Recommendation for an office computer

[PascalT]

Here's where I am at now:

AMD Athlon 64 2800+ 754
Asus K8S-MX SiS760GX
1 x 512mb Kingston pc3200
80 gb Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA
16x52x Samsung DVD-ROM (he doesn't need a DVD-RW)
52x/32x/52x Lite-On CD-RW
------------
Total 1335 RM (Malaysian Ringgits...or 450 CAD)

+ Case/Wi-Fi card


The P4 system the guy quoted him was 2000 RM. I told him I'd save him alot of money going the AMD route.

Any suggestions on the rig?

 

[mechBgon]

You could consider a Lite-On DVD-ROM / CD-RW combo drive too. I haven't tried that Asus K8S-MX, but I was looking at it since I want to upgrade. I see that Asus has a BIOS fix that addresses an issue with WinXP SP2. I don't know what the video performance would be, but if it doesn't work out well, you can always throw in any base-model Radeon card and get your 64MB of RAM back, along with DVI capability if needed.

As for SiS, they made a good name for themselves with the venerable SiS735 chip used on the popular K7S5A and K7S5A Pro. I would probably choose them over VIA, at any rate.

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: ShadowBlade

Originally posted by: doinmybestatlast
Dell

for office situations, its best to buy a manufactured computer

 

[farscape]

Best no frills office system:


Dell.


And:



That way YOU don't have to fix it.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
As for SiS, they made a good name for themselves with the venerable SiS735 chip used on the popular K7S5A and K7S5A Pro. I would probably choose them over VIA, at any rate.

A good name? That board has single-handedly caused several people I know to never buy an ECS board or a SiS chipset ever again. Damn Tom's Hardware for recommending it.

I have built 7 machines with the K7S5A. 3 of them had total board failures. Of the remaining 4, one of them lost the secondary IDE channel, one of them scrambles its BIOS settings half the time you boot, and two are doing fine.

I am truly embarrassed that I ever used that board to build anybody a computer. I have two friends in IT who have both built 10+ machines with that board and had very similar experiences (more than half the systems having total failures or serious BIOS issues). The issues aren't limited to just the first version of the board, either. I think there were 3 major revisions that all have problems.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: mechBgon
As for SiS, they made a good name for themselves with the venerable SiS735 chip used on the popular K7S5A and K7S5A Pro. I would probably choose them over VIA, at any rate.

A good name? That board has single-handedly caused several people I know to never buy an ECS board or a SiS chipset ever again. Damn Tom's Hardware for recommending it.

I have built 7 machines with the K7S5A. 3 of them had total board failures. Of the remaining 4, one of them lost the secondary IDE channel, one of them scrambles its BIOS settings half the time you boot, and two are doing fine.

I am truly embarrassed that I ever used that board to build anybody a computer. I have two friends in IT who have both built 10+ machines with that board and had very similar experiences (more than half the systems having total failures or serious BIOS issues). The issues aren't limited to just the first version of the board, either. I think there were 3 major revisions that all have problems.

Nice ECS rant but it's misdirected. I didn't recommend an ECS board here, as you can see, I recommended an Asus. And I maintain an ~85-system fleet daily, of which half are Asus microATX rigs that I built myself, some of which are coming up on 3 years old. Look at the link in my sig for an example. I wouldn't use K7S5A's for longevity either, I grant you that. Then again, I don't use no-name RAM or PSUs either, two things that the K7S5A buyers often did due to an acute case of cheapitus maximus.

If there are real-world problems regarding this SiS chipset itself, then I'm certainly interested in hearing about them. I already named the one that I was aware of... this model of Asus board needs a BIOS update to jive with WinXP SP2.

My ECS K7S5A did eventually kick the bucket after about three years, but until it did, it was a trouble-free lil' guy. Alas, he passed away one night to The Great ATX Case In The Sky while crunching SETI@Home

 

[PascalT]

thanks for the helpful advices.

I think I will go with this and see how it goes.