Help me pick a 478 loaded motherboard

Ok, here's the story, and why this ISN'T a weak 'do your research' post. =P

I work with a partner as a jack-of-all trades IT consultant. We have a lot of professional and residential clients that want varied things, ranging from full feature touchless backup servers to de-cacking spyware'd computers.

Recently one of our clients had a lightning strike, and his old Dell 1.8ghz PIV bit the bullet. I'm reasonably sure it's the motherboard that died, and he doesn't want to fix it, so he's going to claim it on his homeowner's insurance. He let us keep the carcass to throw away / salvage what we could.

Here is where it gets good - I took the dell heatsink off, pulled the chip, and looked at it, and it turns out it's a Northwood SL6LA 1.8. I googled SL6LA, and found that this is a REALLY good overclocker, as most of you Intel-supporters probably already know. (feel free to augment / correct / war story this stepping)

Currently I'm running an A7N8X-DLX NForce2 board for my unlocked athlon, with dual onboard lan, soundstorm, sata, all the goodies.

I want to pick a socket 478 board to do a m/b level replacement in this machine. I need onboard lan (single is fine) GOOD onboard sound, SATA, and I need good voltage control without having to solder or... well, minimal 'easy' wire wrapping. Seems some of the vid-pinning mods are pretty difficult, I want to avoid that.

I also need a board that will let me run the memory at less than the processor's FSB, preferably dual channel if Intel boards support that. (I assume they do, I'm just not any kind of Intel-smart person, all my experience is with AMD systems post p3-era.

Price isn't too much of an object, I figure I should be able to get a whole lot of motherboard for south of $140.

I *DID* try to determine a good board that suits my needs, but frankly, I'm overwhelmed - too much information. I figure if anyone has a board that has the features I want, and they got reasonable OC results with it, I'll buy it.

Any ideas?

Another question - I've been thinking of the IC7-Max3, but all the documentation I've seen says it supports 533 and 800mhz processors. The 1.8 I have is a 400mhz part, would it even work? I don't plan on running it at 18x100, more like 18xwhatever I can get out of it.

To get dual channel DDR, you need a i865/i875 chipset. There might be newer SIS or VIA chipsets that offer this, but Intel chipset mobos are the best, forget the rest.

The Abit IC7 Max3 has everything you want and more, but the price might be getting out of your budget. Unless you need more than 2 SATA channels, I'd recommend the Abit AI7 (I personally have 2 of these bad boys at the moment). The AI7 has everything you mentioned and more. It's a great overclocker, just look at my "red" system in my signature.

The 400 bus Northwoods do work in i865/i875 mobos, I've personally used a 2.0A in one and heard of lots of other people using them with no problem. It's my understanding that Intel does not provide "official" support on the i865/i875 chipsets fto the 400 bus CPUs for two reasons. First, they do not work with Willamette processors and some people would of been confused if they claimed it supported the 400 bus and they are not computer savy to realize the difference between a 400 bus Willamette vs. a 400 bus Northwood. Second, Intel wanted to sell 533 or 800 bus chips to everyone with a 400 bus CPU.

I've seen computers hit by lightning before and there is usually more damaged than just the mobo. Sometimes it takes out the PS, HDD, CPU, and mobo too. I tried to salvage parts from a co-worker's system that got hit by lightning once and the only thing we saved was the case, keyboard, and mouse. Everything else was toast.

Something else to think of that nobody else would have likely recommended Albatron PX865PE Pro II. This is Albatron's flagship 865/875 model, and comes with every bell and whistle that you can probably ask for.

7.1 Envy24PT audio (same essential equipment as M-Audio 7.1 Revolution)
Gigabit Intel CSA network (CSA = on it's own special bus, doesn't soak up PCI bandwidth)
SATA raid and also PATA raid
Dual BIOSes (in case of bad flash, the board still functions on the backup bios)
Firewire x 2 and USB 2.0 x 8
Full certified and warranteed prescott support for future use
Active northbridge cooling (all-copper sink, aluminum / clear LED fan)

You can pick it up brand new for ~$130 off NewEgg. Great board, inexpensive for all the stuff you get, and isn't the norm

Outstanding, thanks guys! I'll check the IA7 vs the PX865PE Pro II and make a decision. The Max3 did seem a little pricier than I wanted.

As for the lightning damage: Initially I changed the power supply with a known good, and got the same effect, lights turn on when the button is pressed but no one is home. The memory is currently running in this machine, after memtest, so it's good. All drives (hdd / optical) were fine. The processor *may* be bad, but I'm hoping not, and assuming not to the tune of whatever the m/b ends up costing me.

Ok, flip flopped... After reading reviews on the Alby PX865PE Pro II and the Abit AI7, I've pretty much decided on the Abit simply because of the stock voltage options. The Albatron board only allows voltage increases up to 1.6 volts... I know people think 1.8 is the mysterious borderline for sudden death syndrome, so I probably won't go there or beyond, but I still do want to find out what this chip will do. Seems like the Abit board will be more likely to allow that without a lot of pin wrapping or worse.

Wish me luck, ordering this week, along with a 9800 pro (which will hopefully support a bios flash to XT).

And I did not make a bad decision! Batboy, thanks for mentioning it, it is a SWEET motherboard.

I set it up on my desk first with no case, plugged in an old 3dfx pci video card ( ) and a keyboard, hooked up a power supply, and bridged the power switch pins - SL6LA Northwood 1.8 PIV, defaults at 18x100. Immediately jumped to 18x133 @ 2.4ghz, no problems in bios. Jumped up to 2.7 ghz, and it locked. Rebooted, added a smidgen of voltage, 2.7 was no problem. Locked again at 2.9. Rebooted, voltage, fine at 2.9. Got up to 3.3ghz before I chickened out and decided to do this for real, in a case, with load testing. =P

Currently:

SL6LA Northwood 1.8 on Abit AI7, 18x166mhz @ 2.998 ghz, evidently with lots of headroom, because I am not even close to 1.8 volts, I think I'm running 1.6 right now.

So far I have installed windows, played Doom III @ 1024x768 HiQual, and played Enemy Territory @ 1600x1200 HiQual with no problems.

66% overclock at 1/10th of a volt over stock. Sweeeeeeeeet.

Actually, I'd keep it at or below 1.65v for long term usage. Here are some things to do to optimize that mobo.

Update to the newest BIOS. Download FlashMenu from Abit which allows BIOS updates right from Windows

Make sure the AGP/PCI is set to "fix" and "66/33".

Make sure the last two GAT settings are disabled (auto, auto, auto, disable, disable).

I've already updated the bios with the uGuru applet, and of course I locked my agp/pci freqs (although I know why you included that, take heed readers).

I currently have the GAT quick-pick set to 'turbo' with all the other settings at auto - I'll disable the last two (because I'm batting a thousand with your advice right now) but why disable them? What do they potentially do that is bad?

I don't know why they cause problems when enabled, but when you try pushing an O/C past a certain point, it can causes instability. Most folks get a higher O/C if they disable the last 2 settings. GAT settings enabled seem to work ok at default speed or with mild overclocks, it's just at higher overclocks that seem to cause problems.

batboy said:

I don't know why they cause problems when enabled, but when you try pushing an O/C past a certain point, it can causes instability. Most folks get a higher O/C if they disable the last 2 settings. GAT settings enabled seem to work ok at default speed or with mild overclocks, it's just at higher overclocks that seem to cause problems.

Click to expand...

Ahh, thanks. I do have those disabled now.

Also, I'm currently running 18x180, Samurize reports 3243 mhz.

Can't... believe... this processor.

I've been thinking seriously of getting another Abit AI7 and a 2.4c, and moving this to my FreeBSD server / wenchbox, but I'm so pleased with this combo right now that it's not urgent at all. Still, I do have some ddr466 coming in the mail today, and that + whatever OC I get out of a 2.4 would kick the pants off of this machine, even with this heinous +80% overclock. I like memory bandwidth.

Anyway, thanks again batboy, all your advice was excellent!