I've been looking for a new motherboard to replace an ageing D945GNT intel motherboard that's present in one of my older rigs as it frequently malfunctions these days and causes problems while booting-a local hardware dealer has recommended a G31 motherboard from a brand called Consistent that costs around Rs 2000.He says its a decent motherboard and claims that the demand for these mobos is so high that he sells as many as 3-4 of them everyday! However i find it difficult to trust him as i've never heard of this particular brand and don't know whether their motherboards are reliable or not.I couldn't even find any official website of this company after searching extensively on google.
Does anyone here have any knowledge or experience regarding Consistent motherboards?Are their products reliable?If you know anything then please share it here.
You won't get any good brand board to replace your 945. It's archaic.
Whatever brand you get, just make sure you get complete 1 year warranty (on paper). At least you cna bug the shopkeeper in case something goes wrong.
^As a matter of fact he has said that he'll provide 1 year warranty on the board-but i'm wondering whats going to happen if the board conks out shortly after the warranty expires.
^That's a concern but you can always get a board repaired from a local shop. Frankly, you don't have much options here.
If you can find this board - MSI India - Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Motherboard, Graphics and more , then that should also work. I had used it with one 775 socket P4, works good plus brand support.
Some shops here are offering a gigabyte/msi g41 motherboard that's compatible with my cpu but unfortunately they are priced rather high-around Rs 4500 to be precise.As my pc is quite old i don't really wish to spend so much on a new motherboard at the moment,my budget is restricted to Rs 2500.
How much did it cost when you purchased it for your p4 based pc?
^ 2600/-
However, I can understand the high cost as I bought it almost 3 years back.
When I had inquired about it again last year, I was quoted a price around 3.5k.
Wow-the prices of g41 motherboards seem to have skyrocketed in the recent months.Another vendor i spoke to said that he could get me a refurbished Biostar G31 motherboard for roughly the same price-do you think it would be safer to go for a refurbished mobo from a relatively well known brand(biostar) rather than a new one from a noname company like Consistent?How good are biostar products in general?
Biostar should be OK. I'd say go with the cheaper solution if the mobo and the driver works (at pre-check).
BTW check this - Intel G31 945 Chipset Motherboard Support 775 Sockect Processor DDR2 RAM | eBay
It should be better than both of the solutions.
This too looks like a g31 motherboard manufactured by some unknown Chinese firm-the seller hasn't specified the brand name of this motherboard and this one doesn't seem to have any pci-e slot either.Why do you think it'd be a better option as compared to the other two that i have right now?Moreover if something goes wrong during the warranty period i'll have to send back the mobo to the seller via courier to obtain a replacement,which would be a bit of a hassle.
lol,that's very true-how can a motherboard be g31 as well as 945 simultaneously?Also i think getting drivers for such chinese motherboards will not be easy as they dont even have any official websites and provide no support for their customers.In that respect,the biostar motherboard might be a better choice,but i think i'll have to inspect it thoroughly before purchasing as its not a new item but a refurbished one.
^Well i had another discussion with that seller today-he said rather than going for any refurbished or Chinese product,i can opt for a new 945 series board from zebronics that costs Rs 2000 approx and comes with 1 yr warranty.Zebronics is a familiar brand and their psus are quite popular in the market,but i hardly know anyone who has used a zebronics motherboard.Do you think it will be a good idea to go for zebronics?
The biostar one is refurbished and the seller is prepared to offer 1 year warranty on that.Today he said if i want he can even arrange for a refurbished intel dg31 board which also has 1 year warranty.Both of them cost roughly Rs 2000
Today i finally bought a ASRock Wolfdale1333-D667 motherboard and a Core 2 duo e6550 cpu from that seller for Rs 2400 approx(i had a pentium d 2.66ghz earlier which used to heat up tremendously,so i exchanged it with that c2d processor).
After i came back home i downloaded the manual and quickstart guide for this mobo from ASrock's website.In the manual its been mentioned that when the mobo is paired with a 1333 mhz cpu,it will operate in "overclocking mode" and the pci-e frequency will also be overclocked to 115 mhz;also if a DDR2 533 mhz ram is installed it will operate at 500 mhz in this situation-Does anyone know what this so-called overclocking mode actually is and whether running the mobo in this mode can cause any kind of damage to the mobo itself or to the cpu or ram or my GPU?As the c2d cpu that i've bought appears to have 1333 mhz fsb,will the motherboard attempt to overclock it automatically?I'd be glad if somebody could shed some light on this matter.
The motherboard is based on Intel 945 chipset which explains it why it will run in OC mode. Anyway, 945 is limited to 1066 Mhz FSB. So to run a 1333 Mhz cpu on that motherboard technically it's Nb chip will run at 333 Mhz instead of 266 Mhz which is related to pci-e and ram speed too.
i have installed the cpu and my system seems to be working normally-i haven't noticed any aberrant or weird symptoms from either the cpu or the motherboard so far-do you think using it like this may cause any kind of damage to the system(specifically the ram,cpu and gpu) in the long run?
I don't think so. Most of the motherboards and other components can tolerate such mild oc. If you want try to lock pci-e frequency to 100 Mhz - there should be a bios option for this.
ok,i'll have to check whether such an option does exist in the bios or not,thanks for your advice.
