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over priced, for an ecs crap

if you only have 30ish dollars to spend on G31 boards, get ASRock instead. more stable, alot more of OCing

ECS is crap, but finally there is a way to build a lowest end intel dual core system without wondering what you'll be missing if you buy a newegg refurb.

Pity they didn't even bother with a southbridge 'sink or capacitors with low enough ESR to handle much more than a 65W CPU at stock speed, but there are people out there that are both non-overclockers and low-end feeders so this would appeal to them, 'cept it doesn't even have DVI output so it's best use is for a 1280x1024 (LCD res.) office machine.

When it come to business, every cent counts...
ECS board might save you $30 compare to Gigabyte ones- but eventually you have to give the saving to your tech support/consultant/repair bacon not bad for PC on site service business...

ECS is coming up in the world. They're getting positive money instead of negative money. A year or so back, a Fry's combo deal, ECS motherboard and CPU, went for less than the CPU alone. Now that's quality -- a brand that detracts value. I wonder if they'll actually sell many now that they're not negative dollars.

I actually built a system with one of those freebie ECS boards. One PCI slot was bad out of the box -- anything in that slot and the system wouldn't boot. Trash.

I used to work at a major company that begins with an F as a tech. About 1/3 of the ecs boards I would get new from the box were DOA. But that was 10 years ago. Also if you did get a good one, they seemed to last just as long as any other brands. I wouldnt put one in my own system.

I own a cheap PCCHIPS board (owns ECS) and their tech support was actually not so bad. Drivers were pretty updated. I would say they are decent for running windows but if you are going with linux and are a new user, stay away. The board had some strange issues with PCI slots not working but it was a BIOS issue that could be fixed. Your not going to win any accolades for it but works OK in a media center PC or small home server.

BTW, my board was branded ECS and support was through PCCHIPS.

Thanks,
Derek

I've owned couple ECS boards in the past, only 1 board the built-in USB ports in the back died after couple of years. You get what you pay for, for $30 it is a good value board.

ECS motherboards are not for novice system builder because they are difficult to work with. They have issues with memory compatibility. Unlike some more expensive motherboards which work with many brands of memory. The return rate is very high on ECS products because of memory problem. Simply switching to a different brand of memory or lowering the timing on the memory may do the trick. But for those who know what they are doing, this $30 board is a pretty good deal. They board supports the latest models of quad and dual core Intel CPUs. It doesn't overclock that well but nevertheless it is doable even it lacks voltage and CPU multiplier adjustments. The best CPU for a board like this is an E5200 which can be overclocked by just changing the FSB frequency and easily reaches 3 GHz plus.

Well, it just went up $10 and free shipping is gone.