kt133 and kt133a owners: opinions?

[Indiana]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Wombat:
Indiana,
Just a few things. I avoided the K7M b/c of the VIA southbridge. It was a hybrid VIA/AMD board, and that didn't appeal to me. The 750 chipset does not need the VIA chips at all. My 6167 has the Viper/Irongate combo, so it's all AMD.
</font>

That's right, I forgot the AMD southbridge, but it was behind VIAs 686A chip feature- and (at least partially) performancewise even at that time - is there a newer AMD southbridge released with the 760 as well?

VIA may have had problems in the past which is why many still don't like them. Just like it was with AMD - many of those Intel geeks refused to aknowledge that the Athlon was a great CPU because of experiences with the K5/6 family. Now with the Duron/TBird outperforming Intel at much lower prices those "walls" are slowly breaking.

Joachim

P.S.: I didn't have many or even major problems with the K7M, it was just not as easy to get it running well as the KT7 or the BX6 - or even my old LX board (MSI, I think). BTW, I didn't have that much luck with Asus boards (and gfx-cards) in general, while ABit was always fine. YMMV.

[DentyCracker]

OK I have sorted out the A7V, and it works fine now but I still prefer my KT7. Now having compared video cards (there is a Creative GeForce2 GTS in the A7V) I can say that the G400 looks better at 1024x768 to me (in 2D). I think the driver for the GTS is using vsync as it will not go over 60 fps in MDK test mode under any circumstances. I doesn't really go under 60 fps too ofetn, even at 1024x768. I am not being paid to update the GTS drivers (plus to be honest I'm not sure what the best ones to use are)

[Wombat]

Well, now I've got it down to the KT7A vs. the 8KTA3. I don't need RAID. If anyone out there owns a 8KTA3, let me know.

Also, resellers with these boards in stock?

[paulcs]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Indiana:
That's right, I forgot the AMD southbridge, but it was behind VIAs 686A chip feature- and (at least partially) performancewise even at that time - is there a newer AMD southbridge released with the 760 as well?</font>

The reference 760 board uses AMD's 766 south bridge. However, I suspect many motherboard manufacturers will opt for the VIA 686B south bridge.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[JerryH]

Hey SCompRacer, two questions:

Did you have issues with a bunk BIOS on your board KT7-RAID, like Denty Cracker did? And I've gone to the HighPoint website, and there's a note on there about this board's BIOS (below):

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">
ABIT KT7-RAID users:

If you are running HPT370 BIOS version 1.0.3/1.0.3b, be wary of ABIT's current BIOS update for the KT7-RAID motherboard.
This "WT" version was released on 12/12/00 and will downgrade the HPT370 BIOS revision to 1.0.0622.
This downgrade could create problems with your RAID array (the array may be disabled).</font>

Have you had issues with this?

[paulcs]

There's a new WZ_01 beta BIOS for the Abit KT7 and KT7A-series that apparently fixes a lot of stuff. If anyone here is thinking of getting the KT7A, they should probably flash it immediately if continues to ship with the WW BIOS.

There's a memory issue with the WW BIOS and the KT7A and KT7A-RAID that Abit has acknowledged. In addition, the board will disable itself unless a working fan is plugged into the CPU 1 power connector. This feature, useful though it may be, is causing a lot of confusion. It can be disabled in the WZ_01 (and maybe the WZ) BIOS.

I have ordered both the KT7A and Asus's A7V133. Now if I could only find a "C" version of the TBird, I'd be set.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 25 January 2001).]

[Wombat]

I went and ordered the 8KTA3, but it won't ship until next week, and I got a Duron 850 to go with it.

[SCompRacer]

Many of the KT7/KT7A's won't even boot when the memory timing is set to "normal." Have to select Turbo or Fast, I know cause mine does it too.

DentyCracker
My KT7A shipped with the WW BIOS which has the latest Highpoint 1.0.3b1 BIOS. Came with the correct drivers on floppy disk too.

Alot of issues on this board with details that you would think have been ironed out by now.


[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 25 January 2001).]

[paulcs]

I've had problems with Abit's FTP site in Taiwan all day today. If anyone want to find the WZ01 BIOS, AMDMB.com has it on their site:

http://www.amdmb.com/files.html

As far as I can tell, the big difference between WZ and WZ01 is that WZ01 allows the disabling of the Fan1 check and disables it by default.

There are a BIOS's for other boards on this page as well. It appears to be very useful.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[SCompRacer]

I have had alot of problems with the Abit site too. Tried for two days around the clock both at home and at work to DL the 1.0.3b1 drivers.

Here is a forum http://www.apushardware.com/vb/index.php
where you can also DL BIOS and drivers as well as find useful info. Pretty mature forum too, alot of older guys there. No one has even bashed me about the G400 while most have the G force cards.

[rylan]

I don't know.. I have the Epox 8KTA2 (KT133) chip with the 686B southbridge for ATA/100, and the board is great. I have my 800MHz chip running at 1045MHz, and no problems at all. Even got my G400MAX overclocked a ton.

So I don't know what everyhone's problem with Via chipsets are. Yeah, some of the older ones are iffy, but the new ones seem fine. Unless its just the via chipsets for Intel cpus that suck, but it seems fine for the AMD cpus.

[naijiw]

ABIT KT7A it's good for use <img src='http://www.thenationthailand.com/webawards2000/vote.php3?id=480&type=education&p_vote=5&Vote=Vote ' width='1' height='1'>

[Wombat]

Well, the Epox is here today. Time to try to unlock this Duron, and have fun.

[paulcs]

Well?

I'm hoping that Wombat didn't have to unlock the Duron, but that he managed to get the FSB up to 133 MHz. Oooooh baby.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Wombat]

Well, I unlocked it. It was easier than I expected. A 0.5mm mechanical pencil works wonders.

I got to 9.5 * 100MHz at default voltage. I had to up the core to 1.9v to get 1050MHz. No 1.1 gig here, it seems. But right now the processor is happy to run at 8 * 133, so I'll chug along at 1066. I haven't played with FSB very much. But the machine is damn fast.

[This message has been edited by Wombat (edited 03 February 2001).]