It Works!!!! No Crashes!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[EchoWars]

Got the Epox EP-8K7A in last night. Was kinda my last ditch effort to fix the troubles I've had since I installed my Abit KT7A. Nothing went right on that system. Besides the unexplaned lockups when simply browsing the web (in W2K no less), I couldn't play MP3's or my Divx;-) movies! I tried every trick...I'm no rookie to this stuff...but nothing worked. I screwed with it for 4 months, tried every BIOS setting and REG hack and patch on the friggin' web. No Go....

In desperation I ordered the Epox board. They were pretty well known in SS7 days as having the most reliable platform, and my old EP-MVP3C2 and K6-2+ 550 has been humming away without incedent 24/7 for the last 12 months. Also ordered 512MB of Crucial DDR SDRAM. Everything else stayed the same.

I can listen to MP3's now!!! And my Divx;-) movies play AND THEY DON'T CRASH!!!!!

I am soooo impressed with how well this motherboard runs!!! Been hammering away at it for 24hours trying to make it crash (taking time out for meals, or course...) All the stuff that would make the Abit sh*t the bed in microseconds, the Epox doesn't even bat an eye! And Fast! I didn't really think I'd notice much 'seat-of-the-pants' difference between the SDR SDRAM in the Abit and the DDR SDRAM in the Epox. But I was wrong...it bloody well FLIES!!! WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!

In the end, it was all probably related to a combo of the Santa Cruz, the Abit board, and the Promise controller. I mean, sometimes there are just combinations of parts that don't work well together. But even then, it is usually the fault of the MB maker in failing to put together a decent BIOS to handle the issues. It's easy to believe now, since all the same parts are comfy-cozy in the Epox.

Sorry if this looks the bit foolish, but I have lived a nightmare the last 4 months with the Abit board. To see my system run this well hasn't happened since my old BX board...

Computer Nirvana!!!

[DentyCracker]

I personally believe you were a victim of Abit's poor QC. Some of their KT7s are very good, some are crap. Wine isn't crap (thank God)

[ayoub_ibrahim]

nah, look at his avatar. it's all that stuff he's been smoking!
btw good luck with the new system.

[ALBPM]

LOL.....I wouldn't blame ABIT or ASUS or any mobo manufacturer.

I'd blame VIA for crappy chip fabrication. Look at all the problems with VIA based boards lately.

Paul

[cbman]

Paul... You are a biased, biased man....

But I agree with you 97.35 percent

[Gurm]

No seriously, it was probably ABIT's quality control, combined with the crappy crappy happily crappy HPT controller.

- Gurm

[cbman]

Hey Gurm...

Its not crappy it just doesn't work right.

Oh and as for Quality Control. If its anything like the crappy factory I work for now.. plus the other ones that I have toured... LOL... Sometimes things just happen to get by. (If the person is sleeping or just having a bad day alot more "issues" seem to get by... LOL

Or if you are like some of the uncaring operators who only goal is to meet the quota so that they can recieve a higher rate of pay or catch up when the run is lagging due to machine problems

Things like this piss me off.

My company is should have 1 extra staff per machine to handle QC on the books that are coming out of machines faster than the people on piledown can check each book and pile down without having the machine spit out enough to spill all over the floor (They come out in stacks of upwards of 25 books).

Most of our machines run at an upwards average of 150- 200 books per minute or 12000 books per hour over a shift of 11.5 hours which is over 130000 books per shift... at the end of the shift you are hard pressed to feel up to anything other than to not lag behind.

[EchoWars]

nah, look at his avatar. it's all that stuff he's been smoking!

Naaa...looking for a job...haven't smoked anything in
months

No seriously, it was probably ABIT's quality control, combined with the crappy crappy happily crappy HPT controller.

Non-RAID version. Had previously fooled around with a HPT controller on another board a year or two ago, and decided they were evil! Hence my Promise 100 RAID...

I think the Abit would work fine without the Promise RAID. As a matter of fact, in one of my many reloads, I did so without the RAID controller. But when installing W2K, SP2 enabled DMA for my LS-120. The VIA south did not like this, and I crashed and crashed and crashed. I didn't discover what was going on till I reloaded again later with the Promise card back in. Besides, I was determined to make the system work the way I wanted it to, RAID and all.

I may never buy another MB not made by Epox. I am indebted to them

[DentyCracker]

I've said it already, but I'll repaet it anyway. I love my Abit KT7 (I got a good one na-na-na-na-naa-naa). I'll not buy another Abit mobo, I may not be so lucky next time. Thinking seriously about a Tyan board (when I can get one without SCSI and *brrrr* ATi *brrr* onboard) Dual 1.2MPs and a Kyro2/G550 in around Sept/Oct. Just ordered a 1.2 TB (100) and EpoX 8KTA2 for a friend of mine.

Ordered these from www.mwave.com for my work machine
KINGSTON KVR133X64C3/256 256MB PC133 CL3 SDRAM DIMM $37.00
MAXTOR 20.4GB VL32049H2 EIDE ULTRA-DMA/100 9MS 5400RPM $79.00
TOSHIBA SD-M1502T 16X-DVD/48X-CDROM EIDE INTERNAL $59.00
LOGITECH BUNDLE: INTERNET KEYBOARD PS2 + OPTICAL MOUSE 3-BTTN W/WHEEL PS2/USB (White box) $29.50
BIOSTAR M7VKL VIA KL133 CHIPSET ULTRA ATA100 MATX FORM FACTOR 3xPCI/1xAMR/2xDIMM W/S3 SAVAGE 4 AGP & AC97 AUDIO $70.00
AMD DURON 750MHZ 3D OEM W/O COOLING FAN (1 YEAR WARRANTY) $36.00 $36.00


The company is picking up the tab on this machine, the other (heavy) parts will be obtained locally at Intcomex) I considered getting a G450 but couldn't justify the extra expense (US$83=J$4000 roughly)

[Rags]

Awww....Denty is all growed up.

You can always tell when a person starts to grow up. They start buying Tyan or Intel motherboards

Rags

[KvHagedorn]

Tyan Thunderbolt GX Dual PIII 600 on main system
Tyan TigerCub BX Micro ATX PIII 550 on "Lightweight Portable" system.

Both are still within the 3 year warranty, but frankly, they don't need no stinkin warranty..

[Grail]

Hmmm... Time for the Tyan users to band together?

It is amazing what Tyan's can be subjected to and still survive.
For example, about 4 months ago, my power supply suddenly spewed a huge plume of blue smoke and computer suddenly died. In examining the damage, the speaker wire connected to my motherboard somehow connected red and black together and melted quite a few of the wires it was wrapped around as well as itself.
Having little hope for my system to ever power up again, I installed it in a new case(Landmark 102 w/ 300w Antec PS. I'll never buy a cheap ass case and PS again) and pushed the power button. I nearly fell outta my chair when I heard the system POST.

[DentyCracker]

I got one of those Tyan boards for a friend in 1999. Still running his Dual P-III 450s without a problem. 512 MB RAM doesn't hurt either (I thought I had a bargain at $90 per 128MB )

[rugger]

Heh, reminds me of my old XT

Grail, this reminds me of something that happened to me.

Back in the good old days (when I was young, stupid, and couldn't afford a decent computer), I had a nimrod XT (full sized desktop AT case, could be used to dangerous weapon (very heavy).

Anyway, while fiddling around inside the computer, I accedently inserted the power connector incorrectly onto the motherboard (one pin off error). Upon turning on the computer, only one chip on one of the expansion cards got fried. It got RED HOT, and refused to work afterwards. Apart from that one chip though, the rest of the expansion card (it was a multi-IO card) and the computer worked fine when I fixed the power connection.

Now that is robustness