Can anybody recommend a good motherboard. I want to use an AMD XP Athlon upto 2.5G, don't really need graphics onboard but do want sound.
I have been looking at an MSI KM3M and an Abit KD7A. Both have good reviews on ebuyer and some bad, I'm tempted by the Abit as it has 8x agp.
PC chips do some really chaep boards but there are lots of bad reviews for them.

Hi there, forget about that MSI board. It's already well out of date and will be useless for future upgrades. Although MSI make great motherboards, they usually start at £80.00+ - this one is £35.00 because its been discontinued. It only has 3 PCI slots, only supports 2GB memory (old stuff at that - 2700 max) and has a redundant 4XAGP slot which probably won't work anyway cos the ProSavage onboard video can be a pain to turn off.

This may seem like a silly question, but you do realise that if you don't buy a board with on-board video you will have to buy a separate card?!

Anyway, the Abit looks a lot better and has everything you need. Also consider the Gigabyte GA-7S748-L (depending on how large your case is). But if your looking for something even cheaper but reliable check out the AsRock KX series of motherboards - DO NOT BUY A PC CHIPS BOARD!!!!!!. Check www.dabs.com for the AsRock board's as Ebuyer don't stock them.

Hope this helps

For reliability and easy set-up (i.e. fewer compatibility problems), I've always preferred Gigabyte and Abit motherboards, even if they're a little more expensive than other boards with similar specs.

I've used a lot of PC Chips motherboards in the past and my experience has taught me to keep clear of them now! For the sake of a few extra pounds, it's worth NOT buying the cheapest stuff!

Thanks for the advice, I already have a graphics card, GeForce3 TI 200 64mb,
which seems OK for what I want.
I will look at the AsRock boards on Dabs.

Think I will go for the Gigabyte GA-7S7-48

What case are you using? I've used the Gigabyte GA-7S7-48, but if you look at the picture you'll notice the IDE connectors are in a strange place at the bottom of the board, not only does this make one of the PCI slots redundant but you'll find that any case larger than a micro-atx will need new IDE cables as the 40cm one's supplied just won't reach your CD-Rom drives.

I have a standard atx case.