What is the best Mobo for 1 Ghz TBird and RAID

[Zapple]

I am sooooooooooooo pissssssssed:disgust:. I went with bad advice and bought a KT7A RAID for a 1 GHZ TBIRD, along with a slew of other euipt to built my first monster. I have heard nothing but nightmares about the mobo and found out that ABIT has been booted from the AMD recommended mobo list.
Please help meMy coolcase is coming by weeks end and I want to get to the task of putting my rig together.
What mobo should I get? I will NOT over clock it! I need a good RAID mobo to go with 3 IBM 45 GB 7200 RPM DESKSTARS and the 1 Ghz TBIRD.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME
ZAPPLE

 

[Biggs]

Since you're not overclocking, I'd suggest getting the Asus A7V133. It's the most fastest and stable non-overclocked board out there now.

 

[DrewsNick]

I just build a 1 gig tbird system on the abit kt7a raid board. It was bar far the easiest build I ever did and I been doing this for near 20 years.

Just because I had ABSOLUTELY ZERO probs with it does not mean you wont and I cant speak for the raid side of it as I dissabled the raid for now (might do raid down the line sometime).

Hope it helps anyway.

 

[alarcon]

I have an Abit KT7A-RAID with an Athlon 1 Ghz @ 1.2 Ghz,
since last weekend thad i configured i had no problems
everything is just fine

 

[tracerbullet]

Ahh, but do you have 4 or more PCI devices, or are you using USB? I can't get either to go on mine.

I like this board for overclocking. At the moment I would suggest the non RAID version to anyone, with a PCI card add-on with RAID built into it instead. They appear to work really well, what's built into this board does not appear to. (For many or most)

 

[megatexel]

why don't you just give it a try first. Mine works flawlessly

 

[Vamp Armand]

I had nothing but problems with... BX6 BH6 .... then KT7..... The boards will not work with 4 PCI devices..... the pnp bios just isn't on par with ASUS, IWILL, and MSI. I have worked with the Abit KT7, Asus A7V, the MSI 6330, and the IWILL KK266. The IWILL got to 150 mhz fsb without a problem.... the Asus and MSI boards ran pretty nice.... the Abit couldn't get me 2 PCI devices that didn't share IRQ's....... plus it isn't a promise raid controller..... Right now I think that the IWILL is probably the way to go unless you are going with DDR...

 

[djchemistry]

I'd suggest the Asus A7V133. I'm running 4 PCI cards with it(sblive, hauppauge wintv, 3com nic, and generic modem). The board took the cards without a problem. I was a little worried at first b/c I usually have to disable sblive emulation with other boards. But with this one, I had no IRQ trouble in either win98 or win2k.

As far as the iwill and the MSI I'd go for 'em if price was an issue. Asus isn't exactly a brand you'd find in the budget aisle. But I've never regretted spending the extra dough for important components especially a quality motherboard.

Also remember overclocking to 160+mhz isn't really an option with a bunch of pci cards (unless they release some lower dividers). These guys pump their fsb's way too much for the average joe. What's the use of a show car if you're never gonna drive it? That's my philosophy anyways.

 

[billyjak]

My Abit board runs excellent with a 1 gig oc/1.07
Happy Abit KT7 Raid owner here. Awesome board.

 

[Zapple]

BillyJ
How many and what PCI cards are you using and are you using RAID?
Zapple

 

[Zapple]

To Tracer bullet and all other 4 PCI Slotters: H ere is the email I just received from one of my gurus's:

You can't use 4 PCI card with the KT7A - or any other motherboard that has
an on-board RAID controller.

The PCI specification says that there can ONLY be 4 bus-mastering PCI
devices on the bus at once.
No matter what.

The on-board RAID is a PCI device, but it doesn't take a slot.

Almost all PCI devices are bus-mastering, so you won't be able to use more
than 3 of them.

That is NOT abit's fault, but a basic design decision back in '92 when PCI
was invented.

The reason that motherboards with 5 PCI slots existed was back in the
Voodoo2 days.
The voodoo2 was a very simple device that did NOT require bus-mastering or
an irq.
Since many people had 2 voodoo2 cards, then with 5 pci slots, they could use
3 other PCI devices without a problem.

Needless to say, the people who are bitching at ABIT about this are just
ignorant as to how the basic subsystems in a computer work.
If they want to use 4 PCI cards, all they have to do is disable the onboard
TO TracerRAID controller.





This phenomenon occurs on ALL motherboards from ALL manufacturers.

The only way around it is to put a dedicated PCI arbiter chip that is
separate from the motherboard chipset (basically a 2nd PCI controller)
That will allow you 4 more bus-mastering devices, since there will be in
effect, 2 PCI buses in the system.

This is quite expensive however, and you'll only see this feature on
high-end server motherboards that NEED that many devices (like Tyan,
Supermicro, etc.)

Feel free to post this message verbatim to whoever/wherever was discussing
this issue if nobody has set them straight yet.

 

[Nikepete]

Can't use 4 PCI cards with a KT7A-Raid ? Kidding me !! I have 1 Nic, SB Live, ATI-TV tuner and a Scsi card. My video card is the G400max AGP. No problemo !!

 

[WarCon]

I myself am waiting on my parts, I ordered an Abit KT7A without raid but have been researching all the new Athlon boards for days and days. If board speed is your desire then the Iwill KK266R is the one that almost every up to date site is raving about. Only downside I see is the manufacturer of the RAID chip. Gigabyte makes a RAID board that uses a Promise RAID controller. Its the GA-7ZXR, but haven't heard much about the performance or stability of this board. Even though Abit is not on AMD's recommended list, I am sure its not because it doesn't work with the Athlon. More likely its because of overclocking issues or some policy of Abit's that AMD didn't like. Besides I didn't see any board with a RAID controller built in that was recommended by AMD. My personal choice was the Abit board because of its stability and ease of control. But the Iwill board was a hard choice not to pick (only reason I didn't was a combination of potential support issues, with Iwill being much smaller corp than Abit, and I just haven't heard much about Iwill's ability to keep current with Bios upgrades - making them an unknown factor for me). Oh and by the way, for anyone having IRQ problems with the Abit board and soundblaster LIVE! cards, just make sure your board isn't in slot 5, because thats the ATA controllers assigned IRQ slot. I think only device that will work there is one that doesn't need an IRQ or one that can do IRQ sharing.

 

[Nikepete]

It does not matter much the IRQ table used by the Bios. Win2K with ACPI groups all PCI slots into ONE single IRQ anyway. All my components AGP, NIC, sound card, SCSI, HPT, USB, TV-tuner share the same IRQ 11.

 

[Zapple]

WarCon
I have taken a few minutes to get some sleep and in those few moments of slumbering bliss there was a calm that came over me. The Intergrated chip Fairy told me that everything was going to be fine I was reminded building computers is very much like Rocket Building- Most of the people involved believe themselves to be a Genius,there are many variables, although somewhat predictable, and it is NOT an EXACT Science. If everything was easy and supposed to go right the first time- EVERYONE would be building computers and hereto there would only be one mobo manufacturer.

So I will stand by my KT7A. After all I still haven't received my case yet, I haven't puit it together, so it may or may not give me heartache. If it works great if it doesn't I'll either break it, sell it or get an Iwill, Giga, Asus or MSI, or Kill the F*$%#@ Intergrated Chip Fairy

 

[Ching]

Do yourself a favor, DO NOT GET THIS BOARD. IT WILL DRIVE YOU NUT. There are so many problems with this board that there is a website at apushardware dedicated to solve the instability of this board. This board crash constanly, there is a serious problem with the AGP port or the via chipset. I run sandra, it crashed. install program, it crashed, doing nothing for 5 minutes, it crashed . :| If you want to pass the A+ , by all mean, get this board. By the time you make it work, you already know everything about the hardware Otherwise, STAY AWAY.

 

[jpetermann]

I have a Gigabyte 7zxr. It has the raid capability and is a solid and stable board. Not an O'clockers dream, but if that isn't an issue, it is sweet and easy to set up.

 

[Shukla]

Zapple,

If you start having IRQ conflicts, you could hack the bios (or get another board like MSI). If you really want a stable board and no overclocking, get an MSI. They're supposedly the best. Asus are good (but I've had nothing but headaches with them).

If you do stick with the Abit, you may have to hack the bios depending on the PCI cards you use.

 

[cjhrph]

Do yourself a favor, buy the ASUS. Its rock solid. Granted the raid implementation could be better, but this could be improved with future BIOS.


Buy the best, you'll never be disappointed

 

[billyjak]

I wouldn't worry about it, either you get a good board or a bad one.
I had to send mine back, but the new one is rock solid.
I don't use the raid as I dual boot, the performance is there in Raid but I choose not to do it for now. I had it on but changed back.
IRQ conflicts are nonexsistent in my board.
I have a D-Link nic, 56k modem, SB-Live x-gamer and Herc GF2 32meg.
3 Hard drives 56x CD Rom and the TDK 12x burnner, togethether with a visoneer 8600 Scanner and zero problems.

 

[WarCon]

Do let us know how it is working when your case comes. I am guessing it will work fine, unless your luck is like mine. I seem to find all the compatibility problems that nobody mentions when they review stuff. Good luck (He says selfishly hoping that his own Abit will be without problems kicking himself that he didn't look on forums first before buying!) Oh and anyone with real information about Abit going under please post it!!!

 

[Mustanggt]

If you are not overclocking then there is no point in you even getting the KT133A chipset.

 

[BIGGDOG]

I have had quite a few KT7A Raid boards that are great. The only problem I have had with all of them is sound 16 bit emulation.