OuterBlogs - Mobos

Antivirus System Pro

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:05:00 +0000

The folks who wrote this VIRUS should have all their limbs and head tied to horses and then the horses should be given the "go" to ride away really fast.

Happy Thanksgiving!

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:45:00 +0000

For everyone tuning in today, Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for stopping by.

ASUS Maximus III Formula LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:32:00 +0000

New Egg is selling these fireballs for about $250. They're packed full of blazing speed and juicy goodness. These boards sport room for 16GB Dual Channel memory, 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16, 1 x PCIe x16, 10 x SATA connectors, CPUs of the Core i7 (LGA1156)/i5 (LGA1156) types, and lots of other blistering speed. I recommend anything Asus makes, but this board would easily last a few years before you need another upgrade.

Checking out some new ones

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:18:00 +0000

I'll check into some of the late models and report back. I haven't written here in a while so I've been out of the loop.

Front Panel USB

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:04:00 +0000

Why do they make PCs with front panel USB ports that are slower than the rear panel ports? They should all be the 2.0 or what ever the quickest is these days.

Firewire

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:49:00 +0000

Anybody out there using firewire? I've never used the stuff on anything.

Asus Overclocking Protection

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:36:00 +0000

I'm not sure how old or new this is, but Asus is showing a cool unique feature on their motherboards:

Overclocking Protection:
- COP EX (Component Overheat Protection - EX)
- Voltiminder LED
- ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)

Too cool, shmucks like me can't bust a CPU I guess?

Intel or AMD?

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Anyone out in the trenches liking Intel over AMD motherboard or the other way around? It's been a while since I built anything but I think I may have a project soon brewing for my buddy Paul.

Shark Fin Soup

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:14:00 +0000

Illegal fisherman are taking 70,000,000 shark fins per year killing that many sharks. This is decimating the entire shark population in the oceans which account for an entire ecosystem. If you're eating anywhere in the world and you see shark fin soup on the menu, please don't eat at that restaurant. If we don't buy it, they won't make it!

Intel Mobos at Amazon

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:08:00 +0000

Check out some great Intel Mobos at Amazon!

Amazon.com Widgets

Great Value Mobos!

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:18:00 +0000

Although this is dated news, at Christmas time 2007 I grabbed an ECS Motherboard for close to nothing at Microcenter. Even though it was cheap, it performs for what the PC needs to do and that's play music and watch movies.

Laying Low

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:25:00 +0000

I took the weekend off for Thanksgiving and am back with some sort of throat cold. I'm going to lay low today and hopefully get a few new posts tomorrow.

Be well!

Happy Thanksgiving to All

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:14:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving to All - go tweak your mobo!

ASUS Striker Extreme Republic of Gamers Series - Motherboard - ATX - nForce 680i

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:25:00 +0000

ASUS Striker Extreme Republic of Gamers Series - Motherboard - ATX - nForce 680i - $323.61. Now that ain't cheap!

Overclocking, performance, unique features, and rich software bundled are the 4 basic commitments to R.O.G (Republic of Gamers) members. Striker Extreme provide a detailed BIOS option for enthusiast tweaking, 8-phase capless power to ensure the SLI performance reliability, and the unique gaming features, such as LCD poster, EL I/O, Onboard LED, Onboard button, ...etc. Once you use it, you would love it.

Multi Mobos

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:30:00 +0000

Are there any chassis out there that can house multiple motherboards? That would be cool for space saving efforts.

Retail Store Selection

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:06:00 +0000

In reference to my buddy Boone's rig ideas, I'm checking both online and retail store availabilities in suggesting a place to buy. Online is certainly cheaper but he may decide he wants to pick it up in a store to get it quick. The problem I'm running in to is that the stores don't carry my SLI board selection and the ones they do have are substantially more money. Humph.

Wifi on Mobo

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:02:00 +0000

I have to find out if any of the nVidia SLI mobos have built in wifi.

Another MotherBoard Post with cool links

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 03:44:00 +0000

Check out some Amazon Asus Links and let me know what you think!

They're great mobos in case you haven't heard.

Mega Cool - Mega Cheap SLI Setup

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:18:00 +0000

I decided to put together a proposal for my buddy Boone to get him upgraded off his current gaming PC. It's a home built PC with all Nvidia SLI certified parts. Here's what's on the list:

ASUS M2N-E SLI ATX AMD Motherboard $89.99
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Brisbane 2.1GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Processor
Kingston HyperX 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory $69.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3120811AS 120GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $47.99
XFX PV-T86J-YAHG GeForce 8500GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card $89.99 OR
XFX PV-T86J-UAHG GeForce 8500GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready Video Card $74.99
Enermax ENERMAX Whisper II EG565P-VE FMA(24P) ATX12V Ver 2.0 535W Power Supply 115/230 V UL, cUL, TUV, CB $79.99

Total: $443.94 (512MB Video Card)
$428.94 (256MB Video Card)

Not too shabby, eh?

Big Asus Board

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:55:00 +0000

Shown below is another Asus board that I spotted in their Gaming MB section. It's called Maximus Formula (Special Edition).

Among other things, it's ready for any Intel Quad or next generation Multi Core CPU, both Core 2 Extreme and Dual Core ready, FSB of up to 1600 MHz, 8GB DIMMS, 5 PCIe slots, over-clocking features.

I did some quick searching and found a low price of $259.99 on the Internet giving this board a heavy price but I think it's worth every penny.

Asus Commando

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:48:00 +0000

Being an Asus freak, I'm recommending a motherboard I don't even own. It's the Asus Commando.

Quad and Core 2 ready, 8GB max RAM, 1066MHz front side bus, this motherboard is just waiting to consume any game you throw at it.

Dell

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:27:00 +0000

Does anyone know what kind of mother boards Dell is using in their PCs? Are they manufacturing their own or using someone else's and sticking their name on them?

I'm running an XPS 410 and am loving it. I never thought I'd buy a Dell for a game PC since I prefer building my own but I'm impressed with its blazing speed so far.

Physical form factor

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 23:59:00 +0000

The motherboard fits into the computer case with screws or clips. There are many form factors, or sizes of motherboard. In general, it is necessary for the case, power supply, and motherboard to conform to the same standard in order for them to operate properly.

* XT (8.5 × 11" or 216 × 279 mm) - obsolete - see XT bus architecture
* AT (12 × 11"–13" or 305 × 279–330 mm) - obsolete - see AT bus architecture
* Baby-AT (8.5" × 10"–13" or 216 mm × 254-330 mm)
* ATX (Intel 1996; 12" × 9.6" or 305 mm × 244 mm)
* Mini-ATX (11.2" × 8.2" or 284 mm × 208 mm)
* MicroATX (1996; 9.6" × 9.6" or 244 mm × 244 mm) - fewer slots than ATX, so can use smaller PSU
* LPX (9" × 11"–13" or 229 mm × 279–330 mm) - in slimline retail PCs
* Mini-LPX (8"–9" × 10"–11" or 203–229 mm × 254–279 mm) - in slimline retail PCs
* NLX (Intel 1999; 8"–9" × 10"-13.6" or 203–229 mm × 254–345 mm) - coming soon; requires add-in card riser
* FlexATX (1999; 9.6" × 9.6" or 244 × 244 mm max.) - can be smaller than microATX
* Mini-ITX (VIA Technologies 2003; 6.7" × 6.7" or 170 mm × 170 mm max.; 100W max.)
* Nano-ITX (VIA Technologies 2004; 120 mm × 120 mm max.)
* BTX (Intel 2004; 12.8" × 10.5" or 325 mm × 267 mm max.)
* MicroBTX (Intel 2004; 10.4" × 10.5" or 264 mm × 267 mm max.)
* PicoBTX (Intel 2004; 8.0" × 10.5" or 203 mm × 267 mm max.)
* WTX (14" × 16.75" or 355.6 mm × 425.4 mm)

Temperature and reliability

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 23:59:00 +0000

Generally, motherboards are air cooled with heat sinks on the larger chips such as the northbridge and CPU, and they have monitored sockets for case fans. Newer motherboards have integrated temperature sensors to detect motherboard and CPU temperatures, which can be used by the BIOS or Operating system to regulate fan speed. The removal of waste thermal energy became a major concern for workstation PCs around 2000, with the problem becoming more severe over time as computer systems continued to consume more and more power.

A study of the German c't computer magazine c't 2003, vol. 21 pg. 216-221 found that some spurious computer crashes and general reliability issues ranging from screen image distortions to I/O read/write errors can surprisingly be attributed not to software or peripheral hardware but to aging PC motherboards.

Motherboard voltage regulation uses electrolytic capacitors. These capacitors exhibit aging effects which depend on the temperature of the parts, since their water based electrolytes slowly evaporate leading to capacity loss and motherboard malfunctions due to voltage instabilities. While most capacitors are rated for 2000 hours at 105 degrees Celsius, their expected design life roughly doubles for every 10 degrees below this. At 45 degrees a lifetime of 15 years can be expected, which appears reasonable for a computer mainboard. In the past, many manufacturers delivered substandard capacitors, which would reduce this life expectancy figure. With inadequate case cooling this can become a serious problem. It is, however, possible to find and replace broken capacitors on PC mainboards. For more information on certain types of premature capacitor failure on PC motherboards, see capacitor plague.

Peripheral card slots

noreply@blogger.com (OuterBlogs - Mattman) — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 23:59:00 +0000

There are usually a number of expansion card slots to allow peripheral devices and cards to be inserted. Each slot is compatible with one or more industry bus standards. Commonly available buses include: PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect), PCI-X, AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port), and PCI Express.

ISA was the original bus for connecting cards to a PC. Despite significant performance limitations, it was not superseded by the more advanced but incompatible MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) (IBM's proprietary solution which appeared in their PS/2 series of computers and a handful of other models) or the equally advanced and backward-compatible EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture) bus. It endured as a standard feature in PCs till the end of the 20th century, aided first by the brief dominance of the VESA (Video Electronic Standards Association) extension during the reign of the 486 and later by the need to accommodate the large number of existing ISA peripheral cards. The more recent PCI bus is the current industry standard, which initially was a high-speed supplement to ISA for high-bandwidth peripherals (notably graphics cards, network cards, and SCSI host adaptors), and gradually replaced ISA as a general-purpose bus. An AGP slot is a high speed, single-purpose port designed solely for connecting high performance graphics cards (which produce video output) to the monitor. Both AGP and PCI buses are marked for replacement by PCI Express, although this is unlikely to happen prior to 2006 because of the large established base of AGP/PCI motherboards and add-in cards.

A typical motherboard of 1999 might have had one AGP slot, four PCI slots, and one (or two) ISA slots; since about 2002 the last ISA slots in new boards have been replaced with extra PCI slots. Sometimes an Advanced Communications Riser slot is used instead on less expensive motherboards.

As of 2001, most PCs also support Universal Serial Bus (USB) connections, and the controller and ports required for this are usually integrated onto the motherboard. An ethernet interface and a basic audio processor are now almost universally integrated into current motherboards as well.