Great Board but proceed with caution...
Written: Aug 08 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy Installation, Soft Menu II, BIOS
Cons: ATA/66 IDE Controller caused some problems under Win98/2000
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| vemartin's Full Review: Abit BE6-II Motherboard |
Disclaimer: this review is intended for computer layman who have a very good understanding of the terms used throughout this review, and a broad understanding of main board technology.
Groan, sputter, grind, and wait. Groan, sputter, grind, and wait. Groan, sputter, grind, and wait. This was the state of my old PC. Despite the fact it had a AMD K-6 250Mhz processor, and 96MB of Ram. My last residence was old and had very dirty electricity. As a result my primary workstation started losing time (at least and hour a day), slowed down after a few hours of operation, and gave me several GPF’s a day!
After a year of this, I decided I would no longer be tortured by my PC and started planning next system. This one would be based on a Pentium (Pentium III to be exact) class processor (my first by the way, all my other home built systems are AMD processor based). So I set out to find the best motherboard for my money; I did not want to pay over $125.00 because I wanted to keep the total cost for the new system under $500.00 total. When the review dust settled I chose the Abit BE6-II motherboard for $115.00 which I purchased from on-line merchant Mwave.com (www.mwave.com).
The BE6-II is a Slot 1 motherboard designed for the Pentium II/III processors, but will accept a Celeron with a special adapter. I choose the BE6-II because it has a 100Mhz FSB and would readily accept the PC-100 DIMM memory chips from my current PC. The motherboard comes with 4 IDE controller’s (a first for me); 2 ATA/33 and 2 ATA/66 Ultra. As I will detail later in this review that can cause major headaches in a mixed ATA-33/66 environment.
It took me roughly three days to get the new system up and running and I will cover each day in turn:
Day One: installed the motherboard, memory, hard drives (1 ATA/33 6.0GB and 1 ATA/66 20.0BG), the CD-ROM, and all of the add-on cards. The computer booted, but I noted that neither of the HHD’s nor the CD-ROM were auto-detected by the BIOS, or POST for that matter, but they and the CD-ROM—which was connected to the ATA/33 IDE connector—were detected by the Highpoint supplemental BIOS. The very through manual that came with the BE6-II stated that it was okay to mix and match ATA/33 & 66 HHD’s together via an ATA/66 connection which is what I did. Don’t do it; it caused me considerable problems, as you shall see!
I installed Windows 98 without a hitch in under 30 minutes, then proceeded to Control Panel/System to install the drivers for anything the OS missed. And sure enough there was a long list of devices listed under “unknown.” In the middle of installing the driver for the sound card I got the blue screen of death, and it wouldn’t go away; I would have to reinstall Windows 98.
Reinstalled Windows 98, without a hitch in under 30 minutes again, but the computer started locking up if left idle for more then 10 minutes. It was then that I began to suspect the HHD’s and the manner in which I had connected them, were to blame for my woes, but it was getting late so I left the computer running and went to bed.
Day 2: moved the two HHD’s to the ATA/33 IDE controller, rebooted into BIOS, and lo and behold, both were detected! Rebooted and all three IDE devices were again detected during POST. Booted into Windows 98 and proceeded to install the drivers for the ATA/66 IDE controllers; Blue screen of death; the OS would again have to be re-installed. At this point I decided to install Windows 2000 Professional; no luck. The OS would get as far as the hardware detection phase and blowup, placing hundred’s of white commas all over my 17” screen! This happened four times.
What to do next: download and upgrade the BIOS with one dated 5/17/00, and disable the ATA/66 IDE controllers, then reinstall Windows 98. This time my strategy worked! I reinstalled Windows 98 and worked with it for an hour afterwards, connecting to my home network, establishing Internet connectivity, and installing updates from Microsoft’s update site. No lockup’s, no Blue screens! Getting late I left the computer running for the night…
Day 3: I woke early (Saturday aren’t I supposed to be sleeping in!?), and proceeded to install all of the device drivers (sound card, video card, modem) before heading off the school, and left the computer running. When I returned home, she was still running and has not given me any problems since.
Moral of this story: whenever possible, update (also known as flashing) the BIOS of the motherboard right out of the box. I believe the combination of flashing the BIOS, connecting both HHD’s to a ATA/33 controller, and disabling the ATA/66 IDE controllers, eliminated the problem I was having with this board. But please use your experiment on your own for your results may vary and differ from mine.
Would I buy another? You bet! As a matter of fact I intend to do just that at the end of this month when it will be the spouse’s turn to have her computer updated. I love the Soft Switch feature of this board that allows me to fine tune the performance of the motherboard without manual DIP switches! I have not attempted to over-clock the processor yet, but when it comes time to do so—probably this weekend—the manual explains the process very thoroughly, and it can all be done via the BIOS!
The level of fine-tuning that can be done via the BIOS is outstanding; almost every parameter on the motherboard can be tweaked. The motherboard is shipped with a number of good software utilities for monitoring the performance of the motherboard and system overall; one allows me to watch the temperature of the processor and overall system, as well as monitor the speed and operation of the cooling fans. Way cool!
If you can afford it, this is the board to get, or any motherboard from Abit that suits your needs. My next one will be a Abit VA-6.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
vemartin
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Member: Vincent
Location: Aurora, IL
Reviews written: 1364
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About Me:
...A Great Empire cannot be Conquered from Without until it first Destroys itself From Within...
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