BioStar

[Nephilim]

Alrighty then,here the scene guys(and/or gals). I in the market for a new board. I have a budget of TT$950 which i have already decide to spend on a new AthlonXP 64 2800+.
For the price it was the best chip in the class.
I have decided upon a max of about TT$500 to spend again and was thinking about this board;

http://www.biostar.com.tw/products/mainboard/board.php?name=GeForce%206100-M7

The BioStar GeForce 6100-M7, the best board in the price range avaliable i think.
I would like to know some opinions, if you have the board, or if you have ever worked with it.
I not really planning to run any heavy game apps, but i am going to be running a 64bit linux distro on it.
If you need more info to make a suggestion just, well, post!

*NB:I have never used a biostar board (mostly MSIs and ASUSs) and i would like to know of the quality aspect of it too please*

[W1nTry]

It's been my observation over time and numerous biostar boards that its definitely the low budget board thats stands out from the rest. They are dependable and they just work. They ain't beastly and overclockers delight or anything like that but they are decent boards and should serve you well. Also it's availability in T&T account for alot too. If something go wrong in a short space of time yuh could get it RMA or at least exchanged from whoever you bought it from.

[Nephilim]

Nice...very...nice

[Jdcrys_Shinkuu]

its a reliable board

[Nephilim]

cool scene.
that's more or less what i want to hear. thanks for the input.

[Arcmanov]

Used lots of Biostar boards myself, and installed more than a fair share for others.  I have never had any come back to me, or any of mine fail.

As said before, if yuh not oc'ing, then it real good for basic computing.

[Spazosaurus]

Many many biostars have passed through my hands over the years and have had only 2 failures. One died after 3 years of continuous 24/7 running and the other I fried due to some carelessness. Solid boards, but as arc said, they not good for overclocking.

[TriniXaeno]

Excellent choice.

We have setup entire GLs on Biostar boards.

I talking about game centers running games whole day whole night.

They have definitely stood the test of time. Serious abuse. Gained my respect ever since.

Asus, Asrock, Abit, MSI all have failed far more frequently than these elcheapo biostars.

In fact, I've often had people bring in their computers for repair with a busted Asus or MSI board and replaced it with a biostar. 0 performance difference. Nothing noticeable to the user.

You won't be disappointed.

Strongly Recommended.

The only thing you may miss is the 1gb network speed but that's not a big issue for most. It was for me though and that is the only reason I did not go with this board for GATT HQ.

I seriously wanted Gigabit network as we push around gigs of data over the lan on a regular basis. Got the Neo-3 MSI instead. It's a socket 754 Nforce4 board with gigabit lan, pci express AND Agp. How's that for a hybrid? I detest the MSI brand but it had all the features I wanted.

Another cheap but good mobo brand is ECS. Just keep in mind that they are produced by the same company that makes the ever-shitty PC Chips line of boards. lol

Gigabyte is another line in the same vein as the biostars. You could pretty much buy a gigabyte board blind. Great quality for a low price.

I'm interested in the fact that you're going to run linux on it.

Which distro? and for what reason?

[suzieboy]

Boy just last Saturday my Biostar board give up on me but its my fault cause my PC on 24/7 and overclocked  to the max,without a surge protector but i'll say Biostar is a realiable bran for real....
"it cud take licks and work still".........

I bought a new ASrock Socket A board....and so far it alright....
I wud have choosen another Biostar but I wanted to test out another brand so... and plus I gonna get a 64-bit board soon so I bought something to use for the while.....

Ah good thing i eh pick up that "PC-Chip" motherboard Beago say is real sh!t when i saw it.....lol...it was really lookin crappy....lol

[Nephilim]

I'm interested in the fact that you're going to run linux on it.
Which distro? and for what reason?

All this stems from my utter disgust at M$ and their ridiculous specs for running Vista.
Well initially i was going to run SUSE, but after i test ran Ubuntu i changed my mind, i think ubuntu is much more of a desktop oriented system, i not planning to set up any big server or nun, and it will become my main OS (i think i might just keep an XP distro to run some MMOs) and it uses almost all the RedHat drivers (at least for my hardware) so i cool with it.
AND the fact that is small and easy to install.

I already have some 64 bit versions of Ubutu 5 (Brezzy Badger) on the way (have to get Dapper Drake next month) so i going to try to get a system up and running with it.
AMD AthlonXP 2800+ 64b
256 DDR2 Ram (533Mhz)
BioStar GeForce 6100-M7

---More on M$---
800MB used up while in idle state, i REALLY need to say more?

[Spazosaurus]

AMD AthlonXP 2800+ 64b
256 DDR2 Ram (533Mhz)
BioStar GeForce 6100-M7

Ok ok hold up...DDR2 on an AMD system? I think u jumping the gun a lil bit there. DDR2 support for AMD is non existent until the realease of AM2.

Secondly...

---More on M$---
800MB used up while in idle state, i REALLY need to say more?

What???

[Czar]

Secondly...

---More on M$---
800MB used up while in idle state, i REALLY need to say more?

What???

He is referring to the reports on Vista beta that showed that it uses 800MB of RAM while idle...but one should keep in mind that it is the beta...so things are bound to change before they go final...

We had the latest beta build of Vista installed on a test box at school and it ran pretty decent on some older hardware...P3, 1024MB RAM, GeForce 2MX...and when I checked, it was well under 800MB of RAM in use while idle, was closer to 600MB...which is still very high imo, but my point is...your mileage may vary.

[Spazosaurus]

Or ok he referring to Vista. At this point it is unfair to base assumptions of final performance at this stage in its devlopment. Sure it is feature complete but as far as I heard 60% of the code has to be re-written which makes a release date within the year out of the question.

[Nephilim]

true that? i know it had to get re-write but 60% i though it was just one or two modules?
but even so, it have another reason, plain and simple, money.
The new vista would cost too much and even if XP is currently affordable (about TT$650 for home) i eh going to buy it.

And the PC gaming scene kinda getting expensive, too expensive for me at least, the cost of the PS3/360 might be less than if i have to build a new gaming system.(well, minus a HD TV)
And nix more or less letting me do everything i does normally do (with out the gaming).

Ok ok hold up...DDR2 on an AMD system? I think u jumping the gun a lil bit there. DDR2 support for AMD is non existent until the realease of AM2.

this is all concept at the moment, but i didn't know DDR2 eh supported, thanks, you more than likely save me some trouble.

[TriniXaeno]

funny you should say Ubuntu.

I just installed that myself. using it as a server, pdc. so far so good

Fedora was my desktop linux of choice but the desire for gaming got the better of me and now I retreated to XP where some good rts/fps action is just a click away.

[Jdcrys_Shinkuu]

Thread Hi-jacking in progress................^^^^^^^^^^....................lol

what specs were you looking for or do yo have now on your biostar board?