Simple, Bare-Bones Motherboards?

basic0 writes "After my Windows box recently lost its life in a puff of awful smelling smoke, I tracked the fault to the motherboard. Now I'm in the market for a replacement board, but all the boards I find seem to be all-in-one models with on-board everything. I already have a good graphics card, NIC, USB audio device, etc. I just need a no-frills motherboard like I used to be able to buy. It seems like a waste to buy a board with all the built-in stuff (and probably pay extra for it) when I'm never going to use it. Has anyone else had similar experiences? Do a lot of people actually use the on-board stuff? Is it still possible to purchase a motherboard that's *just* a motherboard?"

Its in the chipset anyway

[atrus]

Unless you go to server boards, the answer is no. The reason? Everything is integrated into the chipset. Once designed, it costs an insignificant amount more to build that way. All you have to do is add the right headers to the end of the board.

Even in server boards, things still get integrated. Different sets of things (SCSI controllers, low-end video hardware). Reasons? It frees up slots (big +++ in 1U 2U rackmount land), and at the same time drops cost (may be hard to believe, but in the log run it does).

Re:You'll end up paying more

[morcego]

You end up paying more for a bare-bones motherboard because of their rarity.

Actually, it is a correct, if limited, summation.

When you think on market scale production, one fact is simple: the more you produce, th lower the individual unity cost. That is why, today, a dot-matrix printer is more expensive than a laser one.

Considering the great majority of motherboards produced are those "on-board" models, and the demand for "clean" boards is small (and getting smaller each passing day), the natural tendency is that the production cost pre unit for a clean board is higher.

On the other hand, I do like clean boards better. The chances of a failure is reduced, since the number of components is reduced too. That can also lead for a higher durability.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the "on-board" mobos are cheaper when you buy then, but clean ones tend to be cheaper on the long run. At least for me, since I never throw away a working computer. I just move it to other functions (disk server, firewalls etc).

Look at the MB's chipset; Don't get on-board Video

[SlashMaster]

The one thing that I wouldn't dare get on-board is video. If you have on-board video, the manufacturer usually leaves off the AGP Slot or other appropriate Connector that allows you to install in a decent high-end graphics card. Historically these boards are also notoriously difficult to disable the on-board video on. These types of MBs appear to be destined for terminal work (...rather not high-end graphics, gaming, or CAD work ).

I just purchased a socket 775 PCI Express MB with the 915 chipset. It only has 3 PCI slots with 2 PCI express slots. However, about the only thing that it doesn't have is on-board video.

I plan to use the onboard ethernet, perhaps audio, and such.

While Tom's Hardware Guide has a comparison chart: http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20020422/c hipset-01.html [tomshardware.com]

it appears to be somewhat dated.

Re:What you complaining about?

[ergo98]

Probably because onboard graphics usually stink.

In contrast, Onboard NICs, USB and firewire controllers, and even audio cards (the SoundStorm stuff on nvidia boards, before they copped out of sound, is absolutely superb) on motherboards are generally all top notch.

Re:Nah

[xSauronx]

indeed, if you want a cheap mobo, get a used name-brand one. Id gladly pick up a used Epox or Asus board if the Asus Im using right now died on me, and I wouldnt have a complaint about price, or concern about quality.

Anything made in the last few years is usually thoroughly reviewed on at least one hardware site, if not several; and checking support forums for something old will let you know what to expect...how to fix it...or if its problem free. The Asus I have (A7N8X iirc) has been stable and trouble free since the day i bought it, and the Epox I had before that was the same until i tried overvolting...but that was my fault :)

No chance

[mnmn]

Companies like via, nvidia, intel produce chips which will tend to the largest market segment, which is how they produce chips with everything on board at a cheap price. If they produced chipsets of different types, the production runs will be smaller, support and testing costs larger and pricing higher. I actually expect the likes of AMD to release CPU+chipset chips with say the top 256MB of ram built-in, along with both the north and south bridge, nic phy, audio and usb and everything else in between. The resulting board+cpu will be cheaper than the current board+cpus.

AMD actually currently integrates the north bridge in the athlon64 if I'm not wrong.

Even if you want architectural simplicity and efficiency, its hard to find a simple ARM, m68k or ppc microcontroller without something built-in specialized for its market.Having just a no-frills set of parts was last seen in the 8086 and 6502 days in which each chip did only one thing. And it was expensive as hell.

Re:Look at the MB's chipset; Don't get on-board Vi

[WidescreenFreak]

Another problem with on-board video is that more they almost always use the system's RAM for their memory. Unless you have a lot of RAM (512 MB+) that can really impact the system because the memory is taken away from the operating system. More than that, lag of having to go through system circuitry instead of through its own on-board memory could also be a factor, especially if you don't have really fast system memory.

Good Barebone motherboard

[Beuno]

Ive had very good experiences with ABIT barebone motherboards, which I normally use on servers.

Re:FP

[the eric conspiracy]

Did you try this [google.com] ?

So get a passive backplane

[Animats]

If that's what you really want, you can buy a passive backplane [chassis-plans.com] and plug in CPU and peripheral boards, up to and including dual Xeons [chassis-plans.com] Passive backplanes are used in specialized industrial applications, and will cost you far more than a "loaded" motherboard. This is not something desktop users buy. But they do exist.

Re:Not Much Choice

[Matimus]

Its true, I work for a major chipset manufacturer and all of the integrated features are on the ICH, with the exception of video which is on the MCH. They don't really sell dumbed down chipsets because the interest is in getting the highest $$/area of Si. Just get one with lots of features and disable them if you don't need them.

Try searching

[DaEMoN128]

Mwave, TigerDirect, Directron, Newegg....there are many sites that provide these barebones motherboards. I have never seen one for less than 80 dollars though. I have found all in one integrated boards for much cheaper. If you are looking for a barebones system though, try Tyan, MSI, or Giga-byte. ASUS tends to pack everything onto the board, soyo and abit are the same. I havent heard or had much experience with epox, dfi (they also have good reviews, and I believe the lanboy is fairly barebones but expensive). Do about 20 minutes searching and you can find what you are looking for. I personally recommend a Giga-byte board. I have had nothing but great luck with them.

Best of luck in your search.

Re:More importantly...

[zerocool^]

That's exactly true. My new motherboard, an Intel-based board with a 915G chipset, sports onboard audio that's better than my old-skool soundblaster live. It's possible that it uses a few more cpu cycles to do the sound, but hey, that soundblaster used to be in an 800 mhz P-III, and this one's a 2.8Ghz P-4. Extra clock cycles i've got.

So, I ditched my soundblaster live. Doesn't bother me a bit.

Also: Onboard video today is perfectly suited to basic desktop usage. To put it in other terms: "There is no reason to buy a separate video card unless you are gaming or doing graphics-workstation cad design".

~Will

Re:No chance

[zerocool^]

AMD actually currently integrates the north bridge in the athlon64 if I'm not wrong.

It's actually the memory controller, I believe. Which is why Athlon 64's haven't rolled out DDR-2 support - the type of ram is tied to the processor.

~Wx

Re:What you complaining about?

[iCEBaLM]

Most onboard audio chipsets don't even support multiple audio streams in hardware. Onboard audio is not good.

At this point you'd pay extra _not_ to get.....

[otis wildflower]

.... integrated stuff.

Finding a mobo without integrated video is cake, but lots of these integrated components are part of the newer chipsets themselves. So, unless you're doing pro audio, a chipset's Dolby Digital S/PDIF out should do fine. And unless you have one of those slick aggregating 4 port ethernet boards, the onboard network (which is likely gigabit copper) should do fine. Ditto USB2, and even firewire (mine's got FW800 and SATAII). Just buy a board with stuff that supports whatever OS(es) you wanna run on them.

I just built a system based on the GV-3D1 bundle set (screw Apple's lousy Powermac refresh!) that includes a 2x6600GT one-board SLI. All I needed was RAM and media, and a Viewsonic VP201. And when NVidia releases support for SLI in Linux, I have a 20G part waiting for a gentoo build.

Unless it's pro-spec, put your old stuff on eBay or donate it to someplace that can give you a tax writeoff.

If you are worried about price...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are worried about price you should probably be using a price engine like this one:
http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php [anandtech.com]
Of course, since so many components are integrated into the core logic of the motherboards, you're going to be hard pressed to find too many bare bones platforms. You can usually find motherboards with SATA and sound, but NICs are pretty much always integrated into motherboards these days. Integrated Graphics fell out of style a few years ago, and the few Intel and ATI motherboards that still like to use IGP also have non-IGP alternatives.

If you want a good mobo

[Khyber]

I recommend SuperMicro [supermicro.com] It'll have stuff built on, but, thankfully, they at least put the expansion slots in, and you get quite a few. Just go to their products section. Reasonable price, too. Though, it's Intel, not AMD stuff. I have yet to get an AMD since my last one fried 9 years ago.

Re:You'll end up paying more

[philipgar]

Actually I don't think its possible to have more than one active AGP bus. Thats one of the reasons PCI express is a much nicer solution than AGP. So the onboard video on boards does in fact tend to be useless. However onboard video is not standard and normally adds $5-$15 to the cost of the motherboard (unlike onboard sound and LAN which tend to be in the chipset). phil

Re:You'll end up paying more

[kyouteki]

Well, the newest AGP standard (AGP 8x) supports two AGP devices on one bus, but I don't think any mobo manufacturers have taken advantage of this.

Re:More importantly...

[Slack3r78]

Tell that to anyone with an NForce2 and SoundStorm audio.

Quite frankly, there are people who go out of their way for it as it's the ONLY way to get Dolby Digital encoding on a PC. Just try to tell them that it sounds like crap. You need to update your views on onboard audio.

On-board ain't that bad these days

[jgarzik]

Most onboard audio chipsets don't even support multiple audio streams in hardware.

Completely false.

Pretty much all of the new on-board audio supports multiple channels (OS drivers may be another story!). The bleeding edge on-board audio even supports High Definition Audio [intel.com].

Most of the high-volume motherboard chipset vendors -- Intel (the big fish), AMD, NVIDIA, SiS, ULi, VIA, ... -- all implement the same advanced features in their chipsets: SATA2 NCQ, USB 2, HD audio, gigabit ethernet, and more. Just wait 3-6 months, and a new-and-spiffy ethernet/SATA/USB/audio feature will appear for free on a modern motherboard. If its a mass-market feature, of course.

Blindly choosing "no on-board devices" is rather silly. Today's mass market motherboard contains on-board devices, which means the cheapest motherboards give you that stuff for free. If the on-board device meets your feature requirements, use it. Sealed silicon interconnects are far more reliable than PCI slots anyway.

...speaking as the author of the [old OSS] VIA audio driver for Linux, and the sometimes-maintainer of the [old OSS] Intel/SiS/Nvidia/AMD audio driver for Linux, as well as other Linux drivers for on-board (and off-board) devices.

Re:You'll end up paying more

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

despite the onboard graphics, sound, usb, firewire, NIC, wireless, etc. I still see matrox and 3dlabs selling video cards, creative selling sound cards, 3Com selling NICs, and on, and on, and on...

fact is, since the hardware side is based on well documented, open standars (PCI, USB, Firewire, ethernet, etc.) and the level of interoperability is high, replacing the onboard stuff by add-on parts is as easy as opening the case and sloting a card or simply pluging in a serial device.

now, MS Office apps relies heavily on internet explorer to render HTML, even the controll pannel needs IE to work. wipe IE and all it's acompanying DLLs and the system breaks badly.

show me a way to fully replace IE as the system's defacto HTML renderer by gecko, KHTML or opera in such a way that every aplication that embeds a browser to display hypertext recognizes and accepts the alternatives and i won't mind with MS's bundles.

Re:then dont use it

[TERdON]

And why do modern boards still have serial and Parralell ports? They aren't used by 75% of the rest of the world, why are they even included as standard on ALL boards? On Some us because they still have some value but ALL?

Because the 25% of the world that DO use them think they're quite useful. And as explained in other parts of this thread, it's easier to build one mobo with them, than one with and one without.

For the uses:

Quite many people still have old, parallel printers. I for one do, and I'm not planning to throw my nice (though old) laser printer away anytime soon. Yes, it's possible to connect them with a mini print server, but why?

It's also quite common to connect homebrew electronics to the parallel port. For example, it's quite usual to connect a LCD to the parallel port. As an amateur, it's the easiest. Second shot I think is serial. Third one is USB - and believe me (I have tried to find a cheapish possible solution - a friend asked me if it was possible to connect a LCD by USB) - that one is complicated, and expensive! USB was never intended to be a standard used for homebrew circuits, it's far too complicated (of course that doesn't stop the most advanced amateurs, but for the rest of us?).

For uses of serial ports: I use mine for connecting to my TI-86 calculator, with a home-soldered cable. It's also quite common to give chip programmers etc serial interfaces. Also some industrial equipments as PLC:s and PT:s normally have serial interfaces. For everyday devices - modems! Sure, you can get a new modem with USB, but you're probably switching to broadband in a year anyway. Or you just use the modem for faxing, so the old one works just fine. Serial stuff seems to be more uncommon than parallel though, so just having one serial port is ok, I suppose.

Re:Big-name computers and motherboards

[Gordonjcp]

How about using a drill bit that is less than 2 inches long?

Or - better yet - get a bit of metal tubing that fits over the drill, and cut it to length so that the bit will only penetrate the metal you're drilling by a few mm.

If you use a good, sharp bit, and use the drill properly, you should be able to drill through the sheet in a controlled manner without using a guide.

You're going about this all wrong.

[adolf]

Don't start looking for a new item based on what you don't want, but instead try to find one that includes what you do want.

I had a few requirements for the last motherboard upgrade that I bought for my own personal use, so I made a list:

Support for the last of the Socket-A CPUs
Dual-channel DDR
4 DIMM sockets
At least 5 PCI slots
Two regular IDE ports
Two SATA ports
AGP

I plugged some of these requirements into newegg's search engine, and found several that included all of these features.

It turns out that it was cheaper to buy one that also included on-board audio and a gigabit ethernet jack, than to buy one without.

So, I went with the cheaper one. I've been ignoring the on-board audio since day 1, and decided to just go ahead and use the built-in LAN and free up a NIC for better uses.

I might've chosen one that included Firewire, and on-board video, too, for all I care. I don't have a use for those functions, and I don't foresee having a use for them. But would it piss me off to have paid less for their inclusion, were that the case? Absolutely not.

I know how you feel. I got upset in the 90s when companies irrevocably started putting IDE, floppy, serial, and parallel ports onto motherboards. "What am I going to do with all of these expensive VESA local bus multi-I/O cards?"

Something similar also happened to me in the 80s I realized that the ISA clock card in my XT had been obsoleted by a part on the motherboard.

Needless to say, I got over the trauma of those transitions pretty quickly. You will, too, once you figure out what you're going to do with all those expensive 3c905 and genuine DEC Tulip cards...

[Hint: Local schools, libraries, friends-of-friends, and children-of-friends are all fine places to deposit good hardware which has been obsoleted by a motherboard upgrade. Just make sure you get it to them before time makes it completely fucking useless, and keep it appropriately packaged in antistatic bags or somesuch so it doesn't die all on its own before it gets a chance to be used again.]

Re:What you complaining about?

[Kazymyr]

Newegg and most companies that advertise through pricewatch etc. don't accept international orders - and those that do charge an arm and a leg for shipping.

Re:You'll end up paying more

[The Snowman]

TSMC and UMC are not a monopoly per se, but their owners do get to dictate the direction of the industry.

That makes them a "cartel," like the MPAA, RIAA, OPEC, et al. They are still as corrupt to the bone as a monopoly, but have a low chance that a cartel member will break ranks.

False economy

[Reziac]

The problem with onboard video is that 1) it typically uses shared RAM, which is never 100% stable (or if not shared RAM, usually some very small amount -- like 8mb even in current machines!!) 2) in my observation the onboard video circuit is the most likely point where the magic smoke gets out; and 3) *sometimes* it doesn't disable cleanly even if it's otherwise dead, so you can't replace it with a proper AGP card anyway.

Also, motherboards with onboard video are typically made cheaper all around, and are more likely to fail sooner, or not be upgradeable in general -- for every onboard function, typically at least one PCI slot goes away, and how much flexibility do you have in a board with only a couple slots?

Onboard sound and NIC aren't so bad (except for the vanishing slots design thing) because you can have two NICs or two sound cards without the system getting confused, so if one doesn't disable cleanly, it's not a big deal (tho the chips used are usually bottom end/cheapest available). But because of the generally lower quality and other issues, I'd never buy a motherboard with onboard *video*.

Warning for crap sound, plus bad Linux shop

[Roger Wernersson]

Don't buy a cheap motherboard. I bought two AsRock because a Linux shop in London (geekstop.co.uk) sold them as the low-end mobo. I never got the NIC to work on one, Linux won't shut down properly,

but the BIG PROBLEM is that whenever the CPU is busy, the sound is really crap, this includes playing games, and films. I can't run SETI and listen to music!

By the way, don't buy from GeekStop.co.uk. They don't know what they are doing. They installed faulty memory which showed up on a simple memory-tester. They sell hardware with Linux-problems.

Re:Insignificant Cost Savings: So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

>I don't ask for much, really.

You want an industrial/embedded motherboard. They can be had but are pricey.

ACME Motherboard Finder

[JaF893]

Why not try the ACME Motherboard Finder [acme.com]