What *IS* this motherboard??

I made a post in another forum about the memory capacity of my motherboard, and it led me on a search to find out what my mobo was. It's an OEM (HP) computer, but for what I paid, it's great. Now when I removed the mainboard, I found no brand name, just a model: MEW-AM. WCPUID said that the mobo was an Asus Hawk. When I looked in Tom's database, I did not find Hawk, but I did find MEW-AM (which was listed as a low-cost board. Surprise, surprise!) Anyway, ASUS's website says that the MEW-AM has the 810 chipset. Well, that can't be right because I'm running a PIII 933 on a 810e chipset. Asus' website shows the name for the 810e boards, and they look nothing like "MEW-AM." What's the deal with my mobo?? In trying to save money, did HP do something that slows the potential of my processor and memory? Is it worth an upgrade?

Your mainboard, (model #: P1359-69003) is a Mercury G/810e.

Whether this company even exists anymore is hard to say ... they no longer have a working web site.

<A HREF="http://www.m-group.com" target="_new">http://www.m-group.com</A>

Based entirely on the fact that you are using a mainboard with limited memory slots, and the low-end 810e chipset ... then yes, I'd say an upgrade would be a viable option.

Obviously, you can run a PIII 933 with this chipset ... because you are doing it!

Would you believe that the replacement price for this board is over $270.00? Highway robbery.

Sorry that I can't give you any specifications on the board. But if it was me, just because of that crappy chipset, I'd have a new Asus i815 board installed next week, with decent CAS2 memory and some overclocking options. But that's just me.

Toejam31



<font color=purple>My Rig:</font color=purple> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847</A>

I would recommend you look into the asus tusl board .. it has the new enhanced 815 chipset capable of running the Tulatian p-3( the voltage regulation was upgraded) processors and is jumperless for easy o\c'ing this line of boards decends from the Asus cusl series which are known for their stability and tweaker friendly features .. it would be worth the extra $ to get a board that supports the newer P-3 chips as they are considerably faster than the coppermines and have 2x's the L2 cache too !

Lagger



<b><font color=blue>Never try to idiot proof anything..God will always make a better Idiot </b> </font color=blue>

LOL!!!! Must be the late-night reading but I found that really funny!

Disabling features on a mainboard. OEMs really make me laugh sometimes. Now I am a little confused on one issue here. I have 256 MB of PC133 RAM in the MEW-AM, but is it actually running at 133 mHz? I think it goes without saying that it's at Ca3 latency, not Ca2, but is the memory bus going at 100 mHz? How substantial would be the increase in performance from the i810e chipset to the i815 (ignoring overclocking potential)? I just keep getting this nasty feeling that the mainboard is hindering the performance of my Coppermine and the RAM.