Tualatin MB's --- Conspiracy or bad luck ?

2 1/2 months ago, 1 of my XET-C boards died on me. (Wish I had
bought 3 or 4 of them now...)

1st the PS2 ports failed, then the CMOS died, and it would
no longer post.

Sent it back to Powerup. Since the board was discontinued, they
sent it back to Gigabyte to be repaired. They have been
failing to respond to phone calls or emails, so I am not sure of the
status.

I decided over a month ago to find another board somewhere
else since Gigabyte will probably void my warrenty due to the
install of a chipset cooler kit.

I found a link for another XET board at neutronexpress and
ordered it. 3 days later got email stating Item discontinued
and that my payment would be refunded. It wasnt.

Called them up last week, and they said they would sell me
an Abit ST6 instead. Now they say that is also discontinued
and the only Tualatin MB they got is a crappy MSI thing.

About that same time, I ordered an Aopen AX3SP-U board
from Digiconcepts. They sent me a non B-step version of
the board that doesnt support Tualatins, so I sent it back.

Called them to discuss what they could replace it with.

Abit ST6 - discontinued.
ASUS TUSCL2 - discontinued.

Seems the only possible choices I have there is the most
featureless Aopen Tualatin compat board, or some Tyan
S2080 thing.

Is Intel putting pressure on all the manufacturers to stop making
any kind of decent tualatin boards so they can sell P4's ?

Why are they even making tualatins anymore ?

Do they expect us to throw away all the chips and RAM we
bought last year and buy new stuff ?

I may just have to find a new hobby.

To a certain degree, I think you are probably right about Intel putting pressure on the motherboard manufacturers. The Tualatin is a much better chip for the money than the P4.