ASUS CUV266

[Mustang]

About a year ago I built me a new box based on the ASUS P3V4X.
Every Forum on the net had something to say about that board. It really helped a lot at that time.

Yesterday I ordered a ASUS CUV266, doing a little upgrade every time my wife is on vacation.

Now: I can't find a thing about that board - is it that bad?

 

[DongTran]

not necessarily, it's a relatively new board.

p3v4x has been around for a while

 

[AndyHui]

It's not bad, but it's probably not really a very good choice at the moment.

The CUV266 only takes DDR SDRAM, and the Intel Pentium III cannot take advantage of the extra bandwidth offered by DDR. Thus there is almost no performance increase over an SDRAM based platform, and probably not worth the upgrade from the P3V4X.

Anandtech has a review of this board here.

If you absolutely HAD to have the CUV266, I would suggest that you wait for the "big brother" version, the CUV266-E, which has support for both DDR and SDR, as well as adding a Promise ATA100 Controller.

Either way, I would have recommended the ASUS CUSL2(-C) or coming TUSL2(-C) over the CUV266(-E).

 

[Mustang]

okay: BUT I DON'T WANT TO READ - I TOLD YOU.

My "old" system before:
ASUS: P3V4X
256MB Mushkin HSDRAM
Indel Pendimum PIII 733E @733
not overclocked

ASUS V6800 Geforce 256 DDR
Maxtor 30G 7200 ATA66
DVD - CDWriter - Sound - and all the rest

WIN 98SE

3DMARK2000 4800 (plus-minus)
3DMark2001 2200 (plus-minus)

Sandra Memory Bench Int ALU 305/ Float FPU 353

"new" system:
ASUS CUV266
256MB Crucial PC2100 CAS2.5

All the rest is identical. (including the Benches)

 

[bluezebra1098]

If you want to use DDR and Intel then the CUV266 is the best choice for now. Obviously the AMD FSB And DDR are more compatible and thus you should see more benefit from DDR. I've had this mobo for about three months now and it is extememly stable using Win98SE and now Win2k. Have never seen an error message or BSOD. The only thing that makes it bad is the price since ASUS decided to include a 128 DDR strip of RAm with the board which pushed its price to over $200. The board you get will probably not have the built in LAN but I haven't seen one yet that has except for the ones that were evaluated.

 

[AndyHui]

Mustang: you asked for advice and I gave it. What you do with what I tell you is completely up to you.

 

[DongTran]

<< It's not bad, but it's probably not really a very good choice at the moment.

The CUV266 only takes DDR SDRAM, and the Intel Pentium III cannot take advantage of the extra bandwidth offered by DDR. Thus there is almost no performance increase over an SDRAM based platform, and probably not worth the upgrade from the P3V4X.

Anandtech has a review of this board here.

If you absolutely HAD to have the CUV266, I would suggest that you wait for the &quot;big brother&quot; version, the CUV266-E, which has support for both DDR and SDR, as well as adding a Promise ATA100 Controller.

Either way, I would have recommended the ASUS CUSL2(-C) or coming TUSL2(-C) over the CUV266(-E). >>



My CUV266 has two SDRAM slots as well. It does not have the promise controller however. The website also states that my CUV266 has 3 DDR slots and 2 SDRAM slots.

http://www.asus.com/products/Motherboard/Ddr266/Cuv266/index.html

EDIT: regarding the promise controller, mine does not have it however, so you're right about that.

 

[Mustang]

Forget about what the ASUS web page says about it.

My board is Revision 1.05:

It does not have the SDRAM sockets
It does not have a 3COM Ethernet chip
It does not have Audio

Although, the Vendor I found, took out the 128MB RAM, and sold it for 155 instead of 185.
That was a good reason for me, so I got one 256MB from Crucial for 59.

By the way; the only problem so far is Probe: V2.12 came with.
I also checked V2.14, but both Versions are %#%##56@#@#^%

I know Motherboard Monitor, what is the lattest version there and where to get it?

 

[bluezebra1098]

There is apparently different versions of that board floating around.
I don't have any SDRAM slots either nor the LAN or audio. I have version 1.05 since early March.

Motherboard Monitor will not work with this mobo as Mobo Monitor does not recognize the PRO 266 chipset. I already tried.
ASUS Probe did not work properly on my first install of Win2k. Switched to my 30gig ATA 100 hard drive and re installed Win2k and now everything works fine and win2k is ten times faster. Must have been a bad install on the first go round.

 

[AndyHui]

Revision 1.00 of the CUV266 features 3 DDR DIMM slots and 2 SDR DIMM slots.

Subsequent revisions of this board, PCB rev 1.02 and onwards, have the 2 SDR DIMMs removed for reasons of stability.

DongTran appears to have a PCB rev 1.00 CUV266.

Effectively, the original PCB rev 1.00 has been modified to increase stability, as well as adding the Promise ATA 100 Controller to become the new CUV266-E.

 

[bluezebra1098]

It's amazing how many revisions of that board are out right now. Problem is when you order one they normally don't make mention of what version you are getting. I looked for the LAN when I opened my box and saw all of this empty dead space.
Buyers need to call in for a revision number from the vendor.

 

[Galvin]

The board I just oreded is from www.cnetpc.com and they say the board has ATA-100 right in their ad.
So I assume this is the later board. I can't imagine any new board these days without ATA-100.
basically I am buying this board not so much as an upgrade but to give VIA a shot over CUSL2. If this new chipset gives me lots of problems i'll never go back to VIA again.

I use win2K and I had to install intel ATA-100 drivers to get the full speed of ATA-100 from win2K I assume via has similiar drivers for their ATA-100 controller ?

I know win2K SP2 has support for ATA-100 but it support sucks without drivers for my CUSL2.
So I would imagine win2K ATA-100 support on CUV266 will suck without some form of ATA-100 drivers?

Thanks

 

[bluezebra1098]

All the boards have ATA 100 support. Your IDE devices especially the CD ROM and Burner may not be detected as running at UDMA. Install the 4 in 1's and SP 2 and everything should be able to be set to UDMA in windows after it is installed.