Smoking hot low end Celeron 430/ECS CPU/MOBO combo

[DefDC]

Am I missing something, or is this an absolute steal? I have friends and family that need system builds, and I could use a nice utility computer for myself.



Linky

 

[sisq0kidd]

You aren't missing anything. This is an absolute steal for those who need to build cheap systems.

For those who are wondering, it's this motherboard on Newegg.

Onboard video, audio, lan. 4 sata ports, supports Core 2 Duo, PCI-E slot too!

 

[DefDC]

I'm 2 hrs from a Fry's, but I have unfortunate friends and family that live in San Jose and Indianapolis...

 

[mjreddy]

any chance fry's is offering the 440 with this deal as an option, like they did with the E2180/E2200 swap combo last week?

 

[Zap]

OMFG I'm so glad there's no Fry's near me and it isn't available online. Slap a BSEL mod on it and push for 3GHz!

 

[htne]

Originally posted by: Zap
OMFG I'm so glad there's no Fry's near me and it isn't available online. Slap a BSEL mod on it and push for 3GHz!

Nyet. You need to check some of the earlier threads involving hot deals based on this motherboard. You have to do the BSEL mod to overclock, which gets you 2.4 ghz, and no more. 3 ghz on this motherboard ain't gonna happen.

Otoh, this makes a nice computer at the default 1.8 ghz, and even nicer at 2.4 ghz. For $49, it's hard to complain.

 

[quadomatic]

Originally posted by: mjreddy
any chance fry's is offering the 440 with this deal as an option, like they did with the E2180/E2200 swap combo last week?

I find that unlikely. They only did the E2200 combo because the E2200 was to be a substitute for the E2180, as the E2180 was discontinued and the store had none (or at least Fry's is discontinuing its sales of the E2180).

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: DefDC
Am I missing something, or is this an absolute steal? I have friends and family that need system builds, and I could use a nice utility computer for myself.

This is a very hot deal. If you can get some cheap DDR667 memory and a SATA hard drive, you can build or upgrade a nice little computer at a remarkably low price.

Originally posted by: mjreddy
any chance fry's is offering the 440 with this deal as an option, like they did with the E2180/E2200 swap combo last week?

I don't think that's a possibility, for two reasons: 1) I don't think they even sell the Celeron 440 (it's not on their CPU chart in their stores), and 2) they do not normally make substitutions on their sale items, except in rare cases when they are out of stock on the advertised item and they wish to deplete their stock of a similar item.

Originally posted by: quadomatic
I find that unlikely. They only did the E2200 combo because the E2200 was to be a substitute for the E2180, as the E2180 was discontinued and the store had none (or at least Fry's is discontinuing its sales of the E2180).

I read the situation a little bit differently. The E2200 combo was advertised by itself on Sunday, January 20. When they advertised the E2180 combo on Friday, they put the SKU for the E2200 combo in the very same ad. Obviously, they were planning to offer the E2200 combo from the start. They were out of stock on the E2180 at some stores before Friday's ad even appeared, which leads me to believe that they advertised the E2180 combos just so they could sell the rest of their stock, knowing full well that some stores didn't even have it in stock.

In other words, the E2200 was not being "substituted" for the E2180. The E2200 combo was an advertised sale in its own right.

 

[mjreddy]

i haven't been keeping up with the overclocking news over the past year but have started building new systems just this month. I've been seeing this BSEL mod mentioned in multiple places but I can't find a good article about what it is, why/how it works, and how to do it, rather just sporadic posts on random boards. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks

 

[jiffer]

I can't answer your question, mjreddy, but from our discussion in another message thread where we discussed the ECS 945GCT-M/1333 V3.0, it looks like people weren't having much luck overclocking with that motherboard.

I can report that I have overclocked a Celeron 430 to 2.2GHz with default voltage and stock cooling on an ECS G31T-M (a budget motherboard featured in other Fry's combos which has similar overclocking options but which has a more advanced chipset) just by raising the FSB speed to 244Mhz. I set my PC2-6400 memory to run at "667MHz", which automatically set the FSB : DRAM ratio to 5:3 ("800MHz" is also available), so when the FSB is overclocked, the memory actually runs close to spec at about 824MHz (412MHz x 2). A 333MHz FSB speed without the BSEL mod is most likely not possible due to the lack of a manual FSB : DRAM ratio adjustment. I haven't tried the BSEL mod, but since the chipset natively supports 1333 processors, the BSEL mod might work on the G31T-M. YMMV.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

It's basically connecting the BSEL pins (IINM 3 of them) to either VDD or GND, depending on what FSB you'd like the CPU to run at.
Doesn't work on a T2310 however (tried to get an Acer 4620Z running a little faster about 2 weeks back)

 

[highwire]

The reason the BSEL mod is iffy with some boards ( works on all the ECS board I've tried, though) is that the mod does not do anything directly to the CPU. It only signals the BIOS of a higher FSB speed needed. Some bioses will ignore the bogus BSEL bits and just set FSB by the CPU id, and therefore the mod will have no effect. This ECS 945 will complain with a message, but go with the higher FSB.

So, with this combo, a BSEL mod will likely get you an overclock to 2.93g with no other changes. These Fry combos are hot. Being able to easily run it at ~3gHz makes it even better. A smokin' deal?

BTW, I have tried to get my old AMD XP install to run on one of these intel boards, but so far no luck. I even know what sysprep is now. A fresh install works fine though.

 

[corkypa]

This is back again. It is in the Chicago Fry's ad through 2/7.

 

[MrHeNtAi]

Originally posted by: corkypa
This is back again. It is in the Chicago Fry's ad through 2/7.

I'm thinking about going to DG tomorrow and picking one up. But, may end up waiting for the E4500 combo to pop up again.

 

[austin316]

can this thing do blu-ray @ 1080p with a Radeon 3450?

 

[kalster]

tempted to get this, and build a cheap free nas box, can anyone recommend a good microatx case

 

[McFly]

Originally posted by: kalster
tempted to get this, and build a cheap free nas box, can anyone recommend a good microatx case

I bought one of the posted combos with a Cooler Master Elite 340 case for 15 bucks from Fry's in SoCal a couple weeks ago. Great deal for a inexpensive 64-bit system. Perfect for for my cad/cam cnc machine at home.

They also had the ram on sale for 2gb for $39.99