Need Mobo Recommendation. Need 1 ISA slot, Athlon 2100xp

[sekser]

Need to build a computer that has a ISA slot. (ya i know....)
looking to build these specs:

athlon xp 2100
512 PC2100 ram
WD 80Gig SE 8mb
Geforce 4 TI4200/4400
Lite-on burner
Lite-on DVD-Rom

I just need a motherboard recommendation
Onboard Lan and Sound would be a major PLUS.

Thanks,
Bobby

 

[birddog]

I got bad news for you, you will not find a socket A DDR board with an ISA slot. I went through the same thing this past spring. My father has a propriarity ISA SCSI card that he cannot get rid of. I looked for DDR boards for both AMD & Intel CPU's. No dice. No one makes boards with ISA slots any more (even though the KT266a and KT333 chipsets support ISA, no manufactures are including them any more).

The best board you can pick up with an ISA slot is on a KT133a chipset. I ended up getting him the Abit K7T (or whatever it is they call their KT133a board). I also believe that the MSI Kt133a board still has an ISA slot on it also & I think that the Iwill KT133a board has one too. I found a Tyan i845 P4 (SDR) board with an ISA slot also.

 

[Peter]

None of the DDR supporting Athlon chipsets even have an ISA bus to start with. So I guess it's either SDRAM on an old KT133A board (careful about Athlon-XP support on those, and mind the bandwidth limitations caused by the southbridge still being on the main PCI bus), or part with that ISA card and build a really modern system.

 

[birddog]

According to SiSoft Sandra 2002, my Shuttle AK31a has an ISA supported BUS. So it appears that the KT266a chipset is capible of ISA, but the motherboard manufactures just have not included it. 90% of the KT133a boards do not have ISA slots. This is more of a motherboard manufacturers decision than a chipset limitation.

If you are real desperate, I did investigate some USB to ISA adaptors. They were $200+ this past spring. Do a google search if you want to look into them.

 

[clumsum]

sekser,

Here is the highest performing mb I know of with an ISA slot:

BioStar M7MIA

Be aware, you must get a later revision version of this mb to flash to XP support (details on Biostar bios download site).

 

[JC]

Originally posted by: clumsum
sekser,

Here is the highest performing mb I know of with an ISA slot:

BioStar M7MIA

Be aware, you must get a later revision version of this mb to flash to XP support (details on Biostar bios download site).

Wow, DDR and ISA....whoda thunk it? Nice find!

 

[clumsum]

[/quote]

Wow, DDR and ISA....whoda thunk it? Nice find![/quote]

The AMD 761 is no slouch, either ...........!

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: birddog
According to SiSoft Sandra 2002, my Shuttle AK31a has an ISA supported BUS. So it appears that the KT266a chipset is capible of ISA, but the motherboard manufactures just have not included it. 90% of the KT133a boards do not have ISA slots. This is more of a motherboard manufacturers decision than a chipset limitation.

If you are real desperate, I did investigate some USB to ISA adaptors. They were $200+ this past spring. Do a google search if you want to look into them.

No, KT266A does not support ISA. It's just that the connection to the legacy I/O chip (the so-called LPC bus) looks like an ISA bus to software, for compatibility reasons.


Ah, the AMD 761/VIA 686B combo. Forgot about that one. Yes, 686B south bridge has a true ISA bus hanging out its bottom. But remember, this chipset runs the south bridge on the main PCI bus (where all the slots are too), so performance isn't as good as with more modern chipsets. See above.

regards, Peter

 

[Mem]

Need to build a computer that has a ISA slot. (ya i know....)

May I asked what the ISA slot is for hardware wise? IMHO you`re better upgrading the ISA hardware to PCI version,that`ll give you more choices and more future proof upgrade wise.

 

[sekser]

The ISA slot is for this

http://www.tti.net/computer-telephony/dialogic.html

Its a dialogic board for some kind of sales thing. They told me it uses a ISA slot.

thanks for the recommendation

 

[Peter]

This, from the connector layout, very obviously is a PCI card. Besides, I spot a PLXtech chip there. PLXtech specialize in PCI-to-whatever bridge chips, often found on cards like these, exactly to bring old (ISA) technology special stuff onto the PCI bus.

regards, Peter