Simple, Bare-Bones Motherboards? 627
basic0 writes "After my Windows box recently lost its life in a puff of awful smelling smoke, I tracked the fault to the motherboard. Now I'm in the market for a replacement board, but all the boards I find seem to be all-in-one models with on-board everything. I already have a good graphics card, NIC, USB audio device, etc. I just need a no-frills motherboard like I used to be able to buy. It seems like a waste to buy a board with all the built-in stuff (and probably pay extra for it) when I'm never going to use it. Has anyone else had similar experiences? Do a lot of people actually use the on-board stuff? Is it still possible to purchase a motherboard that's *just* a motherboard?"
You'll end up paying more (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You'll end up paying more (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You'll end up paying more (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, except for that on the hardware side there are several roughly equal competitors, while while the software side is essentially a monopoly.
But yeah, other than that, it's exactly the same!
Re:You'll end up paying more (Score:4, Informative)
fact is, since the hardware side is based on well documented, open standars (PCI, USB, Firewire, ethernet, etc.) and the level of interoperability is high, replacing the onboard stuff by add-on parts is as easy as opening the case and sloting a card or simply pluging in a serial device.
now, MS Office apps relies heavily on internet explorer to render HTML, even the controll pannel needs IE to work. wipe IE and all it's acompanying DLLs and the system breaks badly.
show me a way to fully replace IE as the system's defacto HTML renderer by gecko, KHTML or opera in such a way that every aplication that embeds a browser to display hypertext recognizes and accepts the alternatives and i won't mind with MS's bundles.
Re:You'll end up paying more (Score:3, Informative)
TSMC and UMC are not a monopoly per se, but their owners do get to dictate the direction of the industry.
That makes them a "cartel," like the MPAA, RIAA, OPEC, et al. They are still as corrupt to the bone as a monopoly, but have a low chance that a cartel member will break ranks.
Re:You'll end up paying more (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it is a correct, if limited, summation.
When you think on market scale production, one fact is simple: the more you produce, th lower the individual unity cost. That is why, today, a dot-matrix printer is more expensive than a laser one.
Considering the great majority of motherboards produced are those "on-board" models, and the demand for "clean" boards is small (and getting smaller each passing day), the natural tendency is that the production cost pre unit for a clean board is higher.
On the other hand, I do like clean boards better. The chances of a failure is reduced, since the number of components is reduced too. That can also lead for a higher durability.
So, as far as I'm concerned, the "on-board" mobos are cheaper when you buy then, but clean ones tend to be cheaper on the long run. At least for me, since I never throw away a working computer. I just move it to other functions (disk server, firewalls etc).
Re:You'll end up paying more (Score:5, Interesting)
To have a chipset being accepted by the motherboard manufacturers, it has to come with easy implementable reference designs and with a small board real estate, that is: a minimum of used area for the chips itself and for the connections to other functions. So chip sets tend to integrate as many functions as possible, because thus board manufactures need less additional circuits and wiring to put those functions at the boards. A large portion of the boards in turn are sold to assemblers anyway, which are keen on boards with many functions already builtin, because then they don't need to put additional cards and ports into the boxes they are assembling.
So for a board manufacturer to get into the assembler business to sell boards he has to offer fully integrated boards, and he will choose fully integrated chipsets to deliver.
And if he has once designed fully integrated board series, what's the point in designing stripped down versions again? He will use the same chipsets anyway, because he has all the testing equipment in place for those, he reuses the design of the wiring (once the masks for wiring are done, the manufactunging costs are the same, independent of the number of wires), so all he saves are the few cents for the actual sockets and the soldering of the sockets to the boards.
Basicly a "bare" board then is nothing else than a board without the sockets, but electrically the functions are there. But to manufacture those boards intentionally you need another production process, another QA process, another packaging. It might be cheaper to just sort the boards according to their final testing results and then specify which functions are 'there' (those that work in the tests).
Re:You'll end up paying more (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt there's much price difference anyway. The reason why mobos have on board lan, for example, is they can add it really cheaply.
Frankly, I wouldn't want a mobo without the frills. Integrated Nic is nice. On-board sounds means there's a backup. On board video, provided you still have an AGP port, can also be used as a backup. When the machine's retired, it can easily be given to somebody else.
Device Driver Support if you're running Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're running Windows, the integrated on-board stuff will work fine, and as another poster says, you could use the built-in graphics to run a second monitor, which you'll find very addictive. If you're a gamer, you'll probably want to use your own video card, but otherwise it's nice to have your system be cooler and quieter with the built-in video.
False economy (Score:3, Informative)
Also, motherboards with onboard video are typically made cheaper all around, and are
Re:You'll end up paying more (Score:3, Informative)
FP (Score:2, Funny)
Anyways, I'm in the same boat. I havnt had any luck finding a good motherboard that supports my ram (184 pin RIMM).
Re:FP (Score:3, Informative)
Nah (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think they're sold anymore, and they're so cheep now that you wouldn't save much, anyway. Just ignore whatever extras come with the board.
In fact, you just might save a few bucks in the long run by using the on-board stuff, since it may use less power than the equivilent slot-based stuff.
Re:Nah (Score:2, Informative)
Anything made in the last few years is usually thoroughly reviewed on at least one hardware site, if not several; and checking support forums for something old will let you know what to expect...how to fix it...or if its problem free. The Asus I have (A7N8X iirc) has been stable and trouble
More importantly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the reality of computer components - there's no value in trying to save old tech.
Re:More importantly... (Score:3, Informative)
That's exactly true. My new motherboard, an Intel-based board with a 915G chipset, sports onboard audio that's better than my old-skool soundblaster live. It's possible that it uses a few more cpu cycles to do the sound, but hey, that soundblaster used to be in an 800 mhz P-III, and this one's a 2.8Ghz P-4. Extra clock cycles i've got.
So, I ditched my soundblaster live. Doesn't bother me a bit.
Also: Onboard video today is perfectly suited to basic desktop usage. To put it in other terms: "There is no
Re:More importantly... (Score:3, Interesting)
CPU time than an SB LIve! or Audigy 1. It's right on par with
Audigy 2 in that respect, which was mentioned a lot on techsites
back when NForce 2 was new. Since the sound seems to be using some
Intel 8xx derivative driver under Linux, I wouldn't be surprised
if the 915G chipsets have something similar.
You can get 5.1 sound from an onboard chipset through reversal of
one of the inputs, but EAX 4.0 support is probably not going to work.
Onboard graphi
Re:More importantly... (Score:4, Informative)
Quite frankly, there are people who go out of their way for it as it's the ONLY way to get Dolby Digital encoding on a PC. Just try to tell them that it sounds like crap. You need to update your views on onboard audio.
Cheapness (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cheapness (Score:3, Interesting)
Although it's not so much the selling, it's that it would cost them more to *develop* two products. As FSB, memory and CPU speeds have exploded, the margin of error for motherboards has decreased accordingly. Even tiny changes to the physical layout of a motherboard can make the difference between a rock-solid stable machine and one that crashes every 10 seconds. Lots of QA goes into testing board designs thoroughly. It's easier to simply drop all the ridiculously cheap, commonly used components (LA
all-in-one boards... (Score:5, Insightful)
quit yer whining and buy a motherboard.
Re:How about better components? (Score:3, Interesting)
How much do you actually think you spend for the stuff you disable? If you think about it, you'll realize that the marginal cost of that stuff on the board must really be quite small: OEMs care about differences of a few cents, plus or minus. In some cases, in fact, it would cost money to take the functionality off the board: if the "net card" is part of a multifunction gate array chip, then it will be cheaper per unit, overall to make twice as many with the extra funtionality tha
Big-name computers and motherboards (Score:5, Interesting)
I have one HP machine (no, I'm not stupid enough to pay money for one--my parents gave it to me when they got a new one), that has an Asus P4B266 motherboard inside it. It's currently in my closet being used as a server, and I have to say that the board's not bad...
Another old HP machine that used to belong to my parents (which is currently sitting half-dismantled on my bed) also has an Asus board--specifically, a P2B-VE (hey, I said it was an old machine).
There's one site that has a list of what motherboards come with what HP machines [elhvb.com]. A very large amount of them have Asus boards, and there are also quite a few machines that have MSI boards.
Contrast this with Dell. Dell not only makes their own boards, but they use all sorts of proprietary form factors. A friend of mine, who has a shitty Dell PC, wanted to install a new hard drive. His machine has only one internal 3.5" bay and one external 3.5" bay (taken up by the original hard drive and floppy drive, respectively), so he decided to remove the floppy drive to put the new hard drive in. It turns out that Dell makes their own floppy drives and internal bays, which have their own proprietary screw arangement. Yes, I said proprietary screw arrangement of all things. No storebought drive will fit into that machine's drive bays because of that. To hell with Dell. Also, we found out that Dell uses some kind of oddball heatsink/fan--it actually attaches to the case and funnels air through holes in the case. It's like a CPU fan and case fan in one device. Freaky.
As I said above, I hate HP, but I at least have some respect for them. I have no respect for Dell whatsoever.
Re:Big-name computers and motherboards (Score:4, Funny)
Several companies sell products specifically geared toward fixing this problem.
Here [dewalt.com] is one of my favorites. There have also been certain times when exreme measures [dewalt.com] have been needed.
Re:Big-name computers and motherboards (Score:3, Informative)
Or - better yet - get a bit of metal tubing that fits over the drill, and cut it to length so that the bit will only penetrate the metal you're drilling by a few mm.
If you use a good, sharp bit, and use the drill properly, you should be able to drill through the sheet in a controlled manner without using a guide.
Re:Big-name computers and motherboards (Score:4, Interesting)
extras (Score:2, Funny)
What you complaining about? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well you don't want an on-board graphics card. Just ignore that. If you have an on-board NIC you can remove your PCI card and free up a slot. On-board audio is damn good these days. I paid $80 for a gigabyte board with all the on-board shit and I only use on-board NIC & Sound. They aren't very expensive and if you don't like the on-board stuff then don't use it!
Re:What you complaining about? (Score:3, Insightful)
Stay away from onboard video.. that's just common sense.
The onboard audio these days is passable, if you're using a sub-$100 set of stereo speakers. But if you're an audiophile like myself with several thousand dollars invested in a nice 7.1 spkr setup, (or heck, even a $300 set of 5.1 speakers) then the onboard audio just doesn't cut it. I t
Re:What you complaining about? (Score:3, Interesting)
Add to that the fact that ATI's RS480 chipset includes X300 equivalent graphics, and it seems pretty silly to say 'onboard video sucks.' The X300's not a screamer by any means, but onboard video that'll run Far Cry at an acceptable framerate is fine by me.
Re:What you complaining about? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What you complaining about? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What you complaining about? (Score:4, Interesting)
NVIDIA's SoundStorm, for example, is excellent and compares well with discrete solutions.
VIA's "Vinyl" audio is also quite good.
There's also an onboard Creative Labs chip that's excellent.
On-board ain't that bad these days (Score:5, Informative)
Completely false.
Pretty much all of the new on-board audio supports multiple channels (OS drivers may be another story!). The bleeding edge on-board audio even supports High Definition Audio [intel.com].
Most of the high-volume motherboard chipset vendors -- Intel (the big fish), AMD, NVIDIA, SiS, ULi, VIA, ... -- all implement the same advanced features in their chipsets: SATA2 NCQ, USB 2, HD audio, gigabit ethernet, and more. Just wait 3-6 months, and a new-and-spiffy ethernet/SATA/USB/audio feature will appear for free on a modern motherboard. If its a mass-market feature, of course.
Blindly choosing "no on-board devices" is rather silly. Today's mass market motherboard contains on-board devices, which means the cheapest motherboards give you that stuff for free. If the on-board device meets your feature requirements, use it. Sealed silicon interconnects are far more reliable than PCI slots anyway.
Re:What you complaining about? (Score:2)
If a person wants to play games, well, I haven't seen a desktop motherboard with integrated ATI 95xx+ or nVidia 5xxx series graphics or better.
Re:What you complaining about? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What you complaining about? (Score:2, Informative)
In contrast, Onboard NICs, USB and firewire controllers, and even audio cards (the SoundStorm stuff on nvidia boards, before they copped out of sound, is absolutely superb) on motherboards are generally all top notch.
YES (Score:4, Funny)
Re:YES (Score:5, Funny)
Re:YES (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Check out Google's WHOIS info (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, my whois is now responding with a message saying VeriSign's whois server is down - maybe they're trying to fix it, or it's been flooded with requests from curious
Re:YES (Score:5, Funny)
What, Slashdot stopped being an anti-Microsoft site? When did that happen? I didn't get the memo! I'm not getting my memos!
Finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Thank god... one less Windows user out there now. I am sorry to inform you that they no longer make motherboards for Windows as you might as well install Linux or buy a Mac...
Re:Finally... (Score:2, Insightful)
Good for a chuckle, but Insightful? Did the guy who modded this comment really think a gamer would be happier with Linux or a Mac?
They're Out There... Look harder (Score:2, Insightful)
Insignificant Cost Savings. (Score:5, Insightful)
Insignificant Cost Savings: So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Insignificant Cost Savings: So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Insignificant Cost Savings: So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Support for ECC memory, industrial-grade capacitors that won't dry out or corrode within a few years, power converters with plenty of safety margin so they can get covered with dust and still last forever without burning up, high-speed buses with with electrical reflections and crosstalk properly taken into account so they don't crap all over my precious data, a BIOS not w
Its in the chipset anyway (Score:5, Informative)
Even in server boards, things still get integrated. Different sets of things (SCSI controllers, low-end video hardware). Reasons? It frees up slots (big +++ in 1U 2U rackmount land), and at the same time drops cost (may be hard to believe, but in the log run it does).
Welcome to 1999 (Score:4, Insightful)
Onboard video is usually pretty terrible (unless you're buying an nForce board), and if you are an audiophile like me, you'll want the 500$ sound card with the 120db DNR:) But in reality, it almost doesn't matter who made your NIC, your USB transcever, etc etc.
Re:Welcome to 1999 (Score:3, Funny)
Needless to say, said machine is now in the barn awaiting a ripe moment to gut it for parts.
Sell (Score:2)
Just buy a new motherboard and STFU (Score:2)
Re:Just buy a new motherboard and STFU (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't that Abit's new marketing slogan?
Look at the MB's chipset; Don't get on-board Video (Score:2, Informative)
I just purchased a socket 775 PCI Express MB with the 915 chipset. It o
Re:Look at the MB's chipset; Don't get on-board Vi (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Look at the MB's chipset; Don't get on-board Vi (Score:2)
Virtually all MB's with on-board video have an AGP or PCIE connector and disabling the on-board video is at worst a trivial toggle in the BIOS, if it doesn't automatically detect that you've put a different video card in.
You can shut the stuff off you don't want (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of stuff that is now integrated on literally every motherboard used to be an add on card. 10 years ago you would be whining "why do I have to get a motherboard with an IDE controller and onboard parallel ports, I already have a multi-IO card". But things change and for the most part the integrated hardware is adequate, and it isn't economically viable to not provide it.
Not Much Choice (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a 31337 g4m3r, integrated graphics is indeed a joke. However, it's good enough for 85% of the users out there, who will almost never run anything more intensive than Word, IE, and the occasional Flash-based game. Same deal with integrated sound -- for Windows event beeps and boops, it's more than plenty.
10/100 Mb/s speeds are now common on integrated Ethernet controllers, and most of them have very little braindamage these days. 1Gb/s on-chip controllers are also already starting to appear.
To put it another way: Parallel, RS-232 serial, and PS/2 mouse/keyboard ports used to require separate expansion cards. Today, they are integrated into the motherboard chipset, and no one thinks the worse for this. For those who need extra ports or special high-performance ports, third-party PCI expansion cards are still available.
So, in short, the way systems are being put together these days, there's no cost savings to be had by breaking out the peripherals you don't need. If you feel a need to put the old parts to good use, donate them to a school, or use them to build a Frankenbox on which to do kernel or driver development :-).
Schwab
Better to get the loaded MB & disable function (Score:2)
But considering that even good motherboards that are loaded can be found for roughly the same price as loaded motherboards, why not just get the motherboard that's loaded, go into the BIOS, and disable the device that you don't want to use? Then you can at least use the on-board as a backup system should your hardware cards fail.
For example, if yo
Re:Better to get the loaded MB & disable funct (Score:3, Funny)
So much for my proofreading skills. Oh, well. You know what I meant.
Are you surprised? (Score:2)
Fuck it. You are out of luck. At least while the market is dominated by Bling-Bling and neoX
Are You Sure? (Score:5, Funny)
Next time be sure to clean out the registry on a regular schedule.
Re:Are You Sure? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, specifically HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Hardware\Capacitors\Self_Destr
buy a mac (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder if... (Score:2)
No chance (Score:5, Informative)
AMD actually currently integrates the north bridge in the athlon64 if I'm not wrong.
Even if you want architectural simplicity and efficiency, its hard to find a simple ARM, m68k or ppc microcontroller without something built-in specialized for its market.Having just a no-frills set of parts was last seen in the 8086 and 6502 days in which each chip did only one thing. And it was expensive as hell.
Re:No chance (Score:3, Informative)
It's actually the memory controller, I believe. Which is why Athlon 64's haven't rolled out DDR-2 support - the type of ram is tied to the processor.
~Wx
Onboard not that bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Good Barebone motherboard (Score:5, Informative)
Extra features? So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
The mobo market is intensely competative. So for $120 you can something loaded! How much cheaper do you expect your mobo to get? The mobo is the sacred heart of you machine! Get a good one. If you already have a sound or ethernet card, run 2 interfaces! Its all in good fun! The Linux kernel will surprise you with what it can do. Whats wrong with having 10 USB's? SATA RAID? Muliple DVD's? Get an ASUS, MSI, Abit, Soltec, DFI, AOpen, Chaintech, Gigabyte, Foxconn, Epox ... They're all good. Get something that l
Use everything no, eventually most of it (Score:2, Insightful)
Further, unless you are rebuying good modern *everything* every few years - the on board stuff is probably as good as what you are using.
What am I talking about integrated on the motherboard:
On board USB:
I avoided USB stuff like the plague for several years. M
Power usage (Score:2, Insightful)
That and it is nearly as cheap to get integrated systems than bare mainboards(especially microATX, which is often cheaper
builtins are prevelant because they're cheap (Score:2)
Even if your motherboard doesn't have a network port, it's probably supported by the chipset and there's probably traces on the motherboard for one to be soldered on. I imagine it costs more to make different models that don't include hardware already supported by the chipset, as that makes inventory much more complicated for the manufacturor and the various
Can of Smoke (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can of Smoke (Score:4, Funny)
Someone borrowed a Netgear switch from me, and said he had a power supply for it already. Silly me thought he knew what he was doing, and didn't first demand to see the PSU. Whaddya know, a Netgear switch prefers to have 7.5VDC@1A, not 15VAC@.3A
He came back to my office in a panic, because I didn't have any other switches to lend out. Said he let out the magic smoke, something he'd heard me say about hardware before. I went down to the electronics lab with the switch and user in tow, found a 'lytic cap the same as the one that blew, and said "No problem, I'll just put in a new can of smoke. Gimme 15 minutes." Handed him a working switch (with the correct PSU) and I swear he thinks that little canister literally holds smoke inside it.
So get a passive backplane (Score:5, Informative)
A good reason to buy a no frills MB (Score:5, Interesting)
For example... my case is an HP Vectra desktop with that Asus a7v333 motherboard. I'm odd I know. In order to get the provided plate to fit properly I'd need to cut the hole larger by about 10cm or so. Further, the audio jacks extend above the size of the hole making the top jack unuseable.
Try searching (Score:5, Informative)
Best of luck in your search.
Are you fucking kidding me? (Score:3)
I use Intel EEPros in all my machines because they are well supported and in every OS I can load. I just disable the onboard NICs. I've noticed, though, that recently onboard audio has become high enough quality that I can move the mouse and not "hear" it on my speakers.
Suck it up!
Buy this board (Score:3, Funny)
Not to sound like a snot, but if you become a u83r 1337 g4m3r, you can always give the system to your sister.
mass market economics (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really.
The fallacy is that these extra peripherals cost extra. They don't, really. The price you pay is determined by, more than any other factor, the economy of mass producing exactly the same product for such a large market.
Especially in the chipset, those extra transistors come almost for free. It would cost MORE to make another version of the chips with a different configuration. Likewise, even with the same chips, it would cost MORE to make additional models without the extra connectors. There is tremendous savings in manufacturing only one model (or relatively few). Distribution and retail sales also saves costs only having to deal with fewer distinct models.
So just don't use those extra bell and whistles. But don't imagine they're costing you anything extra. The PC motherboard market is extremely competitive, and many companies and individuals shop primarily for the lowest price. If there was an easy way, such as making a different model without some parts, to achieve a lower price, you better believe the manufacturers would do it in a heartbeat.
And there are plenty of budget motherboards. If they could save even a small amount taking off more features, they certainly would. Because they haven't, you can have high confidence those extras aren't actually costing you anything extra.... in the reality of today's manufacturing, distribution and retail marketplace.
You're going about this all wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
I had a few requirements for the last motherboard upgrade that I bought for my own personal use, so I made a list:
Support for the last of the Socket-A CPUs
Dual-channel DDR
4 DIMM sockets
At least 5 PCI slots
Two regular IDE ports
Two SATA ports
AGP
I plugged some of these requirements into newegg's search engine, and found several that included all of these features.
It turns out that it was cheaper to buy one that also included on-board audio and a gigabit ethernet jack, than to buy one without.
So, I went with the cheaper one. I've been ignoring the on-board audio since day 1, and decided to just go ahead and use the built-in LAN and free up a NIC for better uses.
I might've chosen one that included Firewire, and on-board video, too, for all I care. I don't have a use for those functions, and I don't foresee having a use for them. But would it piss me off to have paid less for their inclusion, were that the case? Absolutely not.
I know how you feel. I got upset in the 90s when companies irrevocably started putting IDE, floppy, serial, and parallel ports onto motherboards. "What am I going to do with all of these expensive VESA local bus multi-I/O cards?"
Something similar also happened to me in the 80s I realized that the ISA clock card in my XT had been obsoleted by a part on the motherboard.
Needless to say, I got over the trauma of those transitions pretty quickly. You will, too, once you figure out what you're going to do with all those expensive 3c905 and genuine DEC Tulip cards...
[Hint: Local schools, libraries, friends-of-friends, and children-of-friends are all fine places to deposit good hardware which has been obsoleted by a motherboard upgrade. Just make sure you get it to them before time makes it completely fucking useless, and keep it appropriately packaged in antistatic bags or somesuch so it doesn't die all on its own before it gets a chance to be used again.]
I agree for different reasons... Think green! (Score:3, Interesting)
These days, with all the ports on the mobo, we throw away an extra pound of plastic every time we change chips. This stuff seldom changes -- the ATX port cluster still includes a parallel port, PS/2 ports, and USB ports like when it was introduced. How much of this stuff is sitting in a landfill now?
I'd like to see most of that integrated with the case. Like the front-mounted USB and audio ports, why not put an actual USB hub and USB audio device, along with USB serial and parallel devices, perhaps a USB ethernet adapter, on a PCB inside the case? Let it connect to a single motherboard USB header.
This would give case designers the ultimate flexibility in putting the ports where they want, since a lot of casemodding these days seems to involve port rearrangement. It would liberate the mobo designers from having to mount and support all that plastic, which would in turn allow motherboards to be smaller for those who don't need all those ports. And, for those of us who don't care to have it integrated into the case, we could stick our port cards or port bays into whatever slot or drive mountings we chose.
ACME Motherboard Finder (Score:3, Informative)
Re:For the most part... (Score:2)
Re:For the most part... (Score:2)
Would that be... most people in the room with you right now? Most of your friends? I work with 300 people. One of their wives bought a Mac because it was "pretty" and she saw it, literally, in the window at a Mac store in a Virginia shopping mall. Now, there are probably quite a few more Macs in use within that group of people, but I will suggest, right now, that "most" of them have not/are not switching. They are all professionals, and all
Re:then dont use it (Score:3, Insightful)
running dual video cards and disabling one of them works, but you never really know what's going on. maybe the driver required to disable that onboard card is what goes puff and loses it's magic.
You should be able to build a computer without extra's if you so choose.
And why do modern boards still have serial and Parralell ports? They aren't used by 75% of the rest of the world, why are they even included as standard on ALL boards? On Some us
Re:then dont use it (Score:5, Insightful)
My new (as of January) Dell at work doesn't have them. It just has 6 USB ports (8, if you also count the two on the front).
Dell can remove them, because they are selling a complete system and know that customers don't need a PS2 keyboard slot, for example.
The separate motherboard vendors still include them because it is cheaper to sell one motherboard version than it is to sell two, where one has a reduce featureset.
In a few more years they will be phased out. It just takes time. ISA took forever to be phased out as well. PCI is obsolete now, too, but even you might hope that they keep a few PCI slots around for a few years until all your old PCI add-on cards have been replaced. (Assuming you don't use all motherboard built-in features.)
PCI obsolete? Not yet (Score:3, Interesting)
PCI-Express will replace PCI one day, but it will be a long time before PCI-Express is even a viable alternative for anything except video cards. Even in the mid-late 90s, when ISA was still around, there were plenty of PCI cards. Now, no one uses Serial and Parallel ports, and USB devices
Re:then dont use it (Score:2)
Re:then dont use it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:then dont use it (Score:3, Interesting)
Also since most people here noticed I said most not all. I know serial is still used by some, and at work we have 3 parralell printers dot matrix printers. but personally I haven't owned a dot-matrix in 10 years. My only serial toy is my UPS. everything else is USB.
I noticed this when shopping for mini-itx boards. there is a total of two models without all the other connectors. If I am trying to make a c
Re:then dont use it (Score:3, Interesting)
I disabled several video cards and sound cards via my motherboard over the years guess what.
Windows installs drivers for them anyway and reactivates them.
I spent an hour one day trying to figure out what was wrong with win 2k, I finally plugged my network cable into the on board jack and things worked for a minute. Windows had reactivated the barely functioning built-in jack (not sure why but it wouldn't hold a connection)
Windows Plug and play does more than just ask the bios for hardware spe
Re:As long as you arent addicted to sucky x86, YES (Score:3, Funny)
Real men get their USB on a PCI expansion card.
Re:As long as you arent addicted to sucky x86, YES (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong. I'm a Sun bigot with a lot of Sun hardware in my house (all free, fortunately). But their outrageous prices have always been one of my hatreds for them, and I doubt that this motherboard is any different. Considering that they don't even list a price (even under "Price and Buy"), that makes me even more worried
Re:FIGURES! (Score:2)
http://addict3d.org/index.php?page=viewarticle& t ype=news&ID=6671
(Includes a link to a timeline)
"For an unknown reason, Google had a DNS problem that caused all of their online services not to loading by writing their URL in your web browser.br> It's funny that most people thought their ISP gone mad, before even thinking that the problem might be at Google.br> Anyway the almighty machine returned to life after 1 hour of being down, the rumors rega
Re:pricewatch (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, that was an insightful topic and interesting answer...
Mod away.