Foxconn Motherboards -> Any Good?
- Thread starter bob4432
- Start date
MichaelD
Lifer
- Jan 16, 2001
- 31,528
- 3
- 76
Heh, you saw the I865 boards for sale on Newegg's front page, right? 
I saw those too this morning. I was thinking "gee, that's cheap!"
I've no experience with them...I always stick with established, bigger brands when it comes to mainboards. After all, it's the backbone of your system!!!
I saw those too this morning. I was thinking "gee, that's cheap!"I've no experience with them...I always stick with established, bigger brands when it comes to mainboards. After all, it's the backbone of your system!!!
- Sep 6, 2003
- 11,726
- 45
- 91
Originally posted by: MichaelD
Heh, you saw the I865 boards for sale on Newegg's front page, right?
I've no experience with them...I always stick with established, bigger brands when it comes to mainboards. After all, it's the backbone of your system!!!
you got it, i thought that was really cheap... but i can't even find any reviews of it... i will keep looking
i have seen other retailers selling the same board for ~$115hey bob4432,
Let us know how it goes with the Foxconn. That is a great price, and with the low prices of processors, you could end up with an all time best buy. Good luck.
Let us know how it goes with the Foxconn. That is a great price, and with the low prices of processors, you could end up with an all time best buy. Good luck.
Right, they're all gone already. Never pays to wait, assuming the board turns out to be reasonable quality. We're still waiting to hear if you got a great buy. As a consolation for those like me who hesitated too long, you can probably buy a comparable low end Dell for what it costs to build a low end rig yourself. Where you really save money is when you build a mid to high end rig. bob4432 gets the "early bird gets the worm" award!
I have two friends who recently bought Dells. I matched component for component on Newegg.com and was able to save about $300 with better quality. Of course that does not include the value of time spent building the system. But I agree with you that cost is not the prime advantage, compared to the satisfaction of having your own system which you can easily repair, maintain, and upgrade.
but getting back to important things...did you get your Foxconn yet? Does it oc?
but getting back to important things...did you get your Foxconn yet? Does it oc?
- Sep 6, 2003
- 11,726
- 45
- 91
well, i received my board/chip today, a day early (i love newegg) and upon first inspection of the board the layout appears good and well spaced out. the only problem i can see is for people with small cases as the atx connector is to the right of the 4 memory slots. in the larger case this shouldn't be a problem but with a smaller case the connectors for the optical drives will be up next to it. in the past i have used some removeable hdd cases in a antec lanboy that would not fit in any external bay except the top one because they were a little too long and would bump up against the memory. another small annoyance is that the power led connector on the board is 2 pin instead of 3 pin, no biggie but a small annoyance.
all in all a excellently laid out board that gives you plenty of room around items. considering the fact that the board has onboard 1394, 4 x usb and gigabit lan you can't beat it for the price i paid.
i will be installing the board into my 835 case and let you all know how it goes, again through a p4 newbies perspective.
regarding the chip - (this is from the perspective of a p4 newbie) damn that is one big cooling device.
(i love newegg) and upon first inspection of the board the layout appears good and well spaced out. the only problem i can see is for people with small cases as the atx connector is to the right of the 4 memory slots. in the larger case this shouldn't be a problem but with a smaller case the connectors for the optical drives will be up next to it. in the past i have used some removeable hdd cases in a antec lanboy that would not fit in any external bay except the top one because they were a little too long and would bump up against the memory. another small annoyance is that the power led connector on the board is 2 pin instead of 3 pin, no biggie but a small annoyance.all in all a excellently laid out board that gives you plenty of room around items. considering the fact that the board has onboard 1394, 4 x usb and gigabit lan you can't beat it for the price i paid.
i will be installing the board into my 835 case and let you all know how it goes, again through a p4 newbies perspective.
regarding the chip - (this is from the perspective of a p4 newbie) damn that is one big cooling device.
I ordered an 865G one Saturday morning, and it arrived yesterday. Seems to be a very nice board.
Haven't yet done anything with it but an initial test, but there was one issue to resolve, before I
got it to come up.
I used an old 1.7GHz Willamette Celeron as my test proc. The docs say this is supported. No
go on first try; the board has a row of 5 status LED's, and one of them was blinking. The
silkscreened legend says this means "CPU or BIOS components not installed or defective".
I started measuring voltages with a meter and found that Vcore was 0.95. Hmmm, that sounds like
a Prescott voltage, way too low for a Willy.
So I tried shorting the jumper near the CPU, J9 I think? That did the trick. I guess there aren't
enough VID bits to cover the range from Willy to Prescott?
As far as I could find, this jumper is undocumented.
Haven't yet done anything with it but an initial test, but there was one issue to resolve, before I
got it to come up.
I used an old 1.7GHz Willamette Celeron as my test proc. The docs say this is supported. No
go on first try; the board has a row of 5 status LED's, and one of them was blinking. The
silkscreened legend says this means "CPU or BIOS components not installed or defective".
I started measuring voltages with a meter and found that Vcore was 0.95. Hmmm, that sounds like
a Prescott voltage, way too low for a Willy.
So I tried shorting the jumper near the CPU, J9 I think? That did the trick. I guess there aren't
enough VID bits to cover the range from Willy to Prescott?
As far as I could find, this jumper is undocumented.
- Sep 6, 2003
- 11,726
- 45
- 91
i installed it into my antec 835 case and for the most part all went well. the machine is up and running at stock speeds with 512MB of pc2100 ram (haven't decided what ram to get - pc3500 or pc4000) and it is noticeably faster than my old xp2000 with doulbe the amount of ram. the install went smooth and i must say foxconn did a good job with their utilities, they work excellent for in windows bios updating.
i have run into a couple of minor annoyances again.
the i/o plate holes need to be enlarged about 1/32". the plate is very tight on the 1/8" input/output connectors for sound/mic and also serial and lpt port, basically anything that protrudes out is tight, actually too tight. i personally like to install a m/b in a case with all screws, just a personal preference, but this one i had to install with 2 of the plastic standoffs because when you put the board in the case and the items through the i/o plate, they would hit the side of the i/o plate before lining up with the screw holes. like i said, i found this to be a very minor annoyance.
the other is the board layout in terms of memory slots. you can't acces the first slot with a video card installed. i know this is a minor annoyance but still on all the same.
idle cpu temp is 39-40C, 55C running prime95, case temp is 30-32C in a room that is 79F. do these temps sound good?
i have run into a couple of minor annoyances again.
the i/o plate holes need to be enlarged about 1/32". the plate is very tight on the 1/8" input/output connectors for sound/mic and also serial and lpt port, basically anything that protrudes out is tight, actually too tight. i personally like to install a m/b in a case with all screws, just a personal preference, but this one i had to install with 2 of the plastic standoffs because when you put the board in the case and the items through the i/o plate, they would hit the side of the i/o plate before lining up with the screw holes. like i said, i found this to be a very minor annoyance.
the other is the board layout in terms of memory slots. you can't acces the first slot with a video card installed. i know this is a minor annoyance but still on all the same.
idle cpu temp is 39-40C, 55C running prime95, case temp is 30-32C in a room that is 79F. do these temps sound good?
I think you will notice on MANY MANY motherboards, you will find Foxconn printed on the back panel connectors.
- Sep 6, 2003
- 11,726
- 45
- 91
got a question about o/c. in the bios there are only 3 options for memory speed ddr266,333 & 400. there is also another option that lets you up the fsb of the chip only. now i have done this with my pc2100 ram just to see if it works. i tried running the 2.8 @ 2.9 and it worked perfectly even with pc2100 ram and the ram still showed up @ 133 with cpu-z. my question is do i need to just get pc3200 since it seems like the ram is locked at one of the 3 options?
It's hard to reply since you're the only one with the Foxconn mb, but it sounds like the bios allows you to fix the mem speed independently from FSB. If that's true, it's very nice, and should allow you to use lower speed memory while oc'ing. I know that Intel chipset like 1:1 ratios, but other ratios like 5:4 work. So, yes, you seem to have the answer that you can prob just go with 3200 RAM and lock the mem speed when oc'ing. Let us know how it's going.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 24K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 20K
-
-
-
Facebook
Twitter