Once again.... Abit is a major let down for me.

[jonnyGURU]

I've always hated them for their $25 per warranty charge and their high RMA rate. But I've never owned one myself and everyone that I know that has one that works tells me it works so well. I figured I'd go ahead and try the KT7 RAID because I enjoyed four IBMs on the Promise card in an MSI K7T Pro at work.

How could I not consider such a feature packed board? Adjustable bus AND multiplier? ATA100 AND RAID???? Hell yeah!

Well, the Abit lived up to being a major disappointment. There was NO performance increase in going RAID on the Highpoint controller compared to just doing straight ATA100 with a 60 GB drive. If I wanted NO performance increase, I would just buy a freaking 60 GB hard drive! The Promise card in RAID was literally TWICE AS FAST than JUST ATA100 alone! I'm thinking it MUST be a defective controller because why would they BOTHER offering a RAID option when there is no performance increase!!

To top everything off, the PS/2 mouse port was bad! NO FREAKING MOUSE! I could only get a serial mouse to work. I tried three mice and NOTHING!

Aaaaaaargh! Abit!!

Guess I'll buy a Promise card and put it in my current PC.

 

[WetWilly]

Nope, not a defective controller. The Highpoint just doesn't seem to do as well as Promise. I'd just read this (Hardware Central review of Iwill SIDE RAID 100) two minutes before I saw your thread and once you get past the synthetic benchmarks, real world stuff shows little to no improvement.

As for the PS/2 port, there's something not quite kosher with it. When I initially installed my KT7 (non-RAID) I kept getting a PS/2 mouse error. As it turns out, the PS2Rate utility doesn't like the mouse port on the KT7 - says PS/2 mouse not detected. This didn't happen with a Tyan Trinity 400, so I doubt it's the VIA southbridge. However, with Win98 and DOS drivers the mouse (Logitech MouseMan 3-button) works perfectly. And since I found I can change the PS/2 sampling rate with Logitech's MouseWare drivers, I don't really need the PS2rate utility anyway.

While I hear you on your Abit nightmares, I've got to say my KT7's been remarkably stable.

 

[jonnyGURU]

The mouse shocked the crap out of me since I tried two Mitsumis (scroll and no scroll) and a Microsoft. Nothing. Serial works.

As for the Highpoint controller; what's the point? Why do RAID and even OFFER a RAID-0 option if there is no performance increase? Just offer RAID-1 (mirroring) for redundancy and that's it.

The Promise kicked major ass all over the place when it came to speed increases in a RAID array. It was AWESOME and I was TOTALLY SOLD on the idea of an IDE RAID. The Abit seriously burst my bubble on that concept.

 

[Ulysses]

It may be that your board is bad.

I'm not an Abit fan, but not exactly a foe either - I use an AOpen BX board myself and am very happy indeed. A while back when the Abit RAID board was just coming out I cautioned someone about the High Point and Abit histories of occasional problems or incompatibilities, and recommended a Promise board (I thhink an add-in board is always better for SCSI or RAID, personally). I got flamed by Insane3D, who said his RAID 0 was great and he had the SiSoft benchmarks to prove it, yadda yadda. That's just one guy, but afterwards I have not seen too many complaints about the Abit RAID boards. So I've kinda concluded that Abit finally got it right and I was being too conservative. So again, maybe it's just your board.

 

[Adul]

Sorry to hear about your missfortune. So are you selling that board at discount?

 

[jonnyGURU]

Ulysses: One of the guys at work just scored the NON RAID version and WARNED ME about the Highpoint controller and told me that if I was used to Promise performance that I would be majorly disappointed.

I should've listened.

The PS/2 port was no biggie. That happens. But he was laughing his ass off when he saw the ATA100 scores after seeing me move everything over from the old MSI board w/ the PRomise card. Russ is probably doing the same thing after reading this since he knows that I really don't care for Abit to start with.

DOH!

As far as you getting flamed, they had no right. There was a guy last night who posted his highest Sandra RAID-0 results and everyone on the Forum was going Ooooh and Aaaaah! Sure, they were faster, but not even close to the Promise card's performance. Once you do Promise, it's hard to turn back. It just costs so damn much.

Trust me. It's a slug.

I haven't given up yet, though. I'm getting a new board on Tuesday. If it's just as slow (I'm sure the PS/2 port will work this time around) with the new board, I'm writing a big ol' flaming review and putting it up for all to see.

 

[ToBeMe]

Yeah, know what you mean about let downs......bought a A7V right after they came out......the thing was a mess! Didn't like my ram, Crucial PC133 cas2 that ran great in my KA7-100, wouldn't configure worth a damned, and when I did finally get everything set-up and running the B/M's sucked and my 800 wouldn't O/C worth a damned....not to mention it had to be the MOST unstable board I'd seen in a while! It's still laying in my "closet of death" because I just went back to my KA7-100 until the KT7-RAID came out! Now that first board was a literal dream! Stuck it in, fired it up, and that was it, everything was there and it was stable as a rock....O/C's GREAT and B/M's are awesome! I will agree though that Highpoint sucks.....if I want a "decent" raid set-up I guess it's back to my Promise card! Maybe they'll work it out though, the newest beta bios and drivers have helped a bunch!

 

[jonnyGURU]

You should RMA that Asus! It's probably bad!!!!

They have a three year warranty and don't charge $25 (cough, cough)!

As for my Abit, I'm getting another one on Tuesday. The failure rate is only 5% so certainly the odds are with me.

I'm sure the PS/2 port work this time around, but if the 4 drive RAID doesn't hit just below 50K on the drive index, I'm just gonna put it back on the shelf.

Of course, assuming I don't have any other problems.

 

[ToBeMe]

If ya "screw" around with it enough it will....mines at a little over 44,xxx now, but it took some doing! I know what you're saying about my A7V.....just bites me in the A**! Seems every damned Asus I've had and built since the K7M has been a pain in my A**!

 

[DaddyG]

Jonny,
A little off topic re ABIT but have you had the chance to try the MSI Controller that is a Promise with the BIOS chip removed ?? The RAID functions are built into the MSI native BIOS. ( hope I remembered correctly, may just have been ATA100)

Update, sorry, forget it, its only ATA100 not RAID.

 

[Mem]

I had my Socket A board down to ABIT KT7,ASUS A7V,MSI K7T Pro ,I`m glad I made the right choice with my MSI,(My first MSI board)I really do love this board it is so stable,with no Bios problems at all.

 

[ToBeMe]

Do they have ATA-100/Raid option? Haven't used them much so I'm not very familiar with them.....last one I tried was a good while back and it was crap pure and simple but hey, they may have changed for the better!

 

[Ausm]

Simple solution is to stop buying abit and choose a different Mobo manufacturer

Ausm

 

[ToBeMe]

Why?

 

[Mem]

ToBeMe,just for the record my last board was a ABIT so my opinion is unbiased.

 

[WetWilly]

Even if the RAID benches out around 50K, it still doesn't seem like it's worth it if real world apps show relatively little improvement. I bought the non-RAID KT7 since I don't care for any onboard auxiliary drive controllers for two reasons:

1) You don't have to wait for the system board manufacturer to release a new mobo BIOS when the disk controller's BIOS changes. Abit isn't too bad about this with the KT7 (they've got some exclusive deal with Highpoint), but Soyo was horrible. I have a Soyo 6BA+III, which has had a moderate number of BIOS updates. The 6BA+IV (a 6BA+III with onboard Highpoint ATA/66) has had noticeably fewer updates and problems which were addressed fairly quickly on the +III hung around a while on the +IV

2) If the system board dies, what are you going to do about running a spare system while your board's getting warranty service? If the auxiliary controller is PCI, you can plug it and your drives into virtually anything and not have a major amount of downtime. This seems particularly important if you're running RAID

3) You can take the price difference of ~$20 between KT7-RAID and non-RAID and apply it to the $32 cost of a Promise Ultra100 (and mod it to a FastTrak 100) or the $40 cost of an Abit HotRod 100. You don't really even lose a slot, since the onboard Highpoint shares its IRQ with a slot anyways. The slight additional cost of an PCI controller card is not much at all for taking care of issues #1 and #2

I have a Promise Ultra100 in my KT7, and I'm going to probably pull it since the performance difference with a IBM 75GXP isn't that noticeable. Perhaps I'll try the FastTrak mod for the hell of it.

 

[jonnyGURU]

WetWilly, you know what? You're right.

When the DDRSDRAM boards come out this winter, I'm probably going to want one of those and if I switch out boards, then I'm paying for another RAID controller all over again.

You're also right about if the board dies. Integrated anything sucks for this reason. The IDE dies, the board dies and vise versa.

Think I'll just get the Promise card.

 

[Rudee]

Let me get this straight. Abit charges $25 to RMA a defective board? WTF??? That's absurd!

I purchase all my hardware online from Onvia. If I ever have a problem with any piece of hardware, I simply send it back to them (they pay for shipping) and I re-order. Simple enough.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Right Rudee. That's the way it goes for you. When you ARE the reseller, it's a little different. You can't send your board back to someone else all of the time. Eventually SOMEONE is going to have to send it back to Abit.

Besides, how long does that "warranty" last where they just let you send the board back for a credit so you can order another?

 

[jonnyGURU]

Nevermind Rudee... I found my own answer at OnVia's website:

"If at any time within 30 days of receiving your order you are not 100% satisfied with your purchase, simply contact us to arrange a return. Together, we will work a solution.

If you discover the defect after you've had the product more than 30 days, we will do our best to handle the situation ourselves. However, some manufacturers require that defective products be returned directly to them after 30 days. We will do our best to make this process as simple as possible. After 30 days, no returns for credit will be accepted."

I think you got some other vendor confused with the name "OnVia" cause OnVia's not taking that board back after 30 days from what I read!

 

[Rudee]

Well Duh! - jonnyGURU No friggin kidding!

We're not talking about 30 day and beyond warranties, othwerwise my answer would of been different. Maybe you should of clarified yourself. We're talking about receiving a defective product, not something failing on you months/years later. Geeese!!!

I'm talking about when you receive a defective product from Onvia. Somthing that is obviously not as intended, even if it's simply a matter of satisfaction.

In the case of a defective motherboard - or any other piece of hardware - Onvia would take it back immediately within 30 days. In the original case with the specific Abit board where problems were noticed immediately, Onvia would of taken the board back no questions asked, your credit card would be refunded, and you would of simply had to re-order.

What a dink

 

[jonnyGURU]

Dink? Ooooo K. Maybe I should've used more smileys... :Q

Anyhoo... Everyone right down to the guy in the trenchcoat on the street corner has a 30 day DOA policy. I didn't think you were talking about that because it would actually be stating quite the obvious.

I mean, my work even does a YEAR on motherboards and even the POS Abits get 60 days, so I don't see what OnVia has going for it. They seem so vague on what they do for you AFTER 30 days.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a vendor that didn't offer at least 30 days to swap out a board.

 

[Mem]

JonnyGURU, I take it you don`t like Abit,well my old board was Abit it gave me 2 years loyal service,I know Abit have the Worst RMA rate,lets just say I saw the light & changed to MSI.

 

[WetWilly]

Rudee,

You don't have to hang around the forums that long to find out about jonnyGURU, his job, and where he works (note Elite status). jonny and Russ in particular contribute reseller points of view on reliability issues such as return/RMA rates. "Dink" was unnecessary. And as for the Onvia/Abit comparison, why even go there since who else but a reseller can buy directly from Abit? Last I noticed, Abit doesn't sell to end users - well possibly if you want to buy a case of 20 system boards maybe, but quantity 1 definitely not.

jonny,

The Promise also seems to be a more well-rounded controller. It looks like Highpoint added RAID as an afterthought. FYI, if you're going to mod an Ultra100 yourself, here's a link for the Ultra100 to FastTrak 100 mod. More importantly, they've got the older flash utilities needed for the mod. Only downside to Promise is that their support, to put it nicely, sucks big time, and that's from personal experience all the way back to their VESA local bus EIDE controllers. Actually, I've wished someone would/could just make auxiliary drive controllers from Intel/VIA southbridges so that native OS drivers could work without any hassle.

BTW, after I'd bought my KT7, I went to your employer's site and I have to admit I was stunned to see you were actually selling the KT7, especially considering everything you've said here. Guess you have to carry what the market is demanding.

 

[SmackdownHotel]

johnnyGURU, I'm sorry to see the KT7-RAID is not working out for ya. I love mine, and it runs like a greased bastard. Check out my Sandra HDD benchmark:


Sandra HDD Scores

2 x IBM 75GXP 15GB Deskstars in RAID 0