travis neal wrote:
>
> I would recommend to stay away from FIC mother boards.  I have had nothing but issues with mine, and everybody else I know is dissatisfied with their purchase also.  The VIA chipset requires many patches and even after all the work it seems awfully flaky.
>
> Travis Neal
>
> Bill Talburt wrote:
>
> > I am going to build my first PC in the coming months and would appreciate any suggestions regarding the best desktop case to buy and what motherboard and chipsets I should be looking at.  I am thinking that I want a processor at about 400Mhz. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
> >
My 2 cents --
I've had a FIC 503+ for a year, and it runs fine. The only complaint
that I have is setting all of those itty bitty jumpers with these old
eyes and fumbly fingers. I chose this board because it was the highest
rated AT form factor board at the time. I didn't want to go ATX because
that would mean new case, etc. If I were making the same decision today,
I would probably buy an ATX board.
Bill, I suggest that you spend some time surfing around at the various
tech sites -- cnet and zdnet are good starting points. Visit the various
manufacturers' sites. Don't spend a lot of time on the fluff up front,
but scrounge around in the FAQ's and technical support areas. Another
good source for information are some of the motherboard sellers --
Aberdeen (www.aberdeeninc.com) and Treasure Chest (www.tccomputers.com)
have got a lot of information about the products that they sell. (I've
never bought anything from either one of them, and I have no idea
whether they are the best or the worst places to buy, but they do have a
lot of online information. For free.) Another good site is
www.anandtech.com. This is written by an 18 year old high school student
who talks about the good old days when he first started computing on an
AT! (If it helps any, his father is a professor of computer science).
He's pretty much cutting edge and overclocking stuff, but there is some
good information there, and some excellent links as well.
When I was doing my search, it struck me that all of these motherboards
have some sort of problems, and each has certain strengths. Which means
you gotta do some shopping.
-- HTH -- Carroll

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