🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <830209301snz@amdavies.demon.co.uk>, Martin Davies
<Martin@amdavies.demon.co.uk> allegedly writes
>I'm planning to upgrade from my current 386DX40 to a 5x86
>m/board, and have been scanning the mags (eg MicroMart) to check
>suppliers, prices, etc.  Eclipse Computers of Coventry seem to
>be offering what look like excellent value boards - does anyone
>have any experience of them and their products, such as the
>"Elite" and "Mercury" range of boards?  Anything good or bad to
>report?

My understanding is this...any errors accepted, and un-intentional.

Alledgedly Eclipse were selling boards with fake cache originally. Their
original ad for these motherboards used to claim 256K write back
cache...but, for another 20 quid you could have 'write-thru' cache.  I
chose this option, and the chips look real enough and pass the cache-
check test.  A nod and a wink suggested this was the better option.

The ads are now reworded in Micro Mart, now they have no cache, but you
can have 256k for another 15/20 quid...prices on the m/boards have
altered too.  I have no complaints as I bought mine with a cyrix 586
chip which at 120 Mhz is much faster than my old DX4/100.  For the
money, it's very good value and you would probably need to look at a
P120/133 for anything faster.  If you use anything that needs a co-pro,
then this chip has advanced features which increase the benefit.  

Obviously the board needs cache to get the benefit of speed, so a board
with no cache won't be worth it.

There seems to be a lobby of people who don't like Eclipse, in fact
there is a Web page about them (can't remember URL - search ?) with a
few 'case histories' but Eclipse remain in business and there must be
many satisfied customers too (?).  I've had several items from them,
apart from some initial difficulty with my modem talking to the Elite
motherboard, which resulted in me re-configuring the modem, I have had
no problems with hardware or service.  I've always bought personally,
Coventry is about 20 miles away and their prices are some of the keenest
around.  The way I look at it, is that half of the stuff is thrown away
after a year or two worthless anyway.

Stu

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*  +- stuart@sebmail.demon.co.uk -+   *
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