Advice on new motherboard

[mdhome]

My POS KS75A Motherboard has finally given up on me and I am about to drop kick it out of the bedroom window. I need advice chaps on what to replace it with. It must be Duron and 1.4 ghz Athlon capable, take sdram, be reasonably cheap and be Very Very reliable. Anyone have any ideas.

Regards MD

ps Parhelia compatibility is also a must.

[Novdid]

Asus A7V133 if you still can get hold of it.

[GT98]

Whats the problems your having with it? My GF PC runs fine with a G400 and SDRAM in Win98 and I know Dr. M has had good luck with it also. I like the board so much I'm planning on upgrading to a Asus A7S333 board which has the SIS 745 Chipset and dumping the KG7 AMD/VIA combo I have now


Scott

[mdhome]

Originally posted by GT98
Whats the problems your having with it? My GF PC runs fine with a G400 and SDRAM in Win98 and I know Dr. M has had good luck with it also. I like the board so much I'm planning on upgrading to a Asus A7S333 board which has the SIS 745 Chipset and dumping the KG7 AMD/VIA combo I have now


Scott

Hello Scott.

Currently it doesn't post. There is no video output and neither of the 2 disk drives on the primary controller power up. When I originally bought it, it took me nearly a week before I could get an image on either my Radeon or G400. When it was running it was unstable and was prone to losing its bios values. Occasionally I even had to remove the power supply from the board, remove jumper 4 for 30 secs until I heard a little pop, replace everything and then it would post.
These problems seem to occur regularly with some of the earlier batches and I think mine must be one of them. Irrespective no board should give you this much hassle.

Regards MD

[cbman]

Another cheapy Asus board that would maybe serve you well is the A7A133...

I have one in my work station at the other shop and it hasn't given me any problems.

[DentyCracker]

Unfortunately you have the one processor that the KS75A is known to have problems with. MSI K7T TURBO2 is cheap. Or you could get a sucker ahem buyer for your Athlon and buy an XP1600+

edit
In retrospect the board you have is actually bad it seems so scratch the last part

[GT98]

Sorry to hear that...the problems you describe are common for what I read about with the earlier KS75A boards.

Scott

[Nuno]

By my experience with Asus A7V (wich actually died) and A7V133 I´d say avoid it.

Curiously enough I replaced the former with a ECS K7S5A and I couldn´t be happier.

Why not get another K7S5A? Really, for $50 you can´t go wrong... give it another chance.

About Parhelia compatibility, how could anyone know about compatibility between existing motherboards and yet to be announced video cards? Anyway my ECS deals just fine with a "power hog" GF4 at 4X AGP, SBA on, fsb 147 Mhz. It´s definitly not a troublesome motherboard with video cards. Remember, it´s completly VIA free (I bet the KTxxx chipsets will need 2 silicone revisions and several 4-in-1 before parhelia works )

[mdhome]

I'd be happy to replace it with the same model but I am worried about receiving another from the same batch. Last time I spoke to the company that supplied it, they wanted me to send it back to them with my processor and ram for testing. Looks like I am gonna have to do that.

Regards MD

[Dr Mordrid]

ECS's K7S5A (PC100 or DDR266; $50 USD) or K7S6A (DDR266 or DDR333; $75 USD) would also work nicely. Fast, stable and very affordable. Most even come with a built-in LAN and basic audio that can be fully disabled, which is a must for built-ins.

Dr. Mordrid

[RichL]

I've got an Epox 8KTA3+ in my main rig and it's never given me any problems (aside from getting a bit cranky when booting with FSB set to 145mhz+).
But I think it only goes to a 12x multiplier.

[mdhome]

I've bitten the bullet and ordered another Ks75a. Hope I'm right on this one and the board design isnt out to get me

Regards MD