New System

[HyperRyno]

I am going to build my own personal system and I was wondering which Chipset I should go with. I am leaning strongly towards an ASUS mobo(probably A7A266.) Who has the best chipset? AMD, ALi, Via, Etc... Thanks

[PacoL250]

Well, it depends a bit on what the components will be in the computer. Example in point: a VIA chipset (I forget which one), has LOADS of problems with the SBLive! Serires of soundcards, but not with Turtle Beach soundcards.

Personally, I currently have the Intel 440LX AGP Chipset on my BCM KR632 mobo. I haven't really found too many problems with it, but it is also an old chipset. Also, Intel's tech support, from my experience, isn't the greatest. (Heck, they told me there is NO WAY I could change my P2 300 MHz to a Celeron 533 MHz...yet I could with a Slot 1 to Socket 370 convertor card by ASUS. My mobo's manufacturer said it was possible, and had released BIOS updates in order for users to do so).

Tell us what you are planning on putting in your new system.

Good luck on that new system!

[condor]

well, going with Asus mobo is never a mistake..

as for the A7M266 -
although it's getting much praise I still don;t like the idea it's based on ALI Magik1 chipset.

I can't put my finger on it, just that I had bad luck and experiences with ALi based mobo (goes back to 486s..), they alwasy seem to have some issues in some stage..

I would highly recommend any board with the VIA KT133A (686b southbridge) those boards are pretty mature now and with VIa 4.31 4in1 should have no problems as long as you use high quality hardware.

another optin is the AMD 761 chipset..
so far I haven't heard one bad thing about it ..
only problem I see is that it has only 2 RAM expansion slots...

but I'd still take the A7M266 over the A7A266..

other options are to wait for abit to realase an AMD 761 based mobo or go with the AMD761 based mobo from MSI ..

[Darren Wilson]

Originally posted by Paco_L_250:
Well, it depends a bit on what the components will be in the computer. Example in point: a VIA chipset (I forget which one), has LOADS of problems with the SBLive! Serires of soundcards, but not with Turtle Beach soundcards.

One problem that affects less than 25% of users of SB Live cards & VIA 686B SouthBridges. The system could lock up if transferrring large amounts of data from a drive on the secondary IDE channel to the Primary drive. Which is down to PCI timings.

If it had 'loads of problems' then why are there a lot of us here who haven't had any problems with SB Live! on the supposed 'flawed' chipset??? Same thing happened with the Nvidia Riva128ZX & TNT Video cards on i440LX chipsets & it was the Asus P2L97 that was the main culprit with Asus' own video cards (not enough voltage supplied via AGP slot)which worked for some but not for others..... Who was to blame there??? Intel or Nvidia??

This is not a flame, at all, but as soon as a hardware 'problem' is revealed with anything, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and goes against the 'company/ies' without reading the details.

Sorry but that is my feelings and I have yet to see the SB Live! problem on any of the 100 or so 686B based boards I have supplied, including this very system that I have typed this on.

[Ruslan]

Originally posted by Darren Wilson:

If it had 'loads of problems' then why are there a lot of us here who haven't had any problems with SB Live! on the supposed 'flawed' chipset??? Same thing happened with the Nvidia Riva128ZX & TNT Video cards on i440LX chipsets & it was the Asus P2L97 that was the main culprit with Asus' own video cards (not enough voltage supplied via AGP slot)which worked for some but not for others..... Who was to blame there??? Intel or Nvidia??

This is not a flame, at all, but as soon as a hardware 'problem' is revealed with anything, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and goes against the 'company/ies' without reading the details.

Sorry but that is my feelings and I have yet to see the SB Live! problem on any of the 100 or so 686B based boards I have supplied, including this very system that I have typed this on.

Right now I have in our office ASUS P2L97 motherboard with ASUS V3000 AGP video (Riva128ZX) runnings without any noticable problem.

But I have to agree with Darren - quite often
the main problem is the lazy tech (or user)...They are instead of having to find way to solve the problem blame MoBo,Videocard,sound and so on manufacturers instead of blaming their own unability to solve problem.

Personally I only once had problem with SBLive sound, but I found it was problem with
ASUS P3B-F unmature BIOS update. I told my customer about that and customer understood me well.We waited with upgrade CPU (from P2 to P3)few weeks till ASUS released new BIOS update,flashed,and problem was solved. But I could blame ASUS for bad motherboard, Creative labs for bad sound and so on and so on without any positive results...

Sooner or later,but almost any problem can be solved with blaming anyone...

[Darren Wilson]

Originally posted by Ruslan:
Right now I have in our office ASUS P2L97 motherboard with ASUS V3000 AGP video (Riva128ZX) runnings without any noticable problem.

MOre noticable probs with Asus V3300 (RivaTNT) cards than the ZX, although I managed to get around it at the time by soldering a wire from the Motherboard to the actual card to gain sufficient Power requirement, upon reciept of schematic & direction from Asus.

[Ruslan]

Originally posted by Darren Wilson:
MOre noticable probs with Asus V3300 (RivaTNT) cards than the ZX, although I managed to get around it at the time by soldering a wire from the Motherboard to the actual card to gain sufficient Power requirement, upon reciept of schematic & direction from Asus.

Of course, TNT consumes more power from 3,3V source. Weak contact in AGP slot could cause additional voltage drop-out and,as result,unstable work of whole system.
Strange thing,though, what I haven't seen it yet personally (only heard)... Thanks anyway,Darren.

[PacoL250]

Originally posted by Darren Wilson:
One problem that affects less than 25% of users of SB Live cards & VIA 686B SouthBridges. The system could lock up if transferrring large amounts of data from a drive on the secondary IDE channel to the Primary drive. Which is down to PCI timings.

If it had 'loads of problems' then why are there a lot of us here who haven't had any problems with SB Live! on the supposed 'flawed' chipset??? Same thing happened with the Nvidia Riva128ZX & TNT Video cards on i440LX chipsets & it was the Asus P2L97 that was the main culprit with Asus' own video cards (not enough voltage supplied via AGP slot)which worked for some but not for others..... Who was to blame there??? Intel or Nvidia??

This is not a flame, at all, but as soon as a hardware 'problem' is revealed with anything, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and goes against the 'company/ies' without reading the details.

Sorry but that is my feelings and I have yet to see the SB Live! problem on any of the 100 or so 686B based boards I have supplied, including this very system that I have typed this on.

Thanks for not flaming me. In any case, I think the problem I was talking about was mentioned here:

SBLive! Owners Post by Lycia on WinDrivers Message Board

Lycia mentions the link to the site that talks about the problem(s), although as Condor said, VIA's patch should fix that.

[TRICKPLAYER]

I have got a ASUS P3V4X with a VIA chipset and an sb live, running perfectly, the only time I have had a problem is on install, as long as VIA 4 in 1 drivers go in first its perfect, if sb live was installed first it would be blue screen time.

[grsshppr_km]

If you get the A7A266 with some DDR memory, don't go cheap on the network card. Any time I've installed a Netgear card on the board and DDR memory the bugger won't reboot. I believe ASUS came out with a BIOS upgrade for this problem, but just FYI.

[format c:]

I had an Asus p3v4x with the sb live gamer 5.1, Ran great on that chipset, Just install the 4in1 drivers before installing any other drivers
Good board till I fried it ( wham wham wham wham wham wham , Ok I can stop banging my head )
I am Asus of Borg