Via admit sort off that there testing over the sblive wasn't strong enougth

[dZeus]

you have got to remember that ABit sell LOADS of boards. Probably more than anyone else because they are cheaper than Asus and have loads of features. Then you have to factor in that many people who use ABit are likely to be overclocking their system or generally fart arsing about to get them as fast as poss.

if you look at volumes you'll see that Asus probably sells an amount of mobos that is at least 10 times as much worth as Abit does. Asus, Gigabyte and a third (MSI?) are the three largest motherboard manufacturers in the world, and outsell all others by at least 10 times in total volume price. Abit is one of the smaller manufacturers

[Wombat]

Even taking volume into account, Abit still has an abnormally high complaint level. I think you usually have to check bulletin boards though. I bet they screen the boards pretty hard to cherry-pick ones to send to reviewers.

[Dr Mordrid]

A lot of Abit's recent problems can be traced to;

1. the 686b bug

2. a series of problems with their embedded HighPoint controllers. The HPT controllers before the HPT370 were bug nests.

3. some odd choices in setting up their BIOS. One was putting the HPT chipset on the same IRQ as the AGP slot

I have a couple of Abit BH6's here. They seemed fast at the time I bought them, but then I ran into the Asus P3B-f and found that the Abits weren't that hot after all.

Dr. Mordrid

[The PIT]

I'll swap your kt133a raid for mine that you'll shut you up

[TnT]

Re: A7V is 686A

Originally posted by rugger
Helevitia,

The A7V has the older 686A southbridge in it, like mine. It is also made by asus, a decent motherboard maker.

So, just sit back and ignore all the hassles people with Abit boards and 686B southbrigdes are having

Do you do any video stuff? The only time I have problems with an SBLive + VIA chipset is when doing video capturing. So if you don't do any of that, maybe you won't run into some of the issues that may pop up.

[Technoid]

Originally posted by Helevitia
I have an original SBLive! Value and I've been using it wit my A7V since the day it came out. What sort of problems are people having? I've not really read up on it since I feel I dont have any problems.

Dave

I also have a original SBLive Value in my box and a MSI k7t Turbo with 686B and no problems.

Could it be that newer Sblives are lower quality?

[birdy]

ASUS and the others may sell many more boards than abit. It's not necesarily how many they sell that matters but who they sell them to.

How many big manufacturers use asus?
How many use ABit?

All i am saying is that most of ABit's output is sold to amatuer fiddlers who will always set their comp up on the most aggresive settings then complain about stabilty. Couple these aggresive settings (which may not be available on other boards because they make things tricky) with known bugs in both the 686b and the sblive and you are bound to have problems.

Asus get sold to either big companies who will set them up so that support calls are minimum (unless their support lines are £1 a minute) or the seasoned fiddler who doesnt spend all their time getting the last 5 mhz out of their system.

Maybe i am a bit biased towards abit, i have had many abits with no problem but my asus boards have a 50% failure rate

[Wombat]

I don't think that the SB Live "quality" could be a factor. It's not a noise issue, it's the actual behavior of the card.

Also, note that having a Live! installed is not required for the data corruption, it just increases the frequency by 2-4 orders of magnitude.

[Rags]

Originally posted by Dr Mordrid
A lot of Abit's recent problems can be traced to;

1. the 686b bug

2. a series of problems with their embedded HighPoint controllers. The HPT controllers before the HPT370 were bug nests.

3. some odd choices in setting up their BIOS. One was putting the HPT chipset on the same IRQ as the AGP slot

I have a couple of Abit BH6's here. They seemed fast at the time I bought them, but then I ran into the Asus P3B-f and found that the Abits weren't that hot after all.

Dr. Mordrid

Of course the P3B-f is a much newer board than the BH6

Rags