I am about one nerve away from never buying ABIT or VIA again, or at least the part that is making me crazy!!!

[randypj]

<< I don't want to be a guinea pig while VIA figures out how to manufacture a rock-solid chipset. >>



That would be like......never. How many bleedin' 4-in-1's do they have to bring out that don't work? 503+ was and will be the last VIA for me.
--Randy

 

[LAUST]

If you leave your system running I have had great luck with my onboard IDE RAID, I'm striping across 2 IBM 45 gig 7200's it was flakey at 1st but I let the RAID run for awhile it seemed to get it's act together with the clustering.

 

[Soybomb]

I don't know that I'd call abit or not. If you buy an abit board chances are you're trying to squeeze alot of performance out of your system and its not a server board so in that aspect it is budget, but they've made good performing boards in teh past. Personally I'm still running an abit board, thats been my p2-p3 board of choice, but then again I'm still using that rusty old bx chipset Abit's quality control does leave something to be desired, as well as rma procedure. Goodie, I get to pay you to replace your defective product.

 

[chinman75]

don't blame abit

abit rox

Abit KG7-RAID comin atcha

 

[Modeps]

its funny, im running:

tbird950
abit kt7-raid
256 mb pc-133 crucial
2x30gb 75GXPs in RAID0 (yes, using the highpoint controller on-board)
geforce2gts 64mb
and
soundblaster live platnium 5.1

have i had problems? yes. which one? USB sucks on via boards... but i got a turbo quad pci->usb card and all my problems dissolved.

try here: kt7 faq
theres a nice order which you should install things and a certain slot you should throw your live into.

 

[BDawg]

I'm using an ABit SH6 with absolutely 0 problems. I have a soundblaster live too.

 

[Murphyrulez]

I had major problems with my Abit KT7 Raid freezing up whenever it felt like it. I leave it on 24/7 and most morning when I came downstairs, it would be locked up. It would lock up about 2-3 times a day. I tweaked and tweaked, beta Bios', new VIA drivers, removed all my hardware except the video card, nothing worked. I threw in the towel, ordered a MSI K7T Raid, and haven't had a problem since. Rock Solid. Running my 900 Tbird at 990.

Paul

 

[Idiot56209]

I'm only going to reinforce what's already been said: Abit and VIA are BOTH budget products. I don't care if you get ripped off paying too much for an Abit in the past, but the fact remains that Abit and VIA did not get where they are at today by making high end components or by having low profit margins on &quot;decent&quot; equipment.

You have good stuff. Lose the board in favor of an AMD chipset board. If that means DDR, so be it. AMD wouldn't want you to have it any other way.

 

[bigbootydaddy]

how the heck is abit budget when it runs at pretty mucht the same price as other boards...my vp6 was like 150

 

[Marty]

I had the same problem yesterday, it turned out one of my RAM modules was bad.

Marty

 

[VoodooExtreme]

I know this don't have much to do with this thread but I finally got my MX300 (vortex2) soundcard to work in Win2k with my Apollo Pro133A chipset!

 

[DavidTigerFan]

Just a little update here folks...The computer had decided to go haywire on me lately, I couldn't even use it cause everytime I booted up, it would freeze within 10 seconds. Well I just got the new RAM from crucial today, and I am happy so far. It has been up and running now for 10 minutes...so pray to whatever god you have and cross all your digits that I had bad ram from Crucial...(odd isn't it?) To let oyu know though...Crucial was very helpful and had me replacements in 3 days.

-D

 

[DavidTigerFan]

Gentlemen, ladies, frogs....I am here to say that unless some miracle of modern technology helps me, or if one of you can, I give up.

I have replaced the RAM, and it froze again, almost right after I posted that last post. Finally giving in to fate I decided that the only thing left was the fact that I am using RAID. So I unplugged the harddrives from the Highpoint controller, set one up as master, one up as slave, and put them on IDE1 and my cdroms on IDE2.

I went back into win2k setup and deleted the partition and started to format the master drive. It froze at 70% and locked hard.

I have thought of everything under the sun, except that maybe the hard drive itself is bad. So I took out the master (henceforth known as master1) and I made the slave the master (master2). I completely left one drive out of the system.

I went back into the win2k setup, and told windows to format the drive. Again, it froze, but this time at 27%.

So let me sum it up for anyone that might be able to help me.

I replaced the motherboard, it froze in windows
I replaced the RAM, it froze in windows
I took out all cards save the video, it froze in windows
I unplugged the cdroms, it froze in windows
I took the hard drives off the HPT controller, it froze during format
I disabled the HPT370 controller, it froze during format
I took one hard drive out, it froze during format
I upped the voltage of the processor, it still froze

I am at the limits of my abilty, I do not know what to do next. Except to just return the motherboard and RAM, swear to never buy ABIT again, and buy a DDR solution.

Anyone?

-D
I

 

[duragezic]

Well first I'd put this in General Hardware. Probably will get more help (not knocking the OT guys though! ).

It's not the ram, don't think it's the PS because it still froze with all components gone. Could be the cpu but doesn't sound like a cpu problem. Heat issue? Is the hsf on properly and snug and is the cpu plugged all the way in? Have you tried upping the i/o voltage (NOT vcore) like a couple others suggested? Not the hard drives or crap HPT controller... hmm.

Motherboard maybe? I know you replaced it but you should've tried a different one heh instead of ordering a 2nd Abit. If you can return that one to Newegg and get an IWill KK266, MSI K7T-Turbo, Epox something or other, or an ASUS A7V133 I'd do that. Anyone of those would be great just the IWill is IMO the better one.

edit: Why's everybody knocking VIA? Well I guess it's just some run fine and others don't. This AMD/VIA computer went just as smoothly, if not more smoothly, then my Intel/BX computer I had before. My friend was running his fine without any 4-in-1 drivers too. He didn't even know about them until I told them hah.

 

[ucvb6]

ummmm...hmmmm....get an IWILL KK266?

 

[DavidTigerFan]

Eagle, thank you for your quick response. In reply:

I am pretty sure its not a heat issue, I am using a FOP32 with artic silver, and I check the temp in the BIOS and its never above 55C. Typically its around 45C. I did try upping the io voltage and it still did it... I am at my wits end...

-D

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Hmmm I read everything and it sounds like a heat issue to me. Unless you got 2 defective abit boards. If you still want to make this work you probably should return the abit mobo and get an iWILL KK266 or an Asus A7V133 and see if you still have problems. bot mobo's have onboard raid(it's option on the kk266 though)

 

[DavidTigerFan]

Dark, I am telling you, the CPU temp never gets above 55C...it typically hovers around 45C.

-D

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Rule #1 those external probe tems are higly inacurate
Rule #2 dont asume that i did not read what you said. What I meant is that you are geting the symptoms of a heat problem, I never saidf you were lying or something.

 

[dowxp]

hellllloo!?


intel!


hehe, nevermind. last thing is change power supplies. then u throw in the towel

 

[WarCon]

Did you bend the thermal probe up on your board? Made a big difference to me. Maybe someone along the line of board handlers (me included) bent it down and I was getting real good (too good a readings). Did you ever say what kind of heatsink you are using? If you did forgive me. Some &quot;fool&quot; the thermistor more than others by blowing air straight down.

Only reason I say this, is it sounds like the kind of problems you get with being marginally stable from heat.

You using the retail fan that came with the 1.33? And I didn't see you post anything about cooling fans, but it really only cools the default T-bird if it gets a little circulation. Try underclocking it and see if lowering the temp and voltage bring stability. Run it say 1.2ghz @ 1.7v and see if it brings you into stability.

And there is still one area you haven't said if you replaced yet and thats your video card. If you have a spare &quot;old&quot; one around put it in and see.

 

[DavidTigerFan]

Hi Warcon,

I am using an FOP32 cooling fan, complete with artic silver2. I have a 90mm intake in the front and a 90mm exhaust in the back. I am pretty sure that it isn't a heat issue. I upped the io voltage to 3.6 volts and the computer ran all night without freezing. So I think that might have been it. Does anyone know what the base core and i/o voltage of a 1.33 is? BTW, it was an OEM processor.

-D

 

[DavidTigerFan]

BTW, I haven't tried a new video card...i will if this doesn't work.

-D

 

[jwags]

I am liking the heat explanation. I had similar troubles on my first MSI T-bird until I bought a better heatsink. After that, all was smooth. By the way, why Win2k??? Oh yea, Abit and VIA are fine. Lots of people are happy with their stuff. Look into the heat!!