Stability with VIA KX133/KT133/KT133A

[NFS4]

Lemme ask you your experiences.

State your previous and current motherboards and your praises/problems with the KT133A.

 

[MallowJr]

ill say it wasnt fun installing win 98 on abit kt7, having to install drivers in the correct order sucks...i hate 4-in-1 mobo drivers for OS!

 

[Insane3D]

I went from a KX133 KA7-100 that was stable after some good tweaking. The only problem I experienced with the KA7-100 was with my Radeon, but it was a known issue that Radeon's didn't play nice with the KA7. I moved to a 1.2ghz Thunderbird on a KT7A-R, and it was stable, but I had intermittent USB problems, and it didn't go too high on the FSB (~142mhz). I dumped that for a Iwill KK266-R and it is by far the best board I have ever owned. I now have a Athlon 4 / 8K7A DDR rig, but it is still my secondary rig because I love the KK266-R so much.

 

[Sugadaddy]

do is see an Abit trend developping???

 

[Insane3D]

"ill say it wasnt fun installing win 98 on abit kt7, having to install drivers in the correct order sucks...i hate 4-in-1 mobo drivers for OS!"

Yeah, it's real difficult to double click on that Setup.exe icon and click that "next" button a couple of times...phew! My fingers are getting tired just thinking about that torturous ordeal...

 

[NFS4]

<< do is see an Abit trend developping??? >>


What trend? All I see is one person that had problems with a KT7A-RAID and one that doesn't like/understand 4-in-1 drivers.

 

[Electric Amish]

Actually, I went from a semi-unstable(when overclocked) KX133 (KA7) to a VERY stable(even when overclocked) KT133A (A7V133).

The Abit KA7 was a great motherboad, especially at stock speeds. It got a little flaky on me when I overclocked it, but I think that's because of its incompatibility with nearly ALL soundcards. I have an Aureal SQ2500 and it worked ok with that, but my friend had an SBLIVE and hasn't had a problem. The KA7 is COMPLETELY incompatible with the PCI128 and Vortex1 soundcards.

My new Asus A7V133A and Duron system has been rock solid from day one, even with my SQ2500 soundcard.


amish

 

[Sugadaddy]

<< What trend? All I see is one person that had problems with a KT7A-RAID and one that doesn't like/understand 4-in-1 drivers. >>



I thought you were unhappy with your mobo? And I said the trend was developping, not that it was already there...

 

[NFS4]

<< I thought you were unhappy with your mobo? And I said the trend was developping, not that it was already there... >>


Ohh, It's not that I am unhappy with the motherboard. It's just more of an annoyance. I got rid of the Live! and bought a Santa Cruz (before the patch came out). I'm only using three USB devices (I did have a powered hub and about 7 devices at one time) now and haven't had a problem in a while, but I still get random lockups every once in a while in Win2k (the last one occurred when I was copying some MP3's from a CD to my hard drive).

Why can't every motherboard be as stable as the AMD750 based AMD Fester I used to have

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Because some are mad by abit...

 

[DarkManX]

I went from an Epox 7KXA (KX133) to an Abit KT7A (KT133A) no problems with either one, both stable running winME.

 

[Boonesmi]

ive had very little problems with via chipsets.

i used asus a7v (kt133) actually i used several of them with no problems, they were all very stable and fast boards.

then i moved to the asus a7v133, ive used 3 or 4 of them with the same results, (no problems)
ive also used a couple epox 8kta3's (loved them too ) and i used one iwill kk266, it had big time stability problems, im pretty sure it was just that board, cause i know most people have good results with the iwill board.

by the way i used sblive in some of the a7v boards with no issue, but i had gotten rid the of the sblive before i started using any kt133a boards (just luck, its not like i knew it could cause problems)

 

[bernse]

I have a MSI K7T Pro2A that is easily one of (if not the) the most stable boards I have ever owned. KT133a.

 

[Stark]

I've had nothing but good experiences with MSI via-based boards. Right now I'm running the K7T Turbo Raid running a 60 GB Raid 0 array. It replaces a K7T Pro2A that is now running nicelyl under my aunt's desk with a new duron 750. Knock on wood, no problems yet. However, I don't overclock, don't update the bios every time a new one comes out, or anything else that may &quot;break what ain't broke.&quot;



That said, the MSI SocketA boards are the first via based boards I've experienced that aren't far inferior to intel platforms. Their offerings for the K6 and PIII cpus always seemed to cause frustrations and headaches.

 

[Mem]

I went from Intel LX board to MSI K7T Pro(Via KT133)and have had no real problems unless you count one 6 week old T-bird &amp; 9 month old AMD approved PSU going faulty,anyway I`m using SBlive card and Win98 OS1 so any bad stability would show up but so far it`s been real stable even on install of hardware, I play lots of games online like CS,UT etc and all my games have been fine.

I must of installed about 8 or so Via 4 in 1 driver updates with no problems, bad wise nothing really so I guess I`m a very happy first time Via owner or MSI owner .

 

[CrackRabbit]

The only problems i ever had with a VIA board was an old P-II board that didnt want to play nice with a Celery 400 i was going to put in it, it would find it as a 333, and a 533 but never a 400, and was never stable even at lower speeds.

Now my Gripe is with the AMD750 board i had, wouldnt run games worth crap with my geforce DDR.


Just my experiences,
CrackRabbit

 

[Maverick]

I went from an old school Abit BX6 rev 1.0 (one of the best boards ever IMO) that I used for 2 years. The I got an MSI K7TPro2A with the KT133 chipset.

The KT133 gave me ridiculous amounts of DMA-related problems. After RMA'ing one board, the same problems showed up in a new one. After updating 4-in-1 drivers 5 times, changing my sound card, installing win2k, and adding win2k sp2 my system is 100% stable.

I know I wasn't the only one with these problems. Half the Golden/Diamond/Platinum members would flame those of us with these problems by saying we didn't know jack and we must've messed up with our installations. I say if it takes 5 driver revisions, new hardware, and a complete different OS just to play a DVD without having the computer crash...screw VIA.

Bring on the Nforce.

 

[Angus]

i don't know the other, but i didn't have any problem with KT133a chipset and i have a creative PCI 512 sound card.

 

[MallowJr]

&quot;Yeah, it's real difficult to double click on that Setup.exe icon and click that &quot;next&quot; button a couple of times...phew! My fingers are getting tired just thinking about that torturous ordeal...&quot;

It'sa little more difficult than that, especially when it doesn't bluntly say &quot;install 4 in 1 drivers immediately after windows 98&quot; and it doesn't help that win98 installs drivers automatically for you. Abit's englishnese manual doesn't help (as stated). Abit's board didn't support my turtle beach card, the stock HSF had to be bent big time to get on the board. The 4-in-1 drivers are a pile of crap, win2k doesn't need them and functions fine. To boot, when I try updating my 4-in-1 drivers it messes up my whole machine so someoen told me to format windows whenever i do that - yeah wow that's so fun and easy. &quot;Torturous ordeal&quot; - i bet you were one of the people who helped VIA make those drivers eh?

 

[DieHardware]

MSI K7T Pro and an ABIT KT7A-RAID, no problems with either board, both equally stable. BTW I just bought a SIS 730s chipset board that seems to be just as stable as the VIA's and no 4in1s!

 

[LXi]

I have not had any major issues with VIA boards made by MSI and Iwill, they're the only boards I feel comfortable using on a customer's computer. Epox and Asus also know how to make stable VIA motherboards.

 

[iamthesystem]

MSI K7T Turbo (Non-Raid)
KT133A

stability? fairly stable...won't overclock worth a damn, though...

 

[Modus]

I haven't used too many KT133A boards yet, but they've all been stable. For that matter, in over 200 VIA KTxxx systems sold and supported in the last year, my clients haven't complained of a single stability or reliability problem that couldn't be resolved by the normal process followed by any competent system builder, namely:

- Check to make sure all cooling devices are properly installed (good contact between heatsink and chip; thin, even layer of thermal grease; no sticker, film, or paper between heatsink and chip). The HSF must of course be AMD approved. Also confirm that the PSU is AMD approved.
- Download and flash the very latest non-beta BIOS for your motherboard.
- Clean format and OS install to purge system of old apps, drivers, downloaded Windows junk, spyware, etc.
- Download and install the very latest VIA 4-in-1's from VIA's official site before anything else. This is only logical since they are essentially chipset/motherboard drivers, and the motherboard is the hub of your PC.
- Install the VIA USB Filter. If running 98SE, install MS's USB patch for that OS.
- Download and install the very latest non-beta drivers for every single piece of hardware.
- Run Windows Update and get every single service pack, bug fix, and security update there is.
- If problems persist, then one or more pieces of hardware is deffective. Simply remove all peripherals and swap out parts one by one, starting with the easiest and working your way to the motherboard: RAM, CPU, PSU, Video, then motherboard. This is Process of Elimination (POE).

The vast majority of stability problems are the result of one of these steps being skipped by an overeager or negligent builder. Following this procedure will fix any problem on any PC. A computer is only the sum of its parts, nothing more. There is no such thing as a lemon.

And since I follow these steps religiously for every system build, any subsequent problems are always the end user's fault. A clean OS install always purges whatever junk is causing it.

Modus

 

[NFS4]

<< There is no such thing as a lemon. >>


i820 + SDRAM??

 

[knutp]

I have tried almost all athlon based via chipsets. My own kx133 (asus k7v) beeing extremely nice to me. No problems whatsoever for more than one year now. Then the second board beeing abit kt7-raid and a duron, the only problem was that I couldn't boot the thing with a duron prosessor, but after a bios flash that went alright as well, only that it wont flash more.... Anyone knows what to do?

Then A msi k7t pro2. Extremely nice, no problems at all. Then msi k7t pro2a, some problems with the onboard sound, but fixed with an older audio drivers. No problems with dvd etc with it either. Then a msi k7t turbo, no problems their either. And last an asus a7v-e with kt133-e and 686b chipset. Im testing the computer now, but after 2-3 days running without stop and not a single unexplained crash seems to make it fairly good as well.

The only other problems I have had are with usb, and hp printers, but that's fixed with the usb filter driver.