of the front panel headers (LED/Switch) and when you boot the computer before the OS loads it will show you the Hardware Monitor screen as part of the post screen (Cool if you ask me

I wish my newer boards had these features although this board has no SATA :thumbsdown: but it was made before SATA was introduced so that does not detract from the coolness of those three features

Anyone know any other cool features that past generations of parts had that are not features in the current generation of parts?

So you wish that your newer motherboards had hardware jumpers instead of being jumperless? That makes sense.

 

[CrimsonWolf]

I sort of miss the Slot 1/A interfaces. They were pretty handy. They were sturdy and I didn't need to worry about bent pins and whatnot. Good luck trying to fit today's big tower coolers on those though

 

[Numenorean]

I sort of miss the Slot 1/A interfaces. They were pretty handy. They were sturdy and I didn't need to worry about bent pins and whatnot. Good luck trying to fit today's big tower coolers on those though

Yeah and the speed of the processors necessitated the move back to a socket on the board.

I remember when I had one of those slot to socket converters.

I remember making a celery sandwich - kudos to those who even remember what that is.

 

[aigomorla]

I am really liking this board (I know it is old but it is cool)
It can take two types of ram DDR/PC-2700 or SD-Ram/PC133 (Not at once though)

we had that.. dont have it anymore because of the spec and speeds on ram.
But ive seen boards with DDR2 + DDR3 on them.

Dip switches to overclock the processor. Want to oc? Flip the switches bitches!

eVGA classy has that... its more of a little diag panel with LED's, but u can dip switch the voltage to your cpu so u can get a higher OC.

Also we have switches now to disable PCI-E lanes when were using more then 1 gpu. So i guess you can say we still have that.

 

[james1701]

Oh, and don't forget buying dram chips to get to 650kb or 1mb on board, and needing the dos drivers on the disk for it.

 

[GrumpyMan]

we had that.. dont have it anymore because of the spec and speeds on ram.
But ive seen boards with DDR2 + DDR3 on them.



eVGA classy has that... its more of a little diag panel with LED's, but u can dip switch the voltage to your cpu so u can get a higher OC.

Also we have switches now to disable PCI-E lanes when were using more then 1 gpu. So i guess you can say we still have that.

Didn't know they still had them, pretty cool.

 

[Zap]

It can take two types of ram DDR/PC-2700 or SD-Ram/PC133 (Not at once though)...and when you boot the computer before the OS loads it will show you the Hardware Monitor screen as part of the post screen (Cool if you ask me

Some current G41 chipset boards can take either DDR2 or DDR3. It all depends on the chipset and if the board is made during a transition period.

I've seen plenty of motherboards (including recent ones) that do hardware monitor on POST. You enable it in BIOS.

Turbo buttons and side-mounted keyboard function keys.

Look up "Asus Turbo Key."

"Gaming" keyboards like the G15 have side mounted programmable function keys.

Dip switches to overclock the processor. Want to oc? Flip the switches bitches!

Some recent MSI boards have had this feature. For instance their older X58 chipset boards (X58M, X58 Pro-E, X58 Platinum, X58 Eclipse) and I recall seeing overclocking dip switches even on some of their socket 1156 boards.

I remember making a celery sandwich - kudos to those who even remember what that is.

Of course. Friend of mine bought the "official" one from, what was that site, TheNerds or Computer Nerds? (not to be confused with Computer Geeks). He still wasn't able to clock any higher though, with his crappy Costa Rica Celeron.

 

[BladeVenom]

Soundstorm

 

[Numenorean]

Of course. Friend of mine bought the "official" one from, what was that site, TheNerds or Computer Nerds? (not to be confused with Computer Geeks). He still wasn't able to clock any higher though, with his crappy Costa Rica Celeron.

I got my 300A to a scorching 450MHz.

 

[jlee]

Yeah and the speed of the processors necessitated the move back to a socket on the board.

I remember when I had one of those slot to socket converters.

I remember making a celery sandwich - kudos to those who even remember what that is.

yay for slockets!

 

[Edrick]

Onboard external CPU cache slots. I want L4 Cache damit!

 

[WildW]

On a slightly different but related note, I could make a similar comment about interesting add-in cards. Before I finally threw away my Creative Labs AWE32 card I took a picture to remember it by. It had an extra chip socket for god-knows what purpose, and a built-in IDE interface for your new-fangled CD-ROM drive.

It was frakking enormous. I've seen plenty of smaller modern graphics cards.

 

[promposive]

A7N8X Deluxe, instead of beeps it had voice saying the bios post codes over your regular speakers. You could change the sound for each message.

 

[Ross Ridge]

It was frakking enormous. I've seen plenty of smaller modern graphics cards.

My Gravis Ultrasound was a full length card. I actually discovered little guides at front my case that the card slid into.

I'm never throwing that baby away.

 

[WT]

I miss the Asrock CPU upgrade slots. I still have one rocking an Asrock SATAII-939 board:

http://www.techpowerup.com/?9287

And another vote for Soundstorm !!

 

[MrTransistorm]

A7N8X Deluxe, instead of beeps it had voice saying the bios post codes over your regular speakers. You could change the sound for each message.

I think my P4C800E Deluxe has that feature too. I have never turned on though.

 

[IdBuRnS]

Yeah and the speed of the processors necessitated the move back to a socket on the board.

I remember when I had one of those slot to socket converters.

I remember making a celery sandwich - kudos to those who even remember what that is.

Who could forget overclocking their Celeron 300A. That chip was a beast!

 

[Rubycon]

we had that.. dont have it anymore because of the spec and speeds on ram.
But ive seen boards with DDR2 + DDR3 on them.



eVGA classy has that... its more of a little diag panel with LED's, but u can dip switch the voltage to your cpu so u can get a higher OC.


Also we have switches now to disable PCI-E lanes when were using more then 1 gpu. So i guess you can say we still have that.

Those aren't actual DIP switches. DIP switches get their name from fitting in a DIP socket. Many peripherals moved to a much compact format of sliding switch. The EVGA module has push-on push-off switches similar to audio processors.

The PCI-E disable feature is accomplished with those Berg jumpers. The Titanic could have used those.

On a slightly different but related note, I could make a similar comment about interesting add-in cards. Before I finally threw away my Creative Labs AWE32 card I took a picture to remember it by. It had an extra chip socket for god-knows what purpose, and a built-in IDE interface for your new-fangled CD-ROM drive.



It was frakking enormous. I've seen plenty of smaller modern graphics cards.

That socket was for a special DSP chip that allowed for hardware speech synthesis, for example.

 

[WildW]

That socket was for a special DSP chip that allowed for hardware speech synthesis, for example.

To this day I am still waiting for any sort of upgrade that will give my PC a sexy female computer voice. Like maybe a softer, sultry, purring GlaDOS.