Domain: fernuni-hagen.de
Stories and comments across the archive that link to fernuni-hagen.de.
Comments · 21
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Link to actual paper
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Re:BSD and FSF?
you can't authenticate Win2k workstations to Kerberos server other than A - due to MS "extensions" to their Kerberos implementation.
Yes, actually you can, and Microsoft supplies the tools on the Windows 2000 CD's to do it. -
Re:SSO != Single Account
how does one 'kerberize' a client
It has to be written to talk to kerberos.
Programmers Guide for Heimdal Kerberos.
Kerberized Kermit FTP Client
There are probably others. -
Re:You don't have to pay extra thanks to GNU
GCC doesn't support even basic Windows things like resources.
The MinGW version of Binutils includes Windres, which is a free Win32 resource compiler. Which other "basic Windows things" do you claim GCC does not support?
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Re:You know.....
>(turns out that msi doesn't have a bios that works with the Barton 2500+ at 333, you have to up the voltage (voids warranty) and use kingston memory - but kingston says they no longer support this (brand-new) motherboard, because they've had too many problems with it)
That's odd. I've sold a lot of those boards using PC2700 RAM without any problems at all. Perhaps kingston is supplying garbage memory. I don't know. I do this without making a single change to the BIOS, except to set the CPU to the proper speed.
You must use an AGP card for video to get this to work if you are talking about PC3200 RAM. AOpen, using the same chipset, warns that you cannot use such highspeed memory and expect stability with the onboard video.
It's all pointless anyways as the speed increases are infinitessimal compared to the heartache of an unstable system.
Ask anyone selling the low end stuff their return rates and compare it to the high end parts. There is a difference. I've seen it as a retailer for both end of the spectrum.
(BTW: Some PC Chips boards that don't include hacked and pirated BIOSes have been known to have bad IDE controllers that randomly corrupt data, due to their false advertising. I've been bitten by this a few years ago. Never again.)
PC Chips mode of business:
- Fake Cache
- BIOS Hacking (as above)
- "Customizable" chipsets (translate to: We use our inhouse garbage chipset with broken IDE support and remark it to whatever you like)
- Fake CPU speeds (*STILL!* K7SOM/K7SEM users beware)
- Paper thin PCBs (my experience)
- Website served from 56k modem (or so it seems), written by ESL students.
- No support after you buy it (If you get more than 1 working BIOS update you are so very lucky)
- Above is likely due to them PIRATING BIOSes from other boards (own experience, not unusual)
- Deceiving naming of products (That's a 666 Mhz VIA board)
There's also unverified rumours that the owners of PC Chips were into CPU remarking.
Think about that next time you buy PC Chips (or, *shudder* ASRock or ECS [same company, PC Chips has a need to change their name often, I wonder why!])
Oh, and before you think I'm just doing this for my business, I try to add more margin in for the junk parts as I know I'll just need to deal with returns right away. -
Re:You know.....
>(turns out that msi doesn't have a bios that works with the Barton 2500+ at 333, you have to up the voltage (voids warranty) and use kingston memory - but kingston says they no longer support this (brand-new) motherboard, because they've had too many problems with it)
That's odd. I've sold a lot of those boards using PC2700 RAM without any problems at all. Perhaps kingston is supplying garbage memory. I don't know. I do this without making a single change to the BIOS, except to set the CPU to the proper speed.
You must use an AGP card for video to get this to work if you are talking about PC3200 RAM. AOpen, using the same chipset, warns that you cannot use such highspeed memory and expect stability with the onboard video.
It's all pointless anyways as the speed increases are infinitessimal compared to the heartache of an unstable system.
Ask anyone selling the low end stuff their return rates and compare it to the high end parts. There is a difference. I've seen it as a retailer for both end of the spectrum.
(BTW: Some PC Chips boards that don't include hacked and pirated BIOSes have been known to have bad IDE controllers that randomly corrupt data, due to their false advertising. I've been bitten by this a few years ago. Never again.)
PC Chips mode of business:
- Fake Cache
- BIOS Hacking (as above)
- "Customizable" chipsets (translate to: We use our inhouse garbage chipset with broken IDE support and remark it to whatever you like)
- Fake CPU speeds (*STILL!* K7SOM/K7SEM users beware)
- Paper thin PCBs (my experience)
- Website served from 56k modem (or so it seems), written by ESL students.
- No support after you buy it (If you get more than 1 working BIOS update you are so very lucky)
- Above is likely due to them PIRATING BIOSes from other boards (own experience, not unusual)
- Deceiving naming of products (That's a 666 Mhz VIA board)
There's also unverified rumours that the owners of PC Chips were into CPU remarking.
Think about that next time you buy PC Chips (or, *shudder* ASRock or ECS [same company, PC Chips has a need to change their name often, I wonder why!])
Oh, and before you think I'm just doing this for my business, I try to add more margin in for the junk parts as I know I'll just need to deal with returns right away. -
Re:You know.....
>(turns out that msi doesn't have a bios that works with the Barton 2500+ at 333, you have to up the voltage (voids warranty) and use kingston memory - but kingston says they no longer support this (brand-new) motherboard, because they've had too many problems with it)
That's odd. I've sold a lot of those boards using PC2700 RAM without any problems at all. Perhaps kingston is supplying garbage memory. I don't know. I do this without making a single change to the BIOS, except to set the CPU to the proper speed.
You must use an AGP card for video to get this to work if you are talking about PC3200 RAM. AOpen, using the same chipset, warns that you cannot use such highspeed memory and expect stability with the onboard video.
It's all pointless anyways as the speed increases are infinitessimal compared to the heartache of an unstable system.
Ask anyone selling the low end stuff their return rates and compare it to the high end parts. There is a difference. I've seen it as a retailer for both end of the spectrum.
(BTW: Some PC Chips boards that don't include hacked and pirated BIOSes have been known to have bad IDE controllers that randomly corrupt data, due to their false advertising. I've been bitten by this a few years ago. Never again.)
PC Chips mode of business:
- Fake Cache
- BIOS Hacking (as above)
- "Customizable" chipsets (translate to: We use our inhouse garbage chipset with broken IDE support and remark it to whatever you like)
- Fake CPU speeds (*STILL!* K7SOM/K7SEM users beware)
- Paper thin PCBs (my experience)
- Website served from 56k modem (or so it seems), written by ESL students.
- No support after you buy it (If you get more than 1 working BIOS update you are so very lucky)
- Above is likely due to them PIRATING BIOSes from other boards (own experience, not unusual)
- Deceiving naming of products (That's a 666 Mhz VIA board)
There's also unverified rumours that the owners of PC Chips were into CPU remarking.
Think about that next time you buy PC Chips (or, *shudder* ASRock or ECS [same company, PC Chips has a need to change their name often, I wonder why!])
Oh, and before you think I'm just doing this for my business, I try to add more margin in for the junk parts as I know I'll just need to deal with returns right away. -
Re:You know.....
>(turns out that msi doesn't have a bios that works with the Barton 2500+ at 333, you have to up the voltage (voids warranty) and use kingston memory - but kingston says they no longer support this (brand-new) motherboard, because they've had too many problems with it)
That's odd. I've sold a lot of those boards using PC2700 RAM without any problems at all. Perhaps kingston is supplying garbage memory. I don't know. I do this without making a single change to the BIOS, except to set the CPU to the proper speed.
You must use an AGP card for video to get this to work if you are talking about PC3200 RAM. AOpen, using the same chipset, warns that you cannot use such highspeed memory and expect stability with the onboard video.
It's all pointless anyways as the speed increases are infinitessimal compared to the heartache of an unstable system.
Ask anyone selling the low end stuff their return rates and compare it to the high end parts. There is a difference. I've seen it as a retailer for both end of the spectrum.
(BTW: Some PC Chips boards that don't include hacked and pirated BIOSes have been known to have bad IDE controllers that randomly corrupt data, due to their false advertising. I've been bitten by this a few years ago. Never again.)
PC Chips mode of business:
- Fake Cache
- BIOS Hacking (as above)
- "Customizable" chipsets (translate to: We use our inhouse garbage chipset with broken IDE support and remark it to whatever you like)
- Fake CPU speeds (*STILL!* K7SOM/K7SEM users beware)
- Paper thin PCBs (my experience)
- Website served from 56k modem (or so it seems), written by ESL students.
- No support after you buy it (If you get more than 1 working BIOS update you are so very lucky)
- Above is likely due to them PIRATING BIOSes from other boards (own experience, not unusual)
- Deceiving naming of products (That's a 666 Mhz VIA board)
There's also unverified rumours that the owners of PC Chips were into CPU remarking.
Think about that next time you buy PC Chips (or, *shudder* ASRock or ECS [same company, PC Chips has a need to change their name often, I wonder why!])
Oh, and before you think I'm just doing this for my business, I try to add more margin in for the junk parts as I know I'll just need to deal with returns right away. -
Try OLD and confusing
New and confusing interfaces? How about OLD and confusing interfaces. As I understand it, the 'info' utility is just Emacs info-mode broken out as a separate program. I'm pretty sure it predates most web browsers and the ubiquitous popularity of HTML.
This page seems to indicate that Info and texinfo has roots going back to the 70s, and that Info itself came about in the mid 80s.
--Joe -
Re:How does a buffer overflow allow code executionYou could have done a Google search...
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Re: bashing me
>Well, while you're bashing me
Sorry man, didn't mean to get personal. Just stating my opinion on ECS trash, not you (I'm sure you've got a clue... not a lot of slashdotters don't).
>PC-Chips, afaik, is not ECS
Here's the truth table of who PC-Chips is. They like to use new names every few months because they get tarnished so fast. FYI: Amptron (a known PC-Chips company) makes the identical board, in brown rather than purple (or is blue ECS's colour now? I don't know -- PC-Chips is pathetic at naming their products). I know. I inspected them side-by-side very closely. Trace for trace, component for component, identical in every way but where the FCC logo was/wasn't silkscreened (probably fake, too).
You can find out more about the quality of PC-Chips products here.
BTW: I know the K7S5A is actually labelled K7S5A, but to help other slashdotters, if you come across the 95% of other PC-Chips products that don't have a brand name listed, or simply have a removeable sticker indicating whatever was the popular chipset at the moment, you can find your board here (maybe). PC-Chips is the only company I know of too embarassed to label their products.
This is the list of PC-Chips names:
PCChips = Ability = Alton = Amptron = Aristo = Asia Gate = Asiatech = Assa = Atrend = ECS = Elpina = Eurone = Fugu = Fugutech = Hi Sing = Houston = Hsing Tech = H Tech = Matsonic = Minstaple = PCWare = Pine = Protac = QDI = Warpspeed.
I'll find the Amptron part number for your board if you'd like (they have big ugly pictures on their site you can use for comparison)...
>Liteon was reviewed by Linuxhardware.org, and it beat out several Plextor drives.Their products are solid and fast.
Let's ask them again in 6 months... Rest assured, you can ask any retailer, there's no way a Liteon will beat a Plextor. That's like a Kia beating a Lexus. Maybe in MPG...
>And the PS was by Foxconn, if you bothered to look.AMD approved.Where did you get 430 watts from?
Sorry, since you didn't provide a link, I clicked on the first case that came up. This one. Which meets your stated requirements. You get the 430 watts by adding up the stated maximum supply power for each important rail (ignore the -ve voltages and the VSB voltages -- these really won't contriubute to the usable power amount supplied by the power supply). This is what came up when I searched for your terms. The picture clearly shows it includes an "Austin" power supply with the usual labelling issues that show up on cheap Asian imports. At least it isn't likely to explode like an L&C/Deer power supply (I made a good few bucks during the last big storm!)... :-)
>So I don't know quite what you are talking about.
Sorry, if you'd like to be more clear as to what I should search for, perhaps I'll take a look for you. Newegg's site is a PITA to link to.
>I've built 2 systems essentially like the one above.
I've built 20 or 30 PC-Chips based systems. Only about 10 got returned, for various issues (about 5 related to me, although I don't consider them my fault, since the boss asked for it... the store was a sweatshop and we went to extremes like bashing in the power supplies to fit parts in because we catered to cheapasses).
>You say 5400 RPMs is slow...ok, but where did you get any idea that I was talking about 5400 RPM? the one i listed was 7200 RPM.
You didn't specify the speed so I had to guess.
>One thing you missed, while you were bashing me - I forgot a video card. Buy a nice GeForce 2 or 3, they are nice...don't get an MX.
I forgot the K7S5A is one of the _extremely_ few PC-Chips boards that doesn't have some trash Trident or SiS video built in. Whoops on my part!
>So, you can do it, you can build a nice, sweet system for about $600, if you do it yourself. It's much easier (and educational!) to do it that way. AMD's price/performance ration is quite nice, and I don't mind taking advantage of it.
Except I'd never buy it... and no one else would after their first experience with PC Chips.
I can honestly back up the fact that PC Chips hacks their Pirated BIOSes to show fake CPU speeds and fake amounts of cache. And that's just the start...
The question is: What are the requirements of the user?
My last PC-Chips board corrupted my HDD. If you don't care to much about your data, and don't need long uptimes, PC-Chips is a fine product, and the price can't be beat! Another one only boots up with the video disconnected. At least it boots up (I must stop being so masochistic, but I just seem to end up with so much PC-Chips stuff for next to free).
The best are the older PC-Chips VIA C3 boards that refuse to work with WD 2.0 Gig HDDs (when you work with cheap stuff, you get old parts. That's the law of the land). BIOS locks up at some point. Didn't bother looking for an update, I'm used to most PC-Chips boards not having any.
(And yeah, Tom's Hardware gave the thumbs up to the K7S5A. Which is why I don't trust anything he says anymore. He's clearly not been "in the business" for very long at all).
Ok, that's my last PC-Chips rant for the year. I'll just write a journal entry and let all the system builders weep in their beers over the woe that is PC-Chips. -
Re: bashing me
>Well, while you're bashing me
Sorry man, didn't mean to get personal. Just stating my opinion on ECS trash, not you (I'm sure you've got a clue... not a lot of slashdotters don't).
>PC-Chips, afaik, is not ECS
Here's the truth table of who PC-Chips is. They like to use new names every few months because they get tarnished so fast. FYI: Amptron (a known PC-Chips company) makes the identical board, in brown rather than purple (or is blue ECS's colour now? I don't know -- PC-Chips is pathetic at naming their products). I know. I inspected them side-by-side very closely. Trace for trace, component for component, identical in every way but where the FCC logo was/wasn't silkscreened (probably fake, too).
You can find out more about the quality of PC-Chips products here.
BTW: I know the K7S5A is actually labelled K7S5A, but to help other slashdotters, if you come across the 95% of other PC-Chips products that don't have a brand name listed, or simply have a removeable sticker indicating whatever was the popular chipset at the moment, you can find your board here (maybe). PC-Chips is the only company I know of too embarassed to label their products.
This is the list of PC-Chips names:
PCChips = Ability = Alton = Amptron = Aristo = Asia Gate = Asiatech = Assa = Atrend = ECS = Elpina = Eurone = Fugu = Fugutech = Hi Sing = Houston = Hsing Tech = H Tech = Matsonic = Minstaple = PCWare = Pine = Protac = QDI = Warpspeed.
I'll find the Amptron part number for your board if you'd like (they have big ugly pictures on their site you can use for comparison)...
>Liteon was reviewed by Linuxhardware.org, and it beat out several Plextor drives.Their products are solid and fast.
Let's ask them again in 6 months... Rest assured, you can ask any retailer, there's no way a Liteon will beat a Plextor. That's like a Kia beating a Lexus. Maybe in MPG...
>And the PS was by Foxconn, if you bothered to look.AMD approved.Where did you get 430 watts from?
Sorry, since you didn't provide a link, I clicked on the first case that came up. This one. Which meets your stated requirements. You get the 430 watts by adding up the stated maximum supply power for each important rail (ignore the -ve voltages and the VSB voltages -- these really won't contriubute to the usable power amount supplied by the power supply). This is what came up when I searched for your terms. The picture clearly shows it includes an "Austin" power supply with the usual labelling issues that show up on cheap Asian imports. At least it isn't likely to explode like an L&C/Deer power supply (I made a good few bucks during the last big storm!)... :-)
>So I don't know quite what you are talking about.
Sorry, if you'd like to be more clear as to what I should search for, perhaps I'll take a look for you. Newegg's site is a PITA to link to.
>I've built 2 systems essentially like the one above.
I've built 20 or 30 PC-Chips based systems. Only about 10 got returned, for various issues (about 5 related to me, although I don't consider them my fault, since the boss asked for it... the store was a sweatshop and we went to extremes like bashing in the power supplies to fit parts in because we catered to cheapasses).
>You say 5400 RPMs is slow...ok, but where did you get any idea that I was talking about 5400 RPM? the one i listed was 7200 RPM.
You didn't specify the speed so I had to guess.
>One thing you missed, while you were bashing me - I forgot a video card. Buy a nice GeForce 2 or 3, they are nice...don't get an MX.
I forgot the K7S5A is one of the _extremely_ few PC-Chips boards that doesn't have some trash Trident or SiS video built in. Whoops on my part!
>So, you can do it, you can build a nice, sweet system for about $600, if you do it yourself. It's much easier (and educational!) to do it that way. AMD's price/performance ration is quite nice, and I don't mind taking advantage of it.
Except I'd never buy it... and no one else would after their first experience with PC Chips.
I can honestly back up the fact that PC Chips hacks their Pirated BIOSes to show fake CPU speeds and fake amounts of cache. And that's just the start...
The question is: What are the requirements of the user?
My last PC-Chips board corrupted my HDD. If you don't care to much about your data, and don't need long uptimes, PC-Chips is a fine product, and the price can't be beat! Another one only boots up with the video disconnected. At least it boots up (I must stop being so masochistic, but I just seem to end up with so much PC-Chips stuff for next to free).
The best are the older PC-Chips VIA C3 boards that refuse to work with WD 2.0 Gig HDDs (when you work with cheap stuff, you get old parts. That's the law of the land). BIOS locks up at some point. Didn't bother looking for an update, I'm used to most PC-Chips boards not having any.
(And yeah, Tom's Hardware gave the thumbs up to the K7S5A. Which is why I don't trust anything he says anymore. He's clearly not been "in the business" for very long at all).
Ok, that's my last PC-Chips rant for the year. I'll just write a journal entry and let all the system builders weep in their beers over the woe that is PC-Chips. -
Re:Bricks vs Clicks
I would not give much credit to someone with a bit of paper from a purely online 'university' course.
I study CS at a german online-mostly university (without quotes, see http://www.fernuni-hagen.de. It's a regular uni, but only does distance learning), and people there like to think that some employers think otherwise. The main reason is simple: Most of the students have lots of problems with motivating themselves to keep on studying without anyone forcing them to (and a lot of them have real day-jobs, too), and a lot of them fail. If you suceed, people can be fairly sure that you don't have problems with discipline or lazyness. Of course, that may be wishful thinking :-)On the other hand, they can also be sure that people know Usenet, because that's the most important way for students to cooperate, and every Usenetter knows what kind of timesink that can be (and every
/.er can make an educated guess). ;-) -
Re:My MSI board failed.
>ECS has so far proven to be quite good. I've had their k7s5a for quite a while and it works excellently.
I'm happy about that, but you'll have no trouble proving that ECS is PcChips, and that PcChips changes their name occasionally (ok, very often) because it gets tarnished faster than iron by the sea. Basically, here's what PcChips does (very easy to verify, if you like):
- Pirates BIOS code.
- Manufactures and uses fake cache chips (ie: Plastic blobs with metal bits sticking out -- nothing inside).
- Fakes chipsets (they often make their own in-house chipsets, which are famous for being buggy and slow, and are known to brand/name them according to OEMs wishes)
- Uses misleading names on their in-house chipsets (eg: TXPro, VXPro, etc, etc)
- Fakes processor speeds (they used a batch of slower than expected chipsets and simply re-programmed the BIOS to always multiply the speed by 100, no matter what you set the FSB speed to)
- Uses low quality/grade parts whenever possible
- Makes chipsets that silently corrupt hard drives (my personal experience on another PcChips mobo about 3 years ago).
Also, a former PcChips employee informed me that PcChips executives were once sued for being involved in remarking processor speeds (can't verify this one, but it sure goes along with the other fraud PcChips commits).
There's more, read about PcChips here if you like. That site is the only place you're going to get help should you lose the box/manual to your mobo (since the majority don't have a model number marked), so keep it bookmarked! Deja can sometimes be some help if you want to check if your board is a PcChips board or not.
Some other PcChips brand names (ie: My short shitlist): Ability, Alton, Amptron, Aristo, Asia Gate, Asiatech, Assa, Atrend, Elpina, Eurone, EuroCom, Fugu, Fugutech, Hi Sing, Houston Tech, Hsing Tech, H Tech, Matsonic, Minstaple, PCWare, Pine, Protac, Warpspeed.
And, just to let you know, you'll find if you ever take the machine into a shop, they'll probably charge you double when they see a PcChips mobo inside. I know I do, because I know it's going to take twice as long to fix (if possible).
But hey, best of luck with the board! I've got one PcChips machine in the house, and other than having to disconnect the video before powering up, it's been fine for a couple of years. -
Re:PC board testing analogyExcellent analogy!
Do these kinds of tools exist, and if so why aren't they more widely used?
Yes, they're called "coverage analyzers" or something similar. A couple of tools that I've used in the past (for c/c++):
- PureCoverage from Rational. It's been a few years since I've used this, but it was handy to have. Basically, you compile the code with special instrumentation and then run the PureCoverage tool which brings up a window showing (among other possibilities) functions, lines, and number of times each was called/executed.
- gcov (part of gcc). This provides the same basic functionality as PureCoverage but doesn't give the pretty windows (duh).
These types of tools can also be useful for performance tuning (with gcc, gperf is also handy). - PureCoverage from Rational. It's been a few years since I've used this, but it was handy to have. Basically, you compile the code with special instrumentation and then run the PureCoverage tool which brings up a window showing (among other possibilities) functions, lines, and number of times each was called/executed.
-
Re:PC board testing analogyExcellent analogy!
Do these kinds of tools exist, and if so why aren't they more widely used?
Yes, they're called "coverage analyzers" or something similar. A couple of tools that I've used in the past (for c/c++):
- PureCoverage from Rational. It's been a few years since I've used this, but it was handy to have. Basically, you compile the code with special instrumentation and then run the PureCoverage tool which brings up a window showing (among other possibilities) functions, lines, and number of times each was called/executed.
- gcov (part of gcc). This provides the same basic functionality as PureCoverage but doesn't give the pretty windows (duh).
These types of tools can also be useful for performance tuning (with gcc, gperf is also handy). - PureCoverage from Rational. It's been a few years since I've used this, but it was handy to have. Basically, you compile the code with special instrumentation and then run the PureCoverage tool which brings up a window showing (among other possibilities) functions, lines, and number of times each was called/executed.
-
Re:I'd love to upgrade my CPU, but...
Caution on both points:
Older motherboards, such as those that would have been around when the Celeron 366 was a hot processor couldn't provide voltages under 2.5 volts.
Most all P3 flipchips used 1.7v, and will be burned out by 2.5 volts. I bought one 2 years ago (IIRC) and it was 1.7v...
Oh, and ECS = PCCHIPS = SHIT. Join the PC Chips Lottery if you don't believe me. That's why their boards are half the price. -
This was recently done
This message was posted to the Vorbis mailing list a few days ago:
From: Jernej Simoncic
Subject: OGG DirectShow implementation
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 23:31:49 +0100
Somebody made it possible to use DirectShow video codecs in OGG
framework... Now get ready for DivX OGG files :)
<http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q5045045/> -
Re:NPR should do this...Alot of people are not that inclined to be front line supporters of "OGG" [read: mp3 format called OGG]. They like to install their real/wmp and go on their way.
Actually the Vorbis DirectShow filter allows MP3 dtreams in Ogg containers.If you want to be "smart" why not write a wmp filter for OGG streams. That way they *can* use their media player to play those OGG encoded streams. Naturally the trick would be to convince MS to bundle it. I don't think they would care much since they do bundle an MP3 player with it.
There already is one -
ECS == PCCHIPS
You do realize who ECS is, right? You can get started with some info from these scheisters here.
They are a distributor of PCChips, the same people who:
- Fake the speed of their motherboards
- Pirate their BIOSes
- Rewrote bioses to display fake cache amounts and glued black plastic squares to their board with bits of metal sticking out from them and etched SRAM looking part numbers onto em
- Create deceptively similar but not at all related to their brandname counterpart chipsets. VXpro, VX+, BXpro, etc. are all famous PCChips parts.
- Relabel chipsets that look/are too cheap with the above names
- Seem to be gaining a reputation on newsgroups for selling complete garbage motherboards (just look for "PCchips shit/junk/suck" on deja)
- Have an absolutely amazing number of aliases. Eurone, Houston Tech, ECS, Amptron, Protac, Aristo, Minstaple, Matsonic, Fugutech -- the list goes on and on.
- Don't label their boards properly
- Use huge jumper blocks to set memory type (no, not just 5 or 6, but jumper blocks the length of a DIMM slot!)
BTW: As a tech at a computer store I build systems with ECS motherboards (its what we sell -- no I won't say where I work :). They are unreliable garbage, IMHO.
But AMD approved power supplies are a good idea. I don't know how many times I've seen cheap power supplies with the ratings simply stuck on them with an extra sticker.
I'd really reccomend swapping the board, though. Just a reccomendation. But if it is performing alright for you right now, well, stick with it. Occasionally some are actually built ok! :)
BTW: If you are using the board I am thinking of, its also "made" by amptron in red. Or blue, I forget which colour was for which company sometimes. With their most popular boards, by selecting the manufacturer you can select the colour. F-U-N
When Tom's Hardware Guide gave a solid rating to a PCChips board (I think its the K7S5A) I decided I'd never trust one of his reccomendations again. If you are going to rate boards you should at least do some homework on the company first! -
Yikes!PcChips? I think those are the motherboards they sell at our local cheaper-than-dirt computer store, with the "VXPro" and "TXPro" chipsets. They're distributed under many different names.
I've never gotten Linux to run reliably on them (granted, these are older Socket-7 era motherboards). If you're looking for technical info, good luck. Their web site is slower than molasses, on a 56k modem or something... There's even a (tongue in cheek) PC Chips Lottery site, in which you can attempt to guess your motherboard model, and if you "win," you get a feeble amount of info on your board.
In short, if I were Corel, this is NOT the sort of relationship I'd be looking for.
:)