[mythtv-users] Re: Help me find a winner...stinking Kt133

[Edmund Wong]

> Currently I have a dreaded KT133 chipset built into an ABIT KT7-RAID.
> Its suffering from the intermitten "buffer stuffed blah" So I have 1.5GB
> PC133 ram, 1 1.3 gig athlon processor.   I'm having a heck of a time
> locating a motherboard that has an acceptable chipset AND allows me to
> use my current memory and processor.
> 
> Could anyone offer me some suggestions as to which motherboard I should
> get?  Budget is <= $100

You can try the ECS K7S5A Pro. Not exactly the best brand out there, but
I've worked with many of them (not with MythTV, mind you. I just got into
MythTV a few days ago) and sold a bunch of systems built around it (or
previous revisions) with nary a hitch. I have a 1.2ghz Duron built for
my mom around one and it's been solid. It's based around the SiS735 chipset.
Unless if something has changed recently, it has two SDR and two DDR slots
(no mixing RAM types, though) which lets you use 1GB of your current RAM.
1GB should be plenty, though, unless if you put your entire ringbuffer in
RAM or something.

This thread from the archives sounds promising:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/mailarc/gforum.cgi?post=68567;search_string=K7S5a;guest=1000899&t=search_engine#68567

The onboard sound might not be the greatest, however. It's an AC97 codec
based around the Realtek 9738 chip. Not sure how good the line-in quality
is on it. Anybody want to chime in here?

PCI slots are abundant, so even if it IS sub-par I'm sure you have a better
sound card sitting around somewhere.

These boards are appearing in Toronto at around the CAN$65 mark (!), so
it's not much of a gamble. I'm sure you can find it for around US$50 online.

Hope this helps,

- Ed.