Motherboard Recommendation

Hi everyone,

My borther's computer died and from instructions I've given him over the phone (he lives very far from here..) I narrowed it down to the Mobo (or the CPU but I doubt it..)

so I deicided to get him a new mobo and ask a friend of mine that lives close to him to install it.

Here's the config I hope to get for the mobo:
i815E Mobo that Supports PPGA370 CPUs no need for anything on board (no lan, video, Audio and no RAID) 1x ISA slot required (For SB AWE64 Gold) or the board will need to have on-board Audio...


now please read the current Configuration carefully:

Intel Celeron 400MHz PPGA370 (on a slot 1 adapter) + GlobalWin Fan

DFI P-II BLR.D, Intel 440BX Slot 1 mobo (it's dead..)

192MB (1x128Mb, 1x64MB) PC-100 CAS2 SDRAM

1.44 FDD

9 GB IBM Deskstar (7200 rpm) UDMA 66 HDD

62x Kenwood TrueX CD-ROM (UDMA)

ATI Xpert 2000 16MB (ATI Rage 128)

CTX PR-711F (Sony Tube) 17" USB Monitor

External U.S Robotics 56Kbps fax/modem

3Com 905-C NIC

Creative SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold (ISA)

Ps/2 keyboard and logitech mouse (nothing connects to the USB ports other than the monitor's USB hub..)

It's running Win2k pro (sp2) but will be reformatted and reinstalled after mobo replacement..

Now I did want to go with the Asus CUSL-2C but according to Asus it dowsn't work with PPGA370 Celerons (only FC-PGA - 533MHz+ )

I looked at a few others some say they don't work with old celerons others don't..

I would appreciate your input and recommendations.

one more thing, I can get a good intel BX board for around $70-$80 that will work great with the current config but I'd like to have the ability to send him a P-III 1GHz and 512MB PC-133 RAM for Xmas <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

He uses the computer to do 3 things :
1. Surf the net and IRC
2. Use Office 2000 (Word Excel)
3. Program in Visual Studio

TIA <IMG SRC="smilies/wink.gif" border="0">

I would recommend ABIT or ASUS but with the 815 chipset I don't see any that meet your needs. Since their VIA chipset boards don't seem to have the same restrictions I checked out Intel a bit suspecting that it's the 815 that rules out PPGA. Didn't see anything with a quick look....I did see though that FCPGA Celeron 633's are available for $35...

Good luck.

just had a quick look at the gigabyte website. im not sure, but i think that most of the boards at the below address support all of your needs. the only thing is they are limited to a max of 512 meg ram. i dont know how much of a problem this is, but they support most pga370 processors.
http://www.giga-byte.com/products/socket370.htm#815370

MG.

I just built a system with a Aopen AX3SP. it has 1 AGP, 6 PCI, 1 CNR and no ISA slots. but it does have onboard sound and an optional onboard firewire controller. its says on the Aopen website that does support the PIII, Celeron (PPGA, and the FC-PGA Type) and the VIA chips. i don't know about anyone else, but i could not find a 815E mobo with an isa slot.

According to the ASUS website, the CUSL-2 supports the Celeron, the CUSL-2C doesn't. It's also available with onboard audio, but of course it's a rather expensive board. Then again, the most expensive board is a cheap one that doesn't work!

Thanks for your help everyone. I think I might be going with the Intel D815EPEA2...

let me explain a little:

1. Gigabytes was eliminated because I know some of them have UDMA issues with CD-ROMS and the Kenwood 62X Truex is very picky about UDMA..
so they're out..

2. Asus Cusl2 is very expensive and I really don't need the extra features..

3. MSI don't have anything, sam goes for Abit.

4. the Aopen looks like a nice board although I really don't want/need fireWire..

I also looked at Epox but I didn't find something better..

the intel is a mature board (I'm running about 3000 of revision 1 at work) it's very easy t setup, BIOS has NO options (which is a good thing for people who don't know how to configure things..) and it works great with Win2k (again I have many at work..)

I recently read a review on it and it performed as good as the Abit (maybe 0.5% difference)

so unless anyone has any better ideas I'm gonna go with it .

btw it's pretty cheap too (under $100)

I'll let you know..