Liked it so much, I bought two!
Written: Dec 19 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: flexibility, rock solid performance, easy access to components, nice option to automatically power-up with using a power-strip.
Cons: a few installation hick-ups; no overclocking features; only 1 isa slot.
|
|
|
| mgoto's Full Review: Tyan S1854 Trinity 400 |
Last spring (spring 2000), I started looking for an upgrade over my old Tyan Tsunami ATX motherboard. Of course one of the first places that I looked was to newer Tyan motherboards such as the Trinity 400. As I had a slot 1 P-II processor and PC 100 SDRAM, I wanted something that would support those items yet let me grow with the times.
Although I considered other motherboards, the Trinity 400 offered some unique features:
Both slot 1 and flip-chip socket 370 support--I could run my P-II 350 and then upgrade to any of several slot 1 or FC-PPGA processors.
The ability to mix 100/133 Mhz FSB with PC100/PC133 memory--I could use my PC 100 SDRAM but could also upgrade to PC 133 memory at my convenience.
When combined with more typical features such as UDMA/66, 4X AGP, 6 PCI slots (not 4 or 5), plus all of the standard doodads (USB, mouse, keyboard, COM1, COM2, LPT, etc.), I decided that this mobo (motherboard) was the one for me.
Now, eight months later, I liked this board so much that I bought another one just like it as an upgrade for a second system. I now have a P-III 733EB and a P-III 600EB PC using the Trinity 400.
After using this board for eight months, I find that I really like the flexibility, rock solid performance; easy access to the components and connectors; option to power up automatically with using a power strip for the PC, monitor, printer, speakers, etc.
For me there were only two problem situations, both of which involved the initial installation and are no longer a concern. The first of my problems was a minor issue with the connectors for the PC case LEDs and power/reset switches. On the Trinity 400, most of the jumper pins for power-on LED, hard-drive LED, power switch and reset switch are gathered together in a black plastic connector on the board. From the Tyan manual, you can carefully figure out which plug goes where for the power/reset switches, and the hard-drive LED goes, but where the power-on LED seems to go, the plug fits but the LED didn't work?!? Then I read the details in the manual and found out that if you have a power-on LED with a 3-pin plug (like most PC cases), you need to plug it into a connector about 2 inches away from all the others. Minor frustration that was easily overcome.
The second of my problems had very serious impact--booting up in Windows 98SE, the PC would freeze just before completing the start-up. Turns out I needed to get updated VIA 4-in-1 drivers from the Tyan web site. Silly me, in rushing to install the board, I forgot a basic step--download new drivers for everything and anything. With the new Trinity 400 that I just bought last week, I download the v4.25a VIA 4-in-1 drivers and the installation went smoothly without a hitch.
If you like rock-solid performance, easy access to most components, an option to automatically power-up with using a power-strip, plus the flexibility to upgrade processors, memory, and accessory cards, then this motherboard is dandy. If you want to overclock your CPU or want to use more that 1 ISA accessory card, then this board is NOT for you. The Trinity 400 has very weak facilities for overclocking (bus speeds are set by on-board jumpers) and it only has 1 ISA slot that shares the space with the sixth PCI slot. As I am not an overclocker nor do I have any ISA cards, these last two potential dislikes didn't apply to me.
Over the eight months, I have used several slot 1 processors from a P-II 350 up to a P-III 733EB. I haven't use a FC-PPGA processor yet, but as I plan to keep this motherboard for as long as the march of technology permits, I will probably try out the Coppermine processors at some point. By the way, according to Tyan, there may be some old Trinity 400 boards--with 9900Y or 9900YA markings above and slightly to the left of the power supply connector--which do NOT support Coppermine processors--see http://www.tyan.com/support/html/pentiumii_iii_ppga.html for more details.
I have used both PC100 and PC133 SDRAM with both 100 FSB and 133 FSB processors. Other examples of flexibility include using both a Voodoo Banshee (Voodoo2 2D/3D 1X AGP video card) and a ELSA Xrazor X2 (GeForce DDR 4X AGP video card). Another example is using each of the three sound cards in the Turtle Beach Montego line, the A3DXstream, the II, and the Quadzilla (yes, for reasons that I am to embarrassed to explain, I actually installed and ran three different sound cards in my PC over the period of about two months). Other accessories that I am using include a Hollywood Plus DVD MPEG decoder, a Adaptec SCSI card, and a Diamond Homeline networking card. With 4 of six PCI slots in use, my system is still very stable.
With a recent acquisition of a P-III 600EB (133 FSB), I purchased a second Trinity 400 to host the P-III and 128 MB of PC100 SDRAM. I actually paid a little extra to get the Trinity 400 over other equivalent motherboards, because I was in a rush and I knew that the Trinity 400 would work.
If you have slot 1 processors, but want the upward migration path to the flip-chip processors, this is the only motherboard that will make it easy (a good slocket may also let you go from a slot 1 to flip-chip processor). If you have a flip-chip processor, then there are other alternatives (mobos based on the 815e chipset), however, the features on the Trinity 400 compare favorably nonetheless. Choosing a motherboard is always tough--good luck and hunting
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 115
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
mgoto
|
|
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 3 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.