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**R-u-Ready** · 11 January 2000, 15:29

I have a G400 and a BE-6 and havent had any problems with it... I just always make sure that my bios on it and my g400 are up to date. But I havent seen any issues that were because of the BE-6 relating to the G400. I say go for it. Its the best board I have ever owned.

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Flux capacitor overclocked to 1.31 jigawatts

**Guyver** · 11 January 2000, 15:49

ABIT BE6 - Has been a very stable board (although the first batches had an extra resistor on board that didn't allow anything but the default 2.0V to work). I removed that resistor (I have the appropriate tools to do that kind of work) and all has been well for quite some time now. If I were to buy a new mobo now, it would be the BE6-II or the BF6. It depends on how many IDE devices you need to connect to your system.

As far as power goes, I would see if you can buy the case sans (without) power supply, and then purchase the PC Power&Cooling 425WATX power supply. It is also what I would term the best that's out there.

Guyver

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ABit BE6, PIII-450 OC'd 600Mhz. 128MB PC133HSDRAM, 2.0V, 41C, Matrox Millenium G400 MAX, Adaptec 2940U2W, (2) Quantum Atlas 10K 160/m 18.1GB Drives @ 80mb/s, Kenwood UCR-415 True-X 52X SCSI, Matshita DVD-ROM SR-8582, HP 8200i CDRW, Iomega 100MB Zip ATAPI, 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy, 3Com/USR 56K Voice Faxmodem Pro, HP DeskJet 895CXi, Creative/Cambridge Soundworks DTT2500 5.1 Digital Surround System, Logitech Marble FX, Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro (with 2 Port USB Hub)...

**paulcs** · 11 January 2000, 17:04

The problem is not with the motherboard, per se, and it certainly isn't exclusive to Abit. Some of us have had problems getting the G400 all the way in or properly aligned in our AGP slots.

I had this problem with an ASUS board, but I was familiar with the issue, and the symptoms were unmistakable. We had a bunch of Abit users with the same problem at the same time, and, I suspect, Abit got a bit of an unjustified black eye.

Part of the problem, I think, is that it's sometimes hard to recognize. Typically, if you're board is not aligned properly in the slot, you get no video at boot. This makes it obvious. Sometimes, with the G400, you boot fine, but you have stability problems or lockups in games. This is harder to pin point as an alignment problem, because the symptoms could be caused by just about anything.

Sometimes, the slots on brand new motherboards are very tight. You have to really push the board hard to get it all the way in the slot. The plate you attach to your case on the G400's PCB can be a little off. You push on the front of the board, so the plate becomes flush with the case, and the back of the board lifts ever so slightly from the AGP slot.

If you have any problems with this sort of thing, there are illustrations flying around the forum that demostrate what's happening and how to fix it. It's just something you should watch out for; it is *not* a reason to avoid Abit motherboards. We've seen this problem with Intel motherboards.

I've heard stories about AOpen cases and lousy power supplies as well. A lousy 235 or 250 Watt power supply, I think, shouldn't stop you from buying a case, because you should upgrade anyway.

I really think 300 Watts is quickly becoming the bare minimum given the demands of new power hungry parts. It's not going to get any better, and the problem can get compounded if you're using a lot of fans.

If you like the AOpen case, I think you should buy it, and do what Guyver suggests. Simply upgrade the power supply or, if you can, get a case without a power supply. 425 Watts is probably more power than you need now, and $200.00 is a lot of money. But you can get a good 300 or 350 Watt power supply for a lot less. I've had good experiences with both PC Power & Cooling and FortronSource power supplies.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.com

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