Motherboard marketing WTF



  • The motherboard in my home server blew up the other day, so I journeyed to the neighborhood computer store. I decided to get a Socket A motherboard since I didn't feel like shelling out big bucks for an upgrade just for a file server. They only had one Socket A motherboard in stock, and despite the fact that it's for an old processor, it seems to be "Engineered with the latest available technologies":



    Advanced Power Adaptor (APA)

    Dual power connectors with 5V and 12V

    (4pin), not only stabilize the CPU power

    consumption, but also meet the demand of

    power supply for today and tomorrow.

    WTF are they talking about? The system power supply? The motherboard doesn't even have a 4-pin connector, it has an ATX power connector.

     

    Color Mapping

    Help to set-up the motherboard more

    easier! Same function as the standard

    color of PC99 I/O connectors, users can

    easily assemble the motherboard by

    following the color coded individual jumper,

    connectors and sockets.

    Yes, it was much more easier to set-up. Never mind the fact that I had to look in the manual to find out where to plug in the front power switch and LEDs because, unlike every other motherboard I've owned, the jumper is not marked on the board.

     

    Gimme Info

    Realtime information display! Simply hit the

    F9 key, users can find the information about

    CPU, Motherboard model, BIOS version,

    Memory type & size, Devices,....etc, and

    tune the system in the quickest way.

    By "Realtime", they apparently mean "Boottime".

     

    Hyper Booster

    Enhance the CPU overclocking capability

    and boost the CPU frequency at 1MHz

    interval in the BOIS setting page.

    Everything seems OK here. Just one question: WTF is a "BOIS"?

     

    Firewall Armor

    A powerful hacker free firewall software with

    Windows XP Service Pack 2 edition. It also

    can hook up with any anti virus software to

    protect the PC from virus.

    Yet another "feature" that has nothing to do with the motherboard. I checked the included CD — besides the standard drivers and manuals, there was nothing but some crappy shareware backup software, some crappy shareware media software, and some crappy shareware presentation software.

     

    On-line Help Console

    Instantly report users' problems to service

    center. Simply type in e-mail address,

    questions, and select a TSD site through

    Windows 'Auto Reply' function. The service

    center will receive the message along with

    computer system status without any delay.

    So the problems can be effectively solved by

    TSD support.

    Instantly and without any delay! They've apparently disproven general relativity and can solve your problem without waiting for those pokey light waves to reach China and back.

     

    The motherboard works well so far (up 1 day, 17:20). Just looks like another case of marketing having their heads embedded in their arses.



  •  You bought a cheap, piece of shit motherboard from Taiwan, what exactly did you expect?



  • @jspenguin said:

    The motherboard works well so far (up 1 day, 17:20). Just looks
    like another case of marketing having their heads embedded in their arses.
    It's a shitty motherboard, but they gotta put something on the case to help you justify the purchase. Besides, you somehow missed the best part:
    @motherboard box said:
    Product in this box may not support all the technologies depicted.

    With a disclaimer like that, I'd ramp up the claims on the box. "LASER HACKER DEFENSE SYSTEM" and "POWERED BY SENTIENT NANO-MACHINES" come to mind.



  • @jspenguin said:

    Firewall Armor

    A powerful hacker free firewall software with
    Windows XP Service Pack 2 edition. It also
    can hook up with any anti virus software to
    protect the PC from virus.

    Yet another "feature" that has nothing to do with the motherboard. I checked the included CD — besides the standard drivers and manuals, there was nothing but some crappy shareware backup software, some crappy shareware media software, and some crappy shareware presentation software.

    I like how their firewall is hacker free. When was the last time I've seen hackers inside my firewall? Um... never. Maybe they meant hacker proof, but that's as much snake oil as this one.

    Must be crap firewall anyway, the one that came with my Gigabyte/nVidia chipset motherboard was so crap I just killed it 2 days after installing it.



  • @danixdefcon5 said:

    Must be crap firewall anyway, the one that came with my Gigabyte/nVidia chipset motherboard was so crap I just killed it 2 days after installing it.
     

     Maybe so, but the point is that there is no firewall software on the CD. They're talking about the firewall that comes with XP SP2.



  • Of course, having enough computers in your house and doing enough stuff with them to justify owning a full-on server instead of a mere network drive is either TRWTF or absolutely awesome; I honestly can't decide which.



  • Ahhhhhhhh. PC Chips. I really hope it works out for you, but this company is legendary for it's cheapness... and my own first-hand experience dealing with their motherboards confims it, at least to me. It was a PC Chips motherboard I was working at on-site once when I picked the computer up to reposition so I could see the PCI slots better.... and a couple of transistors fell right off the board.Of course that was back in 1996... it's conceivable they've gotten quality control since then, however other people's Internet ancedotes aren't kind to "PC Chips" either... I have worked on PC Chips motherboards since then, and while they haven't fallen apart in my hands, they also weren't good computers.



  • @Jake Grey said:

    Of course, having enough computers in your house and doing enough stuff with them to justify owning a full-on server instead of a mere network drive is either TRWTF or absolutely awesome; I honestly can't decide which.

    You don't have a home server? n00b.



  • @bstorer said:

    You don't have a home server?

    What am I going to do with one, hold LAN parties with my imaginary friends? Besides, I've got three PCs and a laptop in one room of a shared house; I barely have room for a bed in here!



  • Either they've got some new-gen technologies in there (like, for working around that stupid old cpu multiplier × FSB freq. limitation), or they're complete idiots.

    That's not a difficult choice, is it?



  •  Ask for the new motherboard without the box. Tell them you want to pay for the board, not the marketing.



  • The "BOIS" are back in town.



  • @TheDude said:

    The "BOIS" are back in town.

     

    I laughed until Pepsi bubbled through my respiratory tract in an unusual manner.  :D



  • @jspenguin said:

    Hyper Booster

    Enhance the CPU overclocking capability
    and boost the CPU frequency at 1MHz
    interval in the BOIS setting page.

    Everything seems OK here. Just one question: WTF is a "BOIS"?

    According to Babelfish it means "wood". Maybe the BOIS setting page refers to some sort of wooden table?



  •  I only buy motherboards that make me feel all warm and fuzzy about their reliability ...

     




  • @jspenguin said:

    I decided to get a Socket A motherboard
      WTF #1

    since I didn't feel like shelling out big bucks for an upgrade
    WTF #2

    Actual prices from NewEgg: 

    Decent quality modern motherboard   - $50

    Dual core CPU that will completely blow away your antique Socket A CPU - $57 

    Total cost $107.  That's "Big Bucks"?  You're joking, right? 



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Total cost $107.  That's "Big Bucks"?  You're joking, right? 

     

    Hey, times are tough. 



  • I'm with 'TheDude' here; $107 buys about a week and a half's groceries for me, allowing for the exchange rate, and Dual Core would be kind of an overkill unless he's planning on running Crysis LAN parties off this thing or something.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @jspenguin said:

    I decided to get a Socket A motherboard
      WTF #1

    since I didn't feel like shelling out big bucks for an upgrade
    WTF #2

    Actual prices from NewEgg: 

    Decent quality modern motherboard   - $50

    Dual core CPU that will completely blow away your antique Socket A CPU - $57 

    Total cost $107.  That's "Big Bucks"?  You're joking, right? 

     

    Replacement RAM: $45

    Replacement power supply: $40



  • "PC Chips"... anything like buffalo chips? 

    @jspenguin said:

    Gimme Info

    Realtime information display! Simply hit the

    F9 key, users can find the information about

    CPU, Motherboard model, BIOS version,

    Memory type & size, Devices,....etc, and

    tune the system in the quickest way.

    By "Realtime", they apparently mean "Boottime".

    This feature actually had me interested until I realized it was just a regular BIOS setup with an odd hotkey. I have an old Dell 486 with a feature where you could press (I think it was) Ctrl-Alt-Backspace at any time you're in text mode to pop up BIOS setup, then quit back out to where you were or reboot with Alt-B. Most settings changes didn't take effect until rebooting but some, like PC-speaker volume, were immediate. Never saw a feature like that since...



  •  Not that I'd trust any of this is accurate, considering PC Chips (or Amptron, or Elpina, or ECS, or EliteGroup, or whatever-flavour-of-the-month they are) is infamous for processor remarking, fake chipsets, gluing black plastic squares (complete with silkscreened part numbers and metal legs) on their boards and calling them cache chips, and my personal favourite:  Editing their BIOS not only to report that fake cache as present, but to also report the CPUs soldered on their motherboards as ~33% faster than they actually ran at, but here goes:

     APA:  Probably means you have more than one way to hook extra power to the board.  Perhaps it has a larger ATX connector *and* a molex connector?

     Color mapping:  Trust me, motherboards were way harder to set up.  Anyone ever tried to hook up an old PC Shits 486 mobo before?  Heheh...



  • @operagost said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    @jspenguin said:

    I decided to get a Socket A motherboard
      WTF #1

    since I didn't feel like shelling out big bucks for an upgrade
    WTF #2

    Actual prices from NewEgg: 

    Decent quality modern motherboard   - $50

    Dual core CPU that will completely blow away your antique Socket A CPU - $57 

    Total cost $107.  That's "Big Bucks"?  You're joking, right? 

     

    Replacement RAM: $45

    Replacement power supply: $40

     

     Replacement video card (go AGP!):  $60

    Replacement hard drive (go IDE!):  $80

    Replacement DVD (more IDE!): $30

    Board that will hold my all my PCI cards :  +$50

     And people wonder why I haven't bought a new system for a while.  It'll be a couple more years at this rate...   Yes, I know you can still gets boards with IDE on them.  When I finally get around to replacing my motherboard, I doubt I'll even find one in ATX, never mind with any IDE on it.  And $107 is almost 2 days earnings (after tax) for a lot of PC Techs in Canada.



  • @shepd said:

    @operagost said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    @jspenguin said:

    I decided to get a Socket A motherboard
      WTF #1

    since I didn't feel like shelling out big bucks for an upgrade
    WTF #2

    Actual prices from NewEgg: 

    Decent quality modern motherboard   - $50

    Dual core CPU that will completely blow away your antique Socket A CPU - $57 

    Total cost $107.  That's "Big Bucks"?  You're joking, right? 

     

    Replacement RAM: $45

    Replacement power supply: $40

     

     Replacement video card (go AGP!):  $60

    Replacement hard drive (go IDE!):  $80

    Replacement DVD (more IDE!): $30

    Board that will hold my all my PCI cards :  +$50

     

     Wait, are we replacing a faulty motherboard or the whole server here?



  • @Jake Grey said:

    Of course, having enough computers in your house and doing enough stuff with them to justify owning a full-on server instead of a mere network drive is either TRWTF or absolutely awesome; I honestly can't decide which.

    I've got a twin Xeon 5335 VMWare box with 8 GB of RAM that I use for a metric asston of stuff. I'm also batshit insane, but that's not my point...



  • @MiffTheFox said:

     Wait, are we replacing a faulty motherboard or the whole server here?

     

    Faulty motherboard in a machine circa... ohh... 2001.  :-)

    Things not found on the new board that were likely found (and used) on the old board:

    AGP,  SDRAM (heck, even DDR), 20-pin ATX power, 5 or 6 PCI slots.

    The IDE is a bonus if you wait just a little while longer.  Super-fast obsolecense FTW!


  • Garbage Person

    You think that's bad? I have an Athlon64 machine that requires the same replacements if the mobo goes... Which it did. 12 months ago. I've been slowly raiding it for parts to keep older machines alive, because there's no way to resurrect it with any spares I have, and spares are impossible to get unless you go with shady garbage like the OP did.

    My current machine will even need a new CPU and RAM if the motherboard goes. You can still get boards with this CPU socket on it, but not with the spec I need to plug everything else into it.



  • Actually, there are a few boards with an impressive amount of old stuff crammed in for those of us who like to upgrade slowly. I bought an ASRock that has IDE and SATA, DDR and DDR2, AGP and PCI Express for about $65.


  • Garbage Person

    Did I forget to mention my "No shit" rule, which Asrock violates all by itself - but that junk chipset with the PCI Express/AGP combo slot violates FIFTEEN ADDITIONAL TIMES.



  • @Cap'n Steve said:

    Actually, there are a few boards with an impressive amount of old stuff crammed in for those of us who like to upgrade slowly. I bought an ASRock that has IDE and SATA, DDR and DDR2, AGP and PCI Express for about $65.
     

    Unfortunately, such boards usually have serious limitations, such as: PCIe only at 8x, DDR and DDR2 cannot be used symaltaneously, board only supports 2GB RAM and a single IDE connector.

    I recently had the motherboard fail in a system that was still AGP and DDR, but since buying such a board would mean losing RAM and one hard drive, as well as having to be replaced when I finally get around to upgrading my GPU, I decided it would be better just to upgrade the GPU now and buy new RAM.

    The Real WTF is that the only (cheapest) board I could find with two IDE connectors was an ASUS SLI gaming board.



  • @Jake Grey said:

    I'm with 'TheDude' here; $107 buys about a week and a half's groceries for me, allowing for the exchange rate, and Dual Core would be kind of an overkill unless he's planning on running Crysis LAN parties off this thing or something.

     

    So? $107 is around the cost of a good dinner and a movie for two, or a tankful of gas for an SUV. What's your point?

    If technology is the way you earn a living, investing in good quality and performance is a good thing. Of course, if all you use it for is email and browsing porn, your old 386 will do fine; enjoy yourself.

    For someone who is an "IT professional", wasting money on a Socket A MB at this point in time  (especially such a poor quality one) is like going to the Salvation Army looking for computer equipment; a total waste of time and money. Go to eBay instead and buy a used PC instead of throwing your money away buying crap.



  •  I'm sure all you know this, but it costs more to buy the older equipment now. So when you really offset things, you can get a new computer for probably 100 bucks more than you would for buying the old motherboard. I'm not saying its chump change, but paying more and getting more is giving you more bang for the buck. 



  • @pitchingchris said:

     I'm sure all you know this, but it costs more to buy the older equipment now. So when you really offset things, you can get a new computer for probably 100 bucks more than you would for buying the old motherboard. I'm not saying its chump change, but paying more and getting more is giving you more bang for the buck. 

    This is the reason for which my cash-strapped friend decided to upgrade the whole box when his old Sempron processor died. It was more cost-efficient to buy new MB/RAM/processor than searching for another Sempron replacement, not to mention hard to find.

    Same thing goes for those PC's using pre-DDR DIMMs... SDRAM is much more expensive than DDR these days. It's actually more expensive to maintain older equipment than actually upgrading now.



  • @mallard said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:

    Actually, there are a few boards with an impressive amount of old stuff crammed in for those of us who like to upgrade slowly. I bought an ASRock that has IDE and SATA, DDR and DDR2, AGP and PCI Express for about $65.
     

    Unfortunately, such boards usually have serious limitations, such as: PCIe only at 8x, DDR and DDR2 cannot be used symaltaneously, board only supports 2GB RAM and a single IDE connector.

    True (except about the IDE), but I don't really see those as problems. If you want more than 2 gigs of RAM and a video card that requires faster than 8x, you'll probably be buying cutting-edge stuff anyway. And wouldn't using both kinds of RAM be pointless since they'd have to run at the speed of the slowest stick?



    And I know they don't have the greatest reputation, but I've been happy with it so far. It saved me from upgrading the video card and the drives.


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