Asus A7S333 opinions please...

[Dr Mordrid]

Same here....and they still run like S**T while SiS is very busy making converts.

Dr. Mordrid

[Ryu Connor]

I am not about to trust VIA. It wasn't just crappy drivers. It was also faulty hardware, deception, and refusal to admit any wrongdoing.

No doubt. They were terribly quiet about the KX133 + TBird issue, spent years in denial of PCI issues, attempted to blow off USB problems with the KT series of boards. They refuse to accept responsibility, yet when they discuss what went wrong it's always some sort of firmware/BIOS issue. How dense do they think people are? Yeah, the motherboard manufacturer can screw up a BIOS, but when every motherboard has the same issue things change. That's when admitting there was a error in the firmware pretty much admits one of three things.

The chipset manufacturer screwed up doing their QA process and told everyone to program a register incorrectly.
The chipset manufacturer screwed up while making the data sheet and gave everyone the incorrect value.
The chipset manufacturer product is screwed and a BIOS fix has to be implemented.

So in which way is the problem not your fault?

And I've been hearing the "Via finally got their act together" bit for every chipset they've released since the MVP3.

No one has been harder on Darth VIA than yours truly. I've had my hand slapped quite a few times due to my unyeilding criticism against them.

Their products have grown and I feel more comfrotable with their current hardware than any other product they've released. Mind you if you are going to do the VIA thing the 8235 Southbridge is a must. It's only core logic chip they've ever built with a proper PCI bus.

[Edguy]

ah.. just found a ECS 735 based mobo.... 62$ w/ onboard LAN and audio.... and it runs both SDR and DDR sdram

anyone got anything bad to say about that board? except for the minimal overclocking abilities?

almost certain im gonna order me one of these and maybe an XP 1600+ aswell....
how loud are the "in a box" coolers with those? any other recomendations for a quiet cooler enough for that CPU?

cheers..

[Nuno]

VIA's driver team has finally got their act together and the engineers have worked out the AGP, PCI, and USB interface issues

LOL

Now that´s funny! So they need something new to fix and and blew the KT-400: it should support DDR-400 but it officially won´t, because the northbridge has a bug and it´ll only run at DDR-400 speeds when only a DIMM is instaled...

I realize it´s possible to have a trouble-free VIA system, but from my past experiences, it just isn´t worth the time you spend troubleshooting and patching it. Specially when you have so many good alternatives elsewhere. Who cares if it gives you 15 less fps on Quake at 640x480x16??

anyone got anything bad to say about that board? except for the minimal overclocking abilities?

Read my post above.

[Edguy]

oh darn... missed that post

Thanks Nuno, i think i'll order me one of these right away...

[K6-III]

Originally posted by Edguy
ah.. just found a ECS 735 based mobo.... 62$ w/ onboard LAN and audio.... and it runs both SDR and DDR sdram

anyone got anything bad to say about that board? except for the minimal overclocking abilities?

almost certain im gonna order me one of these and maybe an XP 1600+ aswell....
how loud are the "in a box" coolers with those? any other recomendations for a quiet cooler enough for that CPU?

cheers..

You can expect the CMOS battery to die fairly frequently on this board. The onboard NIC tends to lose the MAC address.

[Ryu Connor]

There is no PC3200 JEDEC specification. Therefore it is somewhat difficult for there to be a bug with regard to it's operation.

[K6-III]

Here is a list of the all the current SIS735 and SIS745 boards.

SIS 735

ECS K7S5A---basic board that can be buggy at times, sensitive to power supplies
Chaintech 7SID-microATX board
Leadtek 7350KDA-best SIS735 board, but buggy...

SIS745
ECS K7S6A--basic board with basic OC features (managed to get mine to 150mhz FSB with voltmod and crystal orb on chipset)
ECS K7S5A+--new version of KS75A based off SIS745
MSI 745 Ultra--very good overclocker, but only uses 2 phase power regulation
Asus AS7333-stable board with a few OC features, but doesn't like to enable plug+play in the bios....
Aopen AK35--black board with 1mhz increments and voltage adjustments like 745 Ultra, but using 3 phase power regulation. I've got one sitting on my desk, but haven't used it yet.

So far, I have personally used, the K7S5A, K7S6A, 745 Ultra, and the A7S333. The K7S6A was the most stable of those, but some users on OCworkbench complain of failing USB ports. Bios updates are very infrequent for that board.

As for the AK75, I'll let you know after I've used it.

My current board is the Epox 8K3A+ running the 2812 beta bios because I love to have the OC features. Lets me take my AROIA Y 1600+ to 1940mhz@2.0v...thats a 540mhz overclock...

[Dr Mordrid]

I ran the Matrox RT.100 on the K7S5A for quite some time and it worked great. That a cheap board like that can handle a bandwidth monster like the RT.X100 speaks volumes.

Dr. Mordrid

[Edguy]

Originally posted by K6-III


You can expect the CMOS battery to die fairly frequently on this board. The onboard NIC tends to lose the MAC address.

hmmm.... is this a problem with the onboard LAN version?
anyone else got any experience with this?

[K6-III]

BTW, the K7S5A is being clearanced for $52 shipped at Newegg right now. I'd think that the $63 for the Aopen AK75 is a better value...

[Dr Mordrid]

I've had two K7S5A's for several months and have had NO problems with the battery or the LAN.

Dr. Mordrid

[K6-III]

Which revisions do you have???

[Edguy]

Originally posted by K6-III
BTW, the K7S5A is being clearanced for $52 shipped at Newegg right now. I'd think that the $63 for the Aopen AK75 is a better value...

hmm well... sure it might be better value... but the biggest reason im looking at the K7S5A is the budget... (capable of SDRAM which i have alot of instead of buying a bounch of DDR which i can't afford)....

Originally posted by Dr Mordrid
I've had two K7S5A's for several months and have had NO problems with the battery or the LAN.

Dr. Mordrid

sounds good... just another thing before i get it... says on ECS's website that the 1.x rev doesn't take XP's.... only the 3.x rev boards does.
i just hope all boards being sold online (new ofcourse) are 3.x's?
since im plaing on using a XP 1600+ with it....

cheers..

[K6-III]

You should be OK with AthonXP compatability....