First and last time I buy a VIA product

[Oric]

I don't know if it is fair to evaluate a major hardware producer with a niche product but today I bought a PCI to USB board for my W2K system and it did not work, doing a little investigation assured me that the chipset was incompatible with a ton of OS and Hardware. I will return it back (if I can) on Monday night. What a shameful company.

 

[fir3wir3]

because of one product?

thats a little hasty

 

[Oric]

What's funny is that the chipset (VT83C572) has been in use since 1998 ! Do you think it is M$'s shame ?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Exactly which PCI to USB board? Somehow I doubt they'd create something that was totally incompatible with a major number of systems. I also don't think that VIA makes their own boards, but probably only the chipset, and the boardmaker could have had something to do with it.

Incidentally, what do you consider a 'ton' of OS's? UNIX doesn't support USB, Linux may by now but it's an early support. Any Mac that supports it comes with it onboard. That leaves pretty much...Win95, Win98, Win98SE, and Win2k...and there's a LOT of hardware that doesn't have Win2k drivers, and a lot that no longer bother with Win95 drivers.

 

[ltk007]

VIA makes some decent mobo chipsets. I'm happy with my KX133 board.

 

[Oric]

The problem is there are no drivers ! Even for W98 .. It is suggested that the W98 Cd is enough. I peered inside the box while I made the purchase to see if I needed any drivers to install and there were none. So I thought "Well if W98 can recognize this, so can W2K or the worst case there must be a driver on VIA website". To my dismay I found on Microsoft's Support site that USB boards using VIA chipsets are no way compatible with W2K. They don't even work with MS Sidewinder USB products under W98 flavors (???) anyway glad to hear that the rest of the stuff (MB and such) work OK.

 

[Neoplasia]

Did you not check to make sure it was compatible with W2K before you bought it? Don't fault VIA for something you should've investigated first. There are a lot of things that can't be used with W2K yet and a lot of OS' that don't support USB.