Anyone have experience wit Gigabyte BX2000 mobo

[ALBPM]

I'm putting a system together for work and am going to use a Gigabyte BX2000 mobo with a PIII-600EB, PC-133, etc..

Any good or bad "Features" I should know about this mobo before I procede?????

Paul

[MultimediaMan]

I've just come off of a Gigabyte kick. They are good boards, but the way they have their BIOS set up, getting top performance is sometimes a little trying.

Make sure you have your Video Cards BIOS and RAM shadowed, that's the only way to enable AGP 2X transfers with a Gigabyte board; also, there is no way to adjust the AGP aperture size; you are stuck with 64 MB, as defined by "hidden" BIOS settings you cannot change.

I did like how stable the BX2000 was, and it seemed to tolerate a number of odd hardware configurations well.

A word of caution trying to use ACPI with this board: the ACPI and STR features were not well-implemented with earlier BIOS versions: I bought two of these boards while they were still very new, perhaps a newer BIOS has since fixed these problems, I don't know.

[arbymo]

GigaByte mobos are good ones.
I have a 6BXE mobo .. it's working good with a G200 8M. although AGP 2x has never worked for me, maybee coz the BIOS settings MultimediaMan mentioned.
Overclocking is good with those mobos, i'm using a celeron 300A@450 currnetly, and i ran PIII-450 Katmai @600 for a while at 133 FSB with PC-100 CAS3 ram. I needed to tap some pins to get 2.2 V of the P3 coz the mobo doesn't have voltage adjustment ..
so i guess u should go with a slotkit and an FC-PGA in case u need to change the voltage.
AS i said.. i don't have a BX2000, but most gigavyte mobos work the same ..
Stability is good, most problems i had was coz off my G200 drivers, (it's over a year old now , so i passed over all drivers since the 4.2 ones )
One last thing about the AGP aperture; i was stuck at 64 MB for long time till i found modbin which let u change alot of hidden bios settings, yes the gigabyte bios has an option for changing the aperture size .. but it's hidden .. so i unhide it and set it to 128 ( didn't see much differnce though 'cept running the 32 MB texture test in 3dmark )
Also the option for enable/disable ACPI is hidden and set to enable ..
ACPI worked for me with Win98, but i don't set it that way anymore .. alot of problems from the G200 card.
One cool thing about the BX2000 is that it has a DualBIOS, so u can watever u want with ur BIOS and don't worry (i managed to kill my BIOS once got it back finally )
What i like about them most the 3 fan connectors .. the temp sensor under the processor, and a very nice layout .. nothing is hiding other parts.
Maybee u should consider getting the BX2000+ instead as the + has an onboard ata66 controller ..
Many people like the Abit and Asus boards coz they have CPU settings in the BIOS, i see it's not a big deal, DIP switches rn't that bad .. if u can live w/o voltage changes through BIOS, maybee tap pins, use slotkits, or use there new volatge overdrive or watever they call .. then u like theor boards.
long reply .. but i hope it'll help u.
)


[This message has been edited by arbymo (edited 19 July 2000).]

[ALBPM]

Thanks guys!!!!!

I'm not going to overclock this one and will be running NT4.0 on it...no choice there.


Paul

[DB4]

Hello

For the last six months I have had a BX2000 mobo and I can assure you that the board is absolutely fine and is great for o/c. Also I have had no stabilty or compatibility problems. All round good board to go for.

Just my 2c

------------------
G400 32MB
PIII 450 o/c 504
Gigabyte BX2000
128 PC100
Sonic Vortex 2

[arbymo]

You said a PIII-600EB and PC-133 ??
I believe the EB runs at 133 FSB ??
Then ur overclocking the chipset, FSB and AGP
:PP
Anyway go for it .. it's stable and fast.

[ALBPM]

Ya, your right arbymo I will be overclocking the FSB. I was thinking in terms of the processor.

Thanks again Guys.

Paul

[SteveC]

Sorry to let the side down, but where I work, we used these boards (and other Gigabytes) about a year ago and had nothing but problems. It wasn't just a 'bad batch' either - we left them and tried going back to them as their prices wasn't that bad. We chose them on their name and reputation, but I can guarantee that we'll never goi back to them.

The SS7 gigabyte boards (Ali) were absolute nightmares, the BX2000 was OK if it worked first time... One cool thing though is that teh BX2000 has two BIOSes!

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[MultimediaMan]

IMO, SS7s are more trouble than they're worth. I've had problems with nearly everybody's SS7 boards. The Gigabyte GA5AX was the worst, I must admit though...

I was pleasantly surprised at the Aopen AX series boards.



------------------
My (Current) Primary system:

Abit BE6 (QP BIOS)
P3 450
384MB PC-100 SDRAM (Non-ECC)
Matrox Marvel G200-TV AGP (NTSC) 16Mb w/ HW-DVD Module v2.7 BIOS
Quantum 3D Obsidian X-24 Voodoo2 card
3Com 905B-TX NIC
SBlive (W/ OD I/O Card, Liveware 3.0 + Update)
ADS Cadet Radio Data AM/FM Card (8 Bit ISA)
3x WD AC28400 EIDE HDDs (ATA66 Enabled)
Creative DVD5241E EIDE 5x DVD-ROM
M/S Windows 98SE (English)
DirectX 7a

My (Current) Secondary system

Data General/ ALR 2650 Mobo (v6.004 BIOS)
2x P2 266 (SMP)
128 MB PC-100 SDRAM (ECC)
2 x Number Nine Revolution 3D 8MB PCI Adapters
3COM 509 EtherLink III Onboard Adaptec AIC7895
Onboard Intel 82558 NIC
Onboard Cirrus Logic SVGA adapter (Disabled)
Adaptec 2930U SCSI adapter
Creative ModemBlaster 5630 Data/Voice/Fax Modem (PCI)
Creaive Labs Vibra 16 ISA Soundcard
2x WD 4.5 GB Enterprise SCSI3 HDD
Panasonic LK-MW602 CD-R
Nakamichi MBR 7.4
Windows 98SE/NT Server Dual boot
DirectX 7a/SP-6

Tertiary system:
P233MMX
Asus TX-97XE
128MB RAM
Creative Savage4 32MB PCI
Abit Hotrod ATA-66 Controller
Intel Create&Share Video Capture PCI
Creative Labs SBLive! (Full Version)
Intel PRO100 10/100 ISA NIC

Quaternary system:
P233MMX
Asus TX-97X
Creative Labs Savage4 32MB PCI
Linksys LNE-100 10/100 PCI NIC
Onboard Creative Labs SB Vibra16

Pentenary System:
Dell Inspiron 7100 Laptop
Xircom 56k-10/100 PCMCIA NIC/Modem

Lots of CAT5 cable in my walls.

[ALBPM]

Well, it's up and running like a CHAMP

No, problems at all P3-600EB, 256MB PC-133, IBM 20GB HD, G400 32MB Dual Head, etc...etc

I just wish GigaByte would put the AGP Aperature Setting in the BIOS like all other mobo manufacturers do...WaaaaSuuup with that!!!!

Thanks for the help

Paul

[Hunsow]

Then visit the BIOS CUSTOMIZATION PAGE Paul and do it yourself, if you dare it.

[Hunsow]

Here is another one:

http://www.skynet.kharkov.com/suppor...rs/_BIOS/UTIL/