Topochicho
Senior member
WetWilly made a suggestion that there might be a bad batch of 686B southbridge chips, and that it might not be a MSI problem.
<< 1) This sounds like a batch problem, either bad boards or possibly a bad run of the 686B southbridge, since there are people out there with functioning boards. I'd tend to lean toward the southbridge because other manufacturers don't seem to be having this problem and MSI and Epox were the first out of the gate with 686B southbridges on their boards. Considering that VIA is known for improving quality and reliability on later batches of their chips, and MSI and Epox I'd guess were most likely to have gotten the first production batches of the 686B, then I'd expect them to have the problems first. BTW, isn't it kind of curious that Abit and Asus waited and didn't drop the 686B immediately into their KT133 products? There's already rumblings out that there's a FSB limitation (won't go above much 145MHz FSB) on the first batches of KT133A chips as well, but later batches will hit 160MHz. That may be the problem with Anand's KT7A-RAID board. A suggestion - if there isn't a sticker over it, perhaps everyone with a problem could compare the date codes on their 686B and see if there's any consistency. Your chip should look like:
VT82C686B XXXXCD TAIWAN
The "XXXX" should look like "0043" for a 2000 Week 43 chip. >>
Funny thing is that I have the 0043 chip, and am haveing problems that none of the "fixes" are fixing. Leo V also reported that he has 0043... lets see how many others who are haveing the same problems also have 0043.
<< 1) This sounds like a batch problem, either bad boards or possibly a bad run of the 686B southbridge, since there are people out there with functioning boards. I'd tend to lean toward the southbridge because other manufacturers don't seem to be having this problem and MSI and Epox were the first out of the gate with 686B southbridges on their boards. Considering that VIA is known for improving quality and reliability on later batches of their chips, and MSI and Epox I'd guess were most likely to have gotten the first production batches of the 686B, then I'd expect them to have the problems first. BTW, isn't it kind of curious that Abit and Asus waited and didn't drop the 686B immediately into their KT133 products? There's already rumblings out that there's a FSB limitation (won't go above much 145MHz FSB) on the first batches of KT133A chips as well, but later batches will hit 160MHz. That may be the problem with Anand's KT7A-RAID board. A suggestion - if there isn't a sticker over it, perhaps everyone with a problem could compare the date codes on their 686B and see if there's any consistency. Your chip should look like:
VT82C686B XXXXCD TAIWAN
The "XXXX" should look like "0043" for a 2000 Week 43 chip. >>
Funny thing is that I have the 0043 chip, and am haveing problems that none of the "fixes" are fixing. Leo V also reported that he has 0043... lets see how many others who are haveing the same problems also have 0043.
