What KM133 mob should I get?

Oxy

Member
Sep 28, 2000
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Does anyone have any experience with km133 mobo?
I have been asked to build a budget system for a friend. He isnt interessted in gaming so i was thinking that a km133 mobo could maybe be suitable but i have no idea which one to get. It doesnt need to be overclockable.
 

HansHurt

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2001
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MSI K7M Pro(6738) w/Audio, and S3 savage 2000 Video all included
90.00US



Cheap KM133 chipset M/B
 

MAMAFUFU

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
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I would rather consider the Asus mobo. It has an AGP slot in case you feel Savage 2k is not fast enough.
 

Spearfodder

Member
Jun 19, 2000
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Well, I bought the MSI board. I'll detail my experiences with it...bear with me.

Now, I'm a pretty experienced system builder. My first homebuilt was a 486dx-66, before that I built 286-386 computers for a small computer store. My main system is built around a kt7-raid, all loaded and tweaked and I'm very happy with it. I have a few other systems, built from parts here and there.

i decided to the km133 solution, coupled with a cheap duron, would make a nice addition to my selection of computers hear at home. This wasn't going to be a primary gaming machine, wasn't going to be tasked to do anything strenous, I just wanted a box that I could play with different os's on, put together cheaply & easily and still have some decent performance.

I bought it from mwave.com about 3 months ago for $92. Slapped a duron 650 in it with an el-cheapo HSF (hey it was free) and a stick of 256mb generic pc-133. Tossed in a netgear 312fx & drives into an inwin, and booted. All looked good, came right up, went in to the bios & checked stuff out. Pretty standard, not an overclocker like my kt7, but I wasn't expecting much. No disapointment for me, but just an FYI.

My first attempt was to install windows 98. I was having a lan party, and wanted a box that my 18 year old nephew could game on during the day so he didn't have to hall his p3-450 up. Driver load was smooth, no hitches, used the included CD for video and audio. The vid looked ok, refresh rate not quite what my gf2/mx will do, but it was acceptable (1024x768x32bit, at 75hz).

Games like UT/Q3 seemed to run fine at 800x600x16, but were sluggish at higher levels. Audio wasn't bad, plugged into an old set of cheap speakers.

Did run into one problem, age of empires would crash after a few hours of play, and do it fairly consistenly. None of the other machines had that problem. Tried various attempts with drivers, direct x, swapped the memory (it's shared, up to 32megs of your system memory goes to video). Bummer.

Decided to try to make it a linux box after that lan party. Nope. Had all sorts of issues getting it loaded, mostly vid related. Maybe a better linux guru could have done it easily, I didn't spend that much time with it. Not a priority project anyway.

Decided then that it would make a decent server under win2k. After all, a file/NAT/DHCP/WINS server doesn't need much in the way of vid/audio drivers to work, I just needed to be able to put 2 NICS in it, and have it not crash on me. Went to load 2k server. Had an resolved an issue with the onboard audio that would halt the install process, once I figured it out (3 lost hours) it was finished. 2k server seemed to be happy on it, things running smoothly.

That was 2.5 months ago. It's been rebooted twice since then, once to add a HD to it for more file storage, once when I lost power for several hours. The stability and performance has been extremely surprising for a cheapo MB. It just works, and doesn't cause problems.

Hope that answers some questions. I still don't know why I had problems with AOE2. I'm not usually one to recommend boards with integrated video to anyone, but overall things were ok.
 

Oxy

Member
Sep 28, 2000
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Thank you spearfolder it was intressting reading. Gaming wount be a major issue since the main purpose is to surf the web and maybe occasionally gaming.
Lxi, any idea how much that mobo cost?
 

Mingon

Diamond Member
Apr 2, 2000
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The msi 6340 is the best Matx, it also has support for the 266mhz fsb. the biostar is a good board if you need an ISA slot. I have both currently.
 

formulav8

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2000
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I bought the ECS version of the KM133 board for my gradparents and it a nice board. Very Very Stable.



Jason
 

optimistic

Diamond Member
Apr 29, 2001
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How about the ECS SiS 730S-based board?

I love my ECS K7SEM mATXboard (SiS730s)!!! Sells for $66 US. Exceptionally stable, more stable than my ABIT KT7A! Provides 4x AGP slot, 2 dimm for pc133, 2pci/amr/cnr. Onboard vid/sound/lan. Support for 266fsbs. And basic overclokcing features, but no voltage settings. But I didn't buy this board for it's overcloking features. Regardless I have my Duron 800 running at 900 (8x112) Great board! I look forward to SIS' next chipset, the 735!!!! Sis all the way!
 

Oxy

Member
Sep 28, 2000
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Well thanks everyone that replied. It seams that the KM133 chipset is fairly good and alot are happy with it. And there are several cheap KM133 boards that are pretty decant.
If anyone have any more experience with a KM133 board i am very interessted to hear it.
 

bluemax

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2000
7,182
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Whoa!!! ECS = good motherboards?? I thought they would be a cheap barely working POS! :Q
I can sure get 'em cheap too! Integrated modem, video, and lan. All for $135 Canadian! Tempting......
I thought they were a subsiduary of PC Chips which I hear sucks royally....
 

SpideyCU

Golden Member
Nov 17, 2000
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Put me down for another "Good" on the KM133. Ordered one recently from NewEgg with a 750 Duron for my sister's system. Been very well-behaved!