AMD + VIA Finally Impress Me.

[Pabster]

Adul wrote:

"...Granted I have quality parts in my system, but I am still wondering what do you do to make them so instable?..."

Oh, OK, I admit it. Every time I toss in a shiny new VIA-based board, it automatically recognizes me (the resident VIA hater) and immediately becomes unstable. Fast writes and sidebanding become impossible, boots are shaky, drive performance sucks arse, and all of a sudden I need to install the latest 4-in-1 "fix" package and that new "IDE" driver. Christ, what have I been thinking? All along it has been just me having trouble with VIA-based platforms. Damn, I'm off to get counseling

Granted, I have all modern, quality parts. For some reason, VIA just doesn't get along well with them. Must just be me

 

[Adul]

<< Adul wrote:

"...Granted I have quality parts in my system, but I am still wondering what do you do to make them so instable?..."

Oh, OK, I admit it. Every time I toss in a shiny new VIA-based board, it automatically recognizes me (the resident VIA hater) and immediately becomes unstable. Fast writes and sidebanding become impossible, boots are shaky, drive performance sucks arse, and all of a sudden I need to install the latest 4-in-1 "fix" package and that new "IDE" driver. Christ, what have I been thinking? All along it has been just me having trouble with VIA-based platforms. Damn, I'm off to get counseling

Granted, I have all modern, quality parts. For some reason, VIA just doesn't get along well with them. Must just be me >>



I have met people where somethings, no matter how good they are, jsut won't work for them. Must be it is your aura

in all honesty, yeah i agree above the drive performance that it does suck. But that doesn't matter to greatly for me. Has long has it can stand up to my use, then I am happy. I have built and tested quite a few athlons systems, so i am wondering just exactly what the hell you do to them?

 

[Aelus]

<< So to those who say "but I've used 4 VIA-based boards without a single problem...", I'm calling your bluff. Because you're full of it. >>



i had some problems with win98 on my mvp3, but one of anands articles which went about the order in which to install via drivers (this is pre 4in1) fixed that all after a couple of weeks of searching. But that's truly all.

don't blame your tools for your ineptitude.

Aelus

 

[Pabster]

aelus wrote:

"...don't blame your tools for your ineptitude..."

Isn't it funny how everyone that shoots off a wise crack like that mentions "...the only problem with VIA I had..." or "I did have problem x but..."

The facts are clear about VIA, and they aren't pretty. Don't get me started on MVP3 -- that was the biggest POS I've ever laid my hands on. Buggy wasn't the word for that VIA chipset.

 

[Crazee]

<< Isn't it funny how everyone that shoots off a wise crack like that mentions "...the only problem with VIA I had..." or "I did have problem x but..."

The facts are clear about VIA, and they aren't pretty. Don't get me started on MVP3 -- that was the biggest POS I've ever laid my hands on. Buggy wasn't the word for that VIA chipset. >>



You state the facts are clear, but all you have given is personal experiences (AKA anecdotal evidence) as your proof. I have worked with system builders since 1993 and I have not seen this great preponderance of evidence that you claim. During this period of time, I have been involved either directly or indirectly in the assembly of over 100,000 PC?s.

You state that you haven?t been able to get a KT266a board to run stable for more than 24 hours??? Sounds like ineptitude on your part. I have seen over 350 systems go out last month with that particular chipset and not a single one has had a service call yet. This is pretty impressive for a chipset that can?t make it 24 hours under your ?experienced? supervision.

Every single manufacturer of chipsets has had their share of problems. Hello Intel i820??? If you are going to make statements like the one above that the facts are clear, please gather some real facts rather than your personal experiences.

 

[Agent004]

Via chipset are buggy as hell, just the number of revisions of 4 in 1s is a solid proof of this. Why the heck do you need so many revisions to bring out better performance upto par? If you just do it the intel way, you don't see intel releasing masses of driver/bug fixes, because when it was released, it was very fine tuned and tested.

Why do you think Via has a bad rep? They earned it from the users. Countless bugs and probs coming out from nowhere. They simply skimmed on the testing stage and releasing it commercially, then uses buyers' [sarcasm]inputs[sarcasm] to release a better revision. A good but extremely good example, is once again the 4 in 1s. I don't see why a via board which is rated to be capable at running 166HMz, can't do a 133MHz, even though it's spec'ed/recommmended to run at that speed.



<< Being the owner of a Intel platform you obviously can't be too worried about performance. >>



Are you referring p4 performing unfavourably against Athlon? Like Anand said in his Hammer article, there are many ways to achieve better performance, Intel just took a different route to AMD.

Same to you too, Being the owner of a Via chipset you obviouly can't be too worried about stability/compatability/workmenship/frequent bug fix packs/ performance

 

[Aelus]

<< The facts are clear about VIA, and they aren't pretty. Don't get me started on MVP3 -- that was the biggest POS I've ever laid my hands on. Buggy wasn't the word for that VIA chipset. >>



the funny thing is, that same motherboard with mvp3 is now being used as my file/print server, and it's working like a dream, only installed w2k+4in1, and now everything is working like a charm, 100% stable, no reboots ever.

it's so much easier to say it's crappy than to make it work. 3-4 years ago (or how long has it been), driver support was fine, but it was very touchy, and hard to get going. Then anand posted his article on the order to install the drivers, and everything went superb. Not long after that, 4in1's got released, and i never had a problem with via since.

if my first gen MVP3 (check the soyo site, it's a 5ehm motherboard) is working just fine, it must say something about your skills to get a motherboard going. You could say it should get more idiot proof, but how hard is double clicking the 4in1 install file.

Aelus

 

[MadRat]

Intel's last S7 chipset was a much bigger POS than the VIA MVP3 chipset.

 

[JellyBaby]

I look at it this way: if you need a chipset no matter your platform, Via always has a solution. With Intel, you wait (and sometimes wait and wait and wait). Intel's longer delays tend to mean more stable releases. Since Via often pulls the trigger before aiming, stability is less. If you go Via, just avoid early chipset revisions and you'll be fine. Stick with the "As".

 

[sandorski]

Yes, there are a lot of 4in1s, but there are usually only 2-3 released per new chipset. The 4in1s have been around for a few years now and have been written for approx 7 different chipsets spanning from SS7, PII/III, SlotA, SocketA, and now P4. Most people don't need to ever update them, some do. Not a bad record IMO.

I wonder how many who cite the number of 4in1 releases as an issue also cite the number of Nvidia drivers as good support?

 

[salsal]

This is my 1st VIA chipset and it's been 100% stable since the 1st time I pushed the power button after put it together. I only installed 4 in 1 (4.32 and now 4.35) and updated BIOS. I didn't know anything about VIA until this one and I think it's a great company. We certainly want competitions in chipsets, just like processors.

 

[EdipisReks]

my kt266a board has been completely stable, and i have thrown some pretty heavy loads at it (3dmark2001, rc5 and prime95 simultaneously running for 24 hours).

--jacob

 

[human2k]

PEOPLE, PEOPLE, lets all calm down and solve all of our headaches by getting the SHuttle Ak31A. I own three, and boy are they stable, does sandra burn-in 99 times with out a crash.

 

[Uclagamer_99]

running my amd 761 is like beta testing

actually this mobo would be fine if it didn't have that stinking VIA southbridge!

 

[Mats]

"Are you referring p4 performing unfavourably against Athlon? Like Anand said in his Hammer article, there are many ways to achieve better performance, Intel just took a different route to AMD. "

"Same to you too, Being the owner of a Via chipset you obviouly can't be too worried about stability/compatability/workmenship/frequent bug fix packs/ performance"


Pathetic.

1.Not only does P4 perform unfavourably against the Athlon, the Athlon is the enthusiast CPU of choice.

2.The "many ways" to achieve performance as you put it holds no ground. The facts still remain.

3.VIA have a history of producing the fastest chipsets, "bug fix packs" are only used for specific problems. Stability? Please, why don't you read the evidence in this thread - very undecided with no conclusion.

 

[Bovinicus]

I've gone through two VIA boards. Both of them have operated perfectly fine. Sure, I tweaked them, but they ran fine without it. The first one I got was a Soyo SY-7VCA (Apollo Pro 133A) with a 667 P3. It is a great motherboard with sufficent overclocking features and very high stability. If I ever have a crash/error it's a program error. I never have BSOD's or entire OS failures. I also have an Asus A7V133 (KT133A) and a 1GHz Athlon-C. Unforunately, I trashed my motherboard. However, before my stupidity put this board to rest, it was running rock solid just like this one. I was able to overclock to the same FSB on both boards, 147MHz. This leads me to beleieve my memory is the limiting factor. Also, I was at 150MHz before I added a 2nd DIMM. That's pretty good for two sticks of PC133 CAS3 memory. I also have an SB Live! value. I never had any of those 686B incompatibility problems with it. I'm about to get the Shuttle AK31A as well. Just wait till the A revision and you will never be dissapointed. Sure it takes them two times to get it right, but they always do. =)

 

[Bovinicus]

One more thing... Why does everyone complain about the frequent updates for the 4in1 drivers? Should everyone start flaming NVIDIA because they have frequent updates of their drivers? Should people flame ASUS because they update their BIOS's a lot? No. This just shows that VIA is on top of things. I have never understand this overfrequent driver release bashing.

 

[EMAN]

Via does bring the performance to the table but still sucks IMO. I've been trying to get USB fixed but still no fix. What about 686b bug? There are still people with problems with this bug. I update my bios and to the latest 435 via drivers. Now it says "Can't write to Drive C"? What the hell is that. I call that bunch of problems I don't need. I went back to 431 and now it's fine. What about people having sound card problems? Studdering effect...

Don't tell me this is my system problem because this is 3rd motherboard I replaced and still does the same thing. I use win98 and I don't care if it crashes once a day. But a complete system lock or ramdom reboots I will not endure.

We play games so mostly we don't care about some of this issues but there are other people in the world who don't care about games. Thats why they will never put a AMD system into a office. That's for sure.

I don't know about kt266a boards because I have yet to use it. But I doubt I will ever use another VIA motherboard again until they start changing their policy. This cheaply made crap no more.

 

[LXi]

Let me just say this. The AMD vs. Intel threads have become old and obsolete, people arent enthused about arguing over that old topic anymore. So some folks get really bored and they want to find another deadhorse to beat - VIA. I mean, claiming VIA is sh*t and all is almost as bad as saying AMD is not as stable as Intel, that's a fact. Guys come in and say they have experience with this and that and VIA sucks is what they found out so that must be the universal truth. I mean, Im laughing my butt off as I type this, but apparently that's what's going in some people's heads. I personally fell that I can't allow these kind of crap to be spread among my fellow AT members, especially from somebody who bashes something that he has no idea about, spreading FUD with no actual experience with them. 4-in-1 revisions?? What the hell do you mean by revisions? They are drivers, just like any other type of driver, let it be video or audio or whatever, updates are expected. VIA is being very responsible in updating their drivers, and people complain about that? Gosh, I bet one day when they stop updating them people are gonna complain that they arent doing their job. This is really hulairious, heck, nobody flames those frequent Detonator drivers, what gives? All in all, some really "intelligent" people around here just needed another punching bag, no need to take what they say seriously.

 

[Crazee]

I tried to state it in my earlier post, but maybe I wasn't clear. Everyone, including Intel releases bad chipsets from time to time. If you are an intelligent person, you don't automatically rule out an entire company based on one or two problems. Read reviews from sources you find reliable and look at feedback here and other message boards to see how the motherboards compare and make your decision based on that.

If you see a post by someone stating that everything a company makes is crap then skip it. Via couldn't continue to be in business if all they made was crap. That goes for any other chipset manufacturer.

For those of you who think Intel is flawless - I present to you the i820 with its massive recall, the many chipsets that crippled performance because Intel wants to move you to RAMBUS, and the chipsets like the 430tx that only had a cacheable memory amount of 64MB.

So for every chipset manufacturer that you list that has had a problem, I am sure I can find just as many problems from any other.

 

[gregor7777]

I have had no problems with the KT133/KT133A boards I've tried and I heard the KT266A is stable and fast so I will stay with VIA for now.

I agree. Until I just purchased my new kt266a, I've been running a duron and an athlon on a Biostar m7vkb kt133 and it has been nothing but rock solid. I've pushed that poor board pretty hard, and it never fails me. I hope my next one is of the same quality.

 

[SCSIfreek]

I dont know about VIA but my house mate has serious problems with his tyan board(KT133A) and 1.4Ghz T-bird. His machine always hangs during web surfing. Dont know whats wrong with this machine but everything seems to be fine. Updated drivers, checked heatsink/fan, added 431watt PSU and checked with no IRQ conflicts. <---- I have a AMD with Asus A7A266(Ali chip) and its stable. Right now his pissed off cause I told him to get AMD instead of Intel and I had done lots of fixes for him but his starting to hate me for this recommandation. wish i could help but I dont intend to buy another mobo for him. <--- he purchased this Cpu and mobo combo from Fry's. :|


--SCSI

 

[Adul]

Locks during web surfing. I bet it can be a bad nic card.