[geeks] Intel Atom MB - Initial Impressions

[Mark]

On 11 Jun 2008, at 16:36, Nadine Miller wrote:

> /me *shrugs*  Not every company puts out good stuff all the time.   
> My dad's ASUS mobo we got him back in the late nineties was  
> reliable, but it was a rev 1 board, and the VIA chipsets on it were  
> crap.

*Everyone* has problems with VIA chipsets, they suck period. After my  
last VIA-based AthlonXP board died of mystery not soft-or-hard- 
resetting problems, then my dad's identical board did the same (Both  
ASUS A7V8Xs - based on VIA KT400), then a friend's VIA KT400-based  
ABit board did the same I swore blind I'm NEVER running a VIA board  
again, of any type. My bad history with VIA goes a-ways back to 1999  
and transcends 4 major motherboard makers. I had a VIA Apollo based  
PII/III Slot 1 board back then and the USB was atrocious on it. I had  
an issue getting a Logitech webcam working on it, so I looked online  
for answers and 1000s of people had the same issue with that chipset.

I'm afraid I don't care if VIA meet god and get the recipe for eternal  
life, IMHO they would probably release that with a critical bug in it  
too...

It's Intel, AMD/ATi or NVIDIA here.

> All the ASUS boards I've had have been very good for my purposes.

I'm on my 3rd, and dad's on his 2nd. Save for the dying VIA chipsets  
they have been top notch.

> ABit does put out some good stuff.  One of the mobo's of my dad's I  
> sold was an ABit OC'ers wet dream--and it was a server board.  Very  
> well-regarded in the reviews I looked at to give some context to my  
> eBay listing.

Yeh, ABit are okay, I think they turn out decent stuff, they aren't a  
brand I've stuck to like glue though.

> Rev 1 boards and systems seem to be the most problematic across all  
> manufacturing lines, IME.

Trouble is with a Mac it's easy to avoid rev 1 stuff but with PC parts  
it's a lottery, it depend son suppliers' stocks etc.

-- 
Mark Benson

My Blog:
<http://markbenson.org/blog>
Visit my Homepage: <http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson>

"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."