Opinions wanted on PC Chips

[bill1971]

I'd like some opinions,(based upon experience, please), regarding PC Chips mainboards. I'm always looking to have on hand a fairly full-featured, relatively inexpensive board, to have on hand for strictly a budget-build, for someone who really needs to upgrade their now antiquated systems. (I'm talking PII 300 and the like).

I've heard mixed reviews regarding this company in the forums here - some say that they work ; others claim they're nothing but crap.

All I'm looking for is the go ahead, because I found the following board to be intriquing, strictly from a budget standpoint, mind you : very light gaming, fair sound, modem that just connects, to be used for word processing, internet, just general stuff:

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=c-m825-k3

With the discount code "MCEXCLUSIVES", this board can be had for $58 + $7 ship. (So consider this as well)

Remember not to approach this from the perspective that this would be used in your own personal machine - this is strictly for a budget rig for the "average" consumer. I know it's a more or less dated chipset - but please ignore that.

As always, your input is greatly appreciated. Doc, what say you??
Thanks.

- Bill

[Peter M]

PC-Chips mainboards are coming from the OEM business of Elitegroup ECS. These are the same products, but anonymized, brandless and just model numbers. Same stuff, same factory, same quality.
I've been using these all-in-ones whenever appropriate, and generated nothing but happy users.

[bill1971]

Thanks, Peter:

Peter's a real "enigma" - much knowledge, and I always want to ask him to clarify something further, but you can't get in touch with him - no PM, etc.

And he hits the threads and seems to have moved on, if you don't respond to the thread almost immediately. Peter, are you out there?? lol

More responses will be welcomed, from the rest of you guys, of course. Thanks.

- Bill

[DoctorReno]

My experience is they are a pain in in the ass. With enough reaserch and work you can get them to work but the support is terrible at best. My advise is to spend a few extra bucks and get a quality board with quality support.
It was always my understanding that the parent board manufacturer was Hsing-Tech in Taiwan. They make all the boards for PcChips, Amptron, Houston Tech, PcWare and a bunch of others.

[Corsairpro]

i ordered 3 pc chips all in ones... though they have crap for options in the bios, I never had one problem w/ them... all three ran 1.2GHz durons and 128MB ram perfectly.

I got them here: Scroll to the very bottom

EDIT: I still have one in a desktop case with 384MB ram and it is my DVD/MP3 jukebox.... don't use the onboard video or audio, but its still nice for basic systems. One problem... i forget which mobo exactly that I have but i ordered an AGP card for it (for S-Video output for DVDs) but some capacitors got in the way so I had to sell it and get a PCI. Still very nice basic boards though

[John Prophet]

Where I used to work the boss naturally looked at the bottom line only....sooooooo..we used the pc chips "810" board "...(I think) in all our new system builds...quite frankly we had some problems...seems that when we added on a nice video card or something like that, that the board would somehow self destruct in about 6 months.

Now I respect Peter and I know he will say it was a technician error...but please, there are only so many ways to load drivers etc, lol....a bad board is a bad board.

They may come from the same factory or company but that doesnt mean they use the same quality controls etc etc.

Personally I didnt build any of the machines in question but I do remember a lot of RMAs...the boss seemed to think that most of the probs were found right away so he didnt care cuz the rmas were easy to get.

A big company can absorb some rmas and return shipping costs but I cant lol.

I have seen the prices of some of the boards and they are quite tempting but I have been too leery so far to buy one.

I am more inclined toward Biostar for budget type stuff but I am looking at a pc chips board right now..maybe just try one for the heck of it, lol.

JP

[John Prophet]

And on second thought, theres only one way to personally answer the PC Chips question for yourself, hehe..dive in and see....of course if it blows up on you some will say it was your tech skills at fault so maybe it WONT solve the controversy! lol

JP

[Dazbo666]

Some of the guys at my work use PCChips for their budget builds...

They've been using them for about 18 months, so I guess they've been pretty reliable so far??

nothing but problems with my pc chips boards. support is a nightmare. I haven't bought anything from them recently but I don't see things changing too much. However once you do get the board up and running as long as you don't move it or take anything out it runs flawlessly

[Bruneau]

They are good little work horses. You can't expect much for the price though.

Mr. C can tell ya the real scoop on 'em.

www.mrcs.net