Intel C2D combo deal at Fry's

[3LEMENT0]

I'm in need of building an extra machine for business use and am currently considering getting the combo deal at Fry's. I would like to find out if they are reliable enough that they won't just suddenly die. Usage will be MS Office suite and internet surfing running on WinXP Pro.

Normally I'd just get a Dell/HP/eMachines but I have an extra Sonata II case so I decided to just use it and build a basic machine for the office.

Do these ECS boards hold up pretty well?

Budget is the cheapest of course but I can probably swing getting everything at Fry's B&M.

Possible Build:
Case is Sonata II with 450W Antec TP - (available)
ECS combo deal - $200ish (hopefully with integrated video/audio)
1 Gig ram - $70ish - $100ish
HDD - whatever is on sale for $50
CD drive - whatever is cheapest IDE or SATA doesn't matter $30ish-$50ish
Video Card - Integrated or whatever is cheapest $10ish - $100ish
keyboard + mouse - (available)
Monitor - (available CRT or if I find a really cheap LCD I might get it)

 

[mindless1]

In general no, for a reliable business machine an ECS board is about the last "name brand" you should consider. Some ECS boards are now better than their average track record would suggest but they're the more expensive ones not the combo special all-in-ones.

 

[Frintin]

I have 3 ECS motherboards in use (one is a K7S5A combo deal with an AMD 2500+ Barton, one is an L7S7A2 combo deal with an AMD 2600+ Barton, and one is an ECS N2U400-A with a 2600+ Barton.)

I have never encountered any problems with any of them even though there were stories of them being picky about memory (needing Samsung chip memory etc.) and would recommend them to anyone. The computers range from light internet use and email to a gaming rig that I and my family use everyday. I have put Kingston Valueram, ADATA, no name etc. memory in them. I have updated bios'es. They still run great with no problems.

Getting ready to upgrade a couple computers again and I am not going with ECS because I got deals on the e6300/Intel motherboards. Would have grabbed a combo deal with an ECS motherboard if it was not so far to drive to get em.

You are getting a great deal on those combos and ECS does pack a lot of features onto their motherboards (no one can argue about that.)

 

[3LEMENT0]

Thank you.

I'll try it out, if something goes wrong I'll just return them and buy the PC from OEM.

Originally posted by: Frintin
I have 3 ECS motherboards in use (one is a K7S5A combo deal with an AMD 2500+ Barton, one is an L7S7A2 combo deal with an AMD 2600+ Barton, and one is an ECS N2U400-A with a 2600+ Barton.)

I have never encountered any problems with any of them even though there were stories of them being picky about memory (needing Samsung chip memory etc.) and would recommend them to anyone. The computers range from light internet use and email to a gaming rig that I and my family use everyday. I have put Kingston Valueram, ADATA, no name etc. memory in them. I have updated bios'es. They still run great with no problems.

Getting ready to upgrade a couple computers again and I am not going with ECS because I got deals on the e6300/Intel motherboards. Would have grabbed a combo deal with an ECS motherboard if it was not so far to drive to get em.

You are getting a great deal on those combos and ECS does pack a lot of features onto their motherboards (no one can argue about that.)

 

[mindless1]

Perhaps I should expand more, ECS boards are about the most failure prone of any brand made. K7S5A in particular, is the most noteworthy board with bad capacitors since the P3 era. Several other ECS boards suffered the same fate.

They aren't more featured either, more like the least featured, stripped down even to the point there were too cheap to put fuses on USB or PS2 ports. Deliberate omission of things other manufacturers consider standard.

 

[3LEMENT0]

Originally posted by: mindless1
Perhaps I should expand more, ECS boards are about the most failure prone of any brand made. K7S5A in particular, is the most noteworthy board with bad capacitors since the P3 era. Several other ECS boards suffered the same fate.

They aren't more featured either, more like the least featured, stripped down even to the point there were too cheap to put fuses on USB or PS2 ports. Deliberate omission of things other manufacturers consider standard.

Thank you, I'll look for a board elsewhere then. Normally I'd get one of the OEM's and call it a day but as timing goes, the need came as I'm building my machine (I normally build my gaming rig every 3 years since
94') so I thought why not spend a bit of my time just to put it together.

I'll do more researcha and look at the cheaper boards out there that would provide stability such as ASRock.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind.