Hello, I have become disatisfied with the performance of
my existing motherboard. With so many mother boards out there I am having a tough time finding something to meet my needs/requirements? Can anyone assist in my search ?

(#1) I hate On-Board Video/Audio/Nic-card/Modem
If the mobo has any of these things it is
right away the kiss of death for a choice of
mobo.

* I want to reuse the below items as I can not afford
to replace these for at least a year.

(#2) I have PC100 memory (512 megs - 3 sticks)
ATI AIW (2x) 16meg card, SB Live Value OEM
10/100 nick card, Three ATA66, One ATA100
hard drives that are all 7200rpm. One
Plexwriter 24/10/40a.

There are times I temporaly add two other hard drives
to offload video capture work for moving to another
system.


If possible would like a RAID system. However I dont
want any ATA33 controllers! IDE1 and IDE2 must be for
sure a minimum ATA66 or better. I MUST be able to
enable DMA mode in windows98SE and I want IDE1,2,3,4
if IDE3,4 are a raid controller chip I would like them to use 80 pin cables.

port2000@newsguy.com

You didn't mention what platform you needed (amd, intel, cyrix, etc.)

See a real naked pic of Britney Spears <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/stick_e_mouse" target="_new">here</A>!!!

If you want to use your SB Live, stay away from any chipset with the Via southbridge 686B. Most Amd 761 and all Via KT266 boards use it. I don't know about the Ali Magik boards. If you don't want the "cutting edge", buy one of the previous boards with Kt133 chipsets. They are very cheap right now. You could also find them second hand.

If you have the money, go for a i845[intel] or PX4[via] chipset with a good p4. Both are okay and with the Via boards, you can upgrade to ddr later if you want to. The via boards probably use the Via southbridge, so you have to watch for that.

All of the above chipsets have Raid versions available.

I always prefer AMD and I would never recommend Intel products but I am getting sick of problems with Via.

J

'Cause I see it, like a long lost friend

The error with SBlive and 686B southbridge has been fixed with the VIA 4.33 4 in 1 driver package.....
If you want stability and speed on an AMD platform go for MSI K7 Master and use your memory and a kick ass proc..
The board takes both 200fsb and 266fsb versions of the athlon and the 200fsb Duron

Get the Asus A7V266!!!

An excellent buy is the shuttle ak31 version 2, for about $85 at pcdynamic. The board uses an improved version of the via kt266 chipset. If I were you though, I would wait 1-2 weeks for the first via kt266a boards, which are the fastest tested so far.

Or how about the IWill KK266Plus-R this has on board 5:1 or 6:1 sound(dont remember which), apparently about SB live player quality... but can be easily disabledif U prefer UR SB card) it seems to be a good board for gaming and overclocking (if U R into that)...

This will accept UR PC100 Memory as long as U run the board at 200FSB... and It has the capacity for 8 IDE devices @ ATA100 (ie. raid onboard)

---If at first you dont succeed... get a bigger hammer... that'll teach it !!!---

I recommend going for the ECS K7S5A for a little over $70 with shipping and I don't know if you can use pc100 memory in this board, but just get some crucial for under 40 bucks. If you read the reviews, you'd know this board is excellent in terms of stability. No overclocking features except for FSB adjustment with the apropriate bios. Hope this helps.